I really fell for the Zincs after their second album, 2005’s Dimmer (Thrill Jockey), and for the song “Moment Is Now!” in particular. A ringing, persistent bit of car-radio joy, the track turned what’s most enjoyable about the Velvet Underground, early Stereolab, and Kraftwerk into shimmery guitar pop without losing any of that underlying tension. On the follow-up, Black Pompadour (Thrill Jockey), the Zincs get darker: Jim Elkington’s somber vocals mask the archness of his lyrics, which err on the side of mystery to set a mood rather than spin a tale....

Peter Merholz/Wikimedia Commons The offending element Whenever I see a movie at University of Chicago’s Doc Films—which is fairly often—I encounter the same inconvenience. Either before, during, or after the show, I excuse myself to the men’s room in the basement of Ida Noyes Hall, and as I’m washing my hands, I notice that someone (presumably male) has placed a little rectangle of paper towel over the drain of the sink....

The Fifth Amendment? What possible crime could Jim DeRogatis have been concealing when he repeatedly—15 times in all—answered questions put to him in court last week by invoking his constitutional protection against self-incrimination? But Judge Vincent Gaughan had already ruled that DeRogatis didn’t qualify for these other protections, and the state appellate court had refused to intervene. So that left only the Fifth to protect DeRogatis from a contempt of court citation if he refused to answer the innocuous-sounding questions Kelly’s attorneys wanted to put to him....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » As long as we’re on the subject–meaning Lars von Trier, source of endless fascination, or at least a lot of speculative noodling on my part (a temporary affliction, please bear with)–it seems what von Trier’s done in his latest, The Boss of It All, which engages a computerized thingamabob called Automavision to make all the director’s cinematographic choices, is apply to his own case the kinds of self-limiting demands he inflicted on Jørgen Leth in their 2003 collaboration The Five Obstructions....

“This makes Malort taste like strawberry Kool-Aid,” Charles Joly says, pouring me the last few drops from a bottle of Amaro dell’Erborista, an unfiltered small-batch Italian amaro that, according to the back of the bottle, is prepared over a wood fire. He’s right—it’s the most unpleasant liquor I’ve ever tasted, so bitter than it makes my face contort involuntarily for a good 30 seconds. Not all of the rare liquors he has stashed away are so intense, though: Diablada, a Peruvian pisco with a production of 1,000 bottles per year, is as smooth as the amaro is aggressive, one of the few piscos I’ve tried that’s suitable for drinking neat....

Drinks Over Dearborn 650 N. Dearborn, second floor 312-337-9463 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In Fine Spirits gets an honorable mention for providing a stack of empty cardboard caddies so customers can put together mixed six-packs, and for knocking 10 percent off the per-bottle price once they do. But Drinks Over Dearborn takes first prize—for its tasting fridge, which holds a selection of opened but carefully resealed wines, meads, liqueurs, and spirits for sampling, and for the way its staff hooked me up with three bottles of the 2009 Founders Nemesis....

The main lobby of the Harris Theater for Music and Dance lies two floors below Randolph Street, its entryway sunk in perpetual gloom. Just to the east is an exit from the Millennium Park parking lot, but no arrows instruct drivers where to go. Turn right and at the L-shaped intersection you’ll see a sign marking the ramp up onto northbound Columbus Drive. But if you want to avoid traffic, or have something to hide, you can opt for the eerily unmarked subterranean route alongside it to the left....

Date Night, a comedy opening April 9 at a theater near you, offers blue-chip stars Tina Fey and Steve Carell in the tale of a married couple whose dinner plans go very, very wrong. It was directed by Shawn Levy, the guy responsible for both Night at the Museum movies. So how do you think it’ll do at the box office? And would you care to make a little bet—er, investment—on that?...

For all the Japanese restaurants that have opened in town over the past few years, it’s still a rare one that isn’t devoted to sushi or to drinking food. Named for a variety of squat, sweet Asian squashes, Kabocha—more Japanese-ish than strictly Japanese—is the second coming of Shin Thompson, who gave up the reins on his celebrated Logan Square prix fixe hole-in-the-wall, Bonsoiree, to open this “brasserie” with an a la carte menu of vaguely Eastern promise....

If his famous doughnuts are the reason you’re following Enoch Simpson to his new Roscoe Village restaurant, Endgrain, you’re doing it wrong. The correct thing is to follow him for his biscuits, about which no adjective, no intensifier, no fucking superlative could possibly suffice. Does it mean anything, any longer, to commend a biscuit as “light”? Fucking “fluffy“? Meh. This has to be tasted to be believed. So is a smoked-fish sandwich at brunch, nominally dressed with slaw and tomato remoulade as well as Gruyere....

Man From Nebraska Redtwist Theatre Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » But the seventh scene has him up in the middle of the night, hanging on to the bathroom sink, and sobbing and shaking—as the stage direction puts it—”insuppressibly.” When Nancy insists that he tell her what’s wrong, he replies, “I don’t believe in God.” Ken being a devout Baptist, that’s a crisis profound enough to make him question his entire sense of self....

As spring approaches, time to sign up for local farms’ community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs is running out. Customers buy a seasonal share from an area farm of their choosing, and receive regular installments of fresh food. While most CSAs focus on vegetables, some provide fruit, herbs, meat and poultry, eggs, dairy, flowers, and other products. —Sam Worley Fat Blossom Farm A 20-week vegetable CSA runs from June through October and includes herbs and edible flowers as the season progresses....

Drummer Gerhardt “Jerry” Fuchs, who played with Turing Machine, !!!, the Juan Maclean, and Maserati, among other bands, died on November 8, 2009, falling five stories after leaping from a stuck elevator car at a Williamsburg loft party. His feet landed on the floor, but the hood of his sweatshirt snagged on the elevator, pulling him back into the shaft. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Guitarists Coley Dennis and Matt Cherry and bassist Chris McNeal have recruited their friend Tony Paterra, who drums for Zombi, to play with Maserati on their first tour since Fuchs’s death....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Check out this week’s issue for our review of Escape From Tomorrow, a guerrilla movie shot at Disneyland and Disney World by actors and crew who were posing as guests at the parks. Ben Sachs recommends Jodie Mack: Let Your Light Shine, a shorts program from the School of the Art Institute alumnus. And we’ve got new reviews of All Is Lost, with Robert Redford as a solitary boatman lost at sea; Bad Grandpa, the latest from Jackass auteurs Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine; Carrie, with Chloe Grace Moretz taking over for Sissy Spacek as the telekinetic prom queen; The Counselor, a tale of conniving drug dealers south of the border, from director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Cormac McCarthy; The Gamma People, a 50s sci-fi relic about an Eastern European village controlled by a mad scientist; and Marianna Milhorat: Notions of Space, a program of experimental work by the local artist....

It’s hard to say exactly when the Democrats first started making the mess in the Tenth state legislative district that blessed us with indicted former rep Derrick Smith. How much time you got? In any event, the committeemen selected Annazette Collins, whose singular achievement is that she spent ten years as the Tenth district state representative doing whatever house speaker Michael Madigan asked. Which makes her like most other Democrats in the house....

When he was nine years old, John Chapman put together a list of life objectives, complete with deadlines for reaching them, and kept it folded up in his wallet from that moment on. By the age of 21, in 1995, he was knocking off items left and right—and on time, too. High school class valedictorian? Check. Class valedictorian at the University of Chicago? Done. Marriage? In the works, with longtime sweetheart Katie....

Mike Sula The Original, Umami Burger Umami, aka the fifth taste, is a real thing, much to the irritation of antifoodists who dismiss it as a term of pretension among vocabulary-starved food writers. It was discovered in 1908 by Tokyo chemist Kikunae Ikeda, who determined glutamic acid provided the main flavor in dashi. Ikeda gave the taste its name, which comes from the Japanese word for “delicious,” umai. It’s the same stuff that makes things like tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, truffles, soy sauce, cured meats, fish sauce, and of course, burgers, taste so good....

Sorry, Indiana The Mayor and the Murder Rate Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » To wit, no matter how you slice it, Chicago is not the “murder capital of the country” nor is the murder rate “much higher under Daley than it ever was under Byrne or Washington.” In 1980 the murder rate per 100,000 people was 29.3 and in 1985 it was 22.2. Under Daley it has risen to a high of 30....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » When I first wrote about Lorde a little while ago I predicted that she might be able to take advantage of the distraction provided by Katy Perry and Lady Gaga’s Clash of the Pop Divas that at the time was threatening to go nuclear to slip her basically perfect (but not especially flashy) single “Royals” into the top spot on the Hot 100....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Tim is a casualty of the Great Recession—his wife divorced him after he lost his job. That may make her sound like a monster, but a few minutes with him suggests that she may’ve chosen compassionately not to kill him outright. Staying with his widowed mom, sleeping on an old twin bed in the room he had as a kid, Tim’s got Sisyphean pluck enough to maintain his search for work during the day....