Like Icarus, pianist Lang Lang may have risen too fast, the burgeoning of his immense physical talent–Barenboim once said he must have an extra finger–outstripping his development as a musician. His ability to satisfy critics seems almost inversely proportional to his ability to excite the public. He can be overly flamboyant, yet his extraordinary technique, enthusiasm, and sincerity keep him engaging. Chamber music could be a healthy challenge, forcing him to listen and rein in his exuberance for the good of the ensemble....

On April 17, Swedish district court judge Tomas Norstrom found Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundstrom—the four men held to be responsible for the existence of BitTorrent tracking site the Pirate Bay—guilty as accessories in crimes against copyright law. The trial was a joint civil and criminal affair, and the civil plaintiffs were led by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a global organization similar to the RIAA....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Wednesday night Tanaka will be at Heaven Gallery to take part in a record-release celebration for The Art of Dying (Delmark), a surprisingly swinging session led by bassist Jason Ajemian early in July 2007, as Tanaka’s departure loomed (and Ajemian prepared for his own move from Chicago to New York). Billed as Smokeless Heat for this show (after the album’s lengthy closing track), the group is basically the trio of Tanaka, Ajemian, and superb tenor saxophonist Tim Haldeman, with support from guitarist Matt Schneider, trumpeter Jaimie Branch, and vibist Jason Adasiewicz (playing marimba)....

A few hours after my property tax bill arrived in the mail last week, I took the dog for a walk and bumped into a neighbor. “My taxes went up again,” he complained. “I thought they were going down.” I’ll take this one point at a time. Yes, Mayor Daley pledged to hold the line on property taxes—he’s been saying that for the last several months. But this year’s tax bill is paying for last year’s budget, which raised property taxes by about $83 million, so your benefit from his recent pledge will come next year, if it comes at all....

The peculiar regional specialty known as Cincinnati three-way chili—ground chuck simmered slowly with tomato and a mix of baking spices, plopped over spaghetti, and all covered with cheese—was invented by a pair of Macedonian restaurateurs trying to make a living in a city full of Germans. But Tony Plum says it’s pure coincidence that he located Cinners, his Cincinnati-themed bar specializing in the stuff, in a Greek pocket of the German neighborhood of Lincoln Square....

If the awful woman who gives voice to Google Maps said “Turn left to remain on Randhurst Village Drive” one more time as we dizzied ourselves driving around the shopping center’s parking lot, I would have climbed into my phone and slapped her silly. Should I be embarrassed that I was using Google Maps to navigate a parking lot? Yeah, probably. In my defense, it’s an enormous shopping complex—and I don’t find myself in big, outdoor shopping malls much since relocating to Chicago from the south, the proud capital of suburban sprawl....

Weekend TimeLine Theatre Company Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In fact Weekend‘s politics aren’t realistic at all. The play imagines a Republican senator who decides to stake his run for the 1968 presidential nomination on his opposition to the Vietnam war, only to see his campaign threatened by his son’s plan to marry an African-American woman. Such a premise would have seemed unlikely at best at the time—which may be why Vidal channels it into an epigrammatic, lightly satiric comedy of manners in the style of Oscar Wilde....

A huge thank-you to Ben Joravsky for continuing to focus a beam on the negative impacts of tax increment financing districts on school funding and real estate property taxes [The Works, April 13; also chicagoreader.com/tifarchive/]. The blatant plundering of our schools and taxpayers by local governments that view schools as a funding source for their pet development projects and million-dollar subsidies to wealthy private developers needs to be exposed, and it needs to end....

For the last several weeks, I’ve had a series of long and intense conversations with a fellow named Jerry Neugarten about the state of chess in the Chicago Public Schools. But before I get into that, let me say a word or two about Neugarten. He’s a 65-year-old retired lawyer who grew up in Hyde Park, lives in Highland Park, and loves chess—and I mean loves. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

Saint Patrick’s Day official is Wed 3/17, but most of the festivities occur this weekend. In case puking green beer in the john at your local “pub” isn’t sufficiently celebratory, a partial list of more formal and family-friendly options follows. —Lauri Apple Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Dyeing of the Chicago River An annual tradition, this year’s dyeing begins east of Wabash Ave. and west of Columbus Dr....

Semaphore, the Chicago Avenue studio where scores of local punk, metal, and noise bands have cut records, singles, and demos since 2000, is closing at the end of this month. According to one of the studio’s five partners, Jeremy Lemos, expenses—mostly rent and utilities—had doubled in the last several years. But in-demand engineer/producer Sanford Parker added in an e-mail: “Just let it be known it was more of the owners being burned out on running a studio than the high overhead....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Fucking Kanye, man. He can piss me off again and again, talking crazy bullshit about how tough it is to be rich and famous or making an absolute fool of himself at European awards ceremonies, but every time he puts out a new record he wins me back all the way. The latest is Can’t Tell Me Nothing, a new mix tape that dropped on the Internet over the weekend that’s already shaping up to be the hot hip-hop joint of late May and early June....

A man from the Canadian consulate called the other day, trying to drum up interest in his country. Did I know that 50 percent of the crude oil that comes into Illinois originates in the sands of Alberta, and it’s going up to 70 percent? Did I know that Canada’s turning Prince Rupert, in northern British Columbia, into a major container port, adding a train a day between there and Chicago and tripling the amount of cargo handled by Canadian National’s intermodal yard in Harvey?...

That’s one way of doing it, anyway; there’s a rich number of variations. One of the more straightforward ones is to set up a foreclosure prevention company, refinance a bunch of at-risk homes, and then just not give the homeowners the money, eg. But generally speaking it’s just asking lenders for money under false pretenses and then not paying it back. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Why’s this a big thing now?...

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The report [PDF] by the Active Transportation Alliance (formerly known as the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation) notes that the parking meter system isn’t just a source of revenue—it’s a tool for regulating the flow of traffic. While no one wants to pay more for anything, including parking, the truth is that parking pricing can be used effectively to encourage visitors or fight congestion....

You know how the police are. Their squad cars say we serve and protect. Officer Friendlies stroll into neighborhood meetings and say, please share your concerns. You’ll spot officers idling on the edge of a mellow Jazz Fest crowd, savoring the night as much as you are. But that’s all the whipped cream. The police aren’t paid to be nice. It’s part of their training, but mainly they’re trained to be tough customers....

Here’s how one veteran police officer—a longtime watch commander—is preparing for potential NATO and G8 protesters: The activist group Adbusters has called for 50,000 people to hit the Chicago streets, while the online hacker group Anonymous recently said it hopes to demonstrate in Chicago for the entire month of May. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » City officials have mostly been mum about their preparations, except to stress in background briefings that they’ll be ready....

Zeph Farmby launched his art career as a teenager in the early 90s, painting graffiti on surfaces around the south side. The surfaces changed when he enrolled in art classes at Percy L. Julian High School near 103rd and Vincennes (he fell back on painting when he didn’t make the basketball team). Now Farmby not only paints but does graphic design and creates streetwear. He says his work reflects hip-hop culture as well as his roots in the south and west sides....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Curumin (born Luciano Nakata Albuquerque) has made a name for himself with a hooky blend of Jorge Ben-style samba-soul and electronic music—between him and Domenico of +2 fame, I’m starting to think that Brazilians have some sort of special flair for using the MPC sampler as a real-time instrument. On his third album, Arrocha (due June 5 from Six Degrees), the singer, songwriter, drummer, and producer from Sao Paulo, Brazil, doesn’t tinker too much with the formula that’s worked for him so far....

Every work of art comes from a sort of controlled megalomania. When a painter faces his canvas, or a writer his page, he shuts out the rest of the world and becomes a master of the universe whose every whim must be obeyed. This sense of omnipotence is intoxicating, and it explains why so many radical, game-changing artists have been people who began with badly damaged egos. It also explains why they can be such miserable people to live with: once the creative spell is broken, and they’re thrust back into the real world of leaky faucets and unpaid bills, their anger can be blinding....