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Brian Posen rented Theatre Building Chicago for the inaugural edition of this annual sketch comedy blowout back in January 2002—and for each one since. Now the inmates are running the asylum: Last May, a Posen-led group took over the three-theater TBC complex on Belmont, renaming it Stage 773. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The 10th SketchFest, touted as the nation’s largest event of its kind, features 150 performances by 129 sketch troupes comprising more than 800 artists....

After weeks of legal haggling, the contest for power in the 25th Ward comes down to this: are the signatures on the nominating papers for alderman Danny Solis legit? Now six candidates are running against him, among them Medrano, who served his time and ran unsuccessfully for alderman in 2003. But the biggest pain in Solis’s neck isn’t even on the ballot. That would be Anthony Sutor, a city transportation department employee on disability leave who heads up a group called the 25th Ward Independent Democratic Organization....

The narrator, central character, and putative author of Adam Levin’s The Instructions is Gurion ben-Judah Maccabee, a precocious, charismatic, violent boy whose friends and followers refer to him, respectfully, as Rabbi. In November 2006, when the events of Levin’s 1,030-page debut novel take place, Gurion is a ten-year-old seventh grader attending Aptakisic Junior High, in the northwest suburb of Buffalo Grove. He’s supposed to be restricted to an in-school program for incorrigibles called CAGE, but in the following passage he’s managed to get hold of a hall pass....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Whenever I hear from a potential client over the age of 35, it’s almost a sure thing that she’ll want to know how she can dress fashionably without looking like she’s either in denial or Florida-bound. I know from experience that there are a lot of clothes out there that fall between saucy twentysomething and dowdy old crone. The problem is that the burden falls on the consumer to find and edit these looks–advertising and magazines tend to highlight styles that look best on those ladies who are still heedlessly enjoying the flower of their youth (as well they should)....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » A few years ago in the Reader, Jeffrey Felshman wrote about the extreme isolation experienced by inmates at Tamms, Illinois’s only supermax prison. In the 13 years that the facility has been open, that isolation has been well documented: Tamms, where incarcerated men are kept in solitary confinement up to 23 hours a day, has been the subject of a photo series in the Trib, a long-running campaign criticizing its conditions, a human rights lawsuit by the MacArthur Justice Center, and the odd article here and there—here, most recently, by Steve Bogira, who wrote about the dispute between Governor Pat Quinn, who’s proposed closing a roster of prisons, including Tamms, as an austerity measure, and downstate lawmakers and prison guards’ unions, who are fighting Quinn’s plan....

Nick Cave and three of his Bad Seeds–drummer Jim Sclavunos, bassist Martyn Casey, and violinist Warren Ellis–started Grinderman as a raw alternative to their meticulous main band. My colleague Jessica Hopper has called their self-titled debut a midlife-crisis record, but it’s not pathetic, as that might imply–in fact it’s one of the year’s best rock albums. Cave laces his lyrics about aging, impotence, irrelevance, and loneliness with morbid wit. “I must above all things love myself,” he sings on “No Pussy Blues,” but sexual frustration drives him to self-emasculation: “I bought her a dozen snow white doves / I did her dishes in rubber gloves / I called her honeybee, I called her love / But she just still didn’t want to....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The annual FamilyFarmed Expo tonight features a screening of the documentary King Corn (5:30 PM) and a “Localicious Party” with regionally produced food and drink (7 PM, $50-$60). There are daytime events Friday as well, open to the public, but most are aimed at the trade. Saturday and Sunday bring tastings, workshops and panels, and cooking demos by chefs Gale Gand, Michael Altenberg, Paul Kahan, and others....

Newly sworn-in Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a deal with aldermen last week that he said would bring much-needed reform and efficiency to the Chicago City Council: The number of legislative committees would be cut from 19 to 16, trimming about $500,000 from the council’s $20 million annual budget. The 50 aldermen each earn between $104,000 and $110,000 a year. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “The day is going to come when routine matters like a canopy approval or a parking issue will be dealt with administratively,” said Miguel del Valle, the city clerk from 2006 until last week....

Picasso, a firstborn, and Schiller, a kid brother, both quipped that there are no accidents. They were smart as whips so I’m sure they’re right, just as I’m sure it wasn’t an accident that the 1,100-word story on birth order and IQs in the New York Times on June 22 never once used the word “smart” in any of its forms–particularly the comparative phrase “smarter than.” Best of Chicago voting is live now....

“I don’t know–what kind of books did he write?” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Don’t let this happen to you. Tonight the poetically named Freedom Museum presents Mike Royko Remembered, on about the tenth anniversary of the columnist’s death (April 29, 1997). Studs Terkel and members of Royko’s family will be there, as will Tribune colleagues Rick Kogan and John Kass. It was depressing to see how many of Royko’s columns over his entire tenure–about police corruption, guns, race, entertainment journalism, the futility of the Cubs, sports salaries, clout, mayoral power, racial tension, public housing, the city’s striving to be a world-class metropolis, the failures of the Veterans Administration, and war–could easily be rewritten and published today....

“Useful Work for the Rev. Martin Luther” (Feb. 15) Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » We should think that Mr. Brimmer’s statement might suggest some useful works to occupy the Rev. Mr. King’s energies. He should to to work to promote family stability among those of his race. He should preach that broken homes and single women, either deserted or unmarried, on ADC rolls stand in the way of Negro economic improvement....

ANATHALLOCanopy Glow(Anticon) Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I tend to like the individual parts of the Assembly’s songs better than I like the songs themselves. Almost every track on the band’s recent full-length debut, The Tide Has Turned, has a stretch where it’s just vintage synths and simple beats—the kind of thing you could loop to make a decent backing track for a chilly retro-electro tune....

Local rapper LUPE FIASCO has asked audiences on his forthcoming “Steppin’ Laser” tour to wear uniforms: black shirts, shoes, shades, and camo pants. The closest he gets to Chicago is Peoria, which makes Gossip Wolf suspect a summer festival appearance. Our money’s on Pitchfork . . . since the Lollapalooza lineup was announced Monday sans Lupe. Incidentally, Perry Farrell, who’s in charge of the Lolla dress code, is said to be entertaining a “Gellin’ Like Magellan” theme....

Mike Birbiglia stars as a stand-up comedian whose problems coping with a sleep disorder and committing to his girlfriend of many years (Lauren Ambrose) seem to be linked. This sharp romantic comedy began as a one-man show, and you can tell: the hero’s voice-over narration wraps around the entire movie, and the scenes are mainly verbal. It plays like one long routine, encompassing shorter routines within it as the young performer learns the craft of comedy and begins working up material about his stalled love relationship....

Mike Sula Smoked turkey breast with hunter-beef spices Friend of the Food Chain Nab Uddin had his finger on the pulse of something when he tipped the folks at LTHForum off to the existence of hunter beef, a cured-meat product that’s easiest described as Pakistani corned beef. That prompted a search for the best hunter beef on Devon, which led to variations at Ghareeb Nawaz, Spinzer Restaurant, and Pista House....

Noon | Claudia Cassidy Theater Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Oreka TX The core sound of this Spanish Basque group comes from an unwieldy traditional percussion instrument called the txalaparta. Built from planks of wood laid across trestles and struck end-on with stout wooden rods, it has a sound a bit sharper and drier than a marimba’s and often idiosyncratic tuning similar to that of a balafon; it’s customarily played by two people, who between them can produce quite a galloping stampede of notes....

Rock ‘n’ roll mythology, like every mythology, is only tenuously tied to reality. For a band without the huge audience, huge cash flow, and huge appetite for debauchery of, say, Led Zeppelin or Motley Crue, life is considerably harder and less exciting than Hammer of the Gods or The Dirt might lead you to believe. Life on the road is especially misunderstood by people who aren’t in working bands. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

Tyler, the Creator presents Mountain Dew Tyler, the Creator, figurehead of LA rap collective Odd Future, is dropping a new solo album in a couple weeks called Wolf, and the deep-voiced MC has been kicking around publicly in a big way. Tyler played the Metro last week as part of a trek to promote the album; Odd Future’s Adult Swim sketch show, Loiter Squad, recently kicked off its second season; and a couple days ago Odd Future’s YouTube account debuted a commercial Tyler directed for Mountain Dew starring a goat named Felicia....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » If Staff Sergeant Robert Bates did indeed slay 16 Afghan civilians, nine of them children, what led him to do it? Did the horrors he witnessed in four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan play a role? Military officials, and the general public, have begun exploring and debating that issue, and will be doing so for months. The larger question: are war atrocities an indictment of individuals, or of war?...

Open since 1926, Richard’s Bar (491 N. Milwaukee) is old-school to the bone—the bar menu above the register looks like it hasn’t been updated since the 50s, most of the bartenders were probably cracking Old Styles before I existed, and the vibe is divey Rat Pack swank, complete with a jukebox that’s likely loaded with Sinatra and Martin. As if the authentic Italian flavor and retro mystique weren’t enough, the joint also serves hard-boiled eggs, perched in a shot glass with salt and pepper shakers on the side, for 75 cents a pop....