Chicago Reader

Mike DFG commissioned the photos in this piece from Danny Pleckham, one of a group of close collaborators he calls “the starting five.” Rising Chicago artists, whether they sign to major labels or stay independent, often partner with established local managers as their careers gain traction. South-side rapper Recoechi, fresh off last year’s Flavaz, works with John Monopoly (best known for managing Kanye West) and Alexander Fruchter (aka DJ RTC, cofounder of local label ClosedSessions).

Wayne Williams, who founded the Chosen Few in 1977, spins a DJ set during the 2026 Chosen Few Picnic. In the more than 40 years since house music emerged from Chicago’s gay Black nightlife scene, it’s become vital to survival for many. Chicago-born DJ crew the Chosen Few helped turn the music into a movement, and since 1990, their annual Chosen Few Picnic has helped sustain that movement. A festival fan wears a T-shirt with the words “Emotionally Attached to House Music” on the back.

Director-writer Christopher Nolan’s dense, moody adaptation of Homer’s epic poemrecounts the twisting tale of the Greek warlord Odysseus (Matt Damon)—cunning trickster, master archer, and dutiful commander—and his adventure-packed voyage home to his island kingdom of Ithaca after helping win the ten-year Trojan War. Meanwhile, his son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), travels in search of the father he has never known, unsure if the man is even alive.

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Savneet Talwar is a well-respected art therapist, a subject she has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for nearly 20 years. Talwar’s approach to art therapy is rooted in anti-colonial frameworks, social justice, and intersectional feminism. One former student told the Reader she chose SAIC’s art therapy program to study with Talwar, who is known as a leading scholar in her field.

In an introduction to Lord Alfred Douglasʼs English translation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, his friend Robbie Ross shared Wilde’s apparent belief that the play was “a mirror in which everyone could see himself.

The Moviegoer is the diary of a local film buff, collecting the best of what Chicago’s independent and underground film scene has to offer. Movies are the sum of their parts, but those parts are also the sum of themselves. As my cinephilia continues to evolve, I find myself focusing on different things about the films I see. Sometimes it’s the filmmaker, sometimes the history, less often the story, but that can be important in some instances.

The 33-week-old anti–foie gras protest outside Lincoln Park’s Galit is a bonfire of the inanities that shows no signs of extinguishing. There are all sorts of productive measures for responding to such nontroversies. You can satirize. You can journalize. You can ignore.

This piece was copublished with n+1 as part of City Mouse, a column by Morley Musick. At 7 AM on a Saturday in September 2025, I participated in a mass-casualty simulation drill held in the firefighter training area of O’Hare International Airport. Before the exercise began, the other volunteers and I gathered inside a retired hangar to receive our character assignments and our list of injuries.

Since 2005 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place. Last year I walked into the Laurie’s Planet of Sound in Lincoln Square, and owner John Laurie handed me a copy of a new compilation called A Blast From the Cellar! Lost Gems From the ’60s Chicago Garage Rock Explosion.