Events Search
Latin Romance on Valentine's Day
Through 2/14Valentine's Day
A Latin American restaurant features a special three-course menu for two. Chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne are included with the meal. $60
Mexicans, Jews, and Muppets
Through 2/4: Fri-Sat 8 PM, also 2/11, 8 PMImprov/Sketch
A topical sketch show by Butch LaRue. $15
Copyright Basics
Tue 2/7, 7 PMOther Stuff
Logan Square stalwarts Saki and I Am Logan Square join forces for Copyright Basics, an overview of copyright laws with IALS director Cara Dehnert Huffman and a local entertainment-law specialist. —Joey Jachowski and Sam Worley
"Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention"
Tue., Feb. 7, 4 p.m.
630-617-3390Lectures
Editor Wendy Wolf discusses the late Manning Marable's book Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.
150 College Hill Ave.
Other Suburbs West
630-279-1009Joe Sacco
Tue., Feb. 7, 4:30 p.m. 773-834-8524Literary Events
Sacco discusses his latest graphic novel, Footnotes in Gaza.
Woollen Kits
Tue., Feb. 7, 5 p.m.In-Stores
It was a pretty good 2011 for Nic Warnock and R.I.P Society Records. The upstart Sydney-based garage label not only dropped a truly great LP of lo-fi power-poppy trash from Royal Headache, but several of its artists—including Royal Headache, Dead Farmers, Kitchen's Floor, and Warnock's own band Bed Wettin' Bad Boys—toured the States to help spread the gospel of the burgeoning Aussie underground. And this year is starting off just as strong: quirky Melbourne trio Woollen Kits, who recently released their self-titled debut, are traveling the country sharing their bare-bones mix of Beat Happening indie rock and Modern Lovers protopunk. Though guitarist Thomas Hardisty does most of the singing, in a baritone that sounds an awful lot like Calvin Johnson's, sometimes the band changes its tune from bummed, deadpan love songs to poppier, sneering love songs, for which drummer Tom Ridgewell takes over on the mike—he fronts the standout "Out of Whack," for instance. The band wasn't so democratic about vocals on previous EPs, and the change serves it well, giving its dirty, echoing jangle a dynamic that makes Woollen Kits' page worth dog-earing in the ever-growing R.I.P catalog. —Kevin Warwick See also Wednesday.
Jake Austen
Tue., Feb. 7, 6 p.m.Literary Events
Austen (Roctober magazine) presents Flying Saucers Rock 'n' Roll: Conversations With Unjustly Obscure Rock 'n' Soul Eccentrics.
Anne Ford
Tue., Feb. 7, 6 p.m.Literary Events
For the Reader's Chicagoans column, writer Anne Ford switches into oral-historian mode, seeking out interesting characters and letting us hear from them directly. She goes further off the beaten path for her new book Peaceful Places Chicago: 119 Tranquil Sites in the Windy City and Beyond, which she'll read from tonight. —Sam Worley
Margaret Overton
Tue., Feb. 7, 6 p.m.Literary Events
Overton reads from her memoir, Good in a Crisis.
"Sustainable Food and Design"
Tue., Feb. 7, 6 p.m. 312-867-7254Lectures
Chicago State University Aquaponics Center director Emmanuel Pratt lectures for this Archeworks series. RSVP requested. $5 suggested donation, $5 seniors and students
Jeff Mangum; Andrew Rieger, Laura Carter, and Scott Spillane
Tue., Feb. 7, 7 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
Like the Velvet Underground before them, defunct Georgia indie-rock band Neutral Milk Hotel released a handful of albums that had a very small, localized impact upon their initial release but which have since gone on to provide a stylistic and vaguely philosophical blueprint for an untold number of groups around the world. The albums—especially 1998's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea—have influenced the masses threefold. Sonically they've inspired a kitchen-sink approach to instrumentation, no doubt including more than a few actual kitchen sinks; thematically, a slightly skewed, childlike optimism; and sartorially, any number of attempts at looking like an old-fashioned workman. Devotees taking these things to an annoying extreme have become a constant presence in the indie world, a testament to the power of the original music, which was unlike anything anyone else was doing at the time and remains as stirring and gorgeous as ever. Reclusive former NMH leader Jeff Mangum went off the grid following Aeroplane's release, and this is one of his first forays into public performance since then—in some corners the anticipation surrounding his reappearance is downright messianic. —Miles Raymer Andrew Rieger, Laura Carter, and Scott Spillane open.
Conversations in the Arts
Tue., Feb. 7, 7:30 p.m.Lectures
Writer-activist Gloria Steinem is the guest speaker for this Columbia College series. Event is full.
Tuesday Funk
Tue., Feb. 7, 7:30 p.m.Literary Events
"Where good writing and good beer mix." The featured readers at this edition are Julia Borcherts, Lillian Huang Cummins, Lauryn Allison Lewis, Dustin Monk, and Margie Skelly. 21+.
Wit Rabbit Reading Series
Tue., Feb. 7, 7:30-9 p.m.Literary Events
Jen Moore, Laura Goldstein, and Gus Rose are the featured readers at this outing. 21+.
