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Crickets / Music Gig poster of the week

Posted by Luca Cimarusti on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 2:11 PM

ARTIST: Francisco Ramirez
SHOW: Cooler by the Lake, Sweet Cobra, Deminer, Full On, and Party Downers at Empty Bottle on 2/4
MORE ONLINE: bureauprintresearchdesign.com

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Crickets / Music Kim Dotcom currently a free man

Posted by Miles Raymer on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 1:25 PM

Kim Dotcom in action

The news out of New Zealand today is that larger-than-life Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom is free on bail just over a month after he was arrested in a raid organized by the U.S. Justice Department to shut down the file-locker site, which prosecutors are calling a $500 million conspiracy to illicitly distribute copyrighted material. Judge Nevin Dawson's decision to release Dotcom was based largely on the fact that with his known assets seized and no evidence that he's hiding any secret stashes—the hidden accounts the feds have turned up have been empty, and Megaupload's CFO has gone on record saying that Dotcom's no good at holding on to money—the former multimillionaire is simply not a flight risk.

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The Reefer / Politics Sunny's Opus—a new twist on an old story

Posted by Ben Joravsky on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 12:52 PM

Won't Back Down

Big news out of Hollywood: They’re making a movie where the “good” teacher joins forces with the “good” parent to beat the "bad" teachers—and their union—and save public education.

It’s called Won’t Back Down and it stars Viola Davis as the good parent and Maggie Gyllenhaal as her good teacher sidekick.

We've come a long way from Mr. Holland’s Opus.

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, the Illinois Supreme Court officially abolished tenure in Chicago’s public schools.

Yay, whee, whoo—let’s make a movie!

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Food Chain / Food & Drink Recommended today: Pitmaster dinner at Barn & Company

Posted by Kate Schmidt on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 12:21 PM

Flickr/ALA
Gary Wiviott

Tonight at 7:30 PM, Barn & Company will host the inaugural dinner in its new Pitmaster Series, a three-course prix fixe rib dinner with pairings featuring the barbecue of Gary Wiviott. On the menu: a “welcome cocktail”; starters of jalapeño submarines and “smofried” chicken wings; cumin-scented lamb ribs, beef ribs with a coffee rub, Saint Louis-style ribs, and jerk goat ribs; sides of coleslaw, mac ’n’ cheese, and “Caribbean fungi”; and grilled maduros paired with the Delfina, a bourbon-based specialty cocktail. It’s $40; for tickets e-mail events@barnandcompany.com.

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Crickets / Music 12 O'Clock Track: Shlohmo remixes "Crew Love"

Posted by Miles Raymer on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 12:00 PM

Here's a neat story: Shlohmo, a DJ and producer from LA who's part of that city's consistently exciting and innovative post-hip-hop bass scene, remixed the Weeknd-produced "Crew Love," from Drake's Take Care, for his own personal use. The Weeknd saw a YouTube clip of a DJ set where Shlohmo dropped the remix and took to Tumblr to ask him to release it. Soon the remix—which manages to out-woozy the original, turning an ode to the powerful personal bonds that unite the members of a celebrity's entourage into a trippy "Maybe I shouldn't have taken that last Xanax" stumble—showed up on Shlohmo's SoundCloud page. With luck this success will encourage the Weeknd to start making more requests like that.

Hear the remix after the jump:

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Mudville / Protest Week / Sports Blackhawks: protesting trade talks

Posted by Ted Cox on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 11:48 AM

Wikimedia Commons
Patrick Kane

The unheralded hero of the Blackhawks' impressive 2-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings Tuesday was Patrick Kane. No, he scored no goals and dished out no assists, but he played with an urgency he hadn't displayed in some time, and on a couple of rushes up the middle he seemed to have been shot out of a cannon. Dave Bolland, for one, followed his example, and their intensity was infectious.

As the Hawks came back from an early deficit to win, neither of their goals were pretty. Rookies Jimmy Hayes and Marcus Kruger both scored on loose pucks in front of the Detroit net. Yet both had a playoff look to them—taking advantage of opportunities—and both were the product of the Hawks' overall intensity, as they clearly took the fight to the Wings.

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Politics / News Tips for Santorum for the final debate tonight

Posted by Steve Bogira on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 10:13 AM

AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall

The last scheduled debate in the Republican presidential primary campaign begins at 7 PM CST in Arizona.

The candidates have shown great intellect and courage throughout the campaign, and tonight should be no exception. The main issue has boiled down to which candidate is the farthest right. Most of the candidates concede that their opponents are really, really conservative, but they all claim to be the only true triple-really conservative. Mitt Romney asserted last week that he was a "severely conservative" governor in Massachusetts, and Ron Paul just released a commercial calling Rick Santorum a "fake" conservative. If you've heard Santorum's views on any of the issues, you'd have to say he's faking it pretty well. Speaking of authenticity, the Paul commercial also uses the words "dude" and "groovy"—and aren't those the first words that come to mind when you think of Ron Paul?

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Protest Week / Film Yilmaz Güney: spirit of vengeance

Posted by Ben Sachs on Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 8:00 AM

Last Saturday I saw the Turkish film Elegy (1972) at Doc Films’s ongoing Yilmaz Güney series (which continues tomorrow night at 7 PM with the director’s most widely celebrated movie, Yol). I liked it for its suspense, but I had trouble understanding the plot. I asked one of the programmers afterward if he could explain why gendarmes were hunting down the main characters, who are never shown doing anything illegal. Was this bad storytelling or had I missed something in the dialogue? A scholar of Turkish history interrupted us (good thing the movie was playing at the University of Chicago!) and settled the matter in seconds. “Those people were Kurds—the Turkish government was trying to deny their existence at the time. The government banned this movie, just like they did most of the films Güney directed.”

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Twitter

Chicago_Reader: RT @Readerkate: Three-course "Pitmaster" rib dinner with sides and pairings of beer & cocktails $40 tonight at Barn & Company: http://t. ...
2:21 pm on Wednesday, February 22 retweet
Chicago_365: Recommended today: Pitmaster dinner at Barn & Company http://t.co/haZ9gZbq
2:18 pm on Wednesday, February 22 retweet
thebedfordchi: RT @chicago_reader: The Bedford's Justin Anderson makes a caviar cocktail for a "big fish, great man, notorious man." http://t.co/HxCFjjk8
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billygomberg: SATURDAY 2/25 Billy Gomberg; Olivia Block, Carol Genetti, & Katherine Young @ Experimental Sound Studio, Chicago Reader http://t.co/NGtU1nHG
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ChicagoMag: RT @Chicago_Reader Bedford's Justin Anderson makes a caviar cocktail suited for a "big fish, great man, notorious man" http://t.co/mbF1mFR4
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