Events Next 7 Days
Eat This! Stories for the Love of Food!
Wed., Jan. 23, 8 p.m.Food Events
This gathering brings Chicago chefs and foodies together for a night of storytelling and free samples. $10
WithInSight: The Fall Show
Through 5/30:Galleries
Group show featuring work by local photographers. Opening reception 11 AM-6 PM.
The Planetary Defense Force: Rise of the Dinosaurs
Mondays, 8 p.m.Theater & Performance
Easy communication and a sharp wit may be the foundations for good improv, but if you want to see what a troupe is really made of, take a look at how they handle a shaky premise. Having watched cast members sustain this Links Hall/Chicagoland Games show while rolling around in Nerf gear to avoid a tyrannosaurus rex made of PVC pipe, I'm pretty sure they've got it. Amiable host Aaron Amendola ushers an audience member through a series of onstage challenges geared toward overcoming a megalomaniac hell-bent on ushering in a dino-apocalypse. The obstacles—which may involve brushing a Wiffle Ball off somebody's shoulder—are too slight to provide any real stakes. It's clear, though, that this crew has the crowd and stage skills to create something special. —Dan Jakes $5
Johnny Young, Michael Vallera, MT Coast, Double Morris
Tue., Jan. 22, 9:30 p.m.Rock, Pop, Etc
In the duo Cleared, multi-instrumentalist Michael Vallera launches surges of jagged guitar chords and looming electronic fog banks against Steven Hess’s unyielding drumbeats. In solo settings Vallera sticks to an electric guitar and pedals, but his music hardly sounds limited; without another player to establish a rhythm or set boundaries, he stirs up masses of sound that feel as big as weather systems. Tone and texture can vary drastically from one set to the next; I’ve heard him drone like a squadron of WW II bombers and swirl like he was auditioning for the Cocteau Twins, and on the upcoming EP Dead Suns (Nihilist) he lets fly with some shredding that sounds like someone fed steel girders into a lumber mill. —Bill Meyer Johnny Young headlines; Michael Vallera, MT Coast, and Double Morris open.
$8, free with RSVP at rsvp@emptybottle.com
Beer Brain
Tue., Jan. 22, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.Other Stuff
Clear some space in your makeshift beer cellar (aka coat closet), because the Beer Temple in Avondale is now open, and it's stocking the kind of craft brews that belong in goblets and chalices and other fancy-pants stemware. Co-owner Margaret Quinn told the Reader's Julia Thiel that the beer-dork haven carries beer from more than a dozen countries and will likely specialize in sours, mainly of the Belgian variety. Everyone has a record collection, am I right? Why not impress (or confound) friends with a sour-beer collection instead?
Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey
Tue., Jan. 22, 6 p.m.Literary Events
Blum and Harvey (The Columbia Guide to Religion in American History) talk about The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America.
Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture
Tue., Jan. 22, 6 p.m.
708-524-6771Lectures
Writer-activist Tim Wise (White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son et al) delivers the annual lecture.
7900 W. Division St.
Oak Park/River Forest
708-488-5000
