I have a question I don’t think you’ve ever addressed. I’m a 32-year-old heterosexual female who was stricken with near-terminal cancer eight years ago. I’ve gone through every sort of treatment known to mankind (and had the gross misfortune of going through menopause at 27 years old). I was sort of a late bloomer when the disease took hold, and I’d only had sex with one man, when I was 23 years old....

One of the first pieces of fiction Mary Anne Mohanraj wrote sparked some controversy when she posted it online in 1993. In “Season of Marriage,” which she describes as a “sweet arranged-marriage story,” an Indian-American woman named Raji asks her parents to find her an Indian husband after she dumps her American boyfriend. It opens with Raji at the end of her wedding day in New Dehli, contemplating the results of her rash decision, then shifts into a long, steamy description of her first night in bed with her husband, Vivek....

I used to be a journalist myself, and I never particularly liked the idea that one has to shed all one’s convictions and rights to individual expression the second one takes up the pen [Hot Type, April 1]. I guess it depends on whether you think of yourself as a journalist first and a citizen second or as a citizen first and a journalist second. I hold the latter view, believing that being an informed and active citizen lies at the heart of being an American and caring about the principles on which the country was founded....

In 1963 Johnny Pate and Curtis Mayfield were flying from Chicago to New York for a recording session. Pate had already arranged a few tunes for Mayfield’s group the Impressions, beginning a collaboration that would eventually produce some of the greatest soul and R & B ever recorded, but he had doubts about his future in music. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Hip-hop, rap, and acid-jazz artists have been carrying a torch for Pate for years, though–he’s been sampled or name-checked by everyone from DJ Premier to DJ Shadow–and lately he’s been getting some overdue recognition from music historians and record labels too....

Do you ever wonder: in those houses built strategically next to graveyards, are the occupants drinking residual waste products (or atoms that the body is composed of) of those buried next to them? Think about it–if they’re drinking well water, coffins begin to break down over time, right? Is it plausible to assume they are consuming their beloved deceased? Just something I have always thought about. –H.M., via e-mail Best of Chicago voting is live now....

Is brainwashing possible? How does it work? Does the government really use it? How would I go about brainwashing someone? –JRMecca, via e-mail Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The term brainwashing was invented by a journalist (and, it turned out, CIA hireling) named Edward Hunter, who in 1951 published a book called Brainwashing in Red China. As portrayed by Hunter and later writers, brainwashing was a scientific program of mind control in which masterful communist manipulators used techniques such as Pavlovian conditioning, drugs, and hypnosis to turn ordinary folks into robotlike tools of the state....

I’ve searched your archive in vain–how is it that the vital 6eld of phytoestrogen research has escaped your scrutiny? The straight dope, please: Can herbal supplements containing phytoestrogen truly increase a woman’s breast size significantly? Is this method safe, or are there negative side effects (sure they’re bigger, but they feel like baseballs)? You know you’re the only source I trust. –Impatient, via e-mail Best of Chicago voting is live now....

Friday 2 MIKE JONES TRIO It may seem improbable that a pianist could rival the fearsome technique of giants like Earl Hines, Art Tatum, and Oscar Peterson yet remain off the national radar. But Mike Jones can match every dizzying plunge down the keyboard, every logic-defying rhythmic turnaround, and every galloping bass line of his idols, and he does so with sly but eager humor, interpolating unexpected quotes with split-second timing....

Friday 25 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » ROGUE WAVE My comrade Keith Harris once described the ruling musical principle of the present age as “High Pop Formalism,” meaning the most viable option for contemporary artists is the refinement of previous styles. That sounds like a bad scene, but it doesn’t have to be–when I hear a band like Rogue Wave, I’m reminded of all the little things I like about living in an evacuated and decadent historical cul-de-sac....

This revue by writer-director-performer Sandy Hackett, son of Buddy Hackett and longtime friend of Joey Bishop, resurrects the Rat Pack (minus Peter Lawford) with classic bits, topical jokes, and a 12-piece local orchestra. The rehearsed spontaneity is often awkward, but the show swings when the performers sing. Squatty Kenny Jones captures Davis’s side-of-his-mouth style and makes a poignant Mr. Bojangles. Bobby Mayo Jr. lacks Martin’s stature but exudes his tipsy swagger (“That’s Amore” is spot-on)....

First performed in 1977, this David Mamet play appeared at about the same time as American Buffalo. But it’s slight by comparison: softer, more conventional, more contrived–the work of an artist not yet ready not to sound like his contemporaries. Still, the tale of a young couple’s troubled holiday is unmistakably Mamet-ian in its view of romance as a series of bluffs executed by amateurs so rank they may not know they’re bluffing....

When the Cubs’ three-game series against the Marlins in Florida was washed out by Hurricane Frances in early September, the Cubs found themselves in the eye of the storm. Though they led the National League wild-card race at the time, they’d been playing sputtering baseball. With a chance to put Houston out of its misery–the Cubs’ most feared rival going into the year had suffered through an erratic, injury-riddled campaign–they’d lost three straight at Wrigley Field to let the Astros back in the playoff hunt....

EXPLORE YOUR WORLD ROOTS & CULTURE Sometimes it seems that fine artists do little these days but rehash the tropes of midcentury minimalist, pop, and conceptual artists, who gazed into the void with an emotionless mix of nihilistic irony and pseudo-Zen austerity. But scenesters, and attentive shoppers at Urban Outfitters, know that the aughts have been blessed with a refreshingly romantic interest in pagan subjects and iconography, often expressed with preschoolish brio: imagine an orgy in a forest with bearded unicorns sporting magic fanny packs....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Religious discussion these days often lacks nuance. Luckily, historian David Nirenberg of the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought has plenty to spare for the rest of us. He recently reviewed Michael Gaddis’s new book, There Is No Crime For Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire, in the New Republic (paid subscription required)....

It’s been a winter of ghosts in Chicago. The departed linger in the mind’s eye. Sammy Sosa levels his bat across the plate, not quite pointing the tip at the pitcher, then dips his head between his prodigious shoulders as if to shelter it from the violence of the swing to come. Magglio Ordonez races across the outfield with a flat-footed gait, as if running on the wet tiles of an immense bathroom floor....

In the spirit of Make Me Laugh, Comedy Central’s series in which contestants won when they didn’t laugh at comedians’ jokes, Blewt! Productions has created this hour-long interactive game show. Three anything-for-a-guffaw comics try to get audience volunteers in funny hats to laugh and spit out a mouthful of water, occasionally on each other or the first row. Hosted by funky-dancing Steve Gadlin (channeling Gilda Radner’s deadpan Roseanne Roseannadanna) and the mute but cute Paul Luikart, the competition escalates from spit take to spit take, and audience members who keep a straight face win....

Dear Ms. Armstong, Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I would just like to say I think you are a wonderful writer–I truly enjoyed reading your article about my father [Chicago Antisocial, July 7]–it was quite entertaining even though a lot of stuff was totally inaccurate and out of context! You made my father seem like a total creep in your article! He is nothing of the sort!...

The city’s broke, the CTA’s broke, but on May 11 the City Council approved plans to build a $213.3 million underground superstation in the Loop–a hub for express trains that someday will run to and from O’Hare and Midway. Nobody pointed out that there’s only enough money on hand to build the superstation. Nobody said where the city would find more money to build the tunnels and miles of new track for the express trains....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Published in April by Princeton Architectural Press, LaPorte, Indiana has already brought a number of people together. The book is the brainchild of Jason Bitner, one of the creators of Found magazine and its naughty spin-off, Dirty Found. (Found celebrates the release of Found II: More of the Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items From Around the World Friday, June 2, at Intuit....

Not only did the Cubs and White Sox settle into stereotypical roles this summer–the Cubs as losers, the Sox as frustrating contenders–their fans did too. Last Thursday was a “doubleday,” what former Reader colleague Dave Jones calls the rare occasion when the Cubs and Sox are both in town playing games one after the other; I went out to both games, sitting with the hoi polloi, and was astounded at how the fans confirmed my preconceptions....