As his aides tell it, Mayor Daley blew his stack when he heard the news about the Mercantile Exchange building. The demolition-delay ordinance has always been something of a joke to preservationists, as is the city’s overall attitude toward preservation. Generally city officials like architecture all right–so long as it doesn’t get in the way of development deals. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The Merc, a classic 1920s structure designed by Alfred Alschuler, sat at the corner of Franklin and Washington....

Sound artist Phill Niblock has been making music since the mid-60s, but for decades your best chance to hear any of it was the annual winter solstice concert in his New York City loft. Because he didn’t want to sacrifice control over the way his music was heard, he didn’t release any recordings at all until the early 80s, and even then he gave up after two LPs, complaining that vinyl couldn’t convey enough detail at high volumes....

That Section 2 invective you printed [“Sculpting the Statistics” by Deanna Isaacs, July 13] was not only a nice chomp at one of the hands that feeds you, but it also lacked the kind of assessment an artistically cultivated city like Chicago should expect of its people, especially its journalists and critics. After Ms. Isaacs’s opening bit of sarcastic endearment for the misleading and insidious use of statistics, she shows us she knows what she’s talking about by using the same tactic to contradict the report in question–a nauseating good time for everybody....

Lots of people wander into Sara Lenart’s North Center jewelry workshop and showroom, intrigued perhaps by what might be behind the tiny brick storefront tucked off Lincoln at 1924 W. Byron. Inside, in a tiny room with buttercup-yellow walls, Lenart works amid vintage display cases filled with sterling silver rings with sponge coral and green Arizona turquoise and plain pendants of freshwater pearls and jasper. Lenart, who studied at the Gemological Institute of America in California and has put in time on jewelers row in the Loop, started her own line about a decade ago, when she was having trouble finding the “simple things” she liked to wear....

This annual festival of solo performance, now in its fourth year, features more than 20 pieces by local, national, and international artists. It runs 8/18-8/28 at the Breadline Theatre, 1802 W. Berenice, and Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont. Tickets are $20 per show; $12 for students. Tickets for Breadline shows can be purchased by calling 312-498-3369; Theatre Building Chicago tickets are available at the box office and by calling 773-327-5252....

The morning after Election Day 2004, when Democrats and liberals started asking what had hit them, Thomas Frank had an answer ready and waiting. What’s the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, his biting analysis of the culture wars and the bamboozlement of the American working class, was quickly on every wagging tongue in Washington. Since then the book has hit multiple best seller lists and Frank has turned up as a guest on everything from Hardball With Chris Matthews to The Daily Show....

On the Kinzie industrial corridor, deep inside a massive warehouse with hallways wide enough for a forklift, is the office of Ineeka Inc.–corporate headquarters, packing plant, and stockroom all in one tiny space. On a recent morning four employees packed black, green, and herbal teas as well as chais into tins and labeled them. Another employee operated the tea blender–a three-foot jerry-rigged orange plastic mixer. A packing machine chugged directly outside the office of the owner, Shashank Goel....

THE PRAIRIE, at Theatre Building Chicago. In Renee Enna’s homespun, heartfelt, but sometimes implausible midwestern version of The Tempest, Prospero–here called Bill–protects some virgin Illinois prairie from his brother, a covetous developer. Bill’s companions are his daughter Mary, blinded by the same prairie fire that killed her mother, a bird eager for freedom (Ariel), and a rebellious cat (Caliban). The brother joins forces with the town mayor, whose son falls in love with Mary, and eventually the brothers, separated by 15 years and different lifestyles, find an uneasy peace....

Frederick Wells and Gabe McDonough weren’t the first to get in on the action when podcasting went aboveground, but despite their late start they’ve carved out a niche of their own in the young medium. Music podcasts–streaming or downloadable audio files that can be automatically distributed to subscribers–often follow the form of a radio show, and Wells and McDonough’s popular weekly podcast, Market Frenzy, is no exception. But unlike most amateur podcasters, they include complete tracks, not just excerpts–technically illegal because they don’t get clearances, but so far no artists or labels have made a stink....

In a perfect world, the Waxwings would be known solely for their music. Repurposing 60s rock is a familiar enough tactic these days, but the Detroit quartet’s genuine enthusiasm sets them apart from other similarly inclined groups: the sound of their first two albums–Low to the Ground (2000) and Shadows of the Waxwings (2002)–is the sound of four guys with The Kink Kronikles running through their bloodstreams. The world’s not perfect, though, and a lot of people became aware of the Waxwings as a result of a leaked 2002 e-mail in which the owner of their label, the local Bobsled Records, savaged the band for an allegedly weak performance at the Shadows release party....

In January the New York Times ran an article about the resurgence of wallpaper–not your grandma’s musty floral wall coverings, but modern boutique designs for Dwell readers and their ilk. Fledgling designer Casey Gunschel, a 33-year-old Chicagoan, got a brief mention and a couple of her papers pictured. The same day the Web site for her Palace Papers, which up to that point was attracting two or three visitors a day, got around 4,000 hits, and then Gunschel’s in-box filled up with messages from people wanting to get their hands on patterns like Nevermore, featuring a whorl of ravens in front of a full moon, and Coy, with columns of Japanese-style fish undulating like double helixes....

Pittsburgh punk quartet Anti-Flag tend to catch a lot of shit for being sloganeering and didactic, but that’s mostly from grown-ups and magazine editors. If hip-hop is the CNN of the streets, as Chuck D once said, then Anti-Flag is the Pacifica of the cul-de-sac. Like the majority of their fans, the group is young, angry, Mohawked, and white, with a dogged hatred of authority and firm convictions about what’s fair and what’s not....

Formed in 2000, this Montreal quartet draws much of its inspiration from eastern Europe–both from old 78s of Jewish shtetl songs and contemporary Gypsy outfits like Taraf de Haidouks and the Kocani Orkestar. Though their austere, unamplified music bears little resemblance to the slick, buoyant postmodern romps of revivalists like the Klezmatics or David Krakauer’s Klezmer Madness, they’re hardly stodgy: the group’s terrific debut, Ver Tanzt? (Constellation), imports rhythms and textures from free jazz....

“Bespoke means ‘made-to-order’ or ‘custom-made,’” says Kim Shambrook, executive chef for Bespoke Cuisine. While the catering company offers set menus from which customers can choose appetizers, entrees, and desserts, Shambrook is eager to rise to the challenges of special requests–which recently have included a Ukrainian birthday party and a Polish funeral luncheon. “It gives me an opportunity to research and figure out what we can do,” she says. But no matter what the menu, there are certain culinary standards she will not abandon: “We believe margarine is the devil incarnate,” reads the manifesto at bespokecuisine....

Over the last few albums by the Irish group the Frames, front man Glen Hansard has developed a knack for turning each song into an intimate conversation. It’s no easy trick, especially since nearly all his material travels the well-churned, dangerously overcrowded waters that surround troubled and failed relationships. But though the conversations are frequently volatile, with weary whispers yielding to explosive pleas, the soulful imperfection of Hansard’s breathy, reedy voice and the pinpoint folk-rock arrangements of his efficient band keep them from becoming overwrought....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “The problematic nature of this transition — from God as ineffable, essentially static, and completely harmless abstract concept, to God as a kind of being that, in some sense that is perpetually up for grabs, cares about us down here on Earth — is not just a minor bump in the otherwise smooth road to a fully plausible conception of the divine....

Writer-performer Tim O’Malley’s honest, funny show about his life as an alcoholic and drug addict has been running off and on since last April. One wonders if the primary audience has been people in recovery and those who love them–but if so it’s time for the word to spread. O’Malley’s observations about the costs of his habits and the benefits of changing them aren’t earthshaking, but his generosity of spirit is worthy of attention and respect....

Like any great dramatic character, Hamlet is full of contrary impulses. Literalizing this obvious truth, director Christopher Fuller divides the melancholy Dane among three actors representing his “passive,” “emotional,” and “trickster” selves. Predictably, Shakespeare’s complex creation becomes schematized–the emotional Hamlet is droopy, the trickster is demented, and the passive is, um, Hamlet. Occasionally the device leads to downright silliness: the “To be or not to be” soliloquy turns into a group discussion....

We think we know cybercrime. Those white-collar scuzzballs Woody Guthrie sang about, the ones who used to rob us with a fountain pen instead of a six-gun, now tap a few computer keys instead. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » A colocation center accommodates online businesses that want their servers off-site: it offers space, power, cooling, massive bandwidth, and high security. By comparison, Equinix, whose colocation center near McCormick Place is described as state of the art, occupies its own building and sends out guards to check any car parked alongside it for more than five minutes....

I’ve written about these bands one at a time (and not so very long ago, either), but now that they’re all on the same bill I think it’s my duty to repeat myself–it’s not every night you get the chance to hear such a wild variety of great garage rock. Memphis’s FINAL SOLUTIONS, whose lineup includes Jay Reatard of the Lost Sounds on drums, are an evil fun-house ride, combining new-wave keyboards, metal-worthy guitars, punk-rock speed, and postpunk neurosis....