The members of this “Kentuckiana” collective are firm believers in collaborative songwriting–so much so that they’ve even designed a flowchart illustrating how they go about it. That approach led to the diversity of styles that popped up throughout the group’s early singles and EPs, which in turn flowered into the full-blown schizophrenia of Look Up the Sky!! (Emperor Jones), their full-length debut. There’s a swirling, churning, Paisley Underground feel to “G....

The path to love is especially rocky in conservative Saudi Arabia, with its segregation of the sexes, arranged marriages, double standard, and religious police at the ready to arrest unrelated young couples out in public together. In The Girls of Riyadh, which some have compared to Sex and the City, Rajaa Alsanea details the hopes and heartbreak of four young women from the “velvet,” or upper, class as they seek true love....

What do Shreveport and Newark have that Chicago doesn’t? Literacy, according to a survey of “America’s Most Literate Cities” produced at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (www.uww.edu/npa/cities/allrank.html). Seventy-nine American cities with populations of more than 200,000 were ranked in five different categories–educational attainment, newspaper circulation, booksellers, library resources, and periodicals published–all per capita. Minneapolis ranked first overall, Chicago 58th, and El Paso 79th. Chicago’s best ranking, 50th, was in newspaper circulation per capita; its worst, 71st, was in library facilities....

Greetings, Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The truth is: as Randi Ettner said, we transsexual people are so shamed, so misunderstood, and so stigmatized. It is usually because of people like Bailey. And also because of those male-to-female transsexuals who are autogynephilic. Usually they are men who are so homosexual that they are hyperfeminine. Usually they are attracted to men who are very strong and masculine....

The History Boys sss Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The hypocritical willingness to argue a point either way lies at the heart of The History Boys, an excellent British drama adapted by Alan Bennett (The Madness of King George) from his celebrated play. The movie takes place in 1983 at a boys’ boarding school in Yorkshire, where the grasping headmaster (Clive Merrison) is delighted to learn that eight young history scholars in the sixth form (equivalent to high school seniors) have scored exceptionally well on their A-Level exams (equivalent to the SATs) and may distinguish the school by getting into Oxford or Cambridge....

Carl Dreyer’s last silent, the greatest of all Joan of Arc films. Lost for half a century, the 1928 original was rediscovered in a Norwegian mental asylum in the 80s (other prints had perished in a warehouse fire, and the two versions subsequently circulated consisted of outtakes). Joan is played by stage actress Renee Falconetti, and though hers is one of the key performances in the history of movies, she never made another film....

Harpist Billy Boy Arnold played with some of the biggest names in Chicago blues history, but he remained a medium-size one himself. Born here in 1935, Arnold grew up idolizing John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, the Tennessee-born harpist who laid down the template for the urban blues style in the 30s and 40s. After taking a few lessons from Williamson in ’48, Arnold insinuated himself into the burgeoning local scene, where modernists like Little Walter were adding phrasing and tonal manipulations adapted from jump-blues and jazz saxophonists to Williamson’s countrified licks....

IF YOU CAN judge a city’s culture by the amount of publications it supports—not to mention its disregard for trees—then Chicago is a culturally rich, tree-loathing city indeed. Whereas one gay monthly is enough for many entire states, we have four competing weeklies, in addition to biweekly, monthly, and quarterly magazines, as well as podcasts and radio programs. The publications can be picked up at many shops in the gayborhoods of Boys Town and Andersonville, and at homo-friendly coffee shops and bookstores all over town....

The International Latino Cultural Center presents the 22nd Chicago Latino Film Festival with screenings Friday, April 21, through Thursday, May 4, at Chicago State Univ., 9501 S. King Dr.; Richard J. Daley College, 7500 S. Pulaski; Dominican Univ., 7900 W. Division, River Forest; Facets Cinematheque; Gene Siskel Film Center; Landmark’s Century Centre; Little Village Lawndale High School, 3120 S. Kostner; Moraine Valley Community College, 10900 S. 88th Ave., Palos Hills; Morton College, 3801 S....

When dance has roots in nontheatrical culture, questions of authenticity and respect for tradition tend to come up. So it’s no surprise that this five-day festival of Indian dance, sponsored by Natya Dance Theatre and the Department of Cultural Affairs, addresses such issues. Friday night promises to deliver the best of the traditional: internationally known bharata natyam dancer Priyadarsini Govind (from Chennai, India) performs with a live orchestra, remaining true to temple tradition by dancing solo....

Hi Miles, Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » So I wanted to write to you about the Pitchfork piece you wrote [“Indie Rock’s Not Dead,” July 20], since it didn’t ring true. I think that you correctly identified one of the big downsides of Pitchfork culture: the idea that, because the tent is now so wide, everything can potentially smack of tokenism. OK, I didn’t see Clipse (missed Saturday due to a Baby Teeth show in Madison), but it seems like their “thug-posturing” is the work of an act that knows full well that they’re indie-rock tokens, and doing everything possible to pander to their audience, to the point of turning the whole affair into a modern-day minstrel show....

John Crawford was on his honeymoon and two credits away from college graduation when an e-mail informed him that his Florida National Guard unit would be sent to Iraq for the March 2003 invasion–a mission that ended up lasting much longer than he and his cohorts were promised. In The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier’s Account of the War in Iraq (Riverhead), Crawford provides a vivid, harrowing account of his experience first in the desert and then in a busy and mostly hostile city....

Columbia College grads Michael Ojeda and Joel Goodman make their feature debut with this harsh but moving drama. The title character, a young Balkan beauty (Oksana Orlenko), immigrates to America with her brother, a ruthless gangster named Darko (Nickolai Stoilov). Upon arriving in Chicago they lose their $20,000 savings, and Darko puts his sister on the street turning tricks. There’s a creaky romantic subplot involving Lana and a sweet Chinese sculptor (Louyong Wang), but otherwise Ojeda’s script sticks to the bleak world of eastern European refugees in Chicago....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » First up was Black himself. In a jammed 12th-floor courtroom, with banks of TV cameras in the Dirksen Building lobby below awaiting his descent, St. Eve sentenced Black to six and a half years in prison for ripping off Hollinger International shareholders of millions of dollars in phony noncompete payments as he and his partner, David Radler, sold off the company....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » All of us like to believe, and most of us do believe, that there’s a perilous drama to our lives even if we can’t begin to see it. Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer touched on the matter in a piece the Tribune carried on Rick Ankiel, whom he compared to The Natural‘s Roy Hobbs. Krauthammer wrote: “Ronald Reagan, I was once told, said he liked ‘The Natural’ except that he didn’t understand why the Dark Lady shoots Roy Hobbs....

The last time a strong independent mayoral movement emerged from the black community, five black aldermen were swept out of office for making the mistake of backing the incumbent. According to Walls, black aldermen realize disenchantment with the mayor is growing in the west- and south-side wards. In 2003 Daley won about 60 percent of the vote there. But he was up against no-name challengers who lacked money and organization. This time around he’s got two potentially more formidable opponents: Walls, who can call on his association with Washington, and Cook County clerk of courts Dorothy Brown, who’s used the black churches to build independent support for her campaign....

The title suggests that Second City luminaries got together and pored over the comedy institution’s hundreds of sketches, then picked the funniest for restaging. That’s not what happened. Each of the SC touring companies–GreenCo, BlueCo, and RedCo–programmed its own show, which can change, and alternates performances with the others. They all favor sketches they can see on video, so most of the material is from the mid-90s on. They also focus on characters they can do, and rightly so–who but Chris Farley could pull off his squatting motivational speaker?...

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » His election-law business remains steady, as evidenced by his presence at the County Building on Monday, December 11, where he accompanied one of his chief clients, 45th Ward alderman Patrick Levar, as he filed his nominating petitions for February’s election. But his position at the board took a blow earlier in the month, when he was dumped as deputy chief commissioner....

Rex Grossman was the first Bears player to leave the locker room after halftime of last month’s game against Atlanta. Seeing him run out onto the field ahead of his teammates piqued the interest of the fans in Soldier Field, and when he began to warm up they went wild. Other Bears emerged to find the crowd in an uproar and Grossman getting ready–it was as if he’d sneaked out without telling them he was going to start the second half–and they got excited too....

In the late 90s TV Pow frequently performed their minimal, gestural sound art with nothing but laptops–I nearly forgot that Michael Hartman and Brent Gutzeit, who founded the band while living in Japan in 1995, started out playing real drums and electric bass. But the trio’s brand-new album, TV Pow Presents Michael Hartman, Todd A. Carter, and Brent Gutzeit as TV Pow (Southport), makes it unequivocally clear that they see the computer as just one tool among many....