Roslyn Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Most of the fixtures and decorative items strewn about Rosie Dulyapaibul’s new Bucktown boutique, Roslyn–vintage roller skates, paint-spattered children’s chairs, the couch–came from her home. Dulyapaibul wants customers to feel at ease, and that goes for the clothes as well–she’s solved the perennial style vs. comfort issue with lots of chic yet relaxed pieces, like Grecian sleeveless shifts with fabric gathered at the collar by Miranda Bennett ($338), jewel-toned pleated silk camis and slip dresses by Julie Haus ($260-$385), and classic jersey wrap dresses and tunics by Frenzii (on the more affordable side at $58-$100)....

Being one of those poor, uninsured types, I went to the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic in San Francisco to get some stuff in my throat checked out. I described my problems–weird tonsil spots and a lump in the back of my throat–to the evening’s practitioner and said that I’d felt around back there with my finger. He seemed kind of shocked. (I didn’t say that I learned how to suppress my gag reflex when I was 20 so that I could give better blow jobs....

The Nutcracker story is the last reason to see this equestrian take on it, providing little more than some holiday trappings and a very slim framework for the riding. The 80-minute show works best when it departs from the narrative and Tchaikovsky’s music, especially in a trick-riding display by circus performers Omar Chinibekov and Sergey Latokhin. But the best bit is a duet between a bumbling horse trainer and his smart, handsome white steed....

The company’s repertoire is now so rich its spring concerts feature two completely different programs except for one overlap. The dancers are superb, particularly Peter Gaona, Jeanette Gordon, and veteran Paul Christiano. Once it masters unison dancing it will be truly astonishing, and even now it’s a pleasure to watch in Jon Lehrer’s demanding Iambus and Melissa Thodos’s world premiere, Rituals–a kinder, gentler Rite of Spring. The fewer dancers, though, the better: Amy Ernst’s charming duet Raft (a company premiere on both programs) sparkles, making creative use of turntables as one woman partners another....

New in town? Criminal defense attorney John Yetter says he makes good money off college students who’ve gotten in trouble for drunken antics. The “dumbass” plea usually works, he says: if the offense isn’t too serious and you apologize for being a dumbass, there’s a good chance your case will be discharged. Driving over 30 mph on a Chicago street or over 15 in an alley Best of Chicago voting is live now....

The vacant lot on the northwest corner of Lincoln and Diversey is an impressive eyesore, even by Chicago standards. It used to provide parking for Wallaby Station, a nearby clothing store. But Wallaby Station disappeared years ago, and sometime after that the center of the lot collapsed, creating a three-foot-deep sinkhole big enough to hold several cars. The lot’s strewn with paper, plastic bags, broken bottles, and chunks of asphalt. “People are always dumping trash there,” says Jay Zuckert, who lives nearby....

If Chicago is no longer the home of the blues, it’s because much of what’s played here panders to predominantly white stereotypes about “authenticity”–the north-side clubs and the few blues-oriented studios that are still around stick to the 12-bar, shuffle-driven, guitar-and-harmonica-dominated postwar sound popularized by the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Much of the heat has now moved to the south, where the blues remains a living voice in black culture and the music freely incorporates elements of soul (both old and neo), R & B, and hip-hop....

Like all the pianists in Northwestern University’s Transcendental Piano Series, Winston Choi will perform some of the most technically daunting works composed for the instrument. Choi, who’s studied with Menahem Pressler and is now studying with Ursula Oppens, is best known for playing new music. He’s already won the 2002 Orleans International 20th-Century Piano Competition in France, had many works dedicated to him, and recorded the complete piano music of Elliott Carter–impressive and clearly articulated performances in which one can hear every musical line....

Last Saturday a five-foot wall of cardboard boxes divided Patrick Miceli’s Ravenswood studio space in two. The boxes were filled with 40,000 to 45,000 of the small, brightly colored plastic toys given away with Happy Meals and other fast-food dinners for kids. “Every animated character you can imagine is in those boxes,” Miceli said as he and a friend, bundled up in the unheated room, methodically sorted the toys. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

The title of this Wise Woman Fools show is misleading. The real stars are not Mel and Zetta, the two mildly funny thirtysomething female clowns who try to crash the show Lucy Ricardo style, but the fearless, powerful members of the Actors Gymnasium teen ensemble, a disciplined squad of highly skilled gymnasts and acrobats. They execute amazing, sometimes terrifying tricks–like balancing on a ring hanging from the flies or swinging upside down on a rope–without seeming to break a sweat....

Exquisite technique isn’t usually what I look for first in dance. But this Taiwanese company’s technique absolutely bowls me over. The performers are trained in tai chi, martial arts, Chinese opera, modern dance, and ballet, and artistic director Lin Hwai-min’s choreography twists them in every conceivable direction around the axis of the spine. They can move with breathtaking swiftness or in heart-stopping slow motion, and they achieve stillness and balance in poses that look impossible to hold for even a split second....

Like many of Len Jenkin’s plays from the 1980s, this one is a shadowy thrill ride along the margins of dispossessed America, as ten grifters–roadside cafe waitresses, an occultist-cum-mentalist, a soldierless general, a deluded jeweler, and an accidental jewel thief–look for spiritual and/or monetary salvation. Led by the beguiling, understated Jarrett Sleeper as the jewel thief, the Box Theatre Group cast is evenly split between engaging and flat performances. Director Jennifer Huffman, constrained by a design that’s more bare than bare-bones, keeps the actors focused on embellishing moments rather than giving scenes a through line....

1133 N. State Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Named after the round-the-world route flown by Pan Am from 1942 to 1984, this small New York-based travel-accessories chain looks to the most glamorous era of air travel for inspiration, even stocking blue nylon bags emblazoned with the erstwhile airline’s logo. But most of the inventory is explicitly geared to the needs of today’s air travelers, who want small comforts to help them through what’s become a stressful, uncomfortable experience....

My advice: Poke around. Pull strings, push levers, put your head through holes. There’s a lot going on in this interactive “non-theater theatrical event” even though when you walk into Redmoon’s cavernous space what you first see is the usual monumental spectacle, in this case oceans of blue paint punctuated by puffy white painted and 3-D clouds. Though many of the pieces–more sculptural than performative–are based on creation myths, the real point isn’t the big picture but the small one: what you and various artists did or might do with junk drawers, old lamps and furniture, attics full of cast-off clothes and papers....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » It took me a few days to make my way through Mike Baruch’s sprawling, self-published Street Food Chicago, a 406-page cookbook/love letter to the city’s blue-collar cuisine. “Street food” is a bit of misnomer, since the overwhelming majority of items can’t be bought on any city thoroughfare (or have I managed to overlook an Uncle Tony’s Jumbo Canoli cart?...

Maybe last weekend’s heat made you miserable, but to me it’s just psychedelia weather. If you can’t afford a pile of drugs to go with your trippy music, the next best thing for softening up the old brain is a natural steam bath. So thanks to the Mirrors for booking this reunion tour–in support of the recent Birdman Records reissue of their 2001 disc A Green Dream–smack in the middle of the dog days....

Continued from last week: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » To recap, I’m 18, naked and aroused, standing over my snoring female companion here in the middle of the night, when about 15 kids step out of the fog. There’s this very uncomfortable silence, some laughter, and then the kids sit down and start talking to each other, ignoring me. I grab my clothes and get myself together but my companion’s still out of it....

Each weekend in the spring and fall, crowds gather at the soccer fields along Lake Shore Drive to watch children play in youth leagues. For a lot of Chicagoans, this is their involvement in sports, even if the parents tend to treat it more as a chance to network or catch up with friends or give the dog some air while the kids race about nearby. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

Stephen Asma tries to avoid other Buddhists at parties. Once they hear what his religion is they’re likely to share a “mishmash of their pseudo-Eastern-quantum-herbal beliefs,” expecting the same in return. “I always smile carefully and back away slowly, looking desperately for the bar,” he says. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Asma, the son of a Chicago steelworker, grew up Catholic but started reading about Buddhism when he was 15....

In late October the beloved BitTorrent bazaar formally known as Oink’s Pink Palace was shut down, accused of facilitating the illegal distribution of copyrighted music. British police arrested the site’s creator, 24-year-old Alan Ellis, later releasing him without charge, and in Amsterdam authorities confiscated the servers that hosted the site. I can’t say I grieved—I’d only been a member briefly, acquiring a few albums of major-label hip-hop and out-of-print British glam rock, before I got booted for failing to maintain the ratio of uploads to downloads that the site required....