Ghostface is the most soulful member of the Wu-Tang Clan; he’s also the most gangsta. In the age of the sensitive thug (as epitomized by 50 Cent) it’s taken for granted that those traits don’t have to preclude each other. But before Ghost dropped Ironman in 1996, there were few alternatives to cold-blooded menace other than the brand of epic self-pity inherited from Tupac, who died that year. Ghost’s persona was that of the rare dealer whose emotions hadn’t been dulled by the streets; on tracks like “All That I Got Is You,” a remarkably detailed reminiscence of a project childhood, he remembered where he came from without blaming his faults on that past....

It’s been a couple years since the Wu-Tang Clan made an album, but with RZA and Raekwon putting out CDs in the last few months and several other members (Method Man, Ghostface Killah, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, and Masta Killa) gearing up to release solo projects this year, the Wu is definitely still a going concern. But it’s a shame to see the power of the brand diluted: though these two shows are billed as Wu-Tang, only one of the group’s nine members, GZA, is appearing....

Dear Reader, Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Ben Joravsky continues to do a fine job exposing the hypocrisy and dirty lies of the Chicago Public Schools board of education in their march to destroy public education in the city. His latest article, “Careful What You Ask For” [The Works, June 10], shows that Mayor Daley’s Renaissance 2010 to privatize the schools isn’t about closing “failing” schools and making something better....

Judges and other Dirksen Federal Building staffers hosted a surprise birthday party in early June for a courthouse fixture–Lou Rubin, one of the city’s last court buffs. He was turning 90. Chief district judge Charles Kocoras told the 50 or so people at the party that when he was a rookie prosecutor here in the early 1970s he preferred that the buffs not attend his trials–he didn’t want any more witnesses than necessary to his mistakes....

Herman Melville’s novel rushes headlong to reveal its treasures: an audacious jumble of conventional narrative, lyrical musings, quasi-academic essays, and dramatic dialogues barely held together by an impossible narrator with exhaustive knowledge of classical mythology, Bible stories, Western philosophy, and whaling jurisprudence. Adapter-director Blake Montgomery lops off more than half the book (no Queequeg, Pip, or Fedallah, for starters) but holds fast to its proto-deconstructionist impulse. Six actors with the pallid faces and matted hair of waterlogged corpses play all the roles, sometimes the same one at once: six Ishmaels try to get the story started but repeatedly interrupt one another to deliver delicious bits of whaling arcana....

Lead Story Compelling Explanations Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » South Korean superstar scientist Hwang Woo-suk, leader of a team that has this year successfully cloned an Afghan hound and created 11 new stem cell lines that are immunologically compatible with specific DNA donors, told the journal Nature Medicine in April that Koreans have an advantage over Westerners in delicate laboratory work, saying precision tasks were best done by “Oriental hands”: “We can pick up very slippery corn or rice with the steel chopsticks....

Kevin Howells was shoveling snow in front of his new house in Rogers Park when some neighbors rumbling by in a silver SUV stopped to ask whether he knew about the celebrated architect who had lived there. He had to admit he didn’t. At the time female architects were few and obscure, and their designs were primarily collaborative efforts. Sophia Hayden, who graduated four years ahead of Mahony, couldn’t find a job until she won the competition to design the Women’s Building for the World’s Columbian Exposition....

A friend and I have a running disagreement on which type of natural disaster causes the most deaths and destruction in the U.S. and worldwide–hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wildfires, floods, etc. In a given year any one of them could cause massive destruction (like December’s tragic tsunami disaster), but how about on average, and how has this changed over time (for example, floods in 1900 vs. tornadoes now)? –Andy B., via e-mail...

Recently I came across an article in the Boston Globe stating, essentially, that a woman drank some Listerine, drove, and was subsequently arrested for DUI. I had previously thought that the “specially denatured” alcohol used in mouthwashes and other cosmetic products did not intoxicate when ingested. Obviously, someone is wrong here, and I fear it may be me. I plead for your wisdom on this subject. –Casey Bennett, via e-mail...

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Hollywood Holt’s following up on his unexpectedly blown-up tribute to the moped lifestyle with a full-length mix tape, available as a free download at his new site. He’s got the energy and attention span of a Ritalin-amped six year old, and bounces from Dirty South-style ringtone joints to neo-hip-house club tracks to throwback shit that can remind you of a time when LL Cool J wasn’t a complete embarrassment....

To the editor, Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Normally I would have passed over Miner’s article with a cynical nod of disgust at the way this administration regards justice and due process. But our family has been firsthand witness to how the powerful arm of John Ashcroft, and the calloused attitude of Judge Elizabeth Hacker, has wreaked havoc in the lives of our neighbors, the Gazzolo family....

It’s Not an Art Fair if There’s No Drama Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Nova’s “fashion train,” which had volunteer models in garments from local boutiques lurching through CTA cars during a joyride around the Loop, was one of Knibbe’s responsibilities. In the weeks following the fair, he says, people were “screaming at me because they’re owed money or their checks have bounced, and [Workman’s] bad business is on my name....

Reading Jason Ockert’s debut collection, Rabbit Punches (Low Fidelity), is like getting lost on a road trip: you start off fine, following your map, but still somehow wind up in a place you never saw coming. Populated with earnest characters in mainly small-town and southern settings (Ockert was born in Indiana and raised in Florida), the 13 stories are quirky and unsettling, full of unexpected turns. In “Infants and Men” a dictionary salesman promoted to lexicographer has an affair with his boss’s wife....

Last fall, when I took my first ride in the backseat of Teddy’s Delta 88, it got kind of wild. At one point we were engulfed in Marilyn Manson fans headed for the Aragon; at another we were surrounded by Chicago cops playing their flashlights around the car and wanting to know if we’d heard shots. This time things went a little more smoothly. No swarming fans, no crime scenes. Just the drama in the front seat, where Teddy and his fellow loser, Carl, weighed their diminishing options while literally cruising the streets of Uptown....

Lead Story Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Among those with “The Worst Jobs in Science,” according to the annual listing published in October’s Popular Science: researchers in Borneo who catch falling orangutan urine (in bags mounted on poles or in plastic sheets, firefighter-style) to study hormone levels; volcano monitors, who must run, laden with gear, toward the poisonous gases, molten rock, clouds of ash, glacial avalanches, etc associated with eruptions (dozens have been killed or wounded over the years); U....

Is your name Howard? Addison? Clinton? Would a rush hour stop sign be hilarious over your toilet? Do you covet that dormitory look that only Chicago Transit Authority paraphernalia can evoke? Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » If so, the Illinois Railway Museum has a deal for you. The 42-year-old nonprofit, located five miles off the Northwest Tollway near Marengo, more than halfway to Rockford, is selling recently discarded CTA signs for $5 to $50 apiece through its Web site (irm....

In 1989 Metro owner Joe Shanahan was in a record store in Manchester, England, when he came across some live bootlegs by a few bands that had been signed to the seminal Factory label. To his surprise, the packaging claimed the shows had been recorded at his club. “I ran into [New Order bassist and Factory co-owner] Peter Hook and he was kind of upset about it,” recalls Shanahan. “Like, ‘I think you and your club owe me some money for these....

Latecomers to the postpunk boy-band derby, THE BRAVERY have been called calculated and derivative–as if that weren’t the basic job description. Front man Sam Endicott gets singled out in particular, especially for copping moves from Julian Casablancas, but I’m not sure when the Strokes became poster boys for whole-cloth invention–or how JC’s heavily affected drawl, for all its charms, could ever have been considered original. The Bravery (Island), their wittily titled debut, does sound manufactured, but if supercharged, irresistible, danceable plasticity is a drawback for a band in hot pursuit of Duran Duran, I’ll eat my hat....

Dear editor, Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » It’s sad to read what’s happening at the Chicago Reporter [Hot Type, June 17]. I was the first reporter/writer hired there by John McDermott and Lillian Calhoun in 1972. I began the job while still a student at Medill, and it was, in retrospect, a fantastic experience working with a group of exceptional people, many of whom have become exceptional journalists....

Using a well-worn copy of the 1989 Chicago Celebrity Chef cookbook, foodie-performers Seth Zurer and Chloe Johnston spotlight their favorite members of the Chicago machine in I-80 Drama Company’s lively cooking demonstration-cum-political overview, which includes recipes from Harold Washington (dessert bars), Richard M. Daley (beef stew), and Jane Byrne (“snow birds”). Though the performances are a bit loose–both actors are also currently at work on the Neo-Futurists’ Patriots–these frequent collaborators play well off each other....