Tosca Making her Lyric debut as the beautiful, doomed Floria Tosca was Romanian soprano Doina Dimitriu. The top of the vocal range of too many Toscas is often the only thing that holds up, but Dimitriu’s middle and bottom are especially beautiful: sweet and clear in tone, not at all darkened, and expressive. It’s an agile, ringing voice, and I never had to lean forward to try to catch it....

Chicago has produced some of our greatest comedians, and only New York rivals the breadth of Chicago’s comedy scene. Whether you’re looking for stand-up, sketch comedy, or improvisation, you can find it here, and most of it’s reasonably inexpensive. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Megapopular stand-ups like Margaret Cho and Dane Cook tend to play large venues such as the Chicago Theatre (175 N....

Fred Raslo Harold Henderson: I gather it’s not just Upsilon Andromedae–that most of the 150-plus planets recently discovered around other stars have very elongated orbits, quite unlike the nearly circular ones we’re used to in our solar system. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Fred Raslo: Right after a star is formed you have a disk of ingredients–soot and gases–in orbit around it. These “leftovers” gradually clump together, a bit like the way dust accumulates on the floor....

Joe Wigdahl, Chris Strong, and Ed Menacho admit they were a bit green when they launched Brilliante Records in the summer of 2002. The three friends, who met at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the late 90s, started the label to release an EP by the Milwaukee quartet Camden. The band had already broken up, but its previous album had sold about 3,000 copies, and two members had since joined the popular emo act the Promise Ring....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I couldn’t get down with crust punk back when I was young and naive enough to potentially join up with a squad of anarcho-vegan Dumpster divers. That was partially because of my aversion to white kids with dreadlocks, partially because I’m too much of a pussy–crust kids don’t fuck with bands like Heavenly, and I do. But I’ve always loved crusties for the same reasons I love Hells Angels hippies and the kids at the gritty raves where sketchy meth dealers hung out–they’ve turned people’s worst nightmare of a fringe socio-musical grouping into their day-to-day existence....

Pittsburgh’s Modey Lemon are that rare and glorious thing glimpsed from time to time creeping out of the primordial ooze of neo-garage: a bona fide new creature that is far, far more than the sum of its influences. I don’t much see the point of picking out individual sequences of genes in this trio’s weird DNA, but if you wanted to suggest that on occasion they sound a bit like the Soft Boys with a much more maniacal drummer, playing something like what Pink Floyd might have if Syd had stayed coherent well into 1976, I wouldn’t argue too much....

I’ve heard a theory that the U.S. government was behind the dissolution of the 80s hardcore scene, which seemed to grow in size and energy with each passing year before imploding virtually overnight. Cointelpro ops were suspected, like the “hippie” riot-inducing shills in Grant Park during the ’68 DNC or the agents who insinuated their way into the SDS. I’m not so sure about all this–the same person passed along the theory that D....

In his raucous book-length dispatch from the 2004 campaign trail, Looking Forward to It, Stephen Elliott makes brief mention of his latest novel, Happy Baby, as a “dark, hopeless book”–but it’s a characterization to be taken with a grain of salt. Though Happy Baby (just out in paperback from Picador) is at times relentlessly grim, there’s magic in its form. The thirtysomething protagonist, Theo, returns to Chicago from San Francisco, finding a city that has changed....

In 1893, Hawaii’s Queen Liliuokalani announced that she’d allow all citizens the right to vote, not just large property owners–and the wealthy American sugar plantation owners began plotting her overthrow. With the help of American minister John Stevens and a U.S. gunboat, they forced her to abdicate within days. As coups go, this one was relatively bloodless. But it was typical in that it had nothing to do with promoting freedom or democracy....

Bradley Crandall, 21, is double majoring in economics and political science at DePaul and works part-time at Brooks Brothers. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Standard, gray three-piece Brooks Brothers suit, a very spread cutaway collar shirt from Paul Stuart, and a Brooks Brothers tie. The the lapel pin I got online from J. Press. I have a lot of skull and crossbones stuff. If I’m not wearing a skull and crossbones tie or socks, I’m wearing the pin or something else....

According to urban legend, while garlic oil is harmless when consumed, it’s lethal if it gets into your bloodstream. Supposedly, this is why mafiosi used to coat their bullets in garlic oil–so if the shot was off center and hit your shoulder or something it would kill you anyway. I was wondering if you could explain the truth (or lack thereof) or devise some sort of scientific/pseudoscientific experiment so that I and others like me can rest easier at night....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Is it possible that some intrepid talk show host might try to keep his or her show going by converting it to actual talk? I have a feeling that Jay Leno would be terrified to be cornered in a genuine conversation, but there’s the occasional freewheeling moment on Letterman’s show that suggests he might do pretty well at it....

Against the Day | Thomas Pynchon (Penguin Press) Against the Day’s view of the late 19th century and early 20th evokes the vision of historian Eric Hobsbawm–an irreversible slide from civilization into barbarism as capitalists duke it out with anarchists, culminating though hardly ending in the apocalypse of World War I. “All history after that will belong properly to the history of hell,” one character predicts–or remembers. One reason this book is so difficult is that we can’t always distinguish between memory and prediction, between history and science fiction....

Avant is R. Kelly minus the megalomania, the sensitive-thug contradictions, and the courtroom melodrama. That leaves just a voice–and though Avant’s has grit in it, his smooth cadences are all effortless Isleyisms, lithely gliding over unobtrusive hi-hat skips and muted guitar moans. Kelly’s music is now too slathered in subtext to be good for nooky purposes, but Avant’s fourth album, Director (Geffen), is perfect for the job. It peaks when he’s desperate–on “4 Minutes” he rushes to his soon-to-be-ex’s place, where a U-Haul’s filling up fast–and dips during the cameos, when Lloyd Banks or Lil Wayne start jabbering in your honey’s ear....

The fourth annual Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival, presented by Lukaba Productions, features more than 80 local and out-of-town ensembles, including folks from Toronto, Vancouver, New York, LA, Seattle, Cleveland, Portland, Dallas, Denver, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. Some well established, some new to the scene, they represent a remarkable range of styles and viewpoints. SketchFest runs through 1/16 at Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 W. Belmont, in the venue’s west, south, and north theaters....

Lula Cafe Over the subsequent years the restaurant has become a well-oiled machine, where specials stay on the menu for weeks at a time, making regular reappearances after being tweaked until they’re just right. “Now we typically make four to five stocks at any one time, and we have ten items on the specials menu,” says Hammel. “And we’re more interested in development. It’s just what happens when you get busier and become a larger organization....

If you need only one more reason to run to Canada and set your U.S. passport on fire, this Montreal band ought to do the trick. Its 2004 debut, Dejeuner sur l’herbe, tickles me more than any 60s-based rock I’ve heard since the Reigning Sound’s Too Much Guitar, and that’s some damn high praise. Les Breastfeeders’ aggressive but perky sound–a hoarse, sneering male singer, a sweet ‘n’ sassy girl singer, lots of backup doot-doots and ooh-ahs, buzzy reverbed guitar and plump bass anchored by jaunty garage-rock drums, and sometimes treats like spooky vibraphone or Farfisa–has a lot more beach-blanket-bingo innocence and mod cheekiness than I can imagine Greg Cartwright and company pulling off....

Milwaukee, WI The last time I went to the Holler House it was a Sunday afternoon. While the second-shift bowling league was clattering downstairs, Marcy and her daughter, Cathy Stuckert, were preparing dinner for patrons in the kitchen between the bar and the apartment. During her break Marcy told me the bar’s history. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » She’s made one concession only to age....

Right after I moved here last year, Glen Phillips, who was the lead singer of Toad the Wet Sprocket, was doing a solo show here. I was really excited because I loved that band, and since I never got to see them play live I thought I’d never experience them. I didn’t know anybody, so I bought one ticket and came here alone. I stood right in the front by myself, staring up at him the whole time....

War Reporting for Cowards Steve Mumford WAR REPORTING FOR COWARDS | Chris Ayres Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Ayres is at his best once he gets to Iraq, hyperalert, borderline hysterical, and evisceratingly self-aware. He’s said in interviews that more than anything he wanted to convey the day-to-day life of the troops on the ground–the shitty food, the smelly underpants, the hours of mind-numbing tedium relieved by terrifying bursts of violence....