The Bears just finished a season in which their two best players–Brian Urlacher and Rex Grossman–were out with injuries for weeks on end, making it difficult to gauge the first year of head coach Lovie Smith. After an upset win over the Minnesota Vikings to open December, the Bears flirted with the idea of making the playoffs, but they finished with four straight losses to close at 5-11. Smith established a reputation for calm leadership with the youngest team in the NFL; but then, calm leadership was exactly what management had rejected in firing coach Dick Jauron, who’d guided last year’s youngest team in the league to a 7-9 record....

A fire department official appeared on our local news tonight, giving holiday-related fire prevention tips. One was: don’t burn discarded wrapping paper in your wood-burning stove or fireplace. When asked by the interviewer why this was a bad idea, the official stated that the paper burned at a higher temperature than most stoves or fireplaces were rated for. I find it hard to believe that wrapping paper could achieve a higher burning temp than, say, a good piece of oak or maple....

friday22 teitur This Dane from the Faeroe Islands is often compared to David Gray, but his forthcoming album, Stay Under the Stars (Equator Music), proves he’s more than just a sensitive pop singer–his melodies are far richer and more indelible, recalling Rod Sexsmith’s oddly shaped hooks. There’s plenty of easygoing acoustic strumming on the album, but Teitur throws a curveball with a string-laden cover of “Great Balls of Fire,” transforming the tune into a baroque melodrama, while “Boy, She Can Sing!...

Friday1 HEAD AUTOMATICA Back when Daryl Palumbo had the edge and was fronting Glassjaw, he tried out a bit of everything: screamo, rapping, violent misogyny, straight-up thuggery. Now that he’s singing for Head Automatica he’s supposed to be all about skinny ties, mod haircuts, and Nick Lowe records. But even with all that Auto-Tune on his vocals he still just sounds like a pitiful mooing cow. Rock Kills Kid, Men Women & Children, and Young Love open....

At 7 AM on May 19 Sophia Danenberg reached the summit of Mount Everest, making her the first African-American–and the first black woman from anywhere–to stand at the top of the world. Bad weather during the night had delayed other climbers, so Danenberg and the Sherpas she’d hired, Pa Nuru Sherpa and his brother Mingma Tshiring, were the only people there. She wasn’t as elated as you might expect: she had bronchitis, a stuffed nose, and frostbite on her cheeks, and her oxygen mask was clogged with snow and ice....

Two Trains Running “I’m going back one of these days,” says Memphis Lee in August Wilson’s lyrical comedy Two Trains Running. “All I got to do is find my way down to the train depot. They got two trains running every day.” Wilson’s 1990 play, set in 1969, takes its title from a Muddy Waters blues: “There’s two trains running. . . . One run at midnight and the other jes fo’ day....

When ImprovOlympic producer Charna Halpern met improv legend Del Close, the dialogue went like this: Halpern had launched her company two years earlier with another legendary innovator, David Shepherd, who’d coined the name “ImprovOlympic” with an eye to the ancient Greek celebrations that included theater, dance, song, and sport. Their partnership was over almost as soon as it began, with Shepherd continuing his work on the east coast and in Canada....

Last month, state senate president Emil Jones threatened to “scrutinize” the University of Illinois’ budget unless the school bans its mascot, Chief Illiniwek, from dancing at Fighting Illini football and basketball games. When it came to fighting, though, the Illini were patsies. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In 1680 the Iroquois of the Great Lakes region were on the warpath, seeking new lands in which to trap the beaver they traded to the Dutch and the English for tools and weapons....

Seven Democrats are running in the March 16 senatorial primary, including Gery Chico. He used to be Mayor Daley’s chief of staff, and Daley slated him to be president of the Board of Education. But Daley hasn’t endorsed him. Also in the race is state comptroller Dan Hynes, whose father, Tom Hynes, is a longtime friend of the Daley family. Daley hasn’t endorsed Dan Hynes either. “Well, he doesn’t often get involved in Democratic primaries....

MidTangent Productions shakes up Shakespeare in Tony Lewis’s version of midsummer madness, which includes cross-dressing, same-sex lovers, a leather lord of the “faggot” fairies, and riotous rave dancing, choreographed by Bill Janisse. The Bard’s potions are now pills; the wood is now a hood. The verse is freely (but not always excusably) altered, as in “What fools these breeders be!” And Titania exclaims “Holy shit!” when she first and last sees Bottom, here a literal dickhead....

Veteran art-rock guitarist Adrian Belew, who made his name with King Crimson and the Bears, has wriggled out from under the “dinosaur” label by keeping busy: lately he’s been recording with the likes of Trent Reznor and William Shatner and churning out a steady stream of solo records. The latest, Side Three (Sanctuary), is the final chapter in a trio of concept albums, and he pretty much dispenses with sidemen altogether, though Les Claypool and Tool drummer Danny Carey make appearances, as does the Prophet Omega, a radio evangelist whose tapes Belew uses when he needs a stand-in for the voice of God....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » One thing that occupies much of time each December, then, is catching up on albums I missed, or barely listened to. Since I’m the midst of that process it seems obvious to share some thoughts, especially because the Reader‘s forthcoming best-of feature will have only top-five lists, leaving out a lot of good albums. Last December he released his first album in three years, but since it was issued on a German label and took a few months to make it over to these shores I’m logging it as a 2006 release....

Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Just when you were starting to stereotype repressive conservatives as members of the Christian right, along comes Ahmed Rehab from the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago to slap down Yussef El Guindi’s new play about a troubled Egyptian-American family, Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith. Rehab said in a Sun-Times story that he thinks it’s “unfair when a play with a subject matter that is distant from the classic struggles of the American-Muslim community, and is moreover not endorsed by it, uses the ‘Muslim bridge-building’ card to market itself....

John Darnielle’s shift toward autobiography on the Mountain Goats’ last two albums, 2004’s We Shall All Be Healed and last year’s The Sunset Tree, is often cited as just the latest step away from his early aesthetic. The gritty sound of his boom-box recordings has been replaced by expert studio production from the likes of John Vanderslice and Scott Solter, and his trademark “alpha couple” and “Going to” song series are gone in favor of deftly limned stand-alone narratives....

Nat Pwe: Burma’s Carnival of Spirit Soul DVD Jemaa el Fna: Morocco’s Rendezvous of the Dead, Night Music of Marrakech DVD Folk Music of the Sahara: Among the Tuareg of Libya DVD and other releases on the Sublime Frequencies label Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Most recordings marketed as world music tend to fall into one of two categories, the would-be pure (folkloric field recordings or attempts to simulate pristine traditional performances in studio settings) or the candidly profane (taverna and countless other Western-inflected hybrid forms the world over)....

A veteran of Puerto Rico’s mighty El Gran Combo and bands led by Ray Barretto and Ruben Blades, timbales master Ralph Irizarry formed his first ensemble, Timbalaye, in the mid-90s. While the group’s arrangements, tunes, and extended solos are all squarely within the jazz tradition, you can still hear the influence of those juggernaut Latin dance bands in its sound. In lieu of a trap drummer, Timbalaye employs a more traditional Latin rhythm section–Irizarry’s own timbales and a killer conguero–which gives the music an airy lift; and when one of Timbalaye’s horn players cuts loose with a solo, the rest of the players egg him on with tight, subtle riffing even as they maintain the hypnotic lockstep groove....

I’m a 20-year-old bi guy with a girlfriend of seven months and a few male friends with benefits (FWBs). I’m happy, but I have a kink and I’m wondering how to safely explore it. I want to try hustling. A random guy picking me up on the street and paying me for sex is an elusive turn-on, one that I can’t derive from my relationships. I know hustling is ridiculously unglamorous and unsafe, and that there are some freaky guys out there....

The ninth edition of Columbia College’s annual literary festival, hosted by the school’s fiction writing department, presents readings, signings, and panels with authors and Columbia faculty, this year under the theme “The Politics of Story.” Events run Monday, March 21, through Saturday, March 26, at various venues as shown below. All are free. (A Story Week “epilogue” program, Ray Bradbury Day, will be held April 18.) For more info call 312-344-8559 or 312-344-7611 or see storyweek....

Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “Corrections has become a budget nightmare,” says Metropolis 2020 senior executive Paula Wolff, an alumna of that administration. If you put the state’s 245,000 prison inmates in one place, they’d comprise the second largest city in the state. As Metropolis 2020 points out, following this political path of least resistance has made recidivism the path of least resistance for prisoners, who are often cut off from family ties....

Its morbid title notwithstanding, this show by pH Productions can be pretty amiable. Even sweet. Prior to the performance, audience members fill out pink “death ballots” nominating someone–real or made-up–to die and have his or her life revisited improvisationally. Death himself picks the lucky Victim. Then the seven ensemble members act out moments like the Victim’s first declaration of love. On the night I attended, the Victim was a gentle schlub named “Frank Dumb,” Death took the form of a kindly old bus driver (“How do?...