JULY
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Part soft-core porn provider and part online community for punk, goth, and emo kids, the three-year-old SuicideGirls.com is one of the few postbubble Internet success stories, claiming 500,000 visitors a week. Earlier this year a half dozen of the site’s pierced and tattooed models hit the road with the Suicide Girls Live Burlesque Show (which came through Chicago in February) and now they’ve spun off into even older media with SuicideGirls, a coffee-table book of color pinup photos and diary entries by the girls. Tonight at 7 cofounder Missy Suicide and eight of her cohorts will be signing copies at Quimby’s, 1854 W. North in Chicago. It’s free; call 773-342-0910. Later, at the Double Door, they’ll wriggle out of their clothes in bump ‘n’ grind vignettes inspired by Reservoir Dogs, The Graduate, and Peaches’s “Fuck the Pain Away.” The newest version of the burlesque show starts at 10 at 1572 N. Milwaukee; Lying in States and Bloom open. Tickets are $13 in advance and $15 at the door; call 773-489-3160. There’s also a show at 9 on Thursday, July 1, with Sluts of Trust in the opening slot.
Three couples–college students, thirtysomethings, and empty nesters–deal with the awesome prospect of parenthood in Baby, opening tonight at Steel Beam Theatre. Not all of them are married, not all want to be parents, and not all will be, but they sing their hearts out while they worry about it in this episodic 20-year-old Broadway musical. Directed by David Belew, with music direction by Jeremy Ramey, the production features a cast of west-suburban actors. Performances are at 8 Fridays and Saturdays, and 3 on Sundays through July 25 at the theater, 111 W. Main in Saint Charles. Tickets are $20, $18 for seniors and students; call 630-587-8521.
The Chicago Historical Society’s old-fashioned Star-Spangled Independence Day includes a reading of the Declaration of Independence, appearances by Uncle Sam and “visitors from the pages of Chicago’s history,” and a parade. The free celebration starts at 10:15 AM at Uihlein Plaza at Clark and North in Chicago; call 312-642-4600.
As the obnoxious host of the Annoyance Theater’s Big Lovely Bingo, Dick O’Day (aka Reader contributor Richard Knight Jr.) used to read snippets from bizarre books and celebrity-authored embarrassments. Now he’s expanded the concept into a weekly show, Dick O’Day’s Big Lovely Liberry, in which Annoyance vets act out scenes from trashy tomes such as a book on how to pick up chicks and Angela Bowie’s memoir of life with David, as well as found text like the deposition of a writer suing the staff of Friends for sexual harassment. “It’s a summer reading program for lazy people, for gossipy and petty people who’d rather have a drink and laugh while somebody else does all the work,” O’Day says. Each week he also welcomes a guest; this week it’s Melissa Hellstern, local author of How to Be Lovely: The Audrey Hepburn Way of Life. The 21-and-over show runs tonight and next Tuesday, July 13, at 7 PM at the Green Mill, 4802 N. Broadway in Chicago. Admission is $6. The run may be extended through the summer–see www.annoyanceproductions.com for updates.
