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Painter Andreas Fischer makes copies–or in some cases, copies of copies–of people’s doodles or sketches. Now 30, he was inspired to do this while in graduate school, partly by an essay by art historian David Summers, who argued that context is a work’s meaning: an equestrian statue, for instance, should be seen in terms of who carved it, its materials, and the circumstances surrounding its production. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

Pianist Benny Green and guitarist Russell Malone established this duo in the summer of 2001, and the alliance couldn’t have come at a better time for either of them. Green, a young veteran of the recording scene (he turned 40 last week), had made a dozen albums under his own name and half that many as part of Ray Brown’s trio, but his career, if not stalled, had at least hit a few speed bumps, slowed by too many similar projects....

Last summer Peggy Macnamara was walking down an Evanston sidewalk when she spotted a fiery searcher. A beetle common in Illinois, the fiery searcher is easy to identify because its iridescent shell changes color as it moves. Before she knew it, she’d taken off her hiking boot and coaxed the insect into it. Then she fished a used cup out of a nearby trash can and transferred her catch into that....

Chantal Akerman’s greatest film—made in 1975 and running 198 minutes—is one of those lucid puzzlers that may drive you up the wall but will keep you thinking for days or weeks. Delphine Seyrig, in one of her greatest performances, plays Jeanne Dielman, a Belgian woman obsessed with performing daily rounds of housework and other routines (including occasional prostitution) in the flat she occupies with her teenage son. The film follows three days in Dielman’s regulated life, and Akerman’s intense concentration on her daily activities—monumentalized by Babette Mangolte’s superb cinematography and mainly frontal camera setups—eventually sensitizes us to the small ways in which her system is breaking down....

In November of 1990, Dave Wasion made the discovery of his life. Wasion, animal warden for the city of Zion, has, by his own account, searched for Indian relics for many years. He had come across an old newspaper article about the discovery of mammoth bones in Kenosha County in the 1920s and ’30s, so he consulted with Dan Joyce, senior curator and archaeologist at the Kenosha Public Museum, and went to the Kenosha County Historical Society in search of more information....

Since the 1999 death of Portugal’s mighty fado matriarch Amalia Rodrigues, a number of strong performers have stepped forward to save the music–which sets extravagant lamentations to ornate acoustic guitar accompaniments–from calcifying into tourist fare a la Chicago blues. Singers like Misia and Cristina Branco have played their part by adding new material to an increasingly moribund repertoire and incorporating outside influences, but 29-year-old Mariza Nunes might be the one to inherit Rodrigues’s mantle....

When Tim and Deeana Bruce opened Calliope Cafe in January, they were wagering that sandwiches could fill a niche in an economy where lots of fine-dining establishments were taking hits. “It seems pretty silly, but sandwiches are something different,” says Tim. They painted the walls a giddy orange with chartreuse and yellow trim and made up a menu of upscale melts, clubs, and wraps. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

Lead Stories Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Last October the BBC News reported that the kingdom of Tonga (the islands between Fiji and American Samoa) had lost $26 million when its court jester allegedly invested the money in “a mysterious company that has now vanished.” The money was accumulated by selling Tongan citizenship and special passports to people in trouble, from Imelda Marcos to Chinese leaving Hong Kong....

July 7, 9:35 PM, 1800 block of South Calumet. Reckless endangerment, weapons violation. Officers observed suspect carrying duffel bag with protruding double-sided ax. Suspect was searched, and a knife and pair of brass knuckles were discovered. Offender refused to reveal his plans for ax. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » August 2, 12:25 PM, 200 block of South Wabash. Armed robbery. Offender approached victim, demanding to know his gang affiliation....

Union Pacific Challenger number 3985, the world’s largest operating steam locomotive, is making a rare visit to the Chicago area this weekend. The 20th Century Railroad Club booked the big engine for two day trips from West Chicago to Milwaukee, both of which sold out in a toot (at prices that would buy a round-trip cross-country flight). But Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis says the real view is from trackside anyway....

Ed Smith knows about love. But the 28th Ward alderman didn’t put his wisdom into words until he started his first romance novel. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Smith was the youngest of 12 children born to sharecroppers in Kirby, Mississippi. His father died when he was two, but his mother pushed him to work hard through school. Ever since graduating from high school Smith wanted to write, but “I just didn’t know how to do it,” he says....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Before answering their questions, I wanted to know how legitimate they were, because I was skeptical of their claims. Why? I am a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, and I still see foreign aid as “poor people in rich countries giving to rich people in poor countries.” I asked the volunteers where Gaia had actual projects (or even contacts with community people) in the third/developing world....

Just up the street from the California Clipper, FLYING SAUCER owners Rebecca Gleason and Atha Moe have given an artistic makeover to the space formerly occupied by Mary’s diner. To make the room a little less gritty, they’ve torn. out a dropped ceiling, ripped down paneling to reveal two arched windows, and painted the walls teal and pistachio. Chairs upholstered in a patchwork of pastels and Gleason’s huge grainy photos of roadside Americana counter the harsh iron grids covering the front windows, and they’ve kept some of the more charming old fixtures: the milk shake machine, a Kellogg’s cereal rack....

I’m a woman in my early 20s and I love to insert a tampon in my rear end when I masturbate. It gets me off but I feel dirty. Is this normal? Do other people share this pleasure? Does it have a name? But wait! It gets weirder: Not only was I writing a response to your question when I heard the news about Jackson, I was writing about Jackson in my response!...

It’s all too easy to put down The Sound of Music. Theater critics sniffed at the 1959 Broadway production, and film reviewers trashed the 1965 screen version, but the public knew better. The musical’s emotional openness and unguarded optimism honestly express the worldview of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein; as Ethan Mordden writes in his 1992 book on the team, The Sound of Music is “a very youthful piece written by the elderly, because it is entirely about freedom, which youth always seeks and the aged feel the loss of....

What to wear for the portrait? Mary Cassatt must have put the question to herself before she picked the gold-ribboned bonnet and shapely blue-green dress she immortalized in her watercolor self-portrait from about 1880. That work, along with William Zorach’s sketch of Edna St. Vincent Millay in a provocative silk robe and Charles Dana Gibson’s pencil drawing of Teddy Roosevelt and his starchy military uniform, is on display in the Elmhurst Art Museum’s exhibit Eye Contact: Modern American Portrait Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery....

By Ben Joravsky Weinberg says he never planned to get into a battle with Wirtz–it just sort of happened. It all started in the winter of 1991, when Weinberg and another hockey fanatic created the “Blue Line,” an alternative program for Blackhawks games. Their idea was to fill at least 4 pages–it grew to 20–with obscure statistics, offbeat facts, and gossipy tidbits about hockey players, and then peddle the program to the fans streaming into the Chicago Stadium....

I read with interest your column on the labor situation at the [Baltimore] Sun [Hot Type, June 27]. As a former reporter and editorial writer with 22 years of dealing with the Sun’s management, I think you gave management much too much credit for telling the truth. The quote from Linda Geeson about work rules is just nonsense and captures the problems at the Sun. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

As recently as the early 90s, WLUW–the Loyola University-owned radio station at 88.7 FM–delivered a slick, tedious all-dance format that seemed designed to churn out future WBMX jocks. But changes implemented by the school’s communication department over the past half decade have transformed it into one of the city’s most valuable radio stations, diversifying the music programming and, in keeping with the school’s Jesuit orientation, prioritizing community service. Now the on-air staff is professional without being cloying or annoying, and there’s an emphasis on local music....

THE AGE OF CYNICISM, OR KARAOKE NIGHT AT THE HOG | Keith Huff breaks the fourth wall before it’s even erected in his latest play, a droll–if insubstantial–audience-participation romantic comedy set at a trendy karaoke bar. Host Patrick Brennan greets patrons at the box office to encourage participation in the evening’s festivities; a few later get coaxed out of their seats to show their chops in front of a microphone. Director Ann Filmer sets a relaxed pace with the “he said, she said” vignettes framing the karaoke performances....