A few months back when Azari & III came to Smart Bar (a Weekend Dance Party pick at the time), all reports indicated a pretty lackluster night in terms of attendance. Which, you know, is a shame, considering Azari & III are one of the best emerging house music acts in the world. Lucky for us, Chicago's getting a mulligan and the Toronto-based duo are coming back, this time to Debonair Social Club as part of the Scion A/V Release Tour. more ›

Let's get one thing out of the way right at the top here: love him or hate him, Kanye West is arguably one of the most -- if not THE most -- interesting thing in pop culture today. While some bemoan the notion that West's antics have eclipsed his music, we find that notion to be misguided in its insistence that West be held to past ideas and methods of judging artistic achievement when the man so obviously has an uncanny grasp of the RIGHT NOW. That could have led him to get lost in pop ephemera were his prodigious musical output not so consistently outstanding. Consider West's latest salvo, this 35-minute video amidst the war drums building in intensity as the the release date of his new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy draws ever nearer. more ›

• A five-hour standoff in Englewood ended when police shot and injured the man barricaded inside an apartment; there's no word on his condition.
• A jury of five women, seven men and five alternates has been seated for the Jon Burge trial.
• Police are searching for an 11-year-old Southwest Side girl who has apparently run away with a 22-year-old man described as her "boyfriend." (no, that's not a typo)

As the family of Jahmeshia Conner struggles to accept the girl's murder - ruled a death by strangulation by the Cook County medical examiner's office - and police search for clues in the case, family members are beginning to question the police response to the initial report that the 12-year-old girl had gone missing. Family members say the last time Jahmeshia was seen was on the night of Sunday, November 15, when her aunt watched her board a CTA bus. By 3 a.m., she had not returned home, though Jameshia's mother at that time assumed the girl had stayed the night at her aunt's house. When she didn't come home from school on the afternoon of the 16th, almost 24 hours after the girl had last been seen, the family contacted police. more ›

A 12-year-old Naperville boy who had gone missing, along with his family's SUV, was found this morning unharmed at O'Hare Airport. Earlier reports of the boy reported on the boy's tendency to sleepwalk but officials say that played no role in this incident and that the boy drove away under "his own free will." Police considered his disappearance a runaway situation. Police were able to find the SUV's tracks in the snow and follow them. Said Police Commander Dave Hoffman, "The tracks were all over the place. It was pretty apparent it was an inexperienced driver." more ›

To say writer Nami Mun has led an interesting life would be a gross understatement. Mun was born in Seoul, South Korea and moved to the states with her family when she was young, growing up in the Bronx. A teen runaway, her jobs have included being a bartender, a photojournalist, a street vendor, an Avon Lady, and a criminal investigator. After getting her bachelors from UC Berkeley, she got her MFA form the University of Michigan, where she won a Hopwood Award for fiction and the Farrar Prize for Drama (she's also won a Pushcart Prize and earned several fellowships). Her work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Tin House, and the Evergreen Review. more ›