Psalm One ramps up the promotion of her upcoming album. New Holland Brewing and the Publican celebrate the best late season produce Michigan has to offer with a dinner. more ›

Today's listings include a birthday celebration at Pastoral, beer and sliders at Sheffield's and a preview of a play based on a Bette Midler movie. more ›

Today's listings include the Chicago Sidewalk Sale, Yoga in grant Park and mussels at Jake Melnick's for Belgian Independence Day. more ›

Today's listings include Chefs in the City, beer in Lincoln Square, a last call for a farm dinner and a Latin Grammy nominee playing Mayne Stage. more ›

Beer more ›

Reminder: the Alt-media slam is tonight. more ›

Today's events include a fundraiser featuring Stephanie Izard and a rare Colleen Moore film screening. more ›

Today's listings include a Local H performance, a screening of a Nuremburg documentary and special dinner at North Pond. more ›

Tastings for Charity more ›

Today's listings include pierogis, BBQ, bourbon, champagne and Chevalier. more ›

Today's listings feature activism, Spanish pop music and an Indonesian style buffet. more ›

Anne Lamott is stopping by the Oak Brook Borders tonight (one of the few Chicagoland locations that’s staying open while the company figures out all that bankruptcy stuff). She is promoting the paperback release of her most recent novel, Imperfect Birds. In this book, she continues the story of Elizabeth Ferguson and her daughter Rosie. As Elizabeth struggles with sobriety, teenager Rosie struggles with her own addiction. For more on Anne Lamott, check out our interview with her last summer. Anne Lamott reads from Imperfect Birds, Oak Brook Borders, 1500 16th Street, Suite D, Oakbrook, 7 p.m. more ›

On May 4, 1961, civil rights activist started riding buses into the South to challenge segregation laws in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Boynton v. Virginia, which struck down racial segregation in public transportation as a violation of the Interstate Commerce Act. The mostly young men and women who embarked on these "Freedom Rides" expected violence and opposition, and were beaten, faced with angry mobs and imprisonment on their travels. But their courage from May to December 1961 in the face of the Jim Crow South inspired scores of citizens on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line to join the Civil Rights Movement. more ›

Russian director Dziga Vertov's 1929 experimental film Man With a Movie Camera (aka The Man With the Movie Camera) is something of a masterpiece of silent film. Shot largely in Odessa with support from the Ukrainian film studio VUFKU, Vertov captures the dawn to dusk minutiae of citizens in the post-Bolshevik revolution Soviet Union. more ›

Last month, Rob posted an update of the former Bank of America Cinema's transformation into the Northwest Chicago Film Society. We wanted to remind you that the reconstituted organization's screenings begin tomorrow night with a screening of Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind at the Portage Theater. The film is about alcoholic playboy and oil tycoon scion Kyle Hadley (Robert Stack) who marries Lucy Moore (Lauren Bacall). But Hadley's poor but hard-working best friend, Mitch Wayne (Rock Hudson) also pines for Lucy. Meanwhile, Kyle's sister Marylee (Dorothy Malone) is a cat on a hot tin roof who wants to scratch Mitch's post. more ›

• Today: Acradia Brewing "Ale-vangelist" Jim Javenkoski will be hosting a tasting of the Battle Creek, MI brewery's English-inspired ales at Provenance Food & Wine's Logan Square location (2528 N. California, 773-384-0699) from 5-8 p.m.
• Saturday: In Fine Spirits is hosting a holiday wine tasting from 3-6 p.m. in the wine shop (5418 N. Clark).
• Saturday: A reminder about the Empty Bottle's farmer's market from 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.

• Friday: The House of Glunz's annual champagne, sushi and caviar event takes place this evening from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Sushi will be provided by Sai Café, Carolyn Collins Caviar. This event tends to sell out so call 312-642-3000 or visit the House of Glunz website to RSVP.
• LUSH Wine & Spirits' West Town location is now open at 1412 W. Chicago Ave.
• Saturday: If Anthony's photo essay of Toni Roberts's dessert plating didn't have you wanting to go to C-House, maybe their $25 High C Holiday brunch will. This prix fixe brunch menu includes your choice of two cocktails between "The Rudolph" (vodka or tequila, tomato juice, fresh horseradish, lemon juice and tobasco); "From the North" (a soothing mix of red wine, vodka, port, cloves, orange zest, accompanied with cinnamon sticks); "Winter Wonderland" (bourbon, heavy cream, egg whites, and nutmeg); "The Poinsettia" (sparkling wine, cointreau, and cranberry juice). All mimosas, bloody marys and sparkling wines are being sold for $5. (Affinia Chicago Hotel, 166 E. Superior, 10:30 a.m. - 3 p.m., Reservations recommended).

Robert Kenner's documentary Food, Inc. is a harsh look at how Americans get their food in the age of factory farms and the tacit approval of their techniques the USDA and FDA. Slow Food Chicago is sponsoring a free screening of the film at 600 N. Michigan this evening at 7 p.m. more ›

Years ago, we were witness as Miller, Anheuser-Busch, and Coors collected distribution rights or partial ownerships to craft breweries in a high-stakes chess game over control of the beer drinker's dollar. Now there's InBev/A-B, MillerCoors, and a bunch of craft breweries trying like hell to maintain their independence and run successful businesses. Director Anat Baron's "Beer Wars" is being called a "David and Goliath" story, Following Dogfish Head's Sam Calagione and Rhonda Kallman of New Century Brewing, "Beer Wars" takes the viewer into the boardrooms, brewhouses, and follows sales reps on their calls as they fight for space in an already saturated marketplace. more ›

Comedy more ›

If you haven't figured it out by now, the Chicagoist offices have a "Top Chef" fever. How the makeup artists at Bravo make Gail Simmons (pictured) look not so Canadian, we'll never know. But we thank them. more ›