Nico Lang

With the summer apartment season finally upon us in Chicago, everyone I know is in the hot pursuit of the one thing that is even more important than getting a table at Girl and the Goat, snagging tickets to The Book of Mormon or finally getting CTA tracker to tell...

Last year, Travel and Leisure named Chicago fourth-best in civic pride -- of the country's major cities. In "Proud of Their City," T&L put Chicago after New Orleans, San Juan and Savannah. As they begin to conduct their survey for this year, I compiled a partial list of...

Nana,

I should have written you this letter a very long time ago, but it seems that my life has been composed of a lot of should haves, so I will allow myself this one. My father asked me not to divulge parts of what I am about to tell...

After the When in Boystown Tumblr took Chicago by viral storm this week, I found out about it the way it seems like I find out about everything these days: Facebook told me. And almost immediately, polarizing reactions to the account populated my News Feed; some praised it...

Having had the displeasure of actually reading Steve Harvey's Think Like a Man, Act Like a Lady, I thought I knew what I was in for with the movie adaptation, whose title was shortened to Think Like a Man. When Steve Harvey's shamelessly self-promoting advice book isn't offering up observations...

I've always understood what the words "rape" and "abuse" meant -- or the basic definitions at least. My elementary and middle school (nestled in the suburbs outside of Cincinnati) were oddly good on sexual education for a small Ohio town and, as early as third grade, I can remember sitting...

Preface: This post refers to very difficult subject matter and is not suitable for all audiences. It comes with a heavy trigger warning. However, as April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I thought it was important to share my own story. For more information on SAAM, resources and how you...

Unless you are living under a rock, you are probably somewhat aware that The Hunger Games surpassed even the wildest industry expectations about how well it would do over the weekend. On top of besting the first-weekend grosses of all four of the Twilight films thus far released, it was...

Last week, the song "Midnight City" by M83 officially broke into Billboard Hot 100 and is currently sitting at a modest #78 on the chart, not yet Adele-stellar but far from terrible. If you somehow missed out on the massive outpouring of critical love for "Midnight...

Dear Kirk,

This is hard for me -- because, in a way, we are like brothers. (Cain and Abel kind of brothers, but brothers nonetheless.) You see, I was raised by my grandparents, who were old and cranky and brought me up in the best way they knew how: by...

Before I begin, I want to issue a disclaimer: I have no particular investment in the film career of Lindsay Lohan, and I'm not really a big fan of her acting. Although I think the remake of Freaky Friday is underrated, I enjoy Jamie Lee Curtis' performance in...

Hollywood is not a nice place for actresses, something even a passing glimpse into the career trajectories of Thora Birch, Jessica Alba or Janeane Garofalo will indicate. If you're a woman in Tinseltown, the industry is not a space that's run by you or for you -- and any success...

The Grammys should be ashamed of themselves.

To preface this, we all know that, as a voting body, the Grammys are not always the best representation of the music industry itself. They have a marked bias against rap, and they usually award the whitest person in every category, which explains...