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The city’s first food equity council works to feed everyone - Sharon Hoyer

It isn't often that a major news article manages to thread together multiple levels (from on the ground reports on up through to big picture theorizing) about a thorny policy issue into a coherent and compelling narrative, but this Chicago Reader piece about food distribution policy efforts manages to do just that and more - the multiple levels of detail also make it a good entry point for anyone in Chicago who wants to learn more about these efforts. 

naked (1993)

A hard, sad, funny, sometimes brilliant, very rape-y movie (so, like, I would not recommend it to most), full of moments and characters that manage to be simultaneously theatrical and profoundly human.

the grace of kings by ken liu

This incredibly long and detailed fantasy epic series is entirely too incredibly long and detailed; by 25% through I realized that remembering who all the different main characters were would take far more effort than the book deserved. 

road house (1989)

never knew much about this classic until I watched it; for some reason I was equating it with cayote ugly but really it's much more like a western with a few modern twists thrown in - and really it's a lot of fun with a lot of stupid lines sprinkled throughout that you'll love to repeat. 

jodorowsky's dune (2013)

from the mesmerizing electronic music to the deep interviews to the wonderful recreations of pieces of jodorosky's movie that never was, this 90 minute doc really shines, really does justice to the ambitious scale of the project. 

the year of our way by Steph Swainston

on the positive side the world building, adult themes (how often do fantasy epics treat with drug addiction?), and characters are great; on the negative side there were too many inscrutable names of people and things, and the writing could be better in places - but this is the author's first, so I'm looking forward to seeing her improve in the sequel.