These magic moments – fondly looking back to 2013

A protest against censorship that attracted global attention. A song cycle staged in a park district swimming pool. A Rahm Emanuel snit that became fodder for TV's Jon Stewart. Those were just some of the indelible moments in the arts in 2013, which Tribune critics and reporters observed and chronicled. Among the highlights and lowlights:

Protesters of 'Persepolis'-gate

March 15, Lane Tech College Prep High School, Chicago

Massive school closings, epic teacher layoffs. Chicago Public Schools officials had plenty to answer for in 2013. So much that their decision in the spring to yank Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel/memoir "Persepolis" out of schools and libraries because of a complaint (about a single image of torture) became something of a cultural blip. But what a blip: The banning led students at Lane Tech to rally against censorship in the rain outside their school. Which led to the news spreading internationally, the irony of the banned selection particularly poignant. (The 13-year-old book tells the story of Satrapi's childhood in culturally repressive Iran.) Which gave 451 Degrees, an obscure student book club at Lane Tech that reads only banned books, a popularity it couldn't have achieved on its own. Six months later long after the outcry led to CPS telling its principals to reinstate "Persepolis" 451 Degrees, founded by 16-year-old senior Levi Todd, was given the Illinois Library Association's prestigious Intellectual Freedom Award. Christopher Borrelli

Taken aback by savage beasts

March 16, South by Southwest Music Conference, Austin, Texas

The sign of a great band: One that makes you take two steps back when it hits the first chord. It's like a force field pushing out from the stage, at once thrilling and threatening. That's what it felt like to see and hear the British quartet Savages for the first time. The fury kept escalating until singer Jehnny Beth, bassist Ayse Hassan, drummer Fay Milton and guitarist Gemma Thompson ripped into the venomous "Husbands" and stalked off. Greg Kot

The glow of movies, music and beauty

May 21, Cannes Film Festival, France

At the close of "The Great Beauty," a modern-day "La Dolce Vita" from Italian fabulist Paolo Sorrentino, the end credits roll as a single, sustained shot of Rome's Tiber River is shown from the perspective of an unseen boat, gliding along as the sun casts a pearly glow. At the film's Cannes Film Festival premiere back in May, hundreds of people stayed through to the end, to bathe in Sorrentino's farewell shot and to listen to every last note of music accompanying the images. The music: Vladimir Martynov's "The Beatitudes," recorded by the Kronos Quartet. Sitting with that Cannes crowd, full of Chicagoans, I was reminded of the easily forgotten truth: Movies are communal, democratic, made for and by humans. My wife and I ended up using that music in our wedding. ("The Great Beauty," one of the 2013's best, opens Jan. 3 at the Music Box Theatre.) Michael Phillips

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These magic moments - fondly looking back to 2013