Since this spring Chicago singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Xoe Wise has been parking her scooter at intersections around town for small, outdoor pop-up performances—a series she calls “Curbside Live,” where she collects tips via Venmo to donate to local venues and businesses. Wise plays magisterial indie folk that retains its grandeur even when she pares her instrumentation down to just acoustic guitar, so the al fresco format of Curbside Live doesn’t handicap her at all....

To gain some perspective on the teachers’ strike that just ended, I thought I’d fire up the old time machine and go back to 1980—January to be exact—when Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You” topped the charts. And still the Tribune‘s editorial writers opposed the strike and blamed it on the union. Apparently, the Tribsters wanted teachers to work for nothing. Neither! Some unnamed Tribune editorialist wrote that beaut in 1967, when “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees topped the charts....

There are no major protests or demonstrations in Chicago today on International Women’s Day—but that doesn’t mean women are ignoring the push for pay equity, reproductive justice, and gender parity. Instead, more women are getting politically active: they’re planning to vote, become activists, or run for office themselves. On the eve of International Women’s Day, Taylor took the stage during Russian feminist punk band/protest group Pussy Riot’s show at the Subterranean to talk to an overwhelmingly female audience about the importance of engagement in politics....

It’s Pride month, sinners, and with that comes a melange of rainbow-slathered everything. Yay, love! Yay, parades! As queerness becomes more marketable, however, it risks becoming more whitewashed. So! To keep the “homo” out of homogenization, we spoke with the city’s queer and creative about the media that influenced them most as they were coming out—a reminder that there’s no one right way to forge an identity. Devlyn Camp, creator of the Mattachine podcast...

Welcome to the Reader’s cannabis column To Be Blunt. We’re here to answer your canna questions with the help of budtenders, attorneys, medical practitioners, chefs, researchers, legislators, and patient care advocates. Send your cannabis queries to tobeblunt@chicagoreader.com. THC-COOH: an inactive metabolite of THC that stays in your fatty tissues for up to 30 days. “The chance of testing positive for cannabis on a company drug test depends on the type of CBD product you use, and how you consume it....

ARTIST: Johnny Sampson SHOW: Bully, Downtown Boys, and DJ Stephen Sowley at Empty Bottle on Fri 7/8 MORE INFO: johnnysampson.com

At 5 PM Saturday, March 21, Governor J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 Executive Order No. 8, aka the Stay at Home order, took effect. Here’s a daily-ish journal of how Reader staff, our friends, family—and our pets—are spending our time. Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Hulu Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on Netflix

At 5 PM Saturday, March 21, Governor J.B. Pritzker’s COVID-19 Executive Order No. 8, aka the Stay at Home order, took effect. Here’s a daily-ish journal of how Reader staff, our friends, family—and our pets—are spending our time. Mrs. America on Hulu What we’re cooking:

Whether you’re looking for a trick or a treat this weekend, there’s plenty to do. Be sure to check out Chicago’s best Halloween 2016 events and seven theater and comedy shows for the spooky season. And see more of what we recommend below. Sat 10/29: If you’ve been inspired by The Great British Baking Show‘s Chetna, Nadiya, and Tamal to use more south Asian flavors in your baking, you could do worse than learn from Malika Ameen, a past Top Chef: Just Desserts contestant and former pastry chef at Aigre Doux, who has just published her first book, Sweet Sugar, Sultry Spice....

Many years ago a college friend who was one of the lucky ones—right out of J-school she got a reporting job with the Chicago Tribune—led me up a public elevator to a little-known service elevator and out onto a terrace at the top of a hotel that’s now the InterContinental. It was a summer night. Stars lit the sky above and glittering Michigan Avenue below. And at our exalted level, almost near enough to touch, loomed the Tribune Tower’s mighty gothic crown....

The members of this Colombia-rooted, New York City-based quartet—vocalist and percussionist Carolina Oliveros, drummer Dilemastronauta, guitarist Niño Lento, and bassist-keyboardist Prince of Queens—have been pursuing what they call “tropical futurism” since 2015. Combo Chimbita’s magical, trippy rhythms are potent dance-inducing potions that build upon an extensive variety of beats from the global south, including Afro-Colombian cumbia and champeta, Caribbean calypso, and Haitian kompa. The group imbue their experimental jams with Afro-indigenous mysticism and spirituality as well as the fierce energy of punk and metal, and propel them into the 21st century with dub and electro....

Last week Florida rapper Denzel Curry released a double EP called 32 Zel / Planet Shrooms, and I’ve had trouble getting into the Planet Shrooms portion—whenever I get halfway through I end up going back to replay 32 Zel. Curry sounds like he’s teeming with anger on the bulk of these tracks, and at times he speedily raps till it seems like he’s gasping for air, as if he’s pushing himself a little more to wrap up each line with a bang....

There are few people in the world who have thought more deeply about the art of comics than Scott McCloud. In his trilogy Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics, and Making Comics, he provided a thorough explanation—in graphic form—of the theory and practice of storytelling through sequential drawings in little boxes. But although McCloud, who is 54, had worked for DC and created his own series of black-and-white comic books, Zot!, he had never tried his hand at the graphic novel ....

courtesy of the artist Joëlle Léandre The Bridge, an ongoing partnership between improvisers from Chicago and throughout France, is in the midst of another local run with one of its strongest lineups yet. Making its first appearance in Chicago is the first iteration of the project, which toured France in the fall of 2013: from across the pond come trumpeter Jean-Luc Cappozzo, bassist Joëlle Léandre, and bassist Bernard Santacruz; they join local percussionist Michael Zerang and reedist Douglas Ewart....

courtesy of Metabolic Studio Most pinhole cameras are made out of shoe boxes. But Lauren Bon, Richard Nielsen, and Tristan Duke’s pinhole camera is a shipping crate. Since 2010 the three artists, all part of the optics team at LA’s Metabolic Studio, which uses “devices of wonder” to investigate energy sources, have been traveling the globe with this “liminal camera” in order to document the ways people use water resources....

About 15 years ago, vernacular photo collector Nicholas Osborn was rummaging through a flea market in Wisconsin when he came across a bunch of 16-millimeter reels. They featured kitschy performances by B-list 1960s music acts, formatted in a way that resembled the modern music video: one was of singer-songwriter duo Dick and Dee Dee poorly lip-synching their tune “Where Did All the Good Times Go” while a bevy of scantily clad dancers moved clumsily behind them on the Santa Monica Pier; another captured platinum-blonde model Joi Lansing singing the torch song “Web of Love” while ensnared in a giant spiderweb....

For more than a century, Chicago has played an outsize role in shaping music trends worldwide. Much of the credit is due (and often long overdue) to Chicago’s Black artists, who formed the city’s epicenters of jazz, blues, and gospel, laying the groundwork for rock ‘n’ roll. Black artists in Chicago also made the music that would become known as house, sparking a global dance movement. In a staunchly segregated city where neighborhood boundaries hem in people and possibilities, Black artists have repeatedly created music that crosses national borders to move bodies, change minds, and touch hearts—and in doing so they’ve established the foundations for the success of so many artists who followed them....

This Saturday at noon, the Music Box Theatre kicks off Music Box of Horrors, its annual 24-hour, horror-movie marathon. The event is commendable for being one of the most cost-effective shows around. Tickets are $30 in advance and $35 on the day of the event—which means if you see all 12 movies in the marathon, you spend less than three dollars per film. Several of the titles would be worth seeing at full price, however; adding to the enticement, almost everything in the marathon will be screening from celluloid....

The word “osmosis” was thrown around liberally last Thursday night, as if no one was quite sure how Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff happened. Not even the novel’s author, Sean Penn—a Hollywood A-lister for four decades—could offer a satisfactory explanation. “You couldn’t possibly have thought this, but underneath—correct me if I’m wrong—” But the book seemed to create more questions than answers. Even the genre was unclear. Dybek called it a book of “constant, nonstop invention” and a present-tense dystopian novel....

Some people found new hobbies during the pandemic, like making bread or crafting. Some took the time to work on themselves, and are now sporting new clothes, piercings, tattoos, or identities. Some did some spring, winter, fall, and summer cleaning. And some made the leap into the exploding world of online sex work. The COVID-19 pandemic and its disastrous economic impacts for many also created a perfect storm of sorts for fan sites, giving people a way to make some money amid record-high rates of unemployment....