What if, on a daily basis, you had to choose between taking a shower or doing laundry? Making dinner or taking out the trash? Reading a book or catching up on e-mail? I say “our” because this is now my life, too. With a relatively mild case, I can walk and talk—except for those times I can’t. But recent research coming out of Chicago could help explain one of ME’s most destructive symptoms: the cognitive impairments that leave patients lost in a “brain fog” of slowed comprehension and short-term memory loss....

Tribune Publishing countered Gannett’s bid for control of the company by adopting a “poison pill” strategy Monday: if Gannett (or any other corporate raider) acquires more than 20 percent of the stock, existing shareholders will be able to buy preferred shares at a big discount, thus driving down the value of the raider’s new holdings. What’s more, Oaktree let it be known it intended to lobby other “significant stockholders” and that this lobbying “may result in a plan for common action....

Drag has become so much more than queens lip-synching covers of diva classics. The more original your act is, the better, and in 2020 the possibilities are endless. The art form has permeated pop culture’s language, fashion, and notions of beauty, and it’s crossed over into other creative disciplines as well, including comedy, television, and film. It’s long been a symbol of liberation, and drag queens have increasingly become leaders within the LGBTQ community and beyond, using their platforms to elevate conversations around oppressive policies and aim deserved outrage at issues such as anti-trans legislation, sexual violence, and homelessness among queer youth....

Drummer Chris Corsano has plenty of steady partnerships, whether it’s in his various groupings with the fire-breathing western Massachusetts saxophonist Paul Flaherty, the Arabic-infused free-rock trio Rangda, or Vampire Belt, his splattery noise project with guitarist Bill Nace. But in a broader sense I think of him as a free agent, an improviser who ignores all boundaries and limitations and seems game for any challenge—playing and touring with Bjork or going head-to-head with the legendary British saxophonist Evan Parker....

Back in April, a north-side resident named Nick Burt filed a public records request with Chicago Public Schools, seeking internal e-mails and other information regarding the firing of Troy LaRaviere. It might as well have just given him the middle finger. And let me tell you, Mayor Rahm and his school appointees are masters of this game. CPS sent Dapier a batch of heavily redacted e-mails that were virtually impossible to read....

Q: I am a 22-year-old Italian man, 100 percent straight, sensitive and sporty. I have been reading Savage Love for years in Internazionale. I have one question for you: Why do I always fall in love with lesbians? Why do I instantly fall in love with girls who have that something more in their eyes? Something melancholy and perhaps insecure? Girls whom I’d rather protect and embrace than take to bed?...

Even by New York City standards, Louis “Moondog” Hardin (1916-1999) was a character. For a quarter century beginning in the late 1940s, his blind, hirsute form occupied a spot on Sixth Avenue. Sometimes he performed or sold his music, and other times he just stood there, looking imposing in Viking garb. His music included proto-minimalist orchestral pieces and short, intricate rounds that sounded like a glee club vocalizing over Native American rhythms, which Moondog had become enamored with as a child while visiting an Arapaho reservation in Wyoming....

Update: This show has been canceled to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Tickets will be refunded at point of purchase. When I was in middle school in the mid-90s, I cut my teeth on the hyperslick skate-punk records churned out by California label Fat Wreck Chords. But when I got to high school and discovered “smarter,” more “highbrow” punk bands such as Fugazi and the Honor System, the scene that first captured my attention might as well have simply ceased to exist....

When you hear the term “art book,” what do you think? Do you imagine a gleaming, high-end store exclusively for sophisticates, academics, and design geeks? Do you reflexively visualize a heavy, clunky publication that never moves from the same spot on your living room table? Or do you just pine for all the beautiful-looking books that are too expensive and unwieldy for you ever to display in your tiny apartment?...

The cover story of the latest New Republic must be admired. In other words, the more things change . . . Heer concedes a case can be made that between the late 30s and mid-70s the New Republic covered the civil rights movement as well as any white magazine. But then two things happened. The movement shifted from a clear-cut battle for legal rights to a much more complicated and ambiguous battle for equal social and economic standing....

Nothing is better at making Barack Obama look good than Donald Trump. The crowd of 150 18- to 24-year-olds jumped to their feet to greet him and were clearly thrilled to participate as Obama conducted a “reverse town hall” where he asked questions and they gave answers about societal problems they intend to solve and how they’ll bring about change. And they’ve got the organizing thing down: Jackson Park Watch, which started as online posts by two concerned south-side residents, announced in September that it has become a formally organized nonprofit (operating under the fiscal sponsorship of Friends of the Parks)....

Paul Beaty/AP Do Chicago’s sports reporters really care about Derrick Rose? A couple of seasons ago, the Tribune assigned two reporters to chronicle every basket, sneeze, and backfire of the team bus as the Simeon varsity pursued its fourth straight Illinois state basketball championship. Jabari Parker was the star of that team, and Derrick Rose, who’d led Simeon to three two championships a few years earlier, was the standard of excellence....

QI have a dildo that I loooooove, and I was wondering if it’s safe for me to use it in both my ass and my cunt. I would clean it in between uses/orifices, of course, and it has a flared base, so it’s safe for anal play. Can I do this, or do I need to get separate toys for ass and cunt? —Ass/Cunt Timeshare Don’t know if your dildo is made from a porous or nonporous material?...

I’ll watch just about anything filmed in Chicago. As someone who’s lived here a long time, I like to see my city onscreen. But films and TV shows almost never get it right. CNN’s Chicagoland was a multipart campaign infomercial for Rahm; Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq burned with righteous vitriol but could’ve been set in any American city. Several dramatic series film here, including the wacky Shameless, which is an entertaining show but doesn’t really have much to say about the city....

I don’t ride a bike all that often—because Chicago has a dearth of safe, protected bike lanes on roads I might use for commuting, and because I lack the vigor and bravery needed to ride alongside cars and buses on most of our thoroughfares. But when I do, I hate wearing a helmet. In the summer, it’s hot, in the winter, it’s cold, and at all times it messes up my hair and looks ugly and stupid....

Chicago’s LGBTQ community reacted to news of the shooting that killed at least 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning with an outpouring of support, solidarity, and grief. As the city woke Monday, plans for numerous vigils were already in place, following up on one that took place Sunday evening. Vigil in Chicago for #Orlando. pic.twitter.com/ihlYCU0DcX — Josh Evans (@jwe312) June 12, 2016 The vigil was organized by Chicago Survivors, an organization dedicated to helping the families of victims of gun violence in the city, and was attended by Chicago Police Department superintendent Eddie Johnson, among others....

The Art Ensemble of Chicago have always been in it for the long haul. Founded in 1967 as the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble, they adopted their current handle 50 years ago this summer, upon relocating temporarily to Paris. They’d already dropped Mitchell’s name to emphasize their evolving collective approach, and they added “of Chicago” after a French promoter billed them that way. At the time their lineup consisted of Mitchell and Joseph Jarman on reeds and other woodwinds, Lester Bowie on trumpet, Malachi Favors Maghostut on bass, and everyone on the handheld percussion they’d dubbed “little instruments”; drummer Famoudou Don Moye, who was already in Paris, became a member of the ensemble there....

A torch has been passed. Or maybe a bird has been flipped. Wieseltier would. He wrote back a long letter praising the Point as “handsome” and “defiantly classical.” And for the editors to use as they wished, he wrote this: “The Point should lift every sagging humanist spirit. It is intellectually serious, independent, far-reaching, spirited, and elegant—a stirring act of resistance against the shrinkage of intellectual life in our culture of takeaways and metrics....

Q: I am a super queer-presenting female who recently accepted that I have desires for men. My partner of two years is bisexual and understands the desires, but has personally dealt with those desires via masturbation while my desires include acting. Her perspective is that the grass is greener where you water it and that my desire to act is immature, selfish, and has an unrealistic end game. What gives when you don’t feel fulfilled sexually in a monogamous relationship?...