Just two minutes before the Monday grand opening of Logan Square’s first medical marijuana dispensary, co-owner Doug Marks steps out of the space’s Milwaukee Avenue entrance. The entryway is easy to miss—the word “moca,” short for Modern Cannabis, is stamped on the door in bright yellow, pink, and blue, but the words nearly blend in with the mass of posters and graffiti that dominates the adjacent wall. “We have to be very careful in inventory,” he adds....

Sunset Boulevard Each Friday, we recommend seven Old Movies to Watch Now, all of which come recommended by one of our critics and can currently be screened online. Read the review, watch the movie, feel accomplished. • Nine Lives, Rodrigo Garcia’s 2005 ensemble drama.

This week’s poster didn’t exist 21 years ago, but the concert it advertises did happen. Logan Square artist Scott Baker was inspired by this column’s recent fantasy gig posters to look through his collection of old ticket stubs and take a trip down memory lane. Not everybody can make a fantasy gig poster, of course, but it’s simple and free to take action through the website of the National Independent Venue Association—click here to tell your representatives to save our homegrown music ecosystems....

The 20th Ward of Chicago stands at a historic moment. It’s on the verge of tying with the 23rd and 31st wards, both of which have had three aldermen go to prison since 1972, for the unprestigious distinction of most aldermen convicted for corruption. Its current alderman, self-described “gangster” Willie Cochran, awaits a federal trial on bribery, extortion, and wire fraud charges. Over the last 30 years two of his three predecessors—Cliff Kelley and Arenda Troutman—have gone to prison for bribery and fraud....

We don’t know about you, but with last week’s taco crawl (the Reader cover story), we’ve been laser-focused on tacos, not unlike a mural on the wall at one of the featured stop’s on the crawl, El Santo Taqueria. 

Here’s one thing about reproductive rights I know for sure: If men were the ones who had to carry a pregnancy for nine months, go through an excruciating childbirth, and then be responsible for the care and well-­being of another person for the next several decades, they’d be picking up their over-the-counter abortion pills at the drugstore along with their shaving lotion. Maybe even at the grocery store. Nobody would bat an eye....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.

Blues music thrives on live interaction between performer and audience, but for nearly a year and a half, that’s been in short supply. Clubs are caught between “waiting to reopen” and “slowly coming back,” and Millennium Park has been largely quiet—for two Junes running, the city has canceled the Chicago Blues Festival. Our blues artists haven’t shown any serious signs of decline, though, even in these grim circumstances, and we’ll get a sampling of what they have to offer when the city’s Chicago in Tune festival presents a free Pritzker Pavilion concert on September 18 to mark the 50th anniversary of Alligator Records....

The land my family owns is in Boley, Oklahoma. Boley is one of the more than 50 towns in the state where Creek Native Americans and the descendants of formerly enslaved Black people, called “Creek Freedmen,” found unoccupied land after the Muskogee Cimeter, a Black newspaper, posted an advertisement: “Thousands of our native people are land holders, and have thousands of acres of rich lands to rent and lease. We prefer to rent and lease our lands to colored people....

With dozens of gallery booths spread across Navy Pier’s 170,000-square-foot Festival Hall, Expo Chicago offers a prime opportunity to see new art. But is it also the right venue for someone who’s looking to begin collecting? Adam Fields, who’s been collecting for six years and has attended Expo since its inaugural, believes it is. “It showcases the majority of the local galleries and local artists,” he says. Fields is a Chicago native who now lives in New York, where he’s the founder and CEO of Arta, a start-up he describes as “Expedia for high-end art shipping....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Tuesday, December 5, 2017. Obama returns to Chicago Tuesday for Emanuel climate change meeting Former president Barack Obama will be in Chicago Tuesday to speak at Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s two-day climate change conference. Mayors from North American cities will sign the Chicago Climate Charter pledging to reduce emissions and make their cities more environmentally friendly. “President Obama helped lead the fight against climate change with bold and decisive action, and we are honored he will be joining the North American Climate Summit where local leaders from around the world will make meaningful commitments to climate solutions,” Emanuel said....

Has anyone ever been disowned faster than Juan Thompson? A former reporter for the website The Intercept, he allegedly “fabricated several quotes in his stories and created fake email accounts that he used to impersonate people, one of which was a Gmail account in my name.” Until hours ago, stories by Thompson for the Intercept were topped by an intro that called him a “former reporter with a focus on crime, punishment, the police state, and race....

As it was for the people behind virtually every other progressive cause, the election of Donald Trump was a sad day for those of us who want to see the U.S. move toward a more efficient, healthy, and equitable transportation system. Under the Obama administration, our city won many federal grants and loans for CTA track and station improvements, as well as bike and pedestrian projects like the Divvy system, the Bloomingdale Trail, and the Chicago Riverwalk extension....

A man in a black suit with an earpiece met us at the front door at Mordecai. We’d missed the sign, but since he told us this with the cheerful demeanor of a prison guard—and without explaining why—we offered to exit and reenter next door through the Hotel Zachary. We wanted to do the right thing for Mordecai. There are TVs above the bar too. In kindness, they’re mounted behind screens—which oddly doesn’t allow much close scrutiny of the game, calling into question their very purpose....

Last week Riot Fest Presents, Rock Sin Anestesia, Metronome, and Star Events announced the debut of Ruido Fest, which they claim is the first three-day, multistage outdoor festival in the U.S. devoted to Spanish-language rock and Latin alternative music—and it’s happening in Pilsen this summer! Top-tier acts booked for the fest, which takes over Addams Park from Fri 7/10 till Sun 7/12, include Mexico City alt-rock kings Cafe Tacvba, LA fusion group Ozo­matli, and Monterrey electronic-­rock outfit Kinky (who also play Double Door on Wed 5/20)....

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. Legend of Zelda, The Wind Waker HD Pandemic 2 v v

The creators of Khecari’s weeklong dance event, The Retreat , encourage audience members to fall asleep. Or rather Khecari’s artistic directors, Jonathan Meyer and Julia Rae Antonick, who have been developing the project since 2014, fuse improvisation and highly structured choreography into an amorphous performance designed to put viewers in a meditative headspace. Meyer and Antonick want to evoke the feeling of being in the wilderness, using fabric and light to transform Pilsen’s Glass Factory into a living environment....

Lend an ear to the Chicago Podcast Festival, currently in town and running through Friday 10/8. There are plenty of live tapings (the full schedule is at chicagopodcastfestival.org). Here are three you shouldn’t miss: I’m Spiritual, Dammit!

If Illinois legalizes recreational cannabis, David Tello plans to come home. Until he decides whether to return to his wife and two children in Peoria, Illinois, in May, he’s staying in California, where he’s helping his brother relaunch their cannabis company in that state’s new recreational market. If recreational cannabis becomes legal here, Tello will launch MelloVibes, a cannabis dispensary, in Peoria. But for now, he’s legally blocked from the industry he knows best because of a previous conviction that he later got sealed....