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If I’d known city officials were going to try to ban biking on the new Chicago Riverwalk, I never would have advocated for building it. From the start, the Riverwalk extension was promoted as a commuting corridor for cyclists and pedestrians, not just a place to lounge with a glass of cabernet. Obviously, you’d have to be nuts to bike at full speed through that mass of humanity. Dismounting, or at least riding at walking speed, are the only safe and nonsociopathic options....

Yesterday New York rapper Action Bronson dropped “Actin Crazy,” the first single from his forthcoming major-label debut, Mr. Wonderful. I tuned in because of the song’s credits—Noah “40” Shebib, Drake‘s close collaborator, produced it—but this is Bronson’s show, and I also pressed play for his outsized persona, flamboyant rhymes, and the occasional food reference. The MC delivers with stoned aplomb, though I wasn’t entirely won over until the halfway mark, when Bronson raps, “All I do is eat oysters / And speak six languages in three voices....

It’s remarkable how easy it is to become completely invested in the love and lives of Terry Donahue and Pat Henschel. An accusation of queerness carried heavy consequences: countless people were arrested from the bars. Their names would be printed in the paper, outing them, resulting in lost jobs, lost child custody, even suicide. It’s no wonder that Donahue and Henschel stayed far away. Now streaming on Netflix

On a Sunday afternoon recently, a crowd only slightly smaller than the one a few miles west at the Pitchfork Music Festival formed around the Bean in Millennium Park for a Pokémon Go meet-up that made the days of Pac-Man fever resemble a mild cough. More than 9,000 people RSVP’d to the event’s Facebook invite, but on the ground estimates ranged from 3,000-5,000 fans, from teens to the middle-aged, some clad in bright yellow Pikachu hats and furry Pokémon-themed costumes....

I wish I could show you a photograph of the voluptuous grilled cheese sandwich I crushed at Fort Willow a few weeks back. That’s a new cocktail bar that sits across the street from the thundering tubular machinery of the Sipi Metals copper-stripping plant. The boite, from David Morton and Michael Kornick’s DMK Restaurants, is hidden off Elston on the decreasingly industrial east end of River West, dead west of the river, in fact....

“No Longer Art,” the Salvage Art Institute When art conservation first entered the jurisdiction of insurance companies, “totaled” works were routinely destroyed. Adjusters haven’t grown less depraved of heart, but at least today they consign wrecked art to storage facilities, usually for 30 years, until a condition known as “acceptable degradation” is reached and the artwork becomes marketable as before. About two dozen such (currently) zero-value works have recently been on view at the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society Gallery during “No Longer Art,” the provocatively titled exhibition of New York artist Elka Krajewska’s fictional-sounding Salvage Art Institute (the show closes June 26)....

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Bike the Drive Critical Mass Finalist: 2WheelGods x Party Noire: Black Joy Ride

Spenser Davis Shattered Globe Theatre Runner-Up: Mick Napier

Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

Some musicians need an external reference point to push them to figure themselves out. Fairport Convention’s early recordings with Richard Thompson inspired Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo to pick up folk instruments and address his Mexican heritage. Fairport was likewise influenced to dig into English folk history by the roots moves of the Americans whose songs originally made up the band’s repertoire. For UK guitarist C Joynes, who will play his first U....

Whatever else it does include, the new normal at least does not include another Mayor Daley. What a time to be alive! This must be how the French felt long about 1792. We’ve also got a two-page comics report on Chicago’s (lack of) accessibility for folks with disabilities. We look at ShawChicago, a 25 year-old readers’ theater that’s currently set to close at the end of June. Culture reporter Deanna Isaacs brings us Stanley Tigerman’s latest controversial opinions on architecture....

In May 2011, a 32-year-old maid at the Sofitel New York Hotel brought charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a key member of France’s Socialist Party and managing director of the International Monetary Fund, alleging that he had sexually assaulted her in his hotel room. His subsequent arrest became headline news around the world; in the wake of his criminal trial, other women came forward with allegations of sexual assault, and Strauss-Kahn fell rapidly from political power....

Lately I’ve felt the passage of time with an acute definition. Perhaps it’s because I can’t walk around without noticing the tree leaves transform and crumble to the ground. But it also has a lot to do with what I’ve chosen to listen to in my free time. Hearing Angel Olsen perform with nearly a dozen string musicians on her recent All Mirrors has made me think about how far she’s grown since her 2012 Reckless Records in-store performance celebrating the arrival of Half Way Home....

Multi-instrumentalist Marielle V Jakobsons, who plays a solo concert Thursday at Cafe Mustache in support of the shimmery, gorgeous new Star Core (Thrill Jockey), was one of two driving forces behind cosmic Bay Area band Date Palms. She’s currently on tour with guitarist Chuck Johnson, and she plays violin on a couple tracks from his latest album, Velvet Arc. It’s his first electric outing in a decade, and another gem released by Chicago’s great Trouble in Mind....

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Villalobos infused the turmeric into milk and cream simmered over low heat. It takes a few minutes for the liquid to pick up the turmeric’s orange color, he says, but if you leave it long enough it’ll get so bright it looks like it’s glowing. “Turmeric has that effect: if you use too much, everything looks neon—not good.” Then he whipped together eggs and sugar, tempered them with the hot milk mixture, and added the eggs and sugar to the pan with the milk, cream, and turmeric....

The federal government’s getting ready to unleash a flood of coronavirus relief cash, much of which will, as usual, end up in big corporate coffers. The Trump administration has asked for a trillion dollars so far, reportedly including $50 billion for the airline industry and $150 billion for businesses like cruise ships, casinos, and shopping malls. Americans for the Arts thinks some of this windfall should go to nonprofit arts organizations which, they estimate, have already lost $3....

The thought of publicly airing painful events from your past may make you cringe, but soul baring can also be cathartic or even necessary. Brittany Howard, the guitarist and front woman of Alabama Shakes, shares a glimpse into some of the challenges she’s faced on her new solo album, Jaime (ATO), named for her sister, who died of the rare eye cancer retinoblastoma at age 13, when Howard was nine. Howard has said she wanted to create the album—and speak about painful things, such as saying her sister’s name—as a way to heal and to help others feel better about themselves....