With the start of a new school year just around the corner, it’s time for First Tuesday’s second annual education summit. On Tuesday, Mick Dumke and I will be joined by three of the best education reporters in town . . . Sarah and Becky can talk about their investigation into CPS fudging on graduation rates. Since Linda won’t be joining us on the panel this year, I’m hoping to talk her into singing a rendition of Midnight Train to Georgia and other hits from the Gladys Knight songbook....

Over their previous few albums, veteran Tuareg band Tinariwen have included contributions from a revolving cast of rock musicians, and their strong new Elwan (Anti) follows suit. Guitarists Kurt Vile and Matt Sweeney (Chavez), who jam on a handful of tracks, deserve praise mainly for not getting in the way, which is more than I can say for the lugubrious moan that singer Mark Lanegan drops on “Nànnuflày.” Apart from the marketing opportunities the guests provide, I’m not sure why Tinariwen bother—they sure don’t need any extra talent....

True to its name, Wet Cash culminates with one lucky audience member being presented with a wad of bills that have been stewing in a fishbowl during the hourlong stand-up show. It’s a decent amount of money—something in the realm of 30 bucks—that comes out of the producers’ pockets, with the wee downside that it’s too waterlogged to carry home in a purse or wallet. Audiences root for the comics at Wet Cash, and it shows....

Mathieu Amalric and Benicio Del Toro in Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian) Last week, while recovering from a minor bike accident (which I described the other day), I remembered how enjoyable it can be to overcome an injury or a treatable illness like a cold and flu. The process has a clear narrative arc: you follow the doctor’s orders (to rest, take medication, et cetera) and gradually the pain and other symptoms go away....

Omar Cruz Prince Royce Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s daily Agenda page.

Almost as soon as our second annual First Tuesdays summit on education had finished, folks were bugging me—when will the video be available? So, thanks to our guests—Lauren FitzPatrick of the Sun-Times, Sarah Karp of the Better Government Association, and Becky Vevea of WBEZ. Like the last great mayor-appointed savior of CPS.

Q: Gay guy here. Met a guy online. He came over. We had incredible sex and then a great conversation lasting several hours. But—and you knew there was one coming—he told me that he lied about his HIV status. (I asked him before meeting him, like I do with anyone.) He is undetectable, but he told me initially he was “HIV/STD negative.” I got very upset—more from the lie than his status....

Big, bright, and bold. That’s how Bergen Anderson, 39, describes the aesthetic of Lilla Barn, the children’s clothing company she founded in 2011. So far Lilla Barn’s greatest hits have been its “ninja pants” ($29-$39)—drop-crotch pants that allow for bulky diapers and plenty of movement—and leggings ($25), which feature gender-neutral prints. And even though children’s clothes continue to be Lilla Barn’s main focus, the company has recently started a women’s line as well as a home goods department—all handmade by the Andersons, who also collaborate with other local artists and brands to create one-of-a-kind products that feel as great to look as they are to touch....

After Chinese New Year, the Mid-Autumn Festival is the second-most important holiday for the Chinese and Chinese-Americans. It falls on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar year, usually in September. (This year, it’s September 24.) In Hong Kong, where I grew up, the temperature then averages 84 degrees—at night. In Chicago, it hits during the sweet spot following the wet, humid tail end of August, when it starts to feel like fall....

Walk into the CBD Kratom shop on the corner of Damen and Dickens in Bucktown and you’ll find pill bottles, containers of balm and lotions, and small glass jars full of oil neatly arranged in tall glass display cases. They’re all advertised as CBD extracts, one of the primary chemical ingredients in marijuana. So what gives? “The law should be that CBD is either illegal or legal,” says Rod Knight, an attorney and marijuana reform advocate based in Asheville, North Carolina....

Parquet Courts are one of the most reliable names in indie rock. The Brooklyn four-piece release new material every year like clockwork, and most of it falls into their signature airtight, wiry postpunk pocket. But as far as I’m concerned, Parquet Courts are best when they step out of their comfort zone, such as on their experimental-leaning Parkay Quarts studio projects or their collaborative records—those include their 2015 team-up with noise rockers PC Worship (as PCPC) and last year’s Milano, cowritten with Italian composer Daniele Luppi (who also produced) and featuring guest vocals by Karen O....

About a half-dozen men in their 20s and 30s stood next to the Logan Square monument Thursday passing three blunts between them as they celebrated the unofficial holiday known as National Weed Day. When Sammy, a 35-year-old Logan Square native who declined to provide his last name, looked at his cell phone and realized it was 4:20 PM on April 20, he and a few other people clapped and cheered....

DanceWorks Chicago Marco Antonio Huicochea Gonzalez DanceWorks Chicago artistic director Julie Nakagawa announced today that company member Marco Antonio Huicochea Gonzalez “suffered a life-ending accident” as a result of a “freak occurrence during a rehearsal break” Monday. No further details were yet available; the Cook County Medical Examiner is performing an autopsy.

Amy Rigby’s new album, The Old Guys (Southern Domestic Recordings), begins with a bold 12-string guitar chord that sounds like Roger McGuinn filtered through Tom Petty. It kicks off with “From philiproth@gmail to rzimmerman@aol.com,” which relates an imaginary e-mail sent by Philip Roth to Bob Dylan on the occasion of the latter winning the Nobel Prize for literature. Rigby only needs a few vivid details to send you to Roth’s hotel room and feel both the writer’s envy and grudging respect for the guy who supplanted him as the literary champion of an era....

Film buffs know how incredible it is to see a film in 70mm. The picture is smoother and wider than lower-resolution formats, allowing viewers to see details that would otherwise go unnoticed. With studios and filmmakers switching to digital, however, it is becoming more of a rarity. The Music Box is one of few theaters in the country that has the correct projector to screen the prints. Julian Antos, an organizer of the event, says the festival brings audiences together to experience the beauty of film that tends to be forgotten with digital copies and home video readily available....

Dietrich in The Blue Angel, screening Saturday and Sunday This Saturday and Sunday at 11:30 AM the Music Box will show The Blue Angel, kicking off a retrospective of the seven films made by Marlene Dietrich and director Josef von Sternberg between 1930 and 1935. The films screen in chronological order, continuing next week with Morocco and concluding with The Devil Is a Woman (based on the same source material as Luis Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire) on November 22 and 23....

Created in 2007 by Alan Jacobsen, a Floridian known for manufacturing cruise-ship entertainment, this 90-minute musical feels like just that—a contrived cruise-ship show. Packed to the gills with Weird Al-style parody songs, the one-act follows four middle-aged women trying to lose weight and navigate their relationships at Cook’s Women’s Gym. One of those women is played by Martha Wash, the recording artist best known for her vocals in “It’s Raining Men” and “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now),” and her presence is one of the only exciting parts of this production....

Late-night drunchies receive an eccentric touch the weekend of August 28, when the touring Pancakes & Booze Art Show, now in its sixth year, returns to Chicago. Of course, if your main draws are the carbs and libations, you’re in good company: Kirklin was a late-night pancake guy himself. He’d frequent the IHOP near his alma mater, the University of Arizona, after long nights out with friends. This became the inspiration for Pancakes & Booze....

Growing up in the Chicago suburbs during the 1950s and ’60s, photographer Patty Carroll lived in a homogeneous, harmonious bubble. By way of cookie-cutter houses, rigid gender norms, and midcentury notions of perfectionism and civility, Carroll came to know the suburbs as “fabricated places of solace,” as she writes in her artist’s statement for “Anonymous Women,” currently on display at Schneider Gallery. The exhibit is the culmination of a photo project that Carroll has been working on since the mid-90s....

Brian Jackson/Sun-Times Media Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy: It’s time to lock up more gun offenders. Garry McCarthy has identified the enemy, and it is all the politicians who won’t pass tougher gun laws. But his boss, Mayor Emanuel, had already announced his intention to continue the city’s long-running policy of pushing for tougher firearm laws, which had offered mayors and aldermen a political shield even when it didn’t stop the flow or use of guns....