An estimated 40,000 people, dogs, cats, and dinosaurs gathered in Grant Park on Saturday—a seasonably appropriate Earth Day—to march to the Field Museum to show their support for science: the belief in it, the funding for it, and its spirit of openness and curiosity, all things that have been denied by members of the current administration. It was also an opportunity to make some excellent protest signs, which, arguably, has become the great public art form of our time....

For north-siders who miss the sweet nadir of the Chicago Cubs—those glory decades when the team’s inferiority meant you could haggle a scalped ticket down to five bucks and later drape your legs over the empty seat in front of you—there’s a way to recapture some of that feeling. Now imagine this: five diamonds bustling on a muggy midsummer Tuesday night with games of 16-inch softball, the homegrown recreational (beer-drinking) sport that’s about as Chicago as the Cubs....

Some days, Louis Moholo-Moholo must feel like the last man standing. Every single one of the 77-year-old drummer’s original compatriots has died—the same musicians with whom he cut his teeth in South Africa, fighting against the oppressive weight of apartheid. Many of them, Moholo-Moholo included, emigrated to Europe in the mid-60s—just as free jazz and improvised music reached escape velocity—and eventually established a new home in London. Some colleagues, such as saxophonists Nik Moyake and Kippie Moeketsi and trumpeter Mongezi Feza, died long ago; a rash of deaths beginning in the 1980s took the rest, including pianist Chris McGregor, bassists Harry Miller and Johnny Dyani, and alto saxophonist Dudu Pukwana, who succumbed to liver disease in 1990....

Last year I produced a concert in which fantastic Denver pianist R. Andrew Lee performed November, a masterpiece of minimalist solo piano composed by Dennis Johnson. What made it such an event was exactly what made attending it so daunting: duration. Never mind the effort required to make structural sense of a piece of music that’s nearly five hours long; there are also more quotidian distractions—thirst, bathroom breaks, stretching. Those same concerns apply to the 1983 work String Quartet no....

Since being diagnosed with cancer in April, I’ve become oddly obsessed with pop-culture portrayals of the disease. My mother stared at me with horror when a few days after my first oncology appointment I suggested we watch The Fault in Our Stars. (I’d read the book and wanted to see whether Shailene Woodley did a good job!). Certainly there are moments in the movies and TV shows I’ve filled my life with that strike a chord....

This weekend Evanston kids’ musician Justin Roberts goes to Los Angeles for the Grammys—his 2013 record Recess (Carpet Square) is up for Best Children’s Album against releases from Elizabeth Mitchell & You Are My Flower, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Alastair Moock, and Jennifer Gasoi. It’ll be his second trip to the awards: three years ago he lost Best Musical Album for Children to folkie Pete Seeger. Seeger’s catalog includes tunes for people of all ages, of course, but Roberts, 43, has made a career out of kids’ music—since 1997 he’s released 11 children’s albums (and one “grown-up” record, 1999’s Bright Becomes Blue)....

I’m ambivalent about describing Berlin-based pop artist Peaches as “sexually explicit.” The term feels loaded, and really, more people should take notes from Peaches, whose sex-positive, gender-blending jams hinge on the joys of sex even as they exude an air of darkness. Her 2000 breakthrough, “Fuck the Pain Away,” pulsates with a minimal groaning drum pattern and blown-out electronic cymbals that hit like they’ve been laid out by a firing squad....

As hundreds of enthusiastic Democrats packed the UIC Pavilion on Sunday to join President Obama’s get-out-the-vote rally in the upcoming do-or-die midterms, Mayor Rahm never looked so irrelevant. First, let’s deal with the narrative, as Rahm made use of it in his final budget address on October 17. Bragging about a budget that calls for no new property taxes, Rahm did what he does best—patted himself on the back. He reminisced about the dark days of 2010, when he came home from the Obama White House to run for mayor....

Wheedle’s Groove—Seattle Funk, Modern Soul & Boogie: Volume II 1972-1987 Last week I finally got around to listening to Wheedle’s Groove—Seattle Funk, Modern Soul & Boogie: Volume II 1972-1987, the second volume in a series from superlative reissue label Light in the Attic that collects rare soul and funk from Seattle. The first volume spanned the years 1965 to 1975, and it sported a grittier, hard-edged sound more in line with Stax/Volt, Motown, and the New Orleans swamp boogie of Allen Toussaint and the Meters....

In photographs of bands at festivals, typically the musicians are paying attention to the crowd, to their instruments, or to each other—they don’t tend to act like they know the camera is there. Ryan Segedi’s portraits of artists at Riot Fest, taken with portable lights in front of a simple white backdrop in the corner of the festival’s press tent, provide a more intimate look at people we’re used to seeing under colored spotlights....

The Toad Knew News items always ID James Thierrée as “Chaplin’s grandson,” but he deserves something more like “physical theater genius” or “cunning surrealist.” Back at Chicago Shakespeare after a ten-year absence from the theater, the creator of Farewell Umbrella will help the company inaugurate its new space, the Yard, with The Toad Knew, a meditation on sibling love. 9/19-Sat 9/23: Tue-Fri 8 PM, Sat 8:30 PM, The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, 800 E....

Thoughtful Americans agree that the endless begging for funds and votes by congressmen is a blight to democracy. Oh, and so is congressional gerrymandering. Americans agree about that, too. That’s why May brought e-mail from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee headlined “Vulnerable One-Term Wonder Bob Dold Reneges on Promise of Certainty for Illinois Businesses.” It’s why last Friday I opened an e-mail from “Brad Schneider for Congress” that denounced an antiabortion bill that had just passed the House and asked me to sign a petition and “join Brad and Democrats across the country and take a stand for women’s rights!...

courtesy Goodman Theatre Director Eric Ting and playwright Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig in rehearsal for The World of Extreme Happiness “The world of extreme happiness” is a literal translation of the Chinese term for “heaven.” It is also the title of Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s new play, which opens at the Goodman Theatre on September 13. It’s the story of Sunny, a girl from rural China who, as a newborn, was thrown into a pig slop bucket to die by parents who were disappointed she wasn’t a boy....

Nathan Schenck Milwaukee’s Temple performing at Arby’s If you’ve lived in Chicago for more than a few years and go to DIY shows with any regularity there’s a good chance you’ve seen at least a few venues close up shop just as quickly as they popped up. This weekend another underground space is shuttering—Arby’s in Rogers Park. The venue has been hosting shows for close to a year and on Saturday night it’ll host its last, with Anthony Sanders, Churchkey, Marcy, Flesh Seeds, Hot Bagels, and Philadelphia’s Mike Bell & the Movies helping say good-bye....

Mykhaylo Palinchak/Shutterstock Those fledgling protests that erupted in Ukraine last fall have led to changes that seemed like a long shot at the time, including the ouster of president Viktor Yanukovych. Read the rest here.

How hot is William Bell these days? At least as hot as he was in 1977, when his single “Tryin’ to Love Two” reached the top of the Billboard R&B chart, eventually selling more than a million copies. The Atlanta-based soul singer has been basking in critical acclaim for This Is Where I Live, his 2016 album for the reactivated Stax Records (now an imprint of Concord Music). It won a Grammy for Best Americana Album and earned three Blues Music Awards nominations, including two in soul-blues categories....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Monday, April 10, 2017. Rahm finds common ground with Trump on Syrian missile strikes Mayor Rahm Emanuel agrees with one decision that President Donald Trump has made: the cruise missile strike against an air base in Syria after the Assad regime killed 86 Syrians with chemical weapons. “There’s a standard when chemical weapons were used in World War I. It was a declaration where the world was gonna be,” the mayor said....

Puesto Sandwich Stand is two blocks south of Wrigley Field, but it might as well be in another city. It remains pleasantly indifferent to both the Cubs madness that takes over the rest of the neighborhood—on game day, jazz plays over the sound system and a Nina Simone documentary runs on the TV—and the fierce battles over tacos that have recently preoccupied Chicago’s Latin American-food aficionados. The menu, in fact, ignores tortillas altogether....

Poutine is having a moment in Chicago—a long one that doesn’t appear to be waning. Dozens of restaurants offer some amalgamation of fries, cheese curds, and gravy, Poutine Fest celebrated its third anniversary earlier this year, and we’ve seen three restaurants dedicated to poutine appear—and two of them disappear. BadHappy Poutine Shop, which was around for nearly two years before it closed in early 2014, seemed plenty popular; the owner told Eater Chicago at the time that the closing was due to a dispute with his landlord and he was considering reopening in another location....

Lynne Jordan 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.