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A year of the COVID-19 pandemic has left millions jobless, hundreds of thousands dead, and many turning to neighbors and mutual aid groups, instead of the government, to make ends meet. These hyperlocal organizations have had to step up their operations exponentially in part thanks to the government’s shoddy response to the pandemic. And activists say it shows the need for what many are calling the “solidarity economy,” an economic system based on equity, justice, and democracy....

This year Chicago seems to be hosting fewer extracurricular blues events during Blues Festival week than it has in the past. It’s too soon to decide that audiences have gotten complacent, though—and you can still find plenty of worthwhile shows. The city’s blues clubs kick into overdrive during the fest, of course (see the Reader‘s listings for more on them). But this weekend several spaces that don’t routinely host big blues concerts also get into the act—as do less publicized neighborhood venues, which do their best to make special occasions out of their shows....

Jason Blum is the Roger Corman of our time, an inventive and economical producer who manages to work on more than a dozen movies a year, which range from formulaic horror flicks (Paranormal Activity, Insidious) to subversive provocations (The Purge, Get Out) to auteur-driven projects like Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash and M. Night Shyamalan’s Split. This year promises a slate of interesting releases that includes remakes of Benji and Halloween (the latter directed by David Gordon Green), Spike Lee’s docudrama BlacKkKlansman, and the latest entry in the Purge series, by far the most political of the Blumhouse franchises....

Q: I’m a middle-aged man dating a younger guy. He wanted to be a “boy” to a Dom top daddy, and I was happy to oblige. The sex is amazing, and we click as people, too. Then a couple days ago, he told me he wanted to explore small penis humiliation (SPH). I was taken aback—not by the request, but because his penis is NOT small! It’s not huge, but it’s at least average....

Elizabeth Restaurant Aaron Martinez, the new chef de cuisine at Elizabeth From its foraging-based approach to cuisine to the owls that decorate its nooks and crannies, few restaurants have reflected their chef-owner’s personality and outlook more completely than Iliana Regan’s Michelin-starred Elizabeth in Lincoln Square. Named after Regan’s late sister, the restaurant is intended to be like a tea party in the woods (as Regan told the Reader before the opening)....

A shuttered branch of MB Financial Bank sits on the northeast corner of Fullerton and Halsted. It’s a bland, corporate, auburn brick building with rectangular aquamarine glass windows that’s unmistakably a dispiriting white-collar business. But maybe I’ve been looking at this edifice the wrong way—whereas I see bureaucracy and the uneasy motion of small-stakes capitalism, someone else saw a space to assemble a monumental art show. Though “Art AIDS America” was initially organized by the Tacoma Art Museum and first shown there, the Chicago edition boasts a number of works that weren’t part of the original exhibit....

Alison Bechdel’s iconic eponymous Bechdel Test isn’t the same exam it was when the award-winning graphic writer (Fun Home, Dykes to Watch Out For) created it back in ye olden 1985. A quick refresher if you’ve been under a rock since then or are still entrenched in the patriarchy: In order to pass the Bechdel Test, stories—be they on stage, page, or screen—have to include at least two female characters. And those two women have to talk at least once about something other than men....

We’ll never know what might have been for any of us had 2020 turned out a little less soul crushing. But it feels extra bittersweet to imagine the possibilities for Chicago duo Drama, who released their debut album, Dance Without Me (Ghostly International), just before lockdown. Since joining forces in 2014, vocalist Via Rosa and producer Na’el have captured Chicago’s hearts. The sleek, controlled fusions of R&B, dance, and pop on their first release, the 2016 EP Gallows, sounded less like the work of newcomers than like a long-established group looking back on their journey—especially given the reflective quality of Rosa’s teardrop voice....

After allegations of sexual misconduct against Ex Fest founder Matthew Payne swept through the Chicago comedy community this week, Payne announced Friday afternoon that he had decided to cancel the festival. As I wrote in this week’s Reader cover story, Ex Fest had been conceived as an alternative to Stage 773’s SketchFest for performers who didn’t want to work with Brian Posen, its former executive producer who had been accused of harassment by multiple women....

While observing eviction court proceedings last year, I witnessed a landlord and tenant who both spoke Spanish in the process of negotiating in front of Judge Alison Conlon. A court interpreter stood between them, translating what each said to the other for a patiently attentive Conlon. It seemed that the parties were coming to an agreement, with the landlord leaning toward letting the tenant stay in her apartment a little longer before moving out....

Veteran underground Chicago rapper Dan Weiss (aka Verbal Kent) sculpts his syllables to display their contours or even give them jagged edges, but at the same time his flow lends his words a wiggle like Jell-O. He’s found a great partnership with D.C. production duo the Other Guys, who understand how to augment the swing in his performances. On their first collaborative full-length, Blade of the Short Cut (Hipnott), the Other Guys provide Weiss with understated, soul-inflected samples that befit his transparently soul-baring verses....

I know it’s bad form to say anything positive about President Donald Trump. But his decision to call off a planned air strike against Iran last month should be applauded. While I don’t endorse chaotic thinking about foreign policy, it is worth recalling what normal-thinking foreign policy looks like. Past wars in the Mideast were professionally sold to the American people with massive propaganda campaigns run through the press. Normal presidents first dehumanize the enemy, then ignore civilian casualties....

I biked from McKinley Park to Humboldt Park last Friday to deliver a package to someone. A 30-minute ride up to the northwest side would be good to exercise my winter legs, although the 85-degree temperature was testing my ability to do so with ease. What I saw along the way—and what I’ve seen between the groups of folks at protests—were bright hues, large lettering, artwork, figures, and political statements adorning buildings, windows, and public spaces....

Rockefeller Chapel has hosted some remarkable concerts in recent years. The organization Ambient Church, which presents atmospheric music in visually and sonically exalted spaces, chose the 91-year-old structure as the site for the concert it staged in Chicago last December. Rockefeller has also hosted minimalist composer-performer Charlemagne Palestine, drone-metal group Sunn O))), and local sound artist Olivia Block. This month, Sarah Davachi can add her name to that list. When the Calgary-born, Los Angeles-based composer and keyboardist toured Europe in 2017, she spent hours at a time in churches, finding not only respite from the blur of life on the road but also an inspiration for her marvelous 2018 LP, Gave in Rest (Ba Da Bing)....

Malik Taylor, aka Phife Dawg, the “funky five footer” whose limber, animated rhymes helped make New York hip-hop outfit A Tribe Called Quest one of the genre’s fundamental groups, died last Tuesday at age 45. By now this isn’t news, and not just because Taylor’s memorial was yesterday—he had such an immeasurable influence over hip-hop and pop that his death was immediately felt. And his work remains immediate too: the collagelike vitality of Tribe’s Afrocentric stomp makes it timeless....

If you love the Cubs and don’t see many musicals, then Miracle is the show for you. Like watching a mediocre baseball game, it’s predictable and uninspiring with long stretches of little action interspersed with occasional cheers. Containing every possible baseball metaphor, it covers all the bases without ever hitting a home run. The opening Cubbie Bear blues number with wonderful video screens makes one hope for so much more....

The Chicago Palestine Film Festival “is dedicated to exhibiting film and video work that is open, critical, and reflective of the culture, experience, and vision of the artists,” writes Barbara Scharres, director of programming for the Gene Siskel Film Center, in her introduction to the festival’s 14th edition. No other national film festival requires such a clarification, but that’s the world we’re living in. Fortunately, you don’t need a state to be a nation; all you need is people....

If nothing else, Just Getting Started (currently in commercial release) tells the world that writer-director Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, White Men Can’t Jump) enjoys being an old man. The film, an amiable and instantly forgettable comedy, offers an idealized picture of semiretirement, with sexagenarian and septuagenarian characters enjoying easygoing lives filled with sex, golf, and gambling. It takes place at an upscale gated community in Palm Springs, California, and for the first half hour, Shelton does little but bask in how nice it is to live there....

I would not have survived long in the Mattachine Society. The organization’s own founders were ousted in its third year. Even five cisgender white men were considered too radical to run a homosexual group seeking respectability, especially one fearful of FBI infiltration. Although the society was founded in 1950 in order to declare homosexuals a cultural minority and became the first successful American homosexual rights organization, the leaders who overthrew the proud founders were determined to declare us a group just like everyone else in mainstream society....

Q: I’ve been dating a nice guy for a month or so. Sex is good, and we’re fairly compatible in other ways too. He told me he likes to wear diapers. He said he doesn’t want me to do it with him, but that every once in a while he likes to wear them because it makes him feel “safe.” He said that this odd behavior isn’t sexual for him, but I have trouble believing him....