I ‘ve been reading an awful lot lately about efforts to keep students safe on college campuses. Safe not just from physical harm but from ideas, speech, and idea-speaking people that may upset them. Examples are as ubiquitous and darkly fascinating as that YouTube video of a python eating an alligator. In one recent spasm, at Northwestern University, professor Laura Kipnis found herself charged under the Title IX antidiscrimination act for publishing an essay arguing that, far from empowering the students, prohibitions against student-professor dating encourage them to “regard themselves as exquisitely sensitive creatures....

He lived long and prospered. RIP. Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. • That Leonard Nimoy has died? —Brianna Wellen

I want you to know something-Satan is a total loser, and he knows it.” The Great Satan only runs around 75 minutes. But it moves at such a wildly frenzied pace that if you can actually sit through the whole film without taking a breather-or just getting up to get a beer-you are stronger than most. While Everything Is Terrible! is first and foremost about creating outsider video art through obscure found footage, it’s also about testing whether you, the viewer, can take it....

“No, I refuse.” Addy balked at first, then expressed his appreciation, and charged the customer $80. The man shook his head sadly as he pulled out a credit card. “I wish you were here forever,” he said. But Addy wasn’t mourning. Wearing a cowboy hat and a red button-up shirt embroidered with musical notes and trimmed in white fringe, he stayed jovial as he rang up a seemingly endless stream of customers clutching stacks of vinyl, books, CDs, old magazines, band posters, and random junk, sharing stories of old rock shows and favorite LPs purchased at his store....

As a high schooler in Long Island, Sarah Sherman was given the nickname “Squirm” because she was “really skinny and gross and squirmy.” The name stuck, but it’s since taken on a different meaning: the comic is now known for her absurdist, gross-out stand-up. She will handle a bag of her own pubes, or chug a can of clam chowder. And her show, Helltrap Nightmare, encourages others to embrace the “squirm” in themselves....

Here’s a prediction: if you’ve read Peter Ackroyd’s 1995 Victorian Gothic novel The Trial of Elizabeth Cree, you’ll be fascinated by Chicago Opera Theater’s world premiere coproduction with Opera Philadelphia of Elizabeth Cree, an adaptation of the book by composer Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell. A word of warning: Sweeney Todd will come to mind, but this is even darker. Don’t bring the kids.

Time to plan the week. Here’s some of what we recommend: Tue 2/23: The Field Museum hosts a screening of the bird-watching comedy The Big Year at Music Box Theatre (3733 N. Southport). Joshua Engel, the research assistant in the museum’s bird division, discusses the film. 7 PM For more stuff to do this week—and every day—check out our Agenda page.

When Chicago drummer Gerald Dowd released his first full-length album, Home Now, in 2014, he threw a daylong release party with the tongue-in-cheek name Day of the Dowd. Over the course of 13 hours, Dowd sat in with 16 of the artists he’s accompanied during his long career, including children’s musician Justin Roberts and alt-country singer-songwriter Robbie Fulks. The bands alternated between the FitzGerald’s main stage and the SideBar, and when one set finished, Dowd would guzzle some water or take a quick bite before hitting the skins again....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Monday, November 27, 2017. J.B. Pritzker’s plan to rebuild the Illinois Democratic Party Gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker plans to rebuild the Illinois Democratic Party if he wins the 2018 governor’s race, the billionaire businessman told Crain’s Chicago Business in an editorial board interview. Illinois Democrats don’t meet to endorse candidates, and there’s not a unified field organization. “There really is no Illinois Democratic Party,” he said....

My younger cousin Myrna came out of the womb asking questions. Why does a dog bark? Why is the sun hot? Where is my daddy? “He’s a clown with the Venezuelan circus,” she said. “Hey, how about some ice cream before mass?” “Mama, where’s Gertrude?” I asked, entering the kitchen where she was at the sink washing dishes. “I gave it to Myrna. You’re much too old for dolls, mija,” she said, not looking at me....

CDOT is also planning to add bike lanes to the two-lane stretch of 103rd Street from Michigan Avenue west to Vincennes at a yet-to-be-determined date. Big Marsh was built on a former steel mill slag-dumping site. The roughly 44-acre bike park opened this year on the most heavily polluted portion of the property, and environmental remediation is still under way on the remaining 234 acres, a patchwork of open water, marshes, prairie, and woodland....

Mike Sula What the?!? Guinness gravy poutine, Frite Street Mike Sula That’s more like it. Plane Jane, Frite Street Mike Sula Frite Street

Stops on the Underground Railroad in Indiana, an urban cheese factory in Milwaukee, and an eye-popping Hindu temple are among Crystal Dyer’s road trip recommendations. By Tatiana Walk-Morris There are plenty of reasons to visit a burial ground besides paying respects to a loved one. By Aimee Levitt The Chicago School is alive and well—300 miles south of the city. By Julia Thiel The museum, now known as Newfields, has undergone a controversial rebranding....

Malina Moye first picked up the guitar at age nine, and at 12 she became the lead singer of her family’s R&B band, joining her parents and brothers onstage. By the mid-aughts, Moye had gone solo, establishing herself as a versatile artist who can move among or blend together blues, funk, rock, and pop. Moye’s guitar playing took center stage on her 2014 album, Rock & Roll Baby, which includes a collaboration with Bootsy Collins (“K-Yotic”) and a cover she calls “Foxey Lady,” which tweaks the riffs and lyrics of a favorite by fellow left-handed upside-down guitarist Jimi Hendrix....

When COVID-19 swept the country, music venues were among the first to shutter, throwing tens of thousands of live entertainment professionals out of work and sidelining artists who depend on touring income. The National Independent Venue Association formed in April 2020 and currently represents more than 3,000 performance halls, promoters, and festivals; it’s done much of the heavy lifting during the push for government financial support of these crucial community hubs....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Tuesday, October 17, 2017. Mourners remember math teacher killed by crossfire in Rogers Park Rogers Park resident Cynthia Trevillion, 64, was shot and killed by crossfire while walking on Morse Avenue Friday evening. Friends and family of the Waldorf School math teacher gathered to remember her at Christian Community Church Monday before her Tuesday funeral. “She was an extremely generous soul [who showed] warmth and empathy to all who know her....

Englewood MC Darrel Mckinney makes music as DaWeirdo, which is a pretty obvious clue that his approach is unusual. He warps his raps with animated squeaks that leap out of his mouth a couple times per line; at his wildest, he sounds like a bristling cat clinging desperately to a shoddy roller coaster. Mckinney’s vocal affectations can be unsettling, but that’s the point: he raps about systemic racism and disinvestment in Chicago’s Black communities, and his teetering flow and deliberately unstable inflections amplify the painful surreality of facing a world that constantly tells you that you’re disposable....

Christie Goodwin/Getty Images RIP Percy Sledge Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. • That Percy Sledge is dead at 73? —Drew Hunt • About the apparent iPhone-assisted cheating at an international chess tournament? —John Dunlevy