In January, when I sat down for what ended up being a five-hour gabfest with Alderman Ameya Pawar (47th), he predicted that this year was going to be better than the last one in our fair city. The mayor, Alderman Pawar insisted, was not nearly as intransigent as I’d been writing. Moreover, his heart was in the right place when it came to fiduciary reform. It’s as if Mayor Emanuel said to the aldermen, “OK, I’ll let you pretend to be independent....

Courtesy of Strange Victory Touring Spray Paint I’m often playing catch-up when it comes to underground-rock scuzz these days and I’m certainly a late arrival to the joys of the Austin trio called Spray Paint, who today released their third and best album Clean Blood, Regular Acid (Monofonus Press). The group haven’t changed up their sound or approach since forming in early 2012, but they sound more focused than ever, distilling an already austere, stripped-down attack into something exhilaratingly compact and fat-free....

Long before Starbucks started claiming the title of the “third place”—a space besides home and work where people gather—the corner bar was already filling that role. The third place, according to Ray Oldenburg (who wrote a book on the subject, called The Great Good Place, published in 1989), fosters community and social interaction by providing a comfortable, welcoming space for both regulars and occasional visitors to congregate. Examples include cafes, barbershops, libraries, bookstores—and, of course, bars....

809 W. Randolph 312-492-6262 girlandthegoat.com Runner-Up Grant Achatz of Alinea, Next, Aviary

Runner-Up @kellyryanobrien

There are plenty of shows, films, and concerts happening this weekend. Here’s some of what we recommend: Fri 8/10: BlacKkKlansman retells the true story of a black cop who joined his local Klan chapter. “Lee’s vibrant docudrama BlacKkKlansman, which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes film festival earlier this year, is one of the director’s stronger films and—perhaps not coincidentally—one of his most focused,” writes Reader film critic Ben Sachs....

The boarded-up storefront on the northwest corner of Chicago and Drake not long ago looked like many of Chicago’s other 18,000 abandoned buildings. The plywood sheets covering its sidewalk-facing windows were a reminder of the commercial blight in this stretch of Humboldt Park. Today, the place remains vacant, but as vacant buildings go, it’s indisputably more pleasant looking. The exterior greets passersby with a cheery trompe-l’œil bakery scene that seems like an artist’s rough rendering of a Parisian cafe complete with tables topped by baguette loaves, pastries, and flowers....

I’m inspired and excited by music fanatics with very precisely defined specialties, whether in a specific style or a single region—they constantly seem to uncover sounds utterly new to me. Over the past couple decades, Africa has been the favored territory for a slew of such intrepid sleuths, and we’ve enjoyed a bounty of musical blessings thanks to the likes of Brian Shimkovitz, the Evanston native who runs Awesome Tapes From Africa; Tunisian-German crate digger Samy Ben Redjeb, the mastermind of Analog Africa; and Portland obsessive Christopher Kirkley, who’s focused a crucial lens on contemporary modes of pop-music transmission in Saharan Africa through his Sahel Sounds imprint....

Some people use social media to lash out (hello, Mr. President). Others use it to catalyze positive change. Chicago nightlife veteran Dom Brown (cofounder of Porn and Chicken) has felt pressure to do something since the minute the election was called for Trump, and his personal last straw came in late January, when POTUS issued his executive order on immigration (better known as the “Muslim ban”). Brown took to Facebook to voice his frustration and reach out to friends and colleagues who might also want to make a difference....

2049 W. Division 773-772-2727 smallbardivision.com Runner-Up The Corner Bar

Big Chicks 5024 N. Sheridan Runner-Up Berlin

Aloha Poke Co. 131 N. Clinton Runner-Up The Growling Rabbit

DNAinfo www.dnainfo.com/chicago @DNAinfoCHI Runner-Up Chicago Public Square

2101 W. Chicago 773-486-7500 kasiasdeli.com Runner-Up Pierogi Heaven

Glazed and Infused Various locations

To me, the essence of the Chicago jazz and improvised-music community is live performance. More than records made in many other jazz cities, records made in Chicago are documents of what a band does onstage—and that’d be a fair description of almost everything on my list. An aesthetic shaped by onstage performance tends to make for an album a bit less splashy or conceptual than many of the picks that dominate year-end lists, but none of these efforts is lacking in artistry and excitement....