COURTESY LOLLAPALOOZA Blood Orange A festival as huge and commercial as Lollapalooza inevitably brings a ton of detractors out of the woodwork, so it’s a given that Lolla weekend will play host to at least one counter- or antifest—and this year there are several. The Neon Marshmallow festival—an experimental-music blowout that has, in previous years, featured big-time noisemakers such as Thurston Moore and Guardian Alien—runs for four days at the Burlington....

Clayton Hauck Andre Davis, 32 years after he was convicted of rape and murder Two years ago, Andre Davis was released from prison after DNA evidence pointed to another man in the 1980 rape and murder of three-year-old Brianna Stickel. Of the 100-plus inmates wrongfully convicted in Illinois, Davis had spent more time than any of them behind bars: 32 years. However, Davis’s mother said that in the months after my visit she saw more of her son’s anger emerge....

Harvestime Foods 2632 W. Lawrence Runner-Up Dill Pickle Food Co-op

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us.

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago. Creating a fun look in the winter can be quite a challenge, but Ariel seems to have found the solution: a very colorful faux-fur scarf that brought life—and warmth—to her minimal gray coat. See more street style in the Chicago Looks blog.

340 W. Armitage 773-281-9101 gejascafe.com Runner-Up Ciao Amore

When Samantha Letscher and Isabel Benatar, the founders of Bossy Chicago, met and became friends a little more than a year ago, in an entrepreneurship course during their sophomore year at Northwestern, they decided that one day they wanted to start a business or organization that would combine their interests in feminism and social change. Over this past winter, they began working in the Garage, Northwestern’s student start-up space, and thinking more seriously about what kind of project they wanted to do....

On Sunday, May 6, while the world woke up to the peerless video Childish Gambino released for his song “This Is America,” I noticed something briefly trending above it on Twitter: “Singularity,” the minimal R&B song from K-pop juggernauts BTS. Less than two weeks later, the group dropped their third album, Love Yourself: Tear (Big Hit Entertainment), which became the first K-pop album to reach the top of the Billboard 200—a huge benchmark for a global phenomenon that’s slowly been crossing over into American culture....

First there’s the egg. An oeuf Outhier headlines the menu at the Blanchard, a new French restaurant from chef Jason Paskewitz, who was last seen endeavoring with contemporary American dishes at Gemini Bistro and the late Rustic House. Fans of Next’s inaugural Paris 1906 dinner might at a glance mistake Paskewitz’s egg for the truffled oeuf Benedictine that kicked off that Escoffier-inspired menu. While it’s certainly a wee showstopper, arriving mounted on an egg cup, its crown neatly cut away to reveal a tuft of greenery and onyx pearls of domestic sturgeon caviar, it’s a more modern invention named for a French chef who cooked for the shah of Iran in the 70s....

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, alarm, amuse, or inspire us. • About Canada’s new Sikh defense chief, a combat veteran who fought in Afghanistan? —Michael Miner • That Bruce Willis is one of a bunch of big-name actors who get electronic line feeds on Broadway? —Tony Adler

Clue: Whack. Answer: Stab. I bet you do. Literally? Does what? I mean, she whacks him. I guess they do.

Described as being on a mission “to expose bad writing for what it really is: damn funny,” DrekFest, Stage Left’s annual contest of truly terrible ten-minute plays, comes to ComedySportz Theatre next week for one night only. This year’s fest, the eighth, features four works by local playwrights vying for the title of worst of the worst. Can they possibly top past “grand losers” such as Abortion Carnival of the Juggalos and F*** You Janine: A Play Ruined by My Ex, Like Everything Else in My Life?...

I won’t lie, when I found this band’s recent debut full-length on Bandcamp, I listened to it because of their name—the album’s title, Toasted, was just the schmear on top. But my amusement at Hot Bagels‘ silly jokes was quickly overshadowed by my love for their lo-fi rock jams. Main man Craig Woods writes catchy melodies that hook you in seconds, and he douses his poppy tracks in fuzz—my favorite songs (“Off Your Face,” “I Need a Lift”) burst with a sort of scuzzy, electric tension....

Neo-Futurarium 5153 N. Ashland 773-275-5255 neofuturists.org Runner-Up Million Dollar Quartet

There was not a skate in sight at Chicago Printmakers Collaborative’s Roller Derby a week ago last Saturday in Lincoln Square, or fishnets or black eyes, only ink-stained aprons. When I arrived, a block featuring geometric, topographical imagery was next in line to be printed—the work of Rachelle Hill, a former intern at Chicago Printmakers Collaborative. She had worked on a block with other artists for the 2016 event, but this year she went solo, carefully whittling her piece for two months in her bedroom....

Courtesy of ECM Records Hal Russell’s NRG Ensemble Earlier this week the city formally announced the lineup for Made in Chicago: World Class Jazz, another of its free summer concert series at the Pritzker Pavilion. (Full disclosure: I served as a volunteer on the committee that programmed this series.) The program kicks off on Thursday, July 24, and continues for the next six weeks, culminating with an August 28 concert by Ernest Dawkins that’ll help launch this year’s Chicago Jazz Festival....

The singer Ava Cherry was sound asleep in her Lincoln Park home on the morning of January 11 when her phone began incessantly chiming and vibrating with alerts. Who’s Facebooking me and texting me this much this early? she wondered. What’s going on? Clearly something was wrong. She awoke at almost 5 AM to find some 350 messages reacting to the death of her ex-boyfriend and collaborator David Bowie. “My heart just sank,” recalls Cherry, who was raised in Woodlawn....

Jim Frost/Sun-Times Media Goodbye, old friend Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us. • That Hot Doug’s is closing? —Luca Cimarusti • Or watch the interview revealing the one condition that could keep Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland), the protagonist of 24, out of Chicago? —Lisa Schulz

Whether you want to unwind with wine and jazz or escape from political turmoil with political comedy, there’s tons to do in Chicago this July Fourth weekend: Sat 7/1: Enjoy great wine, pizza, and music while making positive change at the Giving Back Block Party. Proceeds go toward making improvements for the Albany Park neighborhood. Oh, and there’s also a 50-foot tall bouncy house. Hosted by Angelo’s Wine Bar (3026 W....

The team behind last year’s Ferris Fest, which celebrated the 30th anniversary of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, will return June 22-25 with an even bigger follow-up event. The Shermer Club: A John Hughes Fest will honor writer-director’s John Hughes’s 1980s teen movies with exclusive film screenings, a luxury bus tour to filming locations in and around Chicago, and expansive re-creations of classic scenes from those films—culminating in a full reenactment of the wedding scene from Sixteen Candles....