Since I first encountered it nearly a decade ago, I’ve repeatedly tried to engage with the music of Chicago trio Mako Sica. The determinedly exploratory ensemble couches improvisational impulses within meditative, expansive prog-rock modes more concerned with using chants, texture-rich guitar, and spacious rhythms to carve out space than with displaying hollow virtuosity. Unfortunately, their music has always left me underwhelmed, sounding noodly in parts where I wanted it to be probing....

The Art Institute and the MCA are cultural gems, but let’s face it: both spaces can be tough to navigate during the summertime, when they’re mobbed by tourists. Do yourself a favor this summer and check out these 11 museums, galleries, and art spaces outside the Loop and the northeast side that offer their own rewards. DuSable Museum of African American History Yes, DuSable is a major institution, but we included it for the folks who usually don’t venture farther south than the Museum Campus....

Ben Lamar Gay is one of the more mercurial musicians in town, appearing a bewildering variety of contexts. Of course, this is Chicago, where such versatility and curiosity is the norm—but even so, Gay is outside the norm. I know him primarily as a superb cornetist who works regularly with the likes of Ernest Dawkins, Mike Reed, and Jeff Parker, but he also makes weird trance-out sounds in El Is a Sound of Joy, and I’ve heard him play in several ad hoc configurations that touched (in various degrees) on noise, soul, drone, free improvisation, and less categorizable stuff....

Chicago Cubs Clark, the latest victim In an attempt to be like other baseball teams with their cuddly, family-friendly mascots—and, possibly, their winning records—the Cubs announced their latest hire on Monday: Clark the Cub. Clark is a sweet-looking little fellow. In the cartoon released by the Cubs, he sports a backward baseball cap and insouciantly leans on an upright bat. He does not, however, wear pants, which prompted Deadspin to call him “a nightmarish, perverted furry....

The term “beach read” doesn’t exactly convey smart, substantive narratives. Rather, the term suggests fluffier fare: mass-market mysteries, flimsy celebrity memoirs, “chick lit” novels with beach scenes or city skylines on their covers, and anything by Danielle Steele. Fortunately for those hoping to add some heft to their summer reading list, plenty of quality new books by Chicago-based or Chicago-adjacent authors are hitting shelves this season (beachy cover art not included)....

In Gwyneth Jones’s sci-fi novel Phoenix Cafe, set in a distant future, the protagonists visit a museum in which remnants of 20th-century advertising, including a Coke bottle, are displayed for aesthetic contemplation. The difference between advertising and art has been reduced to a matter of context—a function of how you look at it as much as what it is. Likewise “Sportin’ Waves,” an exhibit of hand-painted Ghanaian barbershop and salon signage from the 90s to the present organized by collector Brian Chankin, is hung in the Strange Beauty Show hair salon, reminding us how arbitrary the category of art can be....

In early June 2013, two journalists—columnist Glenn Greenwald and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras—arrived in Hong Kong to meet with a disgruntled techie named Edward Snowden. Remember him? A million news cycles ago Snowden became famous for using his top-secret government security clearance to download a cache of documents proving that the National Security Agency surveilled Americans on a vast and indiscriminate scale, dropping into our digital lives to collect as many as three billion pieces of information in a single month....

2537 N. Kedzie 773-489-9554 lulacafe.com Runner-Up Ciao Amore Ristorante

3733 N. Southport 773-871-6604 musicboxtheatre.com Runner-Up Logan Theatre

Swans If you’re feeling adventurous, it is worth risking the soggy weather and trekking out to Millennium Park tonight to see legendary Husker Du front man Bob Mould play a free outdoor show. But if staying indoors is more your speed this evening, there’s also a great free show at Empty Bottle with White Hinterland, Benjamin Booker, and Touched by Ghoul. Tomorrow night, local dreamy garage-rock quartet Ne-Hi plays at Emporium Arcade Bar....

1028 N. Rush 312-266-8999 gibsonssteakhouse.com Runner-Up Chicago Cut

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago. I love so much about this look, and it mostly comes down to one word: joy! It’s still summer, after all. This beautiful lady incorporated color, grace, and femininity down to the smallest detail, such as the red flower in her hair, blue eyeliner, textured tights, and multicolored toenails. See more street style in the Chicago Looks blog....

Crain’s Chicago Business, taking note of the disappearance of Communication X9, a tall, multicolored sentinel of a sculpture that stood in front of the building at 150 N. Michigan that houses its office, reports that the family of the artist, Yaacov Agam, a 90-year-old Israeli living in Paris, is upset about it. Building management told Crain’s that the prominently located office building (across the street from the Cultural Center and Millennium Park), notable for its diagonally sliced diamond-shaped top, is going to look different after a renovation....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Wednesday, September 13, 2017. Blagojevich speaks out: It’s “liberating to not hold grudges” Former governor Rod Blagojevich has given interviews for the first time since entering prison in March 2012, speaking to reporters at NBC 5 and Chicago magazine. Blagojevich seems to be making the best of his 14-year sentence, helping fellow inmates get ready for job interviews, mopping floors, and performing with his band, the Jailhouse Rockers....

When describing Victory’s Banner, the all-veg breakfast-and-lunch sanctuary in Roscoe Village, “cozy” always comes to mind. It’s cozy from the outside, situated on a corner well traveled by strollers and ringed by green space. It’s cozy in its soft, pastel-hued decor. And it’s cozy in the warm politeness of the staff, all of whom are students of meditation and of Indian spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy. But perhaps the most reassuring element of Victory’s Banner is its consistency, epitomized in what the restaurant boasts to be “our most popular egg dish,” the Satisfaction-Promise....

Music Box Theatre 3733 N. Southport Runner-Up Davis Theater

Bea Cordelia and Daniel Kyri are the creators, producers, directors, and stars of The T, a new webseries based on their own lives about the friendship between Jo, a white trans woman from the north side of Chicago, and Carter, a black queer man from the south side. The show premiered with a screening last month at the Chicago Cultural Center, where they filmed part of The T. The Chicago landmark sits across Randolph Street from where the two first connected almost a decade ago....

Gauguin: Artist as Alchemist,” a new survey of Paul Gauguin’s oeuvre at the Art Institute, aims to disrupt the familiar association of Tahitian motifs with his work: full-bodied, brown-skinned women, sandy beaches, lush landscapes, tranquil waters. This is a noble and necessary endeavor because Gauguin’s output consists of so much more than his well-known painting. Here a thorough collection of objects, didactic texts, and historical frames provides much-needed context to Gauguin’s place in the art-history canon....

1462 N. Milwaukee 773-661-2468 thewormhole.us Runner-Up Star Lounge Coffee Bar