“Dream,” the girl replied. “Good afternoon—fire,” Day said confidently to the dispatcher to indicate she needed an ambulance from the fire department. “Lie down—I know it hurts, but you’re gonna be OK, I promise you,” Day told her gently. “I’m here to help. We got you.” But the larger goal of Ujimaa Medics—or UMedics—is political. “Ujimaa” is Swahili for “collective work and responsibility,” and the group is dedicated to reducing health disparities for African-Americans through education and self-reliance....

QI’m a man who tends to ejaculate prematurely. Not all the time—but at least 50 percent of the time, I’m good for two to three minutes and then I really have to be careful. I’ve learned to manage it and work around it (like, stop if I’m too close and eat her out to give me some time to relax, etc), but it’s still a pain in the ass. I have a theory about this: I’m not circumcised....

Two for the Road This weekend, the Music Box kicks off its latest weekend matinee program, which focuses on musicals. The lineup features some gold standards (Meet Me in St. Louis, 42nd Street) as well as a few lesser-known titles—I’m particularly interested in Silk Stockings, Rouben Mamoulian’s remake of Ninotchka. Kicking things off, appropriately enough, is Stanley Donen’s Singin’ in the Rain, the oft-revived classic whose endless shelf life makes it one of the most rewatchable movies around....

It’s clear Aziz Ansari is going through some stuff. To call it a midlife crisis would be inaccurate (the comedian’s only 32), but between his book Modern Romance, his latest special of the same name, and now his Netflix TV show Master of None, he has laid all of his doubts about relationships, adulthood, and family on the table. Ansari created Master of None with former Parks and Recreation writer Alan Yang, and in the first two episodes they explore parenthood from both sides: first with the protagonist, Dev (Ansari), contemplating a life with children, then considering his parents’ lives and histories....

As Illinois state legislators last week debated the latest incarnation of a bill for an elected school board in Chicago, we got tens of millions of reminders why it should be passed. Then there’s the $20 million the mayor’s appointed school board awarded in 2013 to a couple of scam artists who were bribing then schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett to use her clout to get them a no-bid principal-training contract....

Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Monday, February 20, 2017. Happy Presidents Day! House speaker Madigan agrees with Rauner on selling the Thompson Center Democratic Illinois house speaker Mike Madigan and Republican governor Bruce Rauner agree on one thing: the state should “consider” selling the Thompson Center in the Loop. The office building at 100 W. Randolph is in a prime location that could net Illinois $220 million, according to estimates from the governor’s office....

I almost passed on Sociale. Why? It has no website. It has a Facebook page on which a barely readable photo of its menu was posted a full month after the restaurant opened. It has that ubiquitous vaguely urban upscale-sexy-nighttime-barstaurant vibe that really does it for the ladies of the SLoop. And for their dudes? Flat-screens, of course. There’s that ridiculous lisping name in a wispy font typically reserved strictly for nail salons....

Anjali Pinto Nootka Sound oyster, green apple, Noilly Prat, celery, from L2O. Dining with a few bottles of grand cru Burgundy on your table is one of those things that doesn’t seem to happen much on our scene anymore, so if you recently sold a Bitcoin or two, check out an upcoming dinner at L2O (where chef Matt Kirkley was recently nominated for Food & Wine‘s “People’s Best New Chef Award: Great Lakes” Best Chef Great Lakes James Beard award)....

Megan Stielstra’s essays are ostensibly about herself: she’s always the main character and narrator. But Stielstra’s work is just as much about the people she loves and admires; you can tell just as much about her through what she says about others as she does about herself. Stielstra and Irby called in from Kalamazoo to let us eavesdrop on their conversation about publishing and writing and how they’re not at all the same, about where life and storytelling overlap....

Thick, scuzzy beats and dancers dressed as giant vaginas lured Saturday-afternoon festivalgoers to Riot Fest’s Riot Stage, where electro-punk artist Peaches commanded the growing crowd. In the space of her first three songs—”Rub,” “Vaginoplasty,” and “Sick in the Head,” all from the 2015 album Rub—she’d already gone through her first costume change and plunged into the audience. She shed an oversize furry costume, half Muppet and half abominable snowman, to reveal an anatomically detailed bodysuit the color of her skin, and she climbed over the security barrier to walk atop her fans, standing on their hands while letting out a ferocious, primal scream....

Baltimore pedal-steel guitarist Susan Alcorn occupies a world unto herself in numerous ways that make the sounds she creates unlike anything else out there. Thanks to her parents, she was surrounded by music during her childhood in Florida, and she eventually took up the guitar. During a stint in Chicago in the mid-70s she became transfixed by the pedal steel after hearing it in a local country band. She picked up one herself, and after relocating to Houston, Texas, in 1981 she began playing it in a number of country bands....

The Pitchfork Music Festival reliably books a variety of veteran artists, and its 2017 lineup is no exception, with the likes of A Tribe Called Quest, the Thurston Moore Group, Madlib, Dirty Projectors, Hamilton Leithauser, LCD Soundsystem, PJ Harvey, and Ride. This isn’t necessarily a sign that Pitchfork is pandering to nostalgia—many of this year’s established acts continue to evolve, despite the clear fan favorites in their back catalog. In some cases, this evolution wasn’t exactly a choice: Amber Coffman’s departure from the Dirty Projectors forced the band to reconfigure its vocal approach on 2017’s self-titled album....

Jules Feiffer’s impact on American comic strips is comparable to Lenny Bruce’s impact on stand-up comedy or Philip Roth’s impact on the American novel. Feiffer used the form to communicate the anger, resentment, and assimilationist experience of first- and second-generation American Jews, exploring these subjects with acidic wit and a brilliant sense of detail. He’s no less a satirist than Bruce or Roth—his commentary on American life and politics is as stinging as his observations of Jewish family life....

AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi Former congressman Mel Reynolds appears at the magistrate’s court in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Wednesday. The not-so-shocking, perhaps-even-amusing news that hapless former congressman Mel Reynolds has been arrested in Zimbabwe for alleged possession of pornography got big play in Wednesday’s Sun-Times (here and here and here) and more modest treatment in the Tribune, but both papers relied heavily on reporting in Zimbabwe’s Herald, a state-controlled daily. Reporters Without Borders goes farther....

For as long as Tony Fitzpatrick can remember, he’s been preoccupied with birds. He blames his grandmother (a loyal staffer in Cook County assessor P.J. Cullerton’s notoriously corrupt office in the 60s), who made a habit of feeding feathered flocks. “Shut up and listen,” she’d tell young Tony. “For a piece of bread you can hear God sing.” The artist’s earliest drawings were of naked women and birds; sometimes he’d cap nude torsos with avian heads....

Tim Hecker In case you didn’t notice, it’s colder than Jack Torrance’s ice coffin outside, and it has been for the past month. It’s difficult to find any uplifting music in this kind of weather (save for stuff that maybe shouldn’t be uplifting, like the Cure), but the artist whose music I’ve listened to the most is Canadian musician Tim Hecker. His mix of soft-static drones and ear-clogging, aqueous ambient music is as bleak and beautiful as the frigid, occasionally stunning weather we’ve been getting....

If a homesick Italian tourist wandered off Michigan Avenue into Acanto, the latest among many new restaurants to call themselves Italian over the last year or so, he wouldn’t be much comforted. Yes, there’s pizza and pasta, polenta and salumi, grappa and panna cotta, and a wine list that goes up and down the Boot. But Acanto, which replaced the elegant French Henri, is more or less nominally “Italian,” breaking a number of cardinal rules with its large portions, complicated dishes with too many ingredients, salad the appetizer rather than salad the late-course digestive aid, and—che porca miseria!...

Belmont Cragin residents say they want answers after a man was wounded by gunfire from federal immigration agents who entered his home early Monday morning. Villegas’s office confirmed that 53-year-old Felix Torres Sr. was the man shot. The alderman’s office couldn’t confirm the names of the other family members present at the time of the shooting. Graciela Guzman was among the northwest-siders who came to the press conference Tuesday to try and get clarity on the incident, and to show support for the immigrant community....

The Bangles I won’t blame you if you want to spend the weekend between Pitchfork Music Festival and Lollapalooza taking it easy and spending time away from live music, but if you go that route you’ll be missing some great shows. “Trent Reznor had a busy 2013,” writes Maura Johnston. “He released the bracing, muscular Hesitation Marks (The Null Corporation/Columbia), his eighth album as Nine Inch Nails; his spacier, softer new band, How to Destroy Angels, made its full-length debut with Welcome Oblivion; he tinkered with the future of music distribution as chief creative officer of Beats Music, a splashy streaming service that launched in January; and he brought Hesitation Marks to arenas and festivals around the world....

As I watched jubilant teachers, wearing union red, from the Acero charter school network celebrate the new contract they’d won after a four-day strike, I had a flashback to the way things used to be. Wait, wait, as long as I’m reminiscing about changes since the bad old days, remember how recently elected Mayor Rahm, marching into town like Napoleon, took Karen Lewis out for dinner and told her how it’s gonna be with the schools?...