28 Fun Things to Do This Fall

Gillian Flynn is no stranger to the screen: She reworked two of her novels (Gone Girl and Sharp Objects) for film and TV and authored the screenplay for Steve McQueen’s 2018 movie Widows. But Utopia, a loose adaptation of a British Channel 4 show premiering September 25 on Amazon Prime Video, is her most involved work — she wrote all eight episodes of the first season and served as showrunner and executive producer. The dark comedy—thriller was shot entirely in Chicago, and many of the actors have local ties, most prominently John Cusack and Rainn Wilson. Utopia is eerily reminiscent of our times, taking place amid a deadly flu outbreak, and it’s immersed in conspiracies and comic-book culture. Here, Flynn discusses the making of the series and what she’s been up to since production wrapped on the first season.

Did writing a show premised on a pandemic inform how you absorbed COVID-19 news?

Definitely. I don’t know how it could not. I’d be editing a scene that was in a hot zone, with hazmat suits, and then turn that off, turn on CNN, and it’s like, “Wait, that’s not Rainn Wilson.” I remember when I was pitching this series and there was always a question of, Would anyone really believe this pandemic? Would there have been isolation in MERS or SARS? It was a horrible way to show that it can happen, I suppose.

This started as a British show. What made you want to adapt it?

There were certain DNA markers I was finding really interesting: conspiracy, truth versus fiction. But I think of all the dialogue that’s in eight episodes, two lines are from the original — that’s how different it was as I was rewriting. I ultimately pitched it as Marathon Man meets The Goonies. It’s got something for those of you who like fear and death and for those of you who like a gang of ragtag misfits that you can root for.

Did you always plan on filming it in Chicago?

Yes. I kept saying, “I really want Chicago, and I don’t want the skyline of Chicago and then you go down and scream, ‘That’s Vancouver!’ ” We made it a mission to not film tourist Chicago. No one’s doing clandestine meetings by the Bean. It was more about capturing the texture. I really wanted you to look at something and smell the city.

You were a TV critic at Entertainment Weekly for four of your 10 years there. Is there anything you wrote back then that you regret?

There are definitely certain reviews where maybe I was too fond of my own cleverness and at best became a little nastier than I needed to be. It wasn’t that I would go out of my way to be mean — I think I was usually pretty fair — but every once in a while there’d be a show that would hit me and I’d be like, “This should be so much better!” Everyone knows why really bad shows are really bad, and why great shows are great. But to try to figure out why shows aren’t quite there was really good preparation for this job.

What have you been up to during quarantine?

I have been spending some time catching up on Netflix, and hanging out with my kids after not being able to for a large chunk of last year. My 10-year-old son took my hand one day and said, “I just feel like we’re getting to know each other again.” My daughter and I play fairies a lot, which just means we get to put on our fairy tutus and run around the garden for a while. I’m getting mildly better at crafts with her, but I cannot figure out those goddamn plastic weaving machines that make jewelry. I’m going to burn them all ritualistically.

From Local Stages to Utopia

By Kris Vire

“I just have such a respect for Chicago actors,” says Gillian Flynn. “They’re so well trained, they know their stuff so well.” These two members of the main ensemble cut their teeth in the local theater scene.

Desmin Borges

▶ Utopia character Wilson Wilson, whom Borges describes as “a conspiracy theorist who may or may not have a bunker built underneath his backyard”
▶ Screen creds You’re the Worst (FX), Living With Yourself (Netflix)
▶ Where you might have seen him onstage Victory Gardens’ 2009 world premiere of the pro wrestling comedy (and Pulitzer Prize finalist) The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity. The Logan Square native moved to New York City when the show did.
▶ Favorite thing about filming in Chicago last summer Taking his then-3-year-old son to two Cubs games. “He was absolutely fascinated with the Goose Island beer vendor because he would say ‘Goose! Goose here!’ and my son thought the guy was passing out geese.”

Ashleigh LaThrop

▶ Utopia character Becky, whom she calls “this sweet, smart, and opinionated woman who’s part of this group of nerds obsessed with a comic book that might predict the future”
▶ Screen creds The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu), The Kominsky Method (Netflix)
▶ Where you might have seen her onstage Back-to-back Jeff-nominated roles in Steep Theatre’s 2013 Motortown and Griffin Theatre’s 2015 Balm in Gilead
▶ Favorite thing about filming in Chicago last summer “I hadn’t been to Hyde Park in three years — it’s so different,” says LaThrop, who grew up there and now lives in L.A. “But I’m glad Mellow Yellow is still there.”

Adventure in the State’s Deep South

Head to the rolling, tree-topped hills of southern Illinois for a memorable mash-up of still-temperate weather and crimson leaves, pumpkin patches and wine trails, hiking and rock climbing. Build your trip around the region’s crown jewel, the 290,000-acre Shawnee National Forest. Nestled between the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, the forest is home to 400 miles of horseback and hiking trails and ample opportunities for climbing, paddling, and fishing. Hike to Camel Rock in Garden of the Gods (pictured above) — a spectacular wilderness area of stark sandstone formations — or make your way to Crow Knob, once a beacon for travelers on the Underground Railroad. Sip fresh apple cider and pick your own pumpkins at Rendleman Orchards, or do an outdoor tasting at one of the Shawnee Hills Wine Trail’s 11 wineries.

▶ Drive time 5 hours
▶ Where to stay The three units at Rocky Comfort Cabins (from $189 for two nights) offer upscale comfort along the wine trail. (Be advised: Two of the cabins are Hobbit-themed.)

Rural Solitude on a Working Farm

The aptly named Has Bin is a 1950s grain bin in Vermilion County that’s been converted into a well-appointed guesthouse (from $115, including breakfast). Nearly everything inside — from the clawfoot bathtub rescued from a nearby farmhouse to the sink that was once a Singer sewing machine — has a cool salvage story. Get a from-scratch breakfast of baked French toast and bacon delivered to your door, then explore the adjacent family farm, situated along the North Fork River. You can fish in the farm’s pond, see the fall harvest in action, even ride on a combine. Finish the day with a book and a glass of wine on the guesthouse porch.

▶ Drive time 2 hours 30 minutes
▶ Things to do nearby Bike the Kickapoo State Recreation Area; gaze at the heavens at the Middle Fork River Forest Preserve, Illinois’s first designated International Dark Sky Park.

A State Park Trifecta

Matthiessen, Starved Rock, Buffalo Rock: These three state parks along the Illinois River, all within 20 minutes of one another, offer an incredible variety of day-trip options well into fall. Let the weather be your guide. Crisp and cool? Hike above, or into, the canyons at Starved Rock or Matthiessen, or commune with the three resident bison at Buffalo Rock. Sunny and summer-like? Cruise past Buffalo Rock along the river in a pontoon boat from Heritage Harbor in Ottawa ($300 for two hours; visitheritageharbor.com), or take a guided kayaking tour (pictured below) to see Buffalo Rock from a unique perspective (from $55; kayakmorris.com). You can even coast the historic I&M Canal on a mule-pulled boat (above; $18; iandmcanal.org).

▶ Drive time 1 hour 45 minutes
▶ Where to stay Go rustic at the Kishauwau Cabins (from $120) at Starved Rock, or rent one of the pretty, pet-friendly cottages on the river at Heritage Harbor (from $109).

Jo Ractliffe, 59, began her career documenting the traumatized landscape of apartheid — homes destroyed, stray dogs roaming through debris. Jo Ractliffe: Drives, opening October 17 at the Art Institute, is the first exhibit to span the artist’s nearly four-decade body of work, much of which explores the way memory and history manifest in the environment. Gelatin silver prints capture moments large and small, like three donkeys found dead on the side of the road, or mass graves and remnants of military bases from the border war that South Africa fought with Angola in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. Her critical eye implores us to question how we make sense of what we see, an important prompt during a time when news images on social media often appear divorced from their context.

One of the Music Box Theatre’s most reliably entertaining annual events is Music Box of Horrors, a 24-hour marathon of gore, monsters, and jump scares that ensures you won’t be able to fall asleep for another 24 hours afterward. The only thing more frightening than watching nothing but horror films for a full day is sitting in a theater with other people during a pandemic, so the Music Box took a smart programming detour: going old-school and projecting its spookiest screenings at the ChiTown Movies drive-in in Pilsen. From October 1 to Halloween, pay $30 per car for a single screening or, for a sleep-depriving deal, $40 for a double feature; bring more than enough popcorn, since you might spill half of it on your lap.

1Find a 16-ounce plastic yogurt or sour cream container. Use a screwdriver to poke four equidistant holes in the lid, just in from the edge, then poke four holes under the rim of the container itself, spaced the same as those in the lid. Next, use a needle or the tip of a knife to poke four small holes in the bottom of the container. “This will let water drain when it rains,” says Andronic.

2Lay two 36-inch lengths of twine alongside each other and bend them in half, lining up the ends. Create a small loop by joining the two lengths together with a knot a couple of inches from the top of the bend, leaving the four long ends to hang free. You want to create a loop big enough to slide onto a tree branch.

3Thread each of the four twine ends through each of the holes in the lid and tie a knot on the underside, leaving about 3 inches of twine hanging under the lid, then thread the twine ends through the four holes under the container rim, tying a knot on the inside to secure them. The lid can serve as a perch, while still leaving enough room below for small birds to feed from the container, “and the lid also collects a little rainwater so the birds can drink.”

More Top Picks Best E Readers For Dyslexia

4Fill the feeder and hang it. A good all-year seed mix should contain milo, millet, wheat, and oil sunflower.

We all know about “beach reads,” but local author Emily Gray Tedrowe’s The Talented Miss Farwell (out September 29) might be the first “foliage read,” a deceptively pulpy yarn with distinctly autumnal tones (warm and folksy). Tedrowe’s charming and wry third novel was inspired by one of the biggest municipal frauds in U.S. history. Its protagonist, a teenage girl with a preternatural talent for crunching numbers, quickly becomes the treasurer of her tiny central Illinois town. The only problem is, she’s developed an expensive habit: collecting fine art. Tedrowe has a talent for incrementally (and believably) stacking a house of cards and keeping readers wondering just how crazy things will get. The answer: way crazier than you’d expect for a small-town art lover.

Seriously, people, now’s the time. Cideries in the Midwest are at the top of their game, using locally harvested apples to make grown-up ciders that are the very essence of fall. Get started with Virtue Cider’s Maple Dave ($25 for a 750-milliliter bottle; virtuecider.com), a limited-release cider from Fennville, Michigan, that has maple syrup added to the juice before it’s fermented, aged in bourbon barrels, and finished with more syrup; it’s a rich drink for chilly nights. Uncle John’s Cranberry Apple ($10.99 for a four-pack; Binny’s), a seasonal cider also from Michigan, is a shoo-in for the Thanksgiving table: It’s got a robust dose of cranberry juice, which brings a welcome tartness. Not autumnal enough for you? Try Right Bee Cider’s Clementine ($12.99 for a six-pack; Binny’s). It’s infused with the warm-sweet-tart flavors of clementine, cinnamon, rose hips, and honey.

▶ St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church

This bold 19th-century brick and terra cotta beauty is marked by a dramatic 160-foot tower. Built in 1888, it is one of just three Chicago churches by Burnham & Root, designers of noteworthy early downtown skyscrapers such as the Monadnock Building and the Rookery. 600 W. 45th St., Canaryville

▶ Liberty Baptist Church

Designed by William Alderman and erected in 1956, the modernist church stands out among the traditional buildings along South King Drive. Its parabolic roof is clad in red tile, creating a magnificent sweep of line and color. 4849 S. King Dr., Bronzeville

▶ St. Benedict the African

Completed in 1989 by architects Belli & Belli, St. Benedict is one of the city’s few Roman Catholic churches serving a mostly African American community. As the name suggests, the design of the church’s airy sanctuary, with its arched wooden ceiling of concentric circles, was inspired by West African motifs. Furnished with lush plants, the space feels imbued with life and energy. 340 W. 66th St., Englewood

▶ Mosque Maryam

Architect Christopher Chamales took his inspiration from the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul when designing this formidable gold-domed edifice, originally the Sts. Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church. Completed in 1952, it was bought by the Nation of Islam 20 years later and consecrated as a mosque. The glassy and modernist Muhammad University of Islam building next door creates a striking contrast with its neoclassical neighbor. 7351 S. Stony Island Ave., South Shore

▶ First Church of Deliverance

In 1939, Walter Thomas Bailey, the state’s first licensed Black architect, and Charles Sumner Duke, a Black structural engineer, turned a dowdy old hat factory into this streamlined church by recladding the structure in green and cream bands of terra cotta. The twin towers flanking the entrance, added in 1946 by Kocher Buss & DeKlerk architects, were nicknamed Old Testament and New Testament by the founding pastor, Clarence Cobbs. 4315 S. Wabash Ave., Bronzeville

▶ KAM Isaiah Israel

This Byzantine Revival synagogue, designed by Alfred Alschuler and completed in 1924, looks built for the ages, with its detailed Old World arches and brickwork. A massive dome sits four stories above the worship space. And check out the building’s towering minaret (a feature usually associated with mosques but not unheard of in synagogues): It’s actually a carefully disguised chimney. 1100 E. Hyde Park Blvd., Kenwood

▶ St. Simeon Mirotochivi Serbian Church

Designed by Pavlecic, Kovacevic & Markovich, a firm of prominent Serbian American architects, St. Simeon Mirotochivi is, like the KAM Isaiah Israel synagogue, a masterpiece of Byzantine Revival design. Rising from the grassy expanse of its generous courtyard, the 1969 church, with its striking checkered and banded brickwork, looks as if it’s been there for centuries. 3737 E. 114th St., East Side

Back in January, I had one fitness goal for 2020: requalify for the Boston Marathon. For years, moving forward as fast as I can has provided me health, purpose, and confidence. Then COVID-19 happened, races got canceled, and my once-meditative runs became stress-inducing gauntlets of mouth-breathing dog walkers and joggers. Clearly, recalibration was required.

Fast-forward a few months. Now I kick-ball-change. I pop-and-lock. I croon into my MacBook screen: “I don’t wanna be your fool … in this game for two … so I’m leaving. You. BEHIIIIND.” Thank you, Bobby Gouse.

Gouse is the cofounder of MVFitness, a dance-cardio boot camp. The bald, bold professional dancer had appeared on my Vimeo one day with a tantalizing proposition: Master the music video moves of my youth. I asked myself: Could an uncoordinated middle-aged runner really learn the routine to “Bye Bye Bye”?

So I signed up for MVFitness’s 45-minute, on-demand online workout. We’d warm up to Lady Gaga, and then Bobby would break down ‘NSync’s moves. All the while, he’d cycle through brightly colored wigs, swiveling his hips like a teen idol. At first, I struggled to follow, my cat scampering around my flat feet. But by summer’s end, I’d nailed the basics. Some days, I’d even skip the tutorial and go straight to the finishing “performance.”

Now, when the music stops, I return reluctantly to my regular pandemic life. For those 45 minutes, though, I feel like Britney Spears.

▶ A $20 monthly subscription grants access to all of MVFitness’s online classes.

In 1958, When Riva Lehrer was born with spina bifida — a congenital disorder that causes the spinal cord to partially protrude from the body — the diagnosis was usually a death sentence. Fortuitously, her mother worked for Josef Warkany, the father of experimental teratology (the study of birth defects), and found a surgeon to push Lehrer’s spine into place. This would be the first of dozens of invasive medical procedures promising a so-called normal body — and, with it, acceptance and inclusion.

Today, Lehrer, 62, is best known for her striking portraits, mostly in acrylic and charcoal, of queer and disabled people. Their bodies, along with adaptive devices like wheelchairs, are presented without spectacle. Lehrer is also known for her process, which she describes as “extreme consent”: She’ll leave her subjects alone in her studio and permit them to make their own contributions to, and even destroy, her portraits of them. In this way, she takes people off the examination table and allows them to be actors in their own portrayals.

In Golem Girl (out October 6), Lehrer turns her gaze on herself. Her memoir intersperses reproductions of her paintings with an account of growing up queer and disabled as society’s understanding of those identities continuously changed. Her stories about  attending a school for disabled children and her first attempts at sex are engaging enough, but what stands out is Lehrer’s ability to make connections — between her story and her mother’s, among cycles in her own life, and within her peer groups. The result is like artworks on translucent paper: In the foreground is Lehrer’s portrait of herself, and through it can be seen those of the people whose stories contributed to her own.

paula haney’s caramel apple cider pie

1 Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Pour apple cider into a 1-quart saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer until the cider is reduced to ½ cup (this can take anywhere from 10 minutes to a half hour, depending on your pan). Set aside to cool completely.

2 While the cider is cooling, make the custard filling. Place 1 cup sugar, sour cream, and ½ teaspoon salt in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. Crack the eggs into a small bowl and whisk until just combined. Whisk the eggs into the sugar mixture in three additions, mixing well after each addition. Stir the Calvados, vinegar, and vanilla paste into the reduced cider. Pour the cider mixture into the egg mixture and whisk until well combined.

3 Place pie shell on a baking sheet. Pour batter into the shell and bake until filling is slightly puffed, 40 to 45 minutes. Gently shake the pie. The custard should move as one piece. If the center of the pie jiggles by itself, return the pie to the oven for 5 to 10 more minutes. The top of the pie will be shiny when it is set. (It will deflate some as it cools.) Let cool completely, or chill overnight and bring to room temperature the next day before completing the following steps.

4 Make the caramel. Fill a medium heatproof bowl a quarter of the way up with ice water. Set aside. Place a fine-mesh strainer over a medium heatproof bowl. Set aside. Place the remaining sugar in a 1-quart heavy saucepan. Cook over medium-high heat, without stirring, until the sugar melts around the edge of the saucepan, 3 to 6 minutes. (Keep your eye on the pan constantly to make sure sugar doesn’t burn.) Gently stir, then turn heat down to medium. Continue to cook until a puddle of melted sugar appears in the middle of the pan, 3 to 4 minutes. Stir until the sugar is completely melted and turns a medium amber color.

5 Turn the heat down to low. Pour about 2 tablespoons of heavy cream into the melted sugar, stirring constantly. Be careful, as the sugar will steam and sputter. Add the rest of the cream in 4 to 5 additions, whisking constantly. The mixture will appear ropy at first, then form a thick sauce. Remove from the heat. To stop the cooking, dip the bottom of the saucepan into the bowl of ice water, making sure not to let any water spill into the caramel. Remove the pot from the water, then add the remaining salt and whisk until it dissolves. Pour caramel through the strainer into the heatproof bowl. Place bottom of bowl in the bowl of ice water and whisk occasionally until caramel is cooled to room temperature.

6 Pour ¼ cup of the caramel over the top of the pie. Spread the caramel to the edge of the crust with a small spatula. (Reserve remaining caramel for another use.) Chill in the refrigerator at least 2 hours before slicing.

A main stage production at Steppenwolf is a significant milestone for a playwright with a growing national profile, and this spring James Ijames was about to add one to his résumé. His dark historical satire The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington was in rehearsals for its Chicago premiere in March. Then the pandemic put everything on hold.

Miz Martha has been pushed back to the 2021–22 season, but Ijames still gets to make his Steppenwolf debut in 2020. His new short work, What Is Left, Burns (opening November 9), is the first production out of the gate for Steppenwolf Now, a series of newly commissioned plays created exclusively for live online viewing.

Ensemble members K. Todd Freeman and Jon Michael Hill play Keith and Ronnie, two poets with a complex history: Keith was Ronnie’s mentor before their relationship turned romantic, then ended. They reconnect after several years; because the reunion is prompted by COVID-19 isolation, the conversation takes the form of a video call.

Don’t worry, it’s not the dreaded Z-word. “I didn’t particularly want to do Zoom, which everyone’s on all the time now,” Ijames says on a (non-Zoom) call from his home in Philadelphia. “I thought, What if it was something like FaceTime, where it’s less of a static experience because the actors can move and travel while still being on the call, so it could be more exciting to watch?”

That kind of creativity will be a hallmark of the series. Writer-performer Donnetta Lavinia Grays will produce a solo piece, playwright Isaac Gómez has composed a radio play, and ensemble member Rajiv Joseph is doing illustrations to accompany his contribution. These necessary inventions serve as a bridge to live theater’s eventual return. “It sort of keeps me hopeful,” says Ijames, “in a world that seems to not have a ton of hope inside it.”

Though he decamped for Marfa, Texas, in 2015, trumpeter Rob Mazurek is an honorary lifelong Chicagoan. He’s been a member of the various iterations of Chicago Underground (Duo, Trio, and Quartet) and the jazz-electronic fusion group Isotope 217. But his most ambitious project is the Exploding Star Orchestra, an enormous ensemble of musicians — typically between 10 and 15, the majority of them with local roots — whose performances are edited and reconfigured digitally for recorded releases. The Bridgeport-based label International Anthem is set to issue Mazurek’s sixth album with ESO, Dimensional Stardust, on November 20, flaunting a roster of current city residents (multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Damon Locks, cellist Tomeka Reid) and players with deep Chicago ties (flutist Nicole Mitchell, guitarist Jeff Parker). The otherworldly, jazz-classical-electronic hybrid can be circular and chaotic, but Dimensional Stardust never flags in groove, and the textures and atmosphere will make you want to strap on a pair of headphones and get lost in the music.

Robby Haynes’s Spiced Pear Liqueur ▶ Makes 1 liter

1. Pour vodka into a large container. Place spices in an empty tea bag, seal it, and add to container. Add pears, then stir gently so that the tea bag and fruit are fully immersed. Cover tightly and let macerate for 5 days, shaking gently once a day. After 5 days, remove tea bag and set aside. Strain out fruit using a colander and discard.

2. In a small pot over medium heat, combine water and sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves, 3 to 4 minutes, then add tea bag with spices. Cover and gently simmer for 10 minutes, then remove from heat and let cool. Discard tea bag and add the sugar syrup to the infused liquor. Transfer to a large glass bottle (use the old vodka bottle, if you like); liqueur will keep at room temperature for up to four months.

The comedian and actor’s legacy is usually presented as a reductive cliché: He was a brilliant (but tortured) creative genius (and addict) who died too young. Belushi in a bee costume on the first season of Saturday Night Live is a pop culture touchstone, but few people know he hated how popular the skit became.

A few years ago, I wrote a screenplay titled America’s Guest, about Belushi walking off the set while filming The Blues Brothers in Chicago and then inviting himself into a stranger’s home for dinner. While my script (which is now in development) is a fictionalized account, the event actually happened. I first came across this anecdote while reading Tanner Colby’s 2005 biography, Belushi (coauthored by Judith Belushi Pisano); now, 15 years later, the audio from Colby’s interviews serves as the backbone of a new Showtime documentary.

Premiering September 27 and directed by R.J. Cutler, the documentary, also titled Belushi, approaches its subject as a person rather than as a caricature. The film offers nearly two hours of photos and home videos of the Humboldt Park native in private moments and is overlaid with audio interviews from many of the usual suspects (Dan Aykroyd, John Landis, Lorne Michaels), including those now gone (Harold Ramis, Carrie Fisher, Penny Marshall). The most imaginative moments come in a series of animated vignettes. Drawn in a clean-line, almost comic book style by Robert Valle, these sequences symbolically blur the lines between Belushi’s childhood and adulthood. In one, a grown Belushi sits on the couch drinking a beer while watching a samurai movie on television, but as he leans into the light emanating from the set, he becomes a wide-eyed child. Belushi was a kid at heart, and these moments bring that to life.

If your Belushi knowledge begins with a few SNL skits and ends with the food-fight scene in Animal House, Cutler’s documentary serves as an eye-opening look into the private world of a complex man. And if you’re a fanboy who wrote a screenplay about him, there’s still plenty of previously unseen images to add to your mental Belushi library. Of course, feel free to ignore ones with the bee costume.

We asked designer Eda Yorulmazoglu, whose outlandish outfits have been worn by Chicago’s top drag performers, to come up with a concept for 2020. Her suggestion: “Go as your sad food-and-wine-spattered quarantine couch.”

1 Find a large rectangular box (24-by-26-by-12-inch will do). Remove one of the box’s long flaps. Cut it lengthwise into four strips and set them aside.

2 Turn the box upside down and cut a circle in the bottom just big enough to fit your head and shoulders through.

3 Poke four small holes at equal distances around the circle. Turn the box right side up and thread a roughly five-foot piece of twine through the two holes on one side, and another piece of the same length through the holes on the other. Knot the four ends underneath so they won’t slip back through. These will be the suspenders that hold the couch up.

4 Lift the long rear flap; tape two of the cardboard strips you cut earlier to the back of the box so that flap stays upright. This is the back of the couch.

5 Use the remaining two cardboard strips and some more tape to prop up the side flaps from underneath. These are the couch’s arms.

6 Glue some fabric or carpet remnants to the outside of the box, then drape and spatter with food and drink of your choice, and maybe a dirty sock or two.

Dovetail Brewery
▶ Festbier

Made with spicy German hops to keep things from getting too sweet, this tasty Festbier is stronger than what you’d typically hoist in Munich. $11 for four 16-ounce cans at Beer Temple, 3173 N. Elston Ave., Avondale

Kinslahger Brewing Company
▶ Festbier and MÄrzen

This lager-exclusive brewery makes two Oktoberfest beers: a golden Festbier and a toasty Märzen amber. Pick up a mixed four-pack at the tap room. $10 for four 16-ounce cans, 6806 Roosevelt Rd., Oak Park

Off Color Brewing
▶ Waddle

Off Color often makes German styles no one’s heard of in a century, but its biscuity Oktoberfest, now available in cans, skews classic. $10 for four 16-ounce cans at the taproom, 1460 N. Kingsbury St., Goose Island

Great Central Brewing Company
▶ Festzelt

Bavarian native Andreas Miller uses German ingredients for a bright and bready Festbier that’s true to the style. The only non-Bavarian part is the Lake Michigan water. $10 for four 16-ounce cans at the taproom, 221 N. Wood St., West Town

Metropolitan Brewing
▶ Afterburner

The Oktoberfest-style beer from this brewery has been around for nearly a decade. Its staying power comes from a pleasingly nutty, toffee sweetness. $10 for six 12-ounce cans at Binny’s

For This year’s Edition (October 14 to 25), the festival will move online, with single screenings ranging from $10 to $75 and ticket packages from $50 to $220. If that sounds steep for watching a movie at home, keep in mind that many of these titles won’t show up in theaters for months, and the fest always features some of the most impressive local premieres of the year. Here, four of the films we are most excited to see.

1 Ammonite
Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan star in this historical drama about the close friendship between renowned paleontologist Mary Anning and a young woman named Charlotte Murchison. It’s the second feature by director Francis Lee, whose previous effort, God’s Own Country, was one of the most critically acclaimed movies of 2017.

2 One Night in Miami

Actress Regina King makes her feature-length directorial debut with this adaptation of Kemp Powers’s popular stage play, which fictionalizes the legendary 1964 meeting of Cassius Clay, Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown. Their conversation explores racial injustice and social unrest— subjects clearly still relevant in America today.

3 Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds

Now in his late 70s, maverick German filmmaker Werner Herzog continues to bring a poetic perspective to a wide range of fascinating subjects. Recent efforts have considered Mikhail Gorbachev and family surrogates in Japan. With this work, codirected by Clive Oppenheimer, Herzog meditates on astronomical phenomena and their effect on the human imagination.

4 The Road Up

Jon Siskel and Greg Jacobs made one of the most beloved Chicago-centric docs of the last decade with Louder Than a Bomb, capturing the annual slam poetry competition. This follow-up feature looks at the Cara Program, a local job-training organization, focusing on a mentor named Jesse Teverbaugh as he works with people who have struggled with incarceration, addiction, and homelessness.

Sen Morimoto’s dreamy self-titled electronic-pop album drops October 23, but many Chicagoans know his name from his politics. In July, Morimoto’s set for the city’s Millennium Park at Home series was pulled when he refused to redact a statement criticizing Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s reluctance to defund the Chicago Police Department and support a civilian police accountability council. We talked to the 26-year-old about his new release and butting heads with the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

This isn’t your first album, so why name it after yourself? In past projects, I’d be stretching myself to try new things I wasn’t that good at, or making sure one song doesn’t sound too much like another. This is a more cohesive body of work — something that I can point to and be like, “This is what I’m about.” It feels like Sen Morimoto’s Music for Dummies.

You have a very Chicago lineup of artists joining you on the album: Nnamdï and Kaina [Morimoto’s partner] also make appearances. Sometimes people ask me if I have a dream collaborator, and I don’t have an answer. I just like working with my friends. It’s all very natural.

Walk us through what happened with the DCASE concert. I had finished recording the music and the video for it, and the city asked me to include a statement saying, “This show is put on by DCASE and Mayor Lightfoot.” I was like, I can’t bring her up and not talk about what she’s doing. I drafted what I felt was a very chill statement — I figured I should be professional and precise instead of sensational. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do the show in the first place, but I assumed I could donate the money and say what I had to say. Since then, it’s escalated so much — not only the drama around the censorship, but the original message, which was about defunding police and enacting CPAC. I don’t regret talking about police brutality, because it’s only gotten worse. If anything, I wish I’d been harsher.

What’s next? Once we can go listen to music live again, I want to be dancing all the time. If I make sad music, it’d better at least be danceable.

The meal that follows the 24-hour fast of atonement is one of the most eagerly awaited on the Jewish calendar. After all, what’s better than stuffing yourself with bagels and lox after starving for a day? Spiff up this year’s break-fast by mixing some creative (and, for those keeping kosher, meatless) items from these foodie destinations.

1 Cinnamon Churro Babka

Masa Madre
For dessert, grab this loaf, baked with the literal and flavorful twist of a churro, from the city’s new babka experts. $20. 111 N. Aberdeen St., West Loop

2 Pickles

Heritage Restaurant & Caviar Bar
The new market here offers three types that would make your zayde proud: house pickles, curry zucchini spears, and bread-and-butter pickle chips. $8 per pound. 2700 W. Chicago Ave., Humboldt Park

3 Bagels and Bialys

Mindy’s Bakery
Mindy Segal’s new bakery is cranking out sourdough variants with exemplary chew. Bagels: $3 each; $30 for a dozen. Bialys: $3.50 each. 1747 N. Damen Ave., Bucktown

4 Egg Salad

Bungalow by Middle Brow
Known for its pizza and beer, Middle Brow also makes egg salad flavored with aromatic curry, a welcome spice for a normally one-note dish. $8 for six ounces. 2840 W. Armitage Ave., Logan Square

More Top Picks Best Corner Desks For Small Spaces

5 Creamed Trout

All Together Now
The Jewish Midwesterner will appreciate this spread of lake trout, with lemon and dill to balance the fishiness. $12.50. 2119 W. Chicago Ave., West Town

6 Lox

Steingold’s
You can’t go wrong with anything here for the High Holy Days, but if you grab only one thing, make it the salmon, cured in-house. $40 per pound. 1840 W. Irving Park Rd., North Center

It’s called an FKT, and here’s how it works: Pick a trail, path, or other recognizable route of a distance you can comfortably complete. (It just has to be at least five miles and interesting enough that others will want to run it.) Add it to the Fastest Known Time website (fastestknowntime.com), start your GPS watch or phone, and haul ass.

For Wes Judd, a 29-year-old River North ultrarunner who set the 36-mile Chicago Lakefront Trail round-trip FKT of 3 hours, 54 minutes, 14 seconds on March 22, a motivating playlist helps — he cued up hip-hop duo Run the Jewels — as does a mantra for when self-doubt sets in. (His may not be for everyone: “I can take more pain.”)

Afterward, upload your data to the site. If you’re verifiably the speediest to complete it, the glory of an FKT is yours. Don’t feel up to challenging Judd’s record? (The man averaged 6:33 per mile for a distance equivalent to a marathon and a third.) Try for one of these FKTs:

▶ North Branch Trail The men’s one-way record on this 20-mile stretch from Foster Avenue to the Chicago Botanic Gardens is 2:55:21; the women’s is up for grabs.

▶ Wauponsee Glacial Trail A Chicago couple completed the 45-mile out-and-back from Joliet to Custer Park in 14:19; no one-way records have been recorded.

▶ Lake Carroll Loop Head a bit west of Rockford to reach the hilly 10-mile route with a men’s FKT of 1:18:16. That’s 7:37 per mile. Piece of cake.

In American Gun, out now, writer and DePaul University professor Chris Green delivers an ambitious artistic response to Chicago’s problems with firearms: He commissioned 100 local authors, ranging from well-known figures (Avery R. Young) to high schoolers, to each craft four lines for a communal poem, with each contributor reusing a line from the preceding stanza. The result is a powerful testament to collaborative art and its possibility to effect social change. An excerpt:

74 Haki R. Madhubuti
the silence of the dead continues, eerily accurate //
insisting that poets, the freest of creative artists recognize //
there is the will to fight and the written will of death //
is refused, revised life-messages for children, insects; the planet

75 Ed Roberson
Poets, the freest of creative artists recognize //
guns are not creative nor art and pollute the hand from its devise of all it can. //
Death is refused, revising life messages for children, insects; the planet //
stilling its bullets will hear the living chorus from that silence.

76 Kevin Coval
guns aren’t creative, aren’t art and pollute the hand from its devised can //
control; the craft is off, the safety sprung. the color of chalk lines //
still hear bullets hear the living chorus. that silence //
is the north side of the city, tuning the 10 o’clock news to gated prison condos.

77 Luis Carranza
Control; the craft is off, the safety sprung. the color of chalk lines. //
Dividing communities, children torn from families, gunshots sound like lullabies … //
the north side of the city turning the 10 o’clock news to gated prison condos. //
Broken systems keep preventing folks of brown and black skin from seeing change.

78 E’mon Lauren
communities’ children torn like lullabies, //
a choir of cacophonous coffins. a tune or tomb everyone carries. //
broken brown and blk skin, //
named and turned funeral, homes lost to the hood.

If you need another incentive for getting a medical marijuana card — aside from cheaper prices at your local dispensary — how about the ability to legally become your own supplier? A medical card lets you grow up to five plants in your residence. Here, Tom Gliszewski, cofounder of the cannabis-cultivation school Home Grow Chicago, guides first-timers.

What You’ll Need

One four-by-four-foot grow tent, a four-by-four-inch plastic pot with drainage, a 10-gallon pot, soilless mix with perlite and coco with pH levels between 6 and 7, a six-inch inline duct fan, a 400-watt metal halide or high-pressure sodium light kit, an outlet timer, and feminized autoflower cannabis seeds. “There’s a hydroponics store called Chicago Roots that has everything,” says Gliszewski. “You can grow one to two plants [which can yield about 14 grams of flower] for 300 bucks.”

1 Plant

“Presoak your seed in a glass of water. Let it float until it opens, between 24 and 48 hours. Then plant into your starter pot, the four-by-four one.”

2 Grow

“This stage can be about two months. You will need to water every day the first three weeks. Don’t drench the soil — you just want to keep it from drying out. In week 4, transplant to the 10-gallon pot. Place the stem between your index and middle fingers and flip the container upside down, then slide the roots out. It’s best to do this when the soil is dry. Once you put it in the new pot, you’ll need to give the plant more water, so that the soil always stays moist, and at least 18 hours of light a day. When you start to see flowers, change the light cycle to 12 hours on, 12 hours off, which you can do with a standard outlet timer.”

3 Harvest

“When you buy seeds, usually the breeder will give you a flowering time. If it’s 60 days, be ready to cut the buds then. This is the most important stage, when any stress on the plant will affect the product. During the first few weeks of flowering, you will see a major growth spurt — the plant will double in size. You’ll want to keep humidity at no more than 40 percent — a digital hygrometer comes in handy to gauge humidity. Most households have an average of 40 to 45 percent, sometimes higher in the basement. A dehumidifier should do the trick.”

Anyone who’s seen The Infinite Wrench in person at the Neo-Futurarium in Andersonville knows that the Neo-Futurists are nimble. Performing 30 original plays in 60 short minutes involves an astonishing number of set and costume changes, not to mention balletic stage crosses. When the pandemic hit, the company made a graceful pirouette to online-only. Longtime fans, my spouse and I subscribed immediately to their Patreon for The Infinite Wrench Goes Viral, and now I can attest that the Neos are equally agile remotely.

They offer five weekly-subscription levels, from the Elbow Bump ($3) to the Extended, Almost Uncomfortable Hug ($100). Subscribe, and on Sunday night you’ll receive a link to that week’s show. As with any savvy online subscription system, each tier comes with an increasing level of perks, ranging from an early sneak peek at titles for that week’s world premieres up to a custom play written by an ensemble member about a subject of your choice. For my money (the $9 Casual Embrace level), the Neo-Futurists are the Chicago theater company that’s come up with the most resourceful and engaging answer to the question of how to keep a theater’s doors metaphorically open.

Take Connor Shishita Pickett’s hilariously obscene “Song for Landlords,” which includes snappy cuts of him and the other Neos singing along in their respective apartments, gesturing to repairs their landlords are evidently refusing to make. Or take Jasmine Henri Jordan’s baroquely titled To the Black Teenager (Running Down Michigan Avenue With a Gucci Bag Under His Shirt After Someone Threw a Rock Through the Window of the Gucci Downtown During the First Day of Protesting in Chicago), a spoken-word piece whose power is enhanced, not diminished, by being delivered from a floral living room sofa.

That such intimacy feels like an asset and not a compromise aligns nicely with the troupe’s new tagline: “Always in contact, never contagious.”

▶ A link to each week’s new show is emailed to subscribers on Sunday at 8 p.m.

1 The Forgotten Ones
Who would have guessed that peaceful Read Dunning Memorial Park sits on 38,000 graves? Today a memorial plaque marks the resting place of patients of the tuberculosis hospital and insane asylum that once stood on the site — the remains were a chilling discovery for unwitting developers. Belle Plaine and Neenah Avenues, Dunning

2 The girl Vanishes
The charming glass-enclosed sculpture of a girl named Inez Clarke (at least according to an inscription at the statue’s base, just above the tombstone) is a Graceland Cemetery favorite — especially since she’s rumored to leave the case and wander the grounds. And yet cemetery records reveal that no one by that name was ever buried here. A girl of many mysteries! 4001 N. Clark St., Uptown

3 A Mausoleum Mystery
Thousands are still buried under Lincoln Park, which occupies land that was once the Chicago City Cemetery, yet only one tomb is visible aboveground: that of hotelier Ira Couch, whose remains are said to reside inside with those of other family members, though exactly how many is a secret sealed behind a rusted door. 2045 N. Lincoln Park West, Lincoln Park

4 The Italian Bride
Julia Buccola’s grave in Mount Carmel Cemetery features two photos: one from her wedding day and one from the day her body was exhumed. Her mother had nightmares that Julia was buried alive, and when the casket was opened after six years, her body looked perfectly preserved. 1400 S. Wolf Rd., Hillside

5 Showmen’s Rest
Five elephant sculptures guard a plot of departed circus performers in Woodlawn Cemetery. The animals’ trunks are lowered in mourning for 56 victims of a gruesome 1918 circus train accident. 7750 Cermak Rd., Forest Park

6 The Largest Mass Grave in the Western Hemisphere
Oak Woods Cemetery is home to the remains of more than 4,000 Confederate soldiers who perished at Camp Douglas, an immense, disease-ridden prisoner-of-war camp described as “80 acres of hell.” A 30-foot granite monument marks the mound of earth where the dead were interred. 1035 E. 67th St., Grand Crossing

7 Chicago’s Smallest Cemetery
A defunct scrap yard is the final resting place of a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo. You can spot the grave of Andreas von Zirngibl, protected by concrete blocks amid the rusting machinery, from the Ewing Avenue Bridge, in the shadow of the Skyway. 93rd Court and Ewing Avenue, East Side

If you were looking at your Instagram feed on June 2, you likely saw a procession of black squares in place of pictures. The “blackout” was a global act of social media protest in response to the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. On that same day, local artist Amanda Williams uploaded a different kind of black square, not stark black but a lighter shade, strewn with blurred strands of gray. She wrote an extended caption underneath that read, in part, “You can’t just say ‘black’ … which one?” Each day afterward, she would post a variation of black with a riff on the motif “What Black is this you say?” On June 2, it was “Your mother’s Andriana fur mink coat black her name embroidered in gold cursive on the inside.”

That series informs Williams’s inaugural solo exhibition opening at Rhona Hoffman Gallery in West Town on November 6. She will apply the aesthetics of her Instagram project to mixed-media works, experimenting with pouring paint onto different materials — wood, canvas, and linen. The captions will remain, either as titles or incorporated into the works. “It’s exciting to me for people to see what it means to translate an idea from a certain platform onto another medium,” Williams says, “and I’m hoping that will be exciting to the audience.”

Williams is an artist who sees color not just chromatically, but socially. She is best known for Color(ed) Theory, in which she painted Englewood houses slated for demolition in the vivid hues of products marketed to Black people (like the turquoise of Newports). “The colors originated from strong biographical associations with culture and environment,” she says. “What happens when those same colors are dislocated from their products and placed in an unexpected context?”

In that respect, taking Blackness out of the limitations of a social media app and into a physical space encourages visitors to reenvision it. “The prevailing inclination is to flatten Blackness and to be afraid of it,” Williams says. “But Black is so rich and deep.”

Alliums

▶ What A purple cluster of flowers atop a three-to-four-foot stalk. “They’re magnificent!” Tennison says.
▶ Where to plant Full sun. Without enough light and heat, the plant will get spindly and droop or might not flower at all.
▶ Tip Alliums naturalize, meaning they multiply in the ground once planted. So make sure you love it, because wherever you put one, it will definitely spread.

Lenten Roses

▶ What A pink, rose-like flower and one of the earliest blooms. “It will literally come up in the snow.”
▶ Where to plant In a shady spot, they’ll bloom all summer.
▶ Tip Add bone meal or bulb booster and plant deep — four to six inches down — to reduce the risk of the bulbs freezing.

Delight Darwin Hybrid Tulips

▶ What A new variety of tulip, based on cultivars bred hundreds of years ago, that stays in bloom two weeks longer than most kinds
▶ Where to plant Sun or shade — tulips are versatile.
▶ Tip Squirrels love these, but they hate alliums, so plant some nearby.

Virginia Bluebells

▶ What Little blue flowers that bloom in early spring
▶ Where to plant In the shaded, moist soil near the base of trees, where the woodland native would grow in nature.
▶ Tip After the bloom dies, so do the leaves, so plant other things around it.

Dwarf Rhododendrons

▶ What An evergreen flowering shrub that blooms in late spring. They have a beautiful waxy leaf that adds to your garden all year.
▶ Where to plant Full sun — rhododendrons love heat.
▶ Tip As with most bulbs, even if you accidentally plant a rhododendron upside down, the spring shoots will follow the sun and still find their way up.

When the coronavirus shut down performing arts, Chicago Children’s Theatre was quicker than most grown-up groups to retool its programming. In late March, two weeks after suspending in-person shows, the company launched a new YouTube channel, which it’s been filling with interactive art challenges and charming puppet adaptations of beloved kid literature (if you ever wanted to hear Michael Shannon narrate Leo Lionni’s mouse tale Frederick, now you can).

A return to indoor theater is still a ways off, but CCT is offering a creative fall family outing: a drive-in screening of Beatrix Potter and Friends, running Thursdays through Sundays, October 1 to 18, at the company’s West Loop home (100 S. Racine Ave.). The video production, an adaptation of the puppet show CCT has presented annually since 2015, blends live actors and puppetry to bring Peter Rabbit and other Potter characters to life. Cellist Sonia Goldberg will play kid-friendly classical music before each screening, which will take place outdoors in the parking lot. It’s $45 a car, and families can either stay in their vehicles or bring lawn chairs for a Potter picnic.