Embrace Boston is hosting an inaugural Juneteenth concert that starts at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday on the Boston Common, where the nonprofit oversees its memorial honoring Martin Luther King Jr., and his wife, Coretta Scott King.

The 1.5-hour concert features the Embrace Choir and other city groups, setting “the celebratory tone for us as we honor the national holiday and historical importance of Juneteenth.”

The federal holiday commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans.

On Thursday, Embrace Boston is offering panels, keynotes, dancing and music centered around racial equity, healing, wellbeing, and joy at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, with registration beginning at 10 a.m.

Embrace Boston’s three-day celebration concludes Friday, culminating in a block party at Roxbury Community College. Grammy-nominated producer Just Blaze is headline the event, commemorating 50 years of hip hop.

The music-filled weekend continues Saturday, when the Boston Landmarks Orchestra hosts a free concert at the Salvation Army’s Kroc Community Center in Dorchester at 4 p.m. The show includes pieces from Scott Joplin, William Grant Still, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson and more.

Remembering those who endured slavery and seized freedom on Cambridge’s Brattle Street before the American Revolution will be the focus of a Sunday afternoon outdoor community gathering put on by the National Park Service at Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters.

The event, beginning at 4 p.m., will feature music, poetry, speeches and a screening of Descendant, an award-winning film that highlights the descendants of the survivors from the Clotida, the last-known slave ship to arrive in the U.S.

On Juneteenth, Monday, the Boston Juneteenth Committee is hosting its 13th annual Emancipation observance at the National Center of Afro American Artists, at 4 p.m. That follows a 12 p.m. flag-raising at the Dillaway-Thomas House on Roxbury Street and 1 p.m. parade to the NCAAA.

The Congregational Library & Archives celebrates the holiday by holding a three-day exhibition of the Sacred Ally Quilt Ministry at its Boston location, 14 Beacon St. The exhibit includes nearly a dozen quilts memorializing the final words of George Floyd.

The Grammy Awards announced another tune-up Tuesday, adding three new categories ahead of next year’s show.

The 2024 ceremony is set to introduce Best African Music Performance, Best Pop Dance Recording and Best Alternative Jazz Album, organizers said.

The Best African Music Performance category will recognize “recordings that utilize unique local expressions from across the African continent,” the announcement reads. Best Pop Dance Recording will honor “tracks and singles that feature up-tempo, danceable music that follows a pop arrangement,” while Best Alternative Jazz Album will celebrate “artistic excellence in Alternative Jazz albums by individuals, duos and groups/ensembles, with or without vocals.”

The new additions follow a 2023 ceremony in which the Grammys added five categories, including Songwriter of the Year.

“These changes reflect our commitment to actively listen and respond to the feedback from our music community, accurately represent a diverse range of relevant musical genres, and stay aligned with the ever-evolving musical landscape,” Henry Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, said Tuesday. “By introducing these three new categories, we are able to acknowledge and appreciate a broader array of artists.”

Tuesday’s announcement also revealed that Songwriter of the Year and Producer of the Year will move to the Grammys’ general field, which is non-genre-specific. Album, Song and Record of the Year are also in the general field, as is Best New Artist.

“We are excited to honor and celebrate the creators and recordings in these categories, while also exposing a wider range of music to fans worldwide,” Mason said.

This year’s Grammys took place in February at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, where Beyonce set a new record with her 32nd career win. Harry Styles won Album of the Year for “Harry’s House,” Lizzo won Record of the Year for “About Damn Time” and Bonnie Raitt won Song of the Year for “Just Like That.”

©2023 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Never heard of them? Turku was built in the 13th century, and the “Paris of Finland” was that country’s capital until 1812. Today, you can visit the city’s medieval fortress, traipse the cobblestone streets and riverside byways, and enjoy fika — a coffee and cake break we really need to adopt over here — at one of its many cafes.

You’ll find Lake Bacalar’s clear blue waters on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, and Srebrenik is a dramatic, medieval town in Bosnia and Herzegovina that looks straight out “Game of Thrones.” The full list of underrated destinations — and more travel tips — can be found at www.timeout.com/travel/. Meanwhile, here’s a peek at the top 10.

1. Mongolia

2. Lake Bacalar, Mexico

3. Cuenca, Ecuador

4. Srebrenik, Bosnia and Herzegovina

5. Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico

6. Gippsland, Australia

7. Plymouth, England

8. Burlington, Vermont

9. Turku, Finland

10. Karpathos, Greece

DeWalt, a Stanley Black & Decker brand, recently launched a pair of tools to make any dad happy. The 20V Max Brushless 1/2-inch Drill/Driver (DCD793) is an amazingly small and powerful cordless tool. It’s built with a more petite body than previous models (about 2 inches shorter) but with 16% more power.

The new light and powerful tool (6.38-by-7.88-by-2.49 inches, 2.38 pounds) is built with an efficient brushless motor and 15 clutch positions, and it’s keyless, so no chuck key needed. It works off a 20V MAX 2.0 Ah rechargeable battery and has easy-to-control variable speeds. An on-tool LED helps light up tough-to-get dark areas.

A more powerful 20V Max Brushless Cordless 1/2-inch Hammer Drill Kit (DCD798) is built with a body over 1 inch shorter in length compared to previous models with 16% more power. If your user drills into concrete, this is what you want. It features a hammer mode for concrete and masonry applications. The hammer drill provides power up to 28,050 beats/blows per minute in hammer mode.

The hammer drill (6.93-by-7.88-by-2.49 inches, 2.49 pounds) works off the same portable battery and without a loading key, and it has a brushless motor and an on-tool LED work light.

Both models have a 0.5-inch ratcheting chuck, produce 404 unit watts out of power, and run up to easy-to-control variable speeds up to 1,650 revolutions per minute.

Both are available as a single tool or in a kit. The kit includes the device, a DeWalt 20V Max 2.0 Ah rechargeable battery, a charger, a belt hook and a bag. The battery and charger are also sold separately. The DCD793 Compact Drill/Driver Kit is currently $99 at Lowes through Aug. 2, and the DCD798 kit is $184.

DeWalt’s 20V Max line, a portable tool collection, has cordless tools for almost any job inside or out and perfect gift choices for future dad gifts. They include saws, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, vacuums, lasers, impact wrenches and more.

www.dewalt.com

Soundcore’s new Motion X600 Bluetooth speaker, called by the company “the world’s first portable high-fidelity speaker,” is Father’s Day-ready, summer-ready, and any music listening at any location-ready.

Dad can take it poolside with its IPX7 water protection, or grab it by the handle and have it play his favorite playlist while tinkering in the garage. Consider it his modern-day boombox. There are no locations it’s limited to, and if you want it to be the life of the party, that’s no problem with its booming 50-watt power, enabling it to provide a room full of sound.

Inside the aluminum speaker is a 6,400 mAh rechargeable battery (USB-C to C charging cable included), suitable for about 12 hours of playtime at half volume. The 5- watt sound comes from a 20-watt left channel, 20-watt right channel, and 10 watts from the sky channel, all covered by a stainless steel grill.

The decorative features are essential, but the sound counts the most, and the Motion X600 doesn’t disappoint. Its clarity at low levels or in room-filling settings provides robust and high-quality sound. Bringing it to the higher volume levels brought both the great sound and very high volume levels, so much so that it had to be lowered a little not to annoy my neighbors during testing.

For those wanting to control the sound with customized settings, the Soundcore app will do that to achieve peak performance. Soundcore states that if you have two Motion X600 speakers, they can be paired simultaneously for authentic stereo sound.

Touch controls are responsive and easy to access across the top. An aux-in port is on the back, and there’s a built-in microphone.

https://us.soundcore.com $199.99, available in polar gray, lunar blue and aurora green

©2023 Gregg Ellman. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

I usually double the recipe and freeze them to have an easy breakfast or after school snack for a couple of weeks. They can also be stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Blueberry Ginger Bran Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

INGREDIENTS

1 large egg

¼ cup molasses

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup sunflower or other vegetable oil

1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

¾ cup milk

1½ cups whole wheat flour

1 cup wheat bran

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

¼ cup minced candied ginger

DIRECTIONS

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 12 muffin cups or line with paper liners.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the egg, molasses, honey, sunflower oil, applesauce, vanilla and milk until combined.

In a separate bowl combine the flour, wheat bran, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ground ginger. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and gently whisk to combine until no dry pockets remain, but don’t overmix. Fold in the blueberries and ginger with a rubber spatula.

Divide the batter among the muffin cups, filling them nearly to the top. Bake on the center rack of the oven for 15 to 18 minutes or until tops spring back when gently pressed or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Allow muffins to cool slightly in the muffin tin before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days or refrigerate or freeze and heat for later consumption.

Registered dietitian and food writer Laura McLively is the author of “The Berkeley Bowl Cookbook.” Follow her at @myberkeleybowl and www.lauramclively.com.

I was surprised by a light and refreshing sauce served at a local restaurant. They used gazpacho, a fresh tomato mixture usually served as a cold soup. I decided to use this style of sauce over a seared tuna steak. The flavorful sauce and tender tuna were a perfect match. A slice of garlicky toast with the dish was perfect for sopping up extra sauce.

Ahi tuna is best for this recipe. It is also known as yellowfin. Although any tuna can be used for the recipe, ask for sushi-grade ahi for best results, if available.

Helpful Hints:

— You can use any type of rice.

— If you don’t have a blender or food processor, just mix the sauce ingredients well together. The sauce will be chunky but still delicious.

Countdown:

— Microwave rice and set aside.

— Make sauce.

— Toast bread.

— Sear tuna.

Shopping List:

To buy: 3/4 pound tuna steaks, 1 package microwaveable brown rice, 1 small bottle reduced-sodium tomato juice, 1 cucumber, whole wheat baguette and olive oil spray.

Staples: olive oil, onion, garlic salt and black peppercorns.

—

SEARED TUNA WITH GAZPACHO SAUCE

Recipe by Linda Gassenheimer

• Microwaveable brown rice to make 1 1/2 cups rice
• 1/2 cup reduced-sodium tomato juice
• 1 cup diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup diced cucumber plus 2 tablespoons diced cucumber (divided use)
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 garlic clove
• 4 slices whole wheat baguette
• Olive oil spray
• 4 teaspoons olive oil
• 3/4 pound tuna steaks, about 1-inch thick

Make rice according to package instructions. Measure 1 1/2 cups and set aside. Save any remaining rice for another meal. Puree the tomato juice, diced tomatoes, 1/2 cup diced cucumber and onion together in a blender or food processor. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside. Cut garlic clove in half and rub over one side of the sliced bread. Spray that side with olive oil spray. Toast in a toaster oven or under the broiler. Set aside. Heat oil in a medium-size nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and add the tuna. Brown 2 minutes. Turn tuna over and brown two minutes for rare or another 2 minutes for medium-rare. Divide into 2 portions and place on dinner plates. Spoon a little sauce over the sliced tuna and serve the rest of the sauce on the side. Sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons diced cucumber on top of the tuna. Serve the toasted bread on the side.

Yield 2 servings.

Per serving: 594 calories (33% from fat), 15.3 g fat (2.4 g saturated, 6.8 g monounsaturated), 78 mg cholesterol, 48.4 g protein, 64.9 g carbohydrates, 5.7 g fiber, 214 mg sodium.

(Linda Gassenheimer is the author of over 30 cookbooks, including her newest, “The 12-Week Diabetes Cookbook.” Listen to Linda on www.WDNA.org and all major podcast sites. Email her at Linda@DinnerInMinutes.com.)

©2023 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Shortly before 5 p.m., a Honda SUV was turning left into a parking lot when it collided with Williams’ motorcycle in the town of Dorset, according to a statement from Vermont State Police.

“Williams was unable to avoid a collision and was thrown from his motorcycle. He suffered critical injuries and was airlifted to Albany Medical Center in Albany, New York, where he was pronounced dead,” according to the statement.

Williams was wearing a helmet, police said.

The SUV’s driver received minor injuries and wasn’t hospitalized. He had signaled the turn and wasn’t immediately detained although the crash investigation continued, police said.

Williams, whose full name was Richard Treat Williams, lived in Manchester Center in southern Vermont, police said.

His agent, Barry McPherson, also confirmed the actor’s death.

“I’m just devastated. He was the nicest guy. He was so talented,” McPherson told People magazine.

“He was an actor’s actor,” McPherson said. “Filmmakers loved him. He’s been the heart of … Hollywood since the late 1970s.”

The Connecticut-born Williams made his movie debut in 1975 as a police officer in the movie “Deadly Hero” and went on to appear in more than 120 TV and film roles, including the movies “The Eagle Has Landed,” “Prince of the City” and “Once Upon a Time in America.”

He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his role as hippie leader George Berger in the 1979 movie version of the hit musical “Hair.”

He appeared in dozens of television shows but was perhaps best known for his starring role from 2002 to 2006 in “Everwood” as Dr. Andrew Brown, a widowed brain surgeon from Manhattan who moves with his two children to the Colorado mountain town of that name.

Williams also had a recurring role as Lenny Ross on the TV show “Blue Bloods.”

Williams’ stage appearances included Broadway shows, including “Grease” and “Pirates of Penzance.”

Colleagues and friends praised Williams as kind, generous and creative.

“Treat Williams was a passionate, adventurous, creative man,” actor Wendell Pierce tweeted. “In a short period of time, he quickly befriended me & his adventurous spirit was infectious. We worked on just 1 film together but occasionally connected over the years. Kind and generous with advice and support. RIP.”

Justine Williams, a writer, director and producer, tweeted that Williams was “the best.” Actor James Woods said, “I really loved him and am devastated that he’s gone.”

“Extraction,” adapted from a graphic novel, introduced Rake, a former Australian Army Special Air Service Regiment (SASR) operator turned rescuer-for-hire, recruited to save an incarcerated drug dealer’s son in Bangladesh.

The novel ended with Rake dead. The movie followed suit. “When we began the original script, the character was done by the end, riddled with bullets, a piece of Swiss cheese toppling off a bridge. That completion felt necessary for the story of this redemption tale,” Hemsworth, 39, said in a Zoom interview Monday.

Rake didn’t stay dead for long. Before filming finished, Hemsworth and director Sam Hayward “started talking about if we ever did another one, what the character would do. How the world could expand.

They decided, “We should give ourselves an out in case audiences respond. So at the very end of shooting, we added a little piece to indicate the character was alive.

“Then,” the Melbourne native noted, “the film was the biggest film on Netflix at the time,” making a sequel inevitable.

“It was like telling an origin story for the second time — because the story’s emotional components were only the tip of the iceberg in the first film.

“We didn’t really understand or know a lot about where he was from, what his backstory was, what drives him. That unraveling — and a closer examination of who the character was — was really exciting to me.

“Probably the most exciting thing (because) we knew the action was going to be there and I knew Sam was going to elevate it even further.

“But to have a story that had more depth and was able to have something an audience could relate to was important and exciting.”

Tyler Rake is indeed different now.  “What I liked is we had a character that had, for whatever reason, a very hard exterior surface. But underneath he’s bottling emotions and trauma, unable to express and share any of that with anyone.

“In this film, you see him opening up. Some healing does occur. For me that is something that I’m glad we’re allowed to explore onscreen. I don’t think 10 years ago you could have had a male action hero cry onscreen. Be vulnerable. Show emotion. And that is problematic for society, across the board for everyone involved.

“So I’m proud of the fact that we were able to explore that and show different facets to the character.”

“Extraction 2” streams on Netflix Friday

Lately, he has become withdrawn and silent, and he is by himself a lot. He literally sleeps all day. Oh, and he’s a compulsive liar, so we don’t know if anything he tells us is truthful. He does have depression issues and some trauma. Those signs are easy to spot in him. What gives, if you know? — Observant Uncle in Indiana

Dear Uncle: Has your nephew been treated for his depression or trauma? Whether the answer is yes or no, it’s time for him to be checked by a physician to determine whether he may be physically or possibly mentally ill or on drugs. Please don’t wait to make it happen.

Dear Abby: My wife goes to lunch with male co-workers at least a couple times a week. When she has lunch with them, she uses a credit card so I won’t know, but when she eats by herself, she uses our bank account. I have heard her make breakfast dates by saying, “You know where,” or “The place by work,” rather than saying where. Is this common? — Suspicious in California

Dear Suspicious: You seem to be a VERY suspicious spouse. It’s not unusual for male and female co-workers to have a lunch together. “You know where” and “the place by work” are descriptors used by people who have a routine, not necessarily to obscure anything nefarious. Could your wife be secretive about it because she knows if she isn’t, you will give her the third degree?

Dear Abby: I am a 13-year-old guy. I live in California. There’s an eighth grade girl I have a crush on. The last time I saw her was three years ago in a musical theater show we were both in. I knew she liked me when she passed me a note that said, “Do you like me?” Sadly, I chickened out. I did write a really cool love rap for her. The problem is, she’s on TV shows and commercials in L.A., and she might think she’s too good for me now. How should I approach her? Should I show her my rap? — Crushing in San Diego

Dear Crushing:  Approach her by letting her know you think she’s doing a great job on those shows and commercials. Then tell her you wrote something just for her and share it with her. It’s a huge compliment and she should be appreciative. However, if she indicates that she thinks she’s “too good for you now,” it is very important you remember that because someone feels that way DOESN’T MAKE IT TRUE. (There’s a showbiz adage that’s as true today than it was when it was coined: “Be nice to people you meet on your way up. You’ll meet them on your way down.”)

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com.

Maybe they do once in a while. I can’t think of any off the top of my head. My colleague Michael Phillips recently singled out the ending of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” as an exception to the rule, and movie audiences can be fairly certain another installment will turn up in theaters.

When it comes to streaming originals, that expectation is less assured.

I happen to like a narrative that unfolds, beginning to end, with some economy. Wrap it up, I say! I want off this narrative treadmill! But Hollywood isn’t in the business of telling a satisfying story over the course of a single episode anymore. Serialization remains ascendant and streaming shows are defined by their season-long (sometimes series-long) story arcs.

If you’re lucky, those seasons end with some semblance of resolution.

Often, they don’t.

So what purpose does a cliffhanger serve if you don’t know when a show will return — or if it will return at all?

A sendup of our collective fascination with true crime, the dark comedy “Based on a True Story” premiered on Peacock last week and it is the latest series to fall into this trap. A couple discovers the identity of a serial killer and, rather than turning him in to the cops, they decide to make a podcast with him instead. Their safety remains in question throughout and the season ends on a cliffhanger — with no guarantee of a series renewal.

Cliffhangers are supposed to function as a promise of answers to come. You want a general idea of when that will be. In the streaming era, it could be anyone’s guess, and that sense of excitement from a cliffhanger dissipates over time. Instead of leaving an audience on tenterhooks, we’re left only to shrug. How anticlimactic!

Meanwhile, some streaming shows have ended their seasons on a cliffhanger, only to be canceled altogether, leaving audiences dangling forever. Who wants that?

Project by project, it’s unclear who’s pushing for cliffhangers. Is the showrunner? Or the executives to whom they answer? Or maybe cliffhangers are the inevitable result of untenable working conditions, with shrinking budgets reducing the creative process down to “mini-rooms” with four or five people mapping out an entire show in a matter of weeks.

A staple in fiction since at least the 19th century, when novels were serialized in magazines, cliffhangers were once primarily the hallmark of daytime soaps. But it was the nighttime soap “Dallas” that upped the ante with one of the most famous cliffhangers in TV history.

In the spring of 1980, the show’s third season ended with Larry Hagman’s egocentric oil baron J.R. Ewing gunned down. But who pulled the trigger? To promote the upcoming season, CBS created the catchphrase “Who shot J.R.?” — ingenious for its simplicity — and it became a shorthand for all cliffhangers that have dangled since.

Cliffhangers worked pretty well when shows followed a standard TV schedule, and new seasons launched in the fall and wrapped in the spring. A cliffhanger in May meant you’d be getting some answers come September. That felt like an honest pact between a show and its audience.

Streaming has upended all of that. Maybe there’ll be another season. Maybe there won’t. Maybe a show will be renewed, only to be canceled before new episodes are filmed. Or maybe new episodes were filmed and ready to go, but the show was canceled anyway and then subsequently picked up by a different cable or streaming platform, and here’s hoping you subscribe to that one, too.

Uncertainty can thwart the emotional connection you form with the shows you like best — or even perfect average shows you’re merely happy to have back on a consistent basis. But “perfectly average” doesn’t have a place in the TV landscape right now. And the ongoing writers strike has meant more uncertainty than ever.

For all the convenience offered by streaming, there are intangibles we’ve lost by abandoning the old network model.

Last month on Twitter, Los Angeles-based writer and filmmaker Amy Thurlow outlined some of those frustrations: Like a show? “Great, Season 2 will air a year and a half from now when the plot has become as memorable as what you had for breakfast last Friday. And maybe Season 2 does drop and you binge it all in two days. It was fun, but now it’s just a consumable. A sugar high. You aren’t sitting with the story week after week, letting it knock around in your head.”

Why bother getting invested, she asks, when there’s so little regularity?

Thurlow is hitting on something: A sense of regularity is missing in the streaming age.

The traditional network season — awash in cop shows and diminishing in quality by the year — still offers an external structure that does a lot of your thinking for you: New episodes will show up in this window. With streaming, that reliable calendar is gone. New seasons can drop any time. “I didn’t even know it was coming back,” is a persistent refrain because it’s unrealistic for most audiences to stay on top of so many unpredictable premiere dates.

Streaming favors the fire hose of new over the pleasures of the familiar and the regular, which means it’s harder than ever to remember which shows even exist.

Somebody recently asked: Does Apple TV+ have a marquee or signature show outside of “Ted Lasso”? My mind went blank. To jog my memory, I had to scan a list of Apple’s output, which does include some modestly buzzy shows such as “Shrinking,” “For All Mankind” and “Severance.”

It’s worth noting that after stalling its narrative engines over nine episodes, “Severance” ended its first season on a shamelessly cheap cliffhanger. The series premiered 16 months ago and was in the process of shooting Season 2 when the writers strike threw a wrench into things. Who knows when that long-awaited second season will arrive, but imagine if new episodes had started airing just three months later, following the old “Dallas” model. Now that would have kept things interesting.

Instead, streaming originals exist in these truncated, discrete pockets of time. And then poof, they’re gone and they might as well exist in limbo. A cliffhanger isn’t satisfying under those conditions, not in a way that generates real excitement and anticipation.

The original “Batman” series from the ‘60s relied on cliffhangers, but it did so with a promise of dependability: “Tune in tomorrow — same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.”

Streaming refuses to make it easy. Figure it out yourself.

See you next time.

Maybe.

It’s been almost nine years since the life-changing event that forced Dwight White, then a defensive back on Northwestern University’s football team, to change his trajectory. White took a hit during practice that caused abdominal pain, which led to the revelation that he was born with one kidney, a condition called renal agenesis.

Medical professionals, sports staff and his parents advised White against playing football, but he made the decision to continue to play — until three weeks later, when he was hit in that same spot and had internal bleeding due to a renal contusion. Having never been hit there before, to now take two hits in such a short period of time made White decide in his junior year to walk away from the sport to which he’d dedicated his entire life.

“He said: ‘I can’t do this to my mom. I can’t have her worry at every game,’” White’s mother, LaWanda, said in 2014. “That touched me.”

Giving up football was traumatizing, White said.

“It was tough for a while because I truly did feel lost … especially for a young Black man with golden aspirations of playing at the next level, which would have been professionally eventually,” he said. “I didn’t know exactly who I was or who I could be at that point.”

White would go on to explore life outside the sports bubble with the financial support of the college. He got more involved with the Black population on campus to understand its needs. He spent time trying to intersect his old and new lives.

“I always had an academic/mentor/counselor through athletics, but (university staff) tried to point me in the direction of mental health counseling, actual therapy,” White said. “I remember very clearly, me rejecting it. I was like, ‘This is not going to do anything for me.’ I grew up with tough love, like a lot of us do. I did things and overcame things alone … and I was comfortable with that, personally, until I realized I wasn’t. So when I first got into therapy, it was a couple of sessions in and I slowly trickled out.”

That’s when he discovered art as a healing tool.

“Sitting down with myself …. thinking what can bring me joy in the future as I continue my studies and graduate, I would hang out alone with my thoughts and that’s how I began to communicate, was through art,” he said. “While I was quiet, the creative process started flowing: ‘Y’all come look at this. This is what I have to say.’”

Since White left Northwestern in 2016, he’s been saying a lot through art centered on the Black experience, melding oil paints and acrylics, sociology and experiential design into socially-driven work. White’s colorful murals can be seen around Chicagoland. One is on West Ida B. Wells Parkway between Plymouth Court and Dearborn Street in the Printers Row area. And his creativity has been utilized by brands such as Nike, Levi’s and Pinterest.

The Houston native also spends his time curating art into experiences like Something I Can Feel, an annual event for the Black community that features fine art, street art, music, fashion, design and the artists behind the pieces. The celebration of Blackness launches on Juneteenth, June 19, with a floral design workshop with Planks and Pistils, a Chicago-based floral studio that uses art to highlight Black stories, and a hat customization workshop with artist Samantha Turner.

The Something I Can Feel event has over two dozen free wellness programs that focus on healing through yoga, mental health talks and live music. White said he tries to make Something I Can Feel a holistic experience that uplifts and empowers by focusing on social connectivity and the Black experience.

“A lot of times going to experiences and being in community and just showing up sometimes is good loving on yourself,” he said.

White is a proponent for mental health at a time when Cook County is seeing an increase in reported symptoms of anxiety and depression in historically marginalized communities, according to recent data from Mental Health America of Illinois. White says getting mental health help from someone who looks like you and who shares your experience can make all the difference, and that’s a need that Something I Can Feel fills.

“One thing that has been special about the collective of creatives that I’ve been able to work with is a lot of us, including myself, are open to talking about our mental health journeys because it’s so prominent in our daily practice as artists, entrepreneurs, as Black people,” White said. “We’ve been there and we all have that mindset of struggle. My struggle in athletics eventually led to my struggle in corporate America, which eventually transitioned to my struggle as a full-time artist and that’s the story I want to share.”

Former Chicago Bears defensive back Ryan Mundy shared his mental health story at a collaborative event May 24 between the NFL team and SocialWorks, Chance the Rapper’s youth empowerment nonprofit. The nonprofit conducted a week of programming on how wellness can be incorporated into daily lives. Mundy is founder of the mental health mobile app Alkeme Health, which offers courses, meditations and even live experiences on the platform.

Like White, Mundy experienced a period of transition. When he retired after 24 years as an athlete, he had to figure out life without sports.

“I definitely couldn’t picture anything beyond football. A little over 30 and still a lot of life to live but I don’t know how to live it or how to navigate it,” he said. “Also going inside my family, there were a lot of things on the chronic health side of things. I was in networks and relationships to understand business, entrepreneurship. And then I started to put two and two together about what I was going through, what my family was going through and having a desire to fill a massive void in the marketplace, I started Alkeme.”

Mundy took the reins of his mental health — “smiling on the outside, but struggling on the inside” he once said on the “Today” show — and created an avenue of help for the Black community. His app launched in 2022. The core demographic is Black millennials, but Mundy said the goal is to serve kids and adults.

“Maintaining our focus on Black mental health, a lot of people identify with that and find themselves in some of the products and content that we put onto the world,” he said. “We take licensed clinical professionals and build video courses with them to break down complex topics such as generational trauma, being Black in the workplace, etc. Starting in 2024, we will start to deliver and connect people with one-on-one therapy on our platform.”

Knowing money, fame and fortune don’t translate to peace, joy and fulfillment, Mundy and White are paying mental health forward.

“It felt part of my responsibility to show us what it looks like to celebrate Blackness through art and creativity and to be showing ourselves love,” White said. “I was reborn here (in Chicago). I know and recognize what it did for me, so I try and return that which was poured into me.”

©2023 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

However, this tale in which personified Fire, Water, Earth and Air residents live together in the metropolis Element City finds its footing as it leans on tried-and-true plot devices from romances featuring star-crossed lovers and stories about parents and their children.

“Elemental” is inspired by the experiences of its director, Peter Sohn, a second-generation immigrant, his parents bringing him to the United States from Korea when he was a child. He’d go on to marry an American woman after initially hiding the relationship from his family. (He says in the film’s production notes that his grandmother’s dying words literally were “Marry Korean!”)

Bursting with vibrant colors, the gorgeous affair begins by introducing a Fire couple, Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder Lumen (Shila Ommi), arriving by boat from the Fireland to start a new life, bringing with them only a blue flame representing their past and people. After a not-so-hot introduction to Element City — least structurally hospitable to the Fire folks, as they were the last to arrive and make a place for themselves — the Lumens find a spot in the Firetown neighborhood. They open up a shop, the Fireplace, and, more importantly, have a baby girl, Ember.

Years later, the grown Ember (Leah Lewis) is set to inherit the shop from her retirement-age father, but she has a tendency of becoming, well, hot when it comes to the behavior of customers. She desperately wants to please her dad, but she must show she can keep her relative cool before he hands over the Fireplace to her.

The residents of Firetown live in fear of water, so when a leak happens in the store, it’s a big problem. Unfortunately for Ember, who discovers it, washing in with all the H2O is a Water fellow, Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie). He’s a city inspector, and he believes the Fireplace is in violation of various building codes.

After initially sending in his report to the city higher-ups, the good-natured Wade agrees to help Ember in her efforts to keep the business running.

At first glance, the two couldn’t be more different. She’s tough, strong-willed and, yes, fiery. He’s soppy and sappy, like other members of his fluid family prone to bursting into tears the moment he hears something emotionally stirring. Ironically, though, considering his kind’s natural malleability, he’s a very solid guy, as Ember grows to appreciate.

That doesn’t change the fact that if they get too close, he could extinguish her or she could evaporate him. Even if they somehow find a way past that, Ember believes her parents would never accept him, her proud but stubborn father especially.

As we’ve come to expect from Pixar, “Elemental” is consistently inventive, certainly with its visuals. You don’t want to take your eyes off Element City or its residents, especially Ember, her ever-burning form no doubt the work of myriad artistic and technical folks. The blobby but buoyant Wade is a pretty neat creation, as well.

Penned by John Hoberg, Kat Likkel and Brenda Hsueh, with a story by Sohn, Hoberg, Likkel and Hsueh, “Elemental” serves up more than the requisite of situational puns, one Fire character calling another a “lazy ash.” Again, though, it grows increasingly affecting, the film is likely to give you at least a mild case of the feels before its end credits roll.

Summer movie preview: ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ ‘Indiana Jones,’ ‘The Flash’ and ‘Fast X’ lead appealing slate

As Pixar films sometimes do, it largely eschews the casting of big names but gets strong work from its key players. Lewis (“The Half of It”) really helps bring Ember to vivid life, while Athie (“Jurassic World: Dominion”) infuses Wade with an appealing steady-Eddie if also deeply compassionate vibe.

And in portraying a character who seems to have borrowed, um, elements from different ethnic groups, del Carmen (co-director of Pixar’s “Inside Out”) brings a dimensionality to Bernie that is revealed over time.

The most easily recognizable voice is that of Catherine O’Hara (“Best in Show,” “Schitt’s Creek”), who brings a little pizazz to Brook, Wade’s mother, who is very accepting of Ember.

Like many PIxar efforts in recent years, including an Academy Award winner or two and 2015’s Sohn-directed “The Good Dinosaur,” “Elemental” doesn’t reside among the studio’s best work, such as 2009’s “Up.”

(By the way, “Elemental” is preceded by “Carl’s Date,” a cute “Up”-verse short film featuring Ed Asner returning to voice charming curmudgeon Carl, who gets advice about the opposite sex from talking dog Dug, voiced by director Bob Peterson.)

That said, “Elemental” has enough winning elements to make time for it in the busy summer season.

‘Elemental’

Where: Theaters.

When: June 16.

Rated: PG for some peril, thematic elements and brief language.

Runtime: 1 hour, 42 minutes.

Stars (of four): 3.

On the bookshelves, I mean. Based on the novels I’ve got on my list to read in the next few months, it looks like it’s going to be a great summer.

Check out the criminal pursuits we’ve covered just in the last few weeks. I got the opportunity to talk with “Razorblade Tears” author S.A. Cosby about his acclaimed new novel, “All the Sinners Bleed.” My colleague Samantha Dunn interviewed Eliza Jane Brazier about her murder mystery “Girls and Their Horses.” Regular contributor Michael Schaub talked to Ivy Pochoda about her hard-hitting novel “Sing Her Down.”

It turns out I’m not the only one who thinks that this suggests even more fine work to come. Novelist Jordan Harper, who published the excellent “Everybody Knows” earlier this year, says it’s an especially good time for the genre.

“This is a monster year for crime fiction, a monster year,” says Harper, who spoke by phone while walking a WGA picket line this week. “I think we’re in the middle of a not-yet-recognized renaissance in very well-executed crime fiction in America right now.”

Speculating on the next round of Mystery Writers of America awards, aka the Edgars, Harper expects a tough competition for those involved.

“The Edgar Awards for Best Book next year is going to be a knife fight,” says Harper. “A lot of really great books are getting written right now.”

So which titles should you be on the lookout for? As well as the ones mentioned above, here are 12, including some already out and more we can’t wait for.

Dennis Lehane, “Small Mercies” (out now)

Rumored to be the crime fiction legend’s final book, Lehane sets his first novel since 2017 during the 1974 Boston school desegregation crisis. Both Harper and Cosby mentioned this book to me, and as for it being Lehane’s last? Maybe. “I don’t know. If it is, I’m OK with that,” the author told NPR’s Scott Simon.

Megan Abbott, “Beware the Woman” (out now)

This is already in stores, lucky readers, and we have an interview with the author posting soon. But look, why not let Harper make the case: “Megan Abbott, to me, is the best of us. I think she’s spectacular,” he says.

Daniel Weizmann, “The Last Songbird” (out now)

In this gritty debut, a failed songwriter works as a Lyft driver in L.A., often providing rides for a folk icon who is later found murdered. Concerned with the corrosive effects of fame, this neo-noir is the first in the proposed series. Fun fact: Weizmann wrote for the fanzine Flipside under the name Shredder.

Yukito Ayatsuji & translated by Ho-Ling Wong, “The Mill House Murders” (out now)

This Japanese classic is a locked room mystery that features a remote location, a rubber mask-wearing recluse, and a stolen painting. Oh, and murder! While this new edition has just hit stores, you might start with “The Decagon House Murders,” the author’s debut and the first with detective Kiyoshi Shimada.

Colson Whitehead, “Crook Manifesto” (July 18)

Picking up where he left off in his previous novel, “Harlem Shuffle,” Whitehead sets this novel in 1970s New York City when crime – and uncollected trash on the streets – is on the rise. The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner is always worth your attention, but the fact that Jackson 5 tickets are involved makes this a must-read.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, “Silver Nitrate” (July 18) 

This one by the “Mexican Gothic” author appears full of horror and suspense – a cult film director into Nazi occultism needs to finish an abandoned film to lift the curse hanging over him. But as it also involves a talented woman whose work is overlooked by the men in her industry, it sounds like a crime as well.

Naomi Hirahara, “Evergreen” (August 1)

In this follow-up to Hirahara’s much-praised “Clark & Division,” Aki Ito and her family return to post-WWII Southern California where Japanese American families are finding things have changed during their forced relocations and incarcerations. Aki, who’s working as a nurse in Boyle Heights, learns troubling information – and there’s a murder in Little Tokyo. Can’t wait for this one.

Adrian McKinty, “The Detective Up Late” (August 8)

You know how the state of the world can sometimes seem irredeemably awful? The fact that we’re getting a new Sean Duffy novel from Adrian McKinty is proof that wonderful things happen. Known for bestsellers “The Chain” and “The Island,” McKinty has been writing a multi-novel masterpiece about a Belfast detective during the Troubles that you need to read. This is the seventh book (and not the last, I hear) so start reading now so you’ll be ready when it hits stores.

Lee Goldberg, “Malibu Burning” (Sept. 1)

TV veteran and novelist Goldberg is such a successful and prolific writer that I literally got word that he’ll have another book publishing after this one before the year is out (it’s called “Calico”). In this thriller, Goldberg sets the story in the tony Malibu hills during a wildfire kicked up by the Santa Ana winds.

Tod Goldberg, “Gangsters Don’t Die” (September 12)

This is the conclusion of Goldberg’s outstanding trilogy about Chicago hitman Sal Cupertine, who’s on the run from the Mafia, the feds and everyone else who want him dead. That a merciless killer reinvents himself as Rabbi David Cohen, a remarkably effective (and sure, deadly) man of faith is just one of the series’ many, many charms. (And yes, he and Lee are brothers.)

Mick Herron, “The Secret Hours” (September)

As those who read this newsletter know, I’m a big fan of Herron’s Slough House series, which manages to be intriguing, funny, satirical and moving. (The Apple TV+ adaption “Slow Horses” is aces as well.) So all I need to say is that Herron’s next book is a stand-alone about a MI5 mission in Cold War Berlin, and trust me I’ll be reading it – or listening to Gerard Doyle’s excellent audio narration.

Jonathan Lethem, “Brooklyn Crime Novel” (October)

Sure, this comes out way past summer and, according to early blurbs, it might not exactly be a crime novel. But as anyone who loved “Motherless Brooklyn” knows, Lethem is very good in the genre so I’m just putting it down here anyway (because I’m going to read it whatever it’s about).

OK, I’m sure as soon as I publish this list I’ll get my hands on more good stuff that I should have included – such as Joe Ide’s latest IQ book “Fixit” or Eryk Pruitt’s “Something Bad Wrong” or Heather Chavez’s “Before She Finds Me” or Lou Berney’s “Dark Ride” – so consider this a starter list, something to refer to when you get stuck at the bookstore or library, and then start adding to it.

• • •

What else are you looking forward to reading this summer? Please feel free to email me at epedersen@scng.com with “ERIK’S BOOK PAGES” in the subject line and I may include your comments in an upcoming newsletter.

And if you enjoy this free newsletter, please consider sharing it with someone who likes books or getting a digital subscription to support local coverage.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Héctor Tobar on James Joyce, Dr. Seuss and his favorite book

Héctor Tobar is the author of  “The Tattooed Soldier” and “The Barbarian Nurseries,” and his book “Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free,” was a bestseller that was adapted into the film, “The 33.” Tobar spoke with Michael Schaub about “Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of ‘Latino,’” and responded to the Book Pages Q&A about books and reading.

Q: What are you reading now?

Three very different books by three women. Virginia Woolf’s “To the Lighthouse,” in a wonderful audiobook performance by Nicole Kidman; “The Employees,” a sci-fi novella by the Danish poet Olga Ravn; and “A Country You Can Leave,” a first novel from Asale Angel-Ajani.

Q: Do you remember the first book that made an impact on you?

“The Jungle,” by Upton Sinclair. My father had read it in his community college classes. I remember the powerful imagery of the Chicago stockyards and meat packing plants. I think it was also an introduction to the idea that literature could expose you to great truths. Then, in college, I picked up Richard Wright’s “Native Son.” That book gave me the idea that I might want to be a writer myself.

Q: Is there a book you’re nervous to read?

Approaching Joyce’s “Ulysses” always makes me a bit nervous. With the help of the podcast by the charismatic, late Frank Delaney, I’ve made deep progress into it.

Q: Do you have a favorite book or books?

I’ve owned many different editions of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language since I was 11 years old. It’s such a beautiful thing to hold, for the illustrations and for the wonderful, illuminating word histories. In terms of literature, the work of Roberto Bolaño never ceases to blow me away.

Q: Which books do you plan, or hope, to read next?

“Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir,” by Deborah A. Miranda. And I’m going to re-read Daniel Borzutzky’s powerful poetry collection “The Performance of Becoming Human.” I was recently on the Pulitzer jury that chose Hernan Diaz’s “Trust” as a finalist (it was one of the eventual winners), and now I want to read his novel “In the Distance.”

Q: Is there a person who made an impact on your reading life – a teacher, a parent, a librarian or someone else?

One of my earliest memories of school is of my kindergarten teacher at Grant Elementary in East Hollywood telling my mother to buy me Dr. Seuss. My college mentor Roberto Crespi at UC Santa Cruz turned me on to so much great literature, as did my colleagues when I was a twenty-something reporter at the Los Angeles Times.

Q: If you could ask your readers something, what would it be?

Did you like any of my books? If you didn’t make it to the end of one of my books, what kept you from finishing? And if you made it to the end of any of them: Can I buy you a cup of coffee to talk about it?

More Stories

The mystery of ‘Sinners’

S.A. Cosby says writers have to tell the truth. It doesn’t have to be pretty. READ MORE

• • •

Timely tome

Elliot Page’s debut memoir “Pageboy” is powerful and humanizing. READ MORE

• • •

The week’s bestsellers

The top-selling books at your local independent bookstores. READ MORE

• • •

What’s next on ‘Bookish’

The next Bookish event will be June 16 at 5 p.m. and include authors Mona Simpson and Peter Wohlleben, host Sandra Tsing Loh & Samantha Dunn.

• Sign up for The Book Pages
• Miss last week’s newsletter? Find past editions here
• Dive into all of our books coverage

Q: Why is it important that Peggy be an addict?  I kept thinking when this was being developed, did people sit there and say, ‘We can’t have her be an addict, struggling through this. This is too serious or too depressing.’ Or whatever?

PATRICIA ARQUETTE:  Yeah, I’m sure. That is why we got turned down by 100 million places. We have to do it though. Because after two, everything’s going to clean everything up. And then we get back to this just homogenized, boring middle ground. But the truth is: We all know addicts. And this story was based on one of our show’s creator and show runners Nancy Fishman’s sister, Marjorie, who was an addict and who’s now passed on. Who struggled with these things and loved opera and took care of her mom. And was a liar and a manipulator and incredible person. She  also said to Nancy once, ‘I’m going to be a PI (a Private Investigator) and she thought, ‘That’s crazy, but you could actually be an amazing PI.’  So, this is born of love. And born from and inspired by a person who had struggled with drugs. I think we’ve all loved addicts, and they can have some beautiful, beautiful qualities. And it’s sad, you know. It’s an illness.

Q: The two of you have this combustible marriage. We begin with a prologue where every life looks spectacularly good and then the police come and that life goes Splat!  We jump to years later and we meet Matt in prison where Peggy visits while tripping on acid. How did the two of you create what the history of this couple is?

PA: That was actually the last scene that we shot. But do you want to talk to those?

MATT DILLON: To credit the writers, the foundation was already laid, right? So it made it easy for us to go have fun and make the most of this because the backstories are so strong. Like Denny comes walking into the prison’s visitors room and they look at each other — they’ve got a past, right? And it’s really nice. Because we know what that past is.  Because the show, the characters, are real. It was interesting on the set, because we’d be talking about these characters like they were real people! Because in a way they were — because as Patricia said Peggy was inspired by Nancy’s sister. And then Denny was inspired by Nancy’s sister’s husband.  So that was very, very real. That richness is what made it fun. What made me want to go to work and why I enjoyed it so much, Denny was a fun character for me to play because of all the polarizing qualities in his personality.  He’s spiritual and he really genuinely is seeking the spiritual life. And yet, he’s a he’s a criminal, man.  He’s a convicted felon, a kind of a career criminal and a manipulator. He’s going to use the spirituality to help him in his other endeavor, which is illegal activity. (A laugh) This is what is kind of fun about all this complexity. I mean, Peggy’s character, she’s all over the spectrum — classical music, drug addict, co-dependent.

NEW DVDs:

DOOM & GLOOM DOMINATE THIS CABIN                 ‘Knock at the Cabin’ (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Code, Universal, R) is M. Night Shyamalen’s latest twisted thriller, a Doomsday fable that is completely sincere – and totally bonkers. Fun this is not, but provocative? Decidedly.  The cabin in the woods has a vacationing gay couple (out actors Jonathan Groff of ‘Mindhunters’ and Britain’s Ben Aldredge, ‘Spoiler Alert’) with their daughter who are taken hostage by 4 strangers, led by David Bautista.  Needless to say they aren’t here to rob & pillage but on a Divine Mission to save planet Earth.  With a human sacrifice!  Unrelenting.  Bonus: Deleted scenes, the Chowblaster Infomercial that features the filmmaker, Behind the Scenes and ‘Tools of the Apocalypse.’

CHRISTOPHER REEVES’ 5 FLIGHTS                      Before there was Tim Burton’s spectacular revival of Batman, there was Richard Donner’s go-for-broke resuscitation of the all-American comics hero who fought for ‘Truth, Justice and the American Way.’  Yes Christopher Reeve became a star as the alien from Krypton who, when he wasn’t saving the planet and people, worked as reporter Clark Kent at the Daily Planet.   Warner Bros. has now issued the entire 4-film series in a 4L Ultra HD upgrade:  ‘Superman: 5 Film Collection 1978-1987’ (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital Code, WB, PG).  There are ‘Superman: The Movie,’ “Superman II,’ ‘Superman III’ and ‘Superman IV.’ Here also ‘Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut,’ which makes for a quintet.  Super Special Features are included in the multiple Bonus:  From commentaries and vintage featurettes to 1940s and ‘50s WB cartoons like ‘Super-Rabbit,’ ‘Snafuperman’ and ‘Stupor Duck.’  There’s a featurette on restoring Donner’s vision to ‘II’ with deleted scenes, a 50th anniversary Superman 50th anniversary TV special from 1988, a 1983 TV special on making ‘III.’  Standouts among the ensemble: Gene Hackman, Richard Pryor, Annette O’Toole, Mariel Hemingway and Terrence Stamp.

BORIS KARLOFF’S EXIT                                       Forever known as Frankenstein’s monster, Boris Karloff ended his career with the heralded 1968 debut of a promising writer-director named Peter Bogdanovich who would go on to make the Oscar-winning classics ‘The Last Picture Show,’ ‘What’s Up, Doc?’ and ‘Paper Moon.’   Conceived with his then wife Polly Platt, the low-budget ‘Targets’ (Blu-ray, Criterion Collection, R), filmed in 3 weeks for $125,000, owes its existence to the legendary King of the Bs, Roger Corman. Karloff owed Corman 2 days’ work and had made a terrible Gothic horror movie. If Bogdanovich, a film buff, could use Karloff with the limited time, insert footage of his bomb movie and then fill in the rest for a new movie, he was in business.  ‘Targets’ has Bogdanovich onscreen as a director eager to use a legendary horror icon called Orlok (Karloff, playing a version of himself) for one last role.  At a drive-in premiere they will cross paths with a psychotic young man, a disturbed Vietnam vet, who after killing his wife and mother has gone on a shooting spree.  The killer is based on the notorious 1966 U of Texas-Austin Clock Tower sniper and mass killer Charles Whitman.  Yes, “Targets” presents an all-too-familiar quiet ‘nice guy,’ but the real, prophetic target here is an America awash in guns.  The film flopped when released after the RFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinations. Today it’s a model of cinema’s classic push/pull regarding screen violence.  The Criterion extras, from a 4K digital master, include the filmmaker’s 2003 commentary and an introduction (Bogdanovich died last year), a 1983 audio interview with Platt and a new, all-encompassing overview with Richard Linklater (‘Boyhood,’ ‘School of Rock’) who lives and works in Austin.

FLY & SAY GOOD-BYE                                             ‘Ant-Man + The Wasp: Quantumania’ (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital Code, Marvel, PG-13) concludes a trilogy begun in 2015.  This ending is determined not by the Marvel-ous storytellers but the middling box-office.  Superhero fantasies are incredibly expensive and blockbusters are the Darwinian result of who gets to fly sky high again and who doesn’t.  ‘Quantumania’ to be fair is very complicated storytelling spanning decades.  Standouts in the large cast: Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Douglas, the revered veterans, Paul Rudd (of course! he IS Ant-Man) and as the mighty villain Kang, Jonathan Majors.  Bonus: Gag reel/deleted scenes, an audio commentary from director Peyton Reed and screenwriter Jeff Loveness, plus the actors’ on their characters.

GIVE US BACK THAT STOLEN NAZI ART!                 ‘Righteous Thieves’ (Blu-ray + Digital, Lionsgate, R) has a terrific hook, hanging its brazen efforts to retrieve stolen Nazi art.  Those very long time coming reparations have been stalled since WWII ended.  Annabel (Lisa Vidal) leads a top-secret group whose only business is to recover stolen art.  Their target is a sneering neo-Nazi Otto (Brian Cousins) whose Monet, Degas, Picasso and van Gogh do not rightfully belong to him. Although Otto would not agree.  Naturally there is more to Annabel’s quest than millions of Euros in paintings.  Bonus: ‘Coming for It All’ featurette.  Optional subtitles in Spanish and English SDH.

SCOTT CAAN LEADS THIS LION                            Scott Caan, a veteran of 10 years on TV’s ‘Hawaii Five-Oh’ reboot in a supporting role, takes command as the star of this comedic hit man drama ‘One Day as a Lion’ (DVD, Lionsgate, R).  Caan’s Jackie Powers (the name sounds like a genuflection to Elmore Leonard) is to kill JK Simmons’ debtor but fails the assignment and flees by taking a waitress hostage.  She, surprisingly, is sympathetic because Jackie needs money to spring his son out of jail.  (At this point, let us agree it is not a lucky family.)  Also around as the bullets fly: Virginia Madsen and Frank Grillo.  Bonus: Deleted scenes.

YET ANOTHER HIT MAN STUMBLES                                  A classic setup. An international assassin (Daniel Stisen) finds himself in a ‘reassignment’ center where he’s to be given a new identity, only all too soon he finds himself fighting for his life in that center in ‘The Siege’ (Blu-ray, Well Go USA, R).   The assault team is intent on removing all witnesses so our would-be killer has no choice if he is to survive the night unless he teams up with a hitwoman (veteran stuntwoman Lauren Okadigbo) to defend their turf.  Or die trying.  Bonus: Making of featurette.

“This show requires all of you,” Chanel told the Herald. “It’s mentally, physically draining. Yes, acting is not real, and we know that. But sometimes your body and mind have a disconnect, so your mind knows it’s fake but your body is going through something physically. That can mean trembling. It can mean hearing words that trigger a certain experience. The show is exhausting.”

But the exhaustion comes with tremendous artistic satisfaction.

Despite being based on Alanis Morissette’s 1995 album “Jagged Little Pill,” this is no silly jukebox musical indulgence. This is a decidedly modern Broadway production – “Jagged Little Pill” plays at the Citizens Bank Opera House June 13 -25.

Developed at Cambridge’s American Repertory Theatre before it went to Broadway in 2019, the show pulls Morissette’s ’90s angst into today. Morissette, Tony Award-winning director Diane Paulus, and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody collaborated on a show that follows Frankie, Mary Jane and the rest of the Healys through a suburban hell. What starts with little family failings (light pill popping, mild online porn addiction, keeping up with the Joneses) graduates to spectacular breakdowns (overdose, abuse, assault).

While the material is intense, Chanel finds rewards in the role of Frankie – her first on a national tour.

“I enjoy how raw the show is, how realistic the show is,” she said. “You can think of somebody in your life who has dealt with the topics (explored in the show).”

Confronted with her mother’s relentless-but-hollow cheer, Frankie struggles to find her place in the world and develop a real relationship with her adopted mother. As Frankie’s girlfriend, Jo, tells her, “You’re a Pinterest fail.” While other actors might try and keep their emotional distance to the role, Chanel worked hard to connect with Frankie.

“I had to learn to be Frankie from within myself, meaning, I had to relate to her,” Chanel said. “I grew up in a suburban area (in Atlanta). I grew up in a predominantly white area. I had to navigate how that made me feel.”

“I also did research on real-life transracial adoptees,” she added. “I had interviews with them to get to know, generally, what that is like because I don’t know what that is like.”

Chanel says she did the research and goes into each performance with a deep breath knowing what it takes to pull off the role.

“I like to sit with being uncomfortable, and this show lets you explore that,” she said.

For tickets and details, visit boston.broadway.com

I have told him I need to go somewhere to see more of the world very soon. I’d be willing to go by myself. He told me we needed to close out an old bank account in which there was $3,000. We have spent other money I don’t think was necessary. We are going to his sister’s wedding in a few months, which will cost around $2,500, and he’s already talking about how he’s going to take his annual vacation to see his family.

My sister said she and I should take a trip together this year to a destination four hours by car. It would be for about four days. My husband said “we’ll see” if we can afford for me to go. He doesn’t seem to realize that this is an issue about my mental health. I have explained my reasons several times. I’m tempted to just go and charge it on the credit card, but it might damage our marriage. I love him. What can I do? — Wanderlust in Oregon

Dear Wanderlust: Your medical problem lends some urgency to your desire to scratch some items off your bucket list. In light of the fact that you are unwell, perhaps “just this once” your husband could postpone his annual family visit? Please discuss this further with your therapist. Your husband should not be controlling the purse strings to the extent he has been because it appears he has been using the money to do only the things he wants to do.

Dear Abby: I am at my wits’ end about my marriage. Among many other issues, today feels like the last straw. My 8-year-old son stole a small toy from a store, and I made him go back into the store with me to pay for the item. My husband chastised me for doing so, saying I humiliated the boy. I saw it as an opportunity to teach my son a lesson about taking things, and my husband is worried about him feeling humiliated?

I have tried therapy for many other issues we have, but we haven’t made much progress. After today, I’m ready to give up. Fundamentally, we just don’t have the same values or want the same things. Please tell me your thoughts on what happened with my son. It breaks my heart because it is so confusing to the boy. — Trying to Parent

Dear Trying: You handled the petty theft incident perfectly. You corrected your son’s misdeed and made him take responsibility for it. For that you should have been applauded, not chastised. But setting that aside for a moment, you stated that there are many problems in your marriage. Since they haven’t been able to be resolved with counseling, it may be time to weigh alternative options such as a temporary separation or divorce.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com

Sunday

“E60” (ESPN, 11 a.m. ET): The rise of pro hockey’s Mighty Ducks is recalled in the new doc “Once Upon a Time in Anaheim.”

Raquel Welch tribute (TCM, 5 and 7 p.m.): The glamorous star, who died in February, is featured in the 1973 romp “The Three Musketeers” and the 1966 adventure “One Million Years B.C.”

“The Tony Awards” (CBS, 8 p.m.): Broadway gives its regards to itself at the annual ceremony. “West Side Story” Oscar winner Ariana DeBose returns as host.

Monday

“Buffalo Soldiers: Fighting on Two Fronts — A Local, USA Special” (PBS, 10 p.m.): This 2022 doc salutes the Black Americans who served in segregated units in the U.S. Army after the Civil War.

Tuesday

“Amy Schumer: Emergency Contact” (Netflix): How’s married life treating her? The comic has thoughts in her latest stand-up special.

Wednesday

“The Full Monty” (FX on Hulu): Those unemployed blokes turned male strippers from the hit 1997 comedy are back in this new series. With Mark Addy.

“Small Town Potential” (HGTV, 9 p.m.): Folks looking to relocate to the scenic Hudson River Valley get an assist in this new renovation series.

“The Big D” (USA, 10 p.m.): Divorced couples are forced to cohabitate with their exes while each searches for someone new in this new series.

Thursday

“Black Mirror” (Netflix): It probably won’t seem nearly as unnerving as it once did when the dystopian anthology series returns with its first new episodes since 2019.

“Can’t Cancel Pride 2023 — The Future Starts Now” (Roku, iHeartRadio’s YouTube, 8 p.m.): Dolly Parton and Elton John are among the celebs taking part in this celebration.

“Jagged Mind” (Hulu): It’s like deja vu all over again for a young Brit in this imported 2023 thriller. With Maisie Richardson-Sellers.

“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” (Paramount+): The sci-fi franchise’s latest entry launches a second season. Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijn star.

“Pretty Freekin Scary” (Disney, 9 and 9:30 p.m.): Be afraid, be sort of afraid of this new sitcom based on the children’s books.

Friday

“Chevalier” (Hulu): This 2023 historical drama tells the tale of a trailblazing Black composer, violinist and swordsman in 18th-century France. Kelvin Harrison Jr. stars.

“Extraction 2” (Netflix): “Thor’s” Chris Hemsworth goes commando — again! — in this 2023 sequel to the 2021 action thriller.

“The Lost King” (AMC+): An amateur historian’s hunch about Richard III’s final resting place pays off in Stephen Frears’ fact-based 2023 drama. Sally Hawkins stars.

“Stan Lee” (Disney+): The comic book artist who helped lay the foundations for the Marvel Cinematic Universe is remembered in this new special.

Pike was the original Captain of the USS Enterprise in the 1965 ‘Star Trek’ pilot. “He’s what’s supposed to represent the Starfleet captain in (creator) Gene Roddenberry’s mind,” Mount, 50, said in a Zoom interview.

“That’s a really high bar to meet. Yet at the same time, I’m freed from that because I feel like Jeffrey Hunter” – the star of “The Searchers” who was Jesus in “King of Kings” – “was playing a different Pike in a different part of his life. That was the first act Pike. I get to flesh out the second act Pike.

“Hopefully,” he added with a smile, “we’ll get to the correct Pike. I’d like to. But you have to have an equal sense of respect and the ability to put that aside and do your job every day.”

It’s nearly 60 years since “Star Trek” first boldly went into space, what is key to that continued appeal?

“When science fiction is at its best,” Mount answered, “and where TV is at its best is when they function as a metaphorical platform to talk about what’s going on right now. Gene Roddenberry was smart enough to use that platform to talk about our better selves. Hopefully, we’re continuing to make him proud.

“That’s one of the reasons, not just stylistically, that we wanted to harken back to the original series,” with standalone episodes. “We wanted to have that big idea of the week on the planet of the week.”

“Strange Worlds” began as a spin-off of “Star Trek Discovery.”  Season 2 kicks off with Pike’s Number One Una Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) on trial because she’s revealed to be an Illyrian, a genetically altered race.  Is this really about trans kids?

“It could be an allegory for all sorts of prejudice or persecution,” Romijn said. “It could be within the trans community. It could be racial, it could be religious. It could be an analogy for immigrant stories!

“It still just has to do with these human themes of prejudice and persecution still existing in this futuristic, utopian world. That is ‘Star Trek’ where we still can’t get away from certain things.”

Added Mount, “I certainly think that you can make that argument. It’s a very valid question. I don’t think it’s our place to nail some things down so tightly and to limit it. But I can confirm that those conversations have certainly happened in the background.”

Paramount + streams the first of 10 episodes of  “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S2” on Thursday

Recently I have begun to suspect that my husband has placed cameras in the basement.  He has made comments about my workouts (our home gym is in the basement) and he seems to know what I am talking to my lawyer about.  I was deposed and he asked me all kinds of questions about things that he could not know if he wasn’t listening.

My lawyer is taking his deposition soon.  Should we confront him?  I know its not OK to record me without my knowledge, but I don’t know what I can do to prevent it.  I feel really violated.

A. First, stop talking to your lawyer from anywhere in your house.  Get in your car and drive to a parking lot somewhere to talk.  For that matter, don’t talk to anyone from your house.

Your lawyer should ask him in his deposition about cameras and recording devices.  Ask all the details where they are located, how they operate, etc.  Then ask him to produce all of the recordings he has by way of a document request.  If you have not already done so, ask for all of his credit card records and bank records and comb through them looking for his purchases to see if you can find these devices.  Also ask for the detailed order history from his Amazon account.

Regardless of his answer, your lawyer should also send a letter demanding that any recording cease and desist, making clear that you have not and do not consent to any such recording.  If he denies installing cameras/recording devices, you can hire a company to sweep your basement for such devices and if they are found, you should bring it to the judge’s attention in connection with a motion to vacate the house because of the impact his conduct is having on you.

Finally, before the deposition, you should install a lock on the basement door so that he cannot access the basement.  In this way he cannot leave the deposition and go remove his devices.

Email questions to whickey@brickjones.com

Zachary is able to build relationships with others, particularly caregivers, and is described as being sensitive and kind to others. Academically, Zachary is on target and in elementary school. He is working on social skills at school and has done well in his class. Zachary responds well to words of encouragement and praise. He recently expressed that he would like to be an environmental scientist when he grows up.

Zachary would do well in a family of any constellation, with or without older children in the home. A family for Zachary should be open to helping him maintain a relationship with his younger sister and birth parents. A home that can provide a structured environment, close supervision, and support will allow Zachary to thrive.

If you’re at least 18 years old, have a stable source of income, and room in your heart, you may be a perfect match to adopt a waiting child. Adoptive parents can be single, married, or partnered; experienced or not; renters or homeowners; LGBTQ+ singles and couples. As an adoptive parent, you won’t have to pay any fees, adoption from foster care is completely free in Massachusetts.

To learn more about adoption from foster care visit www.mareinc.org . Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange (MARE) can give you guidance and information on the adoption process. Reach out today to find out all the ways you can help children and teens in foster care.

Opioids have long been used medically to treat pain. But highly potent opioids like fentanyl, which is rampant throughout the illicit drug market, are now the leading cause of overdose deaths across all ages, including children and adolescents.

If someone in your home takes opioids for any reason, you should carry naloxone and keep it in your home in case of emergencies (just like a fire extinguisher). Naloxone is a lifesaving medication that can reverse an opioid overdose in minutes.

It’s available as a nasal spray that is easy to administer.

Naloxone is recommended for anyone who:

Uses opioids, including illicit opioids such as heroin or fentanyl, or prescribed opioid medications in a way their doctor did not intend

Has a substance use disorder (“addiction”)

Lives with someone who uses opioids in a nonmedical way or who has a substance use disorder

Has opioids in the home (from a prescription, for example) — particularly if small children are in the home who might unintentionally ingest them

Opioids are the most common cause of poisoning deaths in children. Fentanyl is one of the most potent opioids. It can quickly cause an overdose, especially in children and adolescents. Fentanyl is at least 50 times more potent than heroin. A dose of fentanyl that fits on the tip of a pencil can be deadly.

Fentanyl is sometimes used medically to treat pain or for anesthesia. However, the fentanyl that is widely available in the illicit drug market and in counterfeit pills is illegally manufactured and highly dangerous. Public health experts blame illicit fentanyl for the sharp increase in overdoses.

Among adolescents aged 10-19 years, fake (counterfeit) pills are to blame for at least a quarter of poisoning and overdose deaths. Fake pills are widely available for purchase in the illicit drug market and through social media platforms that teens commonly use, such as TikTok and Snapchat. The pills are made to look like real prescription pills like oxycodone or Xanax.

However, they instead commonly include a deadly amount of illicit fentanyl.

Fentanyl has also been found in lethal quantities in other drugs like cocaine. Signs of opioid overdose may include unconsciousness or unresponsiveness; shallow, slow or no breathing; limpness; pale skin, with blue lips or fingertips; slow or irregular heartbeat or pulse; vomiting or gurgling noises; slurred speech; or the center part of the eye is very small (called “pinpoint pupils”).

Naloxone should be administered at the first sign of overdose symptoms. This is especially important for toddlers and small children, who may inadvertently take medication or encounter a counterfeit pill. Follow the instructions on the package of naloxone; there are also many online videos of how to administer naloxone nasal spray.

After giving someone naloxone, call 911 right away. Naloxone is a temporary treatment, and its effects do not last long. A person who has overdosed and who receives naloxone will usually wake up within one to three minutes. Stay with the person, even if they are conscious, until emergency medical help arrives.

The person could lapse back into unconsciousness and might need another dose of naloxone. This is because the overdose can worsen and last for up to several hours, whereas naloxone can wear off after 30 to 90 minutes. Keep trying to wake the person up and keep them breathing. Also, lay them on their side to prevent them from choking if they are unconscious.

Naloxone can be purchased without a prescription at retail pharmacies in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. All you need to do is contact your local pharmacy and state that you would like to receive naloxone through your state’s “standing order.” You will need to provide your name and date of birth, and your insurance will be charged. Often, the copay is $0. You can also find free naloxone in your community. It is often given out by local organizations.

Naloxone can be used for a suspected overdose in infants, children, teens, adults and the elderly. There is virtually no downside to giving naloxone to a child or teen, even if you are not sure if they overdosed on opioids. (Babies treated for neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome may require an alternate product recommended by their pediatrician instead of naloxone.)

There are two forms of naloxone: a nasal spray and a shot that is injected. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first over-the-counter naloxone nasal spray (also known as Narcan). It will be available in late summer 2023. Anyone will be able to buy the nasal spray at drug stores, grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations and online, but it is likely to cost more than if you receive it through your state’s “standing order” and have it billed to your insurance.

The FDA recently approved a prescription nasal spray called nalmefene (also known as Opvee). Nalmefene nasal spray is for emergency treatment of opioid overdose in people age 12 years and older.

Remember to always store medications in a locked medicine cabinet or box that is out of reach. Dispose of unused prescription medications and keep illicit drugs out of your home.

For more information, go to the AAP website for parents, HealthyChildren.org.

Scott Hadland, MD, MPH, MS, FAAP, is the Chief of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. He holds triple board certification in General Pediatrics, Adolescent Medicine, and Addiction Medicine, and his work focuses on adolescent and young adult substance use disorder prevention and treatment.

Tribune News Service

Such a literary treat exists, thanks to the Nantucket Book Festival, now in its 11th year.

From June 15-18, the Festival will bring you up close with famed writers like Sebastian Junger, Tracy Kidder, Jodi Picoult, Luke Russert and more.

You’ll find famed Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists, National Book Award winners and finalists and New York Times bestsellers –  ready to chat all things literary with you at the beach, the bar, or elsewhere on the island.

And yes, it’s pretty much free. While some of the events do require a ticket, the vast majority of talks and events are completely free, something the festival takes great pride in.

That means you can grab a hotel room or home rental – or even just hop the easy to take Hy Line Ferry back and forth for a day (out of Hyannis, a quick hour-or-so trip each way) and have the beach book experience of a lifetime.

While the Festival has no overarching theme, this year’s opening night event focuses on “Freedom,” with four of the world’s best-known writers — Junger, Imani Perry, Picoult, and Russert – each offering their own take on what freedom means to them.

Some have some recent experience: Picoult’s book co-authored with Jennifer Finney Boylan, “Mad Honey,” is currently being banned in spots around the country.

There are many other themes to be explored via literature and discussion as well, including poetry, playwriting, and even an all-female climate change panel

Events are held across the island. You’ll chat with Junger, for example, at the local Methodist church, take in poetry at the famed Chicken Box, dine with literary legends at island restaurants, and even have a chance to toast your favorite authors via the “Authors in Bars” event at the Nantucket Breeze.

The island, compact and easy to navigate without a car (in fact, skip the car entirely; walking is easy, bike rentals are plentiful and the Uber and cab drivers on site are adept at getting you to where you need to be).

It’s also a place of literary fame, with its own hometown writing all-stars. Both Nathaniel Filbrick and Elin Hilderbrand call the island home, and are often found signing books on a weekday at one of the local independent book stories like Mitchell’s Book Corner and Nantucket Bookworks.

Both of those shops will host author many author signings throughout the event, and while books will be on sale at many spots, these two shops give you a true classic bookstore experience.

There are events for children as well, like Friday’s story time and activities in the lovely  Atheneum Garden. A nice addition:  these will be offered in multiple languages.

To stay for more than a day, you can consider the host hotel The White Elephant, or check out the many lodging offerings via https://www.nantucketchamber.org.

With the ease of getting around the island, it’s simple to mix in other island experiences too, from waterside dining to beach and bluff walks to some really great shopping. You’ll find literary themed specials in both food and libations at all kind of locales.

Should you choose to ferry, book ahead at https://hylinecruises.com. Their Hyannis spot has excellent remote parking (quick and available shuttles get you back and forth; trust it) and you can even savor one of their famed Bloody Mary’s on your ride.

The Ferry drops you smack in the center of Nantucket proper, making coming and going simple.

As for the festival itself, while almost all events are free, they do ask you to register on line in advance to help them be ready for the crowd. You can do that at https://nantucketbookfestival.org.

With sneakers, your bathing suit and a hunger for the best beach book day(s) ever, you can step into a magical literary experiences ever.

“My vision wasn’t about the making of ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ it was about the moment of ‘Midnight Cowboy,’” Buirski said in a phone interview.

Her “Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Making of Midnight Cowboy,” “looks at the film in the context of the time. Because the film has been successful and continues to resonate, it tries to help us understand why it does — the culture, the politics and all of that.” It screens in as part of the Provincetown International Film Festival Thursday.

“Midnight Cowboy” was wild stuff in the anti-authoritarian ‘60s where feminism, gay, civil rights and anti-Vietnam War protests were changing the landscape.  The film’s mix of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll follows the friendship between naïve Texan Joe Buck (Jon Voight in a star-making performance) and crippled, broke New York con man “Ratso” Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman).

Joe imagines he will be a stud for hire to lonely women but ends up on 42nd Street with queers.  England’s John Schlesinger, who as a gay Jewish kid was bullied, had already created movie magic with his 1965 “Darling,” a look at trendy Swinging London that made Julie Christie an Oscar-winning star.

“Midnight Cowboy,” Buirski emphasized, “is a really interesting examination of why film is so important to our lives. We don’t just use it for entertainment: It changes us. That’s really what I wanted to look at.

“A new generation was taking over. You see in our film that there isn’t one thing that triggered ‘Midnight Cowboy’ — there were many.  My challenge was to weave them all together.

“The ‘60s was so different than the ‘50s,” she added. “In the sense that in the ‘60s they felt a license to disrupt, ask questions, push back. There was this sense we didn’t have to necessarily listen to authority anymore. That intrigued me.

“Schlesinger I feel was understanding how important it was to ask those questions as he was observing the world.”

Why does this still resonate?

“Many reasons! Many of the social problems that are apparent in ‘Midnight Cowboy’ are even more so in our society today — homelessness, poverty. People who are the outcasts, the desperate souls.

“But there’s another part that really speaks to almost any decade.  Basically any century. That’s the compassion that is called on to save these people. We all need saving in some ways. It’s so much a part of who we are as a species — to care about each other.

“And when we stop caring, that’s when we’re really forced apart.”

A. When you have had a history of run-ins with your ex and his partner, it’s easy to understand why you predict the worst. However, you have to remember who is really hurting when you spend a lot of time anticipating a negative outcome: you!

Agonizing about what may happen simply keeps you upset and really has no effect on your ex. He has moved on.

Here’s where applying the 10 Rules of Good Ex-Etiquette for Parents comes into play. They are rules to live by that allow you to take the everyday headbutting and turn it into a more positive experience. (You can find the full list at www.bonusfamilies.com.)

The first rule of good ex-etiquette for parents is, “Put the children first.” When you use your child’s welfare as the basis for all decisions, the decision is easy. Use your self-interest as the basis for the decision and the result is situations like you describe.

You are actually contemplating not going to your child’s game because of how you feel about your son’s father and his wife. If you stand back and really look at what you are considering, you will realize you have lost sight of what’s important.

Rules 2-10 also point you in the right direction.

For example, Rule No. 3 is, “Don’t badmouth.” It would be easy to talk behind their back, to let family and friends know what you think your ex and his wife are. But how would that help your child?

The good news: It will be over in an hour, and you have done this for your son. That’s good ex-etiquette.

Dr. Jann Blackstone is the author of “Ex-etiquette for Parents: Good Behavior After Divorce or Separation,” and the founder of Bonus Families, bonusfamilies.com. /Tribune News Service

“Rooted,” the Lyric Stage, now through June 25

We’ve all done it. Accidentally start a cult, that is. Emery Harris is a loner living in a treehouse with her plants. Emery’s only contact to the outside world is her sister, Hazel, and her plant-centric YouTube channel. But when Emery’s channel goes viral and the citizens of her small town come to view her as a botanical messiah, she is forced to confront the public. Lyricstage.com

“Private Lives,” Gloucester Stage, Gloucester, now through June 25

Noël Coward’s 1930 play begins with ex-husband and wife discovering they picked the same French hotel to honeymoon with their new spouses. Did the hotel book them in rooms that share a balcony? Yes. Do sparks fly? Yes. Do hijinks ensue? Oh, absolutely. Gloucesterstage.com

“As you Like It,” Balch Arena Theater, Medford, now through June 25

The Actors’ Shakespeare Project closes its season with the crossdressing chaos and gender twisting of the Bard’s best comedy at a time when state legislatures across the country have set out to ban drag performances. actorsshakespeareproject.org

“Evita,” Loeb Drama Center, Cambridge, now through July 30

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical about Eva Perón’s rise from a poor, rural childhood to first lady of Argentina had no business succeeding. But “Evita” won seven much-deserved Tonys. Come see what the always-adventurous American Repertory Theater does with the complex and stunningly-beautiful rock opera. Americanrepertorytheater.org

“Not Eye, Us,” Calderwood Pavilion, June 22-24

Directors Fernadina Chan and Adriane Brayton have created an immersive dance-theater work inspired by Michael Alfano’s sculpture “Cubed.” Through manipulation of the sculpture’s nine moveable pieces, each the color of a different skin tone, “Not Eye, Us” explores individual diversity and united community. Bcaonline.org

“The Sound of Music,” North Shore Music Theatre, Beverly, July 11-23

The North Shore is alive with the sound of music. Return to this charming tale of love, loss, mountain ranges, bedtimes, lonely goat herders, and all your favorite things. Nsmt.org

“Macbeth,” Parkman Bandstand on the Boston Common, July 19 – Aug. 6

As a democracy, we would do well to mind our Shakespeare. Set in a land of wild civil strife, a place where the social fabric is rotting, Macbeth dives into a murderous plot to become king. Come for the art, stay for the politics. Oh, and it’s free! Commshakes.org

“Come From Away,” Citizens Bank Opera House, Aug 8 – 13

Set in the week following the Sept. 11 attacks, “Come From Away” is inspired by the true story of 38 planes forced to land in a tiny town in Newfoundland and the townsfolk’s effort to keep 7,000 stranded travelers safe and sane over five days. Straightforward, sincere, kindhearted and revelatory, “Come From Away” is unlike any other Broadway show. boston.broadway.com

My concern is that this man gives his two children so much money every month that there’s none left over to help with any of our household expenses. He knows he will have to wean them off financially before he retires. I’m loath to ask him to stop, because I don’t want to lose him over this issue. However, I didn’t budget having to support him for the rest of my life.

He hasn’t saved any money for his retirement. When I’ve asked why he sends them all his money, he says that when he and their mom divorced, it upset them and he feels guilty (it has been 18 years!), or when he gets old and senile, they’ll care for him. When I mentioned that when he gets old and senile, I’ll ship him out to his daughter, he said she has her own life and won’t want him there. It’s driving me crazy! What do I do? — Stressed Retiree in Washington

Dear Retiree: You must protect yourself — that’s what you do. Speak up and tell this kind, loving, generous freeloader that unless he’s prepared to pay his half of the household expenses, he will have to move. It may not be a pleasant conversation, but you will avoid a lot of heartache — not to mention financial ruin — if you assert yourself NOW. By the way, there are no guarantees his daughter would be willing to take care of her father when he’s old and senile. Many parents, to their dismay, discover that sad fact when it is too late.

Dear Abby: My daughter-in-law is a terrible housekeeper. I watch my grandchildren three days a week and am expected to drop them off at her house after I pick up the oldest (age 5) from school. It is troubling for me to see how dirty the house is, so I end up secretly cleaning. What’s the best way to address this with her? I could offer to help her with the housework a few hours a week. — Tidy in Tennessee

Dear Tidy: The best way to address this would be the direct approach. Ask your daughter-in-law if she has noticed that you have been helping to clean her house. If the answer is no, explain that you would be glad to continue helping out and you have a few hours a week to work WITH her, if she’s willing. You are a kind and considerate mother-in-law, and I hope she is appreciative.

Dear Abby: I’m wondering if you can give me a tactful suggestion on how to get lingering family members to go home when I entertain. In times past, cousins stayed into the wee hours playing cards and were generally pretty noisy in my parents’ large home — all of which could go on for days.

Today, our relationships with certain family members are fairly strained, but they still want to overstay. Any suggestions about how to let them know it’s time to return to their own homes? — Back to Normal in the East

Dear Back to Normal: Try this: Stand up and say, “It has been fun getting together, but it’s time to call it a night. We need our rest if we are going to be productive tomorrow. Thank you for being with us. We’ll do it again.”

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com

And all it takes to undo that monumental effort is one scandal.

As Warner Bros. was quickly reminded when Ezra Miller, the titular character in their $200 million-plus superhero saga “The Flash,” began a self-destructive binge that threatened “The Flash” ever being seen.

This “Flash,” after decades in development, involves time travel and boasts the return of two Batmans — Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck. Actual production wrapped in October 2021. A release was scheduled for last July.

Having survived years of changing concepts and scripts, “The Flash” was soon plagued by leading man issues. The multiple reported incidents and legal troubles of Miller, 30, boggle the mind:  a purported strangling incident in Iceland, arrests in Hawaii, harassment allegations in Massachusetts, and in August 2022, a burglary charge, to name a few.

At that point WB and Miller confirmed he would get treatment for “mental health issues.”

Sadly, “The Flash” is hardly alone in its highly publicized near-derailment.  Will Smith’s shocking Oscar slap at comedian Chris Rock prompted a 10-year ban from his attending any Academy Awards ceremony. It also doomed Smith’s subsequent film, the $100 million slave drama “Emancipation,” from any hope of Oscar attention.

In 2016 Nate Parker was zooming to Hollywood heights with his rousing slave rebellion epic “The Birth of a Nation” – the title intentionally a gloss on D.W. Griffith’s racist silent era epic.  Parker starred in, wrote and made his directing debut with “Birth.” He then made history at Sundance when “Birth” was purchased for distribution for a record-busting price.

That success prompted renewed attention to 1999 rape allegations of a fellow Penn State student against Parker.  Soon, that story dominated every discussion of Parker’s “Birth” and blighted his career.

In a sad echo of Parker’s plight, Jonathan Majors, a rising Black star after outstanding work in “Creed 3” and as the Marvel villain Kang in “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” was booked in NYC on assault charges in a domestic dispute with a woman. Majors, 33, was immediately dropped from promotional campaigns for the Texas Rangers and the Army, replaced in an upcoming movie, dropped by his management and publicity agencies. Now, who knows whether Majors’ Kang will return in future Marvel epics?

While this has always been annoying, it was fairly easy to brush it off — until after I married. My husband, “Jay,” a wonderful man, is chronically ill. Like many chronically ill individuals, his life is filled with doctors’ appointments, various treatment plans, trying new medications and a lot of financial stress around how to pay for it all.

Through it all, Jay perseveres. He goes to work, cares for me and our animals and does his best to live a full, joyous life. Watching my husband suffer has been one of the biggest challenges of my life. He is strong and brave, and now that I see how chronically ill people struggle to live a normal day, my sister and her fake issues have gone from bothersome to infuriating.

The truth is, she has no idea what these wonderful, strong humans endure on a day-to-day basis, and the fact that she hijacks that struggle for her own purposes makes my blood boil. I know hypochondria is an issue on its own, but she refuses to acknowledge it, let alone seek treatment for it.

How can I maintain a relationship with someone whose behavior, in my opinion, is extremely selfish? She has been confronted, but she just won’t stop. — Sees Real Illness in Michigan

Dear Sees: According to the DSM-5, published by the American Psychiatric Association, your sister may suffer from “illness ANXIETY disorder.” (The caps are mine.) She may not be seeking attention or trying to divert it away from your husband and his daily struggles; she may be GENUINELY fearful and distressed.

If interacting with her as often as you do is as upsetting as you indicate, for your own mental health, consider talking to or seeing her less often. Confronting her is not the answer; a licensed psychotherapist may be — if she would admit she may need one.

Dear Abby: Recently, I started a group dinner for the wives of my husband’s poker buddies. It started out well. However, a newer member of the group has instigated praying in the restaurant, including holding hands while we do it. This is not my style, nor is it for some of the others.

We feel we are being held hostage to her request, and we’re not sure how to put a stop to this display. I’m private about my spiritual life, and another group member is agnostic. Can you please advise me on a tactful way to address this dear woman? —  Uncomfortable in California

Dear Uncomfortable: TELL the dear, deeply religious woman that you are very private about your spirituality, and at least one other member of the group is agnostic. Then suggest it would be appreciated if she kept her devotions silent and contactless when you are in a public place. (Could she be praying for her husband to win?)

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com

Maureen Ryan can’t deny it, as she writes in her first book: “Burn It Down: Power, Complicity and a Call for Change in Hollywood.” For much of her life, the former Chicago Tribune and Variety critic and reporter couldn’t get enough of the grisly, salacious show-business lore spawned by the tyrants, the predators, the power structure, the bias, the damage, the wreckage. The all of it.

She “consumed these narratives like candy,” she writes in her book. “Horrible behavior — hundreds of pages of it — in ‘Live from New York,’ the oral history of ‘Saturday Night Live’? Of course I devoured the whole thing. When I was coming up, not only as a consumer of popular culture but as someone who wrote about the industry, these narratives — dishy stories of industry people behaving badly — were, in and of themselves, a popular subgenre of entertainment.”

Change, and some real consequences when it came to a conspicuous handful, came in 2017 with MeToo and the fall of Harvey Weinstein. Meantime, increasingly widespread pushback on racial, financial and gender inequities in Hollywood — inequities Hollywood set in quick-drying cement a century ago — gathered momentum.

Yet a lot of the old structural biases remain in place, even if things are fairer now. Better. Mostly. Partly? Depends on who you talk to. In “Burn It Down,” Ryan, now a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, collates a wide range of stories, examples and evidence of how some shows, such as the ABC-TV hit “Lost,” were also amiss in terms of what was going on behind the scenes. Already widely read, Ryan’s chapter on the rancor behind the making of “Lost” was excerpted this month in Vanity Fair.

“Burn It Down” (available June 6 from HarperCollins) canvases dozens of sources and interview subjects, drawing together stories of bullying, humiliating, rage-aholic producers such as Scott Rudin — who, Ryan’s sources suspect, will be back in action soon enough. The second part of “Burn It Down” looks ahead to what needs to happen next — especially, Ryan says, since a certain weariness has begun to afflict both the industry and the public regarding the revelations of the last few years.

Ryan lives in Chicago’s western suburbs with her husband and their son. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: When did you get the idea that everything you’d learned needed to be dealt with in book form?

A: In 2020 and 2021, when we were all dealing with the pandemic. People were tired of various entertainment industry reckonings. I understand that feeling. I get tired of these topics, too, at times. But I also got the sense that people thought it was more or less fixed. Exploitation, abuse, racial bias, gender bias — all these affect Hollywood very deeply. People had begun to think that because some high-profile people made the news, it wasn’t going to happen anymore. In the first six months of 2021, it got frustrating to write about more and more unprofessional or even horrifying behavior being enabled and allowed to continue. I felt I was living inside some sort of rerun. “Groundhog Day,” you know. So I decided a book was my way of getting at how these outcomes were basically preordained, and had been for a century, because of the dynamics baked into the industry.

Q: In the book you write: “Opportunities to paint on the big canvases and scream at the little people are not distributed equally.”

A: For so long, many different forms of bullying or intimidation or outright abuse were filed under the heading of “creativity.” Creative license. But that wasn’t true for everyone. The opportunities were not handed to everyone. They may have been the norms, until recently. But we have to remember: For who?

Q: In “Burn It Down” you call out various A-listers who’ve worked with film and Broadway producer Scott Rudin, from Frances McDormand on down, who stayed mum when it came to showing any solidarity to those who accused the producer of some pretty grubby and violent behavior.

A: I still don’t understand it, to be honest. I don’t get the downside in standing in solidarity with those Scott Rudin abused. Just to say: “I’m going to do my level best in this industry to stop that kind of behavior and create a better culture.” Look, I understand why people are afraid of vindictive people or companies. But at some point, if your’re espousing a certain set of values, then you have to act on those views. Privately is one thing. Publicly is another.

Q: You write about the train wreck appeal to so many of us when it comes to megalomaniacal Hollywood. We eat these stories up. And as viewers — take “Succession,” say — there’s a sizable audience for whichever show nails the winning formula of “snake pit” plus “scads of money.”

A: You can’t deny the voyeuristic element to tales of bad behavior. We’re constantly watching these visions of terrible people doing terrible things, and often they’re done brilliantly as pieces of storytelling. But you know? Keep it on the screen, guys! I liked watching the Roy family being jerks to each other as much as anybody! But I wonder if we’ve been trained all these years to accept it behind the scenes.

I’m not saying all entertainment has to be squeaky-clean and goody-two-shoes. The people who make our entertainment don’t have to be perfect; we all have any number of flaws and neuroses. Just, you know, stop acting in ways that damaging to your co-workers over time. For too long Hollywood has said, basically, that it wouldn’t be a creative workplace environment if people weren’t being toxically damaging to each other. But it can be done. Look at (creator and director) Vince Gilligan; he did it twice, with “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul.” As far as I heard, that’s a load of fascinatingly awful behavior being handled by good, responsible people behind the camera.

Q: For those who haven’t read what you wrote for Variety in 2017: Can you talk about what happened to you in 2014?

A: Sure. In 2014, I was physically assaulted by an industry executive. A number of things happened that evening, and they had a cataclysmic effect on my life. Also it came at a really tough time in my life. I struggled for a long time.

But it gave me something valuable. It gave me this absolutely ferocious understanding of what happens to someone who goes through something like that. And when they try to fix it in some way by reporting it to someone in authority. I understand what it feels like to worry about repercussions to your career, and to go through these processes that can damage you all over again.

Q: In the book you write a bit about your Chicago upbringing as the daughter of a cop, and a product of Catholic schooling. I know you’re a Buddhist now, but it sounds like you were raised a lot more Catholic than I was. I wonder if there’s some measure of atonement going on in secular Hollywood among the white male block of “creatives” who are starting to acknowledge they’ve had a pretty sweet deal all these years. And that change isn’t just inevitable; it’s plain right.

A: I think more people now have an awareness of the difficulties and obstacles other people face. There’s a different kind of awareness and honesty in the air now. Whether that translates to people from historically excluded communities getting into more positions of power — that’s still very much up in the air. It’s a hard conversation to have. But more and more people seem invested in trying to right these historic wrongs.

Q: Was there an emotional toll, revisiting and recounting everything that provoked this book?

A: When you embark on any ambitious project, you put on rose-colored glasses about what you’ll be able to accomplish and what it’ll take. But then, some weeks …. There was one week when I talked to a woman, funny, smart, brave, someone in the orbit of “Saturday Night Live.” (The woman spoke to Ryan under an alias. Earlier this year, she also anonymously spoke with ABC News “Nightline” regarding “SNL” cast member Horatio Sanz, whom the woman accused of sexual assault.) This was the same week I talked to a Cosby (alleged assault) survivor, whose story is harrowing. When I talk to people, especially the first or second time, it’s not unusual for me to talk for two or three hours. I want to answer their questions. And I want to give them space to tell their story and make them comfortable.

Weeks like that, I’m privileged to hear those stories and I’m grateful they’re willing to share them with me. You don’t get a ton of writing done in weeks like that.

Q: What’s your hope for the book’s reception?

A: Well, I’d much rather be writing about the cool stuff people are making (laughs). I don’t want to sound like a megalomaniac, the sort of megalomaniac I’ve covered. But since MeToo I hadn’t seen a book quite like this. Various reckonings have informed all kinds of books, often someone’s autobiography, or a look at a specific set of issues. But with this, I’m trying to take a bird’s-eye view of the industry as a whole. To use a phrase used by Orlando Jones: The Hollywood power structure was set up to produce this outcome. I wanted to look at that. And I hope there’s some value in it.

©2023 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

America’s fascination with true crime is played for satire in the dark comedy “Based on a True Story,” a Peacock series starring Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina as a married couple who, dollar signs in their eyes and bad judgment in their hearts, seize upon the opportunity to make a podcast with a serial killer.

Tonally, the eight-episode series teeters between slasher territory and the humor of domestic ennui. Ava and Nate’s marriage has grown stale, their professional ambitions thwarted. She’s a real estate agent who struggles to land high-end clients; he’s a tennis pro at the Beverly Club who has recently been demoted. To be clear, this is a very upper-middle-class kind of frustration, and while the show hints at some class issues, it doesn’t go far enough. Ava and Nate are not rich compared to their friends, but there’s an unspoken reality the show is sidestepping: In the Los Angeles housing market, that cozy home of theirs is worth millions. They’re also expecting their first child (the show incorporated Cuoco’s real-life pregnancy into the story), though it’s unclear how they feel about becoming parents. They seem neither excited nor anxious. The pregnancy is just sort of there, in the background, like their home’s faulty plumbing.

Stalled careers and annoying home repairs have made life dull, but the couple isn’t in desperate straits. They’re just restless and unhappy. So Ava seeks refuge in true crime stories, and when she and Nate suspect a new acquaintance might actually be a serial killer dubbed the West Side Ripper, a proposal is hatched: What if we made our own podcast, where the killer shares all but remains anonymous? It’s never been done before; surely riches will follow.

Not so simple! In over their heads, Ava and Nate are continually yanked around by this unpredictable man. (Peacock prefers the identity of the killer remain a spoiler, though it’s revealed in the first episode.) The threat of violence is always hovering around the edges and, as a result, Cuoco’s performance involves a lot of “shocked face.” She’s not mugging exactly — well, she is, but it’s a self-aware mugging and that’s part of the show’s sense of humor. But as a character, Ava is too underdeveloped, floating prettily through what she sees as a boring existence. A closer read on what actually makes her tick would have been interesting. Messina gets more to play with, as a man with a deeper, angrier sense of middle-aged resentment that he barely keeps suppressed below the surface.

Their main competitors in the podcast world are the wonderfully ludicrous Sisters in Crime (played by the very funny June Diane Raphael and Jessica St. Clair) who confidently assert that the great American art form isn’t music or film or television. No, America’s great art form is murder: “We watch it. We celebrate it. We obsess over it. And we commit it.” That captures the show’s approach, which is ridiculous and occasionally menacing but also entirely plausible. All the same, “Based on a True Story” isn’t looking to examine any of these ideas so much as play them for comedy and horror.

It’s an approach that’s propulsive and keeps you guessing, both skewering the ghoulishness of true crime while also indulging in it. That’s a neat, if somewhat dubious, trick. I like the show overall, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. That’s OK — it can exist purely in the realm of upbeat, if sinister, high jinks, so long as we’re not pretending it’s saying something more. The show’s creator is Craig Rosenberg, who is an executive producer on the Amazon superhero satire “The Boys,” which also subverts and pokes a few holes in a popular genre.

Ava and Nate’s story is forever unraveling and it might have benefited from a clearer sense of what these two hope to achieve with the podcast. There’s not one substantive conversation about what happens if enough people believe they’re really platforming a killer, and while I think that’s true to life (we rarely fully anticipate the consequences of our decisions), the beauty of fiction is that it can imagine what that thought process might look and sound like.

The season ends on a cliffhanger — an unfinished thought, really — which I think is a mistake in the streaming era, with the uncertainty it has foisted upon the TV landscape. Who knows if that was Rosenberg’s choice or something Peacock pushed for, but the streamer has not indicated if the show is getting a renewal and, for some audiences, that may be reason enough to skip it altogether.

What about the podcast itself? We don’t hear much of it, or see the work that goes into putting it together (a task that is harder than the show would lead you to believe) but the killer is unhappy with an early edit and has plenty of ideas of his own. He’s trying to protect his brand “and you keep wasting time cutting to these other characters,” he says with some annoyance. The victims’ families are just a distraction from the main event.

What a savage comment on how hollow many of these projects actually are.

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‘BASED ON A TRUE STORY’

2.5 stars (out of 4)

Rating: TV-MA

How to watch: Peacock

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©2023 Chicago Tribune. Visit chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.