Celebrate Cinco de Mayo this weekend at UMOS, 2701 S. Chase Ave., where two stages will feature Mexican music and dance, plus children’s entertainment, food, merchandise, piatas, face painting and more. The free event takes place on today and tomorrow from noon to 9 p.m. For more information, call 389-6007 . . .

A collaborative performance and mixed media installation at UWM's Union Art Gallery, “Implosion: Cultural Integration and Transformation,” attempts to draw a through-line among disparate cultures using the lightning rod of religious iconography. Rather than focusing on Abrahamic, monotheistic religious expressions, artists Leandro Soto, Raoul Deal, and René Maldonado, in collaboration with Nigerian dramatist Awam Amkpa, ask viewers to consider the feminine roots of polytheism.

To truly understand Chinese culture, you need to love Chinese culture. That was the lesson learned from the life of Joseph Needham, a British scientist who arrived in China in 1943 and, over the years, established himself as the world’s preeminent Chinese scholar. Needham’s travels (and romances) are detailed . . .

It could be worse. At least Suze Rotolo is a likable writer. Near the end of her memoir we finally get the story behind the famous album cover of Rotolo walking alongside Bob Dylan for the folk singer’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. A Freewheelin’ Time could have revealed something about the folk-blues revival of the early 1960s and its most enduring artist, but instead spends most of its pages on Rotolo’s artwork (including baubles that hang from ladies’ boots, rejected by Bloomingdale’s at the time) and politics (hanging out in Cuba back in the day and treating Dylan as a fan treats Dylan). We have a charming but boring person on a record jacket writing a book as though she was part of the album’s music. Credit Rotolo for her voice . . .