Anthony Rocco Sisters Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s daily Agenda page.

A Reader staffer shares three musical obsessions, then asks someone (who asks someone else) to take a turn. The Hard Times Though this fake punk-news site has been pushing outside its territory of late with anything-goes Onion-style satire, it’s hardly in danger of exhausting its original niche—the Hard Times had some kind of 2016, with headlines such as “Ceremony Thinks You Were Better in 2006, Too” and “Minor Threat Reference Wasted on Chili’s Waitress....

“Then, from all reports, we seem to be completely surrounded by love.” —Nat Miller in Ah, Wilderness! Our main concern is Richard’s coming of age, neatly and safely accomplished in about 24 hours. Given a droll spin by Niall Cunningham, Dick is a curly-haired, beanpole-thin know-it-all when we first meet him, spouting opinions on Wilde and Shaw while declaring his epic love for Muriel, daughter of a cranky merchant named McComber—who arrives before long with the soul-baring if pedantic letters Dick’s been writing to Muriel in secret....

Courtesy of Andre Foisy Andre Foisy leading students at August’s Metal & Candlelit Yoga session. Earlier this year experimental musician and yoga instructor Andre Foisy (Locrian, Kwaidan) debuted Metal & Candlelit Yoga nights, an ingenious musical event that combines his two passions. The title does a good job of explaining the affair: Foisy leads attendees in a yoga session set to heavy hypnotic tunes in the candlelit glow of West Town’s Turbodog studio, and guest musicians end the evening with a “drone bath” performance....

Theaster Gates’s newest project, the Stony Island Arts Bank, a 17,000-square-foot building he purchased from the city for $1, which opens to the public this Saturday, October 3, will do something many of Gates’s Rebuild Foundation projects have not—exist with normal operating hours for true public access. The building’s first exhibition is an installation by Portuguese artist Carlos Bunga. His cardboard-based structures act as faux columns in the bank’s first-floor gallery space and, oddly, blend into the nearly century-old architecture....

At the Beat Kitchen’s Holiday Toy Drive, a jam-packed lineup of local emo and indie-rock icons will play acoustic sets while raising cash and collecting toys to benefit the SOS Children’s Villages of Illinois. Headlined by American Football’s Mike Kinsella (who moonlights as Owen in a solo capacity), the eight-set showcase includes bandleaders Dave Davison (Maps & Atlases), Bob Nanna (Braid, Lifted Bells), Mark Rose (Spitalfield), Avery Singer (Retirement Party), and Chris Sutter (Meat Wave), among others....

In Ida a virginal teenager who’s been raised in a Polish convent since her infancy is summoned by the mother superior and informed that, before she takes her vows of ordination to become a nun, she must travel to the city and meet her only living relative, an aunt who refused to take her in after her parents died. Poland is still under communist rule in the mid-60s, and the aunt is a powerful magistrate known for sentencing enemies of the state to death (“Red Wanda,” people call her)....

Well, 2015 was a hell of a year, but now it’s time to move on—why not do so in style? This year the city offers everything from a masquerade ball to a seafood feast to a night of improv, not to mention the traditional countdowns, balloon drops, and, of course, champagne toasts at midnight. Some of our top New Year’s Eve picks are below, with an ever-updating list here. El Ten Eleven 10 PM, Subterranean, 2011 W....

In the early 2000s, if you’d asked Ricardo Gutierrez to name every Latinx actor in Chicago, it wouldn’t have been much of a challenge. Born out of a collaborative effort between Carlos Tortolero, director and founder of the National Museum of Mexican Art; Carlos Hernandez, executive director of the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance; and Pepe Vargas, executive director of the International Latino Cultural Center, the festival will feature companies from LA, Dallas, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, and Puerto Rico....

It won’t be miserably cold this week, so get out in the world and do something! Here’s some of what we recommend: Tue 1/10: During Write Club at the Hideout (1354 W. Wabansia), host Ian Belknap pits local writers against one another in a composition competition: two players have seven minutes to write about two opposing ideas, and the audience picks each round’s winner. 7 PM

I had a great time at the live taping of the Savage Lovecast at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre June 15. Audience members submitted questions on cards, and I tackled as many as I could over two hours—with the welcome and hilarious assistance of local comedian Kristen Toomey. Here are some of the questions we didn’t get to before they gave us the hook . . . A: Get this woman’s phone number, exchange a few photos and flirty texts, and relax....

Pianist Johnny O’Neal seemed destined for success when he moved from his native Detroit to New York in 1981 and scored a regular gig at the Blue Note, where he played behind heavies including Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Brown, and Nancy Wilson, among others. A year later he was working in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers—a virtual finishing academy for some of hard bop’s most respected figures, and in 1985 he opened for fellow pianist Oscar Peterson at Carnegie Hall....

Producer Caryn Capotosto, a Glen Ellyn native who studied film at Columbia College and University of Chicago and now lives in Los Angeles, returns to town this weekend to speak at the 7:15 PM screening of her new documentary Best of Enemies at Landmark’s Century Centre. The movie looks at the prime-time debates between liberal novelist Gore Vidal and conservative magazine editor William F. Buckley Jr., and it’s the subject of this week’s long review....

Pianist Danilo Pérez, bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade have served as the telepathic rhythm section in one of the greatest jazz bands of our time—the quartet that saxophonist Wayne Shorter has led since 2000. In that group those musicians have developed a highly refined sensibility, both elastic and elliptical, using a wide dynamic range to imbue performances with an endless sense of drama and surprise. They’ve occasionally worked together without Shorter, including a few pieces on the pianist’s 2014 album Panama 500 (Mack Avenue), but on the recently released Children of the Light (released by the same imprint) they’ve emerged as a fully contained unit, which is hardly surprising considering the time they’ve spent together....

Women & Children First Lynn Mooney and Sarah Hollenbeck, new owners of Women & Children First Bookselling has never been a sure way to unfathomable riches, but if you were going to take over an independent bookstore, there have been worse times than the present. Particularly if you’re going to take over a beloved neighborhood institution like Women & Children First in Andersonville or the Seminary Co-op and 57th Street Books in Hyde Park....

Looking for something to do today? Agenda‘s got you covered. For more on these events and others, check out the Reader‘s daily Agenda page.

This year’s edition of Lollapalooza was possibly the most controversial since the festival took up an annual weekend-long residence in Grant Park in the summer of 2005. As reported here on the Bleader and elsewhere, Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes and Samantha Urbani were assaulted by security officers who were reportedly not employed by the festival; yesterday, Chance the Rapper brought R. Kelly out onstage, but the reception was considerably cooler than the one following the latter’s performance at last year’s Pitchfork Music Festival....

Strawberry Hampton, a transgender woman currently serving a ten-year sentence for residential burglary at Dixon Correctional Center, the fourth male prison she’s been transferred to within the year, filed new claims against the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) on July 17 stating that she’s been sexually and physically assaulted by inmates and prison guards, and requesting she be transferred to Logan Correctional Center, a women’s prison. In April, the IDOC filed to dismiss Hampton’s complaints, stating that she had “failed to exhaust [her] administrative remedies as required prior to filing....

Joe Carsello Shapers Four years ago local experimental-rock outfit Shapers self-released their debut full-length, Little, Big, and tonight they’re headlining the Burlington to celebrate the release of their follow-up, Pierce Islands. They spent two years working on the sprawling, immersive double LP. Fittingly, Shapers also made a film to go with the album—the band’s newest member, Matt Weber, wrote, directed, and edited the Pierce Islands picture.

The other day I got a press release about Tenth Ward alderman Susan Sadlowski Garza‘s August 15 gubernatorial forum, which all the major Democratic candidates will attend. Asked why she’s not running, Garza generally says something along the lines of “Give me a break. I like my job.” Desperately seeking a take-no-prisoners progressive tactician who understands how Springfield really works? Then get to know Stacy Davis Gates, the political and legislative director of the Chicago Teachers Union....