Kevin Winter Jay Z 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.

In 1988, Reader staff writer Harold Henderson wrote a memorable 7,300-word cover story on tiny, financially strapped Shimer College. It was a happy thing just to know that a place as unlikely as Shimer—which, eschewing textbooks and lectures, assigned only primary texts, taught through discussion, and admitted promising students without ACT scores or high school degrees—could exist. Now there’s been a final move: when the fall term opens, on September 11, Shimer students will be trekking out to Naperville, where they’ll attend the Shimer School of Great Books at North Central College....

Q: I’m a 62-year-old woman. I was married for 33 years and left five years ago. We hadn’t gotten along for years, but he never stopped wanting or valuing me for sex—in spite of treating me like a household appliance and cheating on me regularly. Not long after the marriage ended, I met a guy online (my same age) who ticked nearly every box on my partner checklist—one of which was an ongoing interest in maintaining sexual relations....

ARTIST: Justin Santora SHOW: Spektral Quartet at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Sat 3/11 MORE INFO: justinsantora.com

The David Foster Wallace Industrial Complex that’s sprung up in the seven years since his suicide has birthed an unlikely new film out this month. Called The End of the Tour, it’s based on writer David Lipsky’s memoir Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself. It stars Jason Segel as the late author and Jesse Eisenberg as Lipsky, who was sent by Rolling Stone to profile Wallace in 1996 as the late novelist promoted Infinite Jest....

This fall the Hyde Park Art Center celebrates its 75th birthday. That’s an advanced age for an arts organization, but HPAC’s administrators and curators hope it’s still in the middle of its life. Its latest exhibit, “The Chicago Effect: Redefining the Middle,” considers the idea of middleness in terms of age, geography—Chicago is, after all, in the middle of the country—and in other, more metaphorical ways. It’s also a tribute to the way the arts are practiced here, particularly at places like HPAC, which is neither the largest and richest art center and gallery in the city nor the smallest and poorest but—you guessed it—in the middle....

To test what I call the Chris K. theory of pothole politics, I’ve taken to the streets, riding my bike up Ravenswood Avenue through Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s very own 47th Ward. I suppose our streets aren’t as bad as some unpaved country roads in an impoverished third world county. “I love Scott for his independence,” Chris said. “But I guess we pay for it.” It’s time to set this straight. The truth is that the suck-ups aren’t able to keep their streets in any better shape than the independents....

Sergei Bachlakov Jessie, Zack, A.C., Lisa, Kelly, and Screech versions 2.0 Even among not-terribly-avid viewers of the terribly unfunny late-80s teen sitcom Saved by the Bell, it’s common knowledge that the episode when Jessie Spano becomes addicted to caffeine pills was the show’s landmark moment. The 20-second clip of a manic Elizabeth Berkley straining every acting muscle in her body—a sort of thespian gusto we wouldn’t see again until the pool-sex scene in Showgirls—and wailing “I’m so excited....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.

Courtesy Illinois Holocaust Museum Ruth Gruber’s photograph of children playing chess on the deck of the Henry Gibbins (1944) 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.

Chicago House DJ and producer Sean Haley died late last week at age 49. A DJ since the 90s, Haley blossomed in the 2000s: he copromoted Inner Sound System parties at Sonotheque, and in 2007 formed the house duo Windimoto with Detroit producer Scorpeze (they launched a label with the same name in 2009). Haley had a taste for funk, soul, jazz, and broken beat, which he’d incorporate into his DJ sets....

Street View is a fashion series in which Isa Giallorenzo spotlights some of the coolest styles seen in Chicago.

Show business is full of interesting and often cruel ironies. Take, for instance, the number of incredibly well-respected actors (Orson Welles, Raul Julia, Philip Seymour Hoffman) who died soon after filming parts in not-so-respectable kids’ movies (the 1986 animated Transformers: The Movie, Street Fighter, and the final installments of the Hunger Games series, respectively), ending critically lauded careers with the equivalent of a sad trombone. The last (and, until now, only) time Tegan and Sara appeared on the chart was back in the fall when their single “Closer” made it all the way to number 90....

The Comrades theater company delivers a very well-acted staging of Kenneth Lin’s crisp political drama. It’s the story of Chinese-American politician Julius Lee (Ben Veatch), a New York state assemblyman whose idealism, intelligence, oratorical skills, and personal biography (practicing Christian, U.S. Marine veteran, family man) suggest he has a bright future on the national stage—until his patron, political consultant Nathan Berkshire (Scott Olson), uncovers a toxic relationship dating back to Julius’s college days....

Mohammed Hamzah Khan knew he was being watched. The 19-year-old college student passed through security at O’Hare with his 17-year-old sister and 16-year-old brother on the afternoon of October 4, 2014. But even then, he expected to be stopped by federal agents who he thought had been spying on him. He was right. But Khan’s siblings told different stories, according to the federal officers: his sister said they intended to stay with a friend, while his brother said they were going to visit their cousins....

Brian K. Vaughan’s accolades are numerous. He was listed in the credits of the blockbuster film Doctor Strange, which is based on a book of his. He created Saga, one of the most popular and talked-about comics out right now. And he boggled viewers with his work on the TV show Lost. But before all of that, he wrote Y: The Last Man, a tasty little comic that grew into a favorite of many comic-book diehards....

Love Is Strange In this week’s long review, Ben Sachs describes the filmmaking of French director Philippe Garrel as “a cross between Romantic poetry and the experimental cinema of Andy Warhol.” Garrel’s latest feature, Jealousy, screens all week at Gene Siskel Film Center. Friday brings the opening night of Noir City: Chicago 6, a weeklong festival of film noirs presented by Music Box and the Film Noir Foundation. And we’ve got recommended reviews of Laughter, a 1930 comedy that opens Jonathan Rosenbaum’s semester-long lecture series “The Unquiet American: Transgressive Comedies From the U....

Courtesy Piccolo Theatre John Szostek has left Piccolo. Evanston’s Piccolo Theatre announced Wednesday that its founder and longtime head, John Szostek, “has resigned from the organization effective immediately.” Szostek was artistic director of Piccolo Theatre Ensemble and executive director of Piccolo Theatre, Inc.

While the very name of this project helmed by veteran singer and antisocial icon Lydia Lunch addresses a rearview-looking mind-set, its unexpectedly long lifespan speaks to the way the combo has evolved into something bigger. Flanked by drummer Bob Bert—an old-school postpunk drummer who served time in Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, and Action Swingers, among others—as well as guitarist and former Chicagoan Weasel Walter and bassist Tim Dahl, a pair as comfortable essaying punishing postpunk as they are lacerating free jazz, Lunch has improbably found the best, most enduring band of her lengthy career....

On Thursday the Commission on Chicago Landmarks unanimously approved a preliminary landmark recommendation for a half block of Old Town’s West Burton Place (between LaSalle and Wells), a week after a demolition permit was issued for one of the 13 buildings in the proposed historic district. And they’re hoping the developer will change his plan and keep significant parts of the exterior of the building intact. The developer, Sebastian Barsh of Castlerock Properties, apparently wasn’t present....