As you probably know, rabbits are running wild all over Chicago right now. If you haven’t seen them, then you must live in a high-rise facing the lake. Summer is the time when rabbits are born and begin their short but happy lives eating, fucking, and sleeping all the time. They’re everywhere. But when the weather gets cold, they’re smart enough to go someplace warm and wait it out. The first thing that needs to be addressed is the $38 crudite platter, a presentation that seems designed to foment divisiveness....

J. Crocker/Wikimedia Commons Six months after Co-Prosperity Sphere hosted a celebration of local artist and filmmaker Tom Palazzolo, the experimental Bridgeport cultural center is teaming up with Palazzolo again for “Picasso and the Mayor: The Chicago Picasso on 16-millimeter,” a program of two documentaries about the famous sculpture at Daley Plaza. Both works, screening from archival prints, were made in 1967, the year they were unveiled. The event takes place this Thursday at 7 PM....

“This is the only Fireball that will ever see the inside of Billy Sunday,” bartender Stephen Andrews says of the bottle sitting in front of him on the bar. After removing the pumpkin from the freezer, Andrews used an ice pick to turn the bourbon-Fireball mixture into an icy slush, mixed the cocktail and poured it into the gourd, and piled crushed ice on top. It’s a rich, heavily spiced, boozy drink, Andrews says, much like eggnog—though the Fireball adds a distinctive touch....

The upstate New York band Woods has been a model of consistency in recent years, balancing relatively ragtag jamminess (often spiked with some Krautrock flavor) and hooky, strummy pop songs, all of them delivered with an appealing casualness. On its new album, With Love and With Light (Woodist), the group has excised much of its shambling excess, putting full faith in the endearing melodies delivered by singer Jeremy Earl in his gentle falsetto....

Bangers Versus Fuckers Before he was fronting Thee Oh Sees, John Dwyer was creating high-strung, noisy garage racket in the Coachwhips, a stripped-down trio who originally called it a day in 2005. With Thee Oh Sees on hiatus, Dwyer had some free time during this year’s South by Southwest fest in Austin, so why not get the old band back together? Coachwhips played more shows than I could count at SXSW, and in my short time there last week I was lucky enough to catch them play on a floor, surrounded by rabid fans, late on Friday night....

Federal authorities have conducted undercover investigations and arrested men in California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, and Ohio who were allegedly trying to travel to territory held by the Islamic State, and that’s just in the last month. But the feds’ approach to snaring potential terrorists with surveillance and aggressive informants—many of them using tactics bordering on entrapment—began well before ISIS emerged as a top concern last year. Yet the informant kept pushing Hassoun to come up with more ideas for attacks and other criminal activity; at one point, he told Hassoun that he could teach him how to deal heroin—which prompted FBI agents to chastise the informant about engaging in entrapment....

“We’re really happy to not be here tonight,” said Sun Speak guitarist Matt Gold during his duo’s Thursday-evening set at the Hungry Brain. The beloved Roscoe Village venue and bar, a longtime hub for the local jazz community, had closed in December 2014. It’s spent nearly a year dormant (and it’s not formally open yet—hence Gold’s joke), but a capacity crowd filled the room last night to help drummer Charles Rumback celebrate the release of his album In the New Year....

Lincoln and Wisconsin oldtowntriangle.com Runner-Up Milwaukee Avenue Arts Festival

Billy Flynn has quietly been playing an essential role in Chicago blues for some time. A Green Bay resident, he’s frequently made the five-hour drive from Wisconsin to Illinois to play behind the distinguished likes of Jimmy Dawkins (whom Flynn considers his mentor), Billy Boy Arnold, Jody Williams, and Willie Kent as well as with the band Mississippi Heat. Flynn also plays the area regularly under his own name, and tonight marks a special occasion: the celebration of Lonesome Highway, his Delmark debut....

J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/AP A 2008 opinion on the Second Amendment by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has reshaped gun policies in Chicago and beyond. Just a couple years ago it was against the law for a private citizen in Chicago to keep a handgun disassembled in a closet at home. By later this year it will be legal to carry a loaded one on the way to the gun store....

Anna Deavere Smith may be most famous for her recurring role as Gloria Akalitus, the prickly hospital administrator on Showtime’s Nurse Jackie. But she’s most treasured for the theater pieces she’s written and performed over the last couple decades. Covering subjects like the riots in Crown Heights, Brooklyn (Fires in the Mirror, 1992), and South Central LA (Twilight: Los Angeles, 1994), Smith’s one-woman, multicharacter shows are built around people she’s interviewed, using the words they spoke....

It’s been more than five years since local indiepop band Baby Teeth broke up due to bassist Jim Cooper (formerly of Detholz! and Frodus) relocating to Los Angeles. Their last show, which they dubbed “The Last Schmaltz,” took place in July 2012, and with the exception of a one-off show in 2013, they’ve stuck by their self-imposed retirement. Lead singer and keyboardist Abraham Levitan has kept busy in the years since with projects such as Teletype, his duo with Chicago singer-songwriter Devin Davis, which released its full-length debut, Spontaneity (No Means No), in 2016....

Alapash New Home (and Terrariums) 4835 N. Damen Runner-Up Nadeau – Furniture with a Soul

Lil Durk first came to national attention as part of the south-side drill scene and an associate of Chief Keef’s Glory Boyz Entertainment crew, but he’s quickly proved that he can hold his own. Over the past year he’s signed to the Coke Boys label run by New York rap kingpin French Montana, appeared on tracks alongside French, Diddy, Rick Ross, and Jadakiss, and been featured in XXL‘s annual Freshman Class issue....

Kai Zan 2557 W. Chicago Runner-Up Ora

Challenged by Henry Prendergast of Analogue to make a drink with catnip, Kristin Wolfel, a bartender at the Charleston, first did some homework: Is the herb that drives many felines bonkers even fit for human consumption? Careless Whiskers A second glass of wine is optional.

Sun-Times Media Former alderman Isaac Carothers, who served a federal prison term on corruption charges, is asking voters to send him to the Cook County board. Isaac Carothers argues that there are good reasons he should be elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners. First and foremost, he says, he’s spent his whole career serving the public. And the federal prison time he served for corruption? He claims that just because he pleaded guilty to taking bribes doesn’t mean he actually did....