To see (now!)

• Holiday Thorne Rooms
Quick! You still have time to view the miniature rooms bedecked in holiday splendor. A treat for all ages, this is a charming family outing as these extraordinary dollhouse rooms transfix children, and astonish designophiles and history buffs. On view at The Art Institute of Chicago through January 7th, 2012. www.arctic.edu

• Changes of Heart by Marivaux
This pre-French Revolution comedy is reset in the 1960s, proving that affairs of the heart provoke timeless questions. Laugh while your heart quivers. Tiny Remy Bumppo theater continues to deliver big issue plays that keep you thinking for days. Seeing one is the perfect prelude for an interesting evening with friends. Showtimes and tickets at www.remybummpo.org. This play runs through January 8, 2012.

• Mozart's The Magic Flute
Let Mozart brighten your January with Lyric Opera's sunshiny performance of The Magic Flute. To hear Nicole Cabell sing is always worth every penny of admission. An enchanting opera to lighten any winter day.
Tickets and showtimes at www.lyric opera.org

Escape Winter

• Some of My Lives, by Rosamond Bernier
At last the remarkable Rosamond Bernier stops to record the richness of her life. This former Paris-based Vogue editor, founder of the art journal L'Oeil, and renowned lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art has known them all. She calls it a "scrapbook of memories"; it's a feast. Curl up on your couch and leap into an afternoon in Antibes with Picasso, a week in Spain with Brassai, New York with Leonard Bernstein... the scope of cultural landscape intimately captured is astonishing. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

• From Charlemagne to Chambertin: Wine and European History
What an inspired pairing: a history of Europe in a glass of wine. Bill St. John hosts this popular hybrid lecture/tasting series at the University of Chicago, Graham School on Wednesday evenings from 6:00 -8:00 from January 25, 2012 · March 14, 2012 for $375. Intelligent indulgence! www.graham.school.uchicago.edu

Open Your Mind

• But Seriously, Folks: Why Comedy Is No Laughing Matter.
Anyone who knows me well knows that I can be funny. Seriously. In fact seriously funny when I am really angry; which is, of course, not funny. Confused? Let Michaelangelo Allocca help you sort out why we should take comedy seriously. Socrates did. University of Chicago, Graham School, lecture at the Chicago Cultural Center, on January 6, 2012, 12:15–1:15. Free, but registration is required. www.graham.school.uchicago.edu

• Yoga on the Brain
How does the brain's physical form and function influence spiritual experience? Please, enlighten me. This one day seminar looks at neuroscientific developments that analyze the nature of yoga. A day long seminar on March 3, 2012, at the Gleacher Center, University of Chicago's Graham School.
Saturday 10:00 AM–4:00 PM, $115 www.graham.school.uchicago.edu

Open Your Eyes and Heart

• Yoga and Art Workshops
In our age of multi-tasking this is a miraculous melange: take a yoga class at the Art Institute and learn poses inspired by a guided gallery walk. And bring your child. That takes care of multiple New Year's resolutions: exercising, learning relaxation, appreciating art, spending more time as a family, and exposing your child to the life enhancing attributes of art and yoga. Yoga and Art Workshops are $15 for one adult and one child (for members, $25 non-members) and includes museum admission.
Start January 28, 2:00–4:00 at the Ryan Education Center at the Art Institute. Register at www.artic.edu

•Meditate with Monet
If the previous listing felt too active, come and simply be with Monet. In the quiet gallery a brief talk sets the stage for instruction in meditation. Surrounded by impressionist imagery you may find enlightenment. January 21, 2012 from 9:00–10:00 AM before the museum opens.
To register call (312) 499-4111, $10 per member.

Be Creative

• Fashion Intensive: Alternate Abstraction
Drape a dress form with geometric shapes to discover how they transform the shape of the human body, then develop a pattern and create a dress. Does this sound like a nightmare assignment from Project Runway? It's a creative intensive at our beloved Art Institute! Hey, you have a whole week, not mere hours, and you get field trips to view museum collections and designer studio. So grab your thimble and stop by Figaro's collection of vintage fashion illustrations for inspiration.
School of the Art Institute, Monday–Friday, 9:00 AM–4:00 PM, January 9-13. To register go to www.artic.edu

French Cinema

• The Films of Robert Bresson
"Bresson is to French cinema what Mozart is to German Music and Dostoyevsky is to Russian literature."—Jean-Luc Godard.
Gosh. Say no more, just pass the popcorn. From January 21–February 29, the Gene Siskel Film Center presents a series of thirteen feature films by Robert Bresson.
Find showtimes at www.siskelfilmcenter.org