HANK CRAWFORD Alto saxophonist Hank Crawford arrives just in time: who better to turn a near-north January night into a south-side August swelter? The Memphis-born veteran has soul to spare, inherited in part from his earliest employers: B.B. King, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Ike and Tina Turner, and Ray Charles, in whose legendary jazz ‘n’ blues […]
Yearly Archives: 1998
Posted inMusic
Shouts and Murmurs
Cream Those Were the Days (Polydor) Zombies Zombie Heaven (Big Beat) Agricultural history can be summed up as the progressive triumph of human ingenuity over the uncertainty of nature–unless you happen to be a pig or a cow, in which case it’s a tale of increasingly efficient slaughter. In other words, history is shaped by […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
I have received a question pertaining to the Beatles from a friend. I have no idea what the answer is. What do all four Beatles hold on the cover of the Beatles ’65 album? –Lee, via AOL I have the album right here. You forget how big these things were–12 inches by 12. (To be […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Calendar
Friday 1/9 – Thursday 1/15 JANUARY by Mike Sula 9 FRIDAY When your neighbor pisses you off, is it better to drop a bomb on his family or to slowly starve him to death? Richard Newcomb would probably lean toward the latter. As director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Fools
Fools, TinFish Theatre. The themes of comedy may be as universal as those of tragedy, but they’re often so tied to a particular time and place as to be incomprehensible elsewhere. Yet Neil Simon in this “comic fable” of a village (obviously the famous Chelm of Jewish folklore) liberated from the curse of cluelessness by […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Death of a Salesman
porter.qxd Dear Editor: My family really enjoyed the listing for my father, LeRoy Klowden (inventor of the self-service shoe department), in your year-end “Little Deaths” section [December 26]. Sam Walton once acknowledged that the merchandising ideas he gave him were essential to the early success of Wal-Mart. He was a man of many accomplishments and […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Following the Money
The League of Women Voters takes aim at our increasingly regressive tax system.
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Stories Tough times for Nike: The winner of November’s New York City Marathon, John Kagawe, said he might have broken the record for time except that his Nike shoes kept coming untied. And two weeks earlier the company cooperated with authorities in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in the arrest of five employees at […]
Posted inMusic
Eddie Palmieri
EDDIE PALMIERI The worst news I’ve had all year: the scintillating salsa pianist and bandleader Eddie Palmieri will not lead his full-scale jazz orchestra in Chicago as originally announced, but will instead appear at the helm of a seven-piece band, as small a group as he’s led in years. But though we lost the opportunity […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Police Scanner
Monday, December 29, 10:35 AM Dispatcher: 2513. 2513: You want to make a little notation? Um, in the 1800 block of Nagle or Natchez, if somebody calls about a dog that’s lost, a black rockwilder with no–it’s just got a choker chain on it, I put it in the yard at 18–! (Laughs.) Dispatcher: (Laughs.) […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Savage Love
Hey, Everybody: I’m still on vacation–like I’m a goddamned Euro-three-weeks-paid-holiday-pean or something. Here’s another clit-notes column, and next week–tan, rested, and ready–I’ll be back with a 100 percent brand-spankin’-new sex-advice column. Hey, Faggot: “Bill” and I have been lovers on and off for five years. Lately we’ve been having troubles in bed. Basically, I was […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago Sinfonietta
CHICAGO SINFONIETTA When it was formed in the mid-80s, the Chicago Sinfonietta was fairly unusual in the midwest as one of a handful of rainbow-coalition orchestras. Now, of course, even the slow-moving Chicago Symphony Orchestra can boast ethnic inclusiveness, but the Sinfonietta is still a step ahead of its senior colleagues in championing worthy nonmainstream […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Natural Women
Sisters of the Great Lakes: Art of American Indian Women at the Field Museum, through March 29 Mary Eveland at Intuit, through January 24 By Fred Camper The common Western view of artist, materials, and the world–the artist shapes his materials to produce illusions that make statements–has recently been challenged by outside artists and those […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Sports Section
The new year, I thought, would be a good time to give the Blackhawks a new chance. So on New Year’s Day I dutifully rejected the college bowl games and trekked to the United Center with a buddy to see the Hawks take on the Toronto Maple Leafs. I had called the day before to […]