Editor’s note: Chicago playwright, novelist, actor, director, and disability rights activist Susan Nussbaum died April 28 of pneumonia at 68. Playwright Mike Ervin, who collaborated with Nussbaum as cowriter on the comedy revue The Plucky and Spunky Show and whose 1999 play, The History of Bowling, was directed by Nussbaum, remembers his friend and mentor. […]
Author Archives: Mike Ervin
Posted inNews & Politics
Second Movement
If Kris Lenzo hadn’t lost his legs in a trash compactor, he’d never have become a dancer.
Posted inFilm
Euthanasia Made Easy
The United States of Leland * (Has redeemming facet) Written and directed by Matthew Ryan Hoge With Don Cheadle, Ryan Gosling, Chris Klein, Ann Magnuson, Jena Malone, and Kevin Spacey. A few years back some disability-rights activists were offended by the movie There’s Something About Mary. I wholeheartedly disagreed. Sure, the Farrelly brothers threw in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Film Notes: Cinema for the Deaf spells it out
At a pivotal point in the movie What Women Want, Mel Gibson sees two deaf women in a shopping mall conversing in sign language. Gibson, whose character has the unwanted ability to read women’s minds, sees the women flashing signs and hears female voices translating. “But it sounds like a hearing person’s voice,” says Chicago […]
Posted inNews & Politics
War of the Words
Why designating a downtown street “Handicap Place” is not as simple as it seems.
Posted inNews & Politics
Four Wheels Good
On the first hard beat of the tango, Alana bursts out, thrusting her chair downstage. The men take turns whirling her chair in a circle and whipping her on to the next dancer.
Posted inArts & Culture
Going To Pot
Illinois farmers are risking everything on a secret cash crop. ISU’s Ralph Weisheit wants to know why.
Posted inArts & Culture
Normal and Bloomington, IL
Bloomington and Normal are located in Illinois’ biggest county, McLean, which is about the size of Rhode Island. There are a lot of colleges here besides Illinois State University, including Illinois Wesleyan and Lincoln College. No one can accuse Normal of not living up to its name. Illinois State’s Ralph Weisheit says the most common […]
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Browns Backers
Fans find togetherness far from their spiritual home of Cleveland
Posted inNews & Politics
Decompressing
Visiting the psych ward at Northwestern Hospital is like a dream. You step up to the big steel bank-vault door and ring the bell. You state your business and they let you in and the hatch thuds shut behind you. I’m here to see Jimmy. When he was in for a routine visit with his […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Bustin’ Out
He’d been sent to a psych ward once already for complaining, so he was looking to get out of the nursing home fast.