The defending champions, a crew of eight or so Italians, their hair gray and faces lined, stand behind a table loaded with plates of macaroni, pasta e fagioli, and eggplant parmigiana. At the moment, they are somewhat confident, convinced almost beyond doubt that they will retain their crown as champions of the senior citizen cooking […]
Tag: Vol. 16 No. 11
Issue of Jan. 1 – 7, 1987
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
Just say no to your pharmacist. From Harper’s “Index” (December 1986): “Percentage of drug-related deaths caused by prescription drugs: 70.” Little League vs. street gangs, as Association House Little League Commissioner Joe Alvarado sees it (?Que Pasa?, September 1986): “If you get a nine-year-old or ten-year-old to play on a team that’s mixed from different […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Reading by Ear
See Dick. See Jane. See whole words. Don’t sound out. Look, look! Isn’t this boring beyond belief? Isn’t there a better way? Wasn’t it pointed out more than 20 years ago by a small, family-owned publishing company in Illinois?
Posted inArts & Culture
Calendar
December 30 Through January 1 We know this issue is dated January 2, but here are a few suggestions to help you get through post-holiday inertia. Chicago painter Barbara Jaffee is interested in how viewers interpret her work; in fact, she tries to use her art to “further explore the relationship between perception and understanding.” […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Fashion: The Shoulder Boom
Every decade or so a different part of the female anatomy swells to astonishing proportions.
Posted inNews & Politics
Field & Street
This could be a good year for snowy owls. We have had at least ten sightings in the Chicago area through Christmas. Three of the reports were from the lakefront in the city, four were from the Indiana dunes, and the rest came from open fields out beyond the ‘burbs. Snowies are birds of the […]
Posted inMusic
Frank Sinatra–The Voice: The Columbia Years 1943-1952; Jerry Lee Lewis–The Killer 1963-1968; Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band–Live/1975-85
THE VOICE: THE COLUMBIA YEARS 1943-1952 Frank Sinatra Columbia CXT 40343 JERRY LEE LEWIS: THE KILLER 1963-1968 Jerry Lee Lewis Bear Family Records BFX 15210 BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND THE E STREET BAND: LIVE/1975-85 Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Columbia C5X 40558 Boxed sets–those unwieldy but rewarding multivolume compendiums– probably represent the best way […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Otis Rush
West-side blues is characterized by an aggressive guitar attack punctuated by busy, complex chording between the lead phrases and propelled by a strongly driving rhythm section of bass and drums. Otis Rush took this raw, elemental sound and brought it to new heights in the late 50s with classics like “Double Trouble,” “Groaning the Blues,” […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Transit: A Fare to Remember
The CTA used to have one of the country’s best fare structures. Then the fouled it up.
Posted inArts & Culture
The Wind in the Willows
THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS Bailiwick Repertory In the bestial microcosm of Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows, the highest praise an animal can receive is that it is “sensible.” A good, solid English quality like overcooked roast beef, reasonableness based on clearheaded good sense is just what characterizes the gruff Badger, resourceful Rat, and […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Gays and Dullards
To the editors: It must be that letters like Jim Beebe’s (October 17) get into print merely to show the ignorance under which some people operate. He writes, “On the eve of the ‘Gay Rights’ vote, a homosexual school principal was arrested in a Chicago motel with one of his students. This sort of behavior […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Lighten Up
To the editors: After reading Franklin Soults’s humorless and verbose response to the McComas and Rohan letter [December 5] all that came to mind was this question: When are these hyperanalytical critics going to stop boring everybody with their endless rants? When, Mr. Soults, are you going to realize that the sheer pretentiousness of your […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Cutting Remarks
To the editors: This letter is in reference to David Fremon’s article, “The Latino Vote: Muscle or Myth” (October 24). The judgment and professional standards manifest in the piece do not reflect the thoughtful, incisive reporting we have come to expect from the Reader. That you, as publisher and editor of a serious weekly newspaper, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Good Thief
To the editors: Saint Dima (the Spanish pronunciation), who proved efficacious in restoring to Achy Obejas her stolen property (Our Town, December 12), may be more recognizable in his traditional spelling, Saint Dismas. Known by this name since the mid-fourth century Acts of Pilate, he is the Good Thief crucified with Jesus, as told in […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Mies Is Less
To the editors: Ed Zotti has done some good writing on architecture for the Reader and other journals. In his recent article on Louis Sullivan [November 28], however, he stumbles badly. First of all, Zotti offers in his piece a veritable Thanksgiving-Day cornucopia of inconsistencies and contradictions. Examples: He damns Sullivan, then praises him; calls […]