Coal miners used to take canaries into the shafts to warn them of gas. The birds were much more sensitive to the lethal vapors than people, so the miners kept an eye on the bird while they worked, and if the canary fell off its perch, the miners skedaddled. This is one of the first […]
Tag: Vol. 17 No. 12
Issue of Jan. 7 – 13, 1988
Posted inNews & Politics
Secrets of the Illuminati
To the editors: Last week [Cecil Adams] mentioned the Illuminati twice in [his] column [November 6]. In regard to [his] answer to the question about the Trilateral Commission, he stated that “an organization that everybody already knows about hardly qualifies as ‘secret.’” If you know anything at all about the workings of the Illuminati, you […]
Posted inNews & Politics
A Neat Place to Live
To the editors: I find it particularly interesting that Harold Henderson found it necessary to refer to the quarters of Vegetarian Times [December 11] as being above a “greasy spoon and a pet store.” He also placed the location as being in downtown Oak Park. First of all, the location is not downtown Oak Park. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Super Minutiae
To the editors: [Re: “Reading: Superman’s Make-over,” by Geoffrey Johnson, November 20.] I was so disappointed that the first Superman movie did not follow the comics that I never went to the sequels. Here’s my list of the most glaring inconsistencies: 1) The Phantom Zone projector did not look like Hula-Hoops in the comics; 2) […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Art Facts: Billie Lawless and his dancing electric organs
What’s that strange image along the side of the road? Is it a bird? A plane? No, it’s four large, neon dancing penises! They flash on and off, and they sport top hats, canes, and bow ties, Fred Astaire style. In the two years since Green Lightning was erected at Harrison and Wells as part […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Reading: Last Among First Ladies
What was Mary Todd Lincoln’s problem? Was she a shrew? A victim? A thwarted feminist?
Posted inArts & Culture
Double Messieurs
Stylistically distinctive (with a rhythmically inventive use of jump cuts), impressively acted (by Jean-Francois Stevenin, Yves Afonso, and Carole Bouquet), and simultaneously unpredictable and rather bewildering as narrative, Jean-Francois Stevenin’s second feature, made in 1986, looks like nothing else in contemporary French cinema. Stevenin, who is mainly known as a rather ubiquitous actor, plays a […]