To the editors: C.C. Pyle, in his article about the New Age and channeling [“Our Bodies, Their Selves,” January 15] mentions that channeling is just another word for spiritualism. I agree with this. He also says that this idea that we can contact the living beyond the grave is given great appeal when, “Luminaries such […]
Tag: Vol. 17 No. 16
Issue of Feb. 4 – 10, 1988
Posted inNews & Politics
Attack Vendors and Other Media Conspiracies
To the editors: The new magazine, Spy, mentioned in Hot Type, 8/7/87, is the greatest idea to come along since the First Amendment. Though it may contain some youthful frivolity, the photo essay on “the de-volution of Bob Greene’s hair pieces,” some interesting truths are seeing daylight: “The [N.Y.] Times has been dragging their employees […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Field & Street
The rough-legged hawk is one of the best birds on my backyard list. To qualify for the list, the bird doesn’t need to actually enter the yard, but it does have to be visible from the yard. I saw my rough-leg twice within three days. The first time, it was quite far off, apparently flying […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Ignorance Is Bliss
To the editors: Although I realize the implication of admitting a close relationship with the subject of controversy, I simply cannot sit idly by and not react to John Bliss’s unthinking January 15 letter (“Playing at Theater”) about the Chicago Actors Ensemble. First let me make clear that my link with this group is a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Miss Lulu Bett
MISS LULU BETT Center Theater Audiences love the breakaway play. We instinctively side with the unjustly abused–or neglected–character, particularly if they show even a hint of energy and resistance: Cinderella, Nora in A Doll’s House, Lizzie in The Rainmaker, Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday–or Miss Lulu Bett in Zona Gale’s 1921 Pulitzer Prize-winning play. We […]
Posted inArts & Culture
On Exhibit: modern art of the ancient Maya
Look upon my poverty, Look upon my nakedness, Please. Give me three graces, Three battens, Three heddles. So I may weave my blouse, So I may weave my shirt, So I may weave my shawl. –Mayan weaver’s prayer It’s easy to assume that the great Neolithic culture of the Maya just up and disappeared like […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Hungry Hearts
LADIES’ NIGHT OUT Raven Theatre Company Have you ever stopped to think, goes one particularly dark joke that made the rounds a while back, that if Mama Cass had shared her sandwich with Karen Carpenter they might both be alive today? The two women in Mary Gallagher’s terrific little play, Chocolate Cake, are not as […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Apology for a Terrorist
The editor complained when he saw the story. You can’t apologize for a terrorist, he said. “But don’t you think people in this city would like to know how a native son came to be considered one of the most dangerous men in the country?” the reporter asked. The editor reminded him that Oscar Lopez-Rivera […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Memoir
MEMOIR Next Theatre The problem with one-man biographical plays is that they promise a sort of intimacy they can’t deliver. The format, in which some long-dead Great Person materializes and speaks directly to the audience, seems to offer us a way into the GP’s confidence. Mark Twain’s going to chat with us now, and Gertrude […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Getting the Picture
The life of a newspaper photographer isn’t what it used to be. There may be hope for us yet.
Posted inArts & Culture
The Fan Club
THE FAN CLUB Chicago Dramatists Workshop A good hit-and-run Second City sketch would say more about couch potatoes than The Fan Club does in 110 excruciating minutes–and it would say it with accoutrements this play simply lacks, like wit, conflict, and surprise. To start, what Chicago playwright Joe Urbanik is out to indict isn’t exactly […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Basketball dreams: filmmakers find a passport to black culture
When Steve James was a kid, he had the shot. He had the moves. He had the dream. “I was gonna be a pro player,” says James, 32, with a wispy smile. “Somehow or other I convinced myself I was gonna play in the NBA.” In the early 1970s, when James enrolled at James Madison […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Vinegar Tom
VINEGAR TOM Trinity Square Ensemble at the Coronet Theatre Some time back, you may recall, Senator Albert Gore’s wife, Tipper, made headlines by spearheading a campaign to “expose” rock song lyrics that promoted drug-dabbling, salacious sex, and satanic sentiments. The campaign–deliberately launched in the summer, when there weren’t more serious items on the congressional agenda […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chi Lives: Gwen Halstead, artist of a thousand voices
Two accomplices to great vocal music tend to go unsung. One, the accompanist, may at least be seen and heard, and astute audience members appreciate the pianist’s contribution to the singer’s performance. The other, the repetiteur, is entirely invisible–but without his or her knowledge of how languages are to be sung (which often differs from […]