A Strong Family, A Small Town in Tennessee, and a Lifetime of Experience With Racial Prejudice
Tag: Vol. 17 No. 23
Issue of Mar. 24 – 30, 1988
Posted inNews & Politics
Broder’s Keeper
To the editors: Michael Miner’s “Hot Type” column describing the demise of the Chicago Tribune’s middle east correspondent Jonathan Broder [March 11] constituted a weak defense of and apology for Broder’s plagiarism. In describing Broder’s middle east coverage, Miner states that: “Every line he wrote was carefully read, and as he wrote what he saw, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Field & Street
Last Sunday was the vernal equinox, or, as we say in English, the first day of spring. It is an occasion that often slips by unnoticed in Chicago. For us, late March brings blizzards more often than balmy breezes and nodding daffodils. We have to wait a whole month before the first pale green leaves […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Filth, Scum, Uninsured Animals
To the editors: Jack Clark obviously went to great pains to make his story a fair one [“Who Killed Jay Brunkella?” February 26]. It’s too bad Andrea Grannum and Margaret Smith, the dissenting jurors who would have us believe that they also desperately wanted to be fair, didn’t walk a mile in Jay Brunkella’s moccasins […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Tour de France
The French Travel Showcase came to town on Saint Patrick’s Day, not an ideal day for concentrating on things French: somehow the peculiar poisonous color of the river kept coming to mind, and even some of the most avid Gallophiles–the kind who were wont to burst out practically unsolicited, “Oh, I just love France”–were wearing […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Burnham Park: It’s Not a Neighborhood, It’s a State of Mind
To the editors: I must rise to the defense of my friend Dennis McClendon, unjustly maligned in these columns recently by Barbara Lynne of the Burnham Park Planning Board [Letters, March 4]. Ms. Lynne feels Dennis is a deluded soul who is conducting some sort of nutty campaign to convince the world that the neighborhood […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Beyond Reason
MOMIX DANCE COMPANY at Centre East March 18 and 19 Momix’s concert at Centre East stunned me, delighted me, overwhelmed me, awed me. Companies like Momix help me to resee, rethink, and finally recognize the world, imbuing it with a kind of beauty and, yes, sacredness all too often absent. Momix uses the simplest of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Magic Barrel And Other Stories
THE MAGIC BARREL AND OTHER STORIES National Jewish Theater If life really is “one damn thing after another” and change the only constant, then characters in fiction, no less than real people, face a choice: they can either resist or exploit the waiting game–or just lay low and hope luck will govern chance. Acceptance, resistance, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
South Pacific
Reviewing a work like South Pacific or a star like Robert Goulet seems, in a way, like an exercise in futility; both are products of a bygone era, and they really don’t make ’em like that anymore. But if an audience attending this touring production is prompted to reevaluate the standards by which it judges […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Upscaling Uptown: Can developers of subsidized housing escape HUD rules by prepaying their mortgages?
Before the landlord’s notice came, Rosemary Winblad and her two daughters lived comfortably and affordably in a well-managed federally subsidized apartment building at 833 W. Buena in Uptown. Then came the jolt: an immediate rent increase of 20 percent, on top of last year’s hike of 10 percent, with warnings of unspecified raises to follow. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Waiting For The Parade
WAITING FOR THE PARADE Reflections Theatre Ensemble American audiences are accustomed to seeing World War II treated from our own viewpoint–that of a nation that, while never directly threatened by the Hitler-Tojo forces, burned with anger at the enemy’s assault on our overseas forces starting with the ambush at Pearl Harbor. And we’re used to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Restaurant Tours: a lofty approach to health food
Although food pundits and prophets are busily proclaiming the demise of nouvelle cuisine and the return to favor of steaks, chops, hearty stews, and old-fashioned alliances of red meat, potatoes, and gravy, Anne Finance, owner/manager of N.E.W. Cuisine, is betting otherwise. This small bistrolike River North eatery emphasizes grains, vegetables, and fruit; the animal kingdom […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Biloxi Blues
Based on a play that constitutes part two of Neil Simon’s autobiographical trilogy, concerned with the experiences of the hero (Matthew Broderick) at boot camp in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1943, this is an engaging, well-crafted comedy that receives very able direction from Mike Nichols. The period decor and details are nicely handled (apart from the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Nightlight
NIGHTLIGHT Blueprint Theatre Group at the Chicago Actors Project You know how you feel when you see a play that’s, well, interesting, but doesn’t particularly move you? That’s how I feel about Nightlight. That’s not an unusual critical response in my experience, by any means, but the reasons for it are sometimes novel and often […]