To the editors: In 1968 I was just a kid in the 8th grade on the north side. When the riots occurred after Dr. King’s murder I didn’t follow the news. Twenty years later I’d forgotten all about it. You people have done a fine job not just reporting history [“The Night Chicago Burned,” August […]
Tag: Vol. 17 No. 47
Issue of Sep. 8 – 14, 1988
Posted inNews & Politics
Reading: If Mencken Could See Us Now
Imagine what the supreme cynic would say about Bush and Dukakis. Ronald Reagan and Jesse Jackson. Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart!
Posted inNews & Politics
Beware of the grass: Oak Park grapples with the lawn-chemicals problem
Less than a block from her Oak Park apartment, Mills Park was a pleasant and convenient place for Donna Jawor to walk her 12-year-old Yorkshire terrier each day. It wasn’t until she and Rocky were back home last September 15, a rainy day, that she noticed the dog was behaving strangely. “He was licking his […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Sunnyland Slim
At this point in his career, the gifts bestowed by Sunnyland Slim transcend music. At 81 he’s not quite the oldest working Chicago bluesman–that honor would probably go to 83-year-old Jimmy Walker–but he’s easily the most resilient, having rebounded from a series of physical setbacks in recent years that would’ve broken the spirit and energy […]
Posted inMusic
Stuff enough: Raful Neal and the bluesman’s dilemma
Even the most accomplished blues musicians often face a great challenge: to put together a show that will remain unique and interesting through an entire evening, especially if the musician’s own body of work is small. The usual standards by Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Junior Parker, Z.Z. Hill, et al have been covered by so […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
My MA diploma says the degree was conferred on me “with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto.” Ever since, I have been trying to figure out what rights and privileges I have pertaining thereto. I once even met one of the people who signed the diploma. When I asked him, he said, “Beats me.” […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Siege of ’68
That was no “police riot.” That was a premeditated offensive.
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
Take it easy–but not too easy. This tip from a Tufts University expert on aging: “21 days of bed rest equals 50 to 60 years of aging in functional capacity.” “In some ways, Chicago is the most European of all American cities,” writes novelist Sara Paretsky in Savvy (September 1988). “Not a sanitized re-creation of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Stage Notes: two new shows put musicians in the spotlight
The phrase “musical theater” conjures up in most people’s minds a fairly specific image: people interrupting their dialogue to break into song; lines of singing dancers strutting on for the big reprise, while a pit band churns out accompaniment. But there is, in the words of Chicago actor-composer Warren Leming, “the other musical theater”–a theater […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Field & Street
“I would tell anyone to take their vacation in Yellowstone this year,” William Romme told me. “This is a natural event not to be missed.” The natural event he was talking about is the multitude of fires that have burned about 650,000 acres so far in Yellowstone National Park. Romme is a professor of biology […]
Posted inNews & Politics
To Women
I was on my way home from the Jazz Fest, the music, the crowd, the night still smoking in my head. It didn’t matter that summer was almost over; the evening seemed beyond insult. I was sitting on a bench at Clark and Belden waiting for the bus when a woman’s voice abruptly dissolved my […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Opening Nights: making the world safe for performance art
“We wanted to build a space for performance that wasn’t dangerous,” explains Sharon Evans, artistic director of the new Live Bait Theater, which opens its doors to Chicago audiences for the first time this weekend. “I once saw a woman and her chair fall off a riser in a gallery. Who wants to go through […]
Posted inNews & Politics
At the Entrance of the Exit
Everybody knows Steve. Hey, Steve, have a burrito.