The shaman of postmodern jazz hasn’t visited Chicago in years, and that alone should impel you to his doorstep next week: Ronald Shannon Jackson’s continually evolving music may give you either palpitations or merely a headache, but you sure won’t be bored. As a drummer, Shannon can create rhythms that are actually unique in their […]
Tag: Vol. 18 No. 17
Issue of Feb. 9 – 15, 1989
Posted inNews & Politics
Meet the Candidate
A while ago Channel 11’s Chicago Tonight gave nine Republican mayoral candidates three minutes each to speak. The parade included a man in dark glasses proposing the creation of some kind of secret service to patrol the subways, a bungalow dweller who seems to think life would be better if the non-Aryan populations left town, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Hope for Schizophrenics
To the editors: The Mental Health Association of Greater Chicago congratulates David Burke on an informative, sensitive portrait of Andy, a man with schizophrenia [January 27]. It is an important lesson that schizophrenia is most threatening to the person who is ill, and not to those around him. Two other issues must be emphasized. First, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Fine Library Overdue in Rogers Park
To the editors: I commend Ben Joravsky for his article on the newly renovated Lakeview Library and the renovations that are underway at other branches listed in the Neighborhood News in the Jan. 27 edition of the Reader. This is welcomed news for a city that has yet to build a central library. However, I […]
Posted inNews & Politics
False Hope for Schizophrenics
To the editors: Your Jan. 27th issue had both a letter and an article, the former dealing with the value of psychotherapy (written by a woman who, I would assume, did not suffer from psychosis) and the latter about the trials and tribulations of a schizophrenic named Andy. Karen Hoffman, the letter writer, makes some […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Seminar Notes: investing with the stars
When the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter is aligned with Mars, go long oats and sell gold and stocks. The mystic, mantic influence of the new age has reached the pits of Chicago’s commodities exchanges, where a growing group of traders and brokers are charting the movements of Venus, Mars, and Saturn […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Christmas tree story: a recycler gets the runaround
It all started when Nancy Sreenan looked out her back-porch window and saw two garbagemen hauling her Christmas tree away. “They were dumping the Christmas tree with the regular garbage,” says Sreenan, who lives with her husband and daughter on the near northwest side. “I knew that wasn’t right because I knew the city was […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Fine Swiss Movement
BASEL BALLET at the Auditorium Theatre January 26-28 The Basel Ballet, the only Swiss ballet troupe making a considerable splash on the international theatrical circuit, introduced itself to Chicago with three charming performances of La fille mal gardee (“The Poorly Guarded Girl”), the oldest ballet still in the active dance repertory. La fille, created by […]
Posted inArts & Culture
My Oedipus Complex: Myths of Early Life and Afterlife in Ireland
MY OEDIPUS COMPLEX: MYTHS OF EARLY LIFE AND AFTERLIFE IN IRELAND City Lit Theatre Four short stories–two by Frank O’Connor (who used to contribute to the New Yorker) and two by James Stephens–make up this evening of reader’s theater. Both authors are Irish humorists; other than that, there doesn’t seem to be any great reason […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers
Spring training begins next week, and the advent of the national pastime is the perfect time to consider the career of Art Blakey: baseball has its farm system, which develops young prospects into major-leaguers, and jazz has Blakey. Over the last 35 years, Blakey’s bands have served to mold and train promising young musicians on […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Palm Beach Story
The all-time best Rudy Vallee performance is as a gentle, puny millionaire named Hackensacker in this brilliant, simultaneously tender and scalding 1942 screwball comedy by Preston Sturges–one of the real gems in Sturges’s hyperproductive period at Paramount. Claudette Colbert, married to an ambitious but penniless architectural engineer (Joel McCrea), takes off for Florida and winds […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Two Many Bosses
TWO MANY BOSSES Center Theater There’s nothing wrong with Two Many Bosses that a complete rewrite or three couldn’t fix. This musical comedy, a first effort for its authors, has an interesting concept and a few nice songs going for it in its premiere staging. Now all it needs is a script that is actually […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Sore Throats; Bags; Lemon Tree; Hail Mary II
SORE THROATS Kamijo at Chicago Actors Project BAGS, LEMON TREE, and HAIL MARY II Commons Theatre If the playwright’s worst fear is an indifferent audience, Howard Brenton needn’t worry. In his first play, Revenge, the English dramatist savaged the London police with the sensational overkill that has since colored all his outbursts. In Pravda he […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Curse of the Happy Artist
CAVALCADES IN LEARNING Chris Sullivan at Randolph Street Gallery January 27 and 28 Chris Sullivan is one of the most skilled performers I’ve ever seen, exploring a richly imagined universe of grotesque characters in a wholly idiosyncratic and disarmingly sincere performance style. Sullivan simply tells stories–or more accurately, tells stories about himself telling stories–but the […]
Posted inFilm
Bringing Back the Depression Musical
TAP ** (Worth seeing) Directed and written by Nick Castle Jr. With Gregory Hines, Suzzanne Douglas, Savion Glover, Joe Morton, Dick Anthony Williams, “Sandman” Sims, Bunny Briggs, and Sammy Davis Jr. One of the more poignant effects of contemporary Hollywood has been the virtual extinction of at least two of the major genres that served […]