To the editors: For the last 20 years the progressive elements of the Episcopal Church have had to put up with the whining and complaints of reactionaries like Bryan Miller [“Is Nothing Sacred?” June 9] and John Jamieson. Well I have news for any sexist racist homophobic assholes who want to live in the 16th […]
Tag: Vol. 18 No. 38
Issue of Jul. 6 – 12, 1989
Posted inArts & Culture
Private Lives
PRIVATE LIVES Live Theatre Extraordinary how potent cheap music is. –Private Lives Cheap theater, however, is not. Right now you can’t get less theater for your money than this tepid, inept stab at Private Lives, a dismal offering from the so-called Live Theatre. Of all God’s blunders Noel Coward hated bores the most. Yet A.C. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Do Us All a Favor–Quit!
To the editors: Susan S., a teacher of 8 years, asserted in her letter of June 23, 1989 that the “#1 reason children fail is because they refuse to make the effort.” As a teacher of 13 years, I can tell you, I’ve never met a student who didn’t want to learn. Sure, they put […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Sports Section
A week ago last Wednesday at Wrigley Field, the wind blew straight in off the lake out of the northeast. Wispy, sparse, low-flying clouds passed overhead, growing larger as they seemed to scrape the top of the grandstand and then diminishing as they continued on to the southwest. Shawon Dunston looked up between turns in […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Cooler by the Lake
To the editors: I was interested in the article deploring the loss of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer [“Is Nothing Sacred?” June 9]. I was raised an Episcopalian and have ventured twice to the St. Paul’s by the Lake Church across the street from where I live. Both times I have been amazed at […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Julie Wilson
It’s not just the unique texture of her voice–deep and dark and glistening, like Spanish leather–that makes a cabaret performance by Julie Wilson an unforgettable experience. And it’s not only the masterful technique with which she shifts between singing and speaking that makes familiar Broadway standards seem brand new in her renditions. What Wilson brings […]
Posted inNews & Politics
They Were Excitable
To the editors: I just wanted to write to say I hope Ted Cox enjoyed himself Saturday night at the Replacements [Critic’s Choice, June 9]. He seemed to want the Replacements to put on a bad show. Contrary to all the things he mentioned, the Replacements were excitable and searing. They seemed to be enjoying […]
Posted inFilm
Great Freaks of Nature
GREAT BALLS OF FIRE * (Has redeeming facet) Directed by Jim McBride Written by Jack Baran and McBride With Dennis Quaid, Winona Ryder, Alec Baldwin, John Doe, Lisa Blount, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Trey Wilson. Given that Jim McBride’s film debut was a pseudodocumentary designed to look real (David Holzman’s Diary, 1968), and was followed by […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Matador
MATADOR Marriott’s Lincolnshire Theatre The appeal of the bullfight–for those who perceive it–lies in the contest between brains and brawn, between the grace and courage of a man and the brute force of an enraged beast. A similar conflict is played out in the new musical Matador, receiving its world premiere at Marriott’s Lincolnshire Theatre. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Of One Blood
OF ONE BLOOD Lookingglass Theatre at Edge of the Lookingglass Twenty-five years ago on a sleepy summer Sunday, three civil rights workers–James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner–disappeared in Neshoba County, Mississippi. For nearly two months, newspapers around the country carried daily reports on the search. When their bodies were found, the murders galvanized public […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Floyd McDaniels
When most people think of Chicago blues guitar, they think of the aggressive, hard-driving sounds of musicians who took traditional folk concepts and updated them to fit the harsh, speeded-up realities of urban living; from the Delta-influenced followers of Muddy Waters to the young iconoclasts of the west side who laid the ground in the […]
Posted inFilm
Who You Gonna Recall?
GHOSTBUSTERS II ** (Worth seeing) Directed by Ivan Reitman Written by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd With Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, and Rick Moranis. I always find it weird when, during a screen sequel, audience members cheer wildly in response to an action or utterance repeated from the original film. It […]
Posted inNews & Politics
More trees in trouble: an open-land dispute in Highland Park
In the old days, Mark Lichtenfeld played in the woods along the bumpy two-lane road down the street from his parents’ home in Highland Park. “I remember we used to build forts in there,” says Lichtenfeld, now a 28-year-old lawyer. “I was not an environmentalist then–I was a kid. And I just loved the open […]
Posted inMusic
Quality Time
CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at the Ravinia Festival June 23, 24, 25, and 30, and July 1 and 2 Last month, James Levine opened his 17th season as Ravinia’s music director. It seems like yesterday that this unknown, bushy-haired wunderkind from Cleveland was jumping in at a few days’ notice for an indisposed Istvan Kertesz. The […]
Posted inArts & Culture
American Notes
AMERICAN NOTES Raven Theatre If Raven Theatre’s known for anything at all, it’s known for amiable productions of plays in what might be called the American Winsome mode: Shows like Lanford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly, wherein a couple of endearing misfits find love; or Preston Jones’s A Texas Trilogy, wherein various endearing hicks search for certainty; […]