William Warmack’s biggest problem as an artist is his low supply of materials. He’s a weaver who makes garments and objets d’art, but the cigarette packages he works with are a scarce commodity. He smokes Newport cigarettes himself, which supplies him with one or two wrappers a day. But he says it takes 2,000 wrappers […]
Tag: Vol. 18 No. 40
Issue of Jul. 20 – 26, 1989
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
Dept. of limited options. From a Chicago commercial dating-service questionnaire: “My friends consider me to be: _ Very Attractive _ Somewhat Attractive _ Above Average _ Average _ Fairly Plain” “The late Ira Bach, long-time city planning director and author of Chicago on Foot…. walked from his Loop office each day, rain or shine, to […]
Posted inFilm
Cult of Personality
LET’S GET LOST ** (Worth seeing) Directed by Bruce Weber. “Can you carry a tune? Is your time all right? Sing! If your voice has hardly any range, hardly any volume, shaky pitch, no body or bottom, no matter. If it quavers a bit and if you project a certain tarnished, boyish (not exactly adolescent, […]
Posted inMusic
Exemplary Conducting
GRANT PARK SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA at the Petrillo Music Shell July 7 and 8 Grant Park programs are often full of imagination, but Grant Park conductors usually are not. I find that the latter generally nullify the virtues of the former. While a first-rate orchestra can sound decent even with a second-rate conductor–as the Chicago Symphony […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Sports Section
At a party over the Fourth of July weekend, a friend of ours–who is nine years old–was entertaining us by aping the deliveries of a few notable pitchers. The identifiable characteristics of the pitching motions were all there–Dwight Gooden with his straight, over-the-top movement, Mike Bielecki with his low delivery and his lunge toward home […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Weighing in at the Tribune Pay Scale; Doing the Right Thing
Weighing in at the Tribune Pay Scale There was a bit of an uprising inside the Tribune recently. Some good came out of it. The president of the company learned a lesson in the psychology of newspaper people. After all, they’re his savages–he should know how they tick. One department after another was summoned to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Talley’s Folly
TALLEY’S FOLLY Millikin Productions at Center Theater There were six people in the audience. Five sat on one side of the crescent-shaped house, and I sat on the other. It was an unfortunate arrangement because, during the prologue of Talley’s Folly, Matt (played by Brian Zoldessy) addresses the audience directly. Which means that for almost […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Pet Pancakes
To the editors: I must admit that your article in this week’s paper about the “Dead Pets Department” [Our Town, July 7] was amazing to see in print because of the fact that I never hear or see anything on the topic. I see at least six dead animals sprawled in the middle of a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Katie Webster
Pianist Katie Webster is one of the seminal musicians in Louisiana blues and R & B. She lent her driving boogie-woogie piano and soulful balladry to classic sides by the likes of Lonnie Brooks, Slim Harpo, Lightnin’ Slim, and almost everyone else who passed through the legendary hit factories at Lake Charles’s Excello and Goldband […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Tired of Mud? Try Eastern Orthodoxy!
To the editors: I almost always pick up a copy of the Reader on Friday mornings. Regrettably, I failed to do so on June 9th, and so missed Bryan Miller’s article (“Is Nothing Sacred?”). The numerous letters written in response to that article do, however, reflect the very real and serious divisions within the Episcopal […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Coach That Cares
To the editors: It will be a great day for the Reader and for the human race when editorially the paper raises three cheers for the entrepreneur who brought “Windy City Motor Coach” [“The Prison Run,” June 9] into existence in January 1987. This one day service to accommodate relatives of inmates of Downstate prisons […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Falling Bullets
To the editors: Cecil Adams’s answer about which bullet hits the ground faster [Straight Dope, December 16] is right, but for the wrong reasons. There is a much stronger reason than curvature of the earth why the dropped bullet hits the ground faster than the fired one, namely air resistance. Air resistance is a force […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Jester
Jose Alvaro Morais’s first feature, O bobo, winner of first prize at the Locarno film festival, is set during the onset of the right-wing backlash against the Portuguese revolution in 1978. A group of friends are staging a play adapted from Alexandre Herculano’s novel The Jester–a mythic romance built around scenes from Portuguese history–in the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Episcopal Mud-Slinging
To the editors: The Episcopal mud-slinging contest (“Is Nothing Sacred?” June 9; “Letters” July 7 and 14) is most interesting. The banality has been marred only by Bishop Griswold’s balanced and reasonable reply (July 14) to an inane anonymous missive (July 7), and Ms. Thompson’s remarkable ability to express her feelings without impeaching the motives […]