To the editors: I was delighted to see that my letter to your tabloid found its way into print [July 14]. However, I was disturbed by the heading under which it appeared. I would also like to take the time to further explain the point I was trying to make (obviously not too well) in […]
Tag: Vol. 18 No. 44
Issue of Aug. 17 – 23, 1989
Posted inArts & Culture
Swamp Foxes
SWAMP FOXES Organic Theater As disappointing as theater often is, it’s usually superior to even the most accomplished feats of its bastard offspring, television. That’s because theater is a live art, with 25 centuries of history, with an audience gathered from its community–ephemeral, vulnerable to the unexpected, and, each evening, unique. Theater can be good, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Second Bird One Stone
SECOND BIRD ONE STONE TimeFrame Theatrical Productions at Bailiwick Repertory The program for Second Bird One Stone describes Audrey, its focal character, as a copywriter and “poetess.” Audrey wears her hair in a fountain of frizz and speaks in a soft nasal twitter punctuated by glass-shattering shrieks of “Oh, my God! I don’t believe it!” […]
Posted inNews & Politics
At the Track
The New Arlington International Racecourse: A Horse Player’s Report
Posted inNews & Politics
Blue Note Memories
In the 50s, jazz was hip, the Loop was alight, and Frank Holzfeind’s joint was jumping.
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
While scanning the shortwave radio bands recently, I discovered a station broadcasting five-digit numbers in Spanish. Each number was repeated twice before a new one was broadcast. It was a little strange, but I figured I had stumbled onto the Cuban Lotto numbers station. Then last night I picked up a similar broadcast in English. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
In Case of Nuclear Attack
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About the Bomb: A Correspondence Course
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
Would that be frozen, canned, or on the cob? From a recent theatrical press release: “The production has all the ingredients, including a breathtaking juggling act, fan-dancing, tap-dancing and ample corn…” Buttermilk, flavored milk, candy bars, home permanents, denture cleaners, and disposable diapers are “products least likely to be bought by the upscale,” according to […]
Posted inMusic
The man who knew too much
It’s sometimes forgotten that there’s a strong link between the blues, white folk music, and country and western. In the first half of the 20th century, different musical and cultural traditions coexisted uneasily throughout the south and intertwined in complex ways. The black plantation musician of the 1920s led a dual life. He played blues […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Johnny “Clyde” Copeland
Johnny Copeland has managed to harness the furious energy of modern hell-bent-for-leather blues guitar and fit it into the sophisticated tradition of his Texas roots. Copeland led the house band at Shady’s Playhouse in Houston in the early and mid-50s; there he came into contact with the music of such greats as Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, […]
Posted inFilm
License to Feel
DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES **** (Masterpiece) Directed and written by Terence Davies With Freda Dowie, Pete Postlethwaite, Angela Walsh, Dean Williams, Lorraine Ashbourne, Debi Jones, Michael Starke, and Vincent Maguire. An autobiographical film about growing up in a Catholic working-class family in Liverpool in the 40s and 50s. Achronological glimpses of a traumatic family life, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
One of the more felicitous Chicago Symphony appointments of recent years is that of Michael Morgan as assistant conductor. Only 31, the Oberlin-trained maestro has made tremendous strides since joining the orchestra in ’86. Poised, intelligent, and keenly astute, he is starting to fashion his own musical personality–that benchmark of true musicianship. Interpretively, he may […]
Posted inArts & Culture
On TV: Soundstage’s greatest hits
Shhh! Al Green is talking. “I can’t see peace of mind,” he says. “I can’t hold joy in my hands. I can’t grab everlasting life and hold it like that.” He’s sitting on a Chicago TV stage clad in what looks like a jeans jumpsuit and a stunning fur coat. His face flashes with extremes, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Who’s Responsible for Illinois Magazine?; Mapplethorpe in Chicago: The Lucky Moment
Who’s Responsible for Illinois Magazine? The other day we uncovered a specialist in a kind of journalism we’d never heard of. Gretchen Reynolds calls what she does “custom publishing.” That is, she creates magazines to order, laboring in an anonymity even vaster than the usual editor’s. Pick up Illinois, the superslick magazine she just put […]