For many years, Claudio Abbado was Solti and CSO management’s first choice for a Solti successor. The rest, as they say, is history. What’s done is done; Daniel Barenboim is off to an excellent start with the CSO. Abbado, on the other hand, was offered the other plum of the music world subsequent to his […]
Tag: Vol. 19 No. 16
Issue of Feb. 1 – 7, 1990
Posted inArts & Culture
Symbols of Something
LIZART 5 Tunga at the Museum of Contemporary Art On the third floor of the Museum of Contemporary Art, in the Manilow Gallery through February 4, is an environmental installation consisting of copper and steel plates and wires, magnets, and drawings on silk. This work, by the Brazilian artist Tunga, is simultaneously smooth and rough, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
At Wit’s End
AT WIT’S END at the Halsted Theatre Centre Oscar Levant once said that “imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism,” and when it comes to Levant, Stan Freeman is one of the best plagiarists around. As the star of Joel Kimmel’s one-man play At Wit’s End, under the efficient direction of Barbara Karp, he looks […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Blackouts From a Marriage
ABINGDON SQUARE Next Theatre Company For certain people, the slightest nudge can produce a play. While Maria Irene Fornes was visiting New York’s Abingdon Square, she saw a woman holding a rent receipt. The playwright imagined that the woman was about to go home to her husband, a man she pictured as much older. What […]
Posted inNews & Politics
How to get rid of the local drug dealer
Suppose for a moment you live next door to a drug house. Cars queue up in your street. Drug abusers loiter in front of your house or apartment. Gunfire occasionally disturbs your sleep, and in the morning you might find derelicts sleeping it off in your front yard. Whether you’re a yuppie rehabber, downwardly mobile […]
Posted inArts & Culture
When Will the Rats Come to Chew Through Your Anus?
WHEN WILL THE RATS COME TO CHEW THROUGH YOUR ANUS? Theater Oobleck Last week I wrote, “You would be hard-pressed to find four more talented actors than those in Cardiff Giant’s original comedy, Love Me.” Well, this week I found five actors who certainly give them a run for their money: Lisa Black, Jeff Dorchen, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Pecong/Courage Untold
PECONG Victory Gardens at the Ruth Page Dance Center Alice Walker claimed that the story of The Color Purple was given to her in a dream. The numerous inconsistencies and anachronisms to be found in it are therefore, one presumes, to be excused because it is a work of vision rather than craft. Perhaps for […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Reading: After the Bloom Boom
Reconsidering The Closing of the American Mind: Why did so many readers latch on to the crotchety complaints of an obscure elitist?
Posted inArts & Culture
Emily Remler
This is pianist David Benoit’s gig: it’s his name in the big letters on the marquee. But Benoit’s string of pseudojazz hits holds little interest for serious listeners, who may also have been underwhelmed by his recent album of more straight-ahead material. For me the drawing card is guitarist Emily Remler, who graced that last […]
Posted inFilm
Nihilism for the Masses
ROGER & ME *** (A must-see) Directed and written by Michael Moore. There’s no question that you should see Roger & Me if you haven’t already. Michael Moore’s comic documentary about the devastation of Flint, Michigan, resulting from General Motors’ massive plant closings and job layoffs is the most entertaining American documentary to come along […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Art Facts: the beauty in an ugly world
In 1930 William S. Carter came to Chicago from his native Saint Louis to study art. The University of Missouri did not accept black students, and the college for blacks in Jefferson did not offer an art curriculum. At the time, the Art Institute of Chicago was one of the few institutions that did admit […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Music Notes: a direct line to Bartok
When Sir Georg Solti ran into his old classmate Gyorgy Sandor in Salzburg a couple of summers ago, the two had much to reminisce about. Both had been students at Budapest’s famous Liszt Academy of Music. “I remember Georg well,” says Sandor. “He was a superb pianist and a student of Dohnanyi. Somehow all of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chaos
CHAOS Lifeline Theatre I’m not going to attempt an explanation of the theory of chaos here, since I’m only up to page 42 in the book I’ve been reading about it. But as near as I can tell it boils down to this: you’re never going to understand the physical world if you insist on […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Stunt Man
“So there’s three helicopters riding over the top of the train.” The voice is from a guy coming up the aisle behind me. He talks so loud, so emphatically, it’s impossible to miss a word, even over the sound of the train. “It’s beautiful,” he continues. “One of them lands right on top of the […]