I can tell you that Arson Garden may be the only North American art-rock band that matters, and I can tell you that they come from Bloomington, Indiana, but after that I can’t tell you much. Sometimes they sound like a punk band–like a tightly controlled Mission of Burma, for example, when they cover Burma’s […]
Tag: Vol. 21 No. 14
Issue of Jan. 16 – 22, 1992
Posted inNews & Politics
Disrespecting Civil Rights
To the editors: I wholeheartedly support you in the matter of the political cartoon which allegedly “disrespects” Dorothy Tillman [December 20]. Given her past conduct Ms. Tillman has earned some “disrespect.” We did not support the civil rights movement of the 1960s so that freedom could be redefined to the satisfaction of Lu Palmer and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees
A fascinating if numbing feature-length narrative video by David Blair with remarkable computer graphics and other special effects. The intricate science-fantasy plot, which is narrated in an offscreen monotone by Blair, involves, among many other things, a beekeeper and cinematographer (represented by a photo of William S. Burroughs) who films “the moving spirits of the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Your Butt/Murder the Playwright
YOUR BUTT Metraform at the Annoyance Theatre MURDER THE PLAYWRIGHT Avenue Theatre The night I saw Your Butt some people from NBC were somewhere in the building taping interviews with Metraform members for yet another story about the folks who created The Real Live Brady Bunch. Just before the show began that night’s house manager […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Stuck in the Dark Ages
To the editors: Well it’s nice to see that some people are still living in the 19th century. Mike Miner’s comments about Chicago being the center of his universe [Hot Type, January 3] is refreshing. I did not know that he was a member of the flat-earth society. In this 21st century world of high […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
Has anyone ever made a study of the comparative heights of winners and losers in elections, and if so, what were the results? –Wistfully, Eli “Shorty” Pindsey, Chicago Well, being a dwarf sure didn’t help that little Greek fella. And no question everybody in politics thinks being tall is an advantage. Five-foot-nine-and-a-half-inch Jimmy Carter’s handlers […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Care and Funding of Chamber Music
A Four-Part Colloquy Conducted by Bryan Miller
Posted inNews & Politics
Female Disciples
To the editors: Your January 3, 1992, article on “A Silenced Woman” was outstanding. On page 19 you quoted a 20th century Vatican source that said Jesus Christ didn’t call any woman to be an apostle. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find out that there were many woman apostles, and many more male […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
Percentage of Illinoisans polled who could not name a single member of the state legislature: 77 (Northern Illinois University 1991 Illinois Policy Survey). I can’t find a job. The president doesn’t seem to care. Thank God for II Live Crew! Chicago poet-publisher Luis J. Rodriguez, in Curbstone Ink (Fall): “We are witnessing an upsurge throughout […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Coup/Clucks
COUP/CLUCKS Zebra Crossing Theatre and North Avenue Productions at the Synergy Center Can a comedy that depicts would-be Ku Klux Klan terrorists as harmless, laughable buffoons work in the season of David Duke? Not very well, in the case of Shifra Werch’s staging of Coup/Clucks, a pair of related one-acts by the pseudonymous “Jane Martin.” […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Play Ball
To the editors: What is it with this jerk Mike Miner [Hot Type, January 3] anyway? Did he lock himself in the bathroom when long summer days were around? His attack on the guy who wants us to have more afternoon daylight is just a petty ego trip on a honest guy who wants to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Club Date
CLUB DATE Free Street Theater at Spices Jazz Bar It’s smart to put on shows you can’t pigeonhole: for one thing, they’re hard to dismiss. Club Date is a sturdy hybrid, a rich music/theater offering that fuses live jazz with oral history. Conceived and in part composed by Doug Lofstrom, written and staged by Free […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Ardis Gushes, Hockney Drones: Our Report From the Lyric Luncheon/A Theater at Navy Pier?/Substitute Phantom/Michael Kutza’s 17-Year Plan
Opera companies can’t pay David Hockney enough to design sets for them. But he does it anyway, he told Lyric lunchers last week, because he loves the work.
Posted inFilm
Sex and Drugs and Death and Writing
NAKED LUNCH **** (Masterpiece) Directed and written by David Cronenberg With Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, Julian Sands, Roy Scheider, Monique Mercure, Michael Zelniker, and Nicholas Campbell. And some of us are on Different Kicks and that’s a thing out in the open the way I like to see what I eat and vice […]