It’s a curious thing, the continuing protest over the redevelopment of Navy Pier–the $150 million plans made by the city and state are well under way, but opposition to them has never really ended. The latest hubbub arose last month, over a state agency’s suggestion to remove the pier from the National Register of Historic […]
Tag: Vol. 21 No. 14
Issue of Jan. 16 – 22, 1992
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Story In Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in October, Myron C. Ragan filed a lawsuit against the estate of his late psychologist, John M. Farley, who committed suicide in 1989. Ragan said that Dr. Farley let him down by killing himself while Ragan still needed help, or at least by not showing the professionalism to refer […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Fairy Garden/Stolen Moments
THE FAIRY GARDEN Quando Productions at Sheffield’s School Street Cafe STOLEN MOMENTS Talisman Theatre at Sheffield’s School Street Cafe Novice playwrights are often encouraged to forget about plot and focus on characterization. Plot, after all, is merely the footprints left behind by interesting characters. Plot will take care of itself. Harry Kondoleon takes this advice […]
Posted inNews & Politics
When John M. Came Marching Home
For a year I have watched the consequences of the 43-day war, the “bloodless war,” unfold in his life and in the lives of his fellow Marine Corps reservists. None of them came home a winner.
Posted inArts & Culture
From the Second City
FROM THE SECOND CITY Court Theatre When I was a kid, there was something almost mythical about Second City. My mom would listen to The Midnight Special on WFMT and we’d laugh at Alan Arkin wailing “Tiger, Tiger, burning bright” as a folk song or Severn Darden expounding upon the life of Oedipus Rex. You’d […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Blues Notes: Maxwell Street indoors
It’s mighty cold down on the Maxwell Street Market these days, and it isn’t just the winter weather bringing the chill. The University of Illinois was recently given the go-ahead to purchase most of the land in the area: vacant lots have been fenced off, most of the few remaining buildings have been demolished, several […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse
A fascinating postmortem on the making of Francis Coppola’s 1979 Apocalypse Now, mainly consisting of footage shot by Eleanor Coppola in the 7Os that has been intelligently selected, augmented, and arranged by Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper. Like the Coppola film itself, this documentary at times seems to value self-styled profundity and rhetoric over observation […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Reel Life: a romantic exulting in purified light
Perched on the bow of a freighter, 18-year-old Peter Hutton peered into the dark skies over the Gulf of Siam. Looking out for storms on night watch, the merchant seaman schooled his eye in the drama of light. Thirty years later the filmmaker says, “It was a huge influence to really pay attention to the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Cartoon: How Black Journalists Saw It/Local Boy Makes Good
The Cartoon: How Black Journalists Saw It We dimly remember an upper-story window of the Justice Department in Washington some 20 years ago, behind which it was possible to discern a line of gray officials–and wasn’t one of them the attorney general himself, John Mitchell?–staring at the spectacle below, our sea of hippies, revolutionaries, and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Ice Cream Men With Smokey Smothers & Jimmy Lee Robinson
It’s nice to know there’s still room for low-key, tasteful presentations like this one in today’s frenetic blues environment. The Ice Cream Men, featuring WBEZ blues deejay Steve Cushing on drums, are an earnest group of young aficionados dedicated to preserving traditional Chicago blues and showcasing the living representatives of that legacy. Smokey Smothers, an […]