By any objective criteria, Living With the Law, Chris Whitley’s 1991 debut, wasn’t the best record of the year. Not only because the big news in music last year continued to be in the categories of rap, metal, college/alternative rock, and dance music: even among the comparatively small pool of pop records inspired by and […]
Tag: Vol. 21 No. 29
Issue of Apr. 30 – May. 6, 1992
Posted inNews & Politics
Other Choices
To the editors: Cate Plys’s “No Choice” (April 17) contains a most telling revelation: “Prochoice activists argue that abortion costs pale compared to the cost of prenatal care, delivery, and subsequent medicaid and welfare payments for the child.” Of course tax-funded abortion is less of a strain on the public purse. Of course it is […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Sports Section
Not only did the Bulls return to their traditional black shoes for the National Basketball Association playoffs, but Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and Horace Grant opted for black sweatbands instead of the usual red, and Grant switched from white goggles to red. Professionals–even the defending champions–alter their routines to emphasize the difference in playoff play, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Milestones–A Tribute to Miles Davis/The Sleepwalker’s Ballad
MILESTONES–A TRIBUTE TO MILES DAVIS Club Lower Links THE SLEEPWALKER’S BALLAD La Barraca ’90 at Stage Left Having spent too much of the late 70s and early 80s watching pretentious, empty minimalist independent films and performance pieces, I’ve developed a strong aversion to artists who try to hide the fact that they have nothing to […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Reading Dynamics
To the editors: Cecil Adams’s “The Straight Dope” column [February 14] contends that speed reading is not the answer to technical reading overload. Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics agrees. Yet the reading improvement method distilled by Evelyn Wood from her studies years ago provides a key component in a specialized technical reading program offered by Chicago-based […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Story Reverend Glen Summerford was convicted in February of the attempted murder of his wife in Scottsboro, Alabama. A jury found that he had forced his wife to stick her hand into a cage of rattlesnakes, saying that she had to die because he wanted to marry another woman. (He handles the snakes in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Where Worlds Converge
TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY at the Harold Washington Library Theatre April 24 and 25 Vladimir Nabokov would have loved Trisha Brown’s Foray Foret, not only for its punning title in two languages but for the magical way the two worlds of the dance mirror each other. Like the Russian American novelist, Brown has a talent […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Dangerous Depoliticization of Liberatory Struggle
To the editors: I write in order to support Mr. David Futrelle’s review of Gloria Steinem’s Revolution From Within [February 14] against the criticisms offered by Ms. Tracey Wik [Letters, March 20]. I have read Ms. Steinem’s book, and while I did not miss her point about self-esteem, it failed to be interesting from the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
So how do porcupines mate? My zoologist roommates give me the unsatisfying explanation that they put their needles down during the act. But I’m convinced that even with needles down mating for male porcupines must be a very painful experience. –Jean Francois Tremblay, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Well, one account of porcupine romance (in North American […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Sharon Clark
Vocalist Sharon Clark hails from the blues-drenched community of East Saint Louis, where she began singing professionally in the early 70s. She was eventually noticed by legendary saxman Oliver Sain, who hired her as lead vocalist in his Saint Louis Kings of Rhythm. Clark’s current style reflects both the passion of her gospel background and […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Our Confusing Critics
To the editors: I am confused by Albert Williams’s review of On the Open Road by Steve Tesich [March 27]. He says that “Tesich’s story [is] undermined by Robert Falls’s visually spectacular staging” and that “a sensitive, sincere play about suffering is wrecked rather than enhanced by the sheer quality and cost of the production.” […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
It just keeps going, and going, andÉ Loyola University sociologist Philip Nyden, coeditor of Challenging Uneven Development: An Urban Agenda for the 1990s: “The new Calumet airport is the Chicago growth machine gone bonkers” (Loyola World, March 26). “Have you ever been the object of unwanted sexual advances, propositions, or sexual discussions from others who […]
Posted inArts & Culture
His Majestie’s Clerkes and the Orpheus Band
Heinrich Schutz (1585-1672) has never been a household name, even though he’s widely acknowledged by musicologists as the greatest German composer before Bach. Chief among his innovations were the introduction of Italian madrigal styles to northern countries and the use of German texts instead of Latin ones in liturgical music. Schutz almost didn’t become a […]
Posted inNews & Politics
You’re the Boss
To the editors: Thank you for creating a greater awareness of the intimidation and harassment by our own government towards civil rights activists like Jeanne Bishop [April 10]. Americans should be outraged that the U.S. government freely violates our Constitutional rights in order to serve the political agenda of foreign governments. There are many activists […]