To the editors: I thought Reader staff writers were a cut above the educational and literary level of most other Chicago journalists, but after your reference in Calendar (March 12) to a lecture to be delivered in “Farsi,” I’m beginning to wonder. You mean Persian. “Persian” is the proper designation in English of the language […]
Tag: Vol. 22 No. 25
Issue of Apr. 1 – 7, 1993
Posted inArts & Culture
Sunken Land
SUNKEN LAND Stage Left Theatre Sometimes a program tells you more than its producers intend it to. The one for Jeff Mangrum’s Sunken Land describes the play as “a futuristic drama where women & men struggle against a government that has gone out of control.” Not surprisingly, the play isn’t any more subtle than this […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Story Among the abstract watercolors chosen by England’s Manchester Academy of Fine Arts for its prestigious annual show in January was Rhythm of the Trees. The show’s judges said the painting’s “certain quality of color balance, composition and technical skill” earned it a place among the 150 works that were selected from the 1,000 […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Department of Crawling Flesh
To the editors: I enjoyed reading the newsy bits Mr. Henderson gathered for his column, the City File [March 19]. Especially interesting to me was the news that “stop” is now officially a French word in Quebec. It was in that article, however, that Mr. Henderson (inadvertently?) succumbed to a colloquial usage where only the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Double Life of Jim Allans
Back when Jim Allans started making his winter trips to the Amazon basin, most people knew the place he was going as simply “the jungle.” To them it was as exotic and dangerous as the back side of the moon. Now it has become “the rain forest,” and it’s the hippest cause this side of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Bailiwick Repertory’s 5th Annual Directors’ Festival
This showcase of directorial aspiration features shoestring-budget stagings of classic and new works. Coordinated this year by Cecilie Keenan, the event offers the work of 48 directors (chosen from 60 applicants), most of whom you’ve never heard of before. In a brave effort to bring order to the affair, this year’s festival is organized along […]
Posted inMusic
Big Star to Reune Soon/Prince Be, Nothingness, and Reality/Important Non-Rock Radio News/Splitsville
P.M. Dawn/Prince Be angry
Posted inArts & Culture
An Artist Beginning
ALONE OF YOUR SEX Susan Abelson at Randolph Street Gallery, March 26 and 27 Susan Abelson, a young performance artist who was last seen in Robert Metrick’s O’klahoma! and has been collaborating with others for the past few years, recently presented her first one-person show, Alone of Your Sex. According to a press release, her […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
Aerosols I’m confused about aerosol sprays. They have been labeled one of the worst enemies of the ozone layer, producing nasty destructive chemicals by the truckload, and yet there are now aerosol cans that specifically say “environmentally safe.” How can this be? Are there different kinds of propellants used? Two related questions: Why can’t aerosol […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Curse of the Irish/Channel Five’s Loss
The Curse of the Irish The publicist’s art is to work sudden wonders. It was surely no coincidence that the new book by Ireland’s Michael Collins arrived at our desk on Saint Patrick’s Day. But the grotesque Irish of Collins’s short stories, assembled as The Man Who Dreamt of Lobsters, no more resemble the festive […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Films by Michaelangelo Antonioni
The Film Center’s ongoing retrospective of the work of Italy’s greatest living filmmaker, Michelangelo Antonioni, offers two noteworthy programs this Friday night. First is perhaps the most unjustly neglected of Antonioni’s early features, Lady Without Camelias (La signora senza camelie, 1953), a caustic Cinderella story about a Milanese shop clerk (Lucia Bose) who briefly becomes […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
Don’t get hungry in 2143. The Illinois Natural History Survey Reports (January-February): “Illinois has enough coal to satisfy its present rate of consumption for 1,000 years, enough oil to meet its own demand for only 1 year, and enough topsoil to last 150 years at the present rate of erosion.” The Municipal Reference Library closed? […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Triumph of the Indians
And Other Contrary Views of Richard Rodriguez, Gay Catholic Mexican Opponent of Multiculturalism
Posted inArts & Culture
Billboards
BILLBOARDS Joffrey Ballet at the Civic Opera House, March 16-21 When MTV meets pointe shoes, look out. Brash, fast, and fashionable, Billboards is probably the sexiest work ever performed on the Civic Opera House stage. The Joffrey’s new evening-length ballet set to music by Prince stands conventional thinking on its head. Not the idea that […]