CUTTING BAIT at Randolph Street Gallery, through June 12 “Cutting Bait,” at Randolph Street Gallery, is a show of eight young contemporary artists who play off recognized pop and minimalist idioms. By co-opting the territory of such artists as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Ruscha, Jasper Johns, and Frank Stella, they reconstruct the intent of […]
Tag: Vol. 22 No. 35
Issue of Jun. 10 – 16, 1993
Posted inNews & Politics
Reading, Rising, Arithmetic/Tales of the Unread
Reading, Riding, Arithmetic Pure journalism–journalism obligated to nothing but truth–should be taught in schools in the same spirit as the square root of minus 1. As crucial but imaginary. Consider the position Cy Griffith finds himself in. He means to put a worthy new magazine on its feet. And he sees but one road to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Flowers for Algonquin, or Des Plaines, Trains, and Automobiles/Disgruntled Employees Picnic, or The Postman Always Shoots Twice/Take Me Out to the Balkans
FLOWERS FOR ALGONQUIN, OR DES PLAINES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES Second City Northwest DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES PICNIC, OR THE POSTMAN ALWAYS SHOOTS TWICE Second City E.T.C. TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALKANS Second City It was the comic equivalent of a synchronized Rapture and Harmonic Convergence: within ten days all three Second City troupes opened new shows. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Infants of the Spring
INFANTS OF THE SPRING Live Bait Theater Glenda Starr Kelley’s adaptation of Wallace Thurman’s 1932 novel Infants of the Spring opens with flappers kicking up their heels before a purple, pink, and red set, and ends with the play’s protagonist, Raymond–the leader of an artists’ colony in 1920s Harlem–on a darkened stage, describing his commune […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Brilliant Breakthrough
SONG AND DANCE Candlelight Dinner Playhouse Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. It’s the classic formula–the same old song and dance. But not in Song and Dance, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s surprisingly witty and inventive show, now receiving a splendid staging at Candlelight Dinner Playhouse. Part song cycle and part jazz ballet, it’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Late Night Catechism: Saints, Sisters and Ejaculations
LATE NITE CATECHISM: SAINTS, SISTERS AND EJACULATIONS Live Bait Theater Late Nite Catechism: Saints, Sisters and Ejaculations is the kind of title that sends an intelligent person running. “Oh, no. Not another show about Catholic nuns. Please. Whoopi was enough.” Don’t run too fast. Yes, Late Nite Catechism is a religious comedy. Yes, it features […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Creation of the World/Rap Ballet
THE CREATION OF THE WORLD Jan Erkert & Dancers at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall of Northwestern University, June 6 RAP BALLET Bryant Ballet at Lincoln Park High School, June 4 and 5 Multiculturalism is a sort of gift giving between cultures, and multicultural work tries to combine different cultural forms as a way of explaining or […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Liz Carroll
Liz Carroll has been called “the best American fiddler going”–by musicians in Ireland. So how did a Chicago girl make a name for herself in the world of Irish violin playing? Well, winning the prestigious all-Ireland fiddle contest–as she did in 1975, at the age of 18, beating Ireland’s best in her first year of […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Self-Segregation
To the editors: Douglas Massey is right on the mark in his conclusions that Chicago and other large cities remain highly segregated and that segregated black communities tend to self-destruct [“Apartheid American-Style”]. But his message is marred by oversimplification, exaggeration, and unpersuasive evidence. An example of all three flaws assaults the reader in the third […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Art People: Zirbel’s record-making auction
There is a moment in every young person’s life when a door opens revealing a glimpse of the future. For Zirbel, it occurred when he first heard the Beatles. “They woke me up,” he says. “I don’t know how to say it, but what they were doing changed my life. They altered the direction of […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The $105 Car Wash
It’s a beautiful day–the beautiful day, the one that reminds us, when it finally arrives, why we put up with Chicago winters year after miserable year: sunny, breezy, 65 at O’Hare. Cooler near the lake of course, but Accu-Weather says the fog has lifted. It’s a perfect day for a car wash. And mine desperately […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Ghetto and the Campus
To the editors: The Reader’s cover article “Apartheid American-Style” by Harold Henderson (May 7) reviewing the findings of sociologists Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton is without question one of the clearest and most cogent statements concerning a major problem for the United States as a society. Hopefully the North Shore woman has read this Reader […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
I have read your column ever since my then 13-year-old daughter pointed out your discussion on the subject of breaking the penis. The years of keeping track of you have been very entertaining and mildly informative. I feel I owe you one. Perhaps the following will satisfy that obligation. You are undoubtedly aware that the […]