If old age, as de Gaulle said, is a shipwreck, the shoal it often founders on is youth. Vernon Jarrett is 71, Mark Hornung 33, and Hornung decided this year it was time to do things differently on the editorial board of the Sun-Times. Not altogether accurately, Jarrett’s allies have proclaimed last week’s peace agreement […]
Tag: Vol. 22 No. 46
Issue of Aug. 26 – Sep. 1, 1993
Posted inArts & Culture
Sacred Music/Sacred Dance: Mystical Arts of Tibet
When the Tibetan monks of the Drepung Loseling Monastery (based now in Dharamsala, India, thanks to the 1959 Chinese invasion of Tibet) brought this show to the Chicago area a little over a year ago, it was especially gratifying to see that they were able to put their religious rituals on a Western stage with […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Department of Outraged Thespians
To the editors: Since Adam Langer has deemed himself an appropriate agent to THROW OPEN MY MAILBOX for “complaints, insults, and petitions” in that pathetic diatribe you allowed him to pass off as a review for our production of FAT MEN IN SKIRTS (see Theater, July 2), I’ll consider it an OPEN LETTER and respond […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Twist
An exemplary and entertaining history of a crucial decade in North American social dancing, roughly from the time of Arthur Murray ballroom lessons and the lindy hop in Harlem (both circa 1953) to freestyle dancing and the arrival of the Beatles in the U.S. in 1964. Ron Mann–the Canadian documentarist whose former features include investigations […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Whims of Winston Mardis
To the editors: Once again director of the Mayor’s License Commission, Winston Mardis, is playing judge and jury over the fate of an important Chicago music club (Ben Joravsky’s Neighborhood News column, August 13). Just five months ago Ben Joravsky reported on an attempt to shut down the Wild Hare reggae club, this time it’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Vinx
Drummer-songwriter extraordinaire Vinx, whose real name is Vincent Dejon Parrette, says he’s been infatuated since his Kansas City childhood with sounds he could make with his mouth and hands; he got his first set of bongos when he joined a church youth group. But after that his musical career took a rather circuitous route. A […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Champion of the Underdog
To the editors: Comparing Bill Wyman’s Hitsville column to the Tribune’s column by Greg Kot on March 5, we find both columnists championing the underdog. Greg was promoting the Jawbox/Tar split release and show at the Metro on March 6. Bill Wyman was whining about the oppressed, struggling band . . . R.E.M.? Please spare […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Ray Brown Trio
The ads for Ray Brown’s appearance call him the “world’s richest bass player”; if that’s true (and it may well be), no one would deserve it more. Brown still displays such remarkable control of his instrument–unflappable time, precision-tuned technique, and a tone solid enough to hang your hat on–that it’s hard to believe he’s a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
What’s Hot, What’s Not
DANCE EVANSTON ’93 at the Josephine Louis Theatre of Northwestern University, August 15 For a lot of people a lot of the time it’s hard to separate dancing from sexuality. The attention dancers and choreographers give the body is so complete and so loving that even dances explicitly “about” other subjects can take on a […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Destructive Criticism
To the editors: Jack Helbig’s recent review of our musical play, How Could Such a Monster Come to Be?, had a strangely dismissive and angry tone that I found offensive and uncalled for [July 9]. “Abysmal,” “loutish,” “dreary”? Come on, Jack. Our past work (whose past work, by the way, Jack? Maestro Subgum and the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
Every so often I see a car with a license-plate holder that says “Los Angeles” above the plate and “KMA367” below it. The first time I encountered one of these things, I assumed it was a ham radio call sign. Having come across the same thing on dozens of other cars, however, I’ve discarded that […]
Posted inMusic
Rock of ages: talkin’ bout two generations
The phenomenal and unexpected success of Eric Clapton’s Unplugged record has instigated a muted revolution in the record industry. The music marketplace is currently saturating with a soporific tide of rock and roll at its most laid back. Paul McCartney, Neil Young, and Rod Stewart, among others, have all mothballed their amps, buffed their acoustic […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Classic Stereotypes
To the editors: I am writing to vent a little frustration concerning Harold Henderson’s treatment both of the elderly and of classical music in the City File [August 13]. The elderly listen to more than just classical music, and classical music has a more diverse audience than just the elderly. I’m not sure how the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
“I didn’t really know the problems bicyclists have,” Joliet bicycle policeman Dwayne Killian tells Dave Glowacz in the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation News (July). Typically, a motorist is “getting ready to yell at me and get out of their car, until they see that I’m a policeman.” They “have an attitude about bicyclists that isn’t very […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Axehead Lake
A woman of East European heritage is floating out in the middle of Axehead Lake. She’s about five foot six. She weighs about 300 pounds. She’s wearing a string bikini. “Hey, you!” I call. “Get out of that water! There’s no swimming here!” “Not swim,” she tells me when she finally beaches, showing more white […]