Tony DeBlois, 18, has been blind from birth, and he is autistic, which means he has enormous difficulty speaking and understanding. Yet despite these handicaps DeBlois is an extremely gifted pianist. He can play virtually any piece of music after hearing it once, and he also improvises freely. The implication is obvious–at least some musical […]
Tag: Vol. 22 No. 5
Issue of Nov. 12 – 18, 1992
Posted inArts & Culture
Someone Else From Queens Is Queer
You pick up a sign and you walk in the street,” says Gordie Benjamin, a gay man frustrated with his artist friends’ indifference in a time of moral and medical crisis, in this solo performance by New York monologuist Richard Elovich. “It’s not theoretical. It’s not Lacan…. It doesn’t leave room for your ambivalence.” There’s […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Story The Memphis Zoo recently opened “Dinosaurs Live!,” an exhibit of computerized replicas. As of early September, according to zoo official Ann Ball, six people had asked for refunds of the $2.50 admission price upon learning that the exhibit did not feature real dinosaurs. Hormonal Frenzies In June the World Health Organization, in “the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Gas Heart/Hot Pink: A Performance of Poetry by Women
THE GAS HEART Chicago Actors Ensemble HOT PINK: A PERFORMANCE OF POETRY BY WOMEN Zymotic Stagecoach at the Chicago Actors Ensemble The Gas Heart, a Dadaist play by Tristan Tzara, is the kind of art that’s meant to bug people. Back in 1917, when it was first staged, Tzara billed it as “the only and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Small Guage Shotgun
With former avant-gardists making rock videos or PBS specials, getting tenure or government grants, independent cinema has become something of an institution. It is not surprising that an alternative alternative cinema has emerged, created mostly by Super-8 filmmakers working with little money or recognition. Few can afford to print their films so they show the […]
Posted inMusic
Son of Soundstage/Rock ‘n’ Roll Imponderable No. 2
WTTW’s Dick Carter/Directing Again
Posted inArts & Culture
Sheldon B. Smith
SHELDON B. SMITH at Link’s Hall November 6-8 Anyone who titles a work A Political Dance for Michael Jordan to Do has to have an anarchic wit. It’s possible to imagine local hero Jordan as a dancer, but the idea of him as a politically committed dancer is beyond the limits of the imagination. Faced […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Press Adored Her?/Campaign Aids
The Press Adored Her? Newspaper tradition has it that when slumming journalists assail each other in print the show of scorn jumps exponentially if the other party’s not named. Examples abound. Here’s the Sun-Times’s Jay Mariotti fretting that the Bears’ mediocrity has traumatized the city. “Life has been rather demented around here,” he wrote. “How […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Restaurant Tours: the Bob D’jahanguiri trio
The town doesn’t lack for good piano bars, cabarets, or restaurants, but not many venues offer a sophisticated mix of the three. You can count such spots on one hand, and when you do, three of your fingers identify Bob D’jahanguiri’s supper clubs, Toulouse, Yvette, and Yvette Wintergarden. The Wintergarden is still relatively new–just about […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Concert of Japanese Music
Despite the increasing Japanese presence in the city, the music of Japan is still rarely performed–and, no, I’m not counting the peppy drivel that passes for Japanese music in karaoke bars. This recital, organized by the consulate general of Japan, offers a timely introduction. Featured are five certified virtuosos of traditional instruments: Hozan Yamamoto plays […]
Posted inNews & Politics
On the Streets Where Syphilis Lives
Tracking the Epidemic One Name at a Time
Posted inNews & Politics
Bored With Bresson?
To the editors: Does anyone really care about the obscure Robert Bresson films other than Jonathan Rosenbaum? Yeah, Schrader is obsessed as well, but his films are much more complex and interesting and personal than JR’s review would condescend to admit [September 4]. Light Sleeper is one of the finest films about drug addiction ever […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Mementos of War
Sang approached me at break time. “Teacher, I have problem. My father, he live in Vietnam. He find four dog tag from U.S. soldier. He find bone too. He keep in box under his house.” “How does he know they’re from American soldiers?” “Sure! He send the letter.” “Where did your father find them?” “He […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Do the Schools Need Money?
To the editors: [Re: “The Education Amendment,” October 23] Maybe, from the academic sterility of the Heartland Institute, there is a question whether Chicago schools need more money. People who actually work with local schools, however, see unmet needs every day. North-side elementary schools are overcrowded and schools citywide are behind on repairs. Schools beg […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Standing Out (In a Drive-by World)
STANDING OUT (IN A DRIVE-BY WORLD) TeenStreet at Free Street Theater I wish you had seen the things I’ve seen. Maybe then you’d understand why I stare, a glare on my face, almost as if a mannequin.–TeenStreet Standing Out (In a Drive-by World) plays like a dispatch from the front. But here the war is […]