When Jean Harlow had only a minute to primp for a reluctant lover, she knew exactly what to reach for. “Tina, quick,” the negligee-clad Harlow barked to her maid in the 1933 film Dinner at Eight: “Get me that other jacket. The one with the fur.” Tina whipped out a white satin bed jacket trimmed […]
Tag: Vol. 23 No. 6
Issue of Nov. 18 – 24, 1993
Posted inFilm
Southern Sleaze
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE *** (A must-see) Directed by Elia Kazan Written by Tennessee Williams and Oscar Saul With Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden. FLESH AND BONE ** (Worth seeing) Directed and written by Steve Kloves With Dennis Quaid, Meg Ryan, James Caan, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Depending on whose figures you […]
Posted inMusic
Platinum Pumpkins/Urge’s Video Subtext/Phair’s Coup/Memories of the Bar R-R
A tribute to the Sundowners December 1 at Bub City
Posted inArts & Culture
Die Walkure
Wagner’s epic retelling of the German saga Der Ring des Nibelungen gets more convoluted and psychologically complex with each installment. The prologue, Das Rheingold, which covers the theft of the Rhine maidens’ gold and the curse put on the ring forged from it, sets the stage for tragic confrontations between gods, giants, dwarves, and humans. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Young and the Uppity/Crewdson’s Conflict
The Young and the Uppity Anyone who’s just won the Nobel Prize won’t be easily destroyed by criticism. Testing this hypothesis, we called Robert Fogel of the University of Chicago. He’s that school’s fourth scholar in four years to receive the Nobel for economics, but the first to be attacked by a campus publication as […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Because You Are a Woman
This powerful feminist Korean docudrama by Kim Yu-jin (1990) demonstrates yet again the near universality of the injustices suffered by rape victims. In this case the victim is a young housewife and mother (Won Mi-kyung) who bites off the tongue of a man who attacks her one night on the street, only to find herself […]
Posted inArts & Culture
James Brown, Dennis Edwards, J. Blackfoot, and Others
James Brown, the Hardest Working Old Man in Show Business, still won’t quit until his audience is as wilted and battered as he is. His voice barks and croons as authoritatively as ever, he’s got a female dance line to take up the slack when he needs a breather, and his band–if not up to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Calendar Photo Caption
During the two decades or so that she lived on the streets, Chicago’s famous bag-lady artist Lee Godie could often be found drawing on the steps of the Cultural Center. Now her art is on view there in a massive 20-year retrospective that includes some seldom seen early work. Exhibit curator Michael Bonesteel (who first […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Sheila Jordan & Harvie Swartz
Some singers celebrate their debt to Billie Holiday by covering her songs and noting her mannerisms. Sheila Jordan does neither, but she embodies the Holiday spirit more faithfully than most. Like Lady Day, Jordan eschews the merely pretty, finds the improvised notes nobody else wanted, and revels in the naked purity of a somewhat unorthodox […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
I trust you a lot more than I trust Ann Landers. I was wondering if you can give me the straight dope on the following letter that recently appeared in her column. “Dear Ann Landers: I am a 17-year-old high school senior. I accidentally got my girlfriend pregnant. Here’s the catch: We never actually engaged […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Kate: A Celebration/Auntie Mame
KATE: A CELEBRATION Royal George Theatre Center Cabaret Cissy Conner does a mean Katharine Hepburn–also a sassy, spunky, passionate, and grouchy one. Conner is a United Airlines stewardess who has impersonated Kate the Great for in-flight announcements and, on the ground, at the Gentry cabaret and in Look at Me at the Apollo Theatre–so she […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Cherry Orchard
THE CHERRY ORCHARD European Repertory Company at the Wellington Avenue United Church of Christ, Baird Hall Anton Chekhov called The Cherry Orchard a comedy. Konstantin Stanislavsky called it “a ponderous drama of Russian life.” Ever since its 1904 debut, directors bold enough to attempt the play have been forced to walk a tightrope between comedy […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Unified Theory of Rock
To the editors: Your “unified theory of rock” [Hitsville, November 5] was interesting to read, and largely accurate, but there are a few holes in your argument. Your generational distinction between the listeners (and buyers) of music by musicians like Pearl Jam, and the rather staid fans of Sting, Clapton, and Phil Collins certainly holds […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
Tree lovers beware: salt kills! According to Arbor Topics (Fall/Winter), published by the suburban Wheeling tree-care firm Hendricksen, salt from winter de-icing can draw water away from plants the same way salt draws moisture out of meat when it’s salt cured: “When salt spray or runoff gets on foliage or into the root zone…water is […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Insulting the Aragon
To the editors: I am very tired after all these years of performers insulting the Aragon Ballroom [Hitsville, October 29]. Could it be the problem is not the venue itself but the current acts that insist on forcing their musical “charms” on it? Since the 1920s–I have never read any accounts of musical artists floundering […]