Streetlights, Garbage, and Horseshit: Burt Natarus, the Quintessential Alderman, Shows You How It’s Done
Tag: Vol. 24 No. 20
Issue of Feb. 23 – Mar. 1, 1995
Posted inNews & Politics
We’re Stumped
There were many serious errors in Mike Miner’s [February 17] article “The Anti-Cult Candidate” on my campaign against abuses of power of all forms and for the job of mayor of Chicago. One point on which Mike is utterly correct, however, is the manipulation of “news” in Chicago by power groups who rarely, if at […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
Don’t let your laptop fall in there. According to a Chicago firm offering a document shredder, “Unlike desktop shredders, the Kwik Shred machines can destroy staples, paper clips, rubber bands–even computer disks and tapes, off-specification packaging materials and confidential product prototypes.” “The phrase ‘helping professionals’ is an oxymoron and misleading,” writes Billy Golfus in the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Carnival Animale
Lisa Buscani tells stories the way Dorothy Parker wrote–by opening a vein and letting it flow. And like Parker Buscani tempers her mostly autobiographical tales with a bitter, pointed wit that skewers sentimentality. Her sweet recollection of a childhood trip to a petting zoo ends with her almost being mauled by several cuddly, ravenous lambs. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chi Lives: a knockout collection
Mitch Levin, dapper in a purple shirt and dark tie, stands in front of a sparse audience at the Sulzer Public Library, talking about boxing great Sugar Ray Robinson. From the back of the room, Mitch’s younger brother Joel yells corrections and additions. Then the lights go down and Robinson does a job on Jake […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Henry Threadgill’s Very Very Circus
Henry Threadgill has built a legacy of reinvention. The former Chicagoan emerged from the pervasive influence of the AACM with a remarkable trio called Air, which, among other things, reinterpreted Scott Joplin rags with gusto and verve. Air gave reedman Threadgill an opportunity to develop genre-smashing tendencies. Following its demise he formed the seven-member Henry […]
Posted inNews & Politics
No. 7: Schlock Therapy
The session has begun. “Let’s see now,” the woman says. “Where are you?” The woman sits opposite Penny Hasbro in a condominium suite on the 54th floor of the Carmichael on Lake Shore Drive. Penny looks around the room. A painting on the wall shows a peasant woman washing the feet of a peasant child. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Field & Street
Spring has begun to push winter aside, although the signs are still very obscure. Two weeks ago, when the windchill hit 40 below, a few northern harriers passed through on their early migration, and an early canvasback duck was sighted at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Birds we think of as typical winter species–northern shrikes, rough-legged […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Common Sense/Artifiacts/Organized Confusion/Boogiemonsters
With “alternative” rap, i.e., hip hop consumed predominantly by whites, getting all the positive media attention and gangster rap all the negative, one could get the impression that there’s nothing else out there. This terrific hip hop review proves such is not the case. Resurrection (Relativity), the second album by Common Sense, is not only […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Too sane for this ward? Running in the wild 35th
The wonderful thing about the race for alderman in the 35th Ward is that it’s wide open and free. The Logan Square-based ward is a newly formed creation of redistricting: it has no incumbent, no committeeman, and no entrenched political organization. There are ten candidates, including a cop, a clerk, a schoolteacher, and a merchant; […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Jimmy Heath Quartet
When Jimmy Heath first came out of Philadelphia in the 1940s, his Charlie Parker-tuned alto playing had earned him the nickname “Little Bird”; by the 1950s, when he recorded with his friend Miles Davis on a justly famous pair of Blue Note albums, he had switched to tenor and begun to attract attention for his […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Reader to Reader
An early darkness descends on the Loop with icy rain pelting in every direction and wind turning umbrellas inside out. Commuters hurry home with their heads down, dodging streams of traffic. Up against the drugstore on Randolph near Michigan, a small Oriental rug is spread on the sidewalk, and two turbaned men, in business suits […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Liz Lerman/Dance Exchange
Liz Lerman’s first priority is not art. She’s a spiritual teacher, someone who believes in the ancient healing function of dance but also believes it’s been lost in an era when dance is only for young, beautiful, talented professionals (not surprisingly, her company of ten includes four dancers over the age of 50). Clearly a […]
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
BLOODLINE 2/24, SCHUBAS Bloodline includes the sons of some famous musicians–Miles Davis, Doors guitarist Robbie Krieger, and Allman Brothers bassist Berry Oakley–and if not for their fortunate births they would be sent straight to the H.O.R.D.E. category. The band’s blues-rock is accomplished enough but lacks any touch of originality, and the lyrics that help to […]