Longtime Reader contributor Andrew J. Epstein took this photo for a 1973 interview with tattooer Cliff Raven, who at that time operated out of a storefront on Belmont Avenue. Raven talked about drawing political cartoons for the Seed, his love of science fiction, and the government crackdown on tattoo parlors in the early 1960s. He […]
Tag: Vol. 24 No. 22
Issue of Mar. 9 – 15, 1995
Posted inArts & Culture
Gary Burton & Makoto Ozone
While it takes only two to tango, the best jazz usually demands a crowd of three or more musicians (with at least one of them being a drummer). Yet in this ravishing duo of vibraphonist Gary Burton and his onetime protege, pianist Makoto Ozone, other contributors would simply get in the way of the spectacularly […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Gun Smoke
Gun Smoke To the Editor: We are writing in response to Harold Henderson’s article about the contemporary epidemic of handgun injury and death [“Guns ‘n’ Poses,” December 16]. We agree with his conclusion that more research is needed to clarify what needs to be done to control this plague. In the years before the control […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Story Among the victims of New Year’s celebrations this year were people in Phoenix, Atlanta, and New Orleans, as well as in Italy and Angola, who were killed after bullets from celebratory gunshots fell back to earth, and six people in Japan who choked to death on sticky rice cakes, a traditional New Year’s […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Exotica
This may be the best of writer-director Atom Egoyan’s slick, Canadian carriage-trade productions (the other two are Speaking Parts and The Adjuster), though it’s also a regression, both formally and thematically, compared to his previous film, Calendar. The central location–a triumph of lush, imaginative set design–is a sort of strip club where young female dancers […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Criticism by Consensus
To the editor: After reading Laura Molzahn’s review of Jump Giant Project [February 24], I could hardly believe that I attended the same dance concert. After speaking with dozens of audience members over both nights of the performance, Ms. Molzahn’s opinion couldn’t have been farther from the sentiment of those with whom I spoke. During […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Tiff and Mom Show
Corn Productions, at the Factory Theater. Yes, it’s gross and sophomoric. Yes, it draws on the wasteland of TV to make its points and connect with the audience. Yes, it’s self-consciously incorrect and messy, often relying on drag performances for its laughs. And yes, I enjoyed it. Watching episode one of The Tiff and Mom […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Frameup
Subtitled 12 Movements to the Only Conclusion, this is the last feature made by virtuoso low-budget independent Jon Jost (All the Vermeers in New York, Sure Fire) before he split for Europe in 1993, and once you see it you’ll know why he left. A highly stylized, extremely sarcastic, and sexually explicit road movie about […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Fumigatory Benevolence
Dear Ed Gold (author of “Bobwatch,” Section Four, p. 1, Reader, 27 January), Thank you. Your service is most useful for all-around public health. (Did you ever read “You Wouldn’t Want To Be Bob Greene,” from Spy a few years back?) Please continue your fumigatory benevolence. A. Lupin Chicago
Posted inArts & Culture
Poet’s Corner: the sound of distant verses
Just inside the Arctic circle–spread across Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia–live the Sami, the indigenous people of Scandinavia. There are some striking similarities between the Sami and Native Americans. Traditional Sami have a nature-centered spirituality, live in tepeelike tents, and survive largely by hunting, fishing, and reindeer herding. Like American Indians, the Sami have also […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Mario Grigorov
In titling Mario Grigorov’s debut album Rhymes With Orange, the folks at Reprise Records dredged up a quite appropriate allusion. As even fledgling poetasters know, English contains no word that rhymes with “orange”; and American music contains very little in the way of precedent for this Bulgarian-born, Austrian-trained classical-jazz pianist. Grigorov’s creations owe much to […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Mutated Jehovahs
Dear Editors, I completely agree with Ken Shapiro and his statements quoted in City File [January 27]. Nowadays an individual should have the freedom to deal unethically, even illegally, with such threats to society as animal-rights extremists, antiabortionists, and all other mutated jehovahs. The Man on the Street River Grove
Posted inFilm
Chinese Puzzle
Ashes of Time Rating *** A must see Directed and written by Wong Kar-wai With Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Kar-fai, Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia,Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Maggie Cheung, Jacky Cheung, and Karina Lau. There’s no question that Chinese cinema is in a state of upheaval. On the mainland the government’s film bureau has introduced new legislation […]
Posted inArts & Culture
American Indian Dance Theatre
Sometimes I think that spirituality, animism, and ritual have no place on the concert stage. Then I remember Ralph Lemon’s Sleep, which was excruciatingly spiritual; Swan Lake, in which a woman becoming a bird has tragic and transcendent overtones; and the painstaking placement of pebbles and rocks in Jan Erkert’s ritualistic solo for Suet May […]