Business as Usual Anyone as fallible as a politician will fail the exacting standards of an editorial page. Jim Edgar has been amply praised by the Tribune during his term as governor. He’s also been lectured and ridiculed, and it’s this language we wish to repeat. Just this month the Tribune chastised the governor for […]
Tag: Vol. 24 No. 3
Issue of Oct. 27 – Nov. 2, 1994
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
I hope you can help me with this one–most of my friends think I’m crazy. I am convinced my physical presence has the ability to make streetlights burn out. On an average night walking through a parking lot, at least one or two streetlights will go out when I approach, then regain their luminous state […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Above It All
Perched atop Orchestra Hall, the Cliff Dwellers club has provided an informal refuge for artists, intellectuals, and eccentrics for almost 90 years. Now the Orchestral Association wants to bring it down.
Posted inMusic
Flying Solo
LEROY JENKINS HOTHOUSE, OCTOBER 21 A jazz musician playing alone is like a tightrope walker working without a net. Playing a music of rhythmic verve, he lacks a rhythm section. Playing a music of spirited interplay, he lacks the company of others. And when the musician’s instrument happens to be the violin, he’s working not […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The City File
This file ain’t big enough for the both of us, I reckon. “The idea of a vast, open territory has led some to compare cyberspace with the American frontier of a hundred years ago,” write Richard Klau and Erik Heels in the Chicago-based Student Lawyer (October). “On the one hand, there is no law–as of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Cole Porter–No Regrets
COLE PORTER–NO REGRETS, Apollo Theater Center. To borrow a line from Cole Porter’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” crooner-monologuist Don Powell should use his mentality, wake up to reality: he can’t act or sing well enough to carry off this one-man musical about Porter’s life and work. A retired pop-music exec, writer-performer Powell has […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Not a Lefty
Your picture of Bootsy Collins [Section Three, October 7] was backwards, giving the impression he’s a left-handed bassist. He is not. The neck of his bass was dangerously aimed west in his show at the Cubby Bear and his silver sleeve draped on his right arm. Bootsy’s not some Milquetoast left-handed embarrassment. Bootsy is a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Investing Adventures/Opening Numbers/The Martini’s Back/The Bitter Truth
Investors Corky Kessler and Donald Scatena chose a gay Aussie indie for their feature film debut.
Posted inNews & Politics
Wyman is a Fool
Bill Wyman is a fool. He despises the Stones, this fact he documented a few weeks ago on the cover page of Section Three [Hitsville, July 29]. So why did he drag his ass to Soldier Field to see them [Rock Etc., September 23], spending valuable time he could have used listening to the latest […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Forever Plaid
FOREVER PLAID, Royal George Cabaret Theatre. Vastly superior to Wisdom Bridge’s 1990 production, this staging of Stuart Ross and James Raitt’s tribute to 50s pop is a glorious blend of goofy comedy and gorgeous singing. A male quartet called the Four Plaids make the ultimate comeback, returning to earth 30 years after their tour van […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Richard Davis Quintet
When Richard Davis began playing jazz in his hometown in the 1950s, he changed the face of Chicago bass playing. Before Davis, such bass players as Milt Hinton, Truck Parham, and Wilbur Ware had crafted a style distinguished by earthy timbre and uncomplicated swing: they played the bass as if it were an extension of […]
Posted inNews & Politics
A Hair’s Difference
Rosalind Cummings [Rock Etc., September 30] should be congratulated for discovering a novel criterion for judging artistic value: hair texture. Based on this single physical characteristic, Cummings argues that “black women who challenge white beauty standards are more likely to challenge musical boundaries.” This “theory” presumably explains why Janet Jackson and Whitney Houston produce “watered-down,” […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Ute Lemper
Though she invites comparisons to Dietrich, Piaf, and Lotte Lenya, German chanteuse Ute Lemper is slowly forging a persona of her own–that of postmodern siren. She started her career in the mid-80s, in the Viennese production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats. She did the title role in a revival of Peter Pan, portrayed Sally Bowles […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Local Lit: Frank Gonzalez-Curssi, pathological writer
“A man derives his inspiration from his daily experience, so it was quite natural that I would write about death,” says Frank Gonzalez-Crussi, head of pathology at Children’s Memorial Hospital. “But I do not intend to write about death only.” He wants to set the record straight. The last interviewer he talked to hammered the […]