Dear sir or madam: Demagoguery is a dangerous thing, whether in politics or art. How refreshing that at least one Chicago film critic–Jonathan Rosenbaum–still has the guts to challenge it (re: his December 22 piece on Oliver Stone’s Nixon). The reviews of Nixon in Chicago’s major dailies read less like intelligent essays than packaged press […]
Tag: Vol. 25 No. 13
Issue of Jan. 4 – 10, 1996
Posted inMusic
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
CHicago Symphony Orchestra Two of this century’s most durable concertos are Scandinavian, each intended as a dauntingly virtuosic vehicle for the violin by a master symphonist combining traditional and modern sensibilities. The Sibelius concerto, first performed in 1903, shares an angular tone, spare texture, and muted ecstasy with Carl Nielsen’s sole entry in the genre, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Dept. of Censorious Librarians
To the editor: I am writing in response to a letter from Thomas Minder, published in your December 8, 1995, edition. Without any factual support whatsoever, Mr. Minder stated that the Chicago Public Library administration engaged in censorship and ordered the removal of copies of the November 10, 1995, edition of the Reader from library […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Diary of a Skokie Girl
About the only place Caryn Bark’s Diary of a Skokie Girl hasn’t played in Chicago is my living room. It opened at the old Footsteps space in September of 1994 and ran for six sold-out weeks before moving to Centre East for seven months and Apple Tree Theatre for five–with a time-out for one night […]
Posted inNews & Politics
It’s a Scalper’s Market
Please, Bill, ticket scalping is turning into your Baby Richard [Hits- ville]. Ticket scalping exists for one reason: chumps pay. How many of those Bruce fans who didn’t get tickets went to a ticket broker the next day to get the tickets they were unable to get that Saturday morning? They feed the cycle, and […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
Does Cecil have an explanation for the sudden gridiron success of Northwestern, e.g., recruiting violations, swapping uniforms? –Russell Clemings, Fresno, California A 47-year rebuilding effort is your idea of sudden? Get serious. But I’ll admit that the 34-game losing streak in the early 80s sure lulled the opposition into a false sense of security. The […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Art’s Jerry Lewis
Dear Mr. Lazare, Robert Guinan sent me by fax your article “No Room for Un-Conventional Art” [Culture Club] in Reader’s of December 15. I wish to confirm that everything you write about my meetings with the people of the Cultural Center is correct. I am pessimistic about the realization of a Guinan exhibit at the […]
Posted inMusic
Jerome Cooper
JEROME COOPER Jerome Cooper has built a fascinating but sadly obscure career by redefining percussion’s role in creative jazz while expanding its stylistic parameters. With the Revolutionary Ensemble–the mind-bending early-70s trio he founded with violinist Leroy Jenkins and bassist Sirone–Cooper blurred the boundaries between through-composed and improvised music, ensemble and solo performances, and the rhythmic […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Cruel and Unconstitutional
Dear Sir: The November 24 Reader article, “Beat the Meter” [Neighborhood News], dealing with parking meter problems reminded me that Chicago’s parking meter ordinance may be unconstitutional. I once received a ticket at a parking meter which had failed to respond when I inserted my coin. I telephoned the Parking Bureau, and discovered that I […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Field & Street
By Jerry Sullivan The place the National Park Service calls Inland Marsh is a complex landscape of high dunes and broad, low marshlands. It is a remnant of an earlier stage in Lake Michigan’s development. When the winds were piling up these dunes the water’s edge was about a mile south of the present shoreline. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Aria da Capo
Aria da Capo,Trap Door Theatre. Edna St. Vincent Millay’s 1919 poetic farce contrasts the world of two clowns with that of two tragic actors playing out the story of greedy shepherds. But all four actors, as well as the audience, are at the mercy of the omniscient, omnipotent ruler Cothurnus. Director and designer Sean Marlow […]
Posted inNews & Politics
It’s a Dholak, Dummy
Ben Kim: FYI, the instrument Tjinder Singh has taped to a bar stool in the photo accompanying your review of Cornershop (“The Sound of Borders Breaking,” December 8) is a dholak, not a tabla. A tabla consists of two drums which are not connected. Carl Smeller Rogers Park Ben Kim replies: Thanks for the correction.