“I knew Jimmie Dale Gilmore since before he was shorter’n me,” Jo Carol Pierce is saying. Her dulcet twang sails over the telephone line from the residence of an aunt she’s visiting in her hometown of Lubbock, Texas. The Austin singer-songwriter is reminiscing about another Austin singer-songwriter, the tall and graceful Gilmore, her first husband. […]
Tag: Vol. 25 No. 17
Issue of Feb. 1 – 7, 1996
Posted inArts & Culture
Music Notes: Michael Zerang’s endless beat
Sometimes percussionist and composer Michael Zerang gets nostalgic for his early days, the late 70s, on Chicago’s music scene. “Back then I think the scene was healthier, because the visual arts, performance art, and music were all part of the same scene. You’d go down to some loft on West Randolph, and there’d be sculpture […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Rhino in Winter
Offered as an adjunct to the annual summer Rhinoceros Theatre Festival, this monthlong showcase of fringe performance features work by the likes of locals Jenny Magnus, Beau O’Reilly, Frank Melcori, David Isaacson, Scott Turner, and James Schneider. The fest runs February 1 through March 2 at the Lunar Cabaret and Full Moon Cafe, 2827 N. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
No One Will Be Immune, Under Observation, and The New World Order
No One Will Be Immune, Under Observation, and The New world Order, ClothMother Productions. Given that Harold Pinter begat David Mamet who begat Howard Korder, it’s surprising that ClothMother’s collection of one-acts doesn’t work better. All three pieces deal intelligently with the power of words to alienate people, but none is developed enough to be […]
Posted inArts & Culture
4-Play
4-Play, Bailiwick Repertory. Why juxtapose a comedy about a trendy couple’s crisis of conscience over eating meat with a harrowing Harold Pinter drama about a man forced to drink liquor after his tongue has been cut out? Yet that’s what this showcase of one-acts does, and the effect is, well, tasteless. As it happens, Pinter’s […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Reader to Reader
The woman left her counter at a nearly empty Lincoln Avenue thrift shop to show a male customer some merchandise in the back. “Anybody ever buy these bikes?” he asked. “Nobody but you,” she laughed. He pointed to a pair of exercise bicycles. “And these don’t move?” “No, they don’t.” Leaning on a handlebar, he […]
Posted inMusic
Jazz Sisters
JAZZ SISTERS Here at the end of the century we’ve reached the tertiary level of feminist awareness in jazz. First the place of women in jazz (mostly singers) was established and then the standing of women instrumentalists; now comes a program designed to remind us of the women behind those women–the women who write the […]
Posted inFilm
The Engagement of Anna
One of Greece’s most respected veteran directors, Pantelis Voulgaris–who’s virtually unknown outside Europe–has earned a reputation as a subtle prober of his country’s social strata and a sensitive observer of the psychological shifts in everyday life. His debut feature, The Engagement of Anna (1972), which opens the Film Center’s mini retrospective, serves as a lucid […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Savage Love
Hey, Faggot: I am a 36-year-old male, approximately 30 pounds overweight. I have always battled with my weight and have learned to live with the ups and downs. However, no matter how much weight I lose or how often I work out I always have a big flabby chest–a source of discomfort and shame to […]
Posted inFilm
Letter From an Unknown Woman
One of Max Ophuls’s four Hollywood films, this masterpiece nearly defines the film melodrama, complete with the genre’s often implausible twists–the lover who fails to remember a former flame, the child a father never knew was his, the train compartment contaminated with typhus. But Ophuls brings to life this story of the tragically selfless love […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chi Lives: the pipes are calling
For 30 years Jenny Armstrong’s father, George, had marched onto the stage in Mandel Hall playing the bagpipes to open the University of Chicago’s Folk Festival. But six years ago his Alzheimer’s had gotten so bad that he could remember only one tune. “He fell on Saturday night trying to march up onto the stage,” […]
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
LENNY KRAVITZ 2/2, Aragon On his fourth album, Circus (Virgin), Lenny Kravitz continues skimming the past in search of familiar settings for his well-worn religious platitudes. Kravitz plays almost everything on the record himself, borrowing mostly from Jimi Hendrix while evoking a John Bonham-esque wallop and a Sly Stone-ish funk. Just like the title of […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Barbie’s Ill-Fated Affair
To the editor: The unnamed Mattel, Inc. publicist quoted in Michael Miner’s report on the discredited Barbie exhibition (“New Art Examiner’s Toy Story,” January 5, 1996) continues to rattle off the type of half-truths and self-serving remarks which have tainted this radically censored show. For the umpteenth time, I must set the record straight. First, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night, Shakespeare Repertory. Where Griffin Theatre’s recent Twelfth Night played up the innocence of the self-blinded lovers, siblings, and buffoonish hangers-on, Shakespeare Rep’s revival is statelier and more substantial, reflecting the characters’ extremes. Consider the misplaced love of Henry Godinez’s Orsino–astonished to learn that love is right there, in Elyse Mirto’s radiant Viola–and the […]