EDDIE HARRIS When Eddie Harris appeared as a guest-artist-cum-godfather on Hand Jive, the hit 1994 disc by John Scofield, it helped confirm the extraordinary impact Harris’s music has had on two generations of jazz players. You hear Harris in the music of Scofield and his contemporaries, musicians who grew up listening to almost as much […]
Tag: Vol. 25 No. 29
Issue of Apr. 25 – May. 1, 1996
Posted inArts & Culture
Film Notes: do-it-yourself camp
“I had fun in this class! I learned a lot,” wrote Jon Moritsugu in his course evaluation for intro to film theory and aesthetics at Brown University. His instructor, though, had another opinion: “Jon’s performance this semester was profoundly dismal. . . . Jon has ably demonstrated that he has not learned any of the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
I recently had a heated argument with a friend who belongs to the extremist animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. She believes that not only should people not eat animal products, neither should animals. Accordingly, she only feeds her dog (a seven-year-old golden retriever named Hawthorne) a nonmeat diet, primarily a […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Hard Lessons
Disney’s incumbent local school council gets spanked in a spirited election fight.
Posted inArts & Culture
Geography of a Horse Dreamer
Geography of a Horse Dreamer, Profiles Performance Ensemble. Sam Shepard’s Geography of a Horse Dreamer is the story of inept gangsters who’ve kidnapped a sheepherder from Wyoming for his uncanny ability to predict horse races through his dreams. The characters are typical of Shepard: they’re corrupted by preposterous situations; they’re isolated and desperate to find […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Artistic License
Threatened With Deportation, Mathew Wilson Insists Performance Matters
Posted inArts & Culture
Like a Bride
Growing up Jewish may be a cliched subject for a film by now, but intelligently explored in a sociopolitical context it can be fresh, timely, and instructive–as Mexican director Guita Schyfter demonstrates in her 1993 debut feature. Set in Mexico City during the 50s and early 60s, the story juxtaposes the lives of two friends […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Closing Up Shop
By Kirsten Schnoor When Joe decided to sell Pioneer Food Market, his cousin Sophie was the one who told me the news. “You have good handwriting?” she asked one night when I stopped in the corner store. “Fairly good,” I said. “Write Moving Out Sale–Everything 25 Percent Off,” she said and handed me some poster […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Ellery Eskelin Trio
ELLERY ESKELIN TRIO Through a wide variety of provocative contexts tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin has established himself as one of the most interesting musicians on New York’s bustling new jazz scene. He’s played in Joint Venture–a quartet he led with trumpeter Paul Smoker–he works in drummer Joey Baron’s raucous and bassless Barondown, he’s led a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Wu-Tang Clan
WU-TANG CLAN Not since the heyday of New York’s Native Tongues posse–A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Black Sheep, Jungle Brothers–has a hip-hop cooperative shown the vivid imagination, stunning lyrical flow, and conceptual flair of the Wu-Tang Clan. With a strange combination of martial arts iconography, drug-inspired trippy verbal cadence, murky beats, dark humor, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Dueling Nutcrackers/Altercation at the Alter
Dueling Nutcrackers It’s been said that The Nutcracker may be the ultimate Christmas treat because it celebrates overconsumption. But this year Chicagoans might be in for a bit of indigestion, as two productions of the lavish ballet compete for audiences. For the first time locally, the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago will mount its version of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Calendar Photo Caption
You can’t sit down in Palesa Jackson’s party dress. Its petticoat is stuffed with about 50 balloons. Jackson, who’s in the School of the Art Institute’s fashion program, readily admits that it’s not practical. “It would be hard to hang out in,” she says. “But it’s a stage piece. It’s an idea.” Jackson designed the […]