Mr. Comerford’s letter in the July 19 edition regarding Tori Marlan’s article “Blood Sport” is the finest evidence I’ve seen yet that access to a thesaurus should be regulated. I’ve never seen so many seven- to ten-letter words bunched in one paragraph. Someone do Mr. Comerford a favor and confiscate both his dictionary and thesaurus […]
Tag: Vol. 25 No. 43
Issue of Aug. 1 – 7, 1996
Posted inArts & Culture
Reel Life: playing with matches
Four years ago Mark Wexler set out, he says, to “make an objective documentary essay about dating and mating in America, about the search for the perfect woman.” A photojournalist who’s done assignments for Life, the New York Times, and other national publications, he’d moved back to Chicago from southern California to hone his documentary […]
Posted inArts & Culture
True Books
If I’m So Famous, How Come nobody’s ever heard of me?, by Jewel Shepard (Kitchen Sink Press, $16.95). Synopsis: Shepard shares her meteoric rise from teenage stripper and model in second-rate porn rags (Adam, Genesis) to actress in third-rate jiggle flicks like Caged Heat 2 and Hollywood Hot Tubs (parts one and two). Includes 200 […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Snotty Little Residents
Ben Joravsky’s piece on the cineplex coming to Diversey and Clark tries hard to make some kind of case against Lou Wolf, the owner of the land, but doesn’t, and instead just makes the local protesters seem like assholes [Neighborhood News, July 5]. They’re complaining that the cineplex will cause traffic congestion–at Clark and Diversey? […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Wolf at the Door
WOLF AT THE DOOR, at Cafe Voltaire. Eric Ehn’s eerily subversive take on archetypal American small-town life brings to mind Emily’s futile, maudlin attempt to relive one perfect day in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town: here a telepathic family marked for tragedy strives to reach a simple perfection it can’t begin to approach. But unlike Wilder’s […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Swimming With Sharks
The latest chapter in the battle for control of the Uptown Theater involves shady landlords, pie-eyed restorationists, and a mysterious buyer woh vanished overnight.
Posted inNews & Politics
Furthur Explanation
I was thoroughly disappointed by Shane DuBow’s recent presentation of the rave scene and of Mr. David Prince [“Mud, Drugs, and Speaker Hugs,” June 21]. Being an attendee of the first two Furthurs, I too know firsthand some of the surrealities of this scene called rave. I’ve seen the blow pops held puckered tight by […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Bailiwick Repertory’s Directors Festival ’96
This annual showcase features work by generally unknown pro, semipro, and student directors, who offer their interpretation of scripts ranging from established classical and contemporary selections to untested material. Each night presents a different program consisting of two or three one-acts, as shown in the listings below. Bailiwick Repertory, Bailiwick Arts Center, 1229 W. Belmont, […]
Posted inMusic
Marilyn Crispell
MARILYN CRISPELL In the last few years the dearth of available recordings by pianist Marilyn Crispell has been rectified, mostly by the Leo and Music & Arts labels. Not only has the deluge of releases, recorded in a variety of settings, made Crispell’s work easier to find, it’s also showcased her versatility. Her status as […]
Posted inMusic
Jay McShann
JAY MCSHANN As jazz impresario Joe Segal has reminded us for most of the last four decades, “August is Charlie Parker month,” time to honor the signal genius of modern jazz; and what better place to start celebrating than at the beginning? The teenage Parker had played with a few other bandleaders by the time […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Brilliant Traces
BRILLIANT TRACES, Open Door Productions, at Cafe Voltaire. It’s clear why this troupe of Oberlin College alums was drawn to Cindy Lou Johnson’s one-act. A combustible study in dead-end desperation, this oddball romance offers meaty histrionics, poignant metaphors, and–since the setting is a snowbound cabin–some false retreats amid the lovers’ true advances. Henry is an […]
Posted inMusic
Eddie Palmieri Octet
EDDIE PALMIERI OCTET Ladies and gentlemen, piano powerhouse Eddie Palmieri–y sus mensajeros de jazz? At the beginning of his innovative career–when he scaled the barriers separating the music of Cuba and his native Puerto Rico, merging the two traditions in his increasingly bebop-influenced piano playing–Palmieri drew praise as salsa’s answer to Duke Ellington. True to […]
Posted inFilm
Metal and Melancholy
Metal and Melancholy In 1992, after an almost 20-year absence, Dutch-born director Heddy Honigmann returned to her hometown of Lima, Peru and found a city in economic ruins. Caught between the draconian policies of the rightist government and the terrorism of Shining Path guerrillas, many in the dwindling middle class were struggling to make a […]