Traffic jam just ahead on the superhighway. “Chemical Abstracts took 31 years (1907 to 1937) to publish its first 1 million abstracts,” writes Eli Noam in Science (October 13). “The second million took 18 years; the most recent million took only 1.75 years. Thus, more articles on chemistry have been published in the past 2 […]
Tag: Vol. 25 No. 7
Issue of Nov. 23 – 29, 1995
Posted inNews & Politics
Nothing Political
Dear Editor, I thank the Chicago Reader and reporter Harold Henderson for the article “Other People’s Money: The Truth Behind a $30 Million Campaign Trick, and How You’re Still Paying for It” [November 3]. The Reader has taken the time to fully investigate and reflect on what is going on and what went on in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
With and Without
With and Without, Victory Gardens Theater. The central crisis is soapy: when Jill’s husband doesn’t join her and her married friends Mark and Shelly at the lakeside cottage they share, Jill flings herself into adultery with Glen, the equally lonely and imperfect stranger she brings back to the cottage. To complicate matters, Mark and Jill […]
Posted inNews & Politics
This Means War
The September 16th article on WBEZ [“WBEZ’s Big Gamble”] mentions that some attribute the 1994 drop in WBEZ membership to Malatia’s program changes, like his termination of The Earth Club and Radio Gumbo. It seems that Mr. Malatia had to repeat his mistake with the recent abrupt unannounced termination of Mambo Express–a fine, fun local […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Cornershop
Tjinder and Avtar Singh use satire to attack Asian stereotypes head-on, starting with their band’s name, Cornershop. Their songs are full of shrewd political commentary, and deal with racism, politics, and pop culture, sometimes all at once. Their single “England’s Dreaming” name-checks the Sex Pistols, Morrissey, and Public Enemy as it takes on the “racist, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
In the Light
I can cry only if I let myself cry, which comes perilously close to saying I cry only if I make myself do it. So when I woke up in the dead of last night crying, I felt shame. My sleep had been going poorly already. It wasn’t a matter of disturbing dreams, simply a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Jazz Notes: AACM’s birthday bash
At a time when musicians like Wynton Marsalis and pundits like Stanley Crouch are attempting to recast jazz as an exclusively mainstream affair, returning it to the mandatory suit-and-tie days of the 1950s, it seems appropriate to reflect on the achievements of Chicago’s ever-adventurous, often more brightly attired Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
So Hard Up
Dear Reader, I don’t know why it took me so long to write this letter but I’ve been thinking about doing it for years, literally. Let me first say that I love the Reader and look forward to picking it up every Friday morning. The Reader actually plays a very big part in my life […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Diva
In the 30s listeners could turn for variety to “all-girl” jazz orchestras–full-fledged big bands that usually camouflaged some pretty fair musicianship under the banner of “novelty act.” These days, of course, no one would countenance the use of “all-girl” as a descriptive; Diva, a jazz orchestra comprising women only, get around the problem by punningly […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Malachi Thompson Freebop Band
Growing up near 47th Street in Chicago, trumpeter Malachi Thompson reveled in the sights and sounds of a music scene very different from today’s–one that positively buzzed with Chicago heroes and visiting superstars working their way across a skein of now-legendary south-side clubs. Now Thompson hopes to retrieve some of those glory days, leading the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Az/Group Home/Souls of Mischief
Emerging last year as a guest rapper on Nas’s “Life’s a Bitch,” AZ has quickly scorched the R & B charts with his debut single, “Sugar Hill,” a vivid and desperate plea to escape Brooklyn’s ghetto. The tune’s blunt delivery plays off a thick, almost sultry groove and a swirl of laid-back female vocals without […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Mabley Takes It Back
To the Reader: Thank you for running my letter [November 3]. To Paul Carroll [Letters, November 3], if I told you at a cocktail party (which I never attend) that I was wrong (which I don’t remember), I take it back. I was right. To Cheap Shot Lewis Koch [Letters, November 3], it’s impugn, not […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Bush League All-Stars
There’s nothing particularly spectacular about Bush League All-Stars, which is exactly why their recent debut album, the Bob Weston-recorded Old Numbers (Pop Narcotic), sounds surprisingly fresh. Dispensing with indie rock’s de rigueur obscurantism–lo-fi production, extraneous noise, antinarrative lyrics, suppression of melody, etc–this quartet from Columbus bashes out country-tinged rock filled with a bluster and passion […]