The Boys of the Peggy August Club Trap Door Theatre By Albert Williams The Pirates of the Caribbean are being overhauled, as you may have heard: Disneyland’s robot buccaneers, whose rowdy animatronic woman chasing has drawn increasing criticism over the years, are being reprogrammed to lust after food rather than wenches. But the self-styled studs […]
Tag: Vol. 26 No. 14
Issue of Jan. 9 – 15, 1997
Posted inMusic
Cyber-Traditionalist
Roger McGuinn The Folk Den www.uark.edu/-kadler/rmcguinn/ FolkDen/index.html By J.R. Jones Ever since his band the Byrds electrified folk in 1965, Roger McGuinn has embraced the conflict between musical tradition and modern technology. His love of futurism and high-tech gadgetry resonated weirdly against the Byrds’ folk roots in songs that dealt with relativity (“5D”), extraterrestrials (“Mr. […]
Posted inNews & Politics
City File
Revenge of the raccoons. Nearly half of Illinois raccoons tested in a recent three-year study had been exposed to a Leptospira bacteria that can cause disease in humans. Now, according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, “Leptospirosis was diagnosed recently in a group of Illinois teenagers, who contracted it while swimming in a woodland […]
Posted inArts & Culture
TheatreSports
TheatreSports, at Broad Shoulders Theatre, and ComedySportz, at the TurnAround Theatre. It should come as no surprise to find two improv-comedy troupes tapping into Chicagoans’ innate love of competition: both TheatreSports and ComedySportz pit two teams of improvisers (sides are chosen nightly) against each other. The results are as unpredictable as any ball game, and […]
Posted inFilm
Mother
All of writer-director-actor Albert Brooks’s comedy features are good, but this one, his fifth, about a twice-divorced science-fiction writer moving back in with his mother (Debbie Reynolds) in order to figure out why he has problems with women, is probably the most accessible as well as the best realized. For all the seriousness of the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
One day, in response to a case of the munchies, I started scarfing forkfuls of cold macaroni and cheese from a dish in the fridge. I soon gave myself a case of hiccups, which I proceeded to douse with a drink of milk. This got me to thinking: what are hiccups? Do they have a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
In Print: Stephen Asma’s karmic comics
At a recent book signing at a New Age bookstore, author Stephen T. Asma got into a discussion with several audience members who took issue with the ideas proposed in Buddha for Beginners. Asma’s new tome is a sort of comic book for adults that distinguishes the original teachings of Buddha from later permutations of […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Forbidden Fruit
Of the year’s best movies, only a few were ever offered to mainstream American audiences. No wonder it’s so hard to see beyond our own backyard.
Posted inArts & Culture
Days of the Week
Friday 1/10 – Thursday 1/16 JANUARY By Cara Jepsen 10 FRIDAY According to tradition, in 1531 Mexican farmer Juan Diego saw an apparition–a beautiful vision of a dark-skinned Virgin Mary. After the local clergy dismissed his report, Mary’s image appeared on the back of Diego’s cloak. Word spread, thousands of people made pilgrimages to see […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Beginner’s Luck
BEGINNER’S LUCK, Circle Theatre. A reputation is a terrible thing to waste. Just when Forest Park’s Circle Theatre was garnering a reputation for pushing the limits of suburban non-Equity theater (such as it is), along comes Beginner’s Luck. Jon Lipsky’s 1979 play attempts to retell the Old Testament story of Saul and David in an […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Brave Heart
A posthumous tribute preserves the legacy of a fearless social worker.
Posted inNews & Politics
Field and Street
Snowy owls have been appearing on the lakefront from from Northerly Island to Illinois Beach State Park, north of Waukegan. Nine species of gulls–including the extremely rare, for these parts, mew gull–were discovered at Michigan City. The ducks we call old squaws are diving for zebra mussels in the lake, and northern shrikes have flown […]
Posted inMusic
Mike Henderson & the Bluebloods
MIKE HENDERSON & THE BLUEBLOODS At first glance singer-guitarist Mike Henderson’s recent transformation from first-rate Nashville tunesmith to raunchy bluesman may seem strange, but a closer inspection reveals that the styles are merely different sides of the same coin. (After all, the 1957 Howlin’ Wolf hit “Sitting on Top of the World” was recorded by […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Best Medicine
After years of identity crisis and drug addiction, actor John McGivern has finally found his voices.
Posted inArts & Culture
The Lion in Winter
The Lion In Winter, Canongate Theatre Company, at Profiles Theatre. Certainly it’s valid for James Goldman to reimagine the struggle for royal succession as an upper-middle-class family squabble tarted up with tunics and grandiloquent speech. But by portraying Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine as the 12th century’s answer to the Bickersons, and their power-thirsty […]