Black Harvest International Film and Video Festival This festival of films and videos by black artists from all over the world–which replaces the Blacklight Film Festival and has a new team of programmers–runs from Friday, August 1, through Sunday, August 10, at the Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson. Tickets are $6, $3 […]
Tag: Vol. 26 No. 43
Issue of Jul. 31 – Aug. 6, 1997
Posted inArts & Culture
Sister Spit Ramblin’ Road Show
SISTER SPIT RAMBLIN’ ROAD SHOW San Francisco’s radically confessional dyke open mike has gone mobile–and it’s slamming through Chicago, via Las Vegas, Charlottesville, Cleveland, Provincetown, Austin, New Orleans, and Boston. The 12 confrontational all-stars in Sister Spit Ramblin’ Road Show perform stand-up queer comedy, poetry, and performance art from a two-year running gig in the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Sports Section
Terry Bevington went to the mound to make a pitching change and, of course, was booed. This was last Friday, and as usual he had allowed de facto pitching ace Jaime Navarro to labor too long, into the eighth inning, even though Navarro had squandered an early 2-0 lead and then let the Texas Rangers […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player
Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player By Justin Hayford If you’ve spent any time around Chicago’s cabaret circuit in the last few years, you probably know Honey West. She’s the vivacious, voluptuous drag queen with a tongue like a stiletto and a voice like electrified butter-cream frosting–a true cabaret dream. And then there’s Paige […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Whine and Cheez
Whine and Cheez The following occurred at “Mr. Beef” on Orleans…. Mr. Beef Guy: Whadya want? My Friend Pat: I’ll take a hotdog and fries. MBG: You want a coke with that? MFP: No, thanks. Can I just get a water? MBG: Water? (PAUSES, LOOKS AROUND IN THAT TOUGH-ROBERT-DENIRO SORT OF WAY) You want WATER?! […]
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
JUNE OF 44 8/1, Fireside Bowl; 8/2, LOUNGE AX I love it when a band can go fluidly from moody and lovely to surreal to downright noisy, and on its new EP, The Anatomy of Sharks (Quarterstick), June of 44 manages to do it all in one song: the glorious “Sharks and Sailors,” which sounds […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Bedfull of Strangers
A BEDFULL OF FOREIGNERS, Drury Lane Dinner Theatre. Thanks to the shoddy work of Jerry Lewis and a host of other shtickmeisters, everyone thinks of farce as a low, easy form of comedy in which there are no rules and the more chaos the better–in a pinch, all you have to do to get laughs […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Not-So-Strange
By Neal Pollack For months after Jim Williams announced he planned to leave the job of press secretary to the mayor, the Daley administration searched unsuccessfully for a replacement. Winter turned into spring and inched toward summer, yet Williams still showed up spinning at every mayoral appearance. Sometimes it seemed as though he wouldn’t be […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Caligula
CALIGULA, Defiant Theatre, at the Griffin Theatre Company. In its press release Defiant Theatre claims that Albert Camus’ modernist masterpiece Caligula was “tainted” by Bob Guccione’s film of the same name, although from the celluloid evidence it seems unlikely that anyone connected with the film ever cracked the binding on Camus’ work. Defiant hopes its […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, Tripaway Theatre. The proverb claims “two planks and a passion” are the minimum needed for a play, but Tripaway Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s comedy lacks even the planks. Performed in Lincoln Park with only a makeshift banner separating the stage from the audience and a sheet “hiding” the dressing room, […]
Posted inMusic
Peter Van Bergen
PETER VAN BERGEN Dutch reedist Peter Van Bergen’s recorded work is all about lean precision. Both his participation in the Maarten Altena Ensemble, a marvelous group practicing a singular, Stravinsky-derived chamber jazz, and his leadership of Ensemble Loos, a new-music ensemble with an interest in improv and Morton Feldman-esque electronically enchanced fields of sound, testify […]
Posted inArts & Culture
In Performance: Julie Laffin’s heavy threads
When I first saw Julie Laffin at the 1992 Philadelphia Women’s Theatre Festival, I was expecting the more obvious confessions of outrage and injury common to feminist performance art. But instead of talking about the intertwined forces of eroticism and self-repression, Laffin wore them. A beautiful woman with long black hair, a lush figure, and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chance Dance Fest
CHANCE DANCE FEST Dance fans undoubtedly remember Joanne Barrett, who used to perform with the Chicago Repertory Dance Ensemble. Unfortunately for us she moved to Uruguay in 1992, but she’s returned for a one-night-only gig in this year’s Chance Dance Fest. Watching her rehearse reminded me what an elegant dancer she is, both compact and […]
Posted inFilm
Always a Bridesmaid
My Best Friend’s Wedding Rating *** A must see Directed by P.J. Hogan Written by Ronald Bass With Julia Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, Cameron Diaz, and Rupert Everett. By Gina Fattore Susan Faludi offers several definitions of feminism in her introduction to Backlash, one of them a rather modest formulation by Rebecca West. “I myself have […]
Posted inArts & Culture
More Fun Than a Three Nipple-Ring Circus
Stephanie Monseu speaks ardently about performing, as well she should–she’s a fire-eater. Three years ago in New York, Monseu and Keith Nelson started the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, a collective dedicated to resurrecting the traveling sideshow. The pair initially regaled nightclub audiences with a fire-breathing act and soon attracted like-minded performers; gradually their concept evolved from […]