Andrzej Domanski: Portraits at Eastwick Art Gallery, through August 20 Jill Schultz at Gwenda Jay Gallery, through August 30 Tim Lowly: Moving Pictures at Lyons Wier Gallery, through August 30 By Fred Camper The invention of photography, many have argued, freed painters from copying reality. The Romantic idea that a painter should instead express moods […]
Tag: Vol. 26 No. 45
Issue of Aug. 14 – 20, 1997
Posted inArts & Culture
Darkness Lite
Edgar Allan Poe–Once Upon A Midnight Peacock Productions, at Mercury Theater By Lawrence Bommer One of America’s most enduring and familiar authors, Edgar Allan Poe nonetheless remains an enigmatic figure. There are so many Edgar Allan Poes to choose from–the morbid mourner whose raven remains a symbol of pathological romantic obsession, the literary visionary who […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Savage Love
Hey, Faggot: For as long as I can remember, I’ve been subject to what I think is some type of oral herpes. Anytime I bite my lip hard enough to break the surface, and sometimes during periods of high stress, I develop mouth sores. These sores are like little craters and they last for about […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Lecture Notes: the Underground Railroad’s Illinois depots
In the years leading up to the Civil War, several homes and farms in Illinois functioned as stopovers on the Underground Railroad, the network of hiding places for runaway slaves on their way to freedom in the north. One of these was the Graue Mill on Salt Creek in what is now Oak Brook. The […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Sports Section
When it was invented in the late 70s, Rotisserie League baseball was intended to mimic the details of real baseball, especially the wheelings and dealings of general managers. Thanks to the new game’s creators being mostly writers, who soon put out a book of rules explaining the fun they were having (all camaraderie and ritual, […]
Posted inMusic
Lost Voices
Brian Eno The Drop (Thirsty Ear) Colin Newman Bastard (Swim) By Jim DeRogatis Brian Eno and Colin Newman are two of my favorite singers. Though neither is very good in the classical sense, both have in spades what it takes in the rock ‘n’ roll realm: character, chutzpah, and an endearing uniqueness. But you won’t […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Getting Real
Contemporary Realist Art at Streeterville Gallery, through August 25 By Geoffrey Bent Critical focus might lead one to believe that all artists today are conceptualists, scouring the nation’s junkyards for detritus and hoping to initiate yet another revolution in art: the taste for upheaval in contemporary art can make a banana republic seem as stolid […]
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
FISH 8/15, Park West Not to be confused with the homophonous hippie band, the former lead singer of Marillion has made a comeback album brimming with the AOR-friendly high prog that you didn’t think anybody made anymore. Fish’s enhanced CD Sunsets on Empire is the real thing, full of deep and dense ruminations on love […]
Posted inMusic
King Ernest
KING ERNEST Blues and R & B vocalist Ernest Baker began his career in Chicago in the 60s in the rough-and-ready band of blues guitarist Byther Smith, but soon gravitated toward the more sophisticated sounds of soul music. He became a local celebrity, working alongside such established stars as Tyrone Davis and Syl Johnson, but […]
Posted inFilm
My Sex Life…or How I Got Into an Argument
My Sex Life…or How I Got Into an Argument Three hours long, filmed in black and white, Arnaud Desplechin’s highly watchable French comedy-drama (1996) about the sex lives of 30ish Parisian intellectuals and academics has been compared to everything from Jean Eustache’s The Mother and the Whore to Reality Bites. For me, it’s a lot […]
Posted inMusic
Jean-Yves Thibaudet
JEAN-YVES THIBAUDET France hasn’t produced a pianist of stature since Philippe Entremont in the 50s, but thanks to Jean-Yves Thibaudet it may soon have its national pride restored. At 35, the Lyon-born Thibaudet, who prepped with Satie specialist Aldo Ciccolini, has entered the prime of his career and seems eager to brandish his versatility. In […]
Posted inMusic
Rachelle Ferrell
RACHELLE FERRELL The first time I heard vocalist Rachelle Ferrell–in 1991, as a much heralded newcomer in a Montreux Jazz Festival showcase–she scared the hell out of me. It wasn’t just her ridiculous range, said to span six and a half octaves, or even the superpiccolo high notes, which immediately earned her the Minnie Riperton […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Giving the Gift of Music
Rita Sumo puts instruments into hands that have little else to hold.
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago Underground Film Festival
Chicago Underground Film Festival The fourth annual Chicago Underground Film Festival continues Friday through Sunday, August 15 through 17, at the Theatre Building, 1225 W. Belmont. Tickets for all programs are $6, with the exception of two John Waters-related screenings Sunday at 2:30 and 3:45, each of which costs $10. Filmmaker Waters will present a […]