Posted inMusic

The Ten Best Albums of 1997

The Ten Best Albums of 1997 a RICHARD BUCKNER, Devotion + Doubt (MCA). Buckner’s unhealthy absorption in his own cyclical romantic traumas has made him able to describe the tenuousness of love and the persistence of its memory more beautifully than anyone currently in possession of an acoustic guitar. A terrific support cast, including steel […]

Posted inColumns & Opinion

Savage Love

Hey, Everybody: I’m still on vacation–like I’m a goddamned Euro-three-weeks-paid-holiday-pean or something. Here’s another clit-notes column, and next week–tan, rested, and ready–I’ll be back with a 100 percent brand-spankin’-new sex-advice column. Hey, Faggot: “Bill” and I have been lovers on and off for five years. Lately we’ve been having troubles in bed. Basically, I was […]

Posted inFilm

Rosita

Rosita The German films of Ernst Lubitsch had already achieved international renown when Mary Pickford, worried that her immense popularity playing little girls was typing her as a “personality instead of an actress,” brought him to America to direct this 1923 romantic comedy. As Rosita, a popular Spanish street singer, she loves a nobleman who […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Chicago Sinfonietta

CHICAGO SINFONIETTA When it was formed in the mid-80s, the Chicago Sinfonietta was fairly unusual in the midwest as one of a handful of rainbow-coalition orchestras. Now, of course, even the slow-moving Chicago Symphony Orchestra can boast ethnic inclusiveness, but the Sinfonietta is still a step ahead of its senior colleagues in championing worthy nonmainstream […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Natural Women

Sisters of the Great Lakes: Art of American Indian Women at the Field Museum, through March 29 Mary Eveland at Intuit, through January 24 By Fred Camper The common Western view of artist, materials, and the world–the artist shapes his materials to produce illusions that make statements–has recently been challenged by outside artists and those […]

Posted inNews & Politics

The Wrong Man

jacobs.qxd To the Editor, We have read with interest and concern Lewis Lazare’s Culture Club article in the December 19 issue. We, as producers of The Woman in Black, are very proud of our production, which has gotten good to rave reviews with only one slightly negative (mixed) review. We are not keeping a show […]

Posted inNews & Politics

Sports Section

The new year, I thought, would be a good time to give the Blackhawks a new chance. So on New Year’s Day I dutifully rejected the college bowl games and trekked to the United Center with a buddy to see the Hawks take on the Toronto Maple Leafs. I had called the day before to […]

Posted inNews & Politics

City File

How de facto school choice operates now. Dan Weissmann and Lisa Lewis write in Catalyst (November) that 17,000 students left the Chicago Public Schools between September 1995 and September 1996. “Students bailed out at every grade level, but 8th grade topped the list, with about 2,700 students leaving for public suburban or non-public schools. Kindergarten […]

Posted inMusic

Spot Check

KILL HANNAH 1/9, METRO; 1/16, DOME ROOM On its new EP, Sleeping Like Electric Eels, this local quartet featuring ex-Certain Distant Suns guitarist Kerry Finerty offers up edgy dream pop that ought to be very palatable to those who found the Psychedelic Furs too masculine and now find Stereolab too intellectual. PEGBOY 1/9, HOUSE OF […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Fatal Femme

Bremen Freedom Trap Door Theatre Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Emerald City Theatre Company at the Athenaeum Theatre By Jack Helbig The story has been told a thousand times in a thousand different ways: an exasperated woman, tired of her abusive husband, murders him. The ancient Greeks made it the stuff of tragedy. Clytemnestra’s murder […]