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 […]
Tag: Vol. 27 No. 14
Issue of Jan. 8 – 14, 1998
Black and White and Feared All Over
Champion of justice or shameless muckraker? Brad Cummings of the Austin Voice faces his critics.
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 […]
Writing on the Wall
How Constance Mortell went from battling graffiti artists to making them her life’s work.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Hank Crawford
HANK CRAWFORD Alto saxophonist Hank Crawford arrives just in time: who better to turn a near-north January night into a south-side August swelter? The Memphis-born veteran has soul to spare, inherited in part from his earliest employers: B.B. King, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Ike and Tina Turner, and Ray Charles, in whose legendary jazz ‘n’ blues […]
Who Dares Challenge Ticketmaster?/ New Face for the Hunchback
Steppenwolf’s Eric Simonson finally gets the musical he’s been looking for.
Shouts and Murmurs
Cream Those Were the Days (Polydor) Zombies Zombie Heaven (Big Beat) Agricultural history can be summed up as the progressive triumph of human ingenuity over the uncertainty of nature–unless you happen to be a pig or a cow, in which case it’s a tale of increasingly efficient slaughter. In other words, history is shaped by […]
East Side Story
East Side Story The words “communist musical” may call to mind tractors and factories–both of which are certainly in evidence here–but this fascinating and enjoyable documentary by Romanian-born filmmaker Dana Ranga and American-born independent Andrew Horn presents the singular genre as a conflict between capitalist glitz and socialist poetry, revealing both the Marxists’ tragicomic efforts […]
The Straight Dope
I have received a question pertaining to the Beatles from a friend. I have no idea what the answer is. What do all four Beatles hold on the cover of the Beatles ’65 album? –Lee, via AOL I have the album right here. You forget how big these things were–12 inches by 12. (To be […]
In Performance: trying not to lose the beats
At the end of his relatively somber 1992 poem “After Lalon,” Allen Ginsberg–usually the sunniest of the beat writers–cautioned his readers: I had my chance and lost it, many chances & didn’t take them seriously enuf. Oh yes I was impressed, almost went mad with fear I’d lose the immortal chance, One lost it. Allen […]
Calendar
Friday 1/9 – Thursday 1/15 JANUARY by Mike Sula 9 FRIDAY When your neighbor pisses you off, is it better to drop a bomb on his family or to slowly starve him to death? Richard Newcomb would probably lean toward the latter. As director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control at the Treasury Department, […]
Roger Simon’s New House/ Two Thumbs in the Eye
By Michael Miner Roger Simon’s New House “I’d like to think my column had a fair amount of reporting in it,” Roger Simon was saying, “but it’s the first time in a long time that I’ve been a beat reporter. It’s an exciting challenge–as we say.” Not only that, it’s a steady job. Simon, whose […]