Posted inArts & Culture

Distancing Techniques

The Cultured Tourist at Carol Ehlers, through February 20 National Exposure VI at ARC, through January 30 Depth of Field at Peter Miller, through February 13 By Fred Camper In 1864 Marcus Aurelius Root listed some of photography’s “benefits” in a book described by critic Vicki Goldberg as “the first American …brief for photography as […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Archie Shepp & Mark Isham

ARCHIE SHEPP & MARK ISHAM One look at this bill is enough to make any informed listener check the ingredients in the cold medicine he took the night before. What is Archie Shepp, saxist and former black-power firebrand, doing onstage with Mark Isham, new-cool trumpeter and New Age-inspired film composer? They’ve come together as part […]

Posted inNews & Politics

News of the Weird

Lead Stories In November South African inventor Charl Fourie introduced a $1,000 flame-throwing apparatus for cars designed to thwart car jackers. A gas canister in the trunk feeds tubes that run under the forward doors, and a spark ignites a flame that shoots out about seven feet. The device is legal in South Africa, which […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Equal Interest

EQUAL INTEREST The name of this trio announces the group’s democratic nature in part by concealing the identities of its members: reedist Joseph Jarman, violinist Leroy Jenkins, and pianist Myra Melford, three of the most idiosyncratic improvisers in modern music. These former Chicagoans dazzled a HotHouse audience in November with a performance that was paradoxically […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Some Strange

Some Strange, Dirtybowl Productions, at Stage Left Theatre. Like many young playwrights, Jason Walter-Tinker hasn’t yet grasped the concept of editing himself. And like many twentysomethings on Chicago’s theater scene, he’s yet to realize just how tough it is to translate the postcollegiate experience to the stage, though a recent production of John Boston’s Ramblers […]

Posted inColumns & Opinion

Savage Love

Hey, Faggot: I am a 30-year-old breeder female and have a boyfriend/lover who is 50. We met on the Internet about four months ago and in person about six weeks ago. I have always been attracted to older men because they are more caring and respectful toward the needs of the woman, as I also […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Fame–The Musical

Fame–The Musical Halliwell’s Film Guide calls the 1980 movie Fame a “cleverly shot and edited slice of life which unfortunately features people whose language and personalities are fairly repellent.” But that’s actually the strength of the material conceived by David De Silva–coproducer of the original movie, consulting producer of the spin-off TV series, and the […]

Posted inMusic

Spot Check

DIANE IZZO 1/22, METRO; 1/30, Museum of contemporary art When I was called to help judge a local Lilith Fair talent competition at Metro last year, I gratefully threw points at those few performers out of the 21 female-dominated acoustic acts who didn’t make me feel like I’d been sentenced to community service. First-runner-up Izzo […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Troubles in Mind

Translations Seanachai Theatre Company at the Theatre Building Remembrance Famous Door Theatre Company at the Theatre Building By Albert Williams Thirty years ago this month, a demonstration supporting Northern Ireland’s unification with the Irish Republic erupted in violence when the demonstrators–members of the People’s Democracy, a leftist student group–were greeted by a mob of pro-British […]

Posted inArts & Culture

The Devil Inside

Therese Raquin Greasy Joan & Company at American Theater Company By Carol Burbank Gruesome murders have always fed the popular imagination: bloody spectacles make us aware of our moral fragility, as we speculate with a shiver about who killed JonBenet Ramsey, for example. Are there more bodies under that cellar floor? Why would anyone do […]

Posted inNews & Politics

Grant Good: Peter Bad

Dear Reader, Peter Margasak, huh. He’s Wyman’s replacement, right? Yeah, “Post No Bills,” that’s really clever. Peter, was that your brainstorm or your editor’s? I guess it really doesn’t matter, unless of course your life is so lame that you actually rely on Critic’s Choices to give you something to do. But I do have […]

Posted inArts & Culture

True Books

All You Need is Love…and 99 Other Life Lessons From Classic Rock Songs, by Pete Fornatale and Bill Ayres (Fireside, $11). SYNOPSIS: The Eagles’ “Lyin’ Eyes” and 99 other popular tunes are plumbed for life lessons and deep emotional truths. Includes questions to guide self-analysis. Representative quote: “When you sense that someone has lying eyes […]