New Films by Stan Brakhage By Fred Camper In 1963, after he’d been making films for 11 years, Stan Brakhage published his first book on cinema, Metaphors on Vision. This was long before he and Eisenstein were paired in a special issue of Artforum; before he’d been offered any teaching jobs; before any schools or […]
Tag: Vol. 28 No. 49
Issue of Sep. 9 – 15, 1999
Posted inArts & Culture
Restaurant Tours: Richard Mott takes it to the banks
Becoming a restaurateur was far from Richard Mott’s mind back in 1981 when he was studying finance at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business. As preparation for a career in corporate America, he made a bid to run a student coffee shop for a class project. “To stake out on your own–to be […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Wolves at the Door
When Ed Magnus bought his crumbling Prairie Avenue mansion, no one cared what happened to it. Now developers and their friends at City Hall can’t wait to sink their teeth into it.
Posted inNews & Politics
All Washed Up?
A venerable neighborhood ubiness may have to shut down to make way for…mmm, how about a library? Yeah, that’s it–a library.
Posted inArts & Culture
Mummenschanz
Mummenschanz What makes this venerable trio’s creations so cartoonish is the fact that they’re humanoid rather than human: a Mummenschanz creature might have Mickey Mouse’s skinny little black body, for example, but an even less human head–perhaps an oversize malleable bag in which the performer can punch a nose and eyes. A column of fabric […]
Posted inMusic
Godspeed You Black Emperor!
GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR! This large, amorphous Montreal ensemble has generated quite a buzz, considering that no one really even knows who’s in it–the credits on its new EP, Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada, list ten members “this time,” all by first name only. Godspeed You Black Emperor!’s equally enigmatic 1998 album, F#A#° (Kranky), […]
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Inflation, There’s the Rub
As Criss Henderson takes Chicago Shakespeare Thater to its fancy new digs at Navy Pier, ticket prices rise accordingly.
Posted inNews & Politics
Among the Missing
In mourning for our dead, we sometimes get angry at them for leaving us. Other times we forget they’re gone. Often we’re confused. Our wounds are as big as our hearts.
Posted inMusic
Eddie Henderson
EDDIE HENDERSON Most of Eddie Henderson’s fans first heard his hot, dark trumpet in Herbie Hancock’s early 70s sextet: on Mwandishi and Crossings, before Hancock trimmed his horn section for Head Hunters, Henderson contributed a tense mixture of Miles Davis’s electric soul and the gritty hard bop Davis had left behind. But by the end […]
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Natyakalalayam Dance Company
Natyakalalayam Dance Company Ahimsa–a new evening-length piece by Chicago’s foremost classical Indian dance company–represents a real triumph for this small but accomplished troupe. The show’s goal is nothing less than moral regeneration, and to that end choreographers Hema and Krithika Rajagopalan (mother and daughter) have marshaled Indian mythology, Christian precepts, and the more modern belief […]
Posted inMusic
Stayin’ Alive
Isley Brothers It’s Your Thing: The Story of the Isley Brothers (Epic Associated/T-Neck/Legacy) By Frank Youngwerth A list of the artists the Isley Brothers have influenced reads like a brief history of cutting-edge pop: the Beatles covered their fist two hits and emulated their three-voice group sound; Jimi Hendrix patterned the vocal-instrumental interplay of the […]
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On Exhibit: in the eyes of the beholder
“We never really see ourselves–we see ourselves reflected in other people’s eyes, in the mirror, in popular culture, in people’s expectations, and in our own expectations,” says Debra N. Mancoff, explaining the idea behind “Reflections,” an exhibit at Woman Made Gallery that opens this weekend. Mancoff, an art historian and scholar in residence at the […]
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Nebraskoblivion
Nebraskoblivion, at the Lunar Cabaret. Archaeologists reconstruct whole civilizations from a few crumbling artifacts–and fortunately the friends of supposed reclusive playwright “Joe Whyte” from Johnson, Nebraska, have the fragments of the last play he wrote before he disappeared. The show must go on, of course, so from the scraps of his manuscript–some of it scribbled […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Stories Nuclear scientist Eric Voice, 73, told England’s Guardian in August that, as far as he knows, inhaling plutonium is not dangerous, stating that he had sniffed a little 18 months previously as a test and nothing bad had happened. Voice claimed plutonium has never harmed anyone, except for those two bombs in Japan. […]