Sainkho Namtchylak at the Museum of Contemporary Art, September 26 To the great credit of the organizers, Chicago’s first World Music Festival was not the display of reverse cultural tourism that it could have been: the programming was instead a lively, busy confusion of the folkloric and the futuristic, the ethnically “pure” and the scrapings […]
Tag: Vol. 29 No. 1
Issue of Oct. 7 – 13, 1999
Posted inNews & Politics
Sports Section
September is the month when most baseball fans start looking ahead to the next season, because it’s when rosters expand from a maximum of 25 to 40 and the phenoms come up from the minor leagues. The Cubs and their fans, however, are different. To love the Cubs is to love the past–the distant past, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Louis Armstrong: Legacy for the Millenium
LOUIS ARMSTRONG: LEGACY FOR THE MILLENNIUM Like just about everybody else, people in jazz have spent 1999 looking back over the 20th century–and in jazz, of course, that’s about all the looking back you can do. Naturally, this has focused a lot of attention on Louis Armstrong: the first black superstar, he stepped into the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Lady
Released in 1998 after a seven-year ban by the Iranian government, this feature by Dariush Mehrjui explores the psyche of a distressed upper-class woman but also serves as a political parable about Iran’s uneasy class relations. Banoo, abandoned by her philandering husband, invites a homeless gardener and his wife to live in her Tehran mansion, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Stonewall Jackson’s House
STONEWALL JACKSON’S HOUSE, Next Theatre Company. George S. Kaufman once said that “satire is what closes Saturday night.” A devilish form, satire demands that the playwright be both storyteller and editorial writer. If the story flags, then the play becomes mere hectoring. And if the writer fails to skewer his subject, the play has no […]
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
CHLORINE 10/8, HOUSE OF BLUES Not even as interesting as Ratt, who headline. NEBULA 10/8, EMPTY BOTTLE To the Center (Sub Pop) is the forthcoming full-length debut from this LA trio (earlier EPs were on Man’s Ruin and Relapse), and their bongwater-stanky groove is colored deep purple and blue–as in cheer, and as in the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
In Store: Steve Austin follows suits
One Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, a sophisticated gentleman in the advertising profession stopped by Steve Austin Designer Menswear. He was the kind of customer, Austin says, who only comes along once or twice a year. “He cherry-picked the place. He was really refined, with great taste; he got two Armani sportscoats, size 42 […]
Posted inArts & Culture
On Stage: legends of the fall
In the early 1930s, so the story goes, a young Polish woman was killed in a car crash on the way back from a dance at the O’Henry Ballroom on the south side. Since then many people have reported picking up a young woman in a fancy dress along Archer Avenue, only to see her […]
Posted inArts & Culture
William Warfield with Benjamin Matthews and Robert Sims
WILLIAM WARFIELD WITH BENJAMIN MATTHEWS AND ROBERT SIMS The avowed purpose of this concert of African-American spirituals, held at the Second Presbyterian Church in the South Loop, is to raise funds for the restoration of the church’s 14 Tiffany stained glass windows. But the presenters must also be hoping that the lineup for “Three Generations”–baritone […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Three Sisters
THREE SISTERS, Wing & Groove Theatre. Trust this treasure from 1901 and the rewards are enormous: Anton Chekhov’s “what might have been” far outweighs most writers’ “what has to be.” Mired in provincial life, the Prozorov sisters ache for love and work and Moscow. But they travel far more than they know, reaching across a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Bevis Frond
BEVIS FROND Nick Saloman, who for most intents and purposes is the Bevis Frond, is single-handedly keeping aloft the torch of first-wave psychedelic rock. As a teenager in the 60s, he played in a group called the Bevis Frond Museum, but he didn’t release any records under the name until Miasma in 1986. Since then, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Don’t Hate Me Because I’m a Home Owner
Dear sir: This is in response to Mr. Glenn Charlton’s letter to the editor entitled “Hellbound Home Owners” [September 17]. I am appalled that you would print a letter that expounds so much “hate.” We in the 46th Ward applaud our diversity and are constantly trying to fight hate and prejudice. In Mr. Charlton’s letter, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Woman Alive: A Mockudrama
Woman Alive: A Mockudrama, Nomenil Theatre Company, at SweetCorn Playhouse. Imagine a women’s empowerment film made around 1972 featuring actors trained on The Brady Bunch. With this production Nomenil lives up to its reputation for serving strange fare: farcical ham rolled up in disturbing, stinky cheese that leaves people wondering an hour later what the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Zine-O-File
Excerpted from Drop Kick Me Jesus, Through the Goal Posts of Life or, “Take It Outside, Godboy!”: Professional Football Finds Religion By Tim Woessner I can handle many of the recent changes in football: the outrageous salaries that may one day bankrupt the entire league, the utter lack of loyalty to team or community among […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Vote Kestrel!
Neither waxwing, nor kingbird, the best candidate for official bird of Chicago is right under our noses.