EVERLAST Hip-hop has, in one way or another, fueled most of the good pop music made over the last several years–including some of the best roots rock, from Bruce Springsteen’s breakbeat-driven single “Streets of Philadelphia” to the two solo albums by former House of Pain rapper Erik Schrody, aka Everlast. On his 1998 debut, Whitey […]
Tag: Vol. 30 No. 16
Issue of Jan. 18 – 24, 2001
Posted inArts & Culture
On Exhibit: art between two Poles
“I think Poland was the freest country of the East bloc,” says Aneta Prasal, one of the four curators of “In Between: Art From Poland, 1945-2000,” which opens Saturday at the Chicago Cultural Center and is billed as America’s first comprehensive survey of Polish art created since World War II. “Hundreds of Hungarian intellectuals would […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
Why didn’t Eskimos get scurvy before citrus was introduced to their diet? They have a traditional diet of almost entirely meat and fish. Where did they get their vitamin C? –Kevin Carson, via the Internet This calls to mind a question I’ve dealt with before: Why do the Eskimos (or Inuit, as those in Canada […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Firm Grip on Life
Faulkner’s Bicycle Rivendell Theatre Ensemble at the Chicago Cultural Center By Kelly Kleiman Faulkner’s Bicycle is a play about all the means people use to escape their lives, and about the ways in which those means inevitably fail. Though that sounds frustrating and painful, and indeed constraint is the watchword of the evening–the space is […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Raised by Lesbians
RAISED BY LESBIANS, Green Highway Theater, at the Viaduct Theater. It’s not easy being the child of lesbian parents, especially if you’re an awkward 16. Do you feel abnormal because you’re being raised by lesbians or simply because you’re a teenager? Playwright Leah Ryan explores this question with a thoughtful, engaging, broadly funny play incorporating […]
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Calendar
Friday 1/19 – Thursday 1/25 JANUARY By Cara Jepsen 19 FRIDAY “I am tired of little tight-faced poets sitting down to / shape perfect unimportant pieces. / Poems that cough lightly–catch back a sneeze. / This is a time for Big Poems, / roaring up out of sleaze, / poems from ice, from vomit, and […]
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Project 9 Featuring Billy Harper
PROJECT 9 FEATURING BILLY HARPER Billy Harper approaches the tenor saxophone the way his Methodist minister grandfather might have approached the pulpit: he thunders and cajoles with messianic zeal, and as he sings praises he swings like hell. Along with Jan Garbarek and George Adams, the Houston-born Harper was one of a troika of 70s […]
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Red, Black, & Boo
Red, Black, & Boo, Boonards Arts Group, at Stage Left Theatre. A racist woman so blind to racial differences that she refuses to see that her fiance and closest friends are members of the ethnic groups she purports to hate. An employee at the Centers for Disease Control who doesn’t mind lethal germs but fears […]
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The Fever
THE FEVER, at Stage Left Theatre. Wallace Shawn’s heartfelt 90-minute monologue by a man who finds himself desperately ill in an unnamed third world country raises many difficult questions about poverty, privilege, and the degree to which the poor of the world are exploited for Americans’ comfort. It’s also a middle-aged rant. As Shawn’s protagonist […]
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Jerry’s Girls: The Music of Jerry Herman
Jerry’s Girls: The Music of Jerry Herman, Village Players Theater. This tribute to Jerry Herman’s music and lyrics is not difficult to pull off. Drawing on the musicals Hello, Dolly!, Mame, La Cage aux Folles, and others in Herman’s canon, the show requires only talented singers. Director Michael McAssey’s cast of seven “girls,” all endowed […]
Posted inFood & Drink
In the Kitchen: A Taste for Travel
Profile of A Tavola owner Dan Bocik’s, whose wanderlust led to his opening the Ukie Village favorite.
Posted inArts & Culture
Larry Garner
LARRY GARNER Although grounded in the guitar-oriented, rock-influenced blues considered “mainstream” by modern white audiences, Larry Garner’s sound includes enough soulful seasonings–fatback percussion, churchy organ, and his own grainy, gospel-tinged vocals–to be attractive to soul-blues aficionados as well. His lyrics are among the most trenchant in contemporary blues, even if he sometimes seems to step […]
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Birdsend
BIRDSEND, Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company. Local playwright Keith Huff has left a gaping hole at the center of this two-act drama about a schizophrenic named Bird trying to live an honorable life in a world of greed, malice, and indifference. When Bird’s ex-girlfriend, Margie, shows up at his door pregnant and hits him up for abortion […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Stupid Fulks
I assume the Robbie Fulks story about his audit [December 15] was intended as a humorous anecdote illustrating the “difficult and noble” struggle of the “artiste” versus The Man, but my take away was that Robbie is a pretty stupid guy. This was not his first audit, yet he shows up without proper documentation, and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
In Print: Neal Samors’s Rogers Park stories
Neal Samors opens his book, Chicago’s Far North Side: An Illustrated History of Rogers Park and West Ridge, to page 139. There’s a picture of the Howard Street he knew as a boy. The marquee of the Norshore Theatre advertises Lady and the Tramp. The word “Bowling” rises in neon letters from the front door […]