After architect David Adler graduated from Princeton in 1904 he went to Germany and then to France to study firsthand the historical styles he would later adapt in designing his elegant American country homes. While overseas he began to collect picture postcards–not the usual naughty Parisian lady stuff, but photographs and drawings of the great […]
Tag: Vol. 32 No. 12
Issue of Dec. 19 – 25, 2002
Posted inNews & Politics
TRG Music Listings
Rock, Pop, etc. concerts ANITA BAKER Fri 12/27 and Sat 12/28, 8 PM, Star Plaza Theatre, I-65 and U.S. 30, Merrillville, Indiana. 773-734-7266 or 312-559-1212. CREED Sun 12/29, 7:15 PM, Allstate Arena, 6920 Mannheim, Rosemont. 847-635-6601 or 312-559-1212. DARK STAR ORCHESTRA 18 & over. Sun 12/29, 8:30 PM, the Vic, 3145 N. Sheffield. 773-472-0449 or […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Roasting Chestnuts: Oy! It’s Christmas
There’s an added spark this year to the core material in the Noble Fools’ holiday revue spoofing star-driven specials. At the show’s center is Patricia Musker as smarmy big shot Gina Oswald: whenever the indefatigable Gina sings, Musker’s mugging and tics milk every note for hilarity. The chorus–the eight Zeitgeist Family Singers–now have well-developed individual […]
Posted inNews & Politics
What’s Left?
With conservatives setting the terms of debate on everything from war to health care, liberals need to relearn how to be right.
Posted inArts & Culture
How the Cookies Crumbled: Velveeta Laid It On Thick/CAN Can–For Now/Roosevelt Back in Business
HOW THE COOKIES CRUMBLED Velveeta Laid it on Thick When we talked with underground cartoonist Stuart Helm last May, he was getting ready to fight a temporary injunction that would force him to wipe his professional name, King VelVeeda, from his Web site (cheesygraphics.com) and stop signing it on his art. The injunction was sought […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Poseidon! An Upside Down Musical
Poseidon! An Upside Down Musical, Hell in a Handbag Productions, at the Theatre Building Chicago. The ultimate disaster movie, The Poseidon Adventure is a dizzying mix of good and bad. Example: Shelley Winters transcends her role as a walking fat joke in a death scene that would make Nurse Ratched weep. Then Ernest Borgnine delivers […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Stories A number of news outlets in South Africa reported in November that a 20-foot African rock python had suffocated and swallowed a ten-year-old boy who was gathering fallen fruit in a mango plantation near Durban. Several children witnessed the attack, and hid up in the trees until the snake moved on; according to […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Out of Sight, Out of Time
Joseph Curtis languishes in prison beneath the radar of anti-death-penalty advocates.
Posted inArts & Culture
In Print: Mike Preston’s had it up to here with your problems
As a guy who failed to make it as a stand-up comedian in Los Angeles, returned to Chicago with no job, and now lives with his mother, Mike Preston has a lot he could complain about. But he doesn’t. “Nobody owes you anything,” he likes to say. Instead the Crystal Lake native and former social […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Light Opera Works
Though H.M.S. Pinafore and Patience have their partisans, most Savoyards (myself included) place The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance above all else in the Gilbert and Sullivan canon. Both farces have operatic aspirations that can be realized when cast with the right voices and performed by an orchestra that can convey Arthur Sullivan’s elegant […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Ella: The First Lady of Song (The Ella Fitzgerald Story)
Ella: The First Lady of Song (The Ella Fitzgerald Story), Black Ensemble Theater. In writer-director Jackie Taylor’s musical homage to the grande dame of jazz, three performers portray Ella Fitzgerald from youth into her 70s. Evelyn Danner is the most vivid, giving the singer’s early hits a real sense of joy. And as the elder […]