Suspicious Clowns 5: Clown on a Hot Tin Roof, Viable Theater Company, at Prop Thtr. Murder, incest, abortion. These are just a few of the issues addressed in Suspicious Clowns’ fifth sketch-comedy revue. Aiming to be edgy, they sometimes teeter over into bad taste, as in a sketch about rape–but mostly they shine. Led by […]
Tag: Vol. 32 No. 51
Issue of Sep. 18 – 24, 2003
Posted inNews & Politics
Judgment Call
Sir, In your September 12 [Hot Type] column entitled “A First Amendment Showdown,” you stated that “Thanks largely to [federal appellate judge Richard] Posner, the Seventh Circuit is notoriously unwelcoming of amicus briefs,” and that Judge Posner warned that the circuit’s judges have little time for “extraneous reading” and therefore won’t grant “rote permission” to […]
Posted inMusic
Aesop Rock
With factions of the hip-hop underground thinning out its beats until they’re as vestigial as folkie hand claps around the campfire and suckers like Anticon’s Sole claiming “I only rap because I ain’t smart enough to write a book,” you’ve got to wonder about indie rap’s priorities. No less wordy than his peers, Long Island-born […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Seldoms
The original Seldoms were a 19th-century music hall troupe specializing in living tableaux: re-creations of grand historical and mythological scenes. The current Seldoms—Carrie Hanson, Susan Hoffman, and Doug Stapleton—took the name because, well, they liked it. But now they’ve come up with a piece honoring their predecessors, standing on pedestals to impersonate statuary in Ode. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Rachel Corn and the Loch Ness Mess
Rachel Corn and the Loch Ness Mess, Corn Productions, at the Cornservatory. Playwright Becky Werve surely didn’t intend her title to be so apt. “Mess” is the word for her poorly plotted fourth musical mystery for children, which places the Corn kids in familiar supposedly scary or silly scenarios. This time they’re sleuthing in Scotland, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Reporters Fighting the Good Fight
Mike Miner’s excellent column “A First Amendment Showdown” [Hot Type, September 12] skillfully captured all the major issues in our court case seeking to save the reporter’s privilege in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. Two additional points I’d like to make: (1) In his opinion striking down the privilege, federal appellate judge Richard Posner failed to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Music of the Baroque
Nearly three decades ago Music of the Baroque mounted Bach’s B Minor Mass for the first time; the young company’s performances of this monumental work (often compared to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling in its scope and sublimity) helped make its reputation. It’s perhaps significant that MOB’s new music director, Jane Glover–only the second leader in […]
Posted inMusic
Spot Check
BLACK-EYED SNAKES 9/19, SCHUBAS Alan Sparhawk seems to think side projects are for catharsis, not relaxation–the Black-Eyed Snakes are primal and dirty in a way his other band, Low, never has been. Far from your typical country-rock- or garage-revival exercise, their second album, Rise Up!, harks back to the abrasive but simple junkie-cowboy chic of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Group Efforts: a crafty crowd invades Wicker Park
Watermelon-shaped welcome signs, yard-goose costumes, and crocheted toilet paper covers are just a few of the things that won’t be available at this weekend’s Renegade Craft Fair. Organized by Sue Blatt, Kathleen Habbley, and Christina Brazinski, the daylong fair is designed instead as a showcase for what they call the DIY underground crafts movement. As […]
Posted inNews & Politics
A Second Look
Dear editor: If Sarah Downey wrote this same story for the Tribune in 1998 (as she points out in her article), why is she rehashing this “old news” today (five years later), and why is the Reader running it on page one like it was some hushed-up crime, only recently discovered? This incident received a […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Chicago Baseball 2003 Consumer Confidence Index
A Scientific Compilation of Fan Sentiment, Plotting Hope Against Time
Posted inArts & Culture
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew, Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Shakespeare’s play can only be understood backward: not until Kate’s final speech preaching wifely docility is it clear whether the director intends a parable about reaping what you’ve sown, a cartoon battle of the sexes, or a recipe for domestic violence. By the end, have Kate and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Help on the First Rung/Short Takes
Andrea Klunder and Vera Brooks of Chicago ScriptWorks are getting struggling screenwriters off the ground.
Posted inArts & Culture
Secondhand Lions
Robert Duvall and Michael Caine whoop it up as crazy old millionaires in 1950s Texas who grudgingly agree to look after their morose grandnephew (Haley Joel Osment) while his duplicitous mother (Kyra Sedgwick) goes off to school. Written and directed by Tim McCanlies, this is the sort of funny, humane, honorable story that families need […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Cheer-Accident
I had this epiphany a few years ago in London, Ontario, where I was covering the No Music Festival hosted by the Nihilist Spasm Band, then just 35 years into its career: the strength of any music community can be measured best by the number of grizzled veterans who’ve kept on doing what they have […]