“I have never been ashamed to be Muslim, not even after 9-11, and not now,” states Asma Gull Hasan in the introduction to her new book, Why I Am a Muslim: An American Odyssey (Element). The 29-year-old Hasan, a Colorado-bred graduate of Wellesley and New York University Law School, has become something of a Muslim […]
Tag: Vol. 33 No. 48
Issue of Aug. 26 – Sep. 1, 2004
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
What’s the deal with not taking a shower, using the phone, or standing too close to the TV during a thunderstorm? If people were electrocuted by lightning in their homes on anything like a regular basis surely we would hear about it more often than we do. Is this just one of those stories our […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Home of House
Chicago’s Trax Records reissues a treasure trove of early house nuggets.
Posted inArts & Culture
The Junk Men Cometh
Dan Peterman: Plastic Economies at the Museum of Contemporary Art, through September 12 Derek Webster at Intuit, through October 2 Recycling–or in some cases not recycling–is the subject of Dan Peterman’s seven large installations at the Museum of Contemporary Art. A midcareer retrospective, the show confirms that this internationally recognized Chicago conceptual artist is an […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Homework
Writer-director Kevin Asher Green makes an impressive debut with this quiet black-and-white character study of a New York ballet student (Paz de la Huerta) being silently devoured by anger, self-doubt, and fear of her own body. Seriously bulimic, she divides her time between a cerebral but randy boyfriend (Evan Neumann) and the unforgiving physical demands […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Calendar
Friday 8/27 – Thursday 9/2 AUGUST 27 FRIDAY Some claim the women’s movement is irrelevant these days, but the ongoing battle over reproductive rights and class-action sex discrimination lawsuits at major financial firms suggest otherwise. This weekend the Veteran Feminists of America take a look at past struggles and plan for the future at a […]
Posted inNews & Politics
An Unimpeachable Source; It Would Have Written Itself; News Bites
An Unimpeachable Source In a pristine world there’d be no corporate relationship between the Tribune and the Chicago Cubs. Or between the Tribune and the Tribune Company’s dreams of empire. But the Tribune is entangled. A mayor angry at it over whatever John Kass snarled or the editorial page pronounced can turn his guns on […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Playtime
My all-time favorite movie, this 1967 French comedy by actor-director Jacques Tati almost certainly has the most intricately designed mise en scene in all of cinema. Dave Kehr had it right: “Tati attempted nothing less than a complete reworking of the conventional notions of montage and, amazingly, he succeeded. Instead of cutting within scenes, Tati […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Jazz Institute of Chicago Jazz Club Tour
On Wednesday, September 1, the Jazz Institute of Chicago holds its 21st annual club tour from 6 PM to midnight. Promotional buttons (which include admission and transportation) can be purchased at the clubs for $15 in advance, or $20 the night of the event. Buses arrive outside each club every 15 minutes and travel three […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Grant Park Orchestra
Violinist Rachel Barton Pine gets the honor of closing out this year’s Grant Park Music Festival. In her concert appearances and a string of excellent recordings for the Chicago-based Cedille label, she’s established herself as an adventurous player inside the standard violin repertoire, but this week she’ll step outside the canon to play one of […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Neil LaBute’s “Bash”
Neil LaBute’s Bash: Latter-Day Plays, opening this week at Circle Theatre, is a trio of one-act monologues by characters whose normalcy masks the occasional nasty surprise–a little dose of bloody vengeance or murder. But that’s typical of LaBute. The playwright and screenwriter has been attracting and alarming audiences since his 1997 Sundance Film Festival breakthrough […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Chicago Poetry Fest
The tenth annual Chicago Poetry Fest features two days of readings by some 80-odd local poets. Saturday’s “Chicago Poetry Squared” portion is outdoors on the 4700 block of North Lincoln (“bring your lawn chairs or blankets”) and open to all ages. Sunday’s “Chicago Poetry Unleashed: Tone It Up” is at Weeds, 1555 N. Dayton, and […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Art of Recycling
Old paint, bike parts, table scraps–if it’s something you don’t want, Kevin Kaempf can probably turn it into something you do.
Posted inArts & Culture
Hero
On the eve of China’s first dynasty, a mysterious man (Jet Li) explains to a warlord how he eliminated three assassins, but his story keeps changing as the warlord questions him; each version of the events is signified visually by a dominant color. Like Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, this 2002 feature by Zhang […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Scum Rises to the Top
Dear Mr. Michael Miner, Apropos of your piece in the August 20 Reader on journalistic privilege, the Fitzgerald investigation/grand jury proceedings, and the Valerie Plame case: I’m divided; I agree that there is little or no moral, legal, or constitutional cause for covering for “Bush’s scum” (your term, but I concur), even under current journalist-protection […]