Posted inArts & Culture

Baby Jane Dexter

In her first Chicago engagement in two years, New York cabaret artist Baby Jane Dexter ranges from rock songs to standards, relying more on familiar fare than she has in the past. Her new show, Another Spring (Then and Now), includes the Blood, Sweat & Tears hit “Spinning Wheel,” the Beatles’ “Got to Get You […]

Posted inNews & Politics

TRG Music Listings

Rock, Pop, Etc. Concerts AMERICAN ENGLISH (BEATLES TRIBUTE) All-ages. Sat 11/15, 8 PM, Arcada Theater, 105 E. Main, Saint Charles. 630-845-8900. RANDALL AVERS Sat 11/15, 8 PM, LIPA Art Gallery, 160 E. Illinois. 312-329-0812. BADLY DRAWN BOY, LEONA NAESS All-ages. Wed 11/12, 7:30 PM, Park West, 322 W. Armitage. 773-929-5959 or 312-559-1212. PETER BLASSER, TWIG […]

Posted inNews & Politics

Masonic’s Midwives Are Out Too

Dear Ms. True: Thank you for publishing two articles on midwifery care. The front-page story, by Tiffany McClain, in the September 19 issue [“An Illegitimate Birth”] featured an unlicensed, direct-entry midwife. Another article, by Ben Joravsky [“Midwife Crisis”], addressed the proposed closing of the University of Chicago’s hospital-based nurse-midwifery program. While McClain’s and Joravsky’s articles […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Interpretive Dances

Jim Shrosbree at I Space, through November 29 Shen Fan at Walsh, through November 29 Bold forms and unusual colors seem to declare “look at me!” suggesting the uniqueness of a painting or sculpture. “Buy me!” is the not-so-hidden subtext. But Jim Shrosbree’s eight sculptures at I Space (there are also seven drawings) implicitly critique […]

Posted inNews & Politics

Tell It to a Shrink

Hmmm … I was baffled after reading Richard Meltzer’s front-page rant in the Reader’s October 24 issue [“Mommy and Me”]. I kept reading only because I incorrectly assumed there was going to be some kind of point at the end. Why would the Reader even print this twisted, adolescent diatribe? So Meltzer’s mother didn’t love […]

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Meyercord Company Building

When Abel Faidy and Julius Floto designed the Meyercord Company building at 5323 W. Lake in the late 30s, the Swiss-born Faidy already had a reputation for creativity and originality in furniture and interior design. Tall glass-block windows, rounded corners, and a central bay of glass bricks stretching three stories from sidewalk to roof give […]

Posted inNews & Politics

News of the Weird

Lead Story In September the Colombian government provided television stations with copies of a videotape, apparently made at a Christmas party thrown by the National Liberation Army (ELN), that officials had recovered in a raid on a suspected rebel compound. On the tape were scenes from a mock beauty pageant, with male soldiers in bikini […]

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Medieval Music Man

Hicham Chami was one of the last people critic Ted Shen interviewed for the Chicago Reader before he died unexpectedly last month. Chami, who was raised in Morocco, told Shen how he came to play the qanun, an Arabic instrument akin to a zither. “My father is a classical violinist, and my mother paints. They […]

Posted inNews & Politics

Spoiled My Sunday

Dear Chicago Reader, For two years now I have been a Chicago resident and a rabid fan of the Reader. From day one of my Iowa-bumpkin-turned-Windy City-immigrant days, I have pored over Section Two for tips on concerts and movies worth seeing. Many a dark, unemployed day has been spent lovingly scraping Section Four for […]

Posted inArts & Culture

Sphere

Any long-lived band, if it is to remain vital, must evolve from its original purpose, but the on-again, off-again jazz quartet Sphere has moved further than most owing to the narrowness of its initial focus. Sphere was formed in 1979 by two longtime members of Thelonious Monk’s group, the wonderfully idiosyncratic saxophonist Charlie Rouse and […]