William Elliott Whitmore Empty Bottle, 2/17 Can white men sing the blues? The answer to that depends on what you think the blues are really about. I believe that everybody can sing the blues, at least in theory–because everybody is going to die. What gets me about gritty prewar blues and scratchy old-timey mountain music […]
Tag: Vol. 34 No. 22
Issue of Feb. 24 – Mar. 2, 2005
Posted inArts & Culture
Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio
Pianist Joseph Kalichstein, violinist Jaime Laredo, and cellist Sharon Robinson have become one of the best-known trios in the country since making their debut together in 1977 at Jimmy Carter’s inauguration. As part of a chamber recital at Mandel Hall, members of the trio will perform two works with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s brilliant principal […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Imaginary Heroes
Pennsylvania native Dan Harris has found himself a seat on the Hollywood gravy train writing blockbusters like X2: X-Men United and the forthcoming Superman Returns. But his ticket aboard was the script for this personal, mordantly funny black comedy, now his feature directing debut. Like Ordinary People, In the Bedroom, and Moonlight Mile, it’s a […]
Posted inNews & Politics
When the Tail Wags the Dog
How the city became a pawn in one alderman’s petty game.
Posted inArts & Culture
Shonen Knife
This all-girl Japanese trio has been playing goofy, cheery punk rock for more than 20 years, guilelessly subverting almost every convention of the prototypical angry-young-man genre. The lyrics are slight, light, and often incomprehensible, devoted to things the band likes instead of things they want to stomp on and smash: candy, fruit, and ice cream […]
Posted inNews & Politics
If He Can Make It There; No Right to Remain Silent; News Bites
Then maybe he’ll move there. But if you read Neil Steinberg’s first couple columns for the New York Daily News last week, you’d swear he already had.
Posted inArts & Culture
Lookingglass Alice
David Catlin’s acrobatic new adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass is as chaotic as its sources. Or maybe there is an underlying logic: Catlin seems to ask whether Alice should grow up or not, and if so, how. The answer is far from obvious. The tragedy is that […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Loraxx
Back in the mid- and late 90s, there were a lot of musicians in Chicago pushing the limits of what “abrasive” meant. These were folks who thought the Jesus Lizard was a key influence for their mellower, poppier moments, and they spent a lot of energy getting together, breaking up, and then re-forming in different […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Kid-Simple
Jordan Harrison’s fanciful tale of an inspired teenage girl, Moll, who invents a machine that can “hear the unhearable” is loaded with clever whimsy–not to mention hilarious sound cues courtesy of Foley artist Scotty Iseri. The crux of this 90-minute fable, directed with a light but sure hand by Damon Kiely, is how Moll (played […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
Ever since I was a kid the media have warned about not looking directly at a solar eclipse. The principal at our school would always keep us inside to avoid our burning out our retinas sneaking a peek. Are we all being fooled by an urban legend that keeps getting recirculated every time there’s an […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Mousetrap
The Mousetrap | Humming “Three Blind Mice,” someone begins killing off a group of six–four tourists, one uninvited guest, and a detective–visiting Monkswell Manor during a snowstorm, which traps them all there. Even when you know the identity of the murderer in Agatha Christie’s unkillable 1952 mystery, you can admire how artfully the mistress of […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Pollution Solution
Kudos to Chuck Frank, president of Z Frank Chevrolet in Chicago [February 11], for his progressive views on improving the national average fuel-economy standards for vehicles, global warming, and urban air pollution. Mr. Frank is doing what he can within the “framework” of owning his dealership. Specializing in sustainable alternative-energy technologies, I am a board […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Fire
Plays within plays have become a staple of modern theater. With this retelling of the myth of Prometheus, playwright Alice Austen takes the shtick a step further, presenting a workshop within a workshop. Art about the artistic process is almost always more satisfying to the artist than anybody else, but even relatively speaking Fire, developed […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Ani DiFranco
Duty requires me to mention that Ani DiFranco has a new album, Knuckle Down (Righteous Babe), though if you don’t already own it you never will. DiFranco herself is obviously aware that only cultists feel compelled to check in on each collection of first-day-of-the-rest-of-Ani’s-life musings, so she’s billing Knuckle Down as a group effort: the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Consider the Sources
Don’t Deanna Isaacs and the Reader have a journalistic obligation to verify facts rather than act as an unfiltered conduit for unsubstantiated accusations? If Deanna had checked with the Illinois Arts Council or other Acme members she would have heard a much different story. The two recent articles [December 31 and January 7] give a […]