August Wilson’s slow-moving Seven Guitars gets an urgent-feeling revival from Congo Square Theatre.
Tag: Vol. 34 No. 34
Issue of May. 19 – 25, 2005
Posted inArts & Culture
Ceci N’est Pas un Truck Stop
Photographer Toni Hafkenscheid says he was “chasing trains” for three weeks before he found just the right spot overlooking an S curve for Train Snaking Through Mountains. Then he waited several hours for a train to appear, knowing that Canadian Pacific’s trademark red would contrast with the surrounding trees and draw the eye in. The […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Great Chicago Places and Spaces
The Mayor’s Office of Special Events presents the city’s seventh annual Great Chicago Places and Spaces festival, a weekend celebration of local architecture and design, offering more than 150 free tours by foot, bus, el, trolley, or boat, all led by architects, docents, and other aficionados. Seats for Friday’s “Great Chicago Conversations” program are available […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Neil Hamburger
Like Andy Kaufman before him, comic Neil Hamburger (the alter ego of prankster Gregg Turkington) often leaves audiences wondering whether they’ve just seen the worst comedian in the world or the most ingenious. To be honest, he’s more the former than the latter. Appearing in a cheap tuxedo with a sweat-soaked comb-over, he delivers “jokes” […]
Posted inFilm
Mr. Lucas Goes to Washington
Two prequels’ worth of scene setting pays off in the politically resonant Revenge of the Sith.
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Savage Love
I’m a 26-year-old hetero male, and I recently started hooking up with a new girl. She’s very cute and smart, and I’m really attracted to her. During a recent make-out session she informed me that she has HPV, the STD that causes genital warts. From what I’ve read, condoms don’t necessarily mean you’re safe. I’ve […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Newspaper You Have Dialed Is No Longer In Service; Media Makework; News Bites
One more reason people hate the media: nobody there wants to talk to them.
Posted inArts & Culture
Star Wars: Episode III–Revenge of the Sith
After the sluggish and superfluous Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, writer-director George Lucas finds his lightsaber once again for this dramatically cogent and highly satisfying finale to the Star Wars saga. As the intergalactic republic crumbles and the dictatorial Sith prepare to take command, Jedi knight Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) is sorely tempted […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Snips
[snip] Corporations–progressive havens? Think about it, writes Marc Gunther in Business Ethics magazine. “Voters from Mississippi to Oregon approved resolutions opposed to same-sex marriages, and fewer than a dozen states provide health care benefits to the domestic partners of gay and lesbian employees. . . . But according to the Human Rights Campaign . . […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Mike Kocour Trio
When pianist Mike Kocour left the faculty of the Northwestern University School of Music last year to move to Tempe, Arizona, his departure did more than just weaken the department’s jazz studies program–it deprived Chicago of an especially well respected musician who was often requested by out-of-town headliners. Now that Kocour runs the jazz program […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Storyteller
On opening night writer-performer Frank Farrell was several rehearsals shy of having memorized his 90-minute one-man play about Chicago native Walt Disney, being presented by Equity Library Theatre Chicago. The resulting evening-length effort to remember his lines precluded narrative coherence and any meaningful character development: Disney’s famed charisma was replaced by Farrell’s nebbishy charm. But […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Treatment
Friday 20 AD ASTRA PER ASPERA Cubic Zirconia (Big Brown Shark), the 2004 EP from this Kansas band, isn’t really as difficult as some reviewers seem to think. The pop surfaces that cushion its bendy turns and sudden springs are comfy, friendly, and familiar, like an heirloom sofa with big cabbage-rose upholstery–the metaphorical couch in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Boredoms
The last time I saw Japan’s Boredoms play was in 2003, at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Los Angeles; they’d gone to a three-drummer lineup, and their trance-inducing performance convinced me once and for all that while they may occasionally make great albums (1998’s Super Ae comes to mind) they’re best experienced live, where […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Shecky Kulhan: Theater of the Mind
There’s a fine line between being selfish and smug and playing someone who’s selfish and smug–and Bob Kulhan crosses it many times in this sometimes hilarious, sometimes just plain awful comedy show. As its writer and director and the star of most of the sketches, he proves again and again the truth of the Martin […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Tell Them Who You Are
Legendary cinematographer Haskell Wexler (In the Heat of the Night, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Bound for Glory) is the irascible but engrossing subject of this digital video by his son, Mark Wexler. Born rich but radicalized in the 50s, Haskell divided his career between Hollywood dramas and left-wing documentaries, adroitly combining the two […]