500 Clown owes less to Bozo than to Chris Burden, the artist who had himself shot–with a gun, for a piece called Shoot–in 1971. The troupe puts risk first–even ahead of its audience, which often gets thrown into situations of, shall we say, physical uncertainty. Not that there’s any shooting in this holiday show directed […]
Tag: Vol. 35 No. 10
Issue of Dec. 1 – 7, 2005
Posted inNews & Politics
Net Results
In Ted Cox’s article about the Blackhawks [The Sports Section, November 18] he refers to “the league’s attempt to open up play by expanding the room behind the nets and allowing the previously verboten two-line pass.” Well, he’s half right. The two-line pass is indeed allowed, but this season the room behind the nets was […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Donna Seaman
For someone who loves books and reading, Donna Seaman has a couple really sweet gigs. She’s an associate editor at Booklist, the review magazine published by the Chicago-based American Library Association, and since 1994 she’s hosted Open Books, an hour-long WLUW radio program whose mission, Seaman says, “is to bring as many literary writers to […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Dee Alexander Quartet
All I want for Christmas is a new album by Dee Alexander. Alas, she’s still working on her debut studio disc, but for anyone who’s heard her onstage lately–or heard her contributions to recent albums by local trumpeters Orbert Davis and Malachi Thompson–even the promise of one is enough to trump everything else on the […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Kicked Out
Dear Mr. Miner, Regarding Dan McCauley’s response in the November 18 Hot Type column to a story about a mom being kicked out of his shop, A Taste of Heaven. He is reported to have said that his sign was “no more than a ‘very gentle reminder’ that no one who worked for him would […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Slaughter City
Inspired in part by a 1991 fire at a chicken-processing plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, that killed 25 workers behind padlocked doors, Naomi Wallace’s intelligent, artful 1996 play is an adept blend of populism and dark fantasy, part Odets and part Orwell. A mysterious female union organizer disguised as a man arrives at a slaughterhouse […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Story In November a jury in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, awarded $46,200 to 58-year-old Ken Slaby in his civil suit against his ex-girlfriend, 56-year-old Gail O’Toole, for an incident in 2000, some months after their breakup. O’Toole invited Slaby to her house; while he was asleep, she glued his penis to his abdomen, his scrotum […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Love Under Lock and Key
Lois ran the education program at Joliet. Dan was serving 85 years for kidnapping and rape. He became the light of her life.
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Savage Love
My boyfriend, Jason, is having problems with a boy named Roger who’s obsessed with him. But because Roger is friends with Jason and Jason’s friends, Jason won’t just tell him off. Roger had the audacity to call Jason today and ask about our sex life. Roger is not only making Jason’s life hell, he’s also […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Fiona Apple
As befits a temperamental, piano-plunking misunderstood artiste, Fiona Apple has always had a contentious relationship with the commercial pressures of fame. Her first video, in which she crawled around in a see-through bra and panty set, may have kept the world watching as she balled her fists and shook them, but she’s since lobbed blazing […]
Posted inFilm
Marilyn Monroe’s Brains
To this day people confuse the actress with the dumb blondes she played. But you can see her intelligence right there on the screen.
Posted inArts & Culture
America After Dark
If you want to understand racism in this country, you need to look at the places black people don’t live.