After reading J.R. Jones’s persuasive review of Rumba, I checked out the comedy at Facets last night and am still smiling. I was particularly compelled by Jones’s last line: “The story plays out with an absolute minimum of dialogue, and the visual gags are highly inventive. In a comedy market dominated by crudity, sarcasm, and […]
Tag: Vol. 38 No. 46
Issue of Aug. 6 – 12, 2009
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Last Chance for Gropius
The Gropius in Chicago Coalition is seeking a strong showing of public support tonight for the saving on the Bauhaus-inspired buildings on the former campus of Michael Reese campus. Lynn Becker has the details.
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Rings of poverty
What concerns me, certainly in a place like Chicago, is that there is certainly not going to be enough housing to house all those people, families that have been displaced. My fear is that the poor are being shunted further aside, and in places like Chicago we are replicating what happened in Western Europe, where […]
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Performances mark 50th anniversary of “Naked Lunch”
Actor Peter Weller, poets John Giorno and Anne Waldman, and performance artist Penny Arcade are among the notables scheduled to appear Friday, August 28, at Thinkart Salon to mark the 50th anniversary of William S. Burroughs’s landmark novel Naked Lunch. Weller, who played Burroughs’s alter ego William Lee in David Cronenberg’s 1991 film version of […]
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Sound Style Advice From Steve Albini
Between songs at last night’s free Shellac show in Millennium Park, Steve Albini shouted, “Sweet baby Jesus—put some real grown-up pants on! Not cargo pants—real pants!”
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Who’s the Man? And Who’s the Dog He Bit?
Mark Brown: “Some readers, viewers and listeners, however, believe they have detected a pattern all right: that all it takes to make news on the North Side is a mugging while on the South Side it pretty much requires somebody getting killed, and even then, there has to be a sympathetic victim or other extenuating […]
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The latest from Cheese Station C
In case you missed it: on Friday night, Michael Miner posted an update on the Reader‘s bankruptcy situation, the latest twist being a nascent deferred-compensation-for-equity swap. Ben Eason, as quoted in the Washington Post in a short oral history of the Washington City Paper, remains confident with two weeks to go until the auction: “Anybody […]
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Morning Art: Laura Lein-Svencner
Flashback, a collage by Laura Lein-Svencner, part of Closure, a group show on display at Black Walnut (220 N. Aberdeen) through 8/31.
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Turns Out the Dark Carnival Actually Does Have Corn Dog Stands
While the rest of us stayed in town for Lollapalooza, Chicago artist Derek Erdman—who’s done a lot of work for the Reader, including our controversial Obama election cover—trekked out to Cave-In-Rock, Illinois to document this weekend’s Gathering of the Juggalos in photos.I wish I could say which one was my favorite but I think they […]
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“His upscale Yoknapatawpha of teenage angst”
“Hughes films are mostly about finding love, but they’re also a little about finding the shortcut to upward social mobility.” Lyons native and former Reader editor Mark Athitakis on class resentment, John Hughes, and Dave Eggers.
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In Defense of Drabinsky
In a response to Deanna Isaacs’s posting on this blog about the sentencing of Canadian theater producer Garth Drabinsky for fraud, my colleague Lawrence Bommer referred to Drabinsky as a “selfish rogue.” Drabinsky may be a rogue, but (unlike his fellow crooked Canadian, Conrad Black) he wasn’t selfish. His fraudulent accounting was committed in pursuit […]
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Jay Mariotti to the Trib is the new yeti sighting
It’s like an urban myth journalists tell each other to scare themselves.
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Lollapalooza: P.L.U.R. on the Side Stage
It was telling that I didn’t see any neo-hipster hippies in the audience at Ben Harper’s set, which I had to wade through a couple of times due to a miscommunication with some friends I was trying to meet. There weren’t even as many as I’d expected watching Animal Collective, who are shaping up to […]
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We Shoot: No Age, Deerhunter, and Dan Deacon Turn Out the LSA
Aside from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ stellar headlining set on Saturday night, the best music I heard all weekend was at the “No Deachunter” show last night at the Logan Square Auditorium: No Age, Deerhunter, and Dan Deacon played in the round, trading songs and occasionally members throughout. A combination of physical exhaustion and music […]