Last January pianist Jonathan Biss made his Orchestra Hall debut, playing Schumann with the Staatskapelle Berlin. This weekend Biss, who at 24 has already performed with most of the major U.S. orchestras, will play Mozart with the CSO. His first CD, released in May, confirms that he’s a thoughtful, passionate musician who consistently serves the music ahead of himself. His recording of Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata is not only fiery but technically and musically solid–no small achievement....

“Organizations should focus on Black opportunity channels rather than on eradicating racism,” advise John Sibley Butler and Northwestern University sociologist Charles Moskos in their contribution to the new National Research Council report “America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences.” Drawing on the military’s relatively successful record on race, they argue, “The core issue is not White racism but Black opportunity….The Army model, which stresses opportunity, is preferable to the state of affairs at most universities where antiracism is promulgated, but Black presence is limited....

What goes around comes around. “The additional stress of caring for an elderly family member alone does not account for [elder] abuse,” according to “Violence Prevention News” (Fall). “Steinmetz (1978) found that ‘only one child out of 400 raised in a nonabusive home was abusive to his or her parent after reaching adulthood, while one of every two adults who were abused as children abused their elderly parents when they became adults....

A sign in Wrigleyville’s month-old Cozy Noodles and Rice reads: attention patrons–knives, forks, spoons, and toys are not medicine so please don’t take them after your meal. But owner Suppaluk Meunprasittiveg, or Tee (his nickname as the youngest brother of three, or “tee”), admits he’s not as concerned for the welfare of the silverware as he is about the thousands of small toys on the walls, tables, and shelves. “I started collecting when I was 12,” says the 29-year-old....

Wearing a black polo shirt with “Dear Lisa” stitched in yellow across the chest, Tom Santoro stands in front of a group of 35 high school girls taking a self-defense class. The lights dim, and he starts a video chronicling the 18 years of his daughter Lisa’s life. In July 1994 Lisa was murdered by her ex-boyfriend. Since then Santoro has visited classrooms across Chicago and the suburbs and in 26 other states lecturing about the warning signs of dating violence....

If you believe that the best albums in any genre are those that explode our preconceptions of what that genre is, then Mission of Burma’s 1982 full-length Vs. is one of the greatest punk-rock records ever made. The band had established its punk credentials with a couple earnest anthems penned by bassist Clint Conley; the single “Academy Fight Song” and “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver,” which opened their 1981 EP Signals, Calls, and Marches, became staples of other acts’ sets (most famously R....

Lead Stories Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Earlier this month the newsletter of a senior citizens’ home in Hartford, Connecticut, asked residents to “please stop throwing rice in the garbage disposals,” yet the Spanish-language version read, “You have to get used to the fact that you do not live in Puerto Rico, where leftovers were given to the pigs….If [using the garbage can] is too hard for you to do, move and continue with the customs of Puerto Rico....

“I love basketball,” says artist Omar Vera. “I got to the point where I couldn’t play enough. I couldn’t get out on the court enough and at a certain point I had to start playing in my head, practicing free throws in my mind. It got to the point of an obsession. I was waking up at six in the morning and going to my neighborhood court and shooting 300 free throws a day whenever I could....

Raised in Captivity, Speaking Ring Theatre, at the Chicago Cultural Center. In Nicky Silver’s absurd play about love and redemption, long separated twins are reunited at their mother’s funeral. The emotional Bernadette (Jennifer Leavitt) is trapped in a safe but loveless marriage to a wry dentist (Kevin Gladish) who wants to become an artist and move to Africa (“Gravestones,” he says, “look like teeth”). She wants to know that her quiet twin, Sebastian (Michael Brownlee), does not have a perfect life....

Hey, everybody: After I mentioned a sexual fantasy of mine in print a few weeks ago– Brad Pitt coming all over Ashton Kutcher’s face–a reader suggested that I devote an entire column to other people’s fantasies. Upping the ante, I decided to have a contest, with prizes going to readers whose fantasies were selected for publication. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » But! I love contests, so I’m replacing the sexual fantasy contest with a bigger, better contest with bigger, better prizes!...

“Dangerous” is the operative word in this sense-assaulting multimedia performance–though the word’s meaning pitches back and forth throughout the production like a ship caught in a violent storm. “I got dangerously close to learning something” is the mantra repeated by each of the eight teenage performers in Skeptics–and the danger zone seems to be the American educational system. Ironically, the less structure these high school-age characters have, the more education they get–and learning is the ultimate tool for self-actualization, a fact underscored by a recurring image of the actors studiously reading from the stacks of books resting on either side of the stage....

I am far from being the world’s biggest sucker when it comes to advertising gimmicks, but I find myself succumbing to the legend “cage free” on packages of eggs. These eggs cost at least a buck more per dozen than regular eggs. I tell myself that cage-free chickens are probably no better off than their sisters kept in cages (probably they’re just packed tighter into larger pens), but part of my brain says, “for a buck, you can always hope....

Game two of the World Series, and the Red Sox were at bat. Jim Galvan dug in, warmed up with a few right-handed swings, waited for the pitch. Galvan was a veteran player and the league home run leader, and his team had won the first game of the series. Galvan, 30, is the archivist, custodian, and patriarch of the 25-year-old Windy City Wiffle Ball League, an association of friends scattered across the south suburbs and northeast Indiana who compete seriously in a game that most people regard as a surrogate version of baseball for friendless children....

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines With Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Claire Danes, and Kristanna Loken. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I don’t know whether Judgment Day is inevitable, but after the movie grossed $500 million worldwide, Terminator 3 probably was. James Cameron, who wrote and directed the first two episodes, was planning to script and produce it but pulled out after losing control of the rights....

It’s notoriously difficult to evaluate the way most documentaries treat their subject matter, because one has to assess what’s included in light of what’s left out—something we aren’t usually qualified to do. I’m much more comfortable evaluating documentaries on how well they draw us into their subject matter and on how well they work as cinema. On these terms I can confidently say that I’ve seen and heard about a lot of exciting new documentaries recently, including an American work I really want to see, Charles Burnett’s Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property....

I find it astonishing the organized tantrum thrown by Michael Siegel and the Jewish organizations [Hot Type, November 16] are missing the most important fact: that the Tribune’s commentaries are true! Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Just what does the USA get from their relationship with Israel? For one, we get to finance the lawless actions against Palestinians. We get to continuously veto unanimous UN resolutions condemning Israeli actions....

Brian Doolin has broken his right pinky every summer for the past eight years, and he expects to break it again this summer. But it’s a price he’s willing to pay to play second base for the Deep River Grinders, a Hobart, Indiana, team that’s been playing 1860s-style vintage baseball since 1991. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Whether playing or just talking about vintage baseball, Doolin and his teammates adhere scrupulously to period vocabulary....

January is traditionally a slow time of year for theater, but business is booming at the Apollo, where The Vagina Monologues has become “the best-selling show” in Rob Kolson’s five years of running the 450-seat venue. The play, a collection of stories based on interviews with women, has pulled in a half million dollars in ticket sales since it reopened on November 29. Kolson has been feeling so flush he speculated the show would take in another $50,000 on the day after New Year’s....

This annual festival of films and videos by black artists from around the world continues Friday through Thursday, August 8 through 14, at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State. Tickets are $8, $4 for Film Center members, and $3 for students at the School of the Art Institute. For further information, call 312-846-2800. Films marked with an * are highly recommended; unless otherwise noted, all screenings are in 35-millimeter....

FEBRUARY 1 SATURDAY Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Black labor activists had a tough time during the civil rights movement, says Bob Bruno, cochair of the Chicago Center for Working Class Studies. While many fought for (and won) equal rights inside the union, “outside the workplace, organizations promoting civil rights saw the labor movement as being part of the problem.” How the Great Migration affected labor in Chicago–and vice versa–will be the focus of today’s conference, Labor’s History in the Black Metropolis....