A longtime fan of Cecil Adams and his Straight Dope books, I was very pleased to see him address the important issue of same-sex marriage [January 28]. As usual, he has addressed the issue in a rational and knowledgeable manner. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I would like to point out that here in California we have taken it one step farther than the legislature....

Andrea Marcovicci is the finest American cabaret singer of her generation, the baby boomers who came of age during the heyday of folk and rock in the 1960s. The influence of Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, and Joan Baez is evident in her direct, openhearted delivery (utterly free of arch pseudosophistication) and in her voice, which ranges from sweet, slightly wobbly head tones to a husky alto. But her forte is the classic popular song of the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s–a genre whose elegant romanticism she embraces with an affectionate insight deepened by her (and our) awareness of the disappointment and pain that often lie behind the illusion those songs purvey....

The festival continues through 10/31, with three feature-length films and nine short-film programs screening at Facets Cinematheque and the Vittum Theater, 1012 N. Noble. Subtitled films programmed for children under the age of 11 will feature an actor reading the subtitles live. For more information call 773-281-9075 or visit www.cicff.org, which features a full festival schedule. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Jacques-Remy Girerd’s wonderful animated feature Raining Cats and Frogs (2003, 90 min....

Dear editor, Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Overall, I don’t have many problems with the facts of her article, just with the attitude and tone of how the facts were presented. Like for many people, it was difficult to read my quotes taken somewhat out of context, and knowing the reader is not going to have the advantage of hearing my voice inflection or having a broader understanding of my perspective....

Dear editor, Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The Harry Potter novels are certainly formula fiction, and I wish sometimes J.K. Rowling would break free of that. Why not have Harry get kicked out of Hogwarts or venture out on his own? The novels are also sloppy on a lot of details, like most fantasy and science fiction literature these days. But deeper problems trouble me too....

Even the postman cried. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The experience of the stillbirth in 1997 was sad and horrifying, devastating, Karp says–but beautiful, too. She’s captured the subtle, illuminating moments, and the grim and high comedy, in Still, a monologue she’s performing this month at Live Bait Theater. The piece grew out of something she wrote for the memorial service for her daughter, Mary....

The cluttered mess that is Jef Scharf’s show at Dogmatic is mirrored in his hand-drawn, hard-to-read checklists, each of which is different; mine says “Please begin on the other side”–on both sides. And the sprawl of imagery haunted by greed, aggression, terrorism, and war mirrors the uncertainties of our time. An untitled installation consists of seemingly unthreatening plastic knives and cocktail swords plunged into the wall, some of them uncomfortably deep....

Jacques Demy’s first and in some ways best feature (1961, 90 min.), shot in exquisite black-and-white ‘Scope by Raoul Coutard, is among the most neglected major works of the French New Wave. Abandoned by her sailor lover, a cabaret dancer (Anouk Aimee) brings up their son while awaiting his return and ultimately has to choose among three men. Chock-full of film references (to The Blue Angel, Breathless, Hollywood musicals, and the work of Max Ophuls, among other things) and lyrically shot in Nantes, the film is a camera stylo love letter, and Michel Legrand’s lovely score provides ideal nostalgic accompaniment....

For Sidney Hamper and his wife, Grace, caretakers of the John H. Vanderpoel Memorial Art Collection, every picture really does tell a story. Take Roscona at Sunrise, a scene of a tall ship in a Venetian harbor that assumes a prominent spot in a back alcove of the Vanderpoel Gallery in Beverly. It was painted in 1892 by marine artist Walter Brown, a friend of the Dutch-born John Vanderpoel, who was an influential teacher at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for more than 30 years....

This third annual festival of solo performance, featuring more than 30 pieces, runs through 10/10 at the Athenaeum Theatre, third-floor studio, 2936 N. Southport. Tickets are $15 per show; “all access” passes cost $90. Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster by calling 312-902-1500 or logging on to www.ticketmaster.com; single-show tickets are also available at the door. For more information call 312-371-4476 or see www.singlefilechicago.com. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

Something about the outdoors seems to liberate Redmoon Theater. If you saw the majestic, mysterious procession they staged for the opening of Millennium Park or the amiably wild clowning they did at this year’s Fourth of July parade in Evanston, you know what I mean. Their indoor productions, such as the recent Cyrano, tend to be as ponderous as they are inventive: you come away thinking how much more exciting the rehearsals must have been....

Over the past few years I’ve made a habit of bemoaning the atrophied state of Chicago’s performance-art scene. Two decades ago it was difficult to avoid challenging, enigmatic, convention-defying work in galleries and clubs around town, but by the mid-1990s all the venues had closed. Yet one well of courage and creativity never ran dry: Goat Island. Since debuting in the mid-80s, it has carried the banner for intricate, task-based performance work, and in the process it has inspired a welcome new generation of performance-art troupes–first Lucky Pierre and now the bold and ridiculous Cupola Bobber....

Last month the four Fingerhut siblings–Benjamin, Geoffrey, David, and Astrid–made their first feature together. That wasn’t the original plan. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The feature had to be at least 70 minutes long, and the brothers had proposed a trio of comic short stories about characters with obsessions. “Amy” is about a celebrity-obsessed dog walker with illusions of being discovered at the corner of Clark and Roscoe....

“I spend my weekends pretending to run this place,” says Ahmed Fazil, a sleep-deprived native of seedy east London who last March opened a branch of his cousin’s UK fast-food chain, the Original Kababish of London, near Devon and Western. His other job–he’s part owner of the CTO Group, a consulting firm that helps companies cut costs–keeps him on international flights most of the week, shuttling between cities to analyze the architecture, infrastructure, and computer systems of his clients’ facilities....

In the weeks following September 11, 2001, Kevin Stacy was in a bit of a crisis. Hospitalized that summer with a form of arthritis called Reiter’s syndrome, he was then back at home, doing his best to recover and watching a lot of TV, when he was struck by the sudden proliferation of those I Love NY T-shirts. “History had changed the meaning of that design,” he says. “It went from being a kitschy tourist thing to a sentimental solidarity thing....

Chicago’s annual literary festival continues through October 30, with readings and book signings by local and national writers, poets, and scholars as well as discussions, lectures, workshops, tours, and children’s activities at bookstores, public libraries, and other venues. Some events feature the city’s “One Book, One Chicago” selection, Tim O’Brien’s National Book Award-winning novel The Things They Carried. Admission is free unless otherwise noted. For more information call 312-747-4300, see www....

Bureaucracy reduction, Chicago style. George Schmidt writes in Substance (September-October), “The Chicago Board of Education now has at least 456 individual employees on its payroll who are being paid salaries of $100,000 or more a year. This is an increase from 405 one year ago (in September 2002) and from 120 at the time [schools CEO Arne] Duncan was appointed in June 2001.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » No self-serving contradictory argument left behind....

Seated in a padded metal chair, the woman on the videotape strums downward on a white electric guitar, slowly, on every beat, eliciting a sound that echoes around the room. Another seated woman joins in tentatively with her guitar, playing a similarly odd chord. Both concentrate on a fragile, rudimentary rhythm, which only seconds later collapses. Then, with some encouraging words from a youthful voice off-camera, they begin again. Ching. Ching....

Ensembles from Spain and Mexico join local Latino troupes in the Goodman Theatre’s first-ever showcase of readings, performances, and discussions in both Spanish and English. Coordinated by Henry Godinez, the fest features work by Chicago’s Teatro Vista, Aguijon Theater Company, and Teatro Luna as well as Mexico’s Certain Inhabitants’ Theatre and Spain’s Compania Marta Carrasco. The Goodman Latino Theater Festival runs July 7-20 at the Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn. Times and ticket prices vary as shown in the schedule below; for reservations and more information, call 312-443-3800 or log on to www....

Jimmy Johnson began his professional career in the late 50s playing guitar for bands led by Freddie King, Harmonica Slim, and slide virtuoso Earl Hooker. But by the mid-60s he’d switched gears to become a mainstay on Chicago’s burgeoning soul circuit. He cut a few sides locally and worked with Otis Clay, Tyrone Davis, and Bobby Rush, as well as with his brother, guitarist-vocalist Syl Johnson. As popular tastes changed, Jimmy came back to the blues, and in 1979 his Johnson’s Whacks (Delmark) earned him international recognition....