Friday 11/22 – Thursday 11/28
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“Gran manzana” is Spanish slang for “big apple”–hence the title of this installment of the “Risas y Ritmo” comedy and music series, The Gran Manzana Comedy Tour, which showcases a pair of NYC’s top Latino comics: Joey Vega and Rich Ramirez. They’ll perform tonight and Saturday, November 23, at 9 at Club Reunion, 811 W. Lake. Doors open at 8; the Carlos Aquino Latin jazz band plays at 9, and the comedians’ sets will be followed by music from DJ Matt Warren (Friday) and Orquestra Isla (Saturday). Tickets are $20. For more call 773-506-4500.
23 SATURDAY Today’s Repression and Resistance 2002 conference will address some ways that Americans can fight racial profiling, attacks on immigrants, the loss of privacy, and other threats to civil liberties. Keynote speakers are Clark Kissinger, Not in Our Name organizer and Refuse & Resist council member, and Michel Shehadeh, past president of the southern California chapter of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee and one of eight Los Angeles activists arrested in 1987 and threatened with deportation for their alleged affiliation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (he’s now being reinvestigated under the USA PATRIOT Act). Also appearing is Lynne Stewart, defense attorney for Islamic cleric Omar Abdel Rahman, who was sentenced to life in prison for seditious conspiracy in conjunction with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Stewart herself was indicted earlier this year on conspiracy charges. The conference runs from 9 to 6 at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, 565 W. Adams. Registration is $10; call 312-939-0675 or E-mail nowarnorepression@yahoo.com. Stewart will speak Sunday, November 24, at a fund-raiser for her legal defense. It’s from 1 to 4 at La Decima Musa restaurant, 1901 S. Loomis; tickets cost between $25 and $100. Call 312-345-1704 for more information.
27 WEDNESDAY Considering it was produced on a shoestring budget with a skeleton crew, Hurt McDermott’s new film, Nightingale in a Music Box, looks and sounds pretty polished. The thriller, about corporate spying and out-of-control genetic technology, includes a sound track mixed by Academy Award winner Mark Berger that features the music of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, and it’s the third feature directed by McDermott, a playwright who won a Jeff Citation (under the name Jim McDermott) for Shattered Globe’s 1998 production of WarHawks and Lindberghs. McDermott will field questions after screenings of the film on Saturday, November 23, at 8; Sunday, November 24, at 4; and tonight at 8 at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State (312-846-2800). Tickets are $8.
