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The Other Dance Festival There were three pieces before intermission on the first program of the Other Dance Festival, and every one of them ended with a dead body. (Yeah, so does Giselle, but there are compensations there.) From these works one would infer that Chicago’s contemporary dance community is interested only in pushing and shoving accompanied by cacophony. After considering the value of one’s time, one would walk out and resolve never to return, dismissing the entire show out of hand....

Master illusionist Moses Pendleton, who founded Momix in 1981, is under no illusions himself: “We don’t make things just for ourselves,” he said in a recent interview with the New York Times. “Momix is a business, just like baseball, and our business is to get our product out to people.” Accordingly the troupe–one of only a handful of for-profit U.S. dance companies–gives value for dollar, though oddly it capitalizes on otherworldliness....

I was heading here at 2:30 am for breakfast. I see a woman in the middle of the street a half block away screaming “Help me, please!” A car stops and they talk. As I walk past, the woman points at me and says, “That’s him! He’s the one!” The person in the car is holding a cell phone and staring at me. I think, “Oh, shit,” but keep walking. Seconds later two police cars arrive and I hear “Freeze!...

The Curious Theatre Branch’s ambitious yearly showcase of experimental theater, performance, and music from Chicago’s fringe began as part of the Bucktown Arts Fest. Over the years it’s mushroomed from a neighborhood happening to an event of citywide significance–especially now that it’s been taken under the wing of the Department of Cultural Affairs as part of a laudable effort to bring an off-off-Loop sensibility into Chicago’s downtown theater district. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

To the editor: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I’ve lived in Chicago all my life, and as it stands today, it’s nearly impossible to walk 100 yards in any populated area of this city without being aggressively hassled, hustled, and shamed to “help the homeless” or “spare some change.” Although I’ve seen my share of the silent “cup shakers” that seem to be Weinberg’s favorite cause, they’re in the minority....

Talkin’ Baseball and Titans & Tall Tales, Raven Theatre. The “titans” portion of this baseball-themed evening is a collection of tributes to diamond legends, adapted from a book by Kevin Nelson and presented in overlapping monologues and vintage-slide projection. The list of those profiled–Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Bill Veeck, Willie Mays, and Mark Fidrych–reflects the show’s preference for character and anecdote over history and statistics, which helps keep it from devolving into a live-action newsreel....

There’s a trek in store for anyone wanting to visit the Joy of Ireland Tearoom: down tourist-choked Michigan Avenue to the Chicago Place mall, up two Tinkertoy stories, and through the gift shop that fronts the restaurant–3,000 square feet of green golf gifts, Irish jams and crisps, Guinness T-shirts, Celtic crosses, Beleek china, and wall plaques lacquered with platitudes and shilelaghs. But once at her destination, the prospective tea taker is soothed by a peaceful view of rooftops and the sunshine that pours through the wall of windows overlooking Michigan Avenue....

This economically constructed and haunting chiller (1943, 66 min.) from the inspired team of producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur doesn’t have the reputation of the two other films they worked on together in the early 40s, Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie. In part that’s because its ending is a bit abrupt and unsatisfactory–but it’s still one of the most remarkable B films ever to have come out of Hollywood....

Today is Sunday. I know this because the bells of Saint Anne ring faintly even here, and though I have no use in my present circumstances for the names that men assign their days, the bells remind me of who I was some Sundays since; there is an echo of her in me still. I had a name then too, which like the names of days means nothing to me now....

OK, you printed my question with nothing other than a jab at my intelligence [January 19]. [Morb wanted to know if ringworms exit a patient’s nostrils en masse upon application of anesthesia. I pointed out that ringworm is a fungus, not a worm.–C.A.] Apparently, the article referred to tapeworms, not ringworm. Sorry–I’m not as familiar with parasites as you seem to be. Care to try again? Best of Chicago voting is live now....

I was lucky enough to see John Coltrane’s classic quartet several times in the 60s and was always amazed by his total relaxation amid the cascading wails and yodeling fast runs that came out of his saxophone. He, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Elvin Jones were completely absorbed, listening to one another so intently that one couldn’t help but join them, even in a noisy nightclub. This 1992 documentary by writer-director Robert Palmer, codirected by Toby Byron, starts off with familiar talk about family and church, some of it voiced over scratchy and blotchy TV performance footage, so I was prepared for the worst....

TIM O’BRIEN & DARRELL SCOTT Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In the 70s and 80s, guitarist and mandolinist Tim O’Brien played in the influential trad bluegrass band Hot Rize and its alter ego, Red Knuckles & the Trailblazers–the same guys in different outfits, playing eccentric, improvisational country. For the past three years, though, he’s been working in a much more intimate setting: a duo with Kentucky-born picker and veteran session man Darrell Scott, whose resume includes dates with Randy Travis, Guy Clark, and Suzy Bogguss....

Rock, Pop, etc. AARON CARTER, TIK N’ TAK Wed 2/28, 7 PM, Rosemont Theatre, 5400 N. River Rd., Rosemont. 847-671-5100 or 312-559-1212. FALLING ANGELS Free in-store performance. Sat 3/3, 3 PM, Record Emporium, 3346 N. Paulina. 773-248-1821. LIQUID SOUL, RHYTHM CITY, CASOLANDO, SHAD SEN TRIO perform at the Blue Note Ball. Sat 2/24, 7 PM, Grand Ballroom, Chicago Hilton & Towers, 720 S. Michigan. 312-294-3000. NADINE Free admission. Thu 3/1, 12:15 PM, Randolph Cafe, Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E....

Topdog/Underdog Abandoned as adolescents by their parents, Lincoln and Booth share a run-down room in an SRO, locked in a sad and dangerous bond of codependency, rivalry, depression, and love. Lincoln, the elder brother, is a past master of the three-card monte scam. “Back in the day,” as he puts it, he ruled the street with his con game. A failed marriage, a bout with alcoholism, and the shooting death of his partner have made him go straight....

The idea of dancing hip-hop on crutches is mind-boggling. Born with a degenerative bone disease that kept him in braces and on crutches as a child and again after the age of 23, Bill Shannon was able to learn modified forms of break dancing and skateboarding in the respite he had from the disease. He did street performances while a student at the School of the Art Institute, and he’s now showcasing his unique approach to dance in such pieces as The Art of Weightlessness, the basis for AOW: Remix....

Rounding Third That bit of boyhood suffering doesn’t compare, though, with what I went through later, when my eldest son joined a team and together we experienced the petty mendacity of a certain kind of baseball parent. These were the fathers who saw their boys as a second chance at greatness or a means to revenge or a conduit for any number of pathetic fantasies: the cadre of damaged souls who alternately browbeat their own kids and beat back the kids of others who might threaten their place in the lineup....

CRIMINALITY, Keyhole Players, at Heartland Studio Theater. It starts like a police procedural: officers Bill and Tom pursue troubled teens Rick and Mark, who’ve killed someone while robbing a bank. Tom and Mark are hotheads, Bill and Rick smarter, cooler customers. But just when you think you know what’s coming, the script goes from hackneyed to insane: two consecutive scenes end with Tom storming off “to go do my job!,” the teens’ relationship takes on a weird My Bodyguard meets The Public Enemy color, and bereaved husband/dispossessed father/parole-jumping coke dealer Jay shows up, transforming the plot into a Dickensian exercise in coincidence and revealed kinship....

On her first album in five years, the new Sweet & Sour, Hot y Spicy (Higher Octave), Mexican singer-songwriter Ely Guerra has made a sharp right turn, going for something more determinedly accessible than the ethereal, highly personal sound of the gorgeous Lotofire. Where the previous record set Guerra’s breathy vocals (informed by both Brazilian pop and Mexican boleros) over generally low-key beats and smoldering electronic textures, the new album is shiny and hard, at times going in for perky new-wave pop or generic alt-rock crunch....

A determined buoyancy informs the choreography of Jump Rhythm Jazz Project artistic director Billy Siegenfeld. One of the four new pieces on these programs, I Hear Music, is a tap and scat-singing musical tour de force–there’s no recorded or live accompaniment–that’s lighthearted overall but also has some emotional texture. Intoning snatches of songs by Frank Loesser, the Isley Brothers, Leonard Bernstein, and the Rolling Stones, the dancers confront one another, wearily acquiesce to one dancer’s wishes, then come to some abrupt realization that makes them all stop and go “oh” in unison....

Plenty of folks questioned the Who’s decision to begin a U.S. tour just days after John Entwistle died, but what if it had been Roger Daltrey? That’s closer to what London’s Libertines are trying as they tour the States this month without Pete Doherty, who up till now has shared the guitarist-front man job with Carl Barat. The British press is reporting that Doherty blew off some European shows in June and was arrested for burglary a few weeks ago; according to a publicist for the band, they’re “very concerned for his well being [and] have told him out of concern for his health that he needs to get better before he can rejoin them....