Posts

Like much of David Sedaris’s best work, this piece revolves around the narrator’s self-loathing and his waspish disdain for people who are even worse than he is: everyone he meets. So turning his monologue about a hellish holiday job at Macy’s into a concert reading with seven actors playing the characters is odd–it dilutes the focus, which is him. Yet Janus Theatre’s production, which gives Joe Mantello’s stage adaptation a few twists (not all of which work), has its strengths....

Dear editor: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The Chicago Reader has either run out of news to report or has grown irresponsibly lazy. Had there been any recent developments in the 1998 case headlined in the September 5, 2003, issue [“A Drunk Police Officer, a Dead Pedestrian”], a legitimate reason could have been posited for the retelling. Release of the convicted (April 2002), settlement of the civil action (December 2002), even simply the anniversary of the tragic crash (June 1998)–there are numerous credible reasons, although some more tenuous than others, that it might merit a review in a respectable media outlet....

David Wendell first became fascinated with planes while chasing crop dusters during summer breaks at his family’s Nebraska farm in the early 70s; now 36, he’s been independently researching the history of air travel his entire adult life. Currently living in northwest-suburban Harwood Heights, Wendell has interviewed retired pilots and combed through newspapers and old magazines like Aviation Weekly to learn stories about the last century of flight. He’s also visited the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and other collections to gather the information needed to create miniatures of historic planes; Wendell draws the designs himself and has the individual models built by an artisan in the Philippines....

The early 90s were boom years for solo performance in Chicago–and the Big Goddess Pow Wows played a role. Formed in the shadow of the first gulf war, these often hilarious showcases captured the anarchic spirit of the times. Now the original Big Three–Paula Killen, Marcia Wilkie, and Lisa Buscani–return from LA, LA, and New York respectively to stir the pot all over again. Killen (whose Music Kills a Memory remains one of my favorite shows from those years) has been working with the experimental Zoo District theater company in Hollywood and developing stage and film projects....

Digable Planets were one of the most interesting and original rap groups of the early 90s, recording two terrific albums, 1993’s breezy Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space) and 1994’s militantly funky Blowout Comb. After that, the group (rappers Doodlebug, Butterfly, and Ladybug, aka Mecca–possibly hip-hop’s most underrated female MC) virtually disappeared. But the three have kept busy: Doodlebug, now known as Cee-Knowledge, leads a large band called the Cosmic Funk Orchestra that gigs regularly in Philadelphia, and Mecca is due to release a solo album this fall....

About a year and a half ago, Curtis Stigers released his first album as a jazz singer–and an awfully good one at that. But I’d guess that Baby Plays Around (Concord) took his old fans by surprise: After all, this is the same Curtis Stigers who hit the charts as a blue-eyed soul man back in 1991, rocketing into the top ten with “I Wonder Why.” Two more tunes from his eponymously titled debut, “Never Saw a Miracle” and “You’re All That Matters to Me,” also entered the soft-pop pantheon; he went on to tour with the likes of Rod Stewart and Joe Cocker, and eventually landed a song on a Dawson’s Creek sound track CD....

If you bought art supplies, made copies, or went to rock shows in Chicago at any time in the last decade you probably met Wesley Willis–and if you did, you didn’t forget him. He was six-foot-five, over 300 pounds, with a long scar on his cheek. He addressed friends and strangers and sometimes himself in a powerful, rumbling voice. Maybe he took notice of you and insisted on one of his almost catlike head butts–that’s how he got that distinctive mark on his forehead, like a bruise-toned third eye....

Presented by the Chicago Institute for the Moving Image, the third annual Festival for Cinema of the Deaf runs Friday through Sunday, October 15 through 17. Actress Marlee Matlin will host the opening-night program, which takes place at Pipers Alley on Friday at 7:30 PM and includes a captioned screening of Yutaka Osawa’s Japanese feature I Love Peace. The festival moves to Columbia College’s Ludington Building on Saturday, with programs of short videos at 10 AM and noon, the 16-millimeter program Shadow Worlds: Silent Experimental Films at 2 PM (see Critic’s Choice), another short-video program at 6 PM, and a captioned video screening of Fahrenheit 9/11 at 8 PM....

James Cameron, director of Titanic (1997), explored the wreckage of the fabled ocean liner while preparing for that film, and in summer 2001 he returned with a team of camera operators, illustrators, historians, scientists, and explorers to create this exhilarating large-format documentary. Among the state-of-the art gadgets designed for the project were lightweight digital 3-D cameras and a pair of remote-controlled vehicles, each the size of a suitcase, that could withstand the pressure of the deep sea....

“I am a Greek born in the Xiao-Xiang region,” Chinese author and painter Sun Pu likes to say. “I came to the United States because I was taking a walk and, unawares, went too far.” The 75-year-old artist has used ten pen names since 1941; now known as Mu Xin, he writes in Mandarin in the Queens apartment he rarely leaves. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Before he left China in 1982, Mu Xin spent some ten years imprisoned, on and off, on charges never specified....

Save long-distance running, there’s no activity so notoriously solitary as writing. Yet, as pages of ads in magazines like Writer’s Digest and Poets & Writers attest, there’s an entire economic sector devoted to the communal production of scribes: MFA programs, retreats, workshops, even boot camps. But playwright Lisa Rosenthal champions the collective do-it-yourself approach to individual success: form a group where writers can get the benefit of thoughtful critique without conceding authority to someone else, or paying an institution for the privilege....

The Israel Film Festival concludes on November 14 with repeat screenings of several features at Highland Park Theater. All movies are primarily in Hebrew with subtitles; tickets are $9.25, $6.50 for students, seniors, and children under 12. For more information call 877-966-5566 or visit www.israelfilmfestival.com/iff04. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Work is the problem for the title character of Henry’s Dream (2003, 106 min....

By Ted Kleine Holmes passes out a handwritten true-or-false quiz on the virus, then starts asking the group for answers. Holmes nods. “Very good. This is a real good group. I’m impressed. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “If you shoot up and dispose of your needle improperly and a kid plays with it, he can get HIV,” the man says. Most of the group says false, but a big man in a flannel shirt insists it’s true....

The King Is Alive With Miles Anderson, Romane Bohringer, David Bradley, David Calder, Bruce Davison, Brion James, Peter Kubheka, Vusi Kunene, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Janet McTeer, Chris Walker, and Lia Williams. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » If that’s the operative assumption, The King Is Alive triumphantly refutes it. The movie was shot with three digital video cameras–unlike Thomas Vinterberg’s Dogma film The Celebration, which was shot with only one, and Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark (not a Dogma film, but made by one of Dogma’s founders), which was shot with a hundred–and that might make it seem new as well as passe....

Poetry slams have come a long way since 1985, when members of the Chicago Poetry Ensemble started read-ing their work at the old Get Me High Lounge in Bucktown. Today there are poetry slams in every city large enough to support a coffeehouse or two. The National Poetry Slam began 14 years ago, when Chicago poetry-slam pioneer Marc Smith and some local colleagues went to San Francisco to face off against their Bay Area counterparts....

Growing up, when I did something wrong, my father would punish me by putting me to work in the restaurant,” says Ralph Cruz, who owns and operates the 50-year-old Cafe Central. “That’s how I learned the business.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Cafe Central remained on West Madison until 1968, when the family lost their lease, and moved to its current location on Chicago near Bishop....

Lead Stories Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » According to a May report in the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, Dr. Yogendra Shah of Granite City, Illinois, is being investigated by a state regulatory board for performing an abortion in 1998 on a woman who was not, strictly speaking, pregnant (most likely she had a “blighted ovum,” which is a fertilized egg that never develops). The woman says that Shah accepted pregnancy test results from her rather than test her himself, and that for years after the procedure–until her gynecologist requested her records from the abortion clinic–she honestly thought she’d been carrying a baby....

I was surprised you didn’t mention the hilarious article in USA Today about the latest crusade launched by the religious jackasses down there in the United States. Apparently some conservative Christian groups in your country are pressing big hotel chains to drop pay-per-view porn from their in-room amenities. The way things are going, you Americans will be coming up to Canada in droves to watch porn and smoke pot! Best of Chicago voting is live now....

You’re looking at a blurry photo scanned onto a Web site. A boy is standing next to a tall, bearded man. The kid wears giant eyeglasses, like welder’s goggles, and a Pittsburgh Steelers jacket. He’s grinning like there’s no place else he’d rather be. The man is sitting, leaning toward the youngster, and smiling in a practiced way. He’s wearing a western-style plaid shirt with a wide collar and, just maybe, pearl-finish buttons....

Could you please explain how the designated hitter rule works in the American League? I understand that the designated hitter bats for a pitcher, but that’s about it. I have seen games where the designated hitter suddenly plays defense. Once this happens, the pitcher suddenly has to bat! The whole process is so confusing, only you can make us understand. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Although the basic concept of the DH is pretty simple–he bats for the pitcher, like you said–Major League Baseball’s rule 6....