Friday 8/15 – Thursday 8/21 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » When Michael Workman and Marie Walz started publishing Bridge magazine out of their apartment in November 2000, they didn’t realize it would grow into an arts empire. Two and a half years later the triannual journal has 600 subscribers, 21 people on the masthead, a West Loop space it shares with 1R Gallery, and a Web edition....
Agrippina was among the most devious women in ancient Rome. She married the weakling emperor Claudius; after he was poisoned, she contrived to have her teenage son Nero ascend the throne and practically ruled the empire as a regent. Handel’s Agrippina, however, is a comedy, with a tame, elaborately plotted libretto by Vincenzo Grimani, a cardinal whose family owned the San Giovanni Grisostomo theater in Venice, where the opera debuted. The 24-year-old composer was then near the end of his five-year Italian sojourn, and during that time he’d become a master of the operatic form, so facile with melody and comic timing that Agrippina established his name in Germany and England as well....
Me First & the Gimme Gimmes In Your Living Room Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » But pop culture has a way of conferring respectability on all sorts of ridiculousness over time. For instance, in recent years the popularity of the tribute band–a close relative of the cover band but not quite the same thing–has exploded. In addition to the usual Elvis impersonators, Beatlemaniacs, and Jerry Garcia wannabes, there are bands directing the sincerest form of flattery at everyone from Blondie to Ratt to the Sisters of Mercy....
Like a number of top-notch French singers of the last two decades or so, baritone Francois Le Roux is relatively unknown in this country. In Europe he’s starred in productions at the Paris Opera, Covent Garden, and other big houses, earning particular praise for his portrayals of Don Giovanni and of Pelleas in Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande (he recorded the role under Claudio Abbado’s direction). But though he’s appeared with opera companies in Los Angeles and Santa Fe, he has yet to sing at the Met or the Lyric....
“I’m really sorry to do this via e-mail,” began the message Asha Anderson received from her friend Cullen Carter’s wife, Allyson, on April 9. “Last Tuesday night (April 1st) on his way home (biking) from class, Cullen was hit by a pickup truck who apparently never saw him, even though he had lights on his bike. It was right at dusk. Cullen hit the windshield, then hit the roof, denting it, and then landed in the bed of the truck…....
We’re now five years or so into the laptop era of improvised music, during which ever greater numbers of players have attempted to incorporate electronic elements into their improv work. Some use a computer as an extra tone source, setting a preprogrammed pattern of notes in motion, then picking up another instrument and playing along; some perform in teams in which one player’s output is electronically augmented or manipulated by another....
Eddie Prevost With Ken Vandermark & Michael Zerang at 6Odum, April 13 To really truly know any kind of music, it’s best to be playing it; the next best thing is to be there. But in certain circles even those approaches fall short. Just before he began a solo set at 6Odum on April 14, tabletop guitarist Keith Rowe–one-third of the current lineup of the legendary free improv group AMM–told the crowd a little nervously that he was uncomfortable with performing, had no idea where he was going to start or stop, and that he wanted us to feel free to move around, please....
Handel’s Partenope is a seriocomic opera about the busy love life of the mythical founding queen of Naples. Three suitors vie for Partenope’s hand: Prince Armindo, who is timid but truly loves her; Prince Emilio, a hothead who threatens to take her and the city by force if she rejects him; and handsome Prince Arsace, whom Partenope loves but who has left another woman, Rosmira, standing at the altar. The jilted Rosmira disguises herself as a soldier, Eurimene, and sets about sabotaging Arsace’s chances with the queen....
This is a bar where you come when you don’t necessarily want to see or be seen. I usually come in with my girlfriend when we’re looking for quiet. If you knew that kid in school who had a decent amount of money and their dad had put a bar in the basement, it looks like that. It’s got suspended ceilings with really bright fluorescent lighting. There are also commercial photos of celebrities on the blank white walls–not like people who’ve been here, just random photos of Cagney and Lacey and the cast of Friends and Frank Sinatra....
One of the things I’ve always loved about paint is its near limitless potential–a gooey blop of color can become anything. Looking at Lisa Clark’s Spools, a grid of 18 elegant color photographs of spools of sewing thread, I realized that the same could be said of fiber. “Pictorial Seams,” an exhibit of works by nine artists that literally or implicitly incorporate fiber, hints at this potential. The show purposefully stretches the definition of “fiber art” by including such media as photography, performance, and video, and the works are linked not just by subject but by issues that surround fiber, particularly its historical use by women in crafts....
A coworker and I share a huge amount of sexual energy. The primary issue is that he’s 17 and I’m closer to 30. My attraction to him is likely related to a (mild) distrust of men, an issue I’m working through with a therapist. I’m not interested in a relationship, and I’m sure at 17 he’s just looking for excitement and experience. Still, I would make sure we understood each other before anything happened....
BOTTLE OF JUSTUS 12/28, HOUSE OF BLUES I have no idea if this Bloomington band’s new disc, America Cries, got titled before or after Recent Events, but America is certainly entitled to cry over the SUV-commercial alt-rock genre they and others are still flogging even though the last of the rotten meat has fallen off its corpse. WAYNE “THE TRAIN” HANCOCK 12/28, HIDEOUT; 12/29, FITZGERALD’S The cover of Wayne Hancock’s 1999 album, Wild, Free & Reckless (Ark 21), sports a Route 66 sign; to some that signals the real thing, to others it heralds a nostalgia trip....
The Museum of Contemporary Art’s 23-hour party features more dance than ever, maybe because of last year’s “Everybody Dance” segment, which closed the event with a hit performance by multiple companies and lots of innocent bystanders: organizer Dennis Wise said it was intended to “make a statement that Chicago dance is alive and cookin’.” This year the festival includes, as usual, many music, performance, and visual-arts events (see separate listings) but opens and closes with dance....
I understand that Thomas Jefferson was our smartest president. Who was our stupidest? Second stupidest? A related pair of questions: Did Yale not have an admissions department in the 1960s? If it did, doesn’t it owe the country an apology? I get the feeling you guys are trying to make a point here. But this is no time to be coy. Let’s put the question bluntly: Is George W. Bush the stupidest person ever to serve as U....
Decatur, Illinois Touring them is a do-it-yourself project. No gift shops. No velvet ropes. No docents whispering over your shoulder. No multimedia displays of nitrite poisoning or police beating workers. You’ll have to imagine for yourself an endless tape loop playing what former Archer Daniels Midland executive and expert price-fixer Terry Wilson told a March 1994 meeting of his supposed competitors: “You’re my friend. I wanna be closer to you than I am to any customer, ’cause you can make it that I can make money or I can’t make money....
When Tortoise Slows Down, Herndon Speeds Up Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » It’s not that Herndon doesn’t have enough material to do more. He has loads of tracks lying around–and he’s been reworking them for years. “Most of the stuff I hate and throw away,” he says. “I find it difficult to feel that something is finished. I could work on [the music] forever....
About Face Youth Theatre: Inside Out, About Face Theatre. The fourth installment of About Face’s bi-gay-lesbian youth ensemble assembles real-life stories about how hard it is for teens to be labeled, depicting the minefield of misinformation, pigeonholing, and conflicting expectations faced by kids as they explore their sexual identities. Shaped by the 18-member ensemble and directed by a staff headed by Megan Carney, this 90-minute action-packed confessional focuses on specifics: whether long hair defines your sex, which bathroom to use when you’re not sure which side you’re on, and what to do when you’re a boy and discover that your mother is more enthusiastic about your interest in her wardrobe than you are....
Friday 9/7 – Thursday 9/13 8 SATURDAY A who’s who of Chicago painters will appear on the near west side for tonight’s opening of Influence CHICAGO Influence, an exhibit of work “that is really strong and that people really look to when they think of Chicago painters,” according to curator Maria Munet. The list of (mostly white male) artists includes Ed Paschke, Wesley Kimler, Kim Piotrowski, Jim Lutes, Gary Gissler, Joseph Bernard, Ron Kowalke, Bruce Thorn, and Daniel Bruttig (who just moved to NYC)....
It’s so nice (and rare) to be able to say this about any play, particularly a touring edition of a Broadway production: I enjoyed Dirty Blonde from start to finish without reservation. It’s a smart, funny, sweet, and offbeat love story as well as an illuminating reflection on one of pop culture’s most influential icons. The story is simple: Jo, an aspiring actress, and Charlie, a shy film archivist, meet at the grave of their idol Mae West–camp queen, protofeminist, bawdy sexual satirist, and unabashed eccentric....
While I’m sorry that a significant number of Suite Home Chicago artists failed to realize their expectations in the auction cycle administrated by the folks at Public Art, the Chicago Artists’ Coalition’s advice to boycott auctions (Culture Club, 11/23/01) seems misguided at best. It’s true that art is often auctioned for far less than it might bring in a commercial gallery. On occasion, it is auctioned for far more than its listed retail value....
