EACH DAY DIES WITH SLEEP Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » As in The Promise, seen earlier this fall at Lifeline Theatre, Rivera uses a specific Latino-American sensibility as the vantage point from which to display a universal vision. Blurring the line between the “magic realist” style of some modern South American writers, European absurdism and surrealism, and the crude camp ridiculousness of such satirists as novelist William S....

The Replacements’ finest moment came on TV—Saturday Night Live in 1986. They were appearing to promote their fourth album, Tim, which was their first for a major label (their previous albums—Hootenanny; Stink; Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash; and Let It Be—were released on an indie label, Twin/Tone, out of their hometown, Minneapolis). Besides front man-heartthrob-genius Paul Westerberg, the band at that time included drummer Chris Mars, a waiflike thumper; Bob Stinson, an absurd, drunken lout; and Tommy Stinson, Bob’s younger brother, a Replacement from age 13 who appeared that night, if not so much anymore, to worship the stage Paul Westerberg walked on....

Holy Has-Been! The line snaking up to the small stage featuring Adam West and Burt Ward, TV’s erstwhile dynamic duo, required at least an hour’s worth of patience. The two sat silently in full superhero regalia signing and smiling, but barely acknowledging the masses. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » West turned and was blinded by an explosion of light. The man laughed and laughed, and West tried to recover by adjusting his costume’s cowl, this one stitched together from a silky blue cloth unlike the sturdier plastic one he used to wear on Batman....

The Chicago Chamber Orchestra is one of those low-profile local groups that offer programs mostly for free and that are taken largely for granted. Under the direction of its founder, the redoubtable Dieter Kober, the 35-member ensemble gathered a cult following as an inexpensive introducer of beloved classical works, and its quality was wildly uneven, though good performances outweighed poor ones. Now Kober has retired, and the orchestra is looking for a new leader....

A few months ago the Tribune asked the English-born hotelier Darryl Hartley-Leonard what he liked about Chicago. “What a unique set of circumstances it was that caused the city fathers back then to fight for the idea that the entire lakefront never be commercialized,” he enthused. “We look at that lakefront, and we think, ‘This is a good town. Greed didn’t take this town.’” Wille sounds her main themes in her prologue, and anyone who’s lived in Chicago for even a little while will be able to whistle along....

In the first game between the Cap Tigers, from west-suburban Norridge, and the Braves, from the Chicago neighborhood of south Andersonville, emotions ran high. The Cap Tigers were undefeated in the Riis Park Weekend Semi-Pro League, and they expected to remain that way. Their lineup was loaded with big, ham-handed sluggers. The heart of their order could match up in size with any team from the majors; overall, they’re bigger than the White Sox....

EQUUS Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “A child is born into a world of phenomena all equal in their power to enslave,” Martin Dysart remarks in the course of Peter Shaffer’s 1973 Equus. The world’s randomness is the backdrop against which Shaffer sets his exploration of the search for order. And the forging of a personal religion, with all the pantheistic glory and terror of that process, is at the heart of this Interplay production....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I share James Krohe Jr.’s concern regarding the social responsibility of architecture [“Designing a Better World , ” August 141, so I wonder in the name of who or what is he taking such offense at our work at the Des Plaines adult day-care center. He charges that we “might have asked the residents” about their concerns....

IN MY FATHER’S HOUSE As I fiddle about Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » When he discovers that Leo is planning to adopt a preadolescent foster son, John tries to break out of his emotional paralysis and prevent a replay of the circumstances he suffered. But John’s initial burst of activity stalls as he crashes into the same maddening forces that made his own protracted abuse possible–Leo’s seductive, disarming manipulativeness, his father’s passive, reality-denying complicity, and John’s own shame and uncertainty....

Lights, Camera–but No Action Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Chicago’s reputation for subzero winters has always discouraged location shooting during the first quarter, but more troubling is the dearth of new projects lined up for the summer and fall. Ron Ver Kuilen, director of the film office, reports that only one theatrical feature is slated for production here in the months ahead: Message in a Bottle, a romance starring Kevin Costner, will include some scenes shot in Chicago....

FOOTING THE TURF Roth is a monologuist, by nature and design a drifter, though he has appeared often in Chicago. For the last four or five years he’s honed his writing and story-telling skills, constructing hour-long fantasy excursions in which the surreal and the banal intersect curiously. Despite his self-deprecating style, his work has always been disarmingly profound. Saying something like “When your back is up against the wall, you’ve got everything in front of you,” he lets us know that this statement is both too simpleminded to be true and too true to be simpleminded....

Lead Story According to an October story in the San Jose Mercury News, members of RECAP (“Recover a Penis”), an organization of several dozen men who meet regularly in the San Francisco area to discuss ways to restore their foreskins, are divided on the issue of technique. Some support surgical reconstruction, while others are in favor of “stretching,” described by RECAP founder Wayne Griffiths as pulling loose skin over his penis, taping it in place, and using “Foreballs,” a device he invented consisting of two small ball bearings, to add weight and pull the skin down....

OBSESSION Reilly himself seems to be the most confused. He claims to have written the musical out of his “lust of dying and fear of living.” That would indicate that it comes out of his personal fears, and that it is therefore serious and that the supernatural myths are being used as a device to explore real issues. Yet Obsession contains an inane plot, with character names straight out of Dracula, teen dances on the beach, and the most pathetic wallflower in the world–and it’s full of lines that can’t possibly be anything other than jokes....

PERICLES In 1989 Shakespeare Repertory artistic director Barbara Gaines had a huge and unexpected success with Cymbeline, a more familiar, less fantastic late romance. So it makes sense to try to rescue another work from obscurity (though in fact Pericles was produced in Chicago as recently as 1984, by Bailiwick Repertory). And Shakespeare’s minimal contribution needn’t be an issue, if Goodman Theatre’s sick joke of a Twelfth Night is any indication....

In the debate among educators over what has been variously described as the “great books,” the “core curriculum,” or simply the “canon,” there is at least one duly stamped Great Book that has gone unnoticed, useful neither as a brickbat for the reformers nor as a buckler for the defenders of tradition, its wide seat on the library shelf granted with nothing more than a yawn from anyone. Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire enjoys its unique security for the simple reason that no one any longer reads it....

Soul Asylum is one of the very best live bands in the history of the world. But their albums suck. The albums don’t suck: they’ve produced a half-dozen or so fabulous tracks: “Spinnin’,” “P-9,” “Cartoon,” “Easy Street,” “Closer to the Stars” . . . . That’s over their last four albums; how many years is this band going to be given to learn on the job? It’s progress: songwriter Dave Pirner’s got a ready wit–“Life’s mysteries seem so faded”–okay, he’s sappy sometimes, but–“I want to live with you in the fifth dimension”–okay, a lot of the time, but what about the title of the new album?...

Editors’ note: this article also contains the story “Garbage Through the Ages: A Brief History” which ran as a sidebar to the cover story on November 11, 1988. The ride today is anything but comfortable, because my seat is really a dozen burlap bags piled on top of one another, and every time the front loader comes back down after hoisting cargo to the truck’s rear, it lands with a great clanging jolt that causes the whole cab, including driver and passenger, to surge into the air....

A better-than-average compilation of animated shorts from Czechoslovakia, England, France, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, the USSR, and the U.S., which predominates (12 shorts out of 20). Among the highlights are some excellent examples of claymation from England (Peter Lord’s War Story) and Czechoslovakia (Jan Svankmajer’s Darkness, Light, Darkness), two striking animal fables from the Soviet Union (Alexei Karaev’s Welcome and Mikhail Aldashin’s Poumse), and some funny and imaginative American efforts (Michael A....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I had to forget about the incident because I wound up in a number of U.S. Naval hospitals in the Pacific and sort of forget about things. I remembered later and I remember it now. I mention all this because obviously Mr. Jonathan Rosenbaum, your movie reviewer (excuse me: film critic), seems to think Show Trials are in order [“Micromorality,” September 1]....

WILL AND TESTAMENT But putting aside the celestial trappings, the real basis for Stone’s high-stakes audition is that proverbial theatrical bedrock of “two boards and a passion.” Will and Testament is an excuse to recite an assortment of lesser-known monologues (and one sonnet) that allow the actor to depict 15 characters from the Bard’s bounty. With mixed results. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » As Stone delivers his goods, voice-overs of God and Shakespeare (who sound suspiciously–or appropriately–alike) provide a halting commentary (apparently Shakespeare prefers the less stodgy acting style of American actors to the technique of the Brits–uh-huh)....