TONY TASSET Tasset’s art refers to and comments on concepts of minimalism; his sculptures exist to repeat and elaborate on the intellectual artwork of the 60s and early 70s and to seek some new insight by reconfiguring it and searching for new forms of presentation. Open Sculpture Bench brings to mind the ultrastatic cube forms of Robert Morris and Tony Smith. An even closer comparison can be made with Eva Hesse’s Accession II of 1967, a perforated sheet-metal cube almost exactly the same size as Open Sculpture Bench (32 inches on a side)....

MEET TO THE BEAT: More than anything else, Chicago’s music scene seems balkanized–Wax Trax technostomp in one corner, Touch & Go grungemeisters in another: there’s no there here. A lot of this has to do with the almost nonexistent press support (it’s as nonexistent in this paper as it is anywhere else), but it’s also true that besides Souled American, Ministry, and some of the acts on Pravda, there’s not too much homegrown stuff that you’d drag a friend in from out of town to see....

Mitchell Duneier, the author of “Slim and Bart” and the book from which it is excerpted, sat at a table at Valois cafeteria on 53rd Street ten hours a day every day for four years. That’s roughly 10,000 hours and 2,000 cups of coffee. Known locally as “See Your Food” because of a large sign out front, Valois (Val-OYZ) offers home-style dishes like Yankee pot roast and boiled potatoes, baked chicken and succotash, and enormous meat pies....

KU KLUX KLAMBAKE For some years now Second City’s time-tested formulas for homogenized, pasteurized, utterly inoffensive satirical revues have been the very model of theater that’s outlived its era. True, the shows still pack ’em in on weekends and sell out weeks in advance. They’re not bad, but they’re a far cry from the intelligent, articulate shows of even 12 years ago. Meanwhile, Cardiff Giant and Metraform have been using improv games to create funny and original theater that would never in a million years be confused with a Second City revue....

Snakefinger is a wonderful musician who tends to get overshadowed by the Residents, the mysterious and disturbing band for whom he has often played hired gun. A shame, because while the decidedly outre Residents are mostly about “concept,” Snakefinger himself is completely about music–and is a good deal less creepy too. Feel free to dig the prop accordion in this picture, but Snake’s actually a guitarist, who somehow manages to sound both fluid and jagged at the same time, and never hits the note you expect next....

Everywhere I go these days I see yellow ribbons tied around oak trees, light poles, small animals, etc. These supposedly are to show concern for our troops in the Middle East. However, as I recall, in the song (you know, “Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree, blah blah blah”) the guy in question is returning from jail. Presumably he went to jail for a reason. Do the troops really appreciate being compared to a criminal?...

TRASHVISION! Well, yes, sadly. At least I can. Two generations of TV have bred a public that’s at once cynical and gullible. We love to mock the idiots on our home screens, yet we’re inclined to believe them too–if only because we want to believe in the false security they offer as they tell us of other people’s troubles. Even bad news sells in a medium that compresses information, entertainment, and advertising into one slick and hypnotic home-viewing experience....

There were a lot of parking spaces on the east side of Western where the welfare office is, and there weren’t many people inside. I had come with a friend to get information on a welfare work program. We took number 52 and sat in the back. There was no sign anywhere to show what number they were on. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » A security guard, sitting half-asleep near the entrance, looked around confused....

Two women–one tall, one short: very quietly, and almost unnoticed, they sneak through the rear door of the number 22 Clark Street bus about a block or two south of Belmont. This small feat is accomplished by taking advantage of the exit of two very old, very slow-moving men, both sporting battered Atlanta Braves caps and carrying those new recyclable plastic Butera bags. Possibly the men are brothers, or even twins, but since both are wearing sunglasses (although it’s nine in the evening) it’s hard to tell....

Death Row Is His Parish “Friend” is a word Ingle actually uses. Even if you belong to the good-riddance school of penology, you probably don’t begrudge the condemned a man of the cloth for company. Ingle is that company. A minister with the United Church of Christ, he’s director of the Southern Coalition on Jails and Prisons, and death row is his parish. He despises it. “Justice, mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation,” he writes, “are unknown elements in a system designated for extermination....

When the distinguished British choral conductor David Willcocks made his local debut with His Majestie’s Clerkes two seasons ago, he received standing ovations. Head of the Bach Choir of London and a celebrated organist, Willcocks combines musicianship and scholarship in his approach to prebaroque vocal music–as fans of his popular recordings with the King’s College Chapel Choir already know. And he’s reportedly an eloquent champion of the music of William Byrd, England’s greatest composer before Purcell....

Kathy Kozan puts down her cigarette and picks up a sponge and starts slapping the wall with it. Dust and paint particles fly in her face, and she shouts instructions to her workers over the din of Public Image Ltd. Construction workers sand pieces of wood, and sparks fly from a blowtorch up above. Artists are painting musical instruments on the lavender walls, and some guy is sitting below the scaffolding, eating his tuna-fish sandwich out of a Muppets lunch box....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Two years ago I was working hard at a new business, and looking forward to marrying the most wonderful woman on earth. I had been in the same industry for nine years, so it wasn’t new to me, but a start-up situation in a downturning economy always brings lots of challenges. The next six months didn’t betray this assessment....

I’m searching for the good life “The Adventures of Shedoobee” “Get yourself some green plants and put them in the bathroom,” continues Foster. “And then you light your candle. Get some music on–not that rock stuff–something soothing like Johnny Mathis. Fill the tub with warm water, and you get in and you ree-lax!” Tonight Foster, a WSEP staff member and founder of her own home-cleaning business, has been discussing four common failings that foul effective time management: indecision, interruption, inaccuracy, and immobilization....

Never again. I’ve quit this time. I’m kicking the habit. I have placed my last personal ad. It is an addiction, I’m convinced, sort of like playing Lotto: each time, I think this will be the one. I began this venture by answering an ad placed by a tall, shy, middle-aged single black male seeking a lasting relationship with a sincere, affectionate single female, race unimportant. When an SBM social worker appeared in the ads the following week, I decided not to pass him up; a social worker would fit right into my life....

Ramon Salvatore specializes in American piano literature–which may explain why he’s just as underheralded as the mainstay of his repertoire. After all, who’s ever heard of Amy Cheney Beach, Elie Siegmeister, or Arthur Foote, let alone their writings for the keyboard? These are some of the composers featured in the final installment of Salvatore’s remarkable three-recital survey of American piano music from the early 19th century to the present. The selections are every bit as intriguing as the men and women themselves....

M. BUTTERFLY But there’s nothing lulling about Wisdom Bridge’s new mounting of M. Butterfly. Dispensing with most of the glitz and pseudoritual of the Broadway version, and embracing rather than denying the intimacy of the Wisdom Bridge space, director Jeffrey Ortmann has focused attention back where it belongs: on the words. Driven by Robert Scogin’s astringent and sensitive lead performance, Ortmann’s staging (on a simple, single-level stage backed by plain screens on which flowers are occasionally projected) clarifies and colors the script with a keen intelligence....

When a genuined aesthetic history of cinema is finally written–as opposed to industry and entertainment histories–the five films Roberto Rossellini made with Ingrid Bergman between 1949 and 1956 should rank high in importance. It is not simply that his daring plotless scenes helped shape the explorations of the inner lives of characters in the films of directors such as Fellini, Antonioni, and Godard. Nor is it only that Bergman never looked more sensuous than in the unadorned photography and stark Mediterranean sunlight of her and Rossellini’s first film together, Stromboli, during the filming of which they became lovers....

Errol Morris’s third documentary feature (after Gates of Heaven and Vernon, Florida), his most fascinating to date, is an absorbing but problematic reconstruction of and investigation into the 1976 murder of a Dallas policeman. As an investigative detective-journalist who spent many years on this case, Morris has uncovered a disturbing miscarriage of justice in the conviction of Randall Adams–who came very close to being executed, is currently serving a life sentence, and was most likely innocent–and the freeing of David Harris, who committed several violent crimes before and after this one (unlike Adams, who had a spotless record), and who was most likely guilty....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Dennis Polkow must have a musical time machine in which he zooms to and from truly authentic performances from the times of Bach, Handel, Beethoven and even Berlioz, so sure is he of the historical styles of which he writes. The vehemence with which he attacks Baroque performance groups which do not affect the “style of the moment,” but which attempt to make music with the forces at hand, seems a trifle overzealous for a critic....