As big cities go, Chicago isn’t very class conscious. Maybe it’s because we haven’t been at it as hard or as long as places like London and New York. DUMBIES: Despicably Unquestioning Mainstream Bourgeoisie Classes 2 through 6 are self-explanatory. Class 6, sometimes referred to as the nouveau riche, is easily the most persecuted in America, especially by the servants of class 7, aka Old Money. The denizens of class 1 are frequently called the homeless by sociologists and “a bunch of bums” by my grandmother (the one who voted for Reagan)....

LIZ CHILSEN One pair of photographs in particular succinctly presents the differences between the schools. Both photographs show a hallway and lockers. In the Marathon photograph, we see a long tiled hallway lined with gray metal lockers; at the end of this hallway another tiled wall is punctuated by a porcelain drinking fountain. Light pours in from an unseen window or entry on the right and glances off numerous reflective surfaces....

Wearing a bright red unitard, Homer Bryant strides through the studio, clapping his hands and snapping instructions. His students stand at the bar gracefully, without apparent effort, watching him seriously. One young girl extends an arm a little further; another turns out a foot as far as it will go. “I’m wearing red,” Bryant says. “You know what that means.” What it means is a tough class. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Thank you for the best, the fairest, and the most objective article on the Episcopal Church and its BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER that I have ever read since our revolution began [“Is Nothing Sacred?” June 9]. As one of many still unhappy Episcopalians who are tired of being told we are “whining,” I am collecting a dozen copies of your newspaper to send to friends and family across the country....

The vicious and unrelenting X defined a genre and a scene (LA punk) in a way few bands ever get the opportunity to do. Singer-songwriters Exene (Cervenka) and John Doe, sickened romantics, celebrated nausea, poverty, and spit and violently assailed love and sex in the rawest imaginable terms (“Johnny Hit and Run Paulene”). Ten years later, the pair has split up; both are now involved with others and both are parents to boot....

FALSETTOLAND The name “Falsettoland” suggests Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland or James Barrie’s Never-Never-Land; like those fantasy regions it’s a territory in turmoil, exhilarating and upsetting and discombobulating to the people trying to find their way in it. Mendel describes Falsettoland by listing some of its inhabitants: “Homosexuals, women with children,” he sings, referring to his former client Marvin and Marvin’s ex-wife Trina–now married to Mendel. “Short insomniacs,” he continues, meaning himself, “and a teeny-tiny band....

I just got my “List Supplements” for 1986-87 from the American Birding Association. This is the list of the listers, a record of the names and achievements of all the birders who keep careful accounts of every species they see–and then send those accounts to the American Birding Association for publication. The supplement requires 32 pages, two columns to a page, 93 names to the column, to list the names, total numbers of birds sighted, and home states (or countries) of the listers....

SCHINDLER’S LIST With Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall, Jonathan Sagalle, and Embeth Davidtz. A small but significant part of my reaction can probably be traced to personal factors: as the grandson of Polish Jews, I am one of those who might have been saved (or not saved) from the gas ovens by Oskar Schindler if my father’s father hadn’t immigrated to the States when he was eight. My grandfather, a self-made businessman, also resembled the non-Jewish Schindler in certain respects–he was a hedonistic bon vivant whose successful business tactics, including bribery when it seemed necessary, filled him with such guilt that he became a leading philanthropist in the same community where he made his fortune....

SPARTACUS With Kirk Douglas, Jean Simmons, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin, and John Ireland. It’s true, however, that the baby is illegitimate, and that the script was written by a former communist, Dalton Trumbo, adapting a best-selling novel by another former communist, Howard Fast. The fact that Trumbo scripted Spartacus was unexceptional; under assumed names, he had scripted a good many movies for reduced fees during the Hollywood blacklist–unlike most of his fellow victims, whose careers went by the wayside–and four years earlier he’d even written a script (for The Brave One) that won an Oscar no one could collect....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The term “fascist” wasn’t even used until 1919, when a group of misfits coalesced under Mussolini and the banner of his splinter of revolutionary Anarcho-syndicalism, with Marinetti a member of the central committee. Marinetti’s manifesto of that time, which advocated “power to the artists” and “Futurist democracy,” demanded an end to cops, courts, jails, taxes and the military draft....

“Women are really dumb,” says Kathleen Van Ella. “We have this problem–even with all the growing up we’ve done in the feminist age, women still think ‘I’m ten pounds too fat or ten years too old.’ Women are still too hung up to rejoice in who they are. And that’s what a portrait’s all about.” Van Ella walks up to a huge, compelling full-length oil in the middle of the wall–a blond woman in black sits on a black chair with an enormous, colorful necklace around her neck....

SANDRA KAUFMANN The most refreshing aspect of Kaufmann’s dances is their purity: they seem grounded in a strong faith in the goodness of human beings, something missing from a lot of dance and theater lately. Her dancers are strong spirited and beautiful people. If there’s any conflict, it comes from without–rarely from within. Thus the performers become archetypal characters in symbolic confrontations. In the right hands this approach might convey some deeper truths, but unfortunately the dancers in this performance merely played emotional surfaces, and too often the dances themselves were melodramatic to the point of seeming silly....

At Leo’s Lunchroom even a peasant can eat like a king. It’s where Donna Knezek serves up some of the best food in Chicago at rock-bottom prices. Unlike Wishbone with its cutesy chicken art on the walls, Leo’s isn’t a faux nostalgia-trip luncheonette but the real thing–beat-up, mismatched chairs with exposed stuffing, five tables and a long counter, no air-conditioning. I suppose you could consider the child’s rocking horse near the window extra seating, but it’s too low for anyone older than three....

The 11th Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival runs from Friday, November 8, through Sunday, November 17, at Chicago Filmmakers, 1229 W. Belmont; the Music Box, 3733 N. Southport; and Women & Children First, 5233 N. Clark. Tickets ($4 for most matinees, $6 for most evening shows) go on sale a half hour before the first show; advance tickets can be purchased before the day of the show at Chicago Filmmakers....

Prizewinning film and video shorts in four categories–experimental, animation, documentary, narrative. Because I was one of the five judges in this year’s competition, I’ve seen them all, and they’re certainly a far ranging bunch. The first-prize winners are Francois Miron’s visually intoxicating What Ignites Me, Extinguishes Me (experimental), Ian Fowler’s intriguing In Passing (animation, although the film features live action as well), Thomas Almada’s moving and powerful Chicago House: A Community Together (the first AIDS documentary I’ve seen that dares to be positive and upbeat), and Josef Steiff’s highly original and evocative narrative film Borders....

TERRI ZUPANC Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Zupanc’s paintings show she knows the plain, unvarying terrain of the rural midwest inside out (not surprising for an artist originally from Wisconsin who’s lived in Chicago since 1977). In this new work she explores it in its muddiest, drabbest, most joyless guise. Most of these untitled paintings (all but one are from 1993) function more as generalized evocations than as particular views of particular places, and each contains odd, unexplainable elements that push the image into the realm of the unreal....

The Chicago Ensemble’s eclectic programming is designed in part to rotate the spotlight on its members, whose reputations as solo performers are all solid. Taking their turns in the latest round of concerts are clarinetist Charlene Zimmerman and soprano Doris Kirschner. For Zimmerman, Bartok’s Contrasts poses a formidable challenge: the breathtaking virtuosic passages were written for Benny Goodman, who premiered this jazz-influenced, strongly Hungarian showpiece in 1940 with violinist Josef Szegeti and Bartok himself at the paino....

After two weeks of fluffy contemporary repertoire led by yuppie guru Christopher Keene, the CSO gets back to serious business this week with a program of meaty contemporary works led by the always interesting music director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin. Of particular interest is the most important orchestral work of the young Bartok, the rarely performed symphonic poem Kossuth, Bartok’s enthusiastic response to his first hearing of Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra....

THE RAKE’S PROGRESS The Rake’s Progress, Igor Stravinsky’s only full-length opera, is one of those pieces that virtually everybody knows about, but that very few actually know. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that it is the product of the so-called neoclassical Stravinsky, a later style that has never been as popular as the early Stravinsky. In fact, nearly 20 years after his death Stravinsky is still known primarily for three works, all ballets from his early years: The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring....

Alan Rudolph at his second best is still better than most other American filmmakers around, and this dreamy, romantic comedy-thriller is in many ways his most graceful picture since Choose Me. Tom Berenger plays a private eye hired by a mysterious and glamorous woman (Anne Archer) to follow a man; he sets off after the wrong man (Ted Levine), who has a fascinating secret life of his own, and meanwhile the detective himself is being followed by another woman (Elizabeth Perkins)....