I’ve enclosed an ad for Infinity Reference Standard V speakers, which are described as “the embodiment of Infinity’s obsession.” These speakers, you will note, cost $50,000 a pair. Cecil, tell me: is there anybody out there so desperate for self-justification that they’ve actually plunked down $50,000 for a pair of speakers? If so, how many? Are there audiophiles who after listening to a $5,000 pair of speaks and a $50,000 pair can discern a difference?...

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » As one of the two speakers supporting endorsement of Edgar my major point was Edgar’s support for extension of the temporary state income tax surcharge, which Hartigan opposes. Hartigan has campaigned against “fourteen years of tax and spend, tax and spend” despite the fact that Illinois ranks very low among the states in aid to education and very low likewise in the percentage of revenue that comes from state taxes rather than the inequitable locally levied property tax....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Before NPR even committed to carrying Heat, we at Murray Street and KQED chose to start with these major media markets, and got commitments from 13 of the top 20. Over the past few months, it showed an impressive gain of medium sized and smaller markets and success with audiences in places like Cedar Falls, IA; Huntsville, AL; Madison, WI; and Buffalo, NY....

The lounge at the East of the Ryan Motel on 79th Street is not what you’d expect from a nightclub with a reputation for elegance and sophistication. The ceiling is low, the wooden walls mostly unadorned. Customers sit at long, cafeteria-style tables. Despite a few sparkling chandeliers, which add a touch of class to the room’s upper reaches, it feels less like a nightclub than the venue for a neighborhood church social....

RALPH LEMON COMPANY Two and a half years ago, at the old MoMing Dance & Arts Center, Lemon’s company performed a piece, Sleep, that had an excruciating effect on me (and others I’ve talked to): I had never seen before, and never expect to see again, a work so moving on the subject of death. Looking back I can see that certain elements of the dance–the Faure Requiem score, false endings that prolonged the climax, biblical images, Lemon’s very refusal to acknowledge emotion–helped him produce the effect he did....

It was over 100 degrees in the Farm-in-the-Zoo. The sun was burning onto the stage where I stood and into the open tent where 13-year-old Jahdiel Smith was setting up his dissecting instruments. He pulled out three fetal pigs and waited for me, his 4-H leader, to announce his demonstration. “It stinks,” one father said, taking his son by the arm and beginning to pull him away. Best of Chicago voting is live now....

BERNABE Bernabe concerns a mentally retarded, unemployed farm worker in a dusty southern California town, whose friends and relatives have deemed him a harmless source of amusement. While they’re not looking, Bernabe finds refuge in a hole in the earth. Here he revels in and makes love to the dirt. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The story begins one morning when Bernabe, pursued by his haranguing mother, stumbles upon the local whorehouse....

Oliver Davis, who owns the Delta Fish Market and also happens to play slide guitar, says he never really intended to become an impresario; he and his buddies simply needed someplace to jam. Back in the late 1970s, Davis had a fish store at Washington and Kedzie, and his friends from the west-side blues scene would come over for informal musical get-togethers after hours and on weekends. Word about the sessions began to get around; established musicians like Johnny Littlejohn and Sunnyland Slim started showing up, people came around to listen, and Davis realized he had a good thing on his hands....

Paul Smoker is a marvel. Even if he weren’t making such superb musical sense, the sheer velocity and ferocity of his technique might leave you breathless. (The question is why it doesn’t leave him breathless: I’ve seen the man play two hours of the most crackling trumpet imaginable and return to the stage smiling. Smiling! His lips must be steel-belted.) But Paul Smoker, who lives in Iowa and plays more in Europe than in the U....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Sadly, I have joined the minions of people who view the media with skepticism at best. I question the journalistic integrity of Tom Valeo, author of the Reader’s recent article on Paul Glick [August 10]. Mr. Valeo obtained the (mis)quotes attributed to me on the pretext of preparing an article for Chicago magazine on the opening of the Robert-Lucas salon following the demise of Mr....

POULET AU VINAIGRE With Jean Poiret, Stephane Audran, Michel Bouquet, Jean Topart, Lucas Belvaux, Pauline Lafont, Jean-Claude Bouillaud, and Caroline Cellier. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I guess I’m an eternal optimist. About a month later the film opened in England, where the distributor made a game try at translating the pun in the title and called it Cop au vin. (The original title literally means “vinegar chicken,” but poulet is also French slang for “cop....

It’s not just the unique texture of her voice–deep and dark and glistening, like Spanish leather–that makes a cabaret performance by Julie Wilson an unforgettable experience. And it’s not only the masterful technique with which she shifts between singing and speaking that makes familiar Broadway standards seem brand new in her renditions. What Wilson brings to a song is penetrating intelligence informed by ripe, deep-seated eroticism; while her studio recordings of Sondheim and Weill aren’t entirely satisfying, as a live performer she’s stunning....

UNCOMMON SENSES Uncommon Senses, a kind of sequel to Speaking Directly, might be called Jost’s second feature-length State of the Union essay, made 15 years later. Like its predecessor, it is composed of several different and relatively autonomous sections, each of which has its own form and mode of address. While both films can be described as didactic, the first is overtly autobiographical, the second more a multifaceted statement about America....

Lead Story Charles Barfield, 47, was charged in Pompano Beach, Florida, with the “fatal attraction” murder of Jeffrey Dryfka, 25, in February. According to Dryfka’s notes, he had been pursued for seven years by Barfield after breaking off a short homosexual affair. Dryfka adopted disguises and moved frequently, but Barfield finally tracked him down. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The General Accounting Office revealed in August that the Department of Veterans Affairs has been paying pension and disability benefits to more than 1,200 dead people (including 100 that have been dead for more than ten years)....

All eyes, not to mention ears, will be on Orchestra Hall this week as Daniel Barenboim conducts his first concert there since being named the CSO’s music director designate last month. Barenboim, who is also music director of the Orchestre de Paris (not to be confused with the newly formed French Bastille Opera, which recently fired Barenboim amid a storm of controversy), will demonstrate his ability not only as a conductor, but as an orchestra builder as well, having reportedly constructed a first-class orchestra since arriving in Paris 14 seasons ago....

LINDA MANCINI AND TODD ALCOTT Take, for example, New York-based performance artists Linda Mancini and Todd Alcott, who performed one night only, January 30, at Club Lower Links. Montreal-born Mancini comes to performance through dance and movement. Her work involves elaborate costuming, staging, props, and technology. It has overtones of theater, yet it’s not quite theater. Alcott, originally from nearby Crystal Lake, is a playwright. His work relies on text. But the gonzo nature of his presentation resembles stand-up comedy more than theater–yet it’s not quite stand-up....

WILDER MILDER DANCES That’s the kind of question Rachael Milder asks in her solo Unravelling, the first dance of two by Milder performed at Link’s Hall. Danced to Robert Sherman’s keening music for string quartet, it opens with Milder standing motionless with her back to us, a flowing piece of cloth pinned to the back of her leotard and draped. Somehow the lighting, her stillness, and the drape give an impression of integrity and solidity, as if she were a painting or statue so entirely of a piece it’s impregnable and immutable....

LOVE ME At the same time, the actors delight in artifice. It’s always clear that they are playing. Everything in this piece is exaggerated and stylized, and a good portion of the humor springs from an acknowledgment of how contrived the scenes are. Still the actors hold us spellbound, dedicating themselves to creating drama in a situation they continually admit is fake. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » This is the formula for great comedy, and Love Me is exactly that....

Something’s Not Right on Channel 11 The director of programming at WTTW won’t be goaded into what he calls “the labeling game.” WTTW has just added two distinctive new shows to its schedule, but Andy Yocom denies that any sort of ideological imbalance is being redressed. “I think we get all points of view in the programming we get from our national sources,” says Yocom defensively. We asked him what he liked about the show....

Like Gil Scott-Heron and a handful of others, Sweet Honey in the Rock prove that music can be soulful, funky, emotionally satisfying, and still pack a potent political message. They combine centuries of African-American musical tradition–spirituals, folk songs, blues, acoustic variations on contemporary motifs–and lace it with an up-to-the-minute theme of liberation that’s permeated with joy and optimism. Don’t be misled, though; there’s none of that starry-eyed mythologizing of heroic proletarian virtues that gets so tiresome in folkies....