For over five centuries the Tantric Buddhist monks of Tibet have carried on a tradition of performing chants at sacred ceremonies. For the most part, the chants consist of low, guttural drones punctuated and embellished by chimes, handbells, or murmuring cymbals; one unusual aspect of the sound is created by the vocal technique, which allows the singer to produce three notes at once. In some sections, brass horns and drums (some made from human thighbones) are used to produce thunderous, apocalpytic sound crests before the music quiets down to a meditative calm....

NIGHTLIGHT Basically, Nightlight is the elliptical story of Eddie and Louie, two bums who come from nowhere and are definitely headed nowhere. They’re not like the bums you see on the street. They may dress the same, but they don’t drink, stink, or talk to invisible people. Indeed, they’re unnaturally coherent. They speak the clear, occasionally poetic language that playwright Keith Huff has made them speak. And although they talk a good deal about scrounging jobs, money, or free lunches, their immediate needs aren’t especially material....

You had to know there was going to be a fight. Surprisingly, Keenan reinserted Belfour less than two minutes later. The fans, certain their shouting had influenced the decision, felt they could will the team to victory. The Blackhawks staged a dramatic comeback after Philadelphia had taken a 4-1 lead early in the second period. They pulled to within one goal late in the third period and clearly had the Flyers on the run....

At the turn of the century, some Chicago architects took time off from designing buildings to try their hands at designing pots. Working with terra-cotta manufacturer William Day Gates, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, William LeBaron Jenney, and George Elmslie, among others, helped create the distinctive vases, garden planters, and lamp bases known as Teco pottery. The architects used some of these pieces in their own buildings; others were sold by dealers throughout the country....

Maestro Subgum and the Whole are taking a break from rehearsal, but they’re using the time productively to talk of–what else?–bodily functions. “Me and Ned have the Best Combined Odor,” claims trumpeter Bob Jacobson. He’s standing, wearing a low-riding pair of loose jeans and little else, with the rest of the band in the dark recesses of Club Lower Links on a recent Sunday afternoon. “Well,” says ringmaster Beau O’Reilly, hugging singer Jenny Magnus affectionately, “I think me and Jenny have the BCO....

Like all great legislative maneuvers, it happened quietly and fast, when almost no one was looking. At the end of last year’s legislative session, Jim McPike, a Democratic state representative from Alton, amended the sales-tax reform bill so that the General Assembly and the governor could control which municipality would get what portion of the annual sales-tax yield. “We were tricked,” is how Charles Esler, a member of suburban Glenview’s board of trustees, puts it....

Sitting, waiting for the commuter train, crossing legs and uncrossing them, a loud tick from the station clock every 60 seconds when the minute hand advanced, trash on the floor, smoke in the air. The train into town was late; the C&NW cares little for off-hour schedules. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » It was raining, and there were puddles of water near the door and below a broken window; dribbles seeped down the discolored wall....

In contrast to younger colleagues who favor ambiguities and a laconic, digressive style, the veteran Chinese director Xie Jin has steadfastly remained an old-fashioned storyteller. Influenced by 40s Hollywood and by his country’s folk-opera tradition–just as the new generation of filmmakers owes a debt to the European art cinema–Xie is at his most assured and economical in unscrolling sagas of grace and courage under adversity. He often shares with the great Japanese humanist Kenji Mizoguchi the view of women as nurturers and redeemers who stoically persevere through life’s vicissitudes....

Percentage of Illinoisans polled who could not name a single member of the state legislature: 77 (Northern Illinois University 1991 Illinois Policy Survey). Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “Those who have worked for independent candidates learn a certain grudging respect for the skills of the old precinct captains,” writes Mary O’Connell in Salt (January). “I remember working a precinct, systematically ringing every doorbell. I probably caught one fourth of the people at home; the others remained names on a poll sheet....

Every summer I make a pilgrimage to Spring Green, Wisconsin, about 40 miles west of Madison, to catch the American Players Theatre. This wonderful repertory theater, founded in 1979 by a band of plucky exiles fleeing the increasingly inhospitable New York theater scene, has over the years earned a glowing reputation for their intelligent, unpretentious, thoroughly accessible productions of classical drama’s great works. Several seasons ago they did a version of Sheridan’s The School for Scandal that was to die for....

Learning to hear the drum as a lead instrument is crucial to understanding most traditional African music and can be hard for Americans who habitually consider the drummer a mere timekeeper. Drummer-singer Babatunde Olatunji was among the first to introduce the complex subtleties of west African drumming to an American audience. Born and raised in Nigeria, he later came to the U.S. and in 1959 released a landmark LP of Yoruba folk music entitled Drums of Passion: a rich tapestry in which choral singing existed primarily to tell a story and to serve as a backdrop for a soupy mix of percussive sound....

I find an error buried in my phone bill, back on page one of section four, beyond Telebriefs, near the introductory announcement about the exciting new Ameritech Master Card “with the power of a calling card,” which I’ll soon be hearing about in the mail–or if I can’t wait that long I can call an 800 number to get the details immediately. I decide to call, and I get Colleen. I tell her there’s an error....

For a while it looked as if Carey Bell would be Chicago’s next harmonica king, following in the footsteps of his famous mentors Little Walter Jacobs and Big Walter Horton. That never happened, but his playing still shows flashes of the old brilliance: when he’s on, few can match his combination of speed-demon flights of fancy and full-toned musicality. His guitarist son Lurrie Bell is back on the scene after a hiatus of nearly two years....

CAST ON A HOT TIN ROOF: A DYSFUNCTIONAL DIXIE CHRISTMAS The Free Associates have made me very merry, therefore, by doing little more to their long-running, long-form improv show Cast on a Hot Tin Roof than trim it with some tinsel, add a touch of mistletoe, and drop it into the holiday season. Cast on a Hot Tin Roof: A Dysfunctional Dixie Christmas is described by the improv group as the Christmas play that Tennessee Williams “forgot to write....

BOB EISEN/JOANNE BARRETT AND FRIENDS On Wednesdays in August, Bob Eisen has been hosting a series for experimental dance, theater, and music at Links Hall. Each evening, Eisen performs an improvisational duet with Joanne Barrett. On August 15, they were followed by the Sock Monkeys. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Experiments at early stages can be as fragile as newborns. The Sock Monkeys are at that stage....

So you’ve heard of Milton Nascimento, and maybe Djavan or Ivan Lins. Some of you may even have encountered the names of Wagner Tiso or Airto, or this guy that David Byrne sponsored for an American label, Tom Ze. But even with all the attention that’s been focused lately on the music and musicians of Brazil, surprisingly few people can claim awareness of Hermeto Pascoal, the renaissance man of modern Brazilian jazz....

It’s always nice to see one of your own predictions come true. In much less time than it usually takes, guitarist Johnny B. Moore has become one of the most widely respected blues musicians in Chicago. He has retained his hard-edged west-side roots while developing his technique in soul, pop, funk, and rock stylings with the instinct of a self-taught master. He’s just beginning to find his stride, and every performance is a potential landmark, as Moore expands his improvisational imagination and musical turf with a relentless exploratory drive....

About two-thirds of the way through this long, elaborate, and emotional performance, principal creator and performer Bill T. Jones performs a twisting, tonrmented dance interpretation of the story of Job, his accompaniment consisting of a wailing wall of searing sound produced by jazz composer Julius Hemphill and his saxophone sextet–and of a real-life minister reading from the Bible. After the sequence reaches its blistering climax, the panting Jones approaches the minister and carries on a quiet, intensely questioning conversation about sin, suffering, and spirituality....

Those of us who love rock ‘n’ roll on the usual blindered, tautological level (because it is rock ‘n’ roll)–and can never really “get” jazz, or classical, or whatever simply because the idiom seems alien–can take heart in the Ordinaires, a nine-piece group from New York’s Lower East Side. This unholy aggregation–two guitars, two violins, two saxes, two basses (well, OK, a bass and a cello) and drums–traffics in a groovy blend of post-Contortions avant-whatever and neo-Bartokian movie pop even as they (remember those guitars) rock out....

The unusual thing about this pleasant (if at times formulaic) shaggy-dog road movie set in Montana, South Dakota, New Mexico, and environs is that it’s all about contemporary Cheyenne Indians. The story of a huge traditionalist Cheyenne named Philbert (Gary Farmer) and his beat-up wreck of a car (purchased with pot), which he regards as his “pony,” the movie follows the wayward adventures that ensue when Philbert’s political friend Buddy (A Martinez) gets him to drive the two of them from Montana’s Lame Deer reservation to Santa Fe, to get Buddy’s sister Bonnie (Joanelle Romero) out of jail....