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Three major out-of-town bands that have made powerful/interesting/great music are playing here this weekend; that’s more than have come to Chicago in the last three months combined. The debut LP Licensed to Ill by young snots the Beastie Boys is the most kick-ass record to hit Billboard’s #1 in a much longer while than I’d care to recall; the mbaqanga-based LP Graceland by old fart Paul Simon is the most fascinating record he has made in a much longer while than he’d care to recall; but for a great live show I’m picking in-betweens Husker Du....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Fremon, normally an excellent writer, has really missed the mark on this issue. Instead of checking out the various statements made by the principal proponents of the mall, for their accuracy, Fremon just gives them “carte blanche” and innocently (?) perpetuates the “misinformation” being put out by Garcia, Matanky, Villarreal et al. The Matanky Realty Group met on two (2) different occasions with the Little Village Chamber of Commerce and the Little Village United Neighborhood Organization and clearly stated that they were not interested or open to any local or community involvement in the ownership or development of “Plaza Mexico” and that they would not make any definite commitments to such mall components as the community center, day care center, diaper service etc....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I am writing in response to Scott Mervis’ article “Nuke Lite” in the March 30 issue of the Reader. I can’t understand the tone the Department of Energy (DOE) takes with the waste created by nuclear power. The DOE doesn’t want to take responsibility for waste but still proposes to build a passive nuclear plant. The DOE awards $50 million for research on innovative nuclear power but conveniently sits idle on the question of disposal....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I won’t write here about why I left the troupe. I’ve talked to journalists about it, but the actual complexities of human interaction seem to be too difficult for them to assimilate. Therefore, the real story has not been told, and I can pretend it’s not too late to say, “None of your business.” Oobleck is like the proverbial elephant groped by blind men who, grabbing a tusk or a tail, decide that that is the shape of the whole beast....

JEFF DONALDSON Details in the images also incorporate messages, and their intricacy and subtlety contrast with the bold letters of the words. You begin to think that the messages reflect your subconscious thoughts, ideas you weren’t quite aware you had. Donaldson tends to make you face truths that are more comfortable to ignore. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Donaldson’s anger at injustice is equally powerful in Visit Azania....

When I saw The Heidi Chronicles in New York, I laughed a lot, but I wasn’t sure what playwright Wendy Wasserstein was trying to say. In the production now at Halsted Theatre Centre, originally at the National Jewish Theater in Skokie, the easy laughs are downplayed and Wasserstein’s touching and thought-provoking picture of friendship and personal integrity comes through clearly. Janice St. John’s underplayed and honest acting style shows Heidi to be a rock of stability through the years of changing ideological fashion; but far from portraying her as a passive onlooker, as many other actresses have been criticized for doing, St....

Here’s a little store in the big dirty city. Candy, cigarettes, newspapers, soda pop, ice cream, and long, long hours. People who run stores like this grow old and die without anyone ever having noticed. You think about that store when you read about some Korean grocer being boycotted. Or some Arab being told he doesn’t belong. And community leaders saying, “We’ve got to talk.” Best of Chicago voting is live now....

If I were a sculptor, I’d use as my subject Michael Jordan, as he appeared during a break in game one of the Eastern Conference final. The Detroit Pistons were beating on Jordan every time he drove into the lane; they were shoving and pushing and even, on more than one occasion, tripping him, trying to send him down onto the court, as if applying the football strategy that, after three quarters of sustained punishment, the athletes most often dealing out the punishment will prevail in the final quarter....

On the night of August 11, I attended a baseball game that had me sitting quite literally on the edge of my seat from the first pitch on. Indeed, that was the day Wilson Alvarez pitched his no-hitter for the White Sox; but that was done in the afternoon, against the Orioles, in Baltimore. The game I saw was at Wrigley Field, between the Cubs and the New York Mets, and the pitcher on the mound at the start of the game was Rick Sutcliffe....

Never taken the train before? It’s as easy as ripping off a savings and loan. Passengers may board departing trains at Union Station 30 minutes prior to scheduled departure; tickets are taken by the conductor once the train is under way. Boardings and track numbers are announced on the PA at Union Station, but you probably won’t be able to understand them; they are also shown on the TV screens located here and there in the waiting room, which sometimes work....

“MASTER HAROLD” . . . AND THE BOYS Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Hally, barely into his teens, shares with his mother the proprietorship of the Saint George’s Park Tea Room. They also share terrible memories of his drunken invalid father, a man who fell as short in his role of father as the shabby cafe falls short of its name. Hally’s only friends are Sam and Willie, in whose company Hally sought refuge as a child....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Had Mr. Adams done even the most basic research (e.g. one trip to Kroch’s & Brentano’s) or had he talked to one active Mason, he would have found that we are far from being pagans. The Holy Bible is open and reverenced at every meeting, our initiates are sworn upon it, our prayers and recitations are either based upon it or directly quoted from it....

MONEY, SEX, LOVE, ART & PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION Anita Loomis is awfully cute. She has a boyish, almost impish quality that belies some of the darker aspects of her material. She’s lithe and quick, and she moves comfortably and expertly on a stage. She’s unapologetically feminist. She’s funny. And serious. And earnest as hell. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » But for all her cleverness and likability, Loomis’s Money, Sex, Love, Art & Public Transportation, her solo debut at Club Lower Links, is erratic at best....

Once labor has begun, the routine for expecting parents is well established. Grab a bag, call a cab, hop in your car, race to the hospital–you almost hope you’re stopped by a cop. At least that was my fantasy. I wouldn’t wait to be asked for my license–I’d just point to my wife moaning in the seat beside me, shout “She’s going to have a baby,” and direct them to get us to the hospital right away....

Of today’s notable orchestra composers, Chicago-born William Kraft is probably the one who knows the percussion family the best. He’s had a career-long affiliation with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra; in 1981 he founded its New Music Group, which has since assumed a leadership role in the lively west-coast music renaissance. With an unerring and keen ear for the timbre and texture of instruments in that most vociferous of instrumental families, Kraft has written a number of attention-grabbing works–including Fanfare, Vintage 1990-91, whose midwest premiere at Grant Park will mark a rare local performance of his music....

Independent Bookstores Still Standing–and Expanding Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Is the neighborhood bookstore out of the woods? The giant national chains and the deep discounters invaded Chicago with a vengeance during the 1980s, intending to transform the bookselling business. But Waldenbooks and B. Dalton and Crown did not succeed in killing off the local independent bookseller. “We were really afraid in the early 1980s,” admits Pat Peterson, co-owner of Barbara’s Bookstores, “but we had tenacity and waited it out....

A bold, powerful psychological horror film about a recently returned Vietnam vet (Tim Robbins), apparently working as a postman in New York City, who’s plagued by nightmarish paranoid visions. Thanks to a remarkable script by Bruce Joel Rubin (who also wrote the script for Ghost and the original story for Brainstorm) and the directorial skills of Adrian Lyne–who makes even more effective use here of an infernal vision of New York than he did in Fatal Attraction–this is both a stream-of-consciousness puzzle thriller that offers the viewer not one but many “solutions” and an emotionally persuasive statement about the plight of many American vets who fought in Vietnam–a statement that is more expressionistic and metaphysical than “realistic,” but is no less compelling for that....

The heavy air rose off the subway tracks at Clark and Division, swirling burnt grease and rush hour into the faces of countless riders. Framed against a brown pillar stood a large woman and her tiny son. The boy, who couldn’t have been taller than two and a half feet, was wearing a miniature light green karate outfit. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The boy gazed up at his mother, his interest sparked by her riffling through her purse....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Mr. Wyman, I trust you wouldn’t have spotlighted 3rd Bass’s appearance at the nightclub Shelter if you’d known that the group’s most dedicated fans were likely to be turned away at the door. The reason? Not cool enough. To Mr. Wyman I say, (a) Love ya, keep up the good work; and (b) For the sake of us hopelessly uncool people who read, admire, and support you, please don’t ever again endorse an event hosted by Shelter or its affiliates....

The late Frank Netter has been described as a medical Norman Rockwell, but a current exhibit of his illustrations makes the comparison seem macabre. Just imagine one of Rockwell’s frisky youths with part of his flesh pulled away to reveal an exquisite, gleaming maze of red and blue passageways. Generally regarded as one of the world’s greatest medical illustrators, Netter produced work that introduced medical students around the world to the subtleties of the human body for over 40 years....