Posts

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The question asked by the mainstream is, “Where’s the Proof.” There is a system to find this proof, and it is used every day. New diseases and conditions are described in every issue of medical journals, and old theories are routinely disposed of through the process of controlled experiment and critical analysis. The idea that Clinical ecologists are too busy curing people to build a firm theoretical basis for their contention puts them into the realm of near-quackery....

And when we run out of landfill space here on Earth, this may be your new home. In Adler Planetarium’s new “Space Transporters” exhibit, the visitor is “transported” to another planet, sees a three-dimensional view of its surface, and learns about its atmosphere and how much he or she would weigh there. The exhibit is funded by Waste Management, Inc.–whose vice chairman says, “It’s a great way to demonstrate that Waste Management, Inc....

BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE & CO. Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane & Co. brought to a brilliant close the Dance Center’s series on the African American tradition in modern dance. Jones is black, but there’s not much that’s overtly African American in his dances. Like the works of other groups who appeared in the series, they are just unquenchably alive. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Zane, who died of AIDS in 1988, was white....

Man of the Third World By “this one” Mullen meant his latest immersion in the third world. Mullen was nine months on the road reporting “Caught in the Middle,” his series on the world’s political refugees that ran last week in the Tribune’s Sunday magazine and Tempo section. “The refugee thing was always done piecemeal,” Mullen explained. “Somebody would do a thing on the Palestinians, or something on the Eritreans, or the boat people, and to me it was a worldwide phenomenon and what everybody was ignoring was the sheer longevity of these camps and populations....

Lead Story A 34-year-old Navy petty officer was given a 25-year prison sentence in Orlando for raping his eight-year-old daughter every time she brought home a bad report card. In one note he threatened to do it “400 times” for a particularly bad report card. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Wonder Weaver, a tailoring business near West Palm Beach, Florida, has begun soliciting business to mend bullet holes in clothing....

Most of the scientific research conducted at universities is funded through the National Institutes of Health. We recently interviewed a professor at a major medical school who is internationally recognized for her research in physiology and behavior. She agreed to talk about the NIH grant-application process, but because she is a recipient of such grants, she requested anonymity. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » A: One prepares a grant application, and then it goes into a study section that consists of about 12 members....

SLEEPING BEAUTY The show is technically excellent. David Avcollie and Nan Zabriskie, its two artistic directors, are faculty members at the Theatre School at DePaul University, and their expertise shows. Zabriskie has designed a simple but ingenious set. A tower opens up to reveal a room at the top, which is where Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger with a spindle, sending her into her 100-year sleep. While she’s asleep, long strips of fabric drop from above to represent the hedge of thorns that grows around the castle, shrouding it from view....

Steve Forbert’s first album presented a persona that was a mix of both calculated innocence and the real article. But Forbert’s genuine innocence was interesting and different, giving his best music an air of something wild and fresh and lost, like a band of young brigands living a life of moonstruck freedom in the Mississippi backwoods. Songs like “Goin’ Down to Laurel” from that album found a place where folk’s dewy optimism and punk romanticism were the same thing....

I keep using more and more, but I just don’t get the same buzz. From Harper’s “Index” (June 1989): “Percentage change, since 1945, in the portion of U.S. crops lost to insects: +86. Percentage change, since 1945, in the amount of insecticide used on U.S. crops: +900.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “Let’s suppose that the roles of men and women were reversed in the business world,” speculates Sherren Leigh in Today’s Chicago Woman (May 1989)....

On Palm Sunday 1990, the choir of Chicago’s Fourth Presbyterian Church was waiting in the back of the church, anticipating the 6:30 AM service, when the church secretary approached, pulled Jeanne Bishop aside, and told her that she had received a phone call. Bishop, her mind on the impending performance, asked the secretary to take a message. The secretary suggested that this was not that kind of phone call. Bishop followed the secretary back to an office, thinking that her father might have had a heart attack....

Are or are not cats and dogs really color-blind? How do they know? –Jim Logan, Chicago Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » You ever see a cat who could pick out a tie? Believe me, cats’ll wear things you wouldn’t put on a dog. But enough with the anecdotal evidence. Scientists usually test animal color sensitivity by trying to link color with food. One such experiment was conducted in 1915 by two scientists at the University of Colorado, J....

How did we arrive at our standardized sizes of 8 1/2 by 11 inches for letter paper and 8 1/2 by 14 for “legal paper”? Was it totally random or was there some practical reason? –Phillip Raskin, Plantation, Florida Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » As for letter paper, it’s cut from a 17-by-22-inch sheet, the mold for which supposedly was the largest a papermaker could conveniently carry in days of yore....

Was spinach once considered the ultimate vegetable? Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time reading my daughter the classic children’s story The Little Engine That Could, which lists all the good things the circus train is carrying for the girls and boys on the other side of the mountain. In the food category, in addition to big golden oranges, red-cheeked apples, etc., we find “fresh spinach for their dinners.” When called upon to read this line, needless to say, I gag and substitute something more palatable and nutritious, such as Fritos....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Your “unified theory of rock” [Hitsville, November 5] was interesting to read, and largely accurate, but there are a few holes in your argument. Your generational distinction between the listeners (and buyers) of music by musicians like Pearl Jam, and the rather staid fans of Sting, Clapton, and Phil Collins certainly holds true; then again, you are comparing William Burroughs to Danielle Steel, apples to oranges, leather to polyester....

“Big Voice” Odom, also known as B.B. Odom, has been a Chicago blues stalwart for nearly 30 years with his passionate, gospel-drenched vocals and flamboyantly emotional stage manner. He started out in the 60s with guitarist Earl Hooker, a master craftsman whose limited singing ability necessitated the inclusion of a strong vocalist like Odom on his shows. Shortly before Hooker’s death in 1970, Odom struck out on his own; this appearance celebrates his “20th anniversary in show business” as a solo act....

The 12th Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival runs from Friday, November 6, through Sunday, November 15, at Chicago Filmmakers, 1229 W. Belmont, and the Music Box, 3733 N. Southport. 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. Festival passes are $55 (good for all screenings) and $30 (good for six screenings)....

To the editors: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Concerning William Heirens, his crime and punishment [August 25]: first, a little piece of historical detail. I was coming home with my mother and father from Farwell beach when my Dad heard shouts for help from, we learned later, a janitor and another man pursuing William Heirens. I recall my mother asking my Dad if he didn’t want to get his gun–he was barefoot, in swimming trunks–but he was gone, up the street....

DIANE COX Counterclockwise is kinetic: an eight-foot wheel like a windmill turns slowly at the end of a treadmill-like fan belt moving at an infinitely slow speed, like Butoh dancers. Each of the windmill’s four spokes is lined with a row of blackened feathers, which look real because they are: they’re turkey feathers dipped in beeswax with an overlay of graphite. The resulting dull metallic sheen makes them resemble bronze, as if they were commemorating something....

I thought I would never ever want to hear another one of those quirky Amvets-dressed, North Carolina-based rock acts again, but I changed my mind recently after seeing Fetchin Bones whip up a dance groove far more powerful than their LPs would lead you to expect. Mind you, their forte is not the cold, hard machine beat that only feels good when you’re mad at the world, nor is it exactly that funky James Brown-inspired fatback rhythm....

To the editors: As one of three jurors for the performance series “Opening the Circle of Identities,” I appreciate your coverage in the November 24th Reader. But unfortunately, Justin Hayford skirted several important issues. For starters, Dominique Dibbell’s Dean Rivers was a parody of a male performance persona. Instead of arguing this point, however, Hayford writes that Dibbell should adopt an “actorly concern” and commit herself more fully to her character....