Richard Linklater isn’t used to talking about himself, judging from the first couple of questions I ask. Just when I think he’s going to go off about something, there’s a slight hesitation in his voice, as if he’s uncertain how to proceed. “I was an offshore oil worker for 18 months. I went two years to this east Texas college, which was pretty uneventful. I was an English and drama major....
HEDDA The plot is complex enough to warrant a rebriefing. General Gabler’s much-courted daughter has married George Tesman, who is expected to assume a prestigious position at a large university. Hedda’s disappointment with married life begins early, when her husband spends their entire honeymoon poring over antique books, but she looks forward to the extensive social life George has promised her. When it looks as if George’s ascension to academe, and the salary and social standing that go with it, may be postponed, Hedda finds herself facing–temporarily, at least–a life of genteel poverty....
It’s long overdue that Phil Guy be recognized as a major contemporary bluesman and not just “Buddy’s younger brother.” Phil plays traditional south-side standards with the reverence and enthusiasm you’d expect from someone literally born into the heart of the blues tradition, and he gives even pop tunes like “Miss You” an unmistakable and totally unselfconscious bluesiness that others seem unable to attain. Avoiding his brother’s histrionics, he plays with a fiery technical proficiency combined with a sure-fingered crispness so that even his most spectacular solos have an internal logic that’s all too rare....
When Booba Barnes fires off his raucous guitar leads and growls the blues in a voice reminiscent of Howlin’s Wolf, the amenities of modern urban life seem to dissolve and you’re transported to some backwoods Delta juke joint with sawdust on the floor, bottle-in-bond whiskey being sold under the table, and dancers boogying away until daybreak. Famous in Greenville, Mississippi, as both a performer and club owner, Barnes exploded into the national consciousness in 1990 wth a fiery LP on Rooster Blues; since then he’s been rocking houses from coast to coast with his distinctive blend of flamboyant showmanship and riveting emotional commitment....
Her bags aren’t packed yet, but friends and political allies are on the phone. The word has slowly leaked that Heather Booth–one of Chicago’s premier political and community organizers–is leaving town. Her husband, Paul Booth, has already left; he’s in Washington, D.C., where he’ll work as director of field services for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Heather Booth says she will join him as soon as their Lakeview flat is subleased, probably in May....
In the climactic play of the Super Bowl, John Taylor cut down and across on a post pattern to get open for Joe Montana and give the San Francisco 49ers the go-ahead touchdown. It sounds simple, but it’s not. The post pattern–in which a wide receiver runs straight down, shimmies to the outside with a delicacy that must not diminish his speed, and then cuts on a diagonal toward the goalpost–is one of the most difficult patterns for a defensive cornerback to defend in man-on-man coverage, but the offense must first establish that the defense is in that coverage....
THE CANADIANS HAVE A WORD FOR IT Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Distressed by this gap in English vocabulary, Arthur Black, host of the Basic Black show on Canada’s CBC radio network, recently teamed up with this column to challenge his listeners to invent a gender-neutral term. They responded big time. Proposed terms included moo unit (“Can be sung to the tune of ‘Moon River,’ writes Catherine Ryle), moo, moovine, cudder camoo (for the existentialist crowd), dumal (Dumbest Ugly Mammal Afoot in the Land, “which might be confusing because it could apply to so many people we know,” writes Michael Nitsch), moocat, Bovis and Beefhead (inevitable, I suppose), cattluno, isobeef, cobul, enivob (bovine spelled backward), boeuf (popular in Quebec), moobovver, land whale (“Will add a degree of romance to an increasingly bland vocabulary....
What’s the origin of the expression, “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings”? –Dolly Gattozzi, Oakland, California Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » First let’s get it straight: the original expression was “the opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings.” Amazingly, sources agree on exactly who coined this expression and approximately when. It was first used around 1976 in a column in the San Antonio News-Express by sportswriter Dan Cook....
The vacant lot at 5406 N. Winthrop is ugly but innocuous looking, filled with knee-high weeds that climb up and around a cyclone fence. But last month the lot became the subject of a heated legal battle when members of the Edgewater Community Council, a local group, went to court to prevent the Chicago Housing Authority and the Habitat Company from building a six-unit building for low-income families there. “The beauty of Edgewater is its diversity,” says Mimi Harris, who works for a local social-service organization and lives in the area....
WELCOME TO THE BARN RAISING Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Yet what makes this show amazing is not that director Mick Napier and his cast of six have been able to create funny sketches about a bride being fitted for a dress, or a father talking to his son, or a crowd of people getting trapped in an elevator–every improv group in the city must have explored these topics....
When Steve James was a kid, he had the shot. He had the moves. He had the dream. “I was gonna be a pro player,” says James, 32, with a wispy smile. “Somehow or other I convinced myself I was gonna play in the NBA.” The documentary is now only in its early stages. With the help of the folks at Kartemquin Educational Films, an award-winning film house that allowed James and Marx use of their space, personnel, and equipment, they have put together two ten-minute demos....
Friday 3 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Most folks know that Gertrude Stein hung out with Pablo Picasso and helped Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, and others to see language in a new way. But Stein’s own works–her novels, plays, poetry, and postwar lectures–remain relatively unknown. Your Birthday Is Your Birthday It Certainly Is is a celebration of Stein’s writing and her 115th birthday....
MAY Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The multimedia ensemble of the Loofah Method comprises composer and saxophonist Mark Messing, violinist and accordionist Max Callahan, bassist Douglas Johnson, video artist Kurt Heintz, photographer Sue Walsh, and poet Cindy Salach. The group’s latest work, Relax . . . You’re Soaking in It!, a potpourri of media grotesqueries, includes “Media Says,” an audience participation version of the game Simon Says; “The Good Life,” a take on Dr....
There was a chance, briefly, that the new Harold Washington Library would do more than hold books and serve as a monument to the late mayor. It could have been part of the wave of the future in energy technology. By using the waste energy of its gas heating and cooling systems to power generators for its electrical needs, it could have demonstrated how cogeneration is efficient, economical, and relatively kind to the environment....
Drive southwest from Chicago on I-55 and you pass through a microcosm of the midwest. You see endless flat fields that grow corn and soybeans in the summer but at this time of year are bare and black, their color revealing their prairie origins. To the east is the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant, a facility created early in World War II to make TNT and other ordnance for the military. The plant’s last big period of production was during the Vietnam war....
“You don’t want to hear about me, do you?” It seems strange. Phil Thorek is sitting in his offices in Thorek Hospital. He’s a widely respected surgeon. He has speaking engagements across the country. He’s working on a book about public speaking. His father, Max Thorek, passed away more than 30 years ago and, still, we’re talking about him. No matter what he accomplishes, Phil Thorek is still sitting in the massive shadow of his father Max....
This performance series, which shifts the Free Street Theater’s focus from touting outdoor events to indoor shows at its home base, kicks off with two one-person works. Out Comes Butch, written and performed by David Schein, who recently succeeded the late Patrick Henry as FST’s artistic director, marks Schein’s Chicago performing debut. A founding member of the Iowa Theater Lab and the Blake Street Hawkeyes in Berkeley, California, and a longtime collaborator with former Hawkeye Whoopi Goldberg, Schein is a gifted actor and a fiendishly funny writer....
On the night when several thousand lusty Bulls fans celebrated their second straight NBA championship by smashing windows, overturning cars, looting stores, and setting fires around town–just as fans had the year before–one of the rioters promised a reporter from the Tribune they’d be back. “Next year this time,” he said, “we’ll be doing it again. It’s a Chicago tradition from now on.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » When you arrive you are met by a cordon of bobbies with nightsticks, mounted police, and dog handlers who conduct you to the gate, keeping you away from the families and out of range of the other team’s supporters....
Sandra Morgan. Sharon Polifrone. Robert Morgan. Barbara Haffner. David Schrader. To many local concertgoers, these names are synonymous with quality musicianship. Among our town’s finest free-lancers–regular affiliations include Music of the Baroque and the Lyric Opera orchestra–the fivesome collaborated in numerous chamber concerts over the last decade before deciding to have a go at a subscription season. Now known as the Rembrandt Chamber Players, they’re riding high on the momentum of the excellent notices they got last year....
The late Vladimir Horowitz was fussy about his piano. For over 40 years–half of his career–he only performed on an ebony concert grand made to his specifications by Steinway. Three years after his death, the legendary piano itself is now on tour, making stops at more than 175 North American cities in two years. Much of the time it will be displayed like a relic for nostalgic adulation; at some stops, Horowitz wannabes will be encouraged to play it....
