The brand identity of the new Half Acre Beer—which launched its first brew, a lager, last week—is all about Chicago. The label’s dominated by the silhouette of an iconic Chicago water tower. The company has office space in the meatpacking district. And the marketing slogan touts the label as “growing in Chicago”—eliding the fact that Half Acre Lager is brewed in Wisconsin, by Sand Creek Brewing up in west-central Black River Falls....
I felt lightheaded last Thursday at the Wicker Park boutique Hejfina, and it wasn’t from the Sofia Mini–champagne in a can–I was sipping through its attached pink bendy straw. What got me giddy was the rack of new clothes unveiled for Jasmin Shokrian’s trunk show. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Shokrian is pretty tight-lipped herself about certain things. We’ve been acquaintances for some time, bumping into each other at art shows and parties, yet she’s always been guarded about her personal life and her family....
This all-girl Japanese trio has been playing goofy, cheery punk rock for more than 20 years, guilelessly subverting almost every convention of the prototypical angry-young-man genre. The lyrics are slight, light, and often incomprehensible, devoted to things the band likes instead of things they want to stomp on and smash: candy, fruit, and ice cream make frequent appearances, and “I Wanna Eat Chocobars” (from the 1986 album Pretty Little Baka Guy) is so straightforward I’m tempted to start digging around for double entendres (“I like chocobars / Any kind of chocobars / I eat chocobars / Every day two bars per day”)....
The Kentucky Cycle Deeply flawed and frustratingly uneven, Schenkkan’s work might be easy to dismiss as tortured white liberal guilt run amok. But especially in this calm, unflinchingly honest Infamous Commonwealth Theatre production, The Kentucky Cycle offers considerable theatrical ingenuity and several disquieting truths. Its insistence that audiences rethink American mythology comes at an opportune time. As the Bush administration gears up to enforce the presence of “democracy” wherever it chooses, it’s useful to remember our nation’s shadowy, even ignoble practices as well as its lofty ideals....
Three mottled columns dominating the tiny stage serve as apt metaphors for the title characters, forever marked but not entirely broken by the exigencies of life at the end of what might be the saddest of Chekhov’s plays. Director Michael Patrick Thornton’s minimalist approach–and a five-month rehearsal process–should mean the acting is the focus. But though the blocking is smooth, many of the performers seem hesitant rather than fully invested in their characters....
Are bike messengers born or made? Among the ranks of self-identified martyrs, there’s no more determinedly antiheroic figure, or more fiercely voluntary social exile. Writer, performer, and messenger Tony Mendoza has a great handle on the comic contradictions of the typical two-wheeled warrior’s goofy/grave persona, and is immensely watchable as the anchor of this urban picaresque. His supporting cast of seasoned sketch and improv players handily flesh out a rogues’ gallery of asshole grotesques, and director Pat McKenna keeps things ticking along at a steady clip....
Though Michael Colucci produced, directed, and stars in this revival of Arthur Miller’s 1947 play, it’s not like most vanity productions. For one thing, Colucci delivers an impressive performance as the corrupt patriarch at the center of the story, about a war profiteer accused of selling faulty airplane parts. For another, his direction is as strong as his acting. He even manages to turn his storefront theater’s awkward space–a long, narrow, claustrophobia-inducing back room–into an asset, upping the intensity of this pressure cooker of a show....
Born in Seoul, pianist Joyce Yang was 11 when she moved to the U.S. in 1997 to study in the precollege division of the Juilliard School. She quickly won the division’s concerto competition, and at 19 she took the silver medal at the prestigious Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. In the documentary of the competition and in her recital CD her passion is astonishing, but she also has a rock-solid technique, a deep comprehension of the music, and the rare ability to communicate what she feels....
Dear editor, The bloggers Mr. Lenehan seems to hate so much are link aggregaters–they collect links to information relevant to the topic of their blog’s subject and present them to the audience. Often they have a quick summary of the piece and some commentary on the content, but they almost always contain a link. This is sometimes referred to as an “infomediary” or even “disinfomediary,” but the general idea is that you have someone or something that finds and filters information to give you a “best of” list of information and links....
At 10 AM last Saturday, when the Hard Rock Cafe opened, the line to get in stretched down the block on Ontario and a little ways around the corner. A lot of them were wearing cowboy hats. The USA Network’s fourth season of Nashville Star is casting, and the Chicago audition notices had brought out dozens of people looking to become country music superstars. Best of Chicago voting is live now....
Ice Cream Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » What’s a birthday without ice cream? Luckily, you won’t have to find out: once a year you can get free ice cream all over town if you jump through a few simple hoops. Log onto the Web sites of Baskin-Robbins and Cold Stone Creamery to register for their birthday clubs; you’ll be sent coupons for a free BR cone or Cold Stone “creation....
It was ten o’clock on a Saturday morning in May and Pat Bertoletti was in the tiny bathroom of an airplane, spiking his hair into a Mohawk with Got2B styling glue. Normally he’d wait to do this in the men’s room at the destination airport, but his flight had been delayed and he was getting nervous. Upon landing in Houston, he’d be shuttled to a Berryhill Baja Grill northwest of downtown, where he would almost immediately have to begin shoving as many beef tamales as possible down his throat....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » That’s what Bruno Behrend posted on the conservative group blog Illinois Review as soon as he read the Sun-Times report elaborating on the story the Sunlight Foundation broke regarding seven-figure profits the Speaker of the House has made through a land trust on property a few miles from the projected “Prairie Parkway” in western Kane County. Few of the commenters at Illinois Review agreed with Behrend–many took a wait-and-see attitude–but only one stooped to a personal attack on Behrend or the media messengers....
Alan Donahue and Chuck Larkin’s musical adaptation of Eileen Spinelli’s picture book introduces new characters and expands on ideas this simple story barely suggests. Sophie remains an extraordinarily artistic spider, but now we see her mother encouraging her to revere beauty. And Sophie’s adventures with a sea captain, cook, and landlady are treated briskly while scenes with a happy, hopeful expectant mother are fleshed out. This approach makes for a sweet story perfect for sentimental parents, but others may not appreciate it....
BLUE OCTOBER 7/2, SCHUBAS This Texas alt-rock quintet has a big sound but only medium-size musical ambitions. On last year’s History for Sale (rereleased by Universal, who dropped and then re-signed them) they take some careful risks, but their tinkly ballads and crunchy, eclectic rockers aren’t going to turn any heads–despite a melodramatic front man with a fondness for hair-raising staccato declamation. ELENI MANDELL 7/2, GUNTHER MURPHY’S California chanteuse Eleni Mandell reinvents herself a little with every album–admirable, even though the law of averages all but guarantees that not every incarnation will be an improvement....
In Judith A. Jance’s mystery novel Partner in Crime (2002), the murder weapon is sodium azide, a chemical used in auto air bags. She got her story idea from a magazine article about how poisonous sodium azide is. The chemical is not deactivated when cars are sent to junkyards. Since this book was written, has anyone cared enough to address this problem in our environment? –Frances R., Morrisville, Vermont Best of Chicago voting is live now....
The 19-volume Ethiopiques series has worked wonders to boost Ethiopian music in the West, but most of the titles focus on the music’s golden age–the late 60s and early 70s–and contemporary pop from the East African nation is still all but invisible in the States. Ejigayehu “Gigi” Shibabaw is a prominent exception; born in Ethiopia and now living in New York, she made a splash here with her third album, Gigi (2001)....
There’s a theory that once a city reaches a certain population, it’ll start spontaneously generating bands devoted to imitating the Velvet Underground. A scene’s got to be pretty big before it can support musicians pretentious enough to seriously consider playing in front of trippy oil lights dressed all in black. Not all of them will be tolerable, but there’s still a lot of gold left to be mined out of the VU MO....
The first in a projected series of six low-budget HDV features to be released simultaneously in theaters, on cable, and on DVD, Steven Soderbergh’s quirky 2005 drama, written by Coleman Hough (Full Frontal), is to my taste the best thing he’s done in years. Cast with nonprofessionals and filmed near the border of West Virginia and Ohio, it concerns the elusive story of three characters employed at a local doll factory: a stocky middle-aged woman (Debbie Doebereiner) who lives with her invalid father, a timid guy (Dustin James Ashley) she considers her best friend, and a young single mother (Misty Dawn Wilkins) who’s brought on as a temporary airbrusher and immediately bonds with him....
People Annihilation or My Liver Is Senseless Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Schwab was an underground sensation in Austria and Germany in the early 90s. But his work is nearly unknown in America–this is the North American premiere of People Annihilation and, as far as I can tell, only the second production of his work in this country. That’s hardly surprising, however, given Schwab’s eagerness to defy bourgeois theatrical expectations....
