Spider-Man 2 With Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Alfred Molina, and James Franco. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Spider-Man 2, of course, is about the double life of web-slinging Spider-Man and goofy everyman Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), but it’s also about the perks and pitfalls of having a public identity. As in the first film, Spider-Man’s superhero skills are more a burden than a privilege....
Greg Zanis is driving along a winding country road in Kane County, searching for the spot where a motorcyclist was struck and killed. The end of an eight-foot wooden cross, painted white, hangs off the back of his pickup truck, above a bumper sticker that says, “Life Is Short. Pray Hard.” The south-suburban landscape is dotted with his crosses. Zanis says the roads out here can be treacherous because of their soft shoulders: when people run onto them they often overcompensate, reacting with a quick jerk of the wheel....
Though Chicago may lack the industrial infrastructure of a publishing powerhouse like New York, there’s a lot going on here if you know where to look. Home to two respected university presses (at the University of Chicago and Northwestern) and established operations like Chicago Review Press and the Afrocentric Third World Press–which had a breakout hit this year with the Tavis Smiley project The Covenant With Black America–Chicago’s seen a surge of publishing activity in the last few years from upstarts like Evanston-based Agate Publishing, Punk Planet Books (an offshoot of Punk Planet magazine), and OV Books (from the literary journal Other Voices)....
Tom Patrick’s new historical drama about the Crusades aims for cutting commentary on the war on terror. But since the U.S. invasion of Iraq is more about neocon fantasies of establishing a democratic ally in a Muslim state than about destroying Muslim culture, the analogy is fatally flawed–even if Bush did use the word “crusade” to describe the war early on. A wounded French baron, a lecherous manservant, and a creepy Knight Templar (pardon the redundancy) hide in an abandoned Saracen tent and argue over whether they should stay and fight or cut and run....
Rock, Pop, Etc. BBI, CROSSWIND, MONTERREY Sat 8/14, 11 AM, Navy Pier Beer Garden, 600 E. Grand. 312-595-7437. CHICAGO CATZ perform at Chicago SummerDance (preceded by dance lessons at 6 PM). Fri 8/20, 7:30 PM, Spirit of Music Garden, Grant Park, Michigan between Harrison & Balbo. 312-742-4007. BOB DYLAN & WILLIE NELSON, HOT CLUB OF COWTOWN Sun 8/22, 6:30 PM, Coveleski Stadium, 501 W. South St., South Bend, Indiana. 574-235-9988 or 312-559-1212....
Wendy Clinard is a flamenco dancer with a difference. In 2001 she created a piece for puppets and dancers about the nature of water, Shifting Landscapes. Now she looks at the intersection of flamenco and bharata natyam in Unraveling Rhythms, which she performs with classical Indian dancer Siri Sonty and modern dancer Orazio Giurdanella. Together Clinard and Sonty–dressed in traditional costumes, which include scarves and skirts for both–show there’s a natural crossover between the two forms, in the stamping feet, intricate hand movements, low lunges, and general groundedness....
Miss Misery For the most part young bloggers have been content to tell their own stories, but Spin writer Andy Greenwald cast a historian’s eye on them in 2003 with his first book, Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo. Now he’s spun the same source material, and all those feelings, into his debut novel, a bildungsroman titled Miss Misery. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » If one character torn by his dual obsessions with himself and his desire to have sex with girls is good, goes the logic, how could two characters like that not be great?...
Chris Brokaw has long been a team player, and usually prefers to make his contributions away from the spotlight; most notably, he maintained Codeine’s slow-burning trudge from behind the drum kit, and as a guitarist he added a fierce rhythmic muscle to Come. He’s also lent his talents to nearly two dozen other projects, from sporadically active groups like Pullman and the New Year to freelance gigs with Cobra Verde and Steve Wynn....
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Deep-fried Bourbon Red turkey from Caveny Farm in Monticello, IL. I fried one of these heritage birds last year and it was great, but this Thanksgiving I did another that had been in deep freeze since the previous season. Maybe it was phenomenally juicy and flavorful because it was relatively small—8 ½ pounds. Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk. This triple cream, washed-rind cheese has been sold at various times at The Cheese Stands Alone and Whole Foods, but the one I tasted had traveled from the creamery’s shop in San Francisco....
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, a new documentary currently showing at 3 Penny, teaches us that heavy metal isn’t just tuneless bashing: it’s tuneless bashing about deep inner pain. Drummer Lars Ulrich provides one of the film’s many revelatory moments as he lays down a rare vocal track, screaming “Fuuuck!”–one long, drawn-out, vein-popping syllable–until he topples over in exhaustion. Wow, we’re supposed to think, here is metal’s distilled essence: a scream of rage from a tormented soul....
Thank you for highlighting the opportunities for home owners to increase the energy efficiency of their older homes [“How Much Green Does It Take to Go Green?” March 18]. Every year thousands of home owners make home improvements without considering how these projects can help lower the operating costs and improve the comfort of their homes. Our experience suggests that too few property owners realize how economical energy-efficient repairs can be....
Bobby Leonhard’s new play about the Iraq war draws in part on his experiences there as a National Guardsman: the script’s harsh veracity is unquestionable. But his trio of soldiers riding a Humvee through hostile territory are frustratingly underdeveloped. As they fall apart–or tear one another apart–we wonder whether they’ve been made psychotic by the war. Or are psychos drawn to the army? Leonhard never resolves this question. Infidel also relies too heavily on expositional monologues, particularly those by a whistle-blowing psychiatrist....
Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical “play of old sorrow” has certainly received grander stagings than this one in a small, boxy storefront. But seldom has the suffocating atmosphere of the Tyrone summer home been so convincingly evoked: in Gift Theatre’s nearly four-hour production, directed by Michael Patrick Thornton, every glance and tic is freighted with dread. “She’s watching us watching her,” observes alcoholic Jamie Tyrone of his morphine-addicted mother, Mary (a splendid Alexandra Main), as she slides into a self-induced fog, spidery fingers plucking at her dress....
Sue Anne Zollinger was starstruck. “Look, there’s Phyllis Bartholomew,” she said to her friend Susan. Bartholomew, a 60-year-old woman from Columbus, Nebraska, was the amateur winner of last year’s National Pie Championship, and she was walking across a convention room at the Radisson WorldGate Resort in Kissimmee, Florida. This was Zollinger’s first visit to the Great American Pie Festival, an annual event put on by the American Pie Council, but she wasn’t there to compete....
Dear Chicago Reader, Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Your article on Barbara Rossing [“Let’s Hear It for the Loving, Wimpy Jesus,” July 1] was very informative. If, however, Ms. Rossing opened her eyes she would be aware that there has been for at least the last 40 years strong popular resistance to the doctrine of rapture from Kingdom Identity Ministries. Reverend Pete Peters of Scriptures for America, LaPorte, Colorado, has some amusing tapes on various churches conducting Thursday night “rapture practice” (true story)....
The Half-Price Ticket Biz Heats Up Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » While the league diddles, the competition has tiptoed into town. Its Web site may say “coming soon,” but California-based Goldstar Events is already offering half-price online tickets for selected dates at Chicago theaters–including Steppenwolf and the Goodman. CEO Jim McCarthy says they’re not out to cannibalize Hot Tix; he claims that Goldstar, which offers a range of events including music and sports and works with sites like Daily Candy, is marketing to a “mainstream” audience Hot Tix might never reach....
When Ramon Ocasio decided to run for Cook County judge last year he figured he’d be a shoo-in if he could win over the local committeemen who put the Democratic Party label next to judges’ names on the ballot. And he didn’t see why he couldn’t: He was a lifelong resident of the Sixth Judicial Subcircuit, where he was running, and had 16 years of experience as a lawyer in the county’s criminal courts; he now supervises 17 other attorneys in the public defender’s office....
In the current issues of Spin, Arthur, Tokion, and the Fader, there’s a free CD called Songs of Hurt and Healing, with three unreleased tracks from Texas drone-pop combo American Analog Set and three more from Brooklyn avant-folk trio White Magic. At a glance the disc looks like it might be a promotional sampler from Drag City or Tiger Style, but turn it over and you’ll see an unobtrusive and unlikely credit: “Brought to you by Tylenol....
First we were greeted and carded by the very dapper and welcoming doorman George, who ushered us into spare, unfinished hallway that leads in the bar proper. We had just enough time to glimpse the candlelight drenched, blue velvet draped lounge–a soothing contrast to the chaos on the street–before George whisked us back onto the sidewalk because the bar had hit capacity. He was apologizing and taking down our cell phone number when a young woman broke ranks from the small line that gathered outside the door, brandishing her own phone and demanding George speak to “DeCarlo....
The heroine of this revisionist version of The Wizard of Oz may have green skin, but Ana Gasteyer’s performance is white-hot–urgent, passionate, vulnerable yet powerful. Gasteyer, a Northwestern University alum and former Saturday Night Live cast member, stars as Elphaba, the sensitive, stubborn misfit demonized as a “wicked witch” after she rebels against Oz’s totalitarian injustices. Gasteyer heads a new cast that has settled in for what should be a long Chicago run of this Broadway hit....
