AltWeeklies Wire
'You, the Living': Everything's Funnier With Weltanschauungnew
Perspective is what separates the brilliant You, the Living, a Swedish import, from the mediocre The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, which Paramount snuck into theaters last week without any timely press screenings.
Chicago Reader |
J.R. Jones |
08-24-2009 |
Reviews
Chrissy Murderbot Has Dance Music in His DNAnew
Under that plaid blazer is one of the midwest's sharpest dance-music vectors.
Chicago Reader |
Miles Raymer |
08-24-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Chrissy Murderbot, dance music
Roberto Maldonado, the Real Estate King of the Chicago City Councilnew
The brand-new 26th Ward alderman owns more properties than any other council rep -- including ten in his own ward. That's a lot of potential conflicts of interest.
Chicago Reader |
Ben Joravsky and Mick Dumke |
08-24-2009 |
Politics
With 'The Waxman Report' Henry Waxman Shows 'How Congress Really Works'new
Assisted by Joshua Green, a senior editor at the Atlantic, Waxman has written an informative, fast-moving manifesto against the gut-the-government politics that have been in vogue since the Reagan administration.
Chicago Reader |
Mick Dumke |
08-24-2009 |
Nonfiction
The News Wars Are Comingnew
If it's fight or die on the new media landscape, does anyone think traditional media won't fight? The classic portents of serious battle are converging.
Chicago Reader |
Michael Miner |
08-17-2009 |
Media
Chicago's Bloomingdale Trail: Urban Oasis or Devil's Playground?new
Despite easy access and great publicity, the 2.7-mile stretch of abandoned rail bed isn't slated to open as a park till at least 2016. Whose job is it to secure it until then?
Chicago Reader |
John Greenfield |
08-17-2009 |
Recreation
The New Art Book 'The Art of Touring' Moves Past the Mythology of the Roadnew
A multimedia tribute to the road life, the book includes photographs, essays, journal entries, comics, paintings, collages -- and, on the accompanying DVD, plenty of footage by and of touring bands, onstage and off.
Chicago Reader |
Miles Raymer |
08-10-2009 |
Nonfiction
Audrey Niffenegger Gets Ready to Plug Her Second Booknew
Niffenegger was an unfamous visual artist and maker of art books when she wrote The Time Traveler's Wife, which has sold about 2.5 million copies since 2003. Her new book, Her Fearful Symmetry, is due out September 29 from Scribner.
Chicago Reader |
Ed M. Koziarski |
08-10-2009 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Mayor Daley: Mr. Big Spendernew
As the city faced a gaping budget deficit, the Daley administration closed out Chicago's oldest and fattest slush fund by spending every last cent in it -- and then some.
Chicago Reader |
Ben Joravsky |
08-10-2009 |
Politics
The Passion of David Bazannew
At the Cornerstone Christian rock festival, a fallen evangelical returns to sing about why he broke up with God.
Chicago Reader |
Jessica Hopper |
08-03-2009 |
Profiles & Interviews
In Search of the iTunes Killernew
There's something about Apple -- probably its nearly monopolistic control of certain markets or its disproportionate influence on the zeitgeist -- that brings out the bloodlust in new-media commentators and gadget bloggers.
Chicago Reader |
Miles Raymer |
08-03-2009 |
Music
Sportswriters Can't Decide Whether Steroids is a Black Mark or a Gray Areanew
Baseball scribes would rather moralize about performance-enhancing drugs than make hard decisions about whether their use should keep players out of the Hall of Fame.
Chicago Reader |
Michael Miner |
07-27-2009 |
Sports
A New Crop of Scrappy Troupes is Making Opera Accessible in Chicagonew
Chicago has a new crop of stereotype-busting little opera groups playing at bargain prices in intimate venues -- including the neighborhood pub. Faced with the traditional opera world's shrinking ticket sales, dying audiences, and dearth of opportunity, these artist-entrepreneurs are looking to crack that world open and cozy up to the masses.
Chicago Reader |
Deanna Isaacs |
07-27-2009 |
Theater
Bad Things Happen When Fans Get Behind the Cameranew
Digital democratization of the means of film production has brought us to the point where every subculture on the planet seems to have generated its own documentary. Formlessness and boosterism afflict all of these films to some damaging degree, but Until the Light Takes Us is in a class of its own for wasted cinematic potential.
Chicago Reader |
Cliff Doerksen |
07-27-2009 |
Reviews
'Tales Designed to Thrizzle' Turns Boob-Tube Tropes Into Artnew
Tales Designed to Thrizzle is a monument not only to silliness, but to craft -- which is perhaps the way in which it most clearly departs from its TV inspirations. With few exceptions such as Terry Gilliam's Flying Circus animations, TV doesn't pay attention to visual aesthetics the way Kupperman does here.
Chicago Reader |
Noah Berlatsky |
07-20-2009 |
Nonfiction
