Month: January 2009

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Patti Smith at the Block

A rock icon who hates being called a rock icon, Patti Smith, was at the Block Museum of Art in Evanston last night (Jan. 30), where director Steven Sebring’s documentary about her, “Patti Smith: Dream of Life,” was being shown. I was privileged to sit in on a press conference with her before the screening, where she played “In My Blakean Year” for this select audience of a dozen people or so. Toting her ever-present vintage Polaroid camera, Smith took photos of some audience members at the screening and handed the instant pictures to them.

The film is a kaleidoscopic, poetic portrait of Smith, and after the screening, Smith and Sebring answered questions from Jim DeRogatis and the audience. Smith played “In My Blakean Year” again for the full crowd, adding an extended introduction about being born in Chicago, living on Kedzie near Logan Square. She closed by reciting the lyrics of “People Have the Power” as a poem for President Obama. “President Obama,” she said in closing, “be a good man, and we will be a good people.”

I’ll post a link to the article I’m writing for Pioneer Press about Smith’s appearance later.

Photos of Patti Smith.

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January concerts

It’s been a quiet month for concerts so far in Chicago. At least, it seems that way. I know I probably could have found a good dozen or more shows worth seeing, but maybe that bone-chilling cold has discouraged me from venturing out too often. That’s my only excuse for missing most of the Tomorrow Never Knows festival at Schubas, which is becoming the official start of the concert year in Chicago.

I did sneak in at the very end of the five-day fest, catching the Jan. 18 show. Headliners Bishop Allen put on a spirited set of their indie pop music. I thoroughly enjoyed one of the opening bands, Tulsa, which has prompted me to get their recordings via emusic. I like what I’ve heard so far – melodic rock, with some the jangly guitar of ’80s indie music, maybe a little bit of power pop. The other acts on the Jan. 18 bill were Vacations, who rattled around a lot of percussion, and the Donkeys, who have a decent sound but seem somewhat lacking as far as the songs themselves. At least, that’s my opinion.

See photos from Tomorrow Never Knows Day 5.

The next night (Jan. 19) I went to see Adele at Park West. My expectations were not all that high, since her CD, 19, strikes me as merely pretty good. But Adele won me over with her impressive voice and her unpretentious personality. Click here to read my review for the Southtown Star newspaper.

On Thursday (Jan. 23) I saw Annuals at the Empty Bottle. Boy, I’m not sure what happened to this band since the last time I saw them. Or maybe my memory of their show from a couple of years ago is clouded with the fog of passing time. I recall enjoying the energy of the Annuals, even if not too many of their songs stuck in my mind after hearing them. Back then, they seemed like one of countless indie-rock bands trying to channel some of that anarchic spirit that animated the Arcade Fire, even if Annuals never really sounded all that much like the Arcade Fire. On Thursday night, however, Annuals suddenly seemed to me like a jam band. Maybe it was the spastic bass lines or just the general vibe of how the band was playing, but it seemed like Annuals had gone through a subtle but profound shift… into a genre of music that generally turns my stomach. It’s one of those musical mysteries I puzzle over: how two songs that are similar on many superficial levels can provoke such different reactions. Beyond the musical theory of how a song is put together and played, attitude seems to play a big role. And the prejudices of the listener. Whatever it was, I was just not into what Annuals were doing on Thursday night, other than a few points when they played some of their older songs with so much jam-band-i-ness. I did enjoy the opening acts. What Laura Says played retro classic rock, harking back to the Allman Brothers. (Hey, aren’t they a jam band, too? Yeah, but it’s not the same thing…) And Jessica Lea Mayfield played some plaintive roots rock.

See photos of Annuals, What Laura Says and Jessica Lea Mayfield.

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Talking about Chicago’s ‘Blond Boss’

Chicago Public Radio WBEZ aired Alison Cuddy’s interview with me on the “Eight Forty-Eight” show this morning. I talked about my recent Huffington Post article on William Lorimer, who was known as the “Blond Boss” of the Chicago Republican machine a century ago. Lorimer was kicked out of the U.S. Senate after allegations were reported that he’d obtained his Senate seat through bribery. Sound familiar?

The WBEZ program will be archived online here.

And here’s my Huffington Post article.

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Andrew Bird redux

Little did I know that a New York Times Magazine reporter was at the same Andrew Bird concert I attended last month at the Hideout… Catching up the other day on some of my magazine reading, I realized that the magazine’s Jonathan Mahler covered the show as part of his nice profile of Bird in the Jan. 2 issue. Here’s my original blog post about the concert, and here are my photos from the concert.

Bird’s new record, Noble Beast, comes out Jan. 20, but you can stream the whole thing now on the NPR web site at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98649962. (NPR is also streaming one of the other records I’m eagerly anticipating, M. Ward’s Hold Time.)

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Best Films of 2008

1. MAN ON WIRE (Philippe Petit) – The act of walking on a tightrope suspended between the towers of the World Trade Center might seem like a pointless stunt, but in this documentary, it comes to feel like an amazing achievement, a strange testament to what people can accomplish when they put their hearts and minds into a task. It’s thrilling and oddly moving to watch this story unfold through archival film, photos and interviews.

2. HUNGER (Steve McQueen) – A brutal and painful viewing experience, this is the true story of Irish political prisoners refusing to give in to the rules set by their British captors – a contest of wills that resembles an unstoppable force colliding an unmovable object. The film, which showed at the Chicago International Film Festival, is unflinching and powerful, a masterpiece of editing and minimalist storytelling.

3. IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA (Jose Luis Guerin) – A profound Spanish film about the sort of voyeurism that happens in plain sight: strangers watching and studying one another’s faces in streets and cafés. Sylvia captures the mindset of watching strangers with a natural sense of realism and some subtle humor reminiscent of Jacques Tati’s sight gags. In the City of Syliva showed at the European Union Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Film Center.

4. WALL-E (Andrew Stanton) – The first half is a terrific silent movie of sorts, without any dialogue to guide us, just the pictures and sounds of a robot on a deserted junk heap of a planet. And the second half is a biting satire on the fat, lazy habits of the human race.

5. SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (Charlie Kaufman) – A big, confusing riddle of a movie that will baffle anyone who gets too hung up on trying to figure out every detail of what’s happening. Don’t get too hung up on all that. This is a self-reflexive work of art about the creation of itself, reminiscent of 8½, the original Singing Detective, Alain Resnais’ neglected Providence and, of course, all those other films with Charlie Kaufman scripts. There’s some wonderful humor and pathos in this fantastic phantasmagoria.

6. PARANOID PARK (Gus Van Sant) – Along with his galvanizing biopic Milk, Van Sant directed this superb film in 2008, working in a more experimental and personal style. At times, the sounds and images wash over you in a stream of consciousness. The protagonist is something of a blank, but that’s the way he’s supposed to be. It all culminates with a shocking scene that I can’t get out of my head.

7. THE EDGE OF HEAVEN/Auf der Anderen Seite (Fateh Akin) – As this film’s interconnected stories crisscross Germany and Turkey, we see the ties that bind the subplots together – but the characters themselves just miss making the connections. After showing two tragedies, the film ends with a slight sense of hope that good people of different cultures might connect after all.

8. THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (David Fincher) – It looks like a storybook come to life. The concept of this parable is simple, but it has depths beyond the story of a man who ages in reverse; it’s a meditation on the many ways people feel out of place in the world around them.

9. STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE (Errol Morris) – A riveting inquiry into the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, Morris’ documentary does not arrive at definitive conclusions about who was responsible for these reprehensible deeds but it asks all the right questions.

10. THE SKY, THE EARTH AND THE RAIN/El Cielo, la Tierra y la Lluvia (Jose Luis Torres Leiva) – This enigmatic drama from Chile, which played at the Chicago International Film Festival, moves at the languorous pace of a Bela Tarr or Andrei Tarkovksy film. Most people will probably find it too slow, in other words, but it has a beautiful sense of tranquility. The mysterious and mostly unspoken relationships among the various characters eventually emerge out of the mist.

11. Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle)
12. My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin)
13. Alexandra (Aleksandr Sokurov)
14. Milk (Gus Van Sant)
15. Rain of the Children (Vincent Ward)
16. Momma’s Man (Azazel Jacobs)
17. Terribly Happy/Frygtelig Lykkelig (Henrik Ruben Genz)
18. Happy-Go-Lucky (Mike Leigh)
19. Flight of the Red Balloon (Hsiao-hsien Hou)
20. Nights and Weekends (Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig)
21. The Visitor (Thomas McCarthy)
22. Wellness (Jake Mahaffy)
23. The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky)
24. At the Death House Door (Peter Gilbert and Steve James)
25. Ballast (Lance Hammer)
26. Everlasting Moments/Maria Larssons Eviga Ögonblick (Jan Troell)
27. Tell No One (Guilliame Canet)
28. Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Woody Allen)
29. Cadillac Records (Daniel Martin)
30. Doubt (John Patrick Shanley)

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Favorite plays of 2008

1. GATZ, Elevator Repair Service at the Museum of Contemporary Art: An ingenious, transcendent and strangely mesmerizing six-hour marathon of a play: a worker in a drab office reading The Great Gatsby aloud – every single word. A testament to the transformative powers of art and storytelling.

2. OUR TOWN, The Hypocrites at the Chopin Theatre: Thornton Wilder’s classic play was not the least bit quaint or sentimental in this marvelous revival by director David Cromer. Coming very close to Wilder’s original intentions, this bare-bones, street-clothes staging moved us and made us think about our place in the universe.

3. DUBLN CAROL, Steppenwolf: It was a superb year for seeing Conor McPherson plays in Chicago, and three of his plays deserve mention here. Some critics ranked Dublin Carol third out of the three plays, but I found it the purest and most direct expression of McPherson’s spirit, with a top-notch performance by William Petersen.

4. AS YOU LIKE IT, Writers’ Theatre: Directed by William Brown, Shakespeare’s story was completely delightful. The play is not often mentioned as one of the Bard’s best, but the production made a compelling case for it.

5. A STEADY RAIN, by Chicago Dramatists at Royal George Theatre: This cop drama by Keith Huff made some critics’ lists for 2007; I did not see it until this year. It’s one of the best recent plays about Chicago, capturing the lively, vulgar repartee of the city’s finest.

6. PICNIC, Writers’ Theatre: The space at Writers’ Theatre was reconfigured to put the audience almost in the middle of the action, and director David Cromer surrounded us with believable human beings.

7. DRACULA, The Building Stage: The ending was flawed, but everything else about this adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel was amazing – a silent movie presented as a phantasmagoric tableau.

8. RUINED, Goodman Theatre: Lynn Nottage’s play is marked with searing pain and trauma, but there’s some joyful spirit, too – just enough to make it bearable.

9. THE SEAFARER, Steppenwolf: Another excellent Conor McPherson play, a devilish take on Christmas.

10. EURYDICE, Victory Gardens: Sarah Ruhl’s magic-realist take on the Orpheus myth flowed with the logic of a dream.

Runners-up: 9 Parts of Desire, MCA/Next Theatre; Shining City, Goodman; Superior Donuts, Steppenwolf; The Brothers Karamazov, Lookingglass; Gas For Less, Goodman; Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, Piven Theatre; Around the World in 80 Days, Lookingglass; Million Dollar Quartet, Apollo Theatre; Boneyard Prayer, Redmoon Theatre; Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Steppenwolf; The Lion in Winter, Writers’ Theatre.