Chicago

Yoko Ono promotes Lennon's artwork

By Mark Caro , Chicago Tribune reporter — Wed, 30 May 2012 16:42:00 +0000

Yoko Ono was an established artist before she met John Lennon, but 31 years after her husband's murder, her career runs on two tracks: managing Lennon's work with and apart from the Beatles and pursuing her own idiosyncratic muse.

Gay comic characters come to the forefront

By Michael Cavna — Tue, 29 May 2012 21:10:00 +0000

Spotlight is on characters' relationships as Archie, Marvel try to get on board with changes, stay relevant to modern readers

The spotlight is on characters' relationships as Archie and Marvel try to get on board with changes and stay relevant to modern readers.

Flea flicks energy into Chili Peppers' show

By Bob Gendron, Special to the Tribune — Tue, 29 May 2012 15:04:00 +0000

At the Allstate Arena on Monday, the bassist was the biggest reason the veteran rock band didn't register as a nostalgia act.

When to clap or not to clap at concerts

By Mark Caro — Tue, 29 May 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Clapping between movements of classical music has long been frowned on, but is it time to loosen up?

Clapping between movements of classical music has long been frowned on, but is it time to loosen up?

Artist and cultural icon Jules Feiffer has unfinished business

By Christopher Borrelli , Chicago Tribune reporter — Mon, 28 May 2012 05:00:00 +0000

When friends of Jules Feiffer discuss Jules Feiffer they tend to sound like the followers of a Jules Feiffer cult.

'Amour' wins Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival

Michael Phillips — Sun, 27 May 2012 23:15:00 +0000

In Michael Haneke's tightly coiled masterwork "Amour," awarded the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival to great acclaim Sunday, a retired music teacher portrayed by Emmanuelle Riva must cope with diminishing circumstances brought on by a stroke. Her husband, a fellow educator played by Jean-Louis Trintignant, soldiers on and becomes her caretaker. And then comes a decision, one that tests conventional notions of love and the limits of what can be endured.

'Vagina,' once unmentionable, has become a fashionable term

By Rebecca Keegan, Los Angeles Times — Sun, 27 May 2012 05:00:00 +0000

The word with so many euphemisms is increasingly used in TV shows, films, social media and the culture in general.

When Eve Ensler opened her play "The Vagina Monologues" off-Broadway in 1996, people who called the box office to order tickets were afraid to name it. Motorists complained about highway billboards advertising it. Some newscasters wouldn't utter the title of the show.

Piano festival turns to jazz, with brilliant work from Danilo Perez

Howard Reich — Sat, 26 May 2012 14:43:00 +0000

For jazz piano lovers, it was a feast: three pianists, two sets and uncounted fistfuls of notes ringing out from the stage of Orchestra Hall.

Navigating Cannes screenings a tricky task

Michael Phillips — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:29:00 +0000

CANNES, France — Here’s why the world’s greatest film festival, the one on the Cote d’Azur, means something, and to some filmmakers means everything — even if a lot of the surrounding movies are lame.

Englewood lends voice to history project

Rick Kogan's Sidewalks — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:01:00 +0000

Students' performance 'Englewood Speaks' the culmination of months of work since actor Matt Damon paid a visit

It has been four months since Matt Damon came to school, and though the buzz is gone the bell still rings. Thirty sophomores file into Room 324 at TEAM Englewood Community Academy in the heart of one of the city's most beleaguered neighborhoods. Many of these children know people who have been robbed or wounded by gunfire. A few have had a family member who was murdered.

A filmmaker spotlights learning, charity

Julia Keller — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:46:00 +0000

Chicago's connection to schools that brought education to many black children in the Deep South

Sometimes you have to travel a long way to find the story that's right in your own backyard.

Robertson, CSO add sense of celebration to 'Keys'

By Alan G. Artner — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:50:00 +0000

Ludwig van Beethoven's "Emperor" Concerto was the centerpiece meant to transform Thursday's normal subscription concert into an entry in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's "Keys to the City" piano festival, but the non-pianistic works on either side gave listeners at Orchestra Hall a more inventive sense of celebration.

A fresh voice in jazz pianism

Howard Reich — Fri, 25 May 2012 14:49:00 +0000

Talented young jazz pianists are never in short supply, but the kind who opened Thursday night at the Jazz Showcase always will be rare.

moe. again kicks off summer concert season

Greg Kot — Thu, 24 May 2012 20:41:00 +0000

Since 2001, the unofficial kickoff of the summer concert season in the Chicago area has been the Summer Camp Music Festival at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe, Ill. In each of those 11 years, including this weekend, the headliner has been moe., a quintet from upstate New York that doesn’t discriminate against any musical genre.

Phillip Phillips is 'American Idol' winner

Thu, 24 May 2012 14:18:00 +0000

Here's something to ease Phillip Phillips' pain: He is an "American Idol." In a few days, he'll return to Georgia to undergo kidney surgery.

10 shows you should see

Chris Jones — Wed, 23 May 2012 20:38:00 +0000

A potential superhero awaits the unleashing of his powers. Tracy Letts mourns over Moscow. A Chicago disaster is revisited. A young man misses his appointment with Goldman Sachs. Oedipus hits the streets of Los Angeles. Hats fly on the Goodman Theatre stage. And a bunch of wacky but super-smart Belgians ponder the meaning of the universe in 90 minutes flat. There must be something there of interest, right?

Author Christopher Benfey unearths his family's story

Julia Keller — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:49:00 +0000

Memoir grounded in bricks and soil, not sighs and whispers

Most memoirs are mush.Given the tender emotions, fragile reminiscences and flights of fancy that tend to flit and twirl within your average autobiography, the genre is known for its shifting, dreamlike core, not its steely spine.

M. Ward ditches the dreaminess at packed Vic

By Bob Gendron — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:30:00 +0000

M. Ward is known for creating concise, atmospheric songs with craftsman-like details and deceptive simplicity. Tuesday at a packed Vic, the vocalist/guitarist experienced an identity change. Attacking music with the pent-up curiosity and surplus moxie of a boy who's been confined in a room too long, he took chances and risked imperfections. The Portland-based troubadour blew through a 75-minute set with a breathless pace that forced one to wonder if this was the same guy who paired with Zooey Deschanel in She & Him on three dulcet, retro-minded albums.

Donald Driver wins 'Dancing With the Stars' over William Levy

Tribune newspapers — Wed, 23 May 2012 03:02:00 +0000

Green Bay Packers receiver Donald Driver is a Super Bowl champion and now a "Dancing With the Stars" winner.

CSO gets ambitious with 'Keys to the City'

John von Rhein — Tue, 22 May 2012 23:33:00 +0000

CSO's 3-week event promises in-depth look at instrument

Music festivals typically invite listeners to regard familiar pieces in different contexts and perspectives, seek out musical connections between scores, and discover new things about works they may have long taken for granted.

Summer celebrity spotting about to heat up

Luis Gomez — Tue, 22 May 2012 19:04:00 +0000

Conan O'Brien, Charlie Sheen, Reese Witherspoon, Peyton Manning coming to Chicago

Now is when Chicago’s celebrity scene gets interesting.

Beach Boys mix nostalgia, surf, melancholy at Chicago Theatre

Greg Kot — Tue, 22 May 2012 14:38:00 +0000

Brian Wilson all the rage, as 44 songs survey 50 years of music

Brian Wilson broke character Monday at the Chicago Theatre in the first of two 50th anniversary concerts by his longtime band.

Grant Achatz helping U.S. win culinary gold

By Mark Caro , Chicago Tribune reporter — Mon, 21 May 2012 23:09:00 +0000

Achatz teams with competition chef to bring U.S. culinary gold

Alinea/Next chef/co-owner Grant Achatz is teaming with a chef to bring the U.S. culinary gold in the Bocuse d'Or competition.

Robin Gibb, Bee Gees helped define disco era

Li-mei Hoang — Mon, 21 May 2012 18:36:07 +0000

LONDON (Reuters) - Bee Gees singer Robin Gibb, who with brothers Barry and Maurice helped define the disco era with their falsetto harmonies and funky beats on hits like "Stayin' Alive" and "Jive Talkin'", has died after a long fight with cancer. He was 62. The singer had colon and liver cancer and, despite brief improvements in his health in recent months, passed away on Sunday evening. Gibb died at the London Clinic surrounded by his second wife Dwina, sons Spencer and Robin-John and daughter Melissa. Officials at the clinic declined to comment on Monday. Barry, now the last surviving member of the Bee Gees, had been in Britain in recent weeks to see his ailing brother, but was in the United States when he died. Funeral arrangements are expected to be announced later this week, a spokesman said. "The family have asked that their privacy is respected at this very difficult time," read a statement on Gibb's website. Fans, fellow musicians and politicians paid tribute to the musician, and at the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas late on Sunday the show stopped for a moment of silence to honor him. Canadian rocker Bryan Adams was among the stars who took to Twitter to say farewell. "Robin Gibb RIP. Very sad to hear about yet another great singer dying too young," he wrote, referring to the death on Thursday of another giant of the disco era, Donna Summer. She was 63. In Britain, former Prime Minister Tony Blair, a friend, called Gibb "a highly intelligent, interested and committed human being. "He was a great friend with a wonderful open and fertile mind and a student of history and politics. I will miss him very much," he said in a statement. "My thoughts and prayers are with Dwina and all the family." Gibb spent much of a career spanning six decades pursuing solo projects. But it was his part in one of pop's most successful brother acts, the Bee Gees, that earned him fame and fortune. Born in 1949 on the Isle of Man, located between England and Ireland, Robin and his family moved to Manchester where the brothers performed in local cinemas. They went to live in Australia where the Bee Gees as a group was officially born, and in 1963 released the first single "The Battle Of The Blue And The Grey." Believing their future lay in Europe, the Gibb brothers travelled to England to pursue a career in music and had their first British number one with "Massachusetts" in 1967. TRAIN CRASH The same year, Robin and wife-to-be Molly survived the Hither Green rail crash in south London that claimed around 50 lives. He later recalled that they probably would have been killed had they not been sitting in a first class carriage. Rather than build on the early successes, the Bee Gees almost threw away the promising career they had worked so hard to achieve. After recording the double-LP set "Odessa," the siblings fell out over which track should be the single and Robin walked out. Two years later the Gibbs were back together, and the 1970s was to belong to them. Early in the decade