Crush Stories (Part 2) Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » What concerns Wertheimer, essentially, is additions to the list; conditions at the Chicago shows he regularly monitors, he says, are ripe for such incidents. What he’d like is for things to change before that happens. “Deaths should not be the determining factor when it comes to the safety of young people at rock concerts,” he insists....

As the most prominent trombonist in the bebop revolution, J.J. Johnson brought an unprecedented level of dexterity, smoothness, and fluidity to the instrument: some say he invented the bop ‘bone. Still his slinky 50s group with fellow tailgater Kai Winding–Jay and Kai–hinted at other interests, and at the age of 71 he continues to investigate new directions and untapped possibilities with a level of dedication that should embarrass some of the neocon baby boppers....

When it happened, the first thing he noticed was the sound–or rather, the absence of sound. No more bleeping. No more whirring, no more of that other clatter you got in even the most expensive hospital. God knows he’d heard enough such noise to know when it was gone. No more ticking, as if he were an inert part in a room-size explosive device, wired to go off the way that chunk of brain had the other day in the kitchen....

Carmela Rago and Michael K.Meyers at Cafe Voltaire, through December 27 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » But in her most recent pieces Rago stands stock-still, reading from a binder, shielded from her audience by a black metal music stand. All pretense of playing a persona has been dropped. Gone is the self-conscious dancer who resented Nin’s egotism and the sad, self-deluding shopaholic. Instead Carmela is merely Carmela now, standing onstage reading from a binder....

Indulging our fascination with famous people, the exhibit More Than 15 Minutes . . . , now at the Museum of Contemporary Art, includes print series in praise of notable personalities by R.B. Kitaj, Anselm Kiefer, and the man who coined the maxim on the fleeting nature of fame in the modern era, Andy Warhol. But while Kiefer and Warhol concentrate on portraits of historical figures, Kitaj offers 50 richly colored, meticulously detailed silk-screen enlargements of book jackets, all from books in the artist’s personal collection....

A restless innovator, drummer Paul Wertico has heretofore spent his spare time playing sideman in a dizzying array of different bands; these days, he works with a similar fervor at constructing his own groups. (When not anchoring the Pat Metheny Group, Wertico also leads a quintet featuring trumpet and tenor, as well as the two-bass, two-drums carnival called Strapagander.) Wertico’s goal is to find the perfect amalgam of his bebop roots and his fusion/free-jazz percussive energy....

Baubo Performance Project, Christine Munch, Rebecca Rossen, and August Tye Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The program that inaugurated the Dance Chicago ’95/Second Stage performances (in the Athenaeum’s newly remodeled smaller space) was split between dance theater and pure dance. Baubo Performance Project, a collaborative group of six women, presented a dance-theater piece about leaving home and, perhaps, finding a new home. WanderLust: A Migration in Three Parts begins with a line of women walking slowly onstage dressed in men’s black pants, white shirts stuffed to bursting with newspapers, and newspaper headdresses like very high, stiff collars, obscuring their faces....

Pulsars, the Chicago-based duo of Dave and Harry Trumfio, update the Faust myth for the 90s in “Owed to the Devil,” the opening song of the band’s splendid debut, Teenage Nites E.P.: the dark one prescribes buying his book, attending his seminar, and kissing his pinkie ring for those who want pop stardom. The Trumfios were weaned on early MTV, and their music wholeheartedly embraces the shiny artificiality and indelible hooks of early 80s new wave....

Most music criticism is in the 19th century. It’s so far behind, say, the criticism of painting. It’s still based on 19th century art–cows beside a stream and trees and “I know what I like.” There’s no concession to the fact that Dylan might be a more sophisticated singer than Whitney Houston, that he’s probably the most sophisticated singer we’ve had in a generation. Nobody is identifying our popular singers like a Matisse or Picasso....

The Plan to Resurrect Body Politic Body Politic Theatre, the city’s oldest off-Loop theater company and the victim of financial disaster in recent years, may yet come back to life. On the verge of a merger that would have wiped out the independent identity the company has clung to since 1966, the theater’s board of directors has instead opted to try to resurrect the company with new artistic director Terry McCabe, a talented theater vet who’s presently resident director at Wisdom Bridge Theatre and a member of Court Theatre’s artists council....

In a discussion of product liability in Restatement of Torts I came upon this passage: “Many products cannot possibly be made entirely safe for all consumption…. Ordinary sugar is a deadly poison to diabetics, and castor oil found use under Mussolini as an instrument of torture.” My question: what did Mussolini do with the castor oil? My boss doesn’t know. My parents don’t know. All the WWII-vintage people I’ve asked don’t know....

WHOODA THUNKIT?, at TurnAround Theatre. This gently wacky look at unfulfilled dreams, written and directed by Cara DiPaolo, is a playful showcase for Andrew Friedman’s performance of four entertainingly naive monologues framed by the idea that a young filmmaker is presenting them as interviews in a school project. The characters reveal their past hopes without self-consciousness, confessing to secrets that are often unexpected and inevitably goofy as they eat obscure snack food and drink and wield the tools of their trade....

MAYO THOMPSON What does it mean, for instance, when it is suggested that Captain Beefheart was an influential segment on the music history boulevard? The Cap’n was unquestionably a pop genius, but his oblique poetics, his mutated Howlin’ Wolf vocal style, and his experimental surgery on pop music forms were all so singularly idiosyncratic that anyone who follows up or builds on them directly has a hard time sounding like anything but an imitator....

This cabaret concert by the cast of Kiss of the Spider Woman–The Musical, which is playing in a first-rate touring production at the Chicago Theatre, promises to be high on quality, emotional pull, and historical significance. Certainly no lover of American musical theater will want to miss hearing two near-legendary stars, Carol Lawrence and Rita Gardner, perform songs from the hugely influential shows that launched their careers. Lawrence, who created the role of Maria in West Side Story, will sing “Somewhere” in memory of her original Tony, Larry Kert; Gardner, whose soprano sounds even more dynamic and flexible than it was when she played Luisa in the 1960 premiere of The Fantasticks, will sing that work’s signature tune, “Try to Remember,” in honor of her original leading man, Kenneth Nelson....

Ref: “The Mayors Race” 11/17/95 Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » To the people of Gary, Indiana, I say, it’s about time! Congratulations Scott King. Black politicians are being zapped in their empty heads for their insulting assumption that they will have our vote because we are in their debt by virtue of skin color. If she/he brings only racism as reason for our vote he brought nothing and will take everything....

The American Plan Eastern Standard, the self-consciously politically correct comedy for which he’s best known, seems in retrospect less a play than a glib grant proposal, ticking off hot-button issues like homelessness, AIDS, and white-collar crime in its exploration of the relationships of two couples–one gay, one straight–and the lost souls they encounter. The critically lauded The Maderati, about the indiscreet charmlessness of the New York bourgeoisie, suffers from a forced lunacy that’s flaccidly imitative of S....

This is the fifth season for this showcase of directorial aspiration, featuring shoestring-budget stagings of classic and new works. Coordinated this year by Cecille Keenan, the four-week event offers the work of 48 directors (chosen from 60 applicants), most of whom you’ve never heard of before. In a brave effort to bring order to the affair, this year’s festival is organized along thematic lines. The first week (March 28 through 31) places special emphasis on Irish satirist George Bernard Shaw; he’s represented by some of his one-acts as well as by adaptations of his prose....

Friday 7 Hey–didja know that those crazy French think that turkeys go “gloo-gloo”? Of course it’s patently obvious that the sound is “gobble gobble.” And what about the Chinese–they think that buzzing bees go “boon-boon”! Those are just a few of the cultural conflicts unearthed by Reader contributor Hank De Zutter in his new book, Who Says a Dog Goes Bow-wow? De Zutter will be at the Children’s Bookstore, 2465 N....

COBB Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » There’s rarely any action in these plays. Just conversation, reminiscing, and the occasional argument. Blessing uses this stripped-down, bare-bones approach to cut to the core of some weighty issues. The genial discussions between American and Soviet arms negotiators in A Walk in the Woods provide rare insight into the psychological underpinnings of the cold war. The monologues and conversations of three generations of superachieving women in Eleemosynary effectively illuminate the struggles children face in trying to meet the lofty expectations of their parents....

By Michael Miner Eyre bit his lip. “There might have been less to that than met the eye,” he acknowledged. “But inspiration is a constant friend, and our latest collaboration has produced a seasonal classic.” Ah youth, in all its shallow poignancy, its passionate inconsequence. A sage said youth is wasted on the young, but who but the young would be so fooled by its specious allure? For hours they trudged through the city’s fashionable streets in search of Truth and Beauty....