Health at the Tribune: 1.Beck’s Bad Ploy The Tribune’s lodestar whenever it ponders public policy is its faith in the gluttonous inefficiency of big government. It’s a sturdy faith that’s led the Tribune to question the health-care schemes of the Clinton administration every step of the way. This is an old lament. It arises from the totalitarian situation in which we all get to tell the IRS each year what we owe and once in a while the IRS makes us prove it....

IN PROCESS, Green Highway Theater, at Cafe Voltaire. An interesting drama might have been crafted from the biographies of Clara Westhoff and Paula Modersohn-Becker, both substantial figures in the modernist movement as it developed in turn-of-the-century Germany. But at a bare 30 minutes, with eight scene changes, In Process offers only the briefest of introductions to the two artists, mostly through excerpts from their correspondence, with Modersohn-Becker’s voice predominating in a singularly aggressive and probably inadvertent manner....

On his last visit to Chicago tenor saxist Joe Henderson surprised audiences by all but ignoring the music he had played on his then-current Lush Life–the album that made him Down Beat’s 1992 “Jazz Musician of the Year.” One dares to hope he’ll take a different tack this time around, if only because his subsequent album–So Near, So Far–has even more to offer than its predecessor. (One also takes hope in the fact that Henderson brings with him two collaborators from that album, drummer Al Foster and Dave Holland, probably the best bassist in jazz....

Just three months ago, Bob Kustra seemed a shoo-in for the U.S. Senate. Paul Simon was stepping down, and Democrats, divided as always, couldn’t settle on one candidate to replace him. Meanwhile, Kustra had positioned himself as a no-to-taxes conservative and was running unopposed in the Republican primary. Chalk up another victory for Illinois Politics, a publication solely dedicated to exposing the fraud, hypocrisy, and deceit of our elected officials, some of whom despise it....

On the Bum, or The Next Train Through Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Neal Bell is one of those intensely irritating contemporary playwrights who become so obsessed with creating eccentric characters and making up evocative, poetic speeches that their stories go to smash. Bell’s Ragged Dick, for example, features the odd denizens of a New York City slum circa 1890–mouthy moppets, sharp-tongued whores, weary cops, ragged men–all of whom speak in an arch literary language cribbed from Victorian novels....

Dear Reader: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I’d like to respond to Neal Pollack’s piece on Bob Connelly [Our Town, August 30], specifically where Bob mentions his working at MGM and trying to sell a pilot using the idea from The Phantom of the Opera with the guy living in the basement of a film studio. I was working at MGM from 1969 to ’73 until I was one of 1,600 people laid off because of the recession of ’73....

Eyes Without a Face With Edith Scob, Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Juliette Mayniel, Beatrice Altariba, Francois Guerin, Alexandre Rignault, and Claude Brasseur. With Ernst Hugo Jaregard, Kirsten Rolffes, Ghita Norby, Soren Pilmark, Holger Juul Hansen, Annevig Schelde Ebbe, Jens Okking, Otto Brandenburg, Baard Owe, and Birgitte Raabjerg. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » No less annoying is the crude miniseries structuring–mechanical crosscutting between one set of characters and another, guaranteeing that we never stay with any single story line for long....

VELOCITY GIRL, SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATe 7/1, METRO Last year Velocity Girl’s debut album, Copacetic, showed a band struggling to maintain their underground credentials–endangered by the leap from self-released singles to Sub Pop–by toughening-up the singsongy melodies crooned by Sarah Shannon, their My Bloody Valentine-ish noise pop newly soaked in extraneous, melody-destroying grime. On the brand-new Simpatico! (also on Sub Pop) the D.C. quintet has swung back the other way, this time opting for high-gear accessibility....

David Sedaris has a wicked wit. Best known for his hilarious holiday story about working as one of Santa’s elves at Macy’s (which NPR now plays annually), this former Chicagoan has a gift for finding the dark cloud behind every silver lining. His stories are narrated by bitter, unreliable characters who reveal more than they intend to about their motives and small-minded ways. In “Confidential Letter to Members of the Chudd County Pride Organization,” for example, Sedaris gives us a sarcastic, selfish so-called activist less interested in promoting gay pride than in promoting his own agenda, the kind of person who turns even the most minor point, like whether to call the leader of the organization “president” or “chairman,” into a turf battle (the narrator prefers “emperor”)....

“Outlaw Artists of 18th Street” reads a sign above the booth Marcos Raya and his comrades have set up on Blue Island Avenue for Fiesta del Sol, Pilsen’s annual summer street festival. Raya’s selling posters of his murals and paintings for a buck or two apiece. One has a spaniel in sunglasses sprawled between a half-empty wine bottle and a ripped postcard of the Loop. Raya says the work refers to his “dog years”–the period in the 70s and early 80s when he was down and out in Pilsen, painting explicitly political murals inspired by the neighborhood while wrestling with his own personal demons, leading what he calls “la mala vida, the bad life, the gutter boho life....

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15 A comedy from the Czech Republic by Vera Chytilova (Daisies, The Apple Game) about a village drunk who, after the collapse of communism and the restitution of private property, discovers that he suddenly owns a brickyard, a deluxe hotel, and several shops, among other things. (Pipers Alley, 5:00) *Lillian Of the spate of new films, some made for television, on Sicilian judges and cops who’ve been murdered for opposing the Mafia, Ricky Tognazzi’s tense drama is by far the best....

Auditorium Fracas: The University Strikes Back Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Last week at the council’s first regularly scheduled meeting since the lawsuits were filed, ATC treasurer Tom Kallen read a resolution asking Gross to step aside as ATC chairman for the duration of the meeting. A source present says the resolution passed by a vote of 13 to 9, but when Gross refused to relinquish his post, no further steps were taken to press the point....

Just three notes from the terrific alto saxophonist Jackie McLean and my mind flashes “The Sound” (my personal nickname for him). His tone grabs the ear with an almost magnetic force; it’s the sonic equivalent of moire fabric, a complex and layered design shimmering under the ear’s scrutiny. McLean’s tone enhances his vocal-inflected phrasing, which in turn helps determine his often striking note choices; the resultant improvisations, which incorporate both hard-bop and free-jazz elements, make McLean arguably the most important altoist to find his own voice while expanding on the innovations of Charlie Parker....

NAS Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » That It Is Written (Columbia), the second album by New York rapper Nas, debuted at number one with nearly 270,000 copies sold in its first week suggests that the massive success of the Fugees is not a fluke within the gangsta-dominated hip-hop landscape. A product of the Queensbridge housing project in Long Island City, Nas doesn’t mince words about the harsh realities of urban life, but rather than glorify a life of crime, he documents palpably the struggle to escape its grip....

Was When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. . . . When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife....

Chicago soul legend Syl Johnson started out as a blues guitarist, working with such greats as Magic Sam, Junior Wells, and Elmore James. But he soom immersed himself in the youthful, affirming cadences of soul music: his first major hit, “Straight Love, No Chaser,” showcased his brash, slightly hard-edged way with a melody. Then in 1967 he came out with the side that catapulted him to national recognition, “Come on Sock It to Me”–a propulsive, guitar-laden gem tailor-made for both the extravagant optimism of the times and Johnson’s keen, wailing vocal style....

In the end it wasn’t difficult to find a silver lining (no pun intended) to—what shall we call it?—the Tonya Harding fiasco? controversy? scandal? “Controversy” gives her too much credit, as if her position were defensible. “Scandal” seems too harsh—at least until she’s found guilty of conspiracy in the attack on Nancy Kerrigan. “Fiasco” comes close to suggesting the whole media-circus atmosphere, but makes the actual core incident seem comic, the way “brouhaha” would....

Is it true that there has never been a war between two democracies, excluding civil wars? One part of my extended brain trust, a highly unreliable source, claims that this is a natural fact, Jack, and I have not yet thought of an instance in which one democracy declared war against another democracy. In a quandary, we resolved to consult the Dope, and now refer this question to your esteemed self....

There’s a question that’s been burning in the unscrubbed corners of my mind for a long time. We are told that Ivory soap is “99 and 44/100% pure.” What’s in the other 56/100% (or 0.56% if you prefer)? –Peter Holland, Chicago Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Trouble was, there wasn’t a standard for purity in soap, so Harley hired an independent scientific consultant in New York to concoct one....

Jump Giant Project at the Auditorium Theatre, Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » When Gongora performs the same gestures they’re tragic or horrifying. Where Rossen’s dancing makes Bustan’s Gypsy-ish music lugubrious, Gongora’s makes it sad. This classically proportioned dancer doesn’t have the height or the limbs to go to the extremes Rossen does; his gift is his body’s integration–he moves so fluidly yet complexly he can’t help but be lyrical....