In The Lives of a Cell, Lewis Thomas reveals what he calls the “great secret” of medicine–known to internists, he says, but unknown to the general public: “Most things get better by themselves. Most things, in fact, are better by morning.” Of course one segment of the general public knows this secret intimately: the uninsured. Up until a couple of years ago, I had passed my entire adult life without health insurance, and I’d grown so conversant with the secret that if I found myself with a sucking chest wound, my first impulse would still be to wait and see if it was better by morning....

These days Evgenii Koifman and his wife, Lidia, live in a three-room apartment in a quiet, residential section of West Rogers Park, thousands of miles from the homeland whose clutches he has not yet escaped. His health is frail. He has very little money, few friends, and no prospects for a job. “I am a Russian poet, but I will do anything,” says Koifman. “I go to synagogues and I beg for work....

Fire in the Kitchen’s music blends striking melodies, bristling guitar rock, and subtle experimentation. Led by singer/guitarist Bob Bannister, this NYC-area quartet has maintained a low profile over the last five years thanks to infrequent recording and touring. Its most recent release, Thrillsville (Brinkman), compiles old and newer material, nicely encapsulating the band’s numerous talents. The dissonant chords and searing guitar lines of “My Skull” represent its off-kilter side, as do “The Present Age,” which weds a potent hook to herky-jerky rhythms and an angular melody reminiscent of mid-period XTC, and “9-90,” an arrhythmic waltz mixing clarinet, guitar, and sampled noise....

A recounting of George Clinton’s recording career, from his Motown beginnings (the Parliaments’ “(I Wanna) Testify” charted number three R & B in 1967) to his latest CD (Hey Man … Smell My Finger), won’t be crammed into this 286-word nutshell, but there is room to note that Finger finds him incorporating samples–most of which come from his own bulging discography. Though it’s less about breaking new ground than about Clinton asserting his relevance to R & B today, Finger is nonetheless a solid piece of work well worthy of being spliced onto the endless dance tape that is Clinton’s oeuvre....

Perhaps better known as a folk balladeer, Jamie O’Reilly also excels at parlor songs. While her voice–in the lyric soprano range–doesn’t quite have the flexibility and finesse of a trained opera singer, she knows how to seduce the listener with phrasing and emotion. A DePaul graduate who’s been coached by recital veteran Wayland Rogers, O’Reilly is not yet at the level where she could embark on a full-fledged career as a lieder specialist (nor would she want to, it seems, given her numerous other musical endeavors)....

Lead Sory In January a woman named Rose Shot to Pieces was convicted of illegally selling alcohol on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota. And in October Kendall “Face” Pitts was sentenced to 15 years in prison in Durham, North Carolina, for a drug-related shooting. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The body of a woman who died in a fire in Nashville in August was sent to her hometown of Bowling Green, Kentucky, where burial arrangements were made by the Burnom and Son Funeral Home....

THE SHAME-MAN, EL MEXI-CANT & EL CYBER-VATO COME TO CHICAGO IN SEARCH OF THEIR LOST SELVES (OR THE IDENTITY TOUR) The cholo is a kind of street tough, a folk cliche whose origins lie in California Latino fashion of the 1950s. But the image is also very current: children at the Pilsen school where I teach draw pictures of cholos as readily as they draw eagles with serpents, Mexican flags, Aztec symbols, crosses, and the mountain ranges of Mexico....

THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Why? Families go out together in the evening, too. Furthermore, certain “children’s books” have as much to say to grown-ups as to kids–and more to say than a lot of “adult” fare. Take The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster’s drolly witty 1961 novel about a boy who drives his kiddie car through a magic tollbooth into an imaginary world where knowledge is jumbled....

As form follows function, restaurants follow artists. Savvy restaurateurs by the dozens set up camp in former artists’ colonies such as Old Town, West Lincoln Park, and River North. Soon the neighborhoods became more famous for their restaurants than their artists, and the artists moved to less expensive pastures. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » West Town’s original settlers were German and Scandinavian, but they left no remnants as they fled the Poles, who made this the heart of Chicago’s Polonia for more than half a century–though there were Ukrainian, Italian, Serbian, and Eastern European Jewish enclaves within it....

There was a time when you could smoke anywhere in Edgewater’s Sovereign Pool and Health Club. Men and women would stand puffing around the pool, schmoozing, eating hot dogs: that was when Bill McGuire ran the gym. Now you can only smoke over by Mr. Hahn’s chair, in the gym’s southwest corner. Mr. Hahn, who owns a liquor store nearby, does not like to be disturbed. When he is at the Sovereign, he is usually snoozing, sometimes smoking, occasionally swimming....

“Avoiding insects completely is impossible,” according to a university news release describing U. of I. eintomologist May Berenbaum’s new book, Bugs in the Systme: Insects and Their Impact on Human Affairs, “because four of every five creatures on Earth – some 800,000 species with an estimated population of 10 quintillion – are six-legged.” Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “The attitude of the Chicago Police Department displaces people,” argues veteran housing activist Bob Brehm in the Network Builder (Winter)....

A work that often appears to be slapped together rather than composed, this provocative 1973 black-and-white experimental essay film by the late, legendary Guy Debord fascinates not only as a rebellious statement within a post-1968 French context but also as a work that may seem typically French intellectual in a contemporary American context. Adapted from his 1967 book of the same title, the film was recently subtitled by filmmaker Keith Sanborn and is being presented on half-inch video (though it was made in 35 millimeter)....

By Ted Cox Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “The countdown,” of course, refers to the Bulls’ pursuit of a record 70 regular-season victories. The Bulls entered the week 52-6, meaning that they needed only to play .750 ball the final 24 games, or 18-6, to do it. Never mind that up to that point only one other National Basketball Association team, the Sonics, had won three-quarters of its games; when a team is 52-6, playing ....

On May 18, Mayor Daley steered through the City Council an ordinance that requires half the jobs on city-funded construction projects be reserved for Chicago residents. Daley’s concept has long been endorsed by low-income activists, and yet he has won little praise for his efforts. At best critics say the ordinance is a weak first step in the right direction. At worst they say it’s an affront to equal opportunity....

American Heart, or a truth about love between races, Hostage Theater Company, at Cafe Voltaire. Since Hostage artistic director Samuel Lamar Jordan is acting as playwright, director, and 50 percent of the cast, and the other 50 percent is company managing director Lisa Dowda, the “truth” referred to in the title is presumably their own. And some of the scenes in this story of interracial courtship and marriage are refreshingly specific and candid: the massive misgivings that accompany the first introductions to the in-laws, for example....

When Riva Lehrer was an art student in Cincinnati in the 70s, she was told she should look for universal images. “The establishment art world told women their personal experience was irrelevant, unworthy of great art,” Lehrer says. “Unless you knew better, you bought into it. I was so confused, I had no idea why I wanted to be an artist.” Then she discovered the work of Frida Kahlo. “I had never seen anyone deal with anything in artwork that approximated my experience....

BALLET FOLKLORICO DE MEXICO almost too fast for the eye to see. It feels as if the whole theater will fly away in the delirium. This is the finale to Ballet Folklorico de Mexico’s two-hour concert. And what a concert–exuberant, colorful, playful, and serious, it seems to embody Mexican culture. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Company founder Amalia Hernandez is something of a legend in her homeland....

When the white Ryder van pulled up outside Fermilab’s main building, the phones at the usually sluggish security office started ringing off the hooks. Inside, a grinning producer was apologizing. The van belonged to the film crew for a new Imax movie, Cosmic Voyage, which purports to sketch the known universe from the quasar to the quark, from the big bang to the present. Still recovering after a late flight from Hawaii, where they had weathered 40-mile-an-hour winds, freezing temperatures, and altitude sickness to shoot one of the world’s largest telescopes atop Mauna Kea, the crew hadn’t realized that unattended vans outside federal buildings drew attention these days....

All Summer Long There were moments while reading this unremittingly awful novel that I just wanted to close the book, turn my face to the wall, and die. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » All Summer Long was said to be the coveted novel that Bob extracted out of Doubleday, his pound of flesh in return for Hang Time, the highly lucrative kissy-face to Michael Jordan....

BIG GODDESS POW WOW IV Trykv dubbed the evening “Big Goddess Kowtow.” Trykv is a sort of bad girl, with a face of benign innocence and a delivery that would do Noel Coward proud, a remarkable combination of irresistible charm and frightening potential. She’s like the kid you weren’t supposed to play with in school because she always got you in trouble. It’s easy to see why she’s gained such a following over the years: no other performance artist has a persona so deliciously bitchy and sarcastic....