Skinny White Boy in the Heart of Darkness Cleveland’s monologue operates dramatically on several levels: a spare, modulated delivery combined with cool, lean words underscores the complexity of his theme, a difficult life passage into an eventual hard-won peace. His deadpan wit keeps the material fresh and fast-paced, providing flourishes of comic color in otherwise bleak territory. He doesn’t so much venture into hard times as allude to them: just as he has his audience standing with him and looking at some gaping wound, he changes the subject or finds a comic element....

By J. Michael Murray When I first walked into the clinic there was only one other person sitting in the waiting room, reading a magazine. We didn’t talk, but I wondered if he also volunteered for the study. Soon other people started coming in, some alone, others with friends who were helping them with their baggage. Everyone was smiling and laughing and looking healthy and robust–it seemed like we were getting ready for a Sunday afternoon boat cruise....

Filmmaker Zeinabu Irene Davis is fascinated with African folklore and its cinematic possibilities. She discovered the continent’s vast trove of tales, both oral and written, while studying in Kenya as part of her undergraduate education. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The menace in Davis’s latest work–a half-hour children’s film titled Mother of the River–is slavery. She decided on her subject three years ago while teaching a course in media literacy....

Among the things that lift monologuist Spalding Gray above his legions of imitators–including a wonderfully centered stage presence, articulate speech, and a knack for combining gravity and humor so as to avoid both self-importance and self-diminishment–what I find most interesting is his ability to stake a position that’s at once universal and self-absorbedly individual. The stories he tells in his programs of “poetic journalism” are unique to him, but the impulse they reveal–to impose order on random events no matter how much those events resist–is fundamental to human nature; Gray’s touching and droll performances explore that urge in a way that transcends the specifics of his entertainingly detailed stories....

Sheryn Singer: Immaculate Perceptions In 1988 Chicago’s Old Saint Patrick’s Church announced an art competition for a depiction of the Virgin and Child, offering a $10,000 prize to the winner. When that piece and the runners-up were exhibited, I went off to look, wondering if it’s possible to produce good sacred art in late-20th-century America. I concluded that it isn’t easy. The winner, a wispy, almost abstract drawing, wasn’t very impressive, and a painting of the Virgin as a fleshy nude in a television-equipped tenement room was no more than amusing because it was so badly painted....

Reportedly the longest single film ever made, Edgar Reitz’s 13-part, nearly 26-hour “chronicle of a generation” (1992)–set in Munich during the 60s and only nominally a sequel to his 15-hour Heimat (1984)–mainly focuses on the experiences of one young man, a classical musician and composer named Hermann Simon (Henry Arnold) who moves from the small village of Shabbach (where Heimat was set) to find a new life and, echoing the title, a second home....

THE SPEW POLICE . . . SUFFERGUSH RETURNS and TWO WHEELS GOOD Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Actor, writer, Curious ensemble member Mark Comiskey worked for a time as a bicycle messenger, and Two Wheels Good is his one-person show based on that experience. Comiskey spends no time talking about how he got into the business or recounting the adventures of other messengers. Instead he leaps right into his own head, delivering the stream-of-consciousness chatter of a man who spends too many hours alone riding against the clock and traffic to get a package from point A to point B....

Bhangra Heats Up: Tradition Meets Technology Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Singh, who lives in Milwaukee but commutes here every weekend, is half of T.S. Soundz, a two-man DJ team and one of three acts profiled in Dhenjan’s movie (“T” is for Singh’s partner, Manpreet “Tony” Talwar). Desi Remix focuses on their battle to balance issues of cultural identity with attempts to attract more diverse audiences, but Singh admits the duo started as a lark....

CHRIS COCHRANE’S SUCK PRETTY Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » With his new band Suck Pretty, Lower East Side guitarist Chris Cochrane molds rock experimentalism, pop hooks, and queer politics into one unified entity. A longtime citizen of John Zorn’s genre-hopping nation, Cochrane has worked with Fred Frith, Marc Ribot, and David Garland and served in bands like Bongwater, the Same, and most significantly the terrific No Safety....

Normally, downstate and suburban Republicans would act as human Kryptonite on Alderman Dexter Watson. So Watson had to be creative to support giving Republicans all of Chicago’s airports. Yet, as you may have guessed, Watson was the “1” in the 49-to-1 vote for the Chicago-Gary Regional Airport Authority at Saturday’s much ballyhooed council meeting. It was necessary if Watson, defeated in the recent primaries, wanted to retire with a perfect record for screaming rants at council meetings this year....

By Harold Henderson Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » “It seemed like every time you turned around in ’95 somebody was dropping to their knees and offering a public and (apparently) heartfelt apology or confession for their sins,” writes Patrick McCormick in the Chicago-based U.S. Catholic (January)–Robert McNamara, the Southern Baptist Convention, the pope, Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama, Robert Packwood, Albert Speer, and others....

Dear editor, Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » I am writing in regards to the article in the October 11 issue of the Reader regarding the sculpture that was stolen from my studio during Around the Coyote [Neighborhood News]. I would like to make it clear that I hold no animosity towards Mary Beth Cregier or Around the Coyote. They worked very hard to make Around the Coyote a success....

DRUNKIN GROWNUPS Mettle Theatre at the Heartland Studio Theatre Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The tastiest comedic moments come from the bizarre minor characters who meander in from the night. Routhier and actor Kelly Brant have created a small masterpiece in Freddie, the baker who stops the show every time he lovingly transports trays of his confections from the kitchen. Says Freddie, “I’m a simple chef and a proud father....

We met Amy Myers romping around Dog Beach with Mazzy the shepherd mix. Both casual, sand-spattered coats barked “fun in the sun.” But our Fashion Hounds sniffed something suspect and dug further into the matter. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Myers chooses fetching basics for the dog days of summer: loose T, rolled-up jeans, a short shear, and breezy sandals. Tevas unite the oldest and newest trends in footwear, taking their attach-sole-to-foot-via-strap design from the ancient Romans, adapting it to modern eco-chic Velcro and rubber....

A decade back a great deal of excitement began to brew over alto man Frank Morgan, the suddenly rediscovered Charlie Parker acolyte who first emerged in the 50s but spent much of the next 30 years in prison. During all the hoopla, though, knowledgeable jazz fans had to send at least a passing thought in the direction of Herb Geller. In the 50s, playing with top west-coast bands led by Shorty Rogers and Bill Holman, Geller emerged as one of the brighter lights on the beachfront–savvy, passionate, and cool–frequently working with his wife Lorraine, an equally talented pianist....

When Brigid Murphy was 12 years old she competed in a run hosted by the city of Sycamore, Illinois. Though she won, the town fathers decided not to give her the first-place trophy because she lived a few miles outside Sycamore. So her mother had a trophy made with Brigid’s name engraved at the base and took her out to dinner. She told her daughter that it really didn’t matter what the town fathers thought–everyone knew she won....

“You probably thought you were the only one who loved Maud Hart Lovelace,” said Diane Gonzales, a social worker and the president of the Greater Chicago Chapter of the Betsy-Tacy Society. She smiled at scores of women who’d come from miles around, women of all ages and walks of life, and at little girls in pigtails and pinafores–or ponytails and jeans. They were at the Chicago Historical Society to celebrate what would have been Lovelace’s 101st birthday....

Nigeria’s King Sunny Ade still owes his fairly abundant U.S. name recognition to a brief (1983-’85) tenure on Island Records that coincided with the beginning of American attention to all the unrelated “exotic” non-Western musical styles that have been lumped together for middle-class North American consumers under the loathsome marketing tag “world music.” In a strange way, one almost feels that to single out an upcoming Sunny Ade show for attention is to indulge in cliche....

“My doctor told me I have to gain 35 pounds,” says the young woman peevishly as she opens the door for Mirian Lopez, a social worker. “I’m not gainin’ that much. I’m not gonna get fat.” Lopez pulls out a form, “What I’d Like for My Child,” and explains, “This is about the dreams and goals you have for you and your baby. We’ll prioritize these goals and review them in six months to see what you’ve accomplished....

With all the attention currently being lavished on Chicago’s music scene, it’ll be a tragedy if the town’s veterans get overlooked in the frantic search for the next Liz Phair or Smashing Pumpkins. Paul Caporino’s two-person band MOTO (for Masters of the Obvious) has played here sporadically since he became a Chicago resident in 1989, and he has been recording singles and self-released cassettes since the mid-80s. On first listen MOTO’s ultrasimple rhythms and buzzing guitar attack make it sound like a punk rock band, but its roots go deeper than that: Caporino has an ear for the indelible pop melodies that graced bubblegum in its early-70s heyday....