Friday 11 Chicagoan Gertrude Abercrombie–some of whose paintings are part of the current exhibit “The ‘New Woman’ in Chicago, 1910-1945: Paintings From Illinois Collections”–is also the subject of a slide talk today by Roosevelt University’s Susan Weininger, who’s spent ten years studying Abercrombie. Weininger shares a bill with Donna Blue Lachman, who’ll discuss the lives of Frida Kahlo and Rosa Luxemburg at this free Chicago Area Women’s History Conference event. It starts at 2 in the East Room on the first floor of the Newberry Library, 60 W....

Christoph Eschenbach’s reputation as a conductor and concert pianist tends to overshadow his equally estimable track record as chamber accompanist. As the new music director of Ravinia Festival, Eschenbach, like his predecessor James Levine, seems to revel in the intimacy and easy camaraderie that inform noteworthy recitals, and he certainly shows a willingness to explore the less familiar corners of the classical canon. In this all-Schubert affair–following on the heels of Tuesday’s lieder showcase starring local mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer–Eschenbach’s partners are like-minded performers with a passion for chamber music....

By Kitry Krause He and some other ALDA members had once frowned on getting cochlear implants. “In a way implants represented a type of denial or at least an obstacle to the idea of accepting deafness.” He pauses, then says quietly, “But although I face deafness as well as I can, it still makes me feel lousy most of the time. I don’t like to be with people in an elevator....

Earl King is a giant of New orleans R & B; his catalog of songs–written for himself and others–is one of the most extensive in the country. His 1955 “Those Lonely, Lonely Nights” helped define the easy-rolling Crescent City ballad style–minimally sentimental and infused with an unquenchable good-time vibe despite the ostensibly sorrowful subject matter. A few years later he came up with the timeless and irresistibly danceable “Well-O, Well-O, Well-O Baby”; then, in 1962, his “Trick Bag” became an instant funk-novelty classic....

In the mid-70s Chicago’s venerable Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians began to experience a slow and steady decline, brought on both by the emigration of its most influential members and, paradoxically, by the organization’s own successes–in gaining wider acceptance for its music, the AACM obviated one of the reasons for its formation. But in the 80s a wave of younger artists began to arrive, dedicated to preserving and refreshing the AACM philosophy....

I consider myself an accommodating host to the houseplants in my home, but I don’t possess the energy of the true fanatic. There are people with fetishes for finicky plants, and in my mind–until recently anyway–orchid fanciers were firmly in this category. Deserved or not, orchids have a reputation for being among the fussiest of indoor plants. The word on the street is that they need peculiar light and perpetual feeding, and require you to keep your home chilly by day and cold at night....

Art cuts an improbable figure as a bluesman. He’s a small, disheveled white guy with a startled expression. But when he plays guitar onstage, he cranes his neck and stares ahead with a hard look in his eyes, as if he’s a different man. Yet, Art’s a little glum about the state of the blues these days. He says, “Nobody plays blues with any real feeling anymore.” There are also plenty of locals around, including Smokey and the Black Lone Ranger....

Originally entitled Hellcab Does Christmas and marketed as a hip antiholiday holiday show, Will Kern’s incredibly black comedy about a day in the life of a poor beleaguered cab driver was never, strictly speaking, a holiday show. Even though Kern’s slice-of-life play is set on Christmas Eve, the when of his story doesn’t matter nearly as much as its where: a typical city cab. Which may explain why seven weeks after Christmas the show is every bit as biting and funny as it was four weeks before....

Hildegard of Bingen is commonly acknowledged as one of the greatest polymaths of the Middle Ages. An encyclopedist, poet, and composer, the 12th-century abbess wrote prolifically and imaginatively, leaving a prodigious output that still astounds historians. Frank Ferko, who holds a PhD in composition from Northwestern University, has long been fascinated by her accomplishments. In the last few years he and Barbara Newman, a Northwestern prof, have stirred up enough interest in Hildegard to turn her into a cult figure....

Homesick James played alongside the legendary Elmore James for years; his musical roots extend deep into the Delta, maybe even deeper than Elmore’s. He sings with a high-pitched, quavering intensity that recalls old-time field hollers, and even on electric guitar his slide patterns often have the pure-toned starkness of traditional southern acoustic blues. But don’t come looking for a sedate history lesson: when you least expect it, Homesick will fire up the jets and hit you with an onslaught that departs entirely from whatever the band’s laying down....

JAI UTTAL & THE PAGAN LOVE ORCHESTRA Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Jai Uttal may be the very definition of a “world” musician. Born in New York, he studied classical piano as a child, then took up harmonica and banjo. In the late 60s, as his musical tastes turned to psychedelic rock and John Coltrane, his instrument of choice became the electric guitar. Shortly after beginning college in Oregon, Uttal encountered an Indian master of the 25-string sarod, Ali Akbar Khan; he dropped out of college and for the next several years studied sarod and yoga at Khan’s school in northern California....

It’s not every choreographer who can make dances to classical music and pounding industrial rock, to the king of pop and to traditional Irish tunes. James Kelly can do that and more–and thank goodness, since his ability to shift gears means that the five dances on this program, all his, are all entertaining in different ways. The 1993 Crossing the Line wrenches the gut with its athleticism and teases the mind with its gender bending; A Nation Once Again is a heartbreaking love story, an inventive variation on step dancing, and a commentary on Irish history all rolled into one....

Almost three weeks have passed since the Fifth Ward aldermanic election, but activists in and around Hyde Park are still fuming over that campaign. Yet from the outset the campaign was marred by bad feelings. Oliver-Hill was backed by Alan and Lois Dobry, Holt by Sam Ackerman–bitter rivals whose conflicts are too lengthy to enumerate and too complicated to explain. Oliver-Hill challenged the signatures on Holt’s nominating petitions in an effort to have her thrown off the ballot....

Laurel & Hardy Sleep Together Urbis Orbis Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » And with the passing of the comedy teams goes a lot of secret knowledge about how two-person acts work, specifically the subtleties of status. Every successful comedy team has a high-status character and a low-status character, a bully and a victim, an Oliver Hardy and a Stan Laurel. Much of a team’s comedy comes from the myriad ways the two torture, tease, and infuriate each other....

What exactly is a “merkin”? Ever since the word was thrust into my consciousness it’s been tormenting me. My Oxford English Dictionary defines it as the “female pudendum,” which seems a trifle sedate, given the listed quote of 1714, “This put a strange Whim in his Head; which was, to get the hairy circle of her Merkin …. This he dry’d well and comb’d out, and then return’d to the Cardinal, telling him he had brought Saint Peter’s Beard....

Hamlet In short, Shakespeare–great theatrical gardener that he was–delighted in self-conscious artifice. How fitting that the Oak Park Festival Theatre, presenting Hamlet as its annual Shakespeare-in-the-park offering, plunked a boat-size rough-hewn stage in the middle of a meadow and erected a quartet of 20-foot bare-scaffolding lighting towers around it. The whole shebang looks so unnatural it may as well have fallen out of the sky. Wandering around to the back side of the stage you can see all the goblets, rapiers, bouquets, and pivotal costume pieces laid out....

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS: THE PHOTOGRAPHIC ORDER FROM POP TO NOW The 62 members of the Mickey Mouse Club in 1955, with its powerful juxtaposition of alienation from a world formed by mass-produced images with an almost nostalgic desire to recover a more direct connection to actual human lives, combines the two contrasting themes that characterize the best works in this show. One group of works, most of which use images borrowed from the mass media, articulates the ways in which our image-filled world alienates the individual from objects, suggesting that the relationships between us and our surroundings are inevitably mediated by media, secondhand....

An ironically named outfit, Big Star existed in abject obscurity for a few brief years in the early 70s before speedily disappearing into cutout-bin limbo. Formed in 1971 by Chris Bell, Andy Hummel, Jody Stephens, and ex-Box Top teen star Alex Chilton, Big Star eschewed the then-prevalent idioms of progressive rock and southern-fried jamming for radio-friendly pop. Their first record, #1 Record, released in ’72, is a pristine setting of Bell/Chilton gems that picks up and extends the pop mastery of the Byrds, Beatles, and Kinks; there are few better amalgams of ringing guitar, haunting vocal harmony, and refined songcraft in the rock canon....

After nearly ten years as a Chicago Police officer, Dierdre Burrell-Hill started questioning her life’s direction. “I was asking God what is my purpose, what should I be doing,” she says. Although she was good at her job, she always felt there was something else in store. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » One afternoon in 1989, Burrell-Hill was answering 911 calls. She picked up a call from a woman who was crying hysterically....

DON BENNETT QUARTET Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » When he lived in Chicago, the peripatetic pianist Don Bennett played a hale and fleshy brand of jazz piano. Energized by big, blunt chords drawn from the gospel-inspired soul jazz of the 50s, his solos and comp work would rock with a beat as burly as his physical stature even as his right hand made the break for high-note blues lines and high-speed melodies of a more complex nature....