10/31/07

Chicagoween

Not too long ago, I called up the owner of Fantasy Costume Headquarters on Milwaukee Avenue and asked which costumes he predicted would sweep Chicago. His top picks for this year: caveman masks and pirate paraphernalia. He was riffing, of course, off the Geico cavemen character and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

Well, since Saturday, I've attended three Halloween parties and a pumpkin-carving fête, and I have not spotted any cavemen. I've seen a pirate or two. By far, the most popular costumes I've seen are Amy Winehouse (complete with the Blake tattoo over the bosom) and the "d*ck-in-the-box"...

Posted at 04:39 PM in Coda | Permalink | Comments (1)

10/30/07

Guest Blog: Jeff Awards Redux

My take on the Joseph Jefferson Awards, which happened last night at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, is that the ceremony is pretty boring unless you are 1. a nominee; 2. an actor who was in or a person who worked on a nominated show; or 3. drunk. I drew my third conclusion from the mob scenes around the Grey Goose vodka free-martini bar, at which two bartendresses languidly shook cocktails for the restless throng, and the cash bar, where I found Jeff Award-nominee Jason Loewith standing with veteran actor Mary Ann Thebus...

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10/26/07

A House Divided on Passion

Here at Chicago magazine headquarters, we're divided about Passion, the Sondheim musical that's playing upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre through Nov. 11.

Passion is one of the hot tickets for fall, partly because of its director (Gary Griffin) but mostly because of its star: Ana Gasteyer, the SNL alum. Gasteyer doesn't live here, but one of her early ventures into musical theatre was opening Wicked for Broadway in Chicago. Now she's back!...

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10/24/07

Introducing The Callback

With a fully functioning bar on the second floor, Strawdog Theatre is something of an actor’s hangout. So when the playwright Hank Boland and his friend, the actress Kate Parker, decided they wanted to start a theatre “talk show,” it made sense that they’d do it at Strawdog.

Their show, The Callback, kicked off last week: it’s an hourlong variety program on Wednesday nights, including Kate’s interviews with guests like T.J. Jagadowski, one half of the improv duo TJ and Dave (who’s the guest tonight at 8 p.m). Also fueling the show are copious amounts of beer...

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10/22/07

Fandom Takes Me to Milwaukee

I’ve been a fan of Joanna Newsom since 2005, when I saw her at a Jeff Tweedy-curated, Wired magazine-sponsored concert at the Vic. The theme of the concert was the future of music, and she was on the bill, along with The Handsome Family.

The Handsome Family played first, and I thought, well, if this is the future of music, it sucks. Then some of the stagehands dragged a whopping gold harp on stage. Newsom, a pixie of a girl, came wandering out, straddled the harp like a bull, and started plucking away...

Posted at 03:43 PM in Coda | Permalink | Comments (1)

10/17/07

Intern Meets Skintern

Why do I love an intern? Let me count the ways. Not only are they useful for sorting through my mound of mail, fact-checking, and picking up small writing assignments, but, like little lab mice, occasionally they’re fun for an experiment or two.

It would have been just a day’s work to have one of my most industrious interns, Leona Liu, to talk to Mr. Skin, a local “documentarian” of sex and nudity in mainstream films. Mr. Skin has recently published a book that counts boobs and butts for movies like Action Jackson (breasts: 4) and Amazon Women on the Moon (breasts: 5, butts: 3). Who does all the counting? Well, Mr. Skin and his army of “Skinterns,” of course!...

Posted at 11:04 AM in Coda | Permalink | Comments (1)

10/15/07

The Lions, The Bitch, and The (Great) Wardrobe

Friday was the second of the major Chicago runway shows, hosted by Macy’s. These were the lions—the most professional of the locals—sending their stuff down the runway: Lara Miller, Pamela Vanderline (Zone), Katrin Schnabl, Michelle Tan, Melanie Nicole, Orlando Espinoza, and Cyndi Chan (Ori'en).

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10/12/07

Chicago Hearts Doo

Sometimes it's hard to keep the grade school humor gene at bay. What I mean, of course, is that Chicago hearts the designer Doo-Ri Chung, who paid us a visit earlier this week and played the role of guest celeb at a few of the Fashion Week festivities.

If you aren't familiar with her or her line Doo.Ri, the petite fashion designer is one of the industry's most recent success stories...

Posted at 12:40 PM in Coda | Permalink | Comments (2)

10/11/07

Guest Blog: Affleck Boys in Town

On the list of things I wish to never do again: Arrive at 5 p.m. for media check-in and wait almost two hours in nippy, windy, drizzly weather. Man, the things I do for Coda.

On the coldest day in several months, the Affleck boys came to town to screen their new film, Gone Baby Gone. The crime drama, based on the novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), was directed by Ben and stars his younger brother Casey. The screening was part of the Chicago International Film Festival...

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10/10/07

Gen Art: Dresses Good, Sweatpants Bad

So, about last night. Last night was the GenArt’s FreshFaces show, one of the two big events of Chicago’s fashion week.

When it was all said and done and the fashionistas teetered out of Millennium Park in search of more Champagne, one Chicago fashion designer had stood out from the pack...

Posted at 04:08 PM in Coda | Permalink | Comments (7)

10/09/07

Five Questions for Melissa Gamble, Chicago's Fashion Czar

Q: This year’s Fashion Focus is so much bigger than it has been before. Is there an event that really stands out to you?
A: I think it’s the quality of the overall programming. If you take a look at the fashion shows, the lecture series, and exhibitions, you see that we have a really strong year...

Posted at 01:52 PM in Coda | Permalink | Comments (0)

10/09/07

Chicago Fashion Needs a Little Definition, Please

It’s the great sociological question of the week: Is there a distinct Chicago style? It’s time again for the city’s annual Fashion Focus—and this year’s slate of events (which run through Sunday) is considerably bigger than ever before. At the city’s kickoff party last night at Bluprint restaurant in the Merchandise Mart, I had license to pop this question to nearly everyone I came...

Posted at 12:34 PM in Coda | Permalink | Comments (2)

10/05/07

Celluloid and Cellulite

Two things everybody around here is talking about: fashion and film. We’re coming upon Fashion Focus Chicago, a week of hoopla surrounding local designers and local retailers. I’ll be blogging the whole thing, camera in tow. It’s also time for the Chicago International Film Fest. And since I can't possibly be two places at once, I'm thrilled that Chicago's web editor, Esther Kang, will be scouting the fest. So for the next few weeks of Coda, you get two bloggers instead of one! Read her scoop on opening night...

Posted at 12:43 PM in Coda | Permalink | Comments (2)

10/03/07

Dear MCA: Don’t 'Shush' Kim Gordon!

It’s so ... quiet ... it is so ... quiet. My first big outing since I got back from Paris: to walk through the MCA’s new rock and roll-themed exhibition, Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967. Compared to the exhibit I just saw at the Palais de Tokyo, Sympathy is so ... sterile. I want to scream—we're talking about rock here! ...

Posted at 06:07 PM in Coda | Permalink | Comments (0)