01/07/08
I've been wrestling with the whooping cough, so Coda has been silent. (No one, I'm sure, wanted to read my musings on Ellen reruns and French existentialist writers--my main activities when I was bedridden.) Fortunately for you, Web editor Esther Kang and her pal, local writer Jackie Ostrowski, hit the annual Sketchfest in my absence and came up with a must-see: a local group called Bri-Ko. Read the review, view the photo gallery, and catch Bri-Ko again this Friday, January 11th, at 11 p.m...
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12/20/07
A few months ago, Simon Goldberg and Dan Ettinger hopped on their bicycles in Oregon and started pedaling in the direction of Charleston, South Carolina. Along the way, they videotaped average people spinning their best yarns: funny jokes, dumb jokes, sex jokes, all kinds of jokes. They camped in strangers' yards, approached anyone who looked even mildly entertaining, and filmed it all. It was an unreal experience: one of my favorite stories, which they told last night as guests of the theatre variety show The Callback, is how they got homesick in Montana over Rosh Hashanah and spent the evening cold calling names they thought "sounded Jewish." They didn't have much luck, but met a nice Catholic couple who put them up for the night...
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12/13/07
It's a gray day around here, so I'm blogging something perky: style.
First off, au revoir to Steven, the Museum of Science and Industry textile designer who was auf'd on Project Runway last night. What do you think? Was it his time to go? I'll refrain from comment, since I haven't been keeping up with the show. But there he was, sipping a drink a few weeks ago at a gay sports bar in Uptown. A bunch of his friends had gathered to watch the premiere; poor Steven cried out halfway through the evening that...
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12/12/07
Several months ago, a pianist named Lisa Kaplan invited me to a house party at a gorgeous mini manse in Gold Coast. Lisa was going to be performing with a few members of her classical sextet, Eighth Blackbird; they were touring a lot at the time, and this was one of the few opportunities I had to check them out.
I dragged my friend Maria with the promise of wine and pretty music, but I really didn't know what we were getting into. A contemporary classical sextet from Chicago? Rocking a house party on the Gold Coast? It was, admittedly, a little awkward...
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12/11/07
What happens when politicos plan a rock concert?
It gets freaky, in a the-last-time-whoever- planned-this-last-turned-on-the-radio-in- the-1990s sort of way.
Of course, the music was not the point of the Chicago Rocks for Change concert this weekend at the Riviera. The point was raising money for Barack Obama, who came out at the end of the Wilco set, gave frontman Jeff Tweedy a big bear hug, and got the crowd hollering with a rousing speech...
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12/04/07
Sure, I raised a glass of Champagne last week at a holiday fete at Prada, and followed it up with a ladies luncheon hosted by Amanda Puck at Le Colonial. But I wasn’t quite in the seasonal spirit until this weekend, when writer/m.henry pastry chef Michael Bowen threw his annual White Trash/White Christmas party in Edgewater...
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12/03/07
After a lull in my personal concert attendance, I’m back on a spree. I think it has something to do with boredom in bars. Bars are boring, aren’t they? Or is something wrong with me?
So here are the shows I’m excited about that you should know about, too:
1. This Friday (the 7th), there is a fundraiser for Barack Obama at the Riviera (4746 N. Racine Avenue). Whether or not you are leaning toward Obama, it’s a great lineup...
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11/30/07
My one regret about Au Revoir Parapluie, playing now at Chicago Shakespeare on Navy Pier, is that I didn't get in to see it earlier in the run. The hauntingly beautiful show closes Saturday, and unfortunately, it's sold out this year. In case its creator, James Thierree, returns to Chicago, I'll tell you about it anyway.
Why is the show so great? First, I've never seen anything exactly like it. Imagine taking the stunts of Cirque de Soleil, the quirky-meets-psychedelic aesthetic of Chicago's own Redmoon, and the ferocious dance ability of...
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11/28/07
Remember that Gary Sinise sighting from a few weeks back? That particular CSI:NY episode airs tonight on WBBM-Channel 2 at 9 p.m., according to today's Trib. If I recall correctly from the hour or more I spent watching the crew film, Gary will look gruff in front of the Tribune Tower, and he’ll whip out his eyesbrows-furrowed-thinking-staring combo in a crowd scene in front of the Wrigley Building. Hey, it’s a great cameo for Chicago—particularly since CSI: NY never even travels to New York (it’s shot in L.A.) and since Sinise is a founder of our very own high flying Steppenwolf.
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11/26/07
My dad comes to Chicago once a year. He’s a born and bred Alabamian, and he says it like it is. I like to take his “frankness” as an opportunity to look at Chicago in a different light. Herein, some of his observations from his visit over Thanksgiving weekend.
Things that went over well:
- Jersey Boys. My whole family loved the show, even after I told them how much we paid for tickets (close to one month’s rent).
- The Garfield Park Conservatory
- H & M
- Cocktails at the top of the Hancock building on Thanksgiving night
- The Billy Goat, which my mom insists on calling “Billy Goat Hole”...
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42.0F
Coda is a blog by arts and culture editor Cassie Walker, who, love it or hate it, always has an opinion. During the course of her weekly culture hunting, she reviews high art and pop culture events so you'll know what you need to check out and what you can miss.
