Audrey, Art, Valentine’s Day, and more

December 29, 2020February 4, 2009 by Chicago Magazine

Don’t wait for a proposal to venture through Tiffany’s doors—they have terrific, modern, not-as-pricey-as-you’d-think home items as well as the jaw-dropping gems on which the store built its reputation. I popped in the Michigan Avenue store to shop for a gift the other day, strolled right past all the quintuple-digit diamonds settled on their first-floor, and took the stairs at the back, up to the gifts floor. Elsa Peretti has a sexy new collection of sterling-silver picture frames that look like liquid mercury, and the store is offering free engraving on them until Feb. 9. Her crystal vases, candlesticks, and vessels are pretty spectacular too, and you’ll also find crenulated Frank Gehry bone china bowls…

Canvassing Chicago

January 6, 2021February 3, 2009 by Chicago Magazine

“To the east were the moving waters as far as eye could follow,” Nelson Algren wrote in 1951. Fifty years later, the abstract painter William Conger reinterpreted that famous first line from Chicago: City on the Make in his painting To the East Were Moving Waters. For Conger, who has lived most of his 71 years in Chicago, the relationship of the city to the lake is a central theme. “There’s the marvelous clutter of the city with its wild aspirations and energy, and the lake with its order and timelessness,” Conger says. “People go to the lake to see what forever is like, while the city is right now.” In advance of two shows opening in January—a retrospective at the Cultural Center and new works at Roy Boyd—we asked Conger to reminisce on a few of his most Chicago-centric paintings.

Full-Metal Racket

December 29, 2020February 3, 2009 by Chicago Magazine

In one of the most stunning developments in the history of rock, longtime fans of the heavy-metal stalwart Metallica are complaining that the group’s recently released album, Death Magnetic, is too loud (read the angry posts at metallicabb.com). To put the noise level in perspective, we ranked the band’s SPL—or sound pressure level, measured in decibels—against other noisemakers.

Xana-don’ts

December 29, 2020February 3, 2009 by Chicago Magazine

The Xanadu aesthetic? That’s easy. “Think Casey Kasem–meets–Greek mythology–meets–drug-addled hallucinatory fluorescent roller derby,” says Christopher Ashley, director of the musical production—performed in part on roller skates—that hits Chicago in January. To help visualize the exceedingly campy universe, we grilled Ashley for specifics on the musical’s most crucial element: its props.