Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
There’s a new improv play in town called “Sue Your Ex” that just might be the cure if you’ve been dumped and want revenge. There are lots of things we can do to make ourselves feel better after a relationship sours. But remember – stalking’s illegal. “Sue Your Ex” provides an alternative. There’s nothing quite like having the support of a rapt audience as your love life is played out before you by an ensemble cast.
Ashley Judd is talking to her mother, Naomi (yes, that Naomi), on the phone when a reporter arrives for an interview at her Schiller Park hotel suite. Suffering from a sinus infection that she hasn’t been able to shake for the past week, Judd apologizes for her appearance.
I had passed by Pasta Cucina many times on my way to the Three Penny Theatre. But because I was always late, I never stepped in until a friend told me that the food there was out of this world.
In “Party Girl,” director Daisy von Scherler Mayer introduces viewers to Mary – a gorgeous club kid who gets the designer clothes she wants, but can’t afford, by stealing them from her friends’ closets. It quickly becomes apparent that besides throwing bitchin’ “rent” parties to fund her hedonistic lifestyle, Mary has no other visible
means of income.
In 1958, comedian Carl Reiner wrote his first novel, Enter Laughing. Now, thirty-seven years later, the sequel Continue Laughing (Birch Lane Press, $19.95) arrives. That’s quite a gap, but Reiner hasn’t exactly been lying low in the intervening years.
It’s difficult to believe it has been three years since the Gin Blossoms released their breakthrough album “New Miserable Experience” – until you attend their concert and realize you know just about every song. Nonetheless, the familiarity of the Blossoms’ music did nothing to detract from the enjoyment of their well-crafted pop-rock songs when the musicians headlined Sunday at the Taste of Chicago.
Now is the summer of our discontent. That’s the only possible conclusion you can draw if you’ve been anywhere near a radio lately. Summer used to be the season of catchy, bouncy, bubblegum music. Not this year. The airwaves of summer ’95 – suddenly, inexplicably – are clogged with hummable odes to depression, confusion, weird characters and questionable behavior.
South Korean artist Sung Hee Cho got her first taste of art when she was 6. Her father bought her water-based paints and taught her to draw Asian characters on delicate rice paper. By junior high school, Cho decided her preference leaned more toward Western art and set her sights on America. Cho didn’t immigrate into the United States right away. She earned a master’s degree in fine arts from the prestigious Ewha Women’s University before relocating to America 16 years ago.
When Anchee Min wanted to attend the School of the Art Institute in 1984, a friend who knew English filled out her application forms, marking off “excellent” under the category for “English language skills.” When Min arrived in Chicago to begin classes, it quickly became apparent to the school’s administrators that she spoke virtually no English. She was told to come back when she had learned enough to understand classes. Six months later, Min was a student there.
If you live in the suburbs, you know how difficult it can be to find good ethnic food without driving to Chicago. That was a complaint Bonnie Ma heard many times from friends and customers. So when the restaurateur decided to open another Midori – which specializes in Japanese cuisine – she selected northwest suburban Mount Prospect as her site.