Adams, Sellars see opera’s simple side

By Evelyn Wiese / May 16, 2008

What better way to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth than with an opera based on an Indian folktale? If the question seems perverse, one should turn to the oeuvre of composer John Adams, whose latest creation, A Flowering Tree, opened Wednesday night at the Chicago Opera Theater. Adams and collaborator Peter Sellars are...

Romantic comedy retread deserves no honors

By Evelyn Wiese / May 1, 2008

What happens when you’re still single, approaching (gasp) 30, and your best friend gets engaged? If you’re the lead in a romantic comedy, the engagement must be to a physically flawless, über-wealthy, and unrelentingly charming blond, and you’ll be tapped to be the maid of honor. So, immediately after realizing that you’re in love with...

Generational gap colors housing attitudes

By Evelyn Wiese / April 14, 2008

The streets of the Villa Victoria housing complex are scrawled with graffiti, strewn with litter, and home to more than the complex’s fair share of rats, its younger Puerto Rican residents profess. But their older counterparts describe the neighborhood as beautiful and take offense when others refer to the low-income housing development as a “project.”...

Malkmus, Jicks take gold sounds on the road

By Evelyn Wiese / March 10, 2008

It’s very strange to hear Stephen Malkmus talk about trying to feed his daughter. At the start of a telephone press conference (and, yes, it’s very strange to participate in a telephone press conference, but that’s another story for another day) Malkmus could be heard telling someone, presumably his wife, about a feeding that—by the...

Mafia wins battle of new soap comedies

By Evelyn Wiese / February 25, 2008

[img id=”80353″ align=”alignleft”] “You’re chasing something you made ten years ago.” When fashion designer Victory Ford hears these words on NBC’s new drama Lipstick Jungle, she instantly realizes her mistake. Victory, whose latest creations have been panned by the fashion cognoscenti and the press, thinks she’ll find her mojo by reclaiming a hat she designed...

Not just another Flick chick

By Evelyn Wiese / February 19, 2008

Lately, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about Chantelle Jones. I went to high school with Chantelle; she was perky, brunette, and, above all, unapologetically ambitious. Almost from the moment she first raised her hand, Chantelle was universally reviled by the male population of Laguna Beach High School. In the classroom, she was mercilessly scrutinized,...

Relationship status: update needed

By Evelyn Wiese / February 5, 2008

At last Friday’s “It’s Complicated at U of C,” a workshop on dating and relationships organized by the Student Counseling and Resource Center, I learned that: 1. Guys are pussies. 2. Romantic entanglements at school almost always take the form of either obsessive and codependent pseudo-marriages or random—and usually drunken—hook-ups. 3. It’s very difficult, if...

Top Five Albums of 2007—Evelyn Wiese

By Evelyn Wiese / January 11, 2008

Amy Winehouse, Back to Black In a year coined by The New York Times as the year of the celebrity train wreck, Amy Winehouse epitomized how quickly the life of a rising young star can spiral out of control in the unrelenting flashbulbs of the paparazzi. But her album Back to Black, released to a...

The Note cards hard, but Hopewell rocks harder

By Evelyn Wiese / November 20, 2007

When I was younger and dumber, I imagined that it would be pretty cool to be asked to hang out with a band on their tour bus. Sneaking into the ubiquitous over-18 venues where our favorite angst-ridden rockers headlined, my friends and I made no secret of wishing to get noticed by the band. Of...

Despite best efforts, models still dumb

By Evelyn Wiese / November 8, 2007

There are certain things that at first don’t seem nearly as scary as they actually are. Not until Al Gore brought skyrocketing line graphs and drowning polar bears to movie theaters throughout the country did many see the magnitude of global warming. Record label crackdowns on illegal file-sharing didn’t seem like such a big deal...