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Pure Exhibitionism Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Nothing reflects McCarter’s populist vision for the Field better than “Cartier: 1900-1939,” a stunning exhibit of art deco jewelry, clocks, watches, cigarette boxes, and other objets d’art created by the House of Cartier in Paris. The show runs through January 16, and Sophia Shaw, director of exhibitions at the Field, considers it a feather in the museum’s cap: “These kinds of exhibitions do allow us to be seen as a more dynamic institution....

By Ben Joravsky And yet his candidacy is a long shot–a very, very long shot. It’s not just that he’s a first-time, relatively unknown candidate up against Congressman Glenn Poshard and former Illinois attorney general Roland Burris, two veteran campaigners with strong bases. And that he’ll have to contend with the double standard that benefits Republicans who are able to keep on winning by promising tax cuts they can’t possibly deliver, exploiting white fears of blacks, and doling out patronage to their pinstripe donors....

Concerning the article “Chi Lives: La Vida Kathie” in the September 17 issue of the Reader: Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Are we as a society to admire this type of writer? More directly, does the staff of the Reader admire this type of writer (or is there simply someone on the staff who knows her and wanted to give her a bit of publicity)?...

SIERRA MAESTRA Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Thanks to the twin roots projects guitarist Ry Cooder threw his weight behind in 1997–the Grammy-winning Buena Vista Social Club and the Afro-Cuban All Stars’ Grammy-nominated A toda Cuba le gusta–and the meteoric rise of trumpeter Jesus Alema–y’s Cubanismo!, the current level of interest in Cuban music rivals the 50s mambo craze. But none of this would be happening if it weren’t for Sierra Maestra, a brilliant son group that formed in the late 70s (and gave Alema–y his start when he was just 15)....

The Bears have been an unusually difficult team to get a grip on this year. Though they embarked on the season optimistic about making the playoffs, optimism soon turned to despair. Yet if the Bears and their fans were despairing, they weren’t hopeless. While compiling a record of 4-11 going into this weekend’s final game, the Bears nevertheless put together victories in Green Bay against the Packers and at home against two legitimate Super Bowl contenders, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Indianapolis Colts....

Rock, Pop, etc. JOHN DIGWEED, DJs WALSH & SOMMER See Critic’s Choice. Sat 11/25, 9 PM, the Vic, 3145 N. Sheffield. 773-472-0449 or 312-559-1212. MADISON GREENE, ALATHEA, DORAN STAMBAUGH Sat 11/25, 8 PM, Cornerstone Community Center, 2942 N. Western. 773-989-2087. LOCAL H Fri 12/1, 9 PM, Room 2800, Turner Conference Center, Student Resource Center, College of DuPage, 425 22nd St., Glen Ellyn. 630-942-2712. PATTY MORABITO & MARY MONICA THOMAS Free concert and tribute to World AIDS Day....

The 17th annual Women in the Director’s Chair International Film & Video Festival, featuring narrative, documentary, animated, and experimental works by women, runs Friday through Sunday, March 20 through 22, and next weekend. Screenings are at DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Pl.; Hothouse, 31 E. Balbo; Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson; and Calles y Sue–os, 1900 S. Carpenter. Tickets are $7, $5 for students, seniors with a valid ID, and members of Women in the Director’s Chair; festival passes are also available....

Women in the Director’s Chair International Film and Video Festival Short works on film and video by Rozalinda Borcila, Na’ama Batya Lewin, Jeanine Corbet, Anne-Lise Breuning, Barbara Johnson, and Patricia Armstrong. (United Church of Rogers Park, 7:00) Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » A New York performance artist returns home to a small Georgia town to care for her mother, who’s suffering a mental breakdown....

From the pages of Milky ¥ Number Seven (1419 31st Avenue S., Unit B, Seattle, WA 98144; $3) THE MOULET!! Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » In 1983 or 1984 somewhere, I was really liking the Thompson Twins. This was also the year one of my best friends traded all of her Led Zeppelin albums in for Oingo Boingo albums. I really wanted a “tail” like Alannah Currie or Tom Whatshisname....

Chief O’Neill’s pub on Elston is practically an Irish shrine. Look up and you’ll see ceiling tiles painted with Celtic knots. Behind the bar eight of the ten beers on tap are Irish. Bottles of Jameson Irish whiskey rest upside down on classic glass optic dispensers, popular in Irish pubs because they assure an honest pour. Proprietors Brendan and Siobhan McKinney have gathered an abundance of antique Irish bric-a-brac, much of it hunted down by Siobhan’s family, who still live in County Cork....

Raeburn Flerlage was 44 years old when he finally found his vocation. One day in August 1959, a telegram arrived at his south-side home from Moses Asch, the founder of Folkways Records. Asch needed him to go to the Pershing Hotel to photograph blues pianist Memphis Slim for an upcoming album cover. Asch had seen samples of Flerlage’s work from the Institute of Design, where Flerlage was studying under Harry Callahan....

The worst that can be said of the upcoming Jellyeye concert is that Rick Kubes won’t be in it. The rangy redhead badly injured a knee during the troupe’s fall engagement at Truman College; he’ll be out for a year, needs surgery, and has no money, workmen’s comp, or health or accident insurance. Hence this show, a benefit performance and reception for one of Jellyeye’s longest-lived and most visible performers. If you’ve seen these “action drummers,” you probably remember Kubes by face or name–he’s the guy whose eyes glaze over and whose mouth forms a circle of intense concentration or emits banshee yells....

JIMMIE DALE GILMORE/DALE WATSON Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Fans of Dale Watson and Jimmie Dale Gilmore love them in part for their understanding, appreciation, and acknowledgment of country’s classic roots. Both sprinkle a few covers into every performance, but the same genuine country spirit is inherent even in their decidedly unrevivalist originals. This double bill provides a rare opportunity to see how deep they can dip into country’s big song bag: audience members can submit requests as they enter the club....

LILLIAN, Goodman Theatre Studio. The most conventional, concentrated, and sentimental of the five monologues British writer-performer David Cale has brought to Goodman’s small stage is Lillian, seven vignettes covering seven years in the life of an endearing survivor who appeared in Cale’s 1993 Somebody Else’s House. Fortysomething when she tells this tale, Lillian compares herself to a late-blooming chrysanthemum. Several years earlier she took a randy, muscular young man named Jimmy as her lover....

Monday is the slowest night of the week for clubs, but on a recent Monday more than 800 people packed the House of Blues. They came out for the Damon Williams Comedy Jam, a monthly competition that brings together black performers from across the country. The Chicago area’s last two Afrocentric comedy clubs–All Jokes Aside on South Wabash and the TNT Comedy Hook in Lansing–closed recently, but Williams thinks he’s onto something big with the jam....

Police Deaf Near Far, Stage Left Theatre. Without Robert Schleifer’s volcanic performance as angry, charismatic young deaf activist Stinger, David Rush’s new play could easily have devolved into an issues-driven melodrama. Instead, under Drew Martin’s deft direction, it offers a tense, engrossing 90 minutes of theater. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » Stinger is based on Eric Smith, a hearing-impaired man killed by a policeman during a routine traffic stop in Forest View in 1996....

This annual showcase of experimental theater, performance, and music from Chicago’s fringe began as part of the Bucktown Arts Fest; now it’s hosted by the Curious Theatre Branch. Taking its name from surrealist painter Salvador Dali’s use of the term “rhinocerontic” (it means real big), the Rhino Fest celebrates its tenth anniversary with shows by such local notables as Theater for the Age of Gold, Lucky Pierre, Antonio Sacre, the Penlight Theater, and members of the Neo-Futurists and Theater Oobleck, as well as the Curious cabal....

THE CARTESIAN HEART, Breadline Theatre Group, at Center Theater Ensemble. In this generous, ambitious ensemble effort (based on a script by director Michael Oswalt), the Breadliners artfully update three fantastic E.T.A. Hoffmann tales immortalized by Jacques Offenbach in his 1881 masterwork Les contes d’Hoffmann. Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites » The setting is an urban coffeehouse where Nicklausse (Hoffmann’s faithful companion and muse) regrets the loss of her lesbian lover....

In the Whirlaway Tavern, near the corner of Kedzie and Fullerton, the conversation between Sally Timms and Jon Langford keeps getting sidetracked by the American Music Awards on television. LeAnn Rimes is holding the last notes of a syrupy song with a sleepy-eyed grin. Langford’s been bragging about his friend and band mate, accordion player Rico Bell, who titled a song after the bar. “Rico’s coming,” he tells her. “He’s coming next week....

By John Conroy The city’s lawyers have agreed to abide by half of the judge’s order. They have not appealed the judgment that the city was responsible for the misdeeds of policemen who were aware of brutality and did not stop it or get proper medical attention for Wilson. For their inattention to duty, the city has already issued checks to the Fahey family for $50,448 and to the People’s Law Office for $504,749....