IN THE LOOP: SIDEWALKS
BY RICK KOGAN
Different drummer
A DERMATOLOGIST WHO PLAYS SKINS AS WELL AS TREATS THEM
The first time Meyer Horn wanted to play the drums was the moment he heard Buddy Rich.
“I was only 9 but my parents were really supportive,” Horn says. “My mother [Janis] is a pianist and violinist. My father [Howard] is a cardiologist, but I think he was and remains a frustrated musician. Whenever he is giving a lecture he refers to it as a ‘gig.’ “
Horn is now a successful dermatologist, as is his wife. They have three kids. But he has managed to have a life in music, to create that rare balance between career and creativity.
Originally from Memphis, Horn lived, went to school and played music in many parts of the country before coming to Chicago for his internship in 1999. Through some mutual musician friends, he had became part of a band that recorded a demo CD in 1995 in Los Angeles. For various reasons–school, jobs, families–the band did not get back together until 2004, the year after Horn had started his medical practice.
A CD, “Sam Winch: The Lullabadeer,” was made. It got rave reviews. The Houston Press said, “What might have been a routinely impressive display of songcraft is elevated via eccentric vocals and dynamic arrangements into an apparent gene-splice of ‘Closing Time’ [by] Tom Waits with ‘Transformer’ [by] Lou Reed, as backed up by members of the Band and Lambchop. There’s also kind of a Steve Goodman thing going on here. . .”
One of the CD’s songs, “I Got Some Moves,” has been heard on the soundtrack for “Grey’s Anatomy.”
“Sam is a great songwriter,” says Horn. “That’s the reason I became involved and stay involved.”
Winch is a financial planner who lives in Appleton, Wis. That’s him, second from the right, standing with other members of the band and Horn family near the Horns’ Chicago home. The others are, left to right and with their band nicknames, Horn (“Skinny”), Jason Brown (“Red”), Horn’s wife (real name Keren) and 2-year-old daughter (real name Gefen), Horn’s sister Alisa (“Switter String”), Winch (“The Senator”) and Mark Berlin (“Grandpa”).
The band has played such local clubs as the Hideout and Martyr’s and other clubs across the country. A second CD is in the making.
“We live in different places, have other jobs and are all in our late 30s so it’s not like we could hit the road for a year,” says Horn. “We try to get together every six weeks or so to play. Sam? I think he has the talent and the charisma to make a career in music . . . if he wants to.”
The Horns will continue to practice medicine and rais a family. In addition to Gefen, there are baby twins Harper and Libi.
“I’m lucky. Keren loves it when we get together to play,” says Horn. “We both believe it’s great to have the kids exposed to music.”
Wonder what those kids will want to play when they turn 9.
rkogan@tribune.com
– – –
Claude the obscure
THE ABOVE OBJECT WAS RECENTLY acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago at a London auction. Entitled Object, it is a small work (51/2″ tall) by the Surrealist photographer/artist Claude Cahun (1894-1954). It depicts an eyeball covered with dark, coarse hair and topped by a cloud-shaped piece of wood. The eye and a child’s hand are affixed to a wooden platform that features a text referencing “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem. The piece is very rare–it’s thought to be the only surviving Cahun sculpture–and the museum has added it to a Surrealist collection that includes Rene Magritte’s Time Transfixed and Salvador Dali’s Venus de Milo with Drawers. “We’re so pleased to get this just two years after acquiring the Dali,” says Stephanie D’Alessandro, associate curator of modern painting and sculpture. “It’s icon quality.”
First shown in a landmark 1936 Surrealist exhibition in Paris, the piece is surely surreal, but for sheer bizarreness, it doesn’t hold a candle to its creator. Born Lucy Schwob, she made her entire life a piece of performance art, adopting a man’s name, shaving her head, wearing men’s clothes and being so convincing in her gender-bending that until the mid-1980s, long after her death, scholars assumed she was a man. A close friend of Andre Breton, Cahun is most known for photographing herself in outlandish costumes and poses and her work, long-eclipsed, resurfaced in the 1980s through the self-photographs of her spiritual heir, Cindy Sherman. To see some of Cahun’s work, go to google.com/images and punch in Claude Cahun.
– – –
social studies
SCOOPS & SNOOPS
Dishy chatter and stellar deals ruled at the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s recent annual gala in the Grand Ballroom at Navy Pier. Here’s what we heard.
Best way to stay buff: Head to Michigan by bicycle like super-trim U.S. Equities chief Bob Wislow. His route: South Shore Drive to U.S. 12-20; west on 12 to where 12 and 20 split in East Chicago; then northwest on 12 to New Buffalo. Time: “Four hours . . . but 31/2 on a good day,” he says.
Getting even better: The town of Aspen. i4design publisher Mitchell Obstfeld is following the progress of 555 Design Fabrication Management’s ski lodge project. “If it’s as hot as the Playboy casino they just finished in Vegas, I’m there.”
Newest insider pun: CAF was honoring Health Care Service Corporation’s 33-story vertical expansion of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Tower on Randolph Street, bringing it to 77 stories. Wags are calling it “Chicago’s most architecturally significant erection.”
Get it while you can: A $55 ticket to CAF’s new “Devil in the White City” bus tour through Oct. 28. Demand has been so high for the 31/2-hour tour, which takes you to all the hot spots from the book, that they’re upping frequency in May (architecture.org or 312-922-3432 for tickets).
–Reported by Lisa Skolnik
– – –
roamin’ numerals
82
PERCENT OF MEAT CONSUMED IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1900 THAT WAS PROCESSED BY THE CHICAGO STOCKYARDS
– – –
sunday 11:41 a.m.
BY BRENDA BUTLER
A RAISED HAND commands attention. This one belongs to H. Ricardo Ramirez, organist and director of music for Holy Name Cathedral, who is signaling to the 65 choir members plus musicians at mass on Easter Sunday. At these times, says Ramirez, “I make sure everyone’s attention is on me. When my hand is up, I am indicating when to come in in the next musical passage.” He is seen here standing between the two parts of the pipe organ, the largest mechanical instrument in the Midwest with 71 stops (sounds), 5,558 pipes (made of tin, lead, copper and wood), 4 keyboards and 30 pedals. An organ recitalist with a doctorate in musical arts, he performs sacred music throughout the country whenever he can.
– – –
HOW WOULD I . . . get your goat?
1. PLACE YOUR BETS: One possible origin of the phrase is linked to horse racing and the belief that a high-strung racehorse is calmer when sharing his stall with a goat. It was said that if a favored horse’s beloved pet were to suddenly “disappear” before a race, the distraught horse would run poorly.
2. PROTECT YOUR BUSINESS: Goat meat is in big demand in the U.S., so Boer goat breeders like Nanette and Burt Walker, owners of Windy Hill Farm in Kewanee, Ill., are knee-deep now in newborn kids. Boer goats are easy to raise and have “wonderful personalities,” says Nannette, but an adage about them is true: “If smoke can get through a fence, a goat can too.” At least when they escape, her bushes get pruned.
3. PUSH YOUR BUTTONS: Three topics guaranteed to get a person’s goat? Money, parenting and sex, says Mary Jo Barrett, head of the Center for Contextual Change, a Chicago-area psychotherapy practice. When one’s abilities or beliefs in these areas are questioned, anger follows, she says. “It all comes down to power plays, when you feel like someone’s making you feel inadequate, devalued, powerless.”
– – –
SOUNDTRACKING
TOM LYNCH
37, I.T. DIRECTOR, CHICAGO PARK DISTRICT
I’M LISTENING TO:
MEATLOAF, “Anything for Love”
“Pop meets opera!”
ALSO LISTENING TO:
MILES DAVIS “So unique. No one else sounds like him.”
AMIE RICHARDSON
41, TALENT AGENT, GROSSMAN & JACK
I’M LISTENING TO:
ELTON JOHN, “Tiny Dancer”
“My husband hates E.J., so . . . he’s only on my iPod.”
ALSO LISTENING TO:
ARCTIC MONKEYS “Fake Tales of San Francisco”
