Charades

After I persuaded the rest of the group to abandon the wussy idea of playing with teams and only using movies, books or TV shows (who does that??), here are some of the things we were forced to act out:

Surprisingly Entertaining

• Cheese Danish (resulted in me crawling around on all fours...don't ask.)
  

Meta:

• Erik V. (no pointing)
  
• Charades

Obscure Allusions

• A Movable Feast
• Ghost Ride the Whip

Preternaturally Cruel

• Chlorofluorocarbons
  

Vaguely Inappropriate

• Camel toe
• 2 girls, 1 cup
• Blumpkin

Rhapsody for Blue

A notice went out over the Chicago Opera mailing list that they were giving out free tickets to a benefit concert, and after looking over the star-studded list of performers, I jumped at the opportunity.

Rhapsody in Blue is a benefit concert for Blue Gargoyle Community Services, a nonprofit based in Hyde Park that focuses on literacy, tutoring and family counseling services. All of these services are provided free of charge. So naturally, the evening began with an introduction from Blue Gargoyle's director, Pamela Bozeman-Evans, who elegantly pleaded her case as she shook us down for donations. She told us that Blue Gargoyle serves over 1,300 families on the Southside and operates with a $3 million annual budget. And with the ongoing economic strain, 1 in 6 nonprofits in Illinois were slated to close by June, just when their aid was needed most desperately by the community. Please, could we spare some change? I caved and dropped a $5 bill in the basket.

On with the show. Merle Reskin Theater is mid-sized, but since the concert was not sold out, we were all seated fairly close to the stage. With rude black floorboards and corkboard risers, I was reminded of a high school auditorium. However, the extraordinarily intimate environment more than compensated for the austere surroundings. I could see every raised eyebrow and intake of breath, Aleksandra Kurzak's vibrating tongue and Rachel Barton Pine's flexing bicep muscles. Though the venue was much less grand than what they were accustomed to and no one was getting paid, you could see that every artist was still giving 110%.

The program was impressively long (about 3 hours) and focused primarily on operatic pieces, with some other fun, miscellaneous items in the mix. It included old favorites like "La donna è mobile" from Rigoletto and "Brindisi" (translation: drinking song) from La Traviata. (In fact, these are so popular that they are even arranged for the Cornell Chimes.) I thought "Ombra mai fù" from Xerxes sounded oddly familiar...then I realized that the music is more commonly known as Handel's "Largo." Apparently Handel wrote originally wrote the piece for an opera, which was a commercial failure. There were also some more obscure numbers (who's ever heard of Stolz's operetta Venus in Seide?), an African-American piece ("Deep River," by Samuel Coleridge Taylor, not to be confused with Samuel Taylor Coleridge), and a piece from Bernstein's Candide (in case you weren't aware, this includes my favorite overture of all time).

Ironically, the highlight of the concert was not a singer at all, but Chicago violinist Rachel Barton Pine. I might be in love. She opened with Sarasate's "Fantasy on Themes from Carmen." This (along with all the rest of Sarasate's compositions) is a tour-de-force in technical virtuousity. My jaw was dropping. Later, Pine returned with Massanet's "Méditation" from Thais. This is a beautifully lyrical piece that is unfortunately the only memorable part of the opera. The closing number was a "Chicago Medley" arranged by Pine, incorporating several kick-ass blues and jazz numbers named after our hometown. Finally, let's discuss the awesome gold sparkly low-cut dress that Pine was wearing. It was quite a break from the normally staid, all-black attire that one sees at classical performances.

Also, she has recorded several heavy metal albums and she uses Twitter: "What a great day, performing with Wagnerian opera star Petra Lang this afternoon, doing Spanish music with guitarist Rene Izquierdo tonight."

The master of ceremonies for the evening was Andrew Patner, a critic for WFMT, Chicago's classical station. At one point, he commented that he felt voice and dance were the most democratic of arts disciplines, since you need neither fancy equipment nor expensive lessons to hone and develop those talents (though money obviously helps). This has a good deal of populist appeal to it, but I wonder if it's actually true. Is your average opera company or dance troupe more international, more socioeconomically varied or more ethnically diverse than your average orchestra or theater company?

At the end of the concert, they announced that we'd raised nearly $7,000 by passing the basket during the show. Here's to fighting illiteracy!

I Hope

1. I will be proven wrong about my cynicism
   
2. Our efforts and determination will not have been in vain
3. We did the right thing
   

How to Efficiently Get from A to B

1. Leave your cell phone at home.
2. Hop on the Red line going northbound.
3. Transfer trains at Belmont. Pay no attention to the announcement that you are now on a Purple line train.
4. Realize with dismay that you are on a Purple express, and the next stop will be in Evanston. Ponder the ramifications of pulling the emergency door open switch.
   
5. Consider borrowing a stranger's cell phone to call your dinner companions. Wrack your brain to remember their numbers. Give up when you figure out the only numbers you know by heart are your parents'.
6. Get off at the Howard stop. Leave the station and reswipe your farecard to get back in. Dash onto a Red line train going southbound.
7. Enjoy making every single stop on the way back to Belmont.
8. Get off at the Belmont stop. Carefully check signage before hopping onto a Brown line train.
   
9. Stretch as you get off at the Western stop. You have spent the last two hours on trains. Arrive at dinner 45 minutes late. Reassure people that you were not hit by a car while biking.
   

More Chicago Badassery

In case you hadn't noticed, Chicago and Illinois have a long history of colorful politics, underhanded machinations and brash solutions. There was that time we reversed the flow of the Chicago River. (Rather than build a sewage treatment plant, the city opted to reverse the river and send sewage downstream to the Mississippi.) There was that time our mayor illegally closed down an airport under the cover of darkness. There was that time our governor was arrested for corruption. No, that other time. Ok fine, 5 out of our last 9 governors has been indicted. But, come on now, how could someone with such great hair possibly be guilty of racketeering?

Anyway, I stumbled across this gem in my internet wanderings:

1861

--- John Wentworth fired the entire Chicago Police Department when his term as mayor came to a close. This included 60 patrolmen, 3 sergeants, 3 lieutenants, and one captain. The city was entirely without police protection for twelve hours until the Board of Commissioners swore in some new officers to take their place.

Apparently, when the Illinois State Legislature took away Mayor Wentworth's police authority, he decided to fire the whole force. Wentworth, by the way, is the street I currently live on.

Why I Blog

<rant>

In reference to the lengthy post below, someone just asked why they should read it. Rather than extol the merits of my concise history of the Chicago World's Fair (where I have done all the heavy lifting of analysis and summary), I bit my tongue and said "Well then, don't read it."

Let me make one thing clear: I write this blog for me. No one else, just me. I have never, ever asked anyone to read it. There are enough ways that people can stumble upon it on their own, and if they feel it's worth their time, revisit occasionally. I never assume that people have read these posts when I speak to them in person. It's nice to hear comments and interact from readers, but I could care less if I didn't have an audience. I strive to make my posts well-written and interesting, and try to post frequently enough that the blog doesn't get stale. But when it comes down to it, I'm not trying to tailor to your needs, I'm writing to satisfy mine. It's a selfish perspective, I know.

< /rant>

Sorry, I'm probably in a crappy mood because Air India has informed us that they've canceled our flight. After hours on the phone, they only thing they'll tell me is that they won't give at refunds at this point, and that I should call back in a week. Let's hope they're not about to file for Chapter 11.

Chicago's 1893 World Fair

The year was 1890 and Chicago had just won the right to host the next world's fair, beating out rival bids from New York, St. Louis and Washington. How could the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 top the previous exposition in Paris, with its imposing yet graceful Eiffel Tower? The city was abuzz with civic pride and felt the enormous weight of upholding the nation's honor. The impossible had to be undertaken; failure was out of the question. Meanwhile, as construction remade Jackson Park into a "White City" (so named because each building was whitewashed), the seedy reality of the Black City was still very much present. Sewage ran openly in the streets. Rats and cholera outbreaks abounded. The poor and the wretched came to seek their fortunes in the city and quietly disappeared without notice.

In a tightly written nonfiction masterpiece, Erik Larson's Devil in the White City weaves the tale of the World's Columbian Exposition (celebrating the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America) with one of the century's most insidious serial killers, H. H. Holmes. As a resident of Chicago, the interplay between people and events in the Guilded Age and present-day locations is particularly thrilling. Names and places are brought to life as though a century of time has been magically dissolved. If I taught a high school history class in Chicago, this novel would be mandatory reading.

The fair was saddled with bureaucratic infighting, a deteriorating economy and an impossibly tight schedule. Chicago's severe winters hampered the pace of construction and organized labor used the fair as an opportunity to demand concessions for workers. Despite the specters of violence, fire and bankruptcy, the fair did go on to open on time, though not in a fully finished state.

As the fair neared opening day, Daniel Burnham, the chief architect, was desperate for a plan to challenge the Eiffel. In a speech tinged with recrimination, Burnham addressed a group of engineers at the Saturday Afternoon Club, calling on them to perform their civic duty and envision something more spectacular than the Eiffel Tower. "Something novel, original, daring and unique must be designed and built if American engineers are to retain their prestige and standing," he exhorted. As the audience bristled, one engineer from Pittsburgh had an idea come to him. He began hurriedly sketching this faint whisper into hard lines. It would take three attempts before his proposal for out-Eiffeling Eiffel was accepted, but George Ferris was eventually triumphant.

Larson does a tremendous amount of painstaking research and meticulously cites his sources at the conclusion of the book. His mining of the Chicago Historical Society archives and other primary source documents results in many savory tidbits which unapologetically trumpet the voices from the period. An examination of the menu at a grand 10-course banquet held at (old) Madison Square Garden in honor of the fair's architects reveals a country aspiring to ape French cuisine, and show itself sophisticated and worthy of respect:

Consommé printanier. Bass rayée, sauce hollandaise. Pommes parisiennes. Amontillado. Petits Moules fantaisies. Roquefort et Camembert. Cordials. Cigars.

Victorian era mores prevail, as fair organizers succumb to pressure to close the fair on Sundays. The seeds for women's suffrage have been planted, but are far from blooming.

Visitor hunting for an exhibit of wax figures: "Can you tell me where the building is that has the artificial human beings?"

Another visitor: "I have heard of them. They are over in the Woman's Building. Just ask for the Lady Managers."

Of course, there are certain things that never change, as evidenced by the following records of patients treated at the fair hospital:

820 cases of diarrhea
154, constipation
21, hemorrhoids
594 episodes of fainting, syncope, and exhaustion
1 case of extreme flatulence
169 involving teeth that hurt like hell

The fair was remarkable for its international breadth. Over 27 million people (about half of the US population at the time) attended the fair, and many of the sights they encountered were completely novel. Eskimo women wearing blouses of walrus skin. Japanese in red silk. Amazons with bushy hair and teeth necklaces. Algerian belly dancers in robes and turbans. A number of products were debuted and marketed at the fair, including Shredded Wheat, Cracker Jack, and a curious concoction called Aunt Jemima's for which you only needed to add water to get pancake batter. Pabst Brewing Company won an award for their beer, which resulted in the moniker Pabst Blue Ribbon. In a landmark decision, the fair opted to use alternating current circuitry to light the grounds, resulting in a tremendous cost savings and setting the prevailing standard for American cities.

A broad variety of historical figures make cameos in the book, with all the prominent figures of Chicago society (Armour, Pullman, Field, McCormick, Palmer) present. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, described by an escort as "half-boor, half-tightwad," tours the fairgrounds, but especially enjoys Chicago's vice districts. The inventor of the Braille printing press exhibits his new device and is hugged by a gracious blind girl. Her name is Helen Keller. Mark Twain comes to Chicago for 11 days, but ends up sick in his hotel room for the duration of the trip. He never makes it to the fair. Louis Sullivan discovers that one of his firm's junior architects is designing houses on the side for his own clients, and decides to fire him. His name is Frank Lloyd Wright.

In one of the more inadvertent contributions of the fair, Sol Bloom, the director of publicity, was invited to present his Algerian belly dancers at a performance for the Press Club of Chicago. Upon arriving, he realized that the club had provided a hapless pianist for musical accompaniment, who had no clue what sort of music might be suitable for an exotic Middle Eastern dance. Without hesitation, Bloom hastily improvised the following tune:
If only Bloom had bothered to copyright his diddle, the royalties would have run into the millions.

The fair ended with a bang. More specifically, Patrick Prendergast, a deranged Irish immigrant, assassinated Mayor Harrison at his home. The grand closing ceremonies were scrapped and a memorial service was held instead. The 600-vehicle funeral procession slowly made its way to Graceland Cemetary on the Northside.

Burnham and Olmstead's work in planning the fair helped spur the development of the City Beautiful movement. In later years, Burnham would continue to revolutionize modern urban planning, creating citywide plans for San Francisco, Cleveland, Washington, and of course, Chicago. The 18 miles of the present-day Lakefront Park system and Magnificient Mile on Michigan Avenue are the result of his vision. It is also likely that Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom and L. Frank Baum's world of Oz drew inspiration from their visits to the Columbian Exposition. (Elias Disney, father of Walt, was a construction worker for the White City.)

Ultimately, most of the fair's buildings and works were destroyed, and the land converted back into park space. Only a couple buildings remain in Chicago, and these include the Palace of Fine Arts (now housing the Museum of Industry and Science) and the World's Congress Auxiliary Building (now the Art Institute).

If you have even a passing familiarity with Chicago's geography, you know that the city's Southside is not the safest area to be in. In an ironic twist, the areas surrounding Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance have fallen far from their heyday as the homes of the rich and wealthy. Chicago is currently vying to host the 2016 Olympics, and much has been made of the opportunity for the games to revitalize the Southside. Perhaps this will be the stimulus we need, but I am inclined to think that like the shining fairgrounds a century before, any changes are likely to be fleeting.

MCLU Does Europe

Matt, Megan and I have tickets to London for June, which means we can plan out the nitty-gritty details the month before, right? Unfortunately, Katherine is going to France in May, and mentioned that hostels in Paris are already booking up for the summer. What the heck, who plans vacations 4 months in advance?

Ergo, in the last week, I've spent an awful lot of time researching London and Paris (in lieu doing work). It's finally starting to feel real; in a few short months, I'll be across the pond, humming "An American in Paris" to myself while getting pick-pocketed by gypsies. Gulp. Travel guide tip: if you are circled by a swarm of gypsy children in Southern Italy, your best bet is to act just a tad crazy. In fact, one proven technique is to "jump up, do a full spin, and come down in a karate stance with a primal scream." Other advice includes opening a Capital One credit card (they don't charge foreign transaction surcharges) and not flashing the two-fingered "V" victory symbol in Britain (it's their version of giving someone the finger).

Finding a place to stay was more complicated than I had originally anticipated. The line between hostels and cheap hotels is blurry, and then you have a myriad of other options like renting an apartment, bed & breakfasts, university dorm housing, sleeping on trains, and couch surfing. Moreover, the things you take for granted in the cheapest US motels (a/c, towels & linens, breakfast, soap) are oftentimes not included in hostels and hotels. Is it too much to ask for a shower curtain to be present? The cultural disparity is frightening. No wonder they never bathe in France.

After reading a lot of reviews and Google mapping locations, I decided to chance the Hotel Jarry in Paris. Although we could end up in a stiflingly hot room on the 6th floor (there's no elevator), the reviews seemed to indicate the rooms were reasonably clean. Moreover, it's located in the 10eme arrondissement, fairly close to the city center and the heart of "bobo" (bourgeois boheme) chic. We've also got a triple room booked at the Clink Hostel in London. (Tagline: Cells now open! Come and sleep in an authentic prison cell. Is that British for "really small rooms"?) Personally, I am hoping that we meet the Techno Twins while hanging out at the Costume Party at the hostel bar.

Thus far, we have a myriad of sights to see and activities to do in the two cities. We have tickets to see Dave Brubeck with the London Symphony Orchestra, and plan on getting tickets for Sister Act. I'd also really like to see Camden Market in London, and there's always the age-old standby of people-watching. And of course, I have been keeping an eye out for interesting (and cheap) eats in the cities. At this point, both London and Paris have well-developed neighborhoods which are "very ethnic," so we can always take a break from the blood pudding and steak frites for a good falafel sandwich. Jen has also mentioned a restaurant that sells only soufflés.

Now, you should all pray that the Euro and Pound exchange rates continue dropping.

Creativity

When's the last time you made a paper snowflake? Drew a cartoon? Decorated a vase?

Melissa invited a few of us over to make valentines yesterday afternoon, and I was struck by the way I froze, blanking out on what to do, stymied for ideas. It's been a long time since I've had to do something visually artistic, and as I looked at the pile of stickers, stamps, ribbon and brightly colored construction paper in front of me, I felt completely lost. Where were all my kindergarten-era arts and crafts skills?

Don't get me wrong, it's not as though having a full-time job has turned me into a soulless automaton. I take time out to be creative in other forms: through writing, in music, and in mathematics. (Yes, math does require creative juices.) However, I can't remember the last time I had to create a piece of visual art. I hesitantly grabbed a pair of scissors and began cutting out a heart. Meanwhile, Katherine was cutting out an elaborate silhouette with two people kissing and holding hands. It was practically on the order of a traditional Chinese paper cut. After surveying her work, I decided I should focus on jazzing up my cards via dinosaur stickers and glitter glue.

Eventually, my creative juices kicked in and I managed to assemble a few Valentines of debatable artistic vision. They are currently in the mail, so they should definitely be in mailboxes by the 14th. If you're reading this and didn't get a valentine, please don't take it personally; it probably just means you were less important than my mom. :p