mojosmom

The President on science:


Thursday evening I went to a program sponsored by the Friends of the Blackstone Branch Library (my local branch). We went to Special Collections at the University of Chicago's Regenstein Library to see three exhibits they have up: "Our Lincoln: Bicentennial Icons from the Barton Collection of Lincolniana", "Integrating the Life of the Mind: African-Americans at the University of Chicago, 1870-1940", and "East European Jews in the German-Jewish Imagination from the Ludwig Rosenberger Library of Judaica". I think Special Collections librarians must be among my favorite people. They have such interesting stuff under their control, and they just love to share it!

Last night, there was a fantastic jazz concert at Symphony Center. The first half was Maggie Brown and some of Chicago's top jazz musicians doing a program Songs of My Father: A Tribute to Oscar Brown, Jr.. He, of course, was one of Chicago's most famous jazz musicians, composers, educators. His children follow in his footsteps, though, sadly, Oscar Brown III was killed in an auto accident some years ago.

After the intermission, We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite (for which Oscar Brown, Jr., wrote the lyrics). Originally recorded in 1960, with Abbey Lincoln on vocals and a host of other greats, it was banned in South Africa (such an honor!). DeeDee Bridgewater sang for us, and two of the original recording artists, Julian Priester on trombone and Raymond Mantilla on percussion, were part of the group. Max's daughter, Maxine, was in the audience, and participated in a pre-concert discussion of the piece.

When I was driving home from work, I noticed that the police were at the every ramp to Lake Shore Drive, getting ready to shut it down for the President's motorcade. I didn't want to get stuck on the bus, so I grabbed the train.

I didn't get to my Italian class tonight because I didn't get out of the office until 6:45! I'd been over at the jail for more than two hours with a couple of assistant state's attorneys, dealing with a client who is not as smart as he thinks he is. We wouldn't have been there nearly so long if the jail had more people on this shift, as much of the time was sitting around waiting.

I'm also annoyed at my library. Recently, they "upgraded" their website (it's really ugly and hard to navigate, compared to the previous incarnation). Among the improvements they made is the addition of the ability to reserve books. You give them your email address, and they email you a notice when the books are ready to pick up. Only they don't. I reserved a couple of books, and tonight, while checking for a date due on a couple of other books, I discovered that not only are the books ready for pickup, but I have to pick one up by tomorrow and the other by the next day. Did I get an email about this? I did not.