mojosmom: (Default)
The Humanities Festival ended (for me) with an interview with Umberto Eco, whose The Prague Cemetery I recently finished, as well as a talk by Ian Lindsay, a professor of anthropology, about technology in the archaeological record. Both very interesting.

I saw a marvelous play at Court Theatre, An Iliad, a one-man show, that one man being "The Poet" (played by Timothy Edward Kane), and he is with us to recite his poem, as he has been doing for audiences for 3200 years. It was quite wonderful, gripping and timely. It's mostly, though not entirely, Homer (in the Robert Fagles translation, with a few lines in the original Greek). When The Poet rattles off a long list of wars since Troy, well, it was stunning. More here

Also saw a not-so-great play at a small theatre, The Beauty of the Father, by Nilo Cruz (whose Anna of the Tropics I liked very much). It's a bit of a tangle, there's a bit where one character explodes (figuratively, not literally!) that came out of nowhere, and the end is confused. The acoustics at the venue were not great, so some of it (including that explosion) was hard to understand.

I've done a couple of literary events - the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame Induction ceremony and an opening at the Poetry Foundation, and I did a great Chicago Architecture Foundation tour of "(Mostly) Indoor Art". That last one on a chilly day that came hard on the heels of one so lovely that I had lunch outdoors. Chicago is like that in the fall!

Last Friday was the Illinois Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers annual dinner. Because it's our 25th year, we honored the founders and past presidents, nearly all of whom showed up. It was a splendid evening, seeing old friends and meeting some new people. We have filled a number of board vacancies, and I think the new blood will be of great benefit to the organization.

It is such a dreary day today. Gray and rainy and cold. I was going to go out and do a couple of errands, but I'd rather stay inside. So I'm getting started on cleaning and straightening up the apartment ahead of my annual after-Thanksgiving open house next Sunday. I got quite a bit of the necessary shopping done yesterday; another advantage of retirement is that I can shop during the quiet time of day - a particular bonus before the holidays! I just have to pick up the wine, and the produce of course I won't get until Friday or Saturday. But anything that can be stashed in the freezer or pantry has been bought.

Stacey will be arriving late Thursday afternoon, so I will fix us a vegetarian lasagna for Thanksgiving dinner.
mojosmom: (Default)
Stacey arrived on Thursday, about the middle of the afternoon. I had assembled the vegetarian lasagna earlier in the day and, as we were both hungry, I put it in the oven as soon as she got in. That and a salad, with chocolate mousse (courtesy of Trader Joe's) made a nice dinner.

On Friday, we went to a couple of used book stores and both of us bought a bunch. I found one book I wanted that didn't have a price marked, so Doug checked Abebooks, and immediately started making snide remarks about parasitic booksellers. Really, look at the huge variation in prices, with no reasonable explanation. (He charged me slightly less than the lowest-priced copy on Abebooks, due to condition.) Yet another reason I enjoy O'Gara's is that you encounter things like this:
Scriptorium

After the bookstores, we went and got the remainder of the groceries that I needed for my Sunday open house. Later in the evening we went to the opening of The Opportunity Shop, a transitory space for art in the neighborhood. Basically, they get a realtor to allow them to use empty store front space for a short period of time (this show is up for about a month), and a variety of artists just come in and hang their art. A good time was had by all, and then we went home for dinner.

The next day, we headed to the Cultural Center for a showing of Between the Folds, a documentary about paperfolding. This is not your grandmother's origami. The artists are doing incredibly complex and sculptural pieces. But it was also about the mathematics of paperfolding and some interesting applications of knowledge gained through folding. The film will be shown on PBS' Independent Lens series in December, so, as they say, check your local listings!

The film was followed by an origami workshop, but we skipped that to look at a couple of the art exhibits, the best of which was After the Storm, photographs by Jane Fulton Alt of the aftermath of Katrina. We also stopped briefly at the Art Institute, to visit the Museum Shop and say hello to the lions, newly decked out for the holidays:
Red & yellow-wreathed lion

Purple-wreathed lion

Sunday was my annual open house. As usual, a wonderful group of people gathered to chat, eat and drink, and everyone had a good time.

I took the day off from work today, and finally got to a couple of fabric stores to hunt up buttons. I have a vintage coat and a short jacket, both of which lost buttons and for neither of which I had spares. Having realized that I wouldn't find anything close to the buttons that came with the garments, I decided I'd just replace them all. But I'm going to save the old ones and find some other use for them.

This afternoon, I did something I've been wanting to do for a while, but haven't gotten around to. At 47th and Lake Shore Drive, there's a birding trail/butterfly sanctuary:
Prairie & high-rise

and just west of that, there's a viaduct with murals on one wall and mosaics on the other. So I took a walk, and took pictures. Murals & Mosaics.

Happy days!

Dec. 6th, 2008 05:10 pm
mojosmom: (cat)
I have a working oven again! Hurrah! I shall celebrate by throwing in a pizza for dinner.

My Sunday-after-Thanksgiving open house went off quite well, even in the absence of an oven. I'd been sent a gift of an orange-cranberry coffee cake, someone brought a chocolate bundt cake and I'd bought a double chocolate Boston creme pie, and someone else brought mandelbrodt, so we had baked goods well covered!

My discretion was well-tested, as among the guests were a couple to whose surprise 65th wedding anniversary party I went the next evening. Their daughters hosted it (though only one was able to attend, the other being in Massachusetts) at a local Italian restaurant, and it was a lovely event. Lots of good food and the company was excellent as well.

January 2018

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