Category: Chicago!

Friday: Hili dialogue

May 3, 2019 • 6:30 am

I’m amazed at how quickly the weeks whiz by: soon graduation will take place at most American colleges, and things will become quiet. (The University of Chicago is on the quarter system and so our graduation is late: exams begin June 8, and graduation is a week later. On the other hand, classes usually start in early October.)

The last two days have been chilly and rainy, and while today will also be on the chilly side (high of 47° F or 8° C), we’ll have no rain. Tomorrow a warm spell begins. Here’s a photo I took of downtown Chicago the day before yesterday, with the low clouds hiding much of the skyscrapers:

At any rate, today is Friday, May 3, 2019, and National Chocolate Custard Day. It’s also International Sun Day (a day to advocate for solar energy) and World Press Freedom Day.

On May 3, 1715, there was a total solar eclipse across northern Europe and Asia, and it’s a sign of how advanced astronomy was then that Edmond Halley predicted its onset to within four minutes.  On this day in 1848, according to Wikipedia, “The boar-crested Anglo-Saxon Benty Grange helmet [was] discovered in a barrow on the Benty Grange farm in Derbyshire.” Here’s the description, and I’ve put photographs of the original (on a stand) and a reconstruction below:

The most striking feature of the helmet is the boar at its apex; this pagan symbol faces towards a Christian cross on the nasal in a display of syncretism. This is representative of 7th-century England when Christian missionaries were slowly converting Anglo-Saxons away from traditional Germanic mythology. The helmet seems to exhibit a stronger preference toward paganism, with a large boar and a small cross. The cross may have been added for talismanic effect, the help of any god being welcome on the battlefield. The boar atop the crest was likewise associated with protection and suggests a time when boar-crested helmets may have been common, as do the helmet from Wollaston and the Guilden Morden boar. The contemporary epic Beowulf mentions such helmets five times and speaks of the strength of men “when the hefted sword, its hammered edge and gleaming blade slathered in blood, razes the sturdy boar-ridge off a helmet.”

The original with iron framework and bits of horn plates; the leather has since decayed:

 

Reconstruction:

On this day in 1913, the first full-length Indian feature film was released: Raja Harishchandra. It marked the beginning of the Indian film industry, and already you can see some signs of Bollywood below, in particular the interpolation of songs, the dancing and the style of singing:

Here’s the full movie if you’re so inclined (the quality is pretty poor):

On May 3, 1921, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 was passed, which recognized the division of Ireland into Northern and Southern parts.  In 1948, in the case of Shelley v. Kraemer, the U.S. Supreme court rules that local laws could not ban the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities. In 1957, Walter O’Malley, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, decided to move the team to Los Angeles.

On May 3, 1960, the musical The Fantasticks opened in Greenwich Village in New York City, and ran for 42 years straight, making it the longest-running musical of all time. (My favorite song from that musical is here.) On this day in 1963, the Birmingham, Alabama police decided to battle civil rights demonstrators with fire hoses and vicious d*gs: a horrible display of violence that, since it was filmed, galvanized the civil rights movement. Here are some scenes from that day:

Finally, according to Wikipedia, it was on this day in 1978 that “The first unsolicited bulk commercial email (which would later become known as “spam“) [was] sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.”

Notables born on this day include Jacob Riis (1849), Vita Volterra (1860), Golda Meir (1898), Bing Crosby (1903), Pete Seeger (1919), Steven Weinberg (1933), and Christina Hendricks (1975).

Those who crossed the Rainbow Bridge on May 3 include Jerzy Kosiński (1991), Wally Schirra (2007), and Gary Becker (2014).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili once again thinks that she’s the Fulcrum of the World:

A: What are you doing up there?
Hili: I’m guarding the world’s order.
In Polish:
Ja: Co robisz pod sufitem?
Hili: Czuwam nad porządkiem świata.

A cartoon from Facebook. I’ll never recover from Gary Larson’s retirement from cartooning. Why can’t he just put out one every few weeks or so? What a loss of talent!

Another from Facebook:

Here’s my bff, the newly shaved Pi in his box:

From reader David:

Reader Barry calls our attention to the claws of this caracal:

https://twitter.com/i_iove_nature/status/1123776646836891655

From reader Nilou. I think this picture is photoshopped, but there are real X-ray very similar to this (see them here).

Tweets from Grania. This one, from astronaut Christina Koch in the ISS, shows our beloved Great Lakes:

Can you recognize them? Here’s a key:

Shappi has a cat, but what has it caught?

He’ll never get Jerry!

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1123685288004456449

I bet they love belly rubs too!

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1082679170910412800

Tweets from Matthew. This woman loves her albino ball python, but it’s not going to be that small forever!

Diffident wiener dog!

Closely related to the vervet, but not a vervet:

And I couldn’t resist a couple of geese tweets from a thread. Look at the responsible adults bringing up the rear of this gaggle!

 

Is Chicago deep-dish pizza really “pizza”?

March 16, 2019 • 3:00 pm

Grania found this video and commented that it was “genuinely funny”. (I think she was referring to the repartee in the last three minutes.) To a Chicagoan like me, though, it’s deadly serious. I prefer deep-dish (or stuffed) pizza over New Yorkian cheese-covered cardboard. I do like the New York style, but given a choice I’ll always go for the thicker ones.

In the video below we see a deep-dish pizza. The “stuffed” pizza is like that, but has a bit thinner crust and a crust on the top as well, so it’s a real pizza “pie”. Here’s a stuffed pizza from Giordano’s of Chicago. I like mine with homemade sausage, garlic, onions, mushrooms, and green peppers.

That stuffed pizza is my favorite of all.

But is it “pizza”? Who cares? It’s GOOD! Arguing about whether this is pizza is like arguing whether compatibilist free will is really “free will”. The question is semantic, and arguing about it fruitless. What matters is whether, when you crave a baked comestible of dough, tomatoes, and cheese, which concoction will fill the bill. I’ve already answered that for myself.

Here’s the YouTube notes, and I’ll add that I spurn “Chicago pizza” in any city other than Chicago, as those foreign pizzas are invariably inferior simulacra of the real thing.

Renowned pizza nerd Scott Wiener is challenging the idea that pizza can be anything. He’s traveling all over America, spotlighting these Frankenstein pizzas and trying to make a case for whether these new customizations can, in fact, still be considered a pizza. In the end, Wiener takes these pizzas to Lucali to pass final judgment from the purist of all pizza purists, Mark Iacono, where he will either declare each slice “PIZZA!” or ask with complete disgust, “Really, dough???”

Snow!

January 15, 2018 • 7:30 am

It snowed in Chicago last night and this morning, blanketing us with between 3 and 5 inches. That’s not a lot for here, but I put my car in the University garage (one of the perks of being Emeritus) since further snow is predicted. Here are a few shots I took on the walk to work (my car was parked, as it often is, in front of my building). Quality is minimal as these were hand-held in the dark, and two were taken on an iPhone.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House in snow:

Plowing the sidewalks (I think the University is open today, despite the holiday):

Botany Pond, future home of (I hope) Honey the Duck. Turtles and goldfish dwell beneath the snow-covered ice.

The tower of the Reynolds Club, the student union and theater next door:

The entrance to Hull Court, the biology quadrangle. Note the famous gargoyles:

I’ll leave the light on for you! (This is my office on the third floor, showing MAN AT WORK):

 

Chicago: fall

July 2, 2017 • 6:30 am

While looking through my iPhoto album, I came across this photo of my campus in the fall, taken a few years ago. I liked it, so you get to look at it, too. It’s taken right outside my building, and you can see the pond where my ducklings reside (but not for long; they’re big and have wings now):