The University Symphony Orchestra’s annual Halloween concert is a treat for the ears—and the eyes.
By Benjamin Recchie, AB’03
Many a Hyde Park Halloween reveler has started his or her evening with the annual concert given by the University Symphony Orchestra. I caught up with Barbara Schubert, X’79, senior lecturer in music and conductor of the USO, about this annual tradition.
How long has the USO offered a Halloween concert?
I think the first Halloween concert we gave was in 1980, when Mandel Hall was being renovated. That one took place in the Ida Noyes gym, which is now the Max Palevsky Cinema. It featured pretty typical Halloween fare: Night on Bald Mountain, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and Danse Macabre. I’ve gotten a lot more creative since then.
There were a couple of years that I didn’t program a Halloween concert, but by now I think I’m up to number 28.
What music is the symphony performing this time around?
This year the theme is “Arabian Nights,” a theme that provides a wonderful opportunity for costumes, dancing, and storytelling, along with great music. The central piece is Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, which of course is a famous orchestral masterpiece. In addition we’re doing some lesser-known works that fit the theme: Charles Tomlinson Griffes’s The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan and several movements from Carl Nielsen’s Aladdin Suite.
How do you choose what pieces to perform?
There are so many factors that enter into my programming decisions for this concert, or for any concert: challenge and appeal for the musicians, enticement and entertainment for the audience, variety over the course of a season and from year to year, and appeal, challenge, and variety for me as conductor. In addition, I always try to program some repertoire that is not standard fare—great music that you don’t hear every day and that other orchestras may never play. I’m trying to do my part to counteract the “nothing-but-the-warhorses” approach of many professional, community, and university orchestras. The Griffes piece is one such treasure: it’s a luxuriant score, displaying the influence of the French Impressionist school as well as Griffes’s distinctive voice. It is, of course, inspired by the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge that tells the story of Xanadu and its “stately pleasure dome” within a beautiful garden.
One tradition of the concert is that you and the musicians come in costume, correct?
I’m always delighted to see the creativity of our musicians expressed through their colorful and imaginative costumes. The French horn section has a long-standing tradition of matching garb. They’ve had so many distinctive and occasionally flamboyant creations: one year they all came as Big Bird, another year they were all ice cream cones, and so on. I never know in advance what they’re going to do: they keep it a closely guarded secret.
What should a first-time audience member be prepared to listen for—and see?
While there are lots of theatrical extras involved in this concert, it is first and foremost a concert, featuring earnest and artistic performances of great music. Yes, there are decorations all around Mandel Hall; yes, there is a special entrance by yours truly down the center aisle; yes, there is storytelling, set by yours truly in patently unsophisticated verse; yes, there is dancing in the aisles by the wonderful young dancers from the Hyde Park School of Dance. But first and foremost, the purpose is to bring the audience excellent performances of great music. The orchestra works very hard to prepare the concert with only a month of rehearsal. It is a testament to the talent of our student musicians that they’re able to do that.
What’s your favorite thing about this concert?
Without question, my favorite aspect of this concert is the enthusiasm of the audience. We have kids of all ages, family groups of all combinations, college students, community members, and the like who come to the concert—many of them in costume, of course. They are enthralled and inspired by the whole event, and many make it an annual tradition. I love talking to the audience members as they exit the hall. Energy and enthusiasm are both high, and it makes me feel that we are really doing something meaningful to build the audience for classical music. The most frequent comment that I get at the exit door, though, is the question of what I’m going to program next year.
In my experience, the Halloween concert has always been a lighthearted and family-friendly affair, so bring your kids (or just the kid in you) to Mandel Hall on Saturday, October 29. There are two performances, one at 7 p.m. and the next at 9 p.m. Admission is free, but donations are accepted at the door. (Suggested donations are $8 general, $4 students/children. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult.)
When a zombie infection spread across campus, a student task force armed the resistance.
By Mitchell Kohles, ’12
Now that it’s all over, it’s safe to talk about it. Humans vs. Zombies (HvZ), the one-week event in which a zombie infection spread across campus, ended with nearly everyone dead… er, undead.
It all started on Tuesday of second week, October 4. At 9 p.m. 190-something students gathered in the middle of the main quad to receive bright orange bandanas and foam-dart guns—the standard issue Nerf Maverick is rented out from the Zombie Readiness Task Force (ZRTF) for $5, but several “humans” opt for more heavy arms and purchase them independently.
Every player (except one, the original zombie) receives a weapon to defend themselves from the zombies who, if shot, have to run out of sight of the humans before attacking again. If you’re touched—infected—by a zombie, you lay down your weapon and join the walking dead.
It takes the ZRTF more than a month to prepare each game—just four students serve on the officer board—and the RSO usually reserves the main quad and a campus building for one or more nights during the week-long attack. These games are the only visible evidence of the ZRTF, but the group meets throughout the year to tweak the rules of each upcoming game. This year’s rule changes: Pierce is a safe zone, except for the front lobby; socks can be used as projectiles but not as melee weapons; no shields allowed, whatsoever.
At the dining hall on Friday morning, I asked one of my residents, Robin, how he’d managed to survive this long. “I don’t go outside. It’s kind of nice though because I get escorted wherever I go.” As it turns out, there is a hotline for humans to call and request an escort to anywhere on campus. “Walking alone is suicide. If you go out there alone, they [start chasing you], and you only have six bullets." Robin gestured to his two guns, connected by a piece string so that with one motion he can simultaneously load the next round in each gun. “Well, 12.” After breakfast, Robin made plans with a few fellow humans to get him safely to a 10:30 math class in Ryerson. It sounds like there will be running involved. “Hopefully I’ll see you guys tonight. As a human.”
“After the first day, about 50 percent were zombies. After the second day, 80 percent,” says Kevin Wang, Colonel of the ZRTF and a main organizer of this fall’s game. Running a campus-wide event of this scale attracts attention, and not all of it was welcome. Several non-player students donned orange bandanas of their own and patrolled the quads in search of the remaining humans, causing confusion among players and havoc among ZRTF members. Eventually, a directive was sent out to all the players to take the bandanas from the phony zombies.
The following Tuesday, the few remaining humans gathered for a final mission on the main quad. The objective: escort two scientists to three checkpoints and then get them safely to the Gordon Center for Integrative Sciences. Unfortunately, the humans were outnumbered, and those who didn't abandon the mission early on were soon cornered and converted into cold-blooded [I like "over-educated", but maybe that doesn't fly] brain-eaters [again, I like cerebrophages, but maybe too much?].
Chris Dewing was chosen to be the original zombie, both an honor and a responsibility. "It is a burden in the sense you don't want to be a failure," said Dewing over email. "One needs to by sure to get kills quickly, efficiently, and frequently." Plus, there's all that guilt.
Scorned and bitter zombies don’t have to wait long to try their hand at being human again. The next game is planned for eighth week of winter quarter. How will the snow affect the infection? “I’m excited," says Wang. "I think it just adds another element to the gameplay."
So, is there any cure? “There would have been one if they had completed the mission,” says Wang, “but no one did.”
By Elizabeth Station
As a kid, I wept through Dr. Zhivago and Reds. During the Sandinista years, I rode buses around Nicaragua to glimpse the revolution. Later, on a trip to Moscow, I had to visit Lenin’s body in Red Square. It was rumored he was wearing a new Armani suit—and since the Soviet Union had just fallen, we had the mausoleum to ourselves.
Socialism is so 20th century, but I’m still a pushover for big red posters. Lucky for fans, Soviet art is on display in museums all over the city, as part of the Soviet Arts Experience festival. An intimate show called Process and Artistry in the Soviet Vanguard, now at the Smart Museum of Art, features works by Gustav Klucis and Valentina Kulagina, a husband and wife team who created public art for the Soviet government during the 1920s and '30s.
What is most interesting about the show—conceived as a companion to the Smart’s concurrent Vision and Communism exhibition—is its attention to artistic process. Klucis and Kulagina combined photo montage techniques with abstract graphic design; many posters are displayed with the photographs, newspaper clippings, and early sketches that the artists used to create the works. “This is where cutting and pasting started,” says Kimberly Mims, an art-history PhD student who curated the exhibition. “The artists were very experimental, and they freed themselves to work with photography in whatever way they wanted.”
Politically, of course, Soviet artists weren't free. Under Stalin, semi-autonomous artists’ collectives were disbanded and artists came under central party control. Without awareness of their process, it would be easy to write off the work as agitprop or kitsch. One poster exhorts Communist Party youth to pitch in and help peasants on collective farms; another celebrates happy rural workers and their tractors. The once-stirring slogans ring hollow: “The USSR is the Shock Brigade of the World Proletariat!” “Higher the Banner of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin!” “Male and Female Workers all to the Election of the Soviets!”
That doesn’t mean that art from this period lacks value. “The hook for me, and maybe for a younger audience that’s computer literate, is that this show offers a chance to see what came before,” says Mims. Today with the click of a mouse anyone can send photos, alter an image, or cut and paste copy—but in the 1920s, photo montage was entirely new. “Of course for the Soviets, the dream was for everything to be automated,” adds Mims, “but they were in a handmade world.”
]]>By Ruth E. Kott, AM'07
It was the easiest interview ever. After Irwin Keller, JD'88, agreed to an e-mail dialogue about his more than 17 years performing in “America’s Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet” the Kinsey Sicks, I sent him some questions—"How did you decide on the name Winnie and her character?" "What's your most memorable performance experience?" "Do you think you'll ever go back to being a lawyer?"—but he wasn't really all that excited about them.
Keller took matters into his own hands, coming up with a quite entertaining set of questions and answers. "As I was writing," he said, "I kept modifying questions to elicit the answers I wanted to give, and before I realized it I'd written the whole damn interview. So here is my version for you to do with as you will!"
And we will publish it below.
You probably have one of the more unusual professions for a University of Chicago graduate, wouldn’t you say?
For sure. I do read through the University of Chicago Magazine, and I rarely see anyone having as much fun as I do performing with the Kinsey Sicks. I imagine working on the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary would’ve come close, but at least I’ve still got a job.
How did you end up forming and performing in the Kinsey Sicks?
It was during the early 1990s, when the AIDS epidemic was still raging unchecked and the work was difficult and heartbreaking that we formed the Kinsey Sicks. We were four gay men living in San Francisco, in the center of the storm, and two of us were doing HIV legal work—me locally and Ben Schatz nationally. To blow off steam we’d sometimes do little guerrilla drag outings, getting friends together and showing up somewhere inappropriate in drag.
So in December of 1993 we went to a Bette Midler concert dressed as the Andrews Sisters. A promoter approached us and asked us to do a number at an upcoming World War II-themed event. This was the first time that it dawned on me that all four of us had significant musical background. We were excited by the idea and began harmonizing as we wobbled home on our pumps. We stayed up till 3 a.m. coming up with song ideas, and the Kinsey Sicks were born that night.
How would you describe your act?
Lots of politics, really smart songs, a generous helping of raunch, bad drag, four truly lovable characters, and some really good four-part a cappella singing. It’s very highbrow and very lowbrow at once—the musical styles range from Gaga to opera.
Was it hard to find an audience?
You’d think, wouldn’t you? But no. We almost instantly became a cult hit in San Francisco. We’d write show after show in our evening hours and do four- or six-week runs at a local theater. But then we started touring and imagining what it might be like to do this full time. ... In 2000 we got an offer to open our show Off Broadway, and there was no way I could say no. I didn’t ever want to think that I’d had the opportunity to be a performer at that level and that I said, "No." So I quit my job and haven’t practiced law since.
How did Off Broadway go?
Our first production meeting for the show was September 11, 2001. That probably tells you something right there. We had all moved to New York that week. We already had a contract with Studio 54, which was building an Off Broadway–sized space around us. We had a production crew, designers, everything. We couldn’t just call it off. So we opened the show. It was a great show—the reviews were lavish. But New York was traumatized. No one came. The tourists stayed away. The New Yorkers stayed home. It was heartbreaking. We closed by Christmas, like everything else running Off Broadway at the time, except for Puppetry of the Penis. Go figure.
Sounds like a big disappointment.
Yes and no. It was sad, but it raised our sights. We realized we really could do this for a living. So we started touring full time, and we’ve been doing that now for ten years. We’ve recorded seven albums, starred in two feature films [including Almost Infamous, a behind-the-scenes documentary], and performed in theaters, colleges, and comedy festivals all over the place. Not just the big cities, but small towns and Bible Belt. It’s fun, it’s silly, and it’s often mission-driven. All in all, it’s a life I’d never expected.
Tell us about your character, Winnie.
I love Winnie. She helps me work out a lot of stuff. She’s sort of the den-mother of the Kinsey Sicks and the musical taskmistress. She’s a lesbian but kind of old-fashioned—conservative and prudish. She hates when the group’s smiling veneer begins to crack, and she struggles valiantly to maintain a socially appropriate demeanor. But mostly her attempts fail, often leaving her having to face down the audience in long, awkward silences that have become her comedic stock and trade. I love those long beats.
So how did your time at University of Chicago prepare you for a life with the Kinsey Sicks?
I loved University of Chicago. I loved and still love Hyde Park. My years studying obscure Semitic languages give Winnie no end of puzzling, esoteric factoids to blurt out impulsively on stage.
But most significant is that University of Chicago is where I became an activist. The gay-rights movement was still pretty new; the AIDS epidemic had just started. So I started organizing and protesting and lobbying. I was part of getting the University to adopt its non-discrimination policy. With the support of my law-school professors, I drafted Chicago’s human-rights ordinance, which was passed into law in 1989. I ran the Gay and Lesbian Law Student Association and organized the Chicago Conference on Sexual Orientation and the Law in 1987 (which is actually where I met fellow Kinsey founder Ben Schatz, who was at the time a baby lawyer with National Gay Rights Advocates and one of our invited speakers).
But it was a challenging time. Some readers will remember a horrific spate of anti-gay harassment that went down on campus in 1987—a concerted campaign by a group calling itself the Great White Brotherhood of the Iron Fist. They targeted some dozen visible queer activists on campus, my partner at the time and I among them. They researched us all and sent our parents and neighbors and employers letters telling them that their child or neighbor or employee was gay, and a probable carrier of AIDS, and encouraging violence against us. I became frightened to walk alone at night in Hyde Park, not knowing who these people were and what their actual capabilities might be. The campus community was shocked when it turned out to be a couple of students in the College.
It was terrible. But the experience hardened my resolve. I needed a life where I could be out and outspoken. And for a while, my HIV legal work served that function for me. But frankly, the chance to do social critique in a wig while singing four-part harmony and making people laugh? What could be better than that?]]>
By Mitchell Kohles, '12
If the idea doesn't sound UChicago, the pitch sure does. Pete Beatty, AB’03, and Tom Gaulkin, AB’04, are helping to start The Classical, a website dedicated to smart, sophisticated sports writing. On board is a host of writers and bloggers who have written for everything from McSweeney's to SLAM, and who have story ideas that range from a piece on David Foster Wallace's relationship with tennis to an exposé on Jason Giambi's offseason entertainment.
The staff plans to launch the site in mid-October once they reach their one-year budget of $50,000—check out the sports artwork and editorial privileges offered in return for donations to their Kickstarter campaign. With only a few weeks left to reach the target (they're pushing 85 percent now), the website could offer a much-needed breather from the knee-jerk opinions and over-the-top fawning of standard fare sports journalism. Beatty, managing editor, shared some more details and showed his Chicago loyalties. Well, sort of.
How will The Classical fit into the landscape of sports journalism filled with giants like ESPN, websites like Deadspin, and unconventional upstarts like Grantland?
A friend (and fellow U of C alum) said she was glad someone was going to launch a sports website for people who read novels. That obviously doesn’t cover our whole mission statement, but it’s not a bad place to start. The Classical is a place for thoughtful, engaging, and stimulating writing about sports and beyond. There are a lot of great sites serving up sports coverage right now, but there is also an opening for a more literary-minded take on the games people play. I hope we can be a place where writers who can’t find full-time jobs in the new media environment can get great clips, make a few bucks (once we’re on our feet as a business), and do some wonderful writing. I’m hoping The Classical winds up like the sports-writing equivalent of an old-fashioned small mag—a journal of ideas, very much a Chicago idea. But, of course, on the web. And funnier than Ramparts or the New Left Review. With more skateboarding columns.
Are there any specific Chicago or UChicago stories that you plan to cover?
The Classical is going to wind up skewing very Chicago-y. I’m already lining up pieces from Moacir de Sa Pereira, AB’04, AM’05, and Edward “Whet” Moser, AB’04, and many other folks I know from the U of C. Between Nate Silver, AB’00; Christina Kahrl, AB’90; and Kim Ng, AB’90; et al, the U of C has put its fingerprints all over the sports world. I’m very much hoping The Classical can be in the same ultra-smart tradition. I am already looking for an angle to write about the American Professional Slow Pitch League’s Chicago Storm franchise, and their successor, the Chicago Nationwide Insurance team (what a boring team name!). One of our charter members, Tim Marchman, is a resident of Hyde Park and a pretty ardent White Sox fan, so the website is definitely going to have some Chicago flavoring, with an emphasis on the South Side.
What, if any, is the transition from FreeDarko to The Classical?
Bethlehem Shoals, the animating spirit behind FreeDarko, is sort of the center of the hub of how everyone from The Classical knows each other. And that’s no accident; I think for a lot of people FreeDarko as both a blog and two awesome books opened their eyes to the fact that sports can be approached in brainy and provocative ways without feeling clinical or condescending. We’re going to branch out from pro basketball into the entire kingdom of sports, but I think we will always look to FD for inspiration.
The promo video on your Kickstarter page emphasizes reader involvement. How do you hope this “conversation” will work on a micro level?
I’m hoping, as the managing editor, to recruit writers from the commenter community if I can, and not just as a gimmick. On an even more micro level, I think our content—literally what our staff chooses to write about—is going to be shaped by how people react to our initial offerings. We’ve already gotten suggestions via Twitter and the Kickstarter drive for things that are going to be a part of the site, from a skateboarding video column written by a novelist/professor, to a call for an oral history of the Continental Basketball Association’s Cedar Rapids Silver Bullets.
You offer your backers some pretty creative rewards—at least 15 people have donated enough money to request an essay on any topic. What’s the wildest request so far?
The donor who requested that we write a sonnet about Manu Ginobili and/or Jerry Jones is the clubhouse leader in oddball requests, but there’s a ways to go yet—about 20 grand left to raise still, so we may have to do even more outlandish things to get our seed money.
Sox or Cubs?
Actually, Indians, but if I’m choosing a Chicago loyalty, White Sox all the way, division rivalries notwithstanding. I’m a sucker for the disenfranchised, and the Cubs’ ineptitude is a fig leaf for their establishmentarianism.]]>
By Christina Pillsbury, '13
Stephen Bonnet, AB’11, proudly lists his position as the mascot at the University of Chicago on his résumé. But his stint as Phil the Phoenix, he says, is hardly the most eccentric detail about himself. Under the personal section he boasts about his Bullwinkle J. Moose impression. In fact, he considers it a big part of why he was hired as a Teach for America corps member, teaching tenth grade special education in the Bronx. He’s also pursuing a master’s degree in special education at Hunter College. He hopes to take his experience riling up the crowd to the next stage of his life–even if that doesn’t include mascot grad school.
Did you show any signs as a child that indicated a future career as a mascot?
Throughout my childhood I was shy, deathly afraid of crowds or large groups of people, a super-nerd who was not at all dancer-ly, and the last person on earth you would ever expect to do any of the things I have done over the past three years as our mascot. But it wasn’t until I got to high school of all places that, supported by my classmates and teachers, I really got comfortable enough with myself to do that. I came out of the closet in tenth grade, which stands in for just a total transformation over my first two years of high school that released publicly the gregarious extrovert I had been on the inside for so long.
In what way did the skills you learned in the Core translate to Phil the Phoenix?
They both required me to step into the perspectives of others. In the case of the Core, that meant thinking like an astronomer, a biologist, an anthropologist, and a philosopher, among others. Being Phil the Phoenix required me to understand, without talking, who of the players and fans was in the mood for getting fired up and who was in the mood for joking around, and who was in the mood for being left alone.
What is your best memory jumping around in the U of C crowd?
One really heartwarming memory from this past year is that my parents flew from New York out to Chicago for Parents’ Night, which is the last home basketball game of the season, and so was also the last formal appearance from me of the season. I came up with the idea that in acknowledging parents of graduating seniors, my parents could wear the heads from the two old costumes that were just lying around the equipment room, and we could acknowledge “Mr. and Ms. Phoenix.” My boss agreed to it, and it was the most hilarious-looking thing to see me with two normally dressed adults wearing phoenix heads. I also really appreciated the chance to acknowledge my parents when they came out all that way to see me.
What other stories stick out in your mind from your days representing the Maroons?
Once I was walking from Ratner to Summer Breeze, and a drunken person thought it would be hilarious to steal my head and run off with it. Now this was in the old costume, which actually was broken in a number of places. The shoe inserts were completely broken, which meant that my feet were just kind of sliding around all the time in these huge shoes. I literally could not run in the costume, because I would have landed on my face. Fortunately, while I tried to cover my head with my wings, one of my friends was nearby and immediately followed the thief, in heels I think, and got my head back within seconds.]]>
Day of remembrance honors alumnus killed in a traffic incident in late August.
By Christina Pillsbury, '13
On September 1 the University community mourned the loss of Mandeep Bedi, AB’10, who died August 25 from injuries sustained in a traffic incident a few days prior. His wife, Elizabeth Bedi, is a fourth-year anthropology student in the College.
Bedi was run down by a female driver with whom Elizabeth engaged in an argument after she merged into traffic on August 19. The couple were rushed to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital. Elizabeth, who was also hit, was treated for her injuries and released. Police are investigating his death as a homicide. He was on his way to campus, where he was a sales intern at the University's IT Services Solutions Center.
In honor of Bedi's senior anthropology thesis that examined American graffiti, students and other members of the community began the day of remembrance by making a graffiti wall on the Bartlett quad. Following the tribute, approximately 150 community members attended a memorial service in Rockefeller Chapel, which concluded with a walk to the Promontory Point, led by Elizabeth.
From the podium at Rockefeller, friends and faculty members remembered Bedi as an active campus community member: As a student he served as a residential computing assistant, helping students and faculty with technological difficulties. Through the student-run organization SPLASH! Chicago, he taught two classes to high-school students—one on the politics of soccer and the other on contemporary freedom of speech. Friends also said his enthusiasm in the South Asian Student Association dance group was contagious.
“He never stopped dancing, ever,” Elizabeth said in her eulogy. “Even now I know he’s dancing.”
Others remembered the always-optimistic Bedi’s intellectualism. One of Bedi's most influential professors, John Kelly was unable to attend, but sent a statement, read by Director of the Anthropology Department Russell Tuttle, “Mandeep reveled in thinking along with other students rather than trying to distinguish himself from everyone else. He had the kind of intelligence that was there to help others.”
Bedi and Elizabeth were married a little less that a year ago.
“The night of Mandeep’s final SASA dance show, I leaned over to my roommate and said, 'I’m going to marry that man,'” Elizabeth said. “Since we met, our life has been a fairy tale.”
She concluded with Bedi’s signature phrase; “B.E.Z. [Be easy] Mandeep, B.E.Z. always.”
]]>Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie house gets the LEGO treatment.
By Mitchell Kohles, '12
In America, if you didn’t play with LEGO as a kid, you played with Barbie. If you didn’t play with either, well, maybe you ended up at the U of C.
Steven fits into the first category, but it’s too early to know if he’ll be a Maroon. “2,276,” he yells upon learning the brick count of the new LEGO interpretation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House. “That’s even more than the Temple of the Crystal Skull!”
On August 28, Steven and others—most of them adults—visited the Prairie-style landmark to meet Adam Reed Tucker, LEGO master builder and the man behind the LEGO Architect Series. The event launched the 16¼L x 4¾H x 7½W mini-Robie, and visitors could pick up a set of their own for $199. I don't get an allowance anymore, but if rates haven’t changed much in the last 10 years, that price tag is no child’s play.
And obviously, the goal of the LEGO Architect and Landmark series is to target the adult market, to make the bricks feel like an art form instead of a toy. Or at the very least, a sophisticated toy.
Tucker, who had a nine-month LEGO exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in 2009, is all about the “brick as art” idea. Six years ago, he was working as an architect using rebar, glass, and drywall to construct his buildings. But when the economy took a bite out of his business, he realized his LEGO side-project might be something more. “I realized that I could use the brick as a medium, not just a toy.”
For the past five years, Tucker has been using those bricks to interpret famous architecture from around the world, from the Willis Tower to Burj Khalifa.
Build, play, stack? When asked, Tucker says he prefers “create.” And on August 28, visitors got to check out his newest creation: a jumbo version of the mini-Robie, this one not for sale. Tucker is using 12 of the retail Robie sets to build an extra large (or slightly less small, depending on what you're comparing it to) version of Robie.
“I’m not really building it to scale,” says Tucker. “It might be 1:127 or something else, but it is to proportion.” After working on it for four days at his home, Tucker brought the model along with him to show his fans and continue building—after four days of work, he had only completed the exterior walls. “I’m just taking it apart and putting it back together until I’m happy with it.” And instead of flipping through an instruction booklet (by the way, the booklet for the retail version is a hefty 195 pages), he consults Frank Lloyd Wright's photos and architectural drawings.
“I’ve studied him so much by this point,” Tucker laughs. He even has plans to build a home of his own in recognition of Wright’s work, using only stone, concrete, and wood. “Not a square inch of plaster.”
As for the jumbo-mini-Robie, once it’s finished Tucker plans to take it to the National Building Museum in Washington, where it will join 15 of his other creations, including Fallingwater, another famous Wright home.
The Robie House is the third Wright building to be featured in the LEGO Architect Series. Next up: Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, to be released before the end of September.
]]>One U of C student's quest to find out just how pretentious an alumni happy hour could get.
By Christina Pillsbury, '12
The Facebook wall for the “Harvard/UChicago/Cornell/Emory/Northwestern/Wash U Happy Hour” event page displayed the usual “I have a boat cruise that night... but hope you guys have a good turnout!” “Bummer, out of town still—next one for sure!!!!,” (yes, with four exclamation points), but there was one stand-out comment: “I cannot wait to hang out with people equally as pretentious as me!!!” (only three exclamation points). I was intrigued.
And so my quest for the evening was to find out how pretentious the conversation could get. Coordinator Tim Richards, AB’07, told me that eventually, as more drinks get consumed, students will commingle, the maroon will bleed with the crimson, and hopefully, some alumni might actually "score some dates," he said. "You’d be surprised at how many schools need help with that. It’s hard after college to pick someone up in a bar and talk about the Odyssey."
I heard him loud and clear: I have been known to blabber on about Foucault’s theories of authorship after a few drinks and it’s not generally an effective way to pick up men.
At the Kerryman bar Chicago happy hour, I started at the outskirts of the crowd, making the rounds to all the different schools. For some reason, many students were not keen on talking to a strange girl without a name tag who was writing down everything they said. Also, eavesdropping was hard in a bar filled with almost 100 people talking about what I hoped was the Odyssey. I would have also taken the Illiad.
But, sigh, for the first hour I heard nothing of the sort. Alumni stood in circles with their fellow college-mates—the drinks were mixed, but the alumni were not. I approached a few groups, and none were talking about anything of substance. As an arrogant U of C student, I was starting to get impatient.
I interrupted a conversation between Mary Potkonjak and Emily Wolodiger, both AB’11, regarding employers’ misconceptions about U of C women. “If they know the prestige of the University of Chicago, they expect you to know everything,” Wolodiger said. “If they don’t, they just assume you went to a state school.” Which, as every U of C student knows, is the worst thing anyone can think about you.
I was getting there. Things were getting slightly pretentious, but not close to what I was hoping for. I was thinking that it's possible that U of C alumni, perhaps, aren't what their reputation suggests.
Then I got to talking with Eric Blaschke, AB’06, MD’10, who was perturbed that the U of C students weren’t all cowered in the corner, isolated from the crowd, muttering to one another. Then he launched into a diatribe about how he expected the conversation to turn that evening, it seemed quite reasonable: “I assume that these U of C alumni will only discuss Kant in its original German. That seems pretty reasonable, maybe Aristotle in its original Ancient Greek.” He realized there should be a compromise; “I suppose it won’t get that pretentious; it will probably fall somewhere between Kant and Greek, though.” It's difficult to tell just how sarcastic his comment was.
My night ended with familiar faces: former Chicago Maroon editors—including former Magazine intern Asher Klein, AB’11—some of the most pretentious people at the University. Former sports editor Nick Foretek, AB’11, strutted in carrying Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, with a smug look on his face which negated any need for words. And finally, a former Maroon news editor, who preferred to remain nameless, said she could “come to this bar and find all the pretty people, and then see all the U of C people.”
And that, ladies and gentleman, is the type of sarcastic, self-deprecating, pretentiousness I was looking for that evening. Challenge complete.
]]>By Mitchell Kohles, '12
If you happened to visit campus last spring, you probably noticed some bizarre ephemera scattered across campus: strange metallic lattices, rotationally symmetric veves (pictured below right), or a group of motionless bodies splayed out on the sidewalk in the center of the quad. Unless you were among the few to stubble upon a rabbit hole into this strange world, most of it probably went over your head.
Oscillation, the University of Chicago’s first Alternate Reality Game (ARG), came and went without attracting too much attention. But you had to be holed up deep within the Reg not to notice the ways in which the game’s designers and players transformed campus in the last five weeks of spring quarter. Oscillation belongs to a new genre of interactive fiction in which players interact with various media—in this case, paper flyers, tape cassettes, websites, IRC chats, text-based adventure games, and even sidewalk chalk—to connect with each other and engage with the world around them in to create a unique narrative experience. Often these ARGs are used by production companies to promote more mainstream video games or movies, but Oscillation was a stand-alone project designed by students and faculty and sponsored by the UnCommon Fund.
The game centered on a fictional narrative about a group of scientists from a parallel universe who needed help from our own—players searched for clues and solved puzzles, both online and on campus, to ensure a balance between the two worlds. A few of the head designers and players got together in Walker Museum in July to reminisce about their experiences.
At the table:
What was it like playing the game?
Ruch: I remember one night Janice [another player] and I were at the MacLab until midnight just trying to solve this stupid puzzle. And there’s no reason that you have to do it, because it’s a game, but maybe the fact that it is an ARG and it’s not something where you can just put the console away and walk away from — it makes you want to do it more.
McWilliams: The stakes somehow seem higher because it’s not so clear that it is a game. It feels like it requires your participation almost.
Ruch: After completing a puzzle, we were able to find a box of electronic parts that we were supposed to solder together to build a lattice of lights, and it turned out I was the only person that knew how to solder. And I’m not a really good solderer, so that failed. But they adapted the story around it, so that turned out okay.
Jagoda: We actually kept open the possibility that you would fail, so we had that story ready.
Cassidy: Originally, there were several permutations of boxes and lights, so depending on which box you did, or if you did them together, the light patterns displayed would be different. Narrative-wise, you were supposed to figure out that one of the people giving you instructions would lead you to your doom. We were very Master-of-Puppets sometimes [laughs].
You never officially announced that there was an ARG happening on campus. How did the players treat the game during those five weeks?
Jagoda: There is this breakdown between game play and real life that happens in almost all of these games, and you start seeing things, and you’re not sure if they’re part of the game or they’re just part of the life of the campus. It produces this sort of paranoia.
McWilliams: I thought that was the appeal, the idea of being able to construct your own idea of what the game is. What is and what isn’t. It becomes a way to sort out the world around you and make it into some sort of parallel universe. You can only sort of half-see everything, and you have to use what you do see to fill in the rest.
What were some of the challenges of creating an ARG from scratch?
Sutherland: One of the challenges, with a game like ours, is that we didn’t have a product behind it. The players couldn’t say, “Oh, this is like Halo, so…” or, “Oh, I know what this word means.”
Jagoda: Virtually every other ARG has some advertising component and requires a type of funding that takes away from the experience, so actually one of the advantages of doing this at a University is that you don’t have to compromise your artistic vision.
Sutherland: A lot of the planning happened during the game too. Things went wrong, or things were discovered in the wrong order [by the players] and we had to reevaluate.
Cassidy: Or they cracked our puzzles in ways we didn’t think were possible. They looked at our source code to get the passwords. But once we found out they were doing it, we created a whole puzzle around using the source code to sort of respond to that.
Jagoda: It’s really a live design process, because you have to adapt on the spot. It’s not like making a movie or writing a novel where you already know what the form is and you have thousands of examples from which to draw. You’re making a new thing every single time—the form of transmedia games is only about a decade old.
What was the reaction on campus?
Sutherland: Having people be like, “Oh, I’m so excited about this,” was such a big thing. Because we thought people were going to hate it.
Jagoda: I still think the first rabbit hole [the event depicted in the trailer] was still totally atmospheric and cool. It was a puzzle, but luring them in in this particular way, even though that many people didn’t show up, made it so there was still a description of this going around. I think we got that moment so right.
Sutherland: There were obviously people who knew us and knew that we were involved, but weren’t playing the game, and so we would get accused of things that were happening on campus. People would say things like, “I saw this happening, was this your fault?” We did have a police report filed on us.
Ruch: Really?
Sutherland: Well, we did this preview for the game where we drew chalk bodies on the ground and had weird little machines lying around, and somebody reported it to the police.]]>
By Mitchell Kohles, '12
The University of Chicago Scav Hunt celebrated its 25th birthday this year, setting a world record for the world's largest scavenger hunt and churning out another gargantuan list (pdf) of apocryphal and near-impossible items.
While much of this history may be confined to alumni memories, we dug through the kipple of YouTube and relived some notable achievements from the past five years.
“That Guy Kid” Action Figure – 2008
A great illustration of what it is to be both Scavie and UChicago student, but why couldn’t they get the title right? Who’s “That Guy?”
SuperCrocks – 2010
Starring star professor Paul Sereno. Not much of a video, but this is just too funny.
Strandebeest – 2007
The poor video quality belies the enormous accomplishment. Few items are worth 300 points.
Hamlet: Will it Blend? – 2007
The kid just commits so hard that you can’t help but forgive him for using an immersion blender.
Sexiled to the Library – 2007
First as tragedy, then as farce. This has definitely happened before.
Science. Magic. Time – 2009
The “magic” trick is in tribute to Tesla's contribution to the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, as is this soon-to-end exhibit.
Avatar 1-D – 2010
Charming, and maybe the only video on the list with any production value to speak of.
UChicago alumni may now connect to the EBSCO Academic Search, Business Source, and eBook databases via the Alumni & Friends Online Community.
EBSCO Academic Search provides the full text of articles from more than 3,350 academic journals, as well as indexing and abstracting for more than 8,200, covering nearly every area of academic study. EBSCO Business Source includes the full text of some 1,540 business publications, from peer-reviewed academic journals to popular magazines. eBooks are also available.
These new services, provided by the Alumni Association, address longstanding requests by alumni for access to scholarly resources that they were accustomed to using on campus via the Library’s domain-wide license. It is hoped that alumni will find the service useful when conducting independent academic or professional research.
Sign-in to the Alumni & Friends Online Community using your CNET ID to access these resources and more.
]]>By Mitchell Kohles, '12
Today on our show we have just one story, of an incredible rumor that spread through one college campus, if not quite like wildfire, then perhaps like a slow Lake Michigan fog. This is Mitchell Kohles with UChiBLOGo. Our show, in three acts. Stay with us.
I first heard the rumor from a friend, who had heard it from a friend of a friend, and he made me promise not to tell anyone: Ira Glass is teaching a creative writing class at the University of Chicago.
The details of the original rumor (read: the buzz by the time it got around to me) were that: a) Glass would teach a class during winter quarter, something about creative nonfiction writing, potentially with elements of radio broadcasting, and b) students who were registered for a certain creative writing class during the fall would be automatically enrolled in the Glass class for the following quarter. Come December, fans of This American Life would be encouraged to politely exchange blows over any remaining seats.
Whoa. This is serious news, right? Unless, of course, it’s not. My first thought was to browse the CRWR course listings for something that seemed to suggest Glass. Beginning Nonfiction, naturally. Writing Memoir: interesting, but probably not what we’re looking for. And lo, Documentary for Radio: Audio Verte,’ sounds juuuust right—except that the course is missing an instructor, and there aren’t any students enrolled.
At this point, I was beginning to doubt my informant, so I returned to the source and tried to track this thing back to someone with an office. The first person who had anything substantive to say was Isaac:
Regarding Ira Glass, I heard he was coming from Harry, who I believe heard it from Kathy Anderson (head of Chicago Careers in Journalism). I am loosely paraphrasing, since he told me this around two months ago, but as I understand it Mr. Glass will be coming for a weekend sometime in fall quarter to do some workshops on storytelling. Slots in these workshops will be given first to students in creative writing classes, and then to the general student body.
Maybe it doesn’t matter which writing class I’m in. Maybe Glass is coming sooner than I thought. Let’s talk to Harry:
The guy to get in touch with about the possible Ira Glass event and any other author events is Dan Raeburn [author of the comics zine The Imp]. I'm not sure whether the event is still on or if they'll want to talk about it quite yet, but I'm sure he'd let you know either way.
Dan Raeburn sounds like he might have the scoop. Maybe he can end this once and for all:
This isn't a rumor, it's a fact, so you can publish it. Ira Glass is indeed coming to the U of C in October. But he's not doing an event, i.e., a lecture or public performance of any kind. Instead he's doing something even cooler. He's meeting with students only.
Dan’s email went on to explain that Glass will hold a two-hour meeting with students who are pursuing their own creative projects. He will answer their questions, provide advice on their work, and share what he’s learned about “the art of telling true stories.” Although Glass was originally invited to be a part of the Arts Speaks series, he was more interested in talking directly with students. And so Glass agreed to come for free but had one important condition: no more than 100 students can participate. If it was going to work, it had to be small. For that reason, the event is not open to the public, and only students currently registered for creative nonfiction, documentary, radio, or journalism courses will be offered a spot.
Perhaps I’ve got a chance after all. It sounds like we’ve found a rumor that didn’t end in tears and broken friendship. At least until first week and pink-slip mayhem, things are looking good. Dan says:
I for one am thrilled, and hope your readers are too. Please spread the word.
You got it.
]]>Designed by architects with UChicago ties, a museum closes its doors.
By Elizabeth Station
On my way to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on West 53rd Street during a recent trip to New York City, I thought I’d visit the neighboring American Folk Art Museum. Designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects—the husband-and-wife team behind the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts—the 40-foot-wide building occupies a vertical sliver of Manhattan that’s easy to miss if you walk by too quickly.
Tsien and Williams's award-winning design garnered glowing reviews when the museum opened in 2001. Eager to step in and see the space, I was surprised instead to find the front doors padlocked and the lobby dark. I later learned that, struggling with low attendance and a $32 million debt, the folk art museum had sold the building to MoMA and moved to smaller quarters uptown. But the funds generated by the sale haven't restored the museum's financial health, and it may shut down permanently and donate its collection to the Smithsonian.
]]>By Elizabeth Station
The Museum of Modern Art in New York City can overwhelm with its crush of tourists and massive, famous collection, especially in summer. Visitors looking for a different experience can escape to a small but powerful show organized by Judith Hecker, AM’97, assistant curator in the department of prints and illustrated books. Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now features contemporary prints by established and up-and-coming South African artists. They tackle serious themes—apartheid, torture, resistance, and reconciliation—using techniques from intaglio to linoleum cut. Hecker has worked at MoMA since completing Chicago’s Master of Arts Program in the Humanities. She talked about the exhibition during a recent interview at the museum.
What drew you to South African art, originally?
Because I didn’t do a PhD, I never had a particular niche. The advantage of being a generalist is that you get to curate across the century, and so I’ve done both historical and contemporary projects. Years ago I became interested in William Kentridge (b. 1955), who is probably South Africa’s best-known artist. MoMA did a major monographic show of his work in 2010 that was part of a touring exhibition. He works in many different mediums: theater, sculpture, drawing, film animation, and printmaking. I became really immersed and interested in his work.
How did that lead to building MoMA’s South African print collection?
Prints are created in such a way that there’s always more than one out there, unlike a unique painting, sculpture, or etching. And so the price point is lower, and we tend to collect more objects and take more risks, I think. We collected a lot of Kentridge’s work, and as I began to learn more about his career, I started to understand more of the context of printmaking and artistic production in South Africa generally. I took my first trip there in 2004. It was a great time to go because they were celebrating ten years of democracy since Nelson Mandela’s election. It was a terrific moment—all the museums were completely redefining their work and collecting more artwork by black Africans.
Where did you go on that first trip?
I visited Kentridge at his studio in Johannesburg, but I also went to many different provinces to research other artists and the role and prevalence of printmaking. I visited print workshops, universities, and community art centers in rural and urban areas. Printmaking is celebrated in South Africa in a way that's different from other countries. There are so many talented practitioners who aren’t well known either in or outside the country. So the trip was also an opportunity to bring new works into MoMA’s permanent collection, with an eye toward ultimately exhibiting some of the prints.
What’s the relationship between printmaking and politics?
What I wanted to illustrate with this show is how there are many different centers of production in South Africa, not just in the highbrow art world, because of the history and legacy of apartheid. There was a point when black artists couldn’t legally apply to colleges and universities, and they had to seek art training elsewhere. Printmaking was an especially accessible format that also had economic advantages—people could sell their prints and earn a living.
Wherever countries have undergone extraordinary political change, printmaking always plays a role. Mexico, Cuba, and South Africa are all examples. You can think back to Goya and Picasso too—there’s a strong link between printmaking and narratives about war, humanity, and cruelty. That’s part of the story with this show.
How have you continued to discover new artists?
I took another trip to South Africa in 2007, and since then I’ve stayed in touch with artists, publishers, and workshops. They’re constantly updating me on what’s being produced. The great thing about the print medium is that it’s not like shipping a sculpture or a painting—prints can be rolled up in a tube and mailed—so this has enabled me to continue acquiring works. Outside of South Africa, MoMA might now have the most holdings of prints by South African artists. At the same time, with this exhibition I felt really strongly about letting the artists be heard, so we brought some of them over to give presentations about their work.
Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now runs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York through August 29, 2011.