Category Archives: Holidays

Jazz Fest and Big New Head ’14

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While I was eating lunch on my deck today — the opportunities for that will be rarer as the weeks ahead pass — the dog took a sudden interest in one of my lower pant legs, sniffing and snorting with gusto. I noticed a small black ant crawling on it. The dog had too. In a moment, she’d eaten the ant.

I’ve seen her chase flies and bees (and lucky for her, never catch any), but this was a first. It didn’t seem to be a biting kind of ant. Ants on the hoof, snack food for dogs.

Did some gadding about in Chicago over Labor Day weekend. On Saturday, Yuriko and Ann and I went to the city and met my nephew Dees, his girlfriend Eden, and an old friend of theirs, and eventually ended up at Millennium Park. Dees and Eden were visiting from Texas, staying with friends here. That reminded me a bit of the Labor Day weekends of my youth, when I usually went out of town — to Chicago (before I lived there), New York, Boston, and Washington DC — though one year (’85) my old friends came to me, and we gadded around Nashville.

There’s a new face near Michigan Ave.

Millennium Park, Aug 2014It’s called “Looking Into My Dreams, Awilda,” by Jaume Plensa, the Spaniard who did Crown Fountain, the twin towers of alternating faces that spit water in the warm months, which isn’t far from the new sculpture. The Tribune says that “Awilda is 39 feet tall, made of marble and resin; the internal frame is fiberglass. She arrived from Spain in 15 pieces, then was bolted together.” It’ll be there until the end of 2015.

The Bean was as popular as ever.

Aug30.14 035We spent a while at the Chicago Jazz Festival at Pritzker Pavilion. The last time I went to the Chicago Jazz Festival was – 1996? Maybe. This time we left fairly early, but were around long enough to hear Ari Brown, Chicago sax man of long standing. At 70, the man can blow.

Ari Brown, August 2014Still hot in the late afternoon, and a bit humid, but it was a good place to sit and listen. It helped not to get rained on, which was a distinct risk over the weekend.

Millennium Park, Aug 2014Behind the stage rise the skyscrapers of the East Loop. I’ve always liked the view.

Calendars for ’15

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One, two – which famed movie star’s going to die next to make it three? Not that that really happens, so vague is the idea. But if one does in a day or two, people are bound to point that out. Alas for Lauren Bacall, she might suffer from the Groucho Marx effect – dying too close to someone even better known at the time of her death, and thus being overshadowed in death. That happened to Mother Teresa as well.

Speaking of the tireless forward motion of Time, calendars for next year have already started arriving. Lilly’s high school calendar, which doubles as a thick wad of rules and policy, is too utilitarian to be that interesting. Better is the Teamwork Velocity Date Log Planner, an 8 x 10-inch booklet with each month from December 2014 to January 2016. Why a paper calendar in the era of electronic gizmos in your hand? I’d argue that it’s easier to find something on a calendar in this form. And it never crashes or has virus issues.

Anyway, the selection of holidays isn’t too odd: U.S. holidays, plus a number of Canadian and Mexican ones; a scattering of Jewish and Islamic dates. I do see that a few Orthodox dates are mentioned. The next Orthodox Christmas, for instance, is January 7, 2015 on the Gregorian calendar. Kwanzaa lives on among calendar makers, and so does “Patriot Day” on September 11, which I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else but a calendar.

Here’s one on the calendar that I’ve missed: National Tartan Day, which is April 6. TartandayScotland.com tells us that “in 2004, the House of Representatives decreed that April 6, the date of the signing of the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath, should be established as National Tartan Day, to recognise ‘The outstanding contribution and achievements made by Scottish Americans to the United States.’ ”

Each month at the top of the page is some CEO or entrepreneur wisdom. Quotes from the likes of Jack Welch, Donald Trump, and Marissa Mayer. Mostly living or not-too-long-dead captains of enterprise and invention, but John D. Rockefeller’s on the list, too. All well and good, but I’d rather see more quotes from plutocrats like Rockefeller, and more colorful quotes, too. His ought to be “God gave me my money,” and naturally, “The public be damned” springs to mind (William Henry Vanderbilt).

Maundy Thursday ’14

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Back to posting again around May 4. A pleasant Easter to all.

It’s my spring break time, now that it’s actually more-or-less spring. Not that I won’t be working during the next two weeks. It isn’t that kind of spring break. No one older than about 22 gets that kind of spring break.

Today Lilly and I were out before noon and she wanted to take some pictures of the flowers that bloom in the spring (tra la). So I took a picture of her taking a picture. I think she sent some of her images immediately to friends, as youth does.

Lilly 4.17.2014They bloomed on a small island in the large parking lot at St. Matthew Parish, a Catholic church on Schaumburg Rd. in Schaumburg, Illinois. We didn’t go there to see flowers, though that was nice. Instead, I wanted to take a look at the Stations of the Cross on the grounds. Seemed like a good thing to do on Maundy Thursday, especially when it was almost warm again.

The stations form a semi-circle around a catchment, and are backed by the woods of the Spring Valley Nature Preserve.

St Matthew, Schaumburg 4.17.14 - 1Plaques fixed to a short agglomeration of stones illustrate each station. This is the first one, with Jesus and Pilate.

St. Matthew Schaumburg 4.17.14 - 2There isn’t much information about this particular Stations of the Cross on the St. Matthew wed site, so I don’t know if they were custom made for the parish, or you can get them ready made. Along the way, there’s also a grotto.

St Matthew Grotto, April 17, 2014Like I’ve said before, if you find a grotto, no matter how humble, take a picture. And then pause for a moment.

Noel ’13

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Christmas1934Merry Christmas to all, with a good Boxing Day thrown in for good measure. One of these days, probably long after I’m gone, Americans will have the day after Christmas off, too.

Posting will resume again around January 5, 2014.

To the right is a paper ornament that hung on my grandparents’ Christmas tree in the mid-1930s, now mounted against a red-paper background and usually hanging in my office. For a short while, it’ll be on our Christmas tree here in the mid-2010s.

Santa Has No Mouth, and He Must Say Ho Ho Ho

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I spent a little while looking at this blob, trying to see a conventional Santa in it. It was hard to see. The scan seems to make it a little more representational. Made it’s the lighting.

SortofSantaNo matter. Its purpose wasn’t to be admired visually, but to taste good on the way down.

That got me to thinking — it doesn’t take much to start a tangent — that the next big thing in custom chocolate could be treats based on famed abstract art. That’s the sort of thing that the Sharper Image or SkyMall might sell: Henry Moore milk chocolate shapes or Isamu Noguchi foil-wrapped dark choco Easter bunnies or a Dada Whitman Sampler.

Pizza & Doughnut Run ’84

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Nothing says holiday cheer like pizza and doughnuts. At least, we’re looking pretty cheerful in this picture, preparing to feast on those victuals on a cool December day in San Antonio in 1984. They weren’t just for us, of course. I think.

PizzaDonutDec84High school friends (five years out of high school) Nancy, Tom, and me. My brother Jay might have taken the picture, but I’m not sure.

A Dispatch from the War on Christmas

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“War on Christmas,” huh? Seems like a fairly robust holiday to me. You hear a lot about the holiday this time of year, after all. I can’t think of any jurisdiction in Western world that has suggested banning it, or suppressing the Christmas tree trade, or sending street-corner Santas to re-education camps. Not even the Russians do that any more.

But what about a real War on Christmas? And by real, I mean with artillery.

Ellesmere Is.—The forces of Christmas suffered a serious setback on Thursday when anti-Christmas forces overran a major redoubt near Ft. Kringle on Ellesmere Is., putting the fort in a perilous position. Should Ft. Kringle fall to the hands of anti-Christmasites, the path would be open for an assault on the North Pole, which has been pounded in recent weeks by aerial bombardment.

An estimated 2,000 elves were killed or captured when the redoubt was taken. Dasher, a spokesdeer for the Claus government at the Pole, said that the little ones died heroically in defense of Christmas, and vowed that the redoubt would be retaken during an upcoming counteroffensive, though he declined to give details. Units of elves are rumored to be massing in northwestern Greenland for a flanking counterattack, but that could not be independently verified…

Cold Tuesday, Clutch, Dog ‘n’ Tree

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This from today’s Chicago Tribune: “The temperature [this morning] dipped below zero overnight at O’Hare International Airport, the earliest that has happened here since 1995… The temperature fell to one degree below zero around 12:55 a.m., according to the National Weather Service. That’s the earliest subzero readings here since a low of minus 4 on Dec. 9, 1995.”

Those are two-fisted Fahrenheit readings, not any namby-pamby Celsius, either. Remember last winter, when it didn’t seem to get cold at all, with little snow? Not this time. So far. More snow is supposed to fall in the wee hours tomorrow.

Open questions: Is Clutch Cargo enjoying some kind of vogue among hipsters? Otherwise why is the Music Box Theatre, a fine revival and arts house on the North Side of Chicago, screening five episodes of the show on Friday?

Yesterday, girls decorating the Christmas tree. Today, a snap of dog and tree.

Payton+Tree

She hasn’t shown much interest in the tree, unlike certain other trees during her walks. I figure dogs have their own holidays, which somehow have something to do with epic events in the history of smell.

Tannenbaum ’13

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I’ve turned most of the tree decorating over to the next generation. I did put the tree in the stand and string on the lights, though. Lilly and Ann didn’t quite get all of the ornaments on the first or second day, but they’re mostly done.

Christmas Tree 2013Icicles will go on tonight, and a star on top. I put on the star.

This is the first time the tree’s been in the lower level of the house, for various reasons. One is to complement the new walls and floor. The dog showed some interest in the smell of the thing, for a while, but the novelty wore off, and she hasn’t destroyed any of the ornaments yet.

Calendar Oddities

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Snow today, beginning in the morning, finally enough to obscure the grass. At about noon, Lilly asked her device – which has a male-voice version of Siri – Is it going to snow a lot today? Male-Siri said, “It appears to be snowing.” Guess it knows how to look out the window.

On Saturday a cheap 2014 calendar arrived from a company we do scant business with. I like it for its completely eccentric choice of special dates.

It’s got some presidential birthdays, of course. In order: McKinley, FDR, Lincoln, Washington, Jackson, Madison, Jefferson, Grant, Kennedy, J.Q. Adams, Hoover, Benjamin Harrison, Eisenhower, TR, and Wilson. Not a bad selection, but Benjamin Harrison? Well, he did ink the bills for six new states. And… even I have to look up the details of his administration. Maybe the calendar maker is a fan of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act.

Other calendar oddities include mentioning the first national election (Jan. 7, 1789), Alexander Hamilton’s birthday (Jan. 11, 1757), “Edison’s Incandescent Lamp Patent” (Jan. 27, 1880), Henry Longfellow’s birthday (Feb. 27, 1807), “Peary Discovered the North Pole” (April 6, 1909), “Dewey’s Victory at Manila Bay” (May 1, 1898), Col. Lindbergh’s NY to Paris Flight” (May 21, 1927), “Hawaii Annexed” (July 7, 1898), “Panama Canal Opened” (Aug. 15, 1914), “Monroe Doctrine Announced” (Dec. 2, 1823), “South Pole Discovered” (Dec. 14, 1911), and “Wilbur Wright’s 1st Aeroplane Flight (Dec. 17, 1903).” That’s right, aeroplane. It’s good to be up on to-day’s latest technical marvels.

Standard federal holidays, as well as an assortment of popular days (Ground Hog Day, Valentine’s Day, etc.) and Jewish holidays are noted. V-J Day is noted on Sept. 2, but V-E Day isn’t mentioned. (I learned elsewhere that “Victory Day” on Sept. 2 is actually a state holiday in Rhode Island; see “A Few Interesting Facts…” ) The Wright Bros. (one, anyway) and Lindbergh made the cut, but no space flight of any kind did, manned or unmanned, Soviet or American. You’d think they’d be space for the first Moon landing at least. Hawaii annexed but why not the purchase of Alaska? Longfellow but not, say, Walt Whitman?

Ah, well. We each live according to an eccentric calendar.