Richard Mascall's Weblog

Chicago Holiday Day 8 of 9

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Summary :

Field Museum

Detail :

Another cloudless sky with temperatures about 20º which meant we could have a very pleasant walk through Grant Park. Here we saw numerous modern sculptures as well as an allotment project, all with one of the most dramatic manmade back-drops in the world.

Our destination was the amazing and huge Field Museum, a sort of cross between the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, and a bit of the V&A thrown in for luck. The ground floor has the most complete skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the world, called “Sue”. Almost the only replica component is the skull – the real skull is housed in a glass case upstairs because its weight precludes it being mounted on the now fragile skeleton.

There was masses more to see there but in the end we had to stop for lunch which we ate almost under Sue's tail (rather reminiscent of the Institute Dinner at the Natural History Museum last year.) There was a school brass band playing further down the floor which made me think of what I imagine a Sunday afternoon in Harrogate might have been like.

After looking at yet more exhibits we walked back, past the marina, to see Buckingham Fountain. After this we had a good look at the Pritzker Pavilion, designed by Frank Gehry. Finally, we had yet another explore of the Bean – well, you can never tire of looking at all the reflections.

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Chicago Holiday Day 7 of 9

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Summary :

Walking tour of Modern skyscrapers

Behind-the-scenes visit to Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Detail :

We did the second of our two guided walking tours today, this time with the subject of “Modern Skyscrapers”. For the first time, we had a duff guide who managed to make the tour dull despite the exciting subject matter under our noses (or, more accurately, above our foreheads). We did see some dramatic sculptures and the Sears Building.

As mentioned before, the trip is arranged by Kettle's Yard and after lunch we enjoyed the fruits of another contact. The musician Gerard McBurney left Cambridge to work at Radio 3 for 10 years. He is now working as an artistic director at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and he took us around their building telling us about his work, obtaining funding in the States for the Arts, and the old Cliff-Dwellers' Club which is in the building and on whose balcony we went out to see beautiful views of the lake and the numerous yachts.

Just along Michigan Avenue is the Fine Arts Building, an early twentieth century building which seems unchanged inside since those days, with a warren of little specialist shops, offices, rehearsal areas, and goodness knows what else. Gerard showed us round many of the floors and told us anecdote after anecdote relating to the numerous paintings and former inhabitants.

Later, in the evening, we walked across Grant Park to see some fireworks. They were to quite a high standard but what was particularly enjoyable was that they were unaccompanied by all that blaring music that often mars such displays.

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Chicago Holiday Day 6 of 9

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Summary :

Private Collection

Dinner at Cliff Dwellers Club

Detail :

Our trip is organised by Kettle's Yard, an art gallery in Cambridge we are Friends of.  Through a contact we today had the good fortune to be invited to the home of an Ira and Barbara Wool, a flat on the 14^th floor of an Art Deco building overlooking Lake Michigan.

Ira is a very successful bio-chemist at the University of Chicago and has built up an impressive collection of artworks : paintings, scultures, and furniture. We were taken up to see the collection in small groups using the lift opening out directly into his flat and operated by a liftman. Ira knew all the artist whose work he had bought and indeed some of them had stayed in the flat. So he had a rich store of anecdotes to tell.

I was able to step out onto the fire escape which gave me wonderful views of Chicago and also the ground 14 storeys below. In the main room he had a chair designed by Frank Gehry which we could sit on (so unlike the same type of chair we had seen earlier in the Art Institute !). The room itself had lots of paintings as well as a wonderful view over the lake.

We also went to the top floor to see the ballroom, before ending up out on the roof for more panoramas.

After lunch we had a wander round Chicago on our own, which enabled us to explore the Cultural Centre with many interesting aspects, including a dramatic stained glass dome.

In the evening we had cocktails and then dinner at the Cliff-Dwellers Club, a very smart venue also overlooking the lake and right by the skyscrapers. As the daylight faded we could go out onto the balcony and see the tall buildings lit up.

Finally, we walked down south to Buddy Guy's club, called Legends. They had a perfectly competent blues group playing but then to our surprise, Buddy himself appeared and did a number.

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Chicago Holiday Day 5 of 9

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Summary :

Whole Day at Taliesin East

Detail :

We had an early start, so early we had to use the local McDonalds for breakfast, which must be the first time we have been in one for about ten years. We then had a four hour drive to Taliesin, the Wisconsin base for Frank Lloyd Wright's home and school in the 1910s and after.  We had been to his equivalent place in Arizona, Taliesin West, back in 1998 so this completed a pleasing symmetry for us.

We did two tours of one and two hours either side of lunch, learning more about the man and his work. Apparently he told his students that it wasn't enough to learn the theory about house design – they had to experience the practical side. What a fortunate by-product it must have been that in gaining this experience, the students built all the school buildings and the accommodation without FLW having to spend anything on labour costs.

Our hotel supplied copies of the Financial Times at no charge and we had brought one with us. Since we had seen all the scenery on the way to Wisconsin, we were able to concentrate on the FT crossword during the return. Since this was not that much quicker a journey than the way out, it was a good job we were not too speedy in identifying the answers.

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Chicago Holiday Day 4 of 9

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Summary :

Visits to Oak Park, Illinois Institute of Technology

Detail :

Today we saw work by two of the twentieth century's most influential architects : Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe. We went first to a suburb called Oak Park, which is where Frank Lloyd Wright designed or adapted many of his earliest houses, right back in the 1900s.

Our guide on the two hour walking tour told us about the man's early life and also about the new styles he introduced. We learnt about his inspirations, and also about his techniques. One, for example, was called compression-expansion and this led to low ceilings over doorways which would then draw you into the room proper with its higher ceiling.

After lunch we visited his Unity Temple, which was a very stylish place of worship, if somewhat smaller than its name would imply. The lights, windows, and use of colour all added to the appeal of the building. The local churchman gave us a detailed and clear account of the place, pointing out all the little details which marked this out from the hundreds of humdrum examples of other such buildings. For example, he showed how the design meant that none of the 400 strong congregation would be more than 10m away from the speaker.

Finally we went to the Illinois Institute of Technology(Chicago's equivalent to MIT), where students showed us around the campus. All the buildings here are either by Mies van der Rohe or are inspired by him. We were told that SOM(Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill) designed one of these tribute buildings, accordingly wrapping some of his trademark girders over the roof. Apparently Mies was horrified because he used the absolute minimum of components, so all of his girders were there because they were needed while these girders were ornamentation, something he abhorred.

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Chicago Holiday Day 3 of 9

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Summary :

Visits to Art Institute, Museum of Contemporary Art

Detail :

Taking the opportunity for another exploration, we discovered the James Thompson Center, a modern building with a most impressive atrium.

We spent nearly all of the morning and some of the afternoon in Chicago's premier Art Museum, the Art Institute. We entered via the only-just-opened new wing, once the security guard outside had sorted out the fact that he was locked out.

There was a lot of light in this new wing but not that much content, and the directions were appalling : a triumph of aesthetics over usability, I fear.

But once we found our way into the body of the museum, we were able to see what a vast collection it holds. Or rather we were not able, because it was so big. It had a marvellous Impressionist section where we found the very same painting that was on Pam's bag (Gustave Caillebotte's Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1876-77). The modern section looked good too, but we were familiar with this style of art so instead we spent time on American art from the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Later on, we went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, en route seeing an enlarged 3D version of the Grant Wood work, American Gothic, the original of which we had seen a short time earlier. This museum had some small mini-exhibitions, including one which told the story of Buckminster Fuller, albeit not that well.

I was exhausted by this stage but Pam still had some energy so she went up the John Hancock Tower, now the third highest building in Chicago. There were therefore some fantastic views from the cocktail bar on almost the top floor.

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Chicago Holiday Day 2 of 9

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Summary :

River Tour of buildings, Walking tour of historic skyscrapers

Detail :

We started our first full day in Chicago by going on a 90 minute trip through the city on an open-topped boat, looking at the stunning skyscrapers. We had a most knowledgeable guide commentating, so we heard all sorts of interesting anecdotes and histories about all the buildings.

The Chicago Architecture Federation offers lots of two hour walking tours so in the afternoon we did one where the guide told us all about the many “historic” skyscrapers (ie. those built between 1890s and the 1930s).

While we were out we had our first glimpse of “Segway”s, two wheel powered personal transport systems. They were used not just by tourists but by the police too.

Chicago Holiday Day 1 of 9

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Summary :

Fly to Chicago

Walk in Millennium Park

Detail :

We had mixed feelings about our flight out (1200-2000 BST times) on a BA Boeing 777 from Heathrow. There were only 11 of us in our 48 seat section so we had good service, but the lunch was disappointing and although there was an extensive choice of video and audio options, it was not “on demand” so one had to guess the starting times. The only film I watched was the 2008 BBC version of “The 39 Steps”.

Immigration at Chicago was surprisingly swift and by 1535 local (2135 BST) we were in our room at the Palmer House Hilton. This is very centrally placed so when we went for an exploratory walk we were delighted to find that we were only a block away from Millennium Park. This has a wonderful creation by Anish Kapoor whose name is “Cloudgate” but which is more often called “The Bean”. There was another spectacular piece called “Crown Fountain”, two 15m high pillars with videos of faces on the two surfaces facing each other. Every so often their expressions would change and out of the faces' mouths spouts of water would appear.

James Stacks Up

There does not seem to have been much time for cooking anything special lately but yesterday I made one of the quicker puddings from my much-loved James Martin Desserts book I have used many times before.

This time it was a Raspberry Stack, with discs of puff pastry separated by raspberries, mascarpone cream, and double cream set in a pool of raspberry sauce. Delicious.

A Cameraless Walk

Setting out on another training walk today, I was dismayed to find that on the day I took only the one camera, its battery had gone flat so could take no photos (until we reached home when it was possible to use the other camera to snap me having a refreshing cup of tea.)

The walk itself started at the car park on the southbound A22 just before junction 6 on the M25. We crossed over the bridge to travel westwards past Pilgrim Fort along the North Downs Way, via Gravelly Hill past Whitehill Tower within sight of The Harrow, then further west into the Surrey Wildlife Trust SSSI of Quarry Hangars.

Here we had our usual picnic lunch (for the second time in nine days overlooking the M25) before going down under the motorway to walk on the flat past Becks Cottage, Place Farm, the North Park quarry, back over the M25, up the scarp of the North Downs near Freer Farm Kennels, and thence back to the car. It did not seem like it but we had covered about 15 km in 4 hours.

Yes, Somebody Was There

On Thursday afternoon we went to the Cineworld Haymarket to see the latest Michael Caine film, Is Anybody There ? We were a little dubious once we found our seats because they were so low compared with the heights of the backs. Hardly anyone else was there so we did not find out if there would be a problem with viewing over the heads of people in front.

I first saw Caine in the 1964 film, Zulu. In Is Anybody There he plays a magician who ends up in an old people's home, and the story consists of how he and the 8 year old son of the couple running the place build a relationship.

As can be imagined, there are many sad moments but these are accompanied by cheering scenes. I had thought there might be more magic tricks in the film and the plot was unsurprising if not predictable in many ways but there was still enough to keep us interested from start to finish.

Adding in the film's brevity and its welcome lack of swearing, with just the one lapse, this is a film we can certainly recommend.

Lunch Near Nelson

Lunch yesterday was at the Albannach in Trafalgar Square, a smart place Pam found through the Top Table website which allowed us to buy the food at half-price.

The restaurant has a Scottish theme which meant that haggis was available, for example, and whisky was involved in several of the puddings. The serving staff wore kilts while there was a lifesize illuminated paper deer.  It was not as tacky as this all sounds - quite the opposite, in fact.

After we both had the excellent mushroom and leek tart, Pam opted for the Swordfish Steak while I went for the Buccleuch pork chop, with caramelised apples & sage. These were both rather tasty without being that memorable. Then for pudding Pam had the rhubarb crumble, which was perfectly acceptable and I had the chocolate pot, which was small, smooth, and intense.

The service was very friendly, and we had a table on the first floor overlooking a Gaudi-like balcony onto the bar area below. The atmosphere suffered a little because of the rather large number of empty tables but we would happily return again … at least while the food was half-price !

Staging a Trip to the Garrick

As I have mentioned before, Pam belongs to a branch of NADFAS (National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts), which organises talks and outings relating to art topics. This morning we went on a trip they arranged to the Garrick Club near Leicester Square. The Garrick is aimed at actors and the building is full of portraits of people who have trod the boards over the last two hundred years. (Having said that, the first thing we saw at the entrance was an envelope awaiting pick up by Mark Knopfler.)

Our two guides were immensely knowledgeable and were full of stories. They pointed out how the paintings illustrated the importance in the old days of gestures, so that particular stances meant “shock” or “fright” or whatever. They also said how influential they could be, such as the one of an old actor demonstrating madness by plucking insects out of the air. Apparently Lawrence Olivier must have seen this because he once was on stage with Sir Ralph Richardson when the latter had a long soliloquy, and upstaged him by going through this insect-plucking routine, much to Sir Ralph's annoyance, of course. The pictures were also a reminder of how Shakespeare plays were performed in contemporary dress up until halfway through the nineteenth century.

We learnt how AA Milne left 25% of his estate to the club, a legacy which became highly significant when Disney bought the film rights for some huge sum ($300m, I read here.) Also, the colours of the club are salmon and cucumber, so if you see someone with a tie, or socks, in those colours, they might well be a member.

We were taken to the library which is THE place to go for theatrical items such as scripts, posters, or programmes. Among the items we saw was a copy of Hamlet with illustrations by Henry Moore and a small thin sculpted piece of metal on the front. It was apparently given to Sir John Gielgud who gave it to Sir Alec Guinness who in turn gave it to the library.

All in all, it was a fascinating experience.

Pecking Away

One of our neighbours pointed out how a green woodpecker had pecked out an almost perfect hole in one of his willow trees, leaving a pile of chippings on the lawn. We always enjoy seeing these birds on our lawn because they seem to have such character, as well as being colourful. Today I managed to take a snap of one on one of our own trees.

Worth Walking on Worth Way

We had to go to Crawley today so we took the opportunity to do a walk, specifically along the Worth Way.

Since this is a former railway line, it was just the opposite of what Pam requires in the way of practice, being so very flat. But it was a most pleasant route and a vivid reminder of the loss it would have been had the local council had its way a few years ago and converted it into a road.

Unroyal Service at Royal Oak

Today we made our usual annual visit to our wood with Roger and Jane but unfortunately we were a little on the late side. Unlike those we saw on Saturday, the bluebells were definitely on their way out.

Then we had another disappointment because when we popped in to the pub in the wood, the Royal Oak, we were told that there was no chance of any food for two hours. The pub was not particularly crowded and we have never had any problems before, but what really upset us was the attitude of the apparent manager : no apology, no expression of regret, and certainly no explanation, just a “no, and be grateful you have a drink” type approach.

We moved on the The Grasshopper at Moorhouse Bank, where we had a delicious meal from the Carvery, something I normally avoid, for just £9.50 each. And the friendly service could not have been a bigger, and more welcome, contrast with the Royal Oak.

Spring Clean for Patio

With last year's bad weather I failed to clean the patio as I did in 2007. But today the sun persuaded us to have another go, with Pam using the power washer and me sweeping the water away as fast as I could.

It was great exercise and it made an impressive difference but we were so slow. After two hours we stopped and we had managed only half the patio.

Lunch watching the M25

The sun was out today so we went for another training session, a bit shorter than one last month. We started off in Woldingham by going through Great Church Wood where the bluebells were tremendous.

We carried on to the scarp slope of the North Downs, ending up on Oxted Downs where we had lunch overlooking the M25, which in the sun was a more scenic sight than it sounds. We then partly retraced our steps before taking the steps up Gangers Hill.

April 2009 TV Report

See here for March's report.

Total Hours Watched : 40+

Programmes watched :

Films :-

The Long Good Friday (1980)

How The West Was Won (1962)

Documentaries :-

World War I Flying Aces

Making of "Streetcar Named Desire"

Jackie Stewart story

Yellowstone (part 3)

The Story of Cool

Shackleton Expedition Re-enactment

Queen Victoria Accession

Cinerama History

Comedy :-

Big Bang Theory Series 2 (Episodes 11, 12, and 15)

30 Rock Series 2 (Episodes 7-9)

Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads (Thelma leaves Bob)

Other :-

Sky At Night (Huygens)

Alan Whicker x3

Dr Who Easter Special

Lake District drive

Sandie Shaw Supplement (60s)

Cilla (60s)

Inspector Foyle

Martin Freeman Goes To Motown

Messiah (Howard Goodhall)