1,001 Chicago Afternoons

I’m standing in a darkened room while soft, almost New Age music plays overhead. It’s relaxation-tape music, down to the odd moments of the simulated sounds of rainfall trickling around the carpet and glass.

I’m staring at a severed head. » Read the rest of this entry «

“I’ll tell you a good example,” the rabbi said. “A lady called me up, she said her son wants to go to the Museum of Science and Industry. They had a Harry Potter exhibit, OK? Imagine a kid, I don’t know how old he was, who was into Harry Potter needing to go to this Harry Potter exhibit. So I talked to her, I looked into it a little bit about how the exhibit was set up and it wasn’t possible. I wasn’t able to find a solution really.” » Read the rest of this entry «

From: eteeter@********.edu

To: 1001chicago@gmail.com

Questions for Meresamun:

What did your music sound like? Was it more like chanting? Were there duos or trios?

I know that you worked in Thebes. Where did you and your family live? 

Did you know any of the other people who worked at Karnak that we know from their mummies-like Paankhenan (Art Institute) or Djedmaatesankh (Royal Ontario Museum)?

…

Amun loves her, that’s what the name means.

Meresamun worked as a singer-priestess in the wind god’s temple at Karnak in Thebes twenty-eight hundred years ago. She was about 30 when she died, a woman of wealth and status who pacified Amun, king of the gods, three times a day, one month out of every four.

Today, she lives under glass in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Teeter and I wonder about her. » Read the rest of this entry «

She shifted foot to foot as she spoke to the 10 of us.

Her talk was inflected and genuine, but as lunchtime became afternoon she was getting tired being on her feet. An active 50s in dyed red hair and white hoodie, she wanted us to turn down cellphones, sheath our umbrellas, check any bag that might knock over one of the artifacts should we turn too quickly and unwarily.

Then she could turn us over to the tour guide. Then she could walk the five meters back to the gift shop in the converted car garage where she could rest, chat with co-volunteers and get off those aching ankles that made her shift as she talked. » Read the rest of this entry «

Gone are the hobbit-hole passageways. Gone are the secret rooms one lingering after the other like a maze made of sociology texts and coming-of-age novels. Gone are the low ceilings and sense of being wrapped, buried or swaddled in book after book after book.

The new Seminary Co-op Bookstore is gorgeous. It’s open and airy with a massive collection under high ceilings. You have space to move, breathe, turn around without accidentally bumping knocking over an endcap of Very Hungry Caterpillars.

I thought we had come to the wrong place. » Read the rest of this entry «

If all went according to plan, the wife and I are currently backpacking through Marseilles following the Tour de France and you’ve already taken bike routes through the history of newspapers and the LGBTQ community.

Now let’s talk about the lake. » Read the rest of this entry «

On Wednesday, I put out an incredibly difficult Chicago trivia quiz.

The purpose, aside from the fact I’ve been all coughing and bronchial and wanted a story I could write from my sickbed, was to get people to explore certain sites I like, including this one, Atlas Obscura, the Chicago Collections Consortium, the Chicago History Museum, Mysterious Chicago and Curious City.

So I made the quiz goldanged impossible. (And Curious City, that thing we talked about? It’s handled.)

From the Fool Killer submarine to park bats to Iroquois Theater Assistant Chief Usher Archie Guerin, here are the answers you didn’t get to the 1,001 Chicago Afternoons Really Difficult Trivia Quiz. » Read the rest of this entry «

You might know the Iroquois Theater Fire happened in 1903, but do you know the name of the assistant chief usher called to testify after?

Sure, you know that the first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction was at the U of C campus, but do you know what sport the room was originally made for? » Read the rest of this entry «

Geocaching is an amazingly odd little activity wherein people use GPS coordinates and clues to find treasures hidden around the world.

For those who don’t have a GPS and time to spare, here’s a little list of an article on four of the oddest things created in Chicago.

But if you have both, it’s a chance for you to hunt down four spots where Chicago changed the world. » Read the rest of this entry «

I had been in the library for an hour, crawling up and down floors, heading up twisting paths between gray stone towers, parading by endless locked doors festooned with office hours times and course-relevant Far Side cartoons, before I found out there were no books.

“They took those out years ago. Now they’re all underground at the Reg with the ~robot arms~” my friend Rachel, a U of C alumna, texted when I finally gave in and asked where to find something to read in the University of Chicago’s Harper Library. » Read the rest of this entry «