Updates

Every now and then, a post cries out to be updated. Sometimes the update comes about because of something a reader or friend pointed out, sometimes an update comes about because of the passage of time. Here are three recent posts that are just ripe for updating.

North

I raved about this play two weeks ago, having seen its final "rehearsal" before the for/word theatre company headed to New York for a one month long off Broadway run. 

Here's the great news. North is getting some amazing reviews.  

Did I call that one or what? 

If you want to read the reviews in their entirety, they are on the for/word company Facebook page. If you want an amazing theatre experience and are in New York this month, buy a ticket. Then sit back and fly.

The Wasp and the Nose

Back in August, after a trip north to Wisconsin, I wrote about being at Yerkes Observatory after over three decades. A few readers clamored for the "story" behind the chiseled columns and I told what I knew of it and what I was able to piece together from various Yerkes sites.

This week has been a grueling one. It is Concert Week, which of course means Warren is working 100+ hours and our personal schedule has been booted aside. On top of that, I attended a two-day seminar on mentally ill juveniles in the court system. Excellent speaker (she spoke eight hours each day with the barest of outline), excellent information, absolutely and totally draining. So it was great delight that after dragging home the first day, I found an email from one Richard Dreiser, who has been giving tours at Yerkes since 1980.

Richard pointed out a factual error in my post (the observatory was dedicated in 1897, not 1896 as I had erroneously written). Factual corrections are always welcome. But what warmed my heart and has left me with a debt of gratitude to Richard was his sharing two photos from Yerkes.

The first is one of him holding a photograph of William Rainey Harper, the first president and the force behind establishing the University of Chicago as a bastion of higher education. 

Richard Dreiser and William Rainey Harper

Richard commented that he doubted the wasp ever had a face (and you will see why he feels that way in a minute) but that the chubby man below Rockefeller (whose nose you can just see at the top of the column) is almost certainly Harper minus his glasses and with an adjusted hairline. Given the satire afoot in the column, I agree with Richard.

But here is the photograph that blew me away:

Rockefeller and the Wasp

Richard believes this photograph dates to 1899, which is after the dedication and suggests that it took some time before George Ellery Hale convinced University officials (no doubt Harper) that the wasp had to go. Given the caricatures carved into the column, I might suggest that Harper had a better sense of humor than Hale. 

Ramona

I have not blogged a lot about Ramona yet. She still seems so new in the world, at least from my vantage point in Ohio, that there is a fantasy-like quality to her existence at all. Last weekend, Ohio and Oregon skyped, and seeing Ramona in her baby seat, kicking and bubbling and cooing, made her real in ways that I had not grasped before that moment. (Yes, I babbled incoherently for the first several minutes.)

Since my last post about her, Ramona has traveled a bit (Montana and New Orleans), been baptized (by her grandfather, who also married her parents two years ago), and has attended not one but two powwows. That's pretty good for a kid who is only six weeks old as of today.

Ramona and Grandpa Joe at the baptism

As I noted above, it's Concert Week. More to the point, the Symphony opens its season tonight. Tonight. I feel the clock ticking and it is time to turn away from writing and turn instead to the rest of the day. More Ramona photos and stories will follow in the months to come. For now, I will leave you with this image of Ramona at her second powwow, this one in Helena, Montana. Note what she has on: her fancy dance shawl! 

With Aunt Jenna at the Montana powwow