Have you ever wanted to explore one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous creations but never made the time? Even though Chicago is still on lockdown, now you can, thanks to these virtual tours.
Usually, the tours of his homes are offered in-person with a guide. But, since that isn’t possible, you can check out some of his beautiful architecture virtually. These YouTube videos allow you to peek into the interior of Frederick C. Robie’s house in Hyde Park, in addition to the Unity Temple and Wright’s Home and Studio located in Oak Park.
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While it isn’t a 360-degree or VR experience you’ll be getting, the videos do a good job of covering the small details of Wright’s architectural designs. With slow-pan shots and narration, you’ll be able to notice the little details like stained glass windows or the interesting angles. Even if you have already been to the houses in-person, you might discover new intricate details that you might have missed.
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Unity Temple
Each of these buildings represents a different aspect of Frank Lloyd Wright. The Unity Temple is considered one of his greatest works and one of the first modern buildings. His use of single material reinforced concrete gives it a different aesthetic than seen at that time.
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The Robie House
At the Robie House, included are video interviews from Tim Samuelson, a cultural historian located here in Chicago. He’s served as the board member of the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust and has unique insight into the Prairie style masterpiece and the life of the architect.
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Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio
And, at Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, it has been restored to its appearance in 1909, which was when Wright last lived there with his family. Through the videos, you can see where he spent 20 years of his life.
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As Chicago’s only World Heritage sites, the Unity Temple and Robie House are worth taking a few minutes out of your day to check them out.
ChicagoBulls (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
While the NBA has yet to make a final decision on the 2019-2020 season, the Chicago Bulls have been restructuring their entire operation.
At last, the coaching rumors for the Chicago Bulls have begun. Needless to say, current head coach Jim Boylen should start touching up his resume, as he shouldn’t (and probably won’t) be a part of the organization for much longer.
According to Darnell Mayberry of The Athletic, multiple sources around the league are expecting Boylen to be ousted by new EVP of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and his newly appointed GM Marc Eversley.
The hottest new gossip around the soon-to-be-vacant position includes two potential candidates, both of whom have had ties with the Bulls in the past, though Karnisovas has said that “[Boylen]’s not my hire, we wanted to evaluate him and the players”.
The rumors around Boylen being fired have been persistent ever since the demise of GarPax, but nothing had been solid until the Eversley hiring.
Bulls fans will finally get what they have been demanding seemingly since Boylen took over with his “crawl, then walk, then run” approach, which matured into an abysmal 24th-ranked eyesore of an offense and a 39-84 record.
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To his credit, Boylen has brought the Bulls defense into the top half of the league statistically (13th), but his blitzing off the screen-and-roll has failed the visual test while also contributing to the less than impressive record.
Bulls defenders have consistently had slow efforts on closing out when they don’t come up with a steal.
Meanwhile, their opposition has shown that the only thing needed to break Boylen’s strategy is swinging the ball around; that usually ends up in with either a corner 3-pointer or a wide-open lane to drive.
There are now over one million cases of Covid-19 in the United States. 1,000,000!!
More than 60,000 have died from Covid-19 in the United States. 60,000!!
Over thirty million U.S. workers have lost their jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic. 30,000,000!!
Those are the facts. Today we heard from Donald Trump’s special advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Here’s the response that he gave to Fox & Friends:
“The federal government rose to the challenge and this is a great success story and I think that that’s the story that’s really what needs to be told.
Really? Sixty thousand dead is a success story? Thirty million lost jobs is a success story? Really? What would be considered a disaster?
Kushner, whose only qualification for his job is that he sleeps with Don’s daughter, doubled down with this:
“May will be a transition month … I think you will see by June, a lot of the country should be back to normal, and the hope is that by July the country is really rocking again.”
It’s a transition month for the states that will going against the administrations own guidelines for reopening. Hopefully, the transition won’t be an increase in Covid-19 cases and deaths.
Jared, you keep showing how unqualified you are to be serving the public. If I were you, I’d make sure that you keep princess Trump happy! But, I’ll make you a promise. If this actually does come true…and if it does, it won’t be because you had anything to do with it…I’ll write a piece saying that you were right and I was wrong. Deal?!
In the meantime, more Americans are losing jobs. More Americans are becoming ill. More Americans are dying. Keep thinking this is a success.
My so called friends think it’s time to edit this section. After four years, they may be right, but don’t tell them that. I’ll deny it until they die!
I can’t believe I’ve been writing this blog for four years.
It started as a health/wellness thing and over the years has morphed to include so many things that I don’t know how to describe it anymore.
I really thought this was going to be the final year of the blog but then Donald Trump came along. It looks like we’re good for four more years..God help us all!
Oh yeah…the biographical stuff. I’m not 60 anymore. The rest you can read about in the blog.
Ricky Gervais in The Tonight Show, Tuesday, April 28, 2020 (courtesy YouTube).
As horrific as the trauma and stress of Covid-19 is, I’m consoled by one thing: Our humanity across the planet has never been more evident. It doesn’t matter if you’re famous or not, rich or not, accomplished or a regular joe. We all are facing so much in common right now. The fear. The boredom. The inability to go about our “business as usual.” The joy of the connection with friends on electronic media. The time spent with family that has become more meaningful than perhaps we ever expected. Life is so strange, and so comforting normal and basic at the same time.
Last night I caught “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon – I hadn’t seen it since the Pandemic hit, because I usually fall asleep before it comes on, but I was awake and watched how the show’s broadcast unfolded. Usually it’s boisterously with music from The Roots with iconic scenes from New York City to open, and finally we see a live, loudly cheering audience before Jimmy steps out in front of the crowd. Instead, last night’s show opened with Jimmy trying to get his daughter’s to announce the show’s title. It was very cute. It was a very quiet intro. It felt a lot like FaceTiming or Zooming with a friend at home. But it wasn’t someone I knew personally. It was Jimmy Fallon.
Then Jimmy and his wife Nancy took their dog for a walk and answered viewer mail. It’s usually an edgy, sarcastic bit. Last night, the Fallons answered a question that related to the extent they went to start their family. It wasn’t a series of quick barbs. It didn’t seem planned – it was a personal story of triumph over difficult, emotional odds. It felt like a deep conversation you might fall into with your friend or neighbor when you end up walking your dog together.
Jimmy’s first guest (the only one I managed to stay awake for) was Ricky Gervais, who of course also “guested in” from where else – his home. Typically when I watch a talk show like this and I see famous people, they’re telling stories of movies or shows they’re working on, talking about their famous friends or big news they have to share. There was a little of that. But mostly, Ricky talked about basic things, like not getting a real haircut and only cutting off parts of his hair in the back as long as he could see them from the front when he looks in the mirror.
When talking about his latest preferences, Ricky summed up what he values most: alcohol like beer or wine – and toilet paper. He summed it by saying that there really WAS no replacement for beer or wine, but if you just looked around, you could find lots of things to replace toilet paper with – books, grass, etc. So you might say, fun beverages win out for Ricky…hands down.
They also talked about how the Pandemic makes the simplest things we take for granted important – like family and dogs. They are silly guys – and so they digress when they talk – a lot. But that makes me laugh, so I’m good with it. And they played a good game of “Hey Robot” by trying to get Alexa to guess word on a note by giving Alexa clues. People just being creative with what’s around them to pass the time. They could be your hilarious brother-in-laws.
I obviously know the Pandemic is affecting all the people of this earth, but I keep feeling astounded by how alike we all are when simple conversations like this come up. “Normal” life typically puts a chasm between the every day person and famous people – but it doesn’t matter if you’re the Pope, a Hollywood celebrity, a sports star, a politician or someone who has experienced momentous history like Jim Lovell – who basically said it doesn’t matter if it’s the Apollo 13 mission or Coronavirus – you have to have the attitude that there’s a problem and it’s going to be solved. Who would know better than him?
And what about the “One World: Together At Home” concert staged by Lady Gaga and featuring a bunch of A-List performed to honor front-line communities and other workers – not for some distant tragedy as in years past for similar concerts – but for the disease that is hitting home for every human being on this planet. The concert was same idea of bringing funds and recognition to an important plight, but this time it’s an entirely different spin as viewers saw performers in a virtual setting, not on the grand stage together. It’s uplifting and eerie at the same time.
This past weekend, I also learned that a group of men that can clearly be described as some of the most iconic people to ever walk this planet – The Rolling Stones – released a song called “Ghost Town.” It speaks of being locked down and the video shows the all-encompassing emptiness of the world. As one of the important 1960s bands that came through “The British Invasion” and created some of the most important music for decades on some of the world’s largest stages – it’s shocking to think that they are now in the most vulnerable age group for getting seriously ill with Covid-19. Once again, our humanity comes back to us.
What’s the tie in for parenting teens and my blog? This is a time of history. It’s a time they’ll never forget. My kids are already saying how they know that their kids or grandkids will be studying this in history, and they suspect their kids will have no ability to relate to what it was like, and will likely be a bit indifferent. Because it didn’t happen to them.
Let’s hope they’re right. Let’s hope that someday, we can look back on this as “that time we were all locked down” as an event of the past, never to be repeated. Except, I hope we don’t forget our shared, simple, beautiful humanity. That would be tragic.
For now, enjoy this trip with the Rolling Stones – with the images a reviewer describes as “all-encompassing yet claustrophobic.” It’s eerie, relatable and historic – just like this time of life.
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I’m the mom of a teen girl and boy and am on the “Adventure of a Lifetime” as I chart new territory with two terrific kids. I grow along with my children as we navigate the ups and downs of teen life. I live in the Chicago suburbs with my husband of 25 years, our two kids and a lively little dog. Life is good.
It’s that feeling of waking up in the morning and for a few moments nothing is wrong. Everything is normal, quotidian. But as you brush your teeth, it sweeps over you. Everything is not normal.
For me, a knot in my stomach gets tighter as I wake up, as I begin again to cope with reality.
It happened when my mother died. It happened when I was diagnosed with cancer. And, it’s happening now.
It’s the way trauma works. Moments wash over you. The wheezing of a ventilator. The sound of a doctor’s voice over the phone. The feeling of an unmade bed or an IV in your arm. Moments that may seem inconsequential to others but that pound reality into your brain.
For me, it was the NBA that did the pounding. I was watching the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks play when news broke that a Jazz player had tested positive for COVID-19. Just after the half, as I remember it, the NBA had decided to suspend the season beginning the next day. The Jazz and Thunder were set to play after the Mavericks-Nuggets, but the players refused to play and the season stopped.
Whether it begins again isn’t clear. ESPN is airing classic games, tonight the Pistons smashing the Lakers to win the 2004 NBA championship. It’s a weird thing to watch.
Old games, old players—a reanimated Kobe Bryant for one—old announcers, but new ads. Every one seems to mention COVID in one way or another, but ESPN’s ad did me in. It ends with the tag, “Sports. We miss it, too.”
Out of the blue I burst into tears, just sobbed. Though I love basketball, I wasn’t crying for a missing playoffs season.
I found myself thinking, “I want to feel safe again.”
And that’s what all of these traumas have in common for me. Each in their own way is traumatic in itself. But it’s the aftermath that does me in. It’s the feeling that the ground will no longer support me. Not the earthquake itself, but the aftermath of destruction and the threat of aftershocks.
If you lose one person, you can lose another. If you get cancer once, you can get it again and worse the next time. If COVID brings the world to its knees, then the next pandemic might end it all.
As I have learned, life comes back to normal a moment or two at a time. It moves forward and slips backward. Some days a little momentum builds and then everything stalls, moves in reverse.
It takes a long time to move through the worst of these things. Especially when they’re still in motion, still wounding, still threatening.
Here’s wishing that you and yours are well and that you’re finding a way to face each day with hope.
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I am a writing professor who lives in the suburbs south of Chicago. I’ve lived my life in the deserts and mountains of New Mexico, the tundra of Alaska, and, now, in Chicagoland. If I could have lived a different life, I would have chosen to be taller and to play point guard for Pat Summitt’s Lady Vols. Instead I’ve gotten to live my life as a writer and reader, a teacher and student, a cook and a bike rider with my husband, daughter, two cats and a dog. If you’d like to get in touch, please email me at [email protected]
Amid our concerns about brewers and establishments closing over the COVID-19 “stay-at-home”, we actually news of new brewers.
Crushed by Giants posted to their Facebook that they have passed all of their inspections, and are approved to operate as a brewery. The facility, from the owners of DryHop and Corridor breweries, is coming to 600 N. Michigan Ave., site of the former Heaven on Seven restaurant.
Nik & Ivy Brewing has announced that they building a taproom at 1026 S. State St. in Lockport. They’ve already posted photos of fermentation tanks arriving at the downtown location, and are looking toward a summer opening.
Also this week, Orland Park’s village board has approved a redevelopment plan for the site of the closed Toy “R” Us store at 151st St. and LaGrange Rd. The plan would see a Chiptle and Panera Bread in one new building, a Raising Cane’s Chicken Figures with a drive-through, and a BJ’s Brewhouse as an “anchor.” This would be the first Illinois location for the California-based chain. It would fill a gap in Orland Park after the closing of Granite City and with Rock Bottom’s status uncertain. Patch
You may notice most of the listings for online events are dropping the map icon linking to the Google Map of the location. I’ve set my script to drop it if the location starts with the word “online.” But if the event suggests you get the beer for carryout, I’ll try to leave it in.
Fresh Beer Events, occasional bacon, but always spam free, opt out any time.
Meet The Blogger
Mark McDermott
Writer, trivia maven, fan of many things. I thought to learn all there is to know about beer as a way to stay interested in learning. It is my pleasure to bring Chicago’s craft beer scene to you.
Riding a bicycle is a healthy activity and is both legal and encouraged during Chicago’s Stay At Home order. Just be sure to maintain safe social distancing while cycling.
Was biking banned?
There is indeed confusion. That’s because Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot told residents to not go on long runs or bike rides during the COVID-19 shutdown. “Stay at home,” she said. “Only go out for essentials.” The mayor said this and was visibly upset at reports of gatherings around some of the parks and beaches in Lakeshore that were in violation of the order.
After this announcement, the mayor promised to back up the words with action. “Be smart,” she said. “Not only will our police be deployed to shut them down if you are not abiding by these orders, we will be forced to shut down the parks and lakefront.”
She also announced that violators will get one warning to disperse or turn away from closed parks, and then will be cited with a $500 fine followed by arrest if the person continues.
The official press release from Chicago states that Chicagoans are still able, and encouraged, to exercise during this time. That includes cycling, walking, jogging, running.
Lakefront closed
On March 26th, the lakefront was essentially shut down. All trails, beaches and parks are now closed until further notice. Other recent closings include the 606 Trial and the Chicago Riverwalk.
Many people feel that the orders are a bit harsh and have complained that their fitness routine and ability to exercise has also been interrupted.
Exercise is Allowed
However, the mayor did say that getting outside for a short walk was a good thing, but she didn’t want people to go on long walks, runs and bike trips. She also said that she didn’t want to keep people from getting their exercise, but they need to do it in groups of less than 10 and stay six feet from one another.
The rest of the country
San Francisco has a nice guide on how important it is to bike or stay active and healthy during the pandemic. Cycling is still encouraged in Tampa as well as Orlando, San Diego and many other cities.
This post is about what I have been doing during quarantine. There are also some pictures so you don’t have tovisualize. (Trust me, there’s no way you’re going to be able to visualize the best cupcake on Earth.)
“Your life will never be the same after a kid!” Um, duh. I’m a French teacher turned stay-at-home mom who strives to maintain her social life with and without her kid. By day, a French speaking, cloth diaper changing, baker extraordinaire in both real and pretend kitchens. By night, a cabaret performer, below average triathlete, and club hopper. (Book club, that is.) Email at: [email protected].
I got an email saying “CMJ Returns!” At first, I was excited! College Music Journal was a staple of my youth. A magazine you received, by mail, every month, that included a CD, packed with new music. I read every article, whether I liked the band or not, and I listened through every CD, to every single song. Whether metal, pop, rap or rock, I took it all in because I trusted CMJ’s tastes. They were the true purveyor of college music, of cool music.
But now I’m wondering, “Is it too late?” In a world where we get our new music delivered digitally every week, instead of monthly by snail mail, can CMJ still be a source of new music? Can CMJ still be relevant?
Who’s curating the music? Will it be diluted? Will they have an app or a weekly playlist on Spotify? Is it just digital radio? I have so many questions, and hopefully, this fall when it’s slated to return, all will be answered?
CMJ is now part of Amazing Radio, a British radio station that has introduced people to new music and broken cutting edge acts since 2009, much like the CMJ of yore. I’m listening now to the test station and I’ve liked everything I’ve heard so far.
Amazing Radio is calling this merger the “perfect fit,” and I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I have missed flipping through the magazine while setting the disc in the tray, and pressing play. Those were the days.
The days of finding new acts like The Longpigs, Murs, Sage Francis, or Sheila Divine. Acts I continued to see in concert and to lay down my cold, hard cash for. Can CMJ carve a niche in the rapidly changing musical landscape again? I hope so for the sake of future generations.
I still have the magazines and the coinciding, numbered CDs. I’ll be clutching them in my coffin.
Hold the titters and unroll your eyes, I am not hallucinating about having a conversation with a ghost-like apparition who said ‘hi’ to me in the check-out line at Mariano’s. But I promise you, I have encountered… a force… that is real and speaks to all of us in an undeniable way.
I have suspected its existence for many years. There were too many times when lost in meditation I found myself… floating… in what I would have to describe as “the beginning of time.” I had no form, nor did the… void… of which I was part. In my reverie I had the sense of having an identity and at the same time being inseparable from the whole – a single pixel imbedded in a giant television screen with hundreds of millions of pixels making the picture, so vast it couldn’t be seen unless you were on Icarus, your perspective magnified by the gravity of a massive galaxy cluster located about 5 billion light-years from Earth.
Stay with me; here is where it gets mysterioso. Since every one of these “pixels” is part of the same beyond-imagination vastness, it can be said we are “connected,” each one of us uniquely “one” and at the same time, part of “the all.” Hold that image and think of the familiar metaphorical example of a tornado in Texas being influenced by minor perturbations such as the flapping of the wings of a distant butterfly several weeks earlier in Japan. Now here is the giant leap: when any one of us speaks, feels or thinks, all of us – i.e., the Universe – are speaking, feeling and thinking.
All this sounds like delusion as very few among us can “hear” the voice when the universe speaks, because very few of us believe it even exists!
I know enough about the subconscious to understand how a Ouija Board moves, so I do retain a healthy skepticism about messages from outer space, but I am open to the possibility! See above: decades of meditation practice. And see below: a recent experience.
Earlier this week I felt compelled to call an old friend from high school days. We were extremely close during our formulative years, sharing teenage angst and triumphs, but life’s currents had pulled us in separate directions. Now, after a dozen years gone by without connecting, something unexplainable drew me to make the call.
We talked for some time; eventful happenstances exchanged; pilot light reigniting our friendship. Then, before saying goodbye, his question, “How did you remember my birthday?” My stunned reply, “I had no idea.” Imagine, after years apart, without realizing it, I called him on his birthday!
Coincidence? Could be. The odds are 365 to one, but yes, could be. Or maybe…
Here’s another of my ‘what are the odds’ experiences. Last Sunday I was leafing through the obituary pages of the New York Times, feeling good that a picture of me taken in 1972 was not among the dead, when an obit of a woman who passed at age 107 caught my eye. I had no idea who she was, but I started reading. Buried in the text was the name of her daughter, an unusual spelling that I recognized! I had not talked with this woman for ever so long, and there I was later that afternoon, writing her a note of condolence.
Coincidence? Could be, absolutely could be… but maybe, just maybe, after so many years practicing how to shut out the external world and drifting into another orbit of time, I can hear the voice, the unspoken voice of the universe itself.
In the course of a long business career I held many titles familiar to the corporate world. But as I quickly learned the lofty nameplates no longer apply when your career comes to a close and you move from the corner office to a corner of the den. The challenge was to stay vital and active rather than idling on the sidelines. I had to create a new foundation upon which to build life’s purpose and joy.
I stopped adding up my stock portfolio as a measure of my net worth and developed a healthy self esteem independent of applause from others.
I am the co-author of The In-Sourcing Handbook: Where and How to Find the Happiness You Deserve, a practical guide and instruction manual offering hands-on exercises to help guide readers to experience the transformative shift from simply tolerating life to celebrating life. I also am the author of 73, a popular collection of short stories about America’s growing senior population running the gamut of emotions as they struggle to resist becoming irrelevant in a youth-oriented society.
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