The Newberry

A Night at Mr. Kelly’s Exhibit – The Newberry – April 16, 2024

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I’ve never read or seen The Accidental Tourist, but accidentally joined a tour of the A Night at Mr. Kelly’s exhibit at The Newberry (running through July 20) when I unknowingly burst into the back of a gathering just as the docent began her spiel.

I think the last time I did something like that was in Luxembourg City in the mid 1980’s when I had the good fortune to stumble upon the back of the pack of a group of American college students (not my status at the time) being shown around the walled city.

Alas, I remember nothing about Luxembourg City, other than the McDonald’s where I grabbed an orange juice. Nevertheless I’m sure that experience didn’t include stories about Barbra Streisand’s signature being forged for patrons because her hand got tired, the building burning down just as Lainie Kazan was about to sing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and the audience being handed their checks as they fled the establishment. Also, where else can you see Lenny Bruce’s bar tab.

I saw Woody Allen at Mr. Kelly’s the night of my senior prom and the docent confirmed for me that such parties were accommodated, no fake IDs required. Woody is not mentioned in the exhibit, though, again, the docent confirmed that he appeared at the club several times and his lack of inclusion in the exhibit was not related to later accusations against him, the only person purposefully excluded being Bill Cosby.

The exhibit makes a point of the diversity in Mr. Kelly’s performers and audience members often not found at other clubs of its era, but, I might add, also not in today’s tour group.

The 2023 Newberry Book Fair – The Newberry – July 28-30, 2023

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The book fair reminds me of an early scene in a scary movie, no, not the library scene in Ghostbusters, although . . . . But, rather, replace a few paleontologists, or perhaps more accurately paleozoologists, digging for Jurassic Period fossils of the extinct triceratops, tyrannosaurus and velociraptor in Montana (actually Red Rock Canyon State Park in California), with hundreds of bibliophiles digging through piles of near-extinct, dinosaur-equivalent paper books, trying to resurrect the species, which has been decimated, not by an asteroid 66-million years ago, but by publishers like Peanut Press, and later the asteroid-like Amazon, less than three decades ago, with the advent of e-books.

The animal analogy continues as you make your way past the squirreling area, where you’re allowed to hide books, not acorns, and not overnight, from your competition while you look for more treats in one of the three rooms set aside for bargain-hunting patrons who got their training on Christmas mornings at FAO Schwartz battling one another over Beanie Babies, Tickle Me Elmos and Cabbage Patch Kids.

Unlike the employees of Jurassic Park, who take a potentially dangerous situation and make it worse, the staff and volunteers at the library do an amazing job of preparing and replenishing the tables holding 73 different subject-matter categories, providing information and processing sales, which, by the way, are BYOB (bring your own bag), or, in some cases, shopping carts.

The message is, even with the demise of the brick-and-mortar bookstore, to analogize the words of Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm, books find a way.

Wheels – The Newberry – July 19, 2023

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What happens when you run out of ideas for a new exhibit? The Newberry came up with the perfect answer by asking what happens when you search your collection for a certain word, in their case ”wheels”.

They came up with enough material to line a couple walls and inspire this column.

Among the highlights they found are photos from the Chicago Railroad Fair of 1949, which Walt Disney attended, and which, it is said, was one of the inspirations for Disneyland.

There also are pictures from a roller derby (which I watched religiously in my youth); a wheel of fortune (not The Wheel of Fortune); the original Chicago Ferris Wheel (not Ferret Wheel, which you can buy online at friendlyferret.com); and more.

I don’t need to fill two walls, only half a page, so, lacking any originality, I decided I would search for “wheel’ among my past blogs. This, as it turned out, was smarter than looking for the plural, like they did, as it opens up the world of compound words.

I’ve mentioned my limited wheelhouse when it comes to Jeopardy categories; a wheelchair, when discussing Bette Midler’s alter ego Delores Delagoa; a wheeled emergency stretcher, when reporting on an incident at a concert; and a wheelbarrow, when recounting working in the park.

And, lastly, I recalled that a Newberry speaker (see how I got back to them) cited Nutcracker choreographer Christopher Wheeldon.

Chicago Storytelling in Bughouse Square – The Newberry – July 15, 2023

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Last year, in regard to this annual event, I quoted Will Rogers about things not being what they used to be. This year, they were even less than that.

Last year, I visited the Society of Smallness table and exchanged small talk with them. But, after many years of underwhelming us with their underachievements, they didn’t make an appearance this year. Perhaps they had little left to say.

A few times, in past years, I’ve been entertained by the ragtag Environmental Encroachment Brass Band, and, last year, the Sheryl Youngblood Blues Band. This year, no offense, musically there only was a DJ whose job it was, I think, to help keep people awake between speakers in Ruggles Hall, which, as far as I know, despite being in a library, is not an eponym for the protagonist of the novel Ruggles of Red Gap, or the movie of the same name, wherein, interestingly, the actor Charles Ruggles plays, not the title character, but rather Egbert Floud.

Last year a couple of the scheduled speakers struck my fancy, including the one who talked about pigeons, a relevant topic when we were in the park as usual, but the threat of bad weather (even that’s not what it used to be – way more often now as Armageddon approaches), kept us inside, and the only orator I listened to was, coincidentally, Chad the Bird, who, in case you don’t know, is Chicago’s leading avian op ed columnist, who gave us the history of Malort, the iconic Chicago undrinkable drink.

Pop-Up Books through the Ages – The Newberry – March 21, 2023

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First I had to learn the vocabulary posted on the wall. A volvelle is a wheel chart, not one of those plastic horns they blow at soccer games.

A flap is a flap, not to be confused with Jeff Leonard’s one flap down home run trot in the 1987 NLCS.

A pop-up is any book with three-dimensional pages, including both of the above, but not something that triggers the infield fly rule.

Finally, a globe gore is a sector of a curved surface that lies between two close lines of longitude on a globe and may be flattened to a plane surface with little distortion, a gore being a triangular or tapering piece of material, not the name of Quentin Tarantino’s next movie.

Among the highlights, there was a pop-up book showing Pinocchio and Geppetto emerging from the whale’s mouth, but not one of Tommy Lee Jones emerging from the alien bug’s innards near the end of Men in Black.

There was a glass-enclosed book that was upside down, on purpose, because, I was told, the volvelle inside the book was upside down for some unknown reason. I’m wasn’t sure how a wheel could be upside down, but I let it ride.

There was a Civil War battle plan map with flaps to show the progress of the battle, there apparently being no computer programs available at that time.

There were paper cut-out nesting dolls that didn’t look anything like Natasha Lyonn.

And my favorite, books depicting flowers that were flaps that could be lifted to reveal naked women, handy for use in public places, so as not to create an additional flap.

A Show of Hands: Handwriting in the Age of Print – The Newberry – September 14, 2022

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My handwriting is terrible. If I were a referee tossing a homemade coin to start a football game, we’d never get to the kickoff, because no one can make heads or tails of my penmanship.

Fortunately, commercial typewriters were introduced in 1874, well before I started school. Unfortunately, no one ever taught me how to type. But, on the computer, I’m a whiz with two fingers – no trouble reading this piece.

All that aside, here’s the thing. According to The Productive Engineer website, printing is, perhaps surprisingly to some, faster than cursive writing, and, at least in my case, far more legible. On the other hand, the site suggests, cursive is better at improving one’s motor skills.

I’m a pretty good driver, but I don’t think that’s what they mean. What I did decide, however, is that if my cursive were better, I could play the piano better. Huh?

Well, cursive writing, not lifting the pen between letters, is like playing notes legato, Italian for tied together.

And, the Newberry exhibit (we finally got to it) includes mention of 1814 lectures on the art of writing that promoted “forearm” or “muscular” movement, using the arms and shoulders, rather than the hands and fingers, which is akin to the notion of using arm weight when playing the piano.

So, there it is. Schools that have discontinued teaching cursive writing might incorporate it into their music curriculum, except, oh wait, budget cuts have killed those programs too.

Make Music Day – Washington Square Park – June 21, 2022

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In conjunction with the Blues Travelers portion of the about-to-close exhibit, Crossings: Mapping American Journeys, at the Newberry across the street, which I wrote about several months ago, Washington Square Park was home to the blues on Make Music Day.

The first band to heat up the park on the day of the summer solstice for the annual city-wide festival was the aptly named, as it was 98 degrees in the shade, Mississippi Heat.

But there was shade, and a breeze. And, if you clap slowly, which seems consistent with a bluesy kind of feel, the minimal amount of energy expended might be offset by the cooler air created in front of your face. As of today, I declare this to be known as the delta effect, not to be confused with the Delta Breez ventilation fans.

John Primer and the Real Deal Blues Band were next. Primer is originally from Mississippi and has a resume as long as the sunrise to sunset day was in Reykjavik, which clocked in at over 21 hours. His website says it all – “YOU CAN’T PAINT THE BLUES WITHOUT THE PRIMER!”

But you can beat the blues by listening to them on a lazy day in the park.

Handmaidens for Travelers: The Pullman Company Maids – The Newberry – June 8, 2022

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After admiring the interesting photos, the first thing you read at this new exhibit is that the maids were overshadowed by the porters in the public’s imagination of the time, focused mostly on the 1920s. Even now, if you look up the union formed by the railroad employees in 1925, it’s often referred to as the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and only occasionally adds to the title “and Maids”, of which there were approximately 350 at the time per a letter on display.

Other interesting facts presented were:

The existence of 17 rules the handmaidens had to follow, only a mundane five of which were displayed – too bad, the other 12 might have been ripe for snarky attack.

The concerns of the time regarding tuberculosis, which led to the institution of medical exams for applicants; and maybe the box to be checked on the application regarding an unnamed vaccination, although something for small pox might have been a more likely possibility in the 1920s.

A list of 28 names of people who had risen through the railroad ranks from low level positions, such as rodman (apparently a surveyor’s assistant who holds the leveling rod, duh) to leadership of their companies, because there’s “Always Room at the Top for Steady Climbers”. None of the first jobs listed were porter or handmaiden, which came as no surprise given the times, but which made me wonder why the item was included.

A number of the documents, including some employee cards, not like baseball cards, though that might have been amusing, noting things like career records for most manicures given to passengers, but rather records of service that were related to one specific maid who, though otherwise an exemplary employee, received a reprimand for not reporting an unidentified uniform infraction of another employee, perhaps a Rodman with a capital R.

Crossings: Mapping American Journeys – The Newberry – February 25, 2022

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If you like staring at old maps, this new exhibit is for you.

My favorite section included short descriptions about the journeys from the south of the Blues Travelers who created Chicago Blues, namely Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, Koko Taylor, and, surprisingly, in my mind, the Staple Singers (who, as wonderful as they were, were more known for other categories of music), while Willie Dixon was egregiously omitted.

Although I grant that Mavis Staples was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2017, Dixon, who wrote hit songs for Waters, Wolf, and Taylor, among many others, was one of the original inductees in 1980.

I thought about correcting the library’s error in judgment, but, perhaps fortunately, didn’t have a pen, as staff was already eyeing me suspiciously.

So I moved on to the poster promoting the opening of Yellowstone National Park in 1872, featuring Alice (whom Lewis Carroll introduced to the world seven years earlier) telling us about her adventures in this new wonderland. Still no pen, so couldn’t draw a mustache on her.

And don’t miss the “fun map” (its original designation, not mine) of US 40, promoting tourist attractions, and, I swear, telling the story of the Donner Party through a series of cartoons. Too soon?