This week in arts and culture

In October I visited the Art Institute of Chicago, saw a string quartet, and enjoyed a Halloween themed University of Chicago Symphony performance.

The university had organized a trip to the Art Institute where they would pick us up on campus, in a school bus, and drive us to the museum and back. When we were dropped off we were told to be back at the bus in three hours and that the time was ours to do what we pleased in the museum. There was a tour that gave an overview of the museum so I figured I might as well do that to get my bearings. On the tour I met Anne, the assistant professor from the Netherlands I now run with. We recognized each other from the bus and were the only two from the university in the group taking the tour. The older gentleman to your right was our enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide.
The overview was great and we hit some of the highlights but of course there is so much more to see. I think the university is doing an identical trip this month so I might as well go again (letting them taking me to and from saves me $6-8 on public transit, once back on campus I just take the shuttle home).

There are some incredibly famous works on display. Part of that has to do with some of the historical, high society folks of Chicago that I had read about over the summer and heard about again on the tour. Since I don't have the time to explain it myself check it out here if you're interested in a little of the museum's history.

Clay invited me to go to see the Arditti Quartet on October 21st. The description is as follows, "The legendary and Formidable Arditti Quartet brings its international reputation as a pre-eminent interpreter of 20th century and contemporary music to launch the series." Basically they are world renowned, somehow Clay knows about them, it was 10 bucks. The scene below is the lead violinist walking off stage because the moment he started to play, a string broke. "They don't make them how they used to," he remarked to his chuckeling audience.

For Halloween, Maggie and I attended the University Symphony Orchestra's Witches, Winds and Whirls concert. This happened to be the exact same hall as the one for the string quartet. But they spooked it up with hanging ghosts and spider webs. The musicians dressed in costume and the director dressed as the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz (you can see her riding in on her stationary bicycle). The Hyde Park School of Dance (for local youth) performed a ballet telling, in the aisles, of Hansel and Gretel and the Noonday Witch to the music. It was super neat!

To round off Halloween, Matt was having a part at his place so Maggie and I went after the concert. He made a big stink about coming in costume, how we would be denied entrance into his apartment if we weren't dressed up. This was an annoyance since I didn't have a costume and didn't want to have to go out and get one. So, during the concert I was wracking my brain and thought, why don't we dress up as backpackers? Wear our backpacks, boots, baseball caps, bring a map, etc. Clay was stoked to join us, as he didn't have a costume either, and we met up outside Matt's. We got inside and NO ONE was dressed up, including Matt! So, people literally thought we had just gotten back from backpacking and asked us where we had gone.