Archives for the 'All things Chicago' Category
It’s 2008
It’s 2008. I spent the holidays in Texas and it turned out to be a very American, and maybe even more Texan experience, including barbeque in Lockhart, outlet malls in San Marcos, and walking out of a church in protest against a horribly inappropriate homily that rambled about the homosexual threat against families (clearly a [...]
Adams’ Doctor Atomic at the Lyric: a review
Ever since my first opera attendance, when I saw Parsifal at the Vienna Staatsoper with Placido Domingo in 2002, I have not seen a better opera. Maybe it was the first impression that counts. Growing up, opera wasn’t present in my life; all that I knew of opera was packaged in those tedious concerts with [...]
Headline decisions II
I’m not a particularly big fan of baseball, but I do pay attention to headlines. Now, I know that the Tribune recently “struck a historic deal to take over delivery of its smaller, struggling rival, the Chicago Sun-Times” (note the snarky “struggling”). But I suspect that there might be a deal involving headlines as [...]
Tour de North Branch
The Tour de France is consuming my life again. For these past two weeks, I have been more excited than a Dutch kid on Saint Nicholas’ Eve. I usually catch the last hour and a half or so from the repeat broadcast on Versus every evening, even though I know the results already. And even [...]
Tolstoy in Albany Park
I have moved. Not in cyberspace, but in real life. I am a proud first-time homeowner (technically I don’t own it yet, but that’s frustratingly complicated) in Albany Park in Chicago, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the United States. Near my place there is a mosque, a Romanian church, and a Korean church [...]
Meet the Dutch in Chicago
You might have already seen the tulips, artsy bike installations and windmills on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile these past weeks. If you were wondering, yes, that’s the doing of us Dutch people, in partnership with the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association.
Last Monday I went to the Dutch Consulate’s celebration of Koninginnedag or Queen’s Day at the [...]
Finally a post: some catching up
I have been swamped lately, and thus left little time for blogging. This post will be brief, even though there is much to write. The last two weeks the news went from lighthearted articles such as the Washington Post’s story about Joshua Bell performing in a subway station and earning little more than pocket change, [...]
A debut of some sort
Last night I made a debut of some sort. I was a guest lecturer at my former teacher’s class at Columbia College. I met Dominic Calabrese through an independent project in college and he later invited me to do an internship at his organization, the Chicago Lighthouse. He teaches a non-profit public relations class at [...]
Chicago arts organizations catch Bears Fever
Chicago is going crazy over the Bears upcoming trip to the Super Bowl. Even I, fan of the other kind of football, found myself watching the game in a sports bar last Sunday.
Now some of Chicago’s arts organizations have contributed to the Bears Fever raging through the city. First, the Lyric Opera of Chicago posted [...]
Mariachi at Symphony Center opens new doors
Last Saturday was one of the most exciting nights of my employment at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. It wasn’t significant in the way that Barenboim’s farewell concerts or Haitink’s Mahler 3 concerts were; it was significant in that it opened new doors and welcomed new audiences.
While the Orchestra was on tour at New York’s Carnegie [...]
