Complete with a red carpet, drinks and popcorn,
awards (thanks to Cory for his super hard work!) and certificates,
even the paparazzi showed up!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Oscars on Huron Street
I will come back to Chicago, part 3 but in the meantime let me not let Oscar season pass by without highlighting our exciting event hosted at Anythink Huron Street. We'd been working up to it for a couple of months with Garage Band, Animoto and Sock Puppet Flip Camera films programs. The teens turned out some fun stuff and so naturally we needed to showcase everything they were doing. And so, Oscar/Grammy night was born.
I was so worried when it started snowing the morning of that our turnout would be weak because so many walk or take the bus to the library. It slowed in the afternoon and would you believe I had over 30 people come?! A brilliant turnout, especially considering the weather and a handful of my regulars told me ahead of time they had a conflict and wouldn't be able to make it. We had parents, siblings, the awardees and even a handful of new faces. I wore my prom dress in honor of the evening and the teens seemed to feel pretty special that we pulled out all the stops. It was fun to play everything they made and see it all put together, especially for those that had brought their parents. Though the evening turned out better than I could have hoped, I still have a handful of ideas on how to make it better for next year. So happy Oscar season y'all! Maybe next time you can celebrate by coming to Huron Street:)
Monday, February 13, 2012
CHI-TOWN! - parts 1 & 2
Where to start?! If you have ever had the pleasure of visiting Chicago, you know how it would be a hard place to sum up in a wee blog entry. Still, if I could do it with London, I can do it with Chicago. Here goes.
It was a 3 part visit. One part visiting a dear Austinite swimming friend of mine (and meeting her sweet babe), one part tourist adventuring, and a final part work. To be utterly honest, I am not sure which of the 3 parts was the superior. It all was something great and at the risk of sounding over-dramatic, the trip was transformational when it came to the work part. But we will get there yet. First! The visiting and touristing!!
As has been stated in other forums, I am one to enjoy a good read while exploring new that references where I am. For this trip, I had "Devil in the White City" recommended to me. It was a great read on the plane - I was being introduced to the city with lines like: "New York City was the undisputed center of cultural and social refinement for the United States, and although Chicago was certainly a city of great wealth, it was still considered a societal backwater." (forgive me for not citing the page # as I read it on my Kindle). This built up all kinds of excitement for my touristy part of the trip - wish I could have been able to snap a picture of the Morton's Salt Factory I saw from the train going into town from Evanston. It would have been perfect to insert right after that quote.
And so the trip began in Evanston to visit my dear swimming pal from the Austin, TX era of my life. We enjoyed all kinds of chatting and a leisurely, windy walk on the Kellogg campus (where her husband is attending business school) along the shore of Lake Michigan.
Julie and Nathan, being the stellar hosts that they are, were also sure to introduce me to what they thought was the superior deep dish pizza you could get in these parts. Apparently, the 2 competing chains are Lou Manati's and Giordano's. This particular pie came from Giordano's and I really couldn't imagine anything more from a pizza.
The next morning Julie and I had the ambition to go into town together with wee Ginger Belle to adventure up the Willis (Sears) Tower. When we arrived, the tower looked like this:
and we were informed that the fog was all anyone could see at the top. We both opted that the $18 could be better spent on a different day. So I checked into my super fancy hotel (seriously, I don't think I have ever stayed anywhere so nice) that was less than a block away from the tower. I felt like such a poser checking in and when they "Mrs Sweeney this and Mrs Sweeney that" at me, I had the inclination to whisper to them clandestinely, "I was a housekeeper last year. There is no need to treat me so highfalutin'." Not only that, but being a public librarian is not necessarily a power play kind of profession and here I was with all these important looking folks with briefcases. Needless to say I was glad I had packed my tweed side bag so that I could put my orange backpack away and play the part. But not before playing the tourist.
Again, I was only a few blocks away from Michigan Ave (and thus the Art Institute, the bean, etc etc). There were all kinds of highlights. Too many to narrate really.
The Art Institute was truly all it was "cracked up to be". And though I always get the line from people "oh you only spent 4 hours there, that wasn't nearly enough time was it?!" If I am honest, it wasn't enough time to see the whole place or absorb everything, but what amount of time can anyone even stand to be in such an artistically intense place as their modern and contemporary galleries? I don't know of anyone who is up for more than 4 hours in a museum and so I felt right proud of myself taking so much in for so long. One of my favorite bits of the museum was the American furniture spanning from 1700 and on. Couldn't help but notice:
And though I found those to be neat archetypes of my profession, the next few days at my meetings made me proud of how far we have come in the public library tradition. More on that in the next post....
It was a 3 part visit. One part visiting a dear Austinite swimming friend of mine (and meeting her sweet babe), one part tourist adventuring, and a final part work. To be utterly honest, I am not sure which of the 3 parts was the superior. It all was something great and at the risk of sounding over-dramatic, the trip was transformational when it came to the work part. But we will get there yet. First! The visiting and touristing!!
As has been stated in other forums, I am one to enjoy a good read while exploring new that references where I am. For this trip, I had "Devil in the White City" recommended to me. It was a great read on the plane - I was being introduced to the city with lines like: "New York City was the undisputed center of cultural and social refinement for the United States, and although Chicago was certainly a city of great wealth, it was still considered a societal backwater." (forgive me for not citing the page # as I read it on my Kindle). This built up all kinds of excitement for my touristy part of the trip - wish I could have been able to snap a picture of the Morton's Salt Factory I saw from the train going into town from Evanston. It would have been perfect to insert right after that quote.
And so the trip began in Evanston to visit my dear swimming pal from the Austin, TX era of my life. We enjoyed all kinds of chatting and a leisurely, windy walk on the Kellogg campus (where her husband is attending business school) along the shore of Lake Michigan.
It was such a thrill to see the skyline from afar.
The next morning Julie and I had the ambition to go into town together with wee Ginger Belle to adventure up the Willis (Sears) Tower. When we arrived, the tower looked like this:
and we were informed that the fog was all anyone could see at the top. We both opted that the $18 could be better spent on a different day. So I checked into my super fancy hotel (seriously, I don't think I have ever stayed anywhere so nice) that was less than a block away from the tower. I felt like such a poser checking in and when they "Mrs Sweeney this and Mrs Sweeney that" at me, I had the inclination to whisper to them clandestinely, "I was a housekeeper last year. There is no need to treat me so highfalutin'." Not only that, but being a public librarian is not necessarily a power play kind of profession and here I was with all these important looking folks with briefcases. Needless to say I was glad I had packed my tweed side bag so that I could put my orange backpack away and play the part. But not before playing the tourist.
Again, I was only a few blocks away from Michigan Ave (and thus the Art Institute, the bean, etc etc). There were all kinds of highlights. Too many to narrate really.
The Art Institute was truly all it was "cracked up to be". And though I always get the line from people "oh you only spent 4 hours there, that wasn't nearly enough time was it?!" If I am honest, it wasn't enough time to see the whole place or absorb everything, but what amount of time can anyone even stand to be in such an artistically intense place as their modern and contemporary galleries? I don't know of anyone who is up for more than 4 hours in a museum and so I felt right proud of myself taking so much in for so long. One of my favorite bits of the museum was the American furniture spanning from 1700 and on. Couldn't help but notice:
"library table"
"library staircase"
And though I found those to be neat archetypes of my profession, the next few days at my meetings made me proud of how far we have come in the public library tradition. More on that in the next post....
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