Monday, June 25, 2007

Cubs v. Rockies, and we were there. Wow!

An amazing, amazing comeback. Final Score: Cubs 10, Rockies 9.

A fan leaps onto the field, just to say to Howry, "com'on, what are you thinking."




Alfonso Soriano finished off the latest wild game at Wrigley Field.

Soriano hit a two-run single in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the Cubs a 10-9 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Monday night, setting off a wild celebration after Chicago's bullpen blew a five-run lead in the top of the ninth.

''A great win. You couldn't have scripted it any better. Clutch,'' Cubs manager Lou Piniella said.

Troy Tulowitzki hit a go-ahead, three-run homer to cap Colorado's six-run ninth.

''Just when you think you've seen about everything, you haven't seen everything,'' Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said.

After Todd Helton doubled in a run with none out in the ninth off reliever Scott Eyre, Bobby Howry (4-4) was greeted by consecutive RBI singles from Garrett Atkins and Brad Hawpe. Tulowitzki followed with a three-run shot to put the Rockies ahead 9-8. Howry is the Cubs' closer while Ryan Dempster is unavailable because of a strained oblique muscle.

After Tulowitzki's homer, a fan jumped onto the field from the roof of the Rockies' dugout and charged at Howry. The fan was just a few feet from the mound when security guards tackled him.

''As soon as I turned around the guy clotheslined him and took him down,'' said Howry, who hardly moved as the fan charged his way. ''He said, 'What are you doing?' I'm trying to give up home runs, what do you think?''

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Dinner at Riccardo Trattoria

Had a very nice dinner at Riccardo Trattoria, a lovely little place in Lincoln Park with our friends Mr. B and Ms. H. A great little place, making food just like my Italian mama used to make.

This is Riccardo, not Mr. B. and Ms. H...

Friday, June 15, 2007

Bloomsday...well almost


I went to hear my great work colleague, Ms. M. N. M., in a reading of sections of James Joyce's Ulysses at the Cliff Dwellers. She was fabulous, and someone made the astute observation that even thought it was the 15th, it was Bloomsday (June 16) in Ireland.

"(Bloom walks on a net, covers his left eye with his left ear, passes through several walls, climbs Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the top ledge by his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included), heals several sufferers from king's evil, contracts his face so as to resemble many historical personages, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Irving, Rip van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, eclipses the sun by extending his little finger.)"

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Troilus and Cressida at the Shakes



A solid and a little bit sexy production at Chicago Shakespeare. Are they bringing sexy back? Don't know...

Friday, June 08, 2007

Ms. S's last day at RIC


Soriano smacks a three run shot at 7:48 pm at the exact moment Ms. S walks in the door from her last day at RIC. Coincidence? I think NOT.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Diary of Anne Frank

Really, at Steppenwolf. Yes, really. You think of it as an old chestnut, but it was compelling, and lively and good.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Arcadia at Court Theatre

A really, really enjoyable production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia at the Court Theatre.

From Chris Jones's Tribune review:

"The heady complexities of Tom Stoppard -- a playwright whose allusions contain allusions to allusions -- have been amply noted. But even though his writing shows unusual political neutrality, he's among the greatest living playwrights because of the passion of his characters. Once a Stoppardian person unleashes the meaning of the universe, it's like an over-articulate revolutionary at the barricades. When done right, you get smacked right in the chops.

Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia," which recently finished its run at New York City's Lincoln Center, has that riveting, hopelessly impassioned quality. And so does director Charles Newell's provocatively assertive revival of "Arcadia" at Chicago's Court Theatre. Even as Stoppard's characters -- the pursued from the early 19th Century and the pursuers from the late 20th -- yak on about gardens, Newtonian physics, Lord Byron, mathematics and sex, the ever-smart Newell gives you the sense here that they're all a bunch of spluttering, well-dressed atomic particles whom he has dangerously unleashed on our world, much as Enrico Fermi and his nuclear crew once did in 1942, just a bit farther south on Ellis Avenue.

...

Smashing performances abound, including the suave Grant Goodman as the tutor Septimus Hodge and, especially, Erik Hellman as Valentine Coverly, that character's rough modern equivalent. Tortured, smart and weirdly emotional, Hellman offers a close-to-perfect performance. And Mary Beth Fisher (as a modern writer) and Bethany Caputo (as a prodigy from the past) offer stellar turns. Caputo really takes some risks and makes her choices work. In fact, the whole show works best in its boldest directorial moments, which makes you think it could have gone even further."

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Alumni Weekend

It was Alumni Weekend at the University of Chicago. Pretty low key since graduate students don't tend to congregate at this event, but there were a couple of highlights. The alumni medal went to James Dewey Watson, PhB’46, SB’47. Dewey was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his co-discovery of the structure of DNA. His address at the Alumni Convocation was off the cuff, a little weird, and wildly entertaining. The Uncommon Core session moderated by NPR commentator Ray Suarez, AM’93, on Saturday afternoon was great. There was also a great session with Jim Heckman, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2000, and Bob Lucas, AB’59, PhD’64, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1995, reflecting on the work of Milton Friedman, AM’33, who won the Economics Prize in 1976.

Get the Nobel Prize winner theme? Pretty amazing.