“Breakfast with Pixar’s ‘Bao’ at the Museum of Science & Industry” by S.M. O’Connor

Did you enjoy Pixar’s short film Bao (2018)? You can purchase tickets for a private breakfast with producer Becky Nieman-Cobb and director Domee Shi at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry (M.S.I.), where they will discuss what inspired them to make Bao, describe how they made it, and answer questions. “Breakfast and ‘Bao’” is from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, September 22, 2018. Theaters screened the Pixar 3D computer-animated short film Bao over the summer before The Incredibles 2 (2018). Ms. Shi is the first woman to direct a short film for Pixar. Guests will also be able to explore the new exhibit The Science Behind Pixar before the M.S.I. opens for the day. Unlike the previous night’s event, “MSI After Hours: Get Animated,” which is an adults-only event, this is an all-ages show.

The Science Behind Pixar, a traveling exhibit created by the Museum of Science, Boston and Pixar Animation Studios, opened at the M.S.I. on Thursday, May 24, 2018, and will run through Sunday, January 6, 2019 (the Feast of Epiphany). It showcases the science, technology engineering, and mathematical underpinnings of the animated films produced by the artists and computer technicians at Pixar.

The exhibit The Science Behind Pixar is comprised of over forty interactive elements which are divided into eight sections, each one focusing on one step in the filmmaking process: Modeling, Rigging, Surfaces, Sets and Cameras, Animation, Simulation, Lighting, and Rendering. Each section provides museum visitors with a behind-the-scenes look at the filmmaking process. Hands-on activities in the exhibit were inspired by the studio’s productions, from the world’s first 3D computer-animated film, Toy Story (1995) to Inside Out (2015). Please note this exhibit is spread out over two galleries and it takes about one hour to see everything. Timed-entry tickets are necessary to explore The Science Behind Pixar and to attend the conversation with Becky Nieman-Cobb and Domee Shi.

Tickets are $30 for children ages three-to-eleven and $45 for adults. These tickets include the breakfast, all-day Museum Entry (general admission), pre-open entry to The Science Behind Pixar, and on-site parking in the subterranean garage structure. One can purchase tickets for ‘Breakfast and ‘Bao’” through Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/breakfast-and-bao-tickets-50093721670?aff=msifb.

Need a lift to the event? “Breakfast and ‘Bao’” guests will get 25% off (up to $5) off Lyft rides to and from the Museum of Science and Industry. Click here for the promotional code.

On Tuesday, September 4, 2018, the M.S.I. reverted to regular hours (9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.). On Sunday, September 23, 2018, the M.S.I. will open late, at 11:00 a.m., due to the Half-Marathon street closures, and be open until 5:30 p.m.; on Saturday, October 6, 2018, will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.; and on the weekend of Saturday, November 17, 2018 and Sunday, November 18, 2018, the M.S.I. will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Museum of Science and Industry will be closed on Thanksgiving Day (Thursday, November 22, 2018) and the First Day of Christmas (Tuesday, December 25, 2018). Extended hours (9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.) will be in play again from Friday, November 23, 2018 to Sunday, November 25, 2018; Saturday, December 1, 2018 and Sunday, December 2, 2018; Saturday, December 8, 2018 and Sunday, December 9, 2018; Saturday, December 15, 2018 and Sunday, December 2016; Saturday, December 22, 2018 and Sunday, December 23, 2018; and Wednesday, December 26, 2018 through Sunday, December 30, 2018. Check this Webpage and the Museum of Science and Industry’s social media for updates.

Often stylized as the “Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago” or the “Museum of Science + Industry” the institution is located at the northern end of Jackson Park, on the south side of 57^th Street, between Lake Shore Drive to the east and Cornell Drive to the west, in the East Hyde Park neighborhood of the Hyde Park Community Area (Community Area #41) on the South Side of Chicago. The address is 5700 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60637. The M.S.I. is open every day of the year with two exceptions: Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. On most days, it is open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., but during peak periods it is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Website is https://www.msichicago.org/ and the phone number is (773) 684-1414.

The Field Museum of Natural History in March, 2018

The Field Museum of Natural History’s entrance pavilions are at opposite ends of Stanley Field Hall, which has a north-south axis. The two porticos (porches) are each reached by two successive flights of stairs.

Both porticos of The Field Museum of Natural History are flanked by two small porches, which each have two caryatids (columns in the shape of maidens). On the facade, the wings are adorned with a colonnade of attached fluted Ionic columns. The building’s fluted Ionic columns have volutes (spiral-scroll-shaped crowns).

Each portico of The Field Museum is tetrastyle in antis with double-ranked fluted Ionic columns capped by volutes. An entablature crowned by a pediment rests atop the columns. The continuous frieze in each case is relatively plain. The wave-themed acroteria that crown the pediments are borrowed from the Palace of a Fine Arts, which housed The Field Museum until 1920 and now houses the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Field Museum of Natural History isn’t “just” a museum. Visitors can watch scientists at work through windows at the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice DNA Discovery Center’s Pritzker Laboratory.

Mrs. Charles (Laura) Schweppe, a daughter and co-heiress of John Graves Shedd, the former partner of Marshall Field I who succeeded him as president of Marshall Field & Company, and who, under the guidance of Stanley Field founded the Shedd Aquarium, donated an exhibit of 100 bronze sculptures by Malvina Hoffman to The Field Museum. They represent every race, nation, and tribe in the human family (more or less). On January 9, 1933, the first group, Unity of Man, went on display.

In addition to the four figures Henry Hering (1874-1949) made for the corners of Stanley Field Hall, he also made the twelve plaster round lion head shield escutcheons that line it. These are replicas of the marble round lion head shield escutcheon he made for the pediment of the facade of The Field Museum of Natural History.

Christmas at Chicago’s Union Station

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a POLAR EXPRESS display in the Great Hall of Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a closeup of the THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is the headlamp of THE POLAR EXPRESS steam locomotive mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Union Station Company rail car loaded with super-size gifts is part of THE POLAR EXPRESS mock-up in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This is a Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station.

Credit: S.M. O’Connor Caption: This Christmas tree in the Great Hall of Union Station in downtown Chicago has emblems of Amtrak, Metra, and historic railroad companies whose routes they now operate like Burlington.

Cinemas sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) Helped Design

This is the Pickwick Theatre Building, an Art Deco movie palace and office building erected in downtown Park Ridge, Illinois in 1928.

The architects were Roscoe Harold Zook and William F. McCaughey. Sculptor Alfonso Iannelli, who also worked on the Adler Planetarium, contributed to this building.

In recent years, the Vlahakis family, who’ve owned the building for 50 years, have been able to turn the building into a multiplex by adding smaller theaters around the original auditorium. The latest one, with a screen four times the size of the one in the auditorium, will open in time to screen INFINITY WARS in May, if all goes well.

The Catlow Movie Theater is a cinema that opened in downtown Barrington, Illinois in 1927. The Tudor Revival style of architecture is not confined to the facade of the cinema. As with the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois, sculptor Alfonso Iannelli (1888-1965) played a role in the design and decoration of The Catlow Movie Theater.