“When is ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Trivia Night at Empirical Taproom?” by S.M. O’Connor

Empirical Brewery’s Empirical Taproom will host The Lord of the Rings Trivia Night on Wednesday, September 25, 2019. The questions will be based on Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s three-volume novel The Lord of the Rings. There will be prizes for First Place, Second Place, and Third Place teams. The event will start at 7:00 p.m.

The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy consists of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). Combined, the three films won a total of seventeen Academy Awards®. The stars were Viggo Mortenson as Aragorn (a.k.a. Strider), a Ranger of the North and heir to the throne of Gondor; Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins; Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf; Sean Astin as Samwise Gamgee; Dominic Monaghan as Meriadoc (“Merry”) Brandybuck, Frodo’s cousin; Billy Boyd as Peregrin (“Pippin”) Took, Frodo’s cousin; Orlando Bloom as (Prince) Legolas; John Rhys-Davies as Gimli the Dwarf and the voice of Treebeard the Ent; Hugo Weaving as Elrond; Liv Tyler as Arwen, Elrond’s daughter and Aragorn’s betrothed; Cate Blanchett as (Queen) Galadriel, Elrond’s mother-in-law, and Arwen’s maternal grandmother; and Andy Serkis as Gollum. Sir Ian Holm played an elderly Bilbo Baggins, Frodo’s cousin and foster father. Sean Bean played Boromir, Denethor’s son, and a member of the Fellowship of the Ring. Sir Christopher Lee (1922-2015) played Saruman the White. Marton Csokas played (King) Celeborn, Galadriel’s husband, Elrond’s father-in-law, and Arwen’s maternal grandfather. John Noble played Denethor, Steward of Gondor. Bernard Hill played Théoden, King of Rohan. Karl Urban played Éomer, nephew of King Théoden and brother of Éowyn. Miranda Otto played Éowyn, niece of King Théoden and sister of Éomer. David Wenham played Faramir, son of Denethor and younger brother of Boromir. Brad Dourif played Grima Wormtongue, the advisor of King Théoden. Craig Parker played Haldir, an officer in Celeborn and Galadriel’s army.

Credit: Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Caption: This is the announcement by Warner Brothers in 2010 that the theatrical versions of all three films in The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy was available for the first time in high definition.

Credit: Empirical Brewery Caption: This is time-lapsed footage of the construction of Empirical Brewery.

The Empirical Taproom is located on Foster Avenue, west of Ravenswood Avenue and and a few blocks east of the Chicago Park District’s Winnemac Park. It is just inside Uptown (Community Area #3). Foster Avenue is the frontier there between Uptown and the Andersonville neighborhood in Edgwater (Community Area #77), Uptown and Edgewater both being on the North Side of Chicago. The Empirical Taproom is open from 12:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays; from 12:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays; and from 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Sundays. The address is 1801 West Foster Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60640. The phone number is (773) 293-7896. The e-mail address is info@empiricalbrewery.com.

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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.