A day on campus

I did go out to lunch with Maeve and Fren yesterday and we did catch up on some interesting gossip.
For one thing, Fren’s gallery is having a show with 3 artists from Chicago plus Clark (one of our neighbors and professor of Classical studies at Beckent).
This should be a great show - although Clark is back in ancient history during his day job, he’s very much in the modernist period with his art and his personal taste.

I went to visit him earlier today and he showed me some of the pieces he’s thinking of including in the show, although Fren will be in on the final decision making. He also had a preliminary list of classes he was putting together for the next semester. I sometimes audit his lectures and I’m always interested in what’s coming up.

Clark’s a great friend, like me he’s willing to travel out of town and/or country for a good art auction.

Then, since he offered, I left PK with him and went to see my friend, Sabrina. She heads the college theater’s design department - props, costumes, that sort of thing. I was on campus and I thought it would be fun to drop in if she wasn’t too busy - luckily, she wasn’t.

She told me they were doing a version of Agatha Christie’s Murder in Mesopotamia and when we got to talking about it she asked if I could help put together a collection of props from some of my collection.

The story setting is on the banks of Tigris River, near Baghdad in 1930s Iraq. I guess originally the Christie novel didn’t feature Hercule Poirot, but Midvale (the college theatre) is going with a version that includes the Belgian detective.

Murder in Mesopotamia is not quite as glamorous as Death on the Nile, but it still features loads of khaki safari clothing, ancient artifacts and of course…MURDER!

I have so many ideas, it should be quite fun. She’s looking for relic type props along with books, maps and so on.

Meanwhile, I told Maeve about this and so in a few days we’re going to ISAC - the museum that used to be called the Oriental Institute. It’s one of my very favorite places in Chicago - very old school, Indiana Jones type vibes and just the spot to get some inspiration.