Subject: RE: Vivekananda in Chicago
From: Baader, Cecilia (cbaader@casecorp.com)
Date: Fri Jan 28 2000 - 17:48:55 EST
> On Friday, January 28, 2000 3:33 PM citycabn [citycabn@gateway.net]wrote:
> ...This is a long shot: Does anyone know _where_ in Chicago the
> Parliament was held?
>
Bruce, Bruce, Bruce...
A long shot? Not at all. Long shots are my specialty. (Just look at my
favorite baseball team.) Allow me to inform you of the particulars of the
great Swami Vivekananda's visit to Chicago:
Way back in 1893, Chicago was the site of the World's Fair, an occasion
which prompted organizers to add another convention to the Most Modern Fair,
the World Parliament of Religions. At that time, the city was still
recovering from the ravages caused by old Mrs. O'Leary's cow (although
revisionist historians now claim that the cow DIDN'T cause the fire, it
still makes great copy, so the myth is perpetuated...) the only building in
the city large enough to host such an occasion was the Art Institute.
Now, in 1893, the Art Institute was no great shakes, as it was full of
copied statues and second-rate paintings. As a result, where there is now
a Grand Staircase and the world-renowned Ryerson Library, was a great big
lobby which had nothing but space, space, space.
And the Swami stood in that great big space and gave his "frog in the well"
lesson. A transcript of this speech is available at:
http://www.hindunet.org/vivekananda/chicago/why_disagree
You can go to the Art Institute to this day, and if you veer to the right of
the staircase, you will see the doors of the library. In a dark section of
the hallway just to the right of the doors, you will see a forgotten brass
plaque commemorating the occasion.
And if you happen to come on the correct alternate Saturday morning, you can
then tromp down the stairs into the basement, walk into the Kraft Education
Center, and approach the blonde girl sitting at the information desk.
That'll be me. Please say hello, because I'm a great fan of meeting fellow
'fishes these days.
Regards,
Cecilia.
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