Another fine piece of exposition from Mr. Beagles! I suspect he has a familiarity with the Czech language; his essay doesn't read like something he pulled out of thin air. To my shame I know very little about the Czech people and their history but the recent descent down the rabbit hole has filled in many gaps. There weren't many Czechs on the north side when I was growing up except for those interred in the Bohemian National Cemetery. As a native born Chicagoan I should have been more aware of the great influence the Czech community had on the city but my education was lacking. The Germans and Irish are small potatoes but they get most of the press regarding the history of the city. A nice review of the Czechs in Chicago is here.
I found a good companion piece to Mr. Beagles' essay on Jara Cimrman from the L.A. Times (2005) and it's a fun read. Cimrman seems to be the type of hero we need for these troubled times. He doesn't have to be real to be real, I think. And as I read more about the Czechs I'm getting the impression that they are the "funny guys" of Europe, using humor and wit to fight oppression. They seem more affable than the Poles or Germans, and then there's that whole "Bohemian" thing, meaning "a person who has informal and unconventional social habits, especially an artist or writer."
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As I ponder the differences between Louis Sullivan and Mies van der Rohe it becomes obvious to me that any comparison is futile; both were excellent architects of their respective times. Also, they worked in different scales, with Sullivan's buildings being smaller and more intimate than those of Mies. And it should be noted that the glass and steel edifices of Mies were notorious for their leaky windows; bring a mop! I think the building that Uncle Ken mentioned was originally called the IBM Building, then the Quaker Oats Building, and I don't know what it's called now.
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Before I forget I want to mention that I found the earlier Beaglesonian entry where Mr. Beagles mentions Cimrman; it was his post from June 29, 2016 titled Welcome Old Dog. But I have a trick I use to perform searches on the forum. After I enter the search string (in this case Cimrman) I make sure to toggle the "search by date" option and then I hit CTRL-F and enter Cimrman again. All instances of Cimrman are highlighted and easy to find. This method hasn't failed me yet unless I don't spell something correctly.
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Since Uncle Ken visits St. Louis and other parts of Missouri frequently I wonder if he has seen any armadillos. They have been steadily migrating northward from their usual southern environs and are becoming something of a pest. Global warming? Who knows for sure but I would avoid handling them. Leprosy isn't pretty.
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