Notes From All Over

dispatches NOTES FROM ALL OVER

CHICAGO

Blowin’ in the Wind ONE SPRING MORNING on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive, a long line forms under an unseasonably warm sun. The Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) has just CHASING STORMS ALONG LAKE MICHIGAN opened a new exhibit, “Science Storms,” and it’s been ILLUSTRATIONS BY GRAHAM ROUMIEU drawing such crowds daily, rain or shine. At 9:30 a.m. on the nose, a guard unlocks the doors, and the group—a mixture of kids on fi eld trips and hard-core weather afi cionados (they like to call themselves “weather weenies”)—fi les into the 26,000-square-foot exhibit.

Patrons gather at an angled 20-foot disk covered in snowlike granules and are invited to trigger an avalanche.

A little farther along, visitors stand before a 30-foot wave tank and watch as a computerized control mechanism whips up a custom tsunami.

Another line snakes to the entrance of a wind tunnel that generates an 80-mph breeze. “It’s basically simulating the sustained strength of a Category One hurricane,” explains senior project manager Chris Wilson. “Of course, we create a safe environment in which to experience it. There are no objects in the wind that are going to hit you.”

The exhibit’s main draw is a 40-foot-tall “tornado,” a vortex of swirling vapors that rise out of the fl oor and spin with the velocity of an actual twister. The tornado is powered by four fans capable of moving over 100,000 cubic feet of air per minute—which is a lot—and visitors can manipulate the vortex from a console. Dorothy Gale would be impressed.

“I’m not sure if it’s the largest manmade tornado,” says Dave Mosena, the president of MSI. “But it’s certainly the largest interactive one. We want people’s jaws to drop to the fl oor, sure, but I think with tornadoes, which can be very dangerous and destructive, the more people know, the safer they’ll be.”

A group of seventh graders from nearby Lincoln Park are gathered around the tornado.

“This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” says one boy.

“What’s that show where the people drive around like crazy?” a friend asks.

“Storm Chasers.”

“Oh yeah. It’s just like that.” —MIKE GUY

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CANCUN, MEXICO

OCTOPUS’S GARDEN English artist Jason deCaires Taylor’s latest installation, while still a work in progress, already boasts more visitors than any other in Latin America—provided we’re counting fi sh. Located just off the coast of Cancun—and about 20 feet below the sea—the creation consists of more than 200 statues (at a weight of three to six tons each) bolted to a coral reef. The project resembles a sort of ready-made lost civilization, a fi eld of monuments to our time slowly being covered in coral. “Many people who see it think it’s a few hundred years old,” Taylor says. “When in fact the oldest pieces were put in less than two years ago.” This confusion is, of course, part of the point. The artist purposefully picks images and items that are representative of today. A scuba diver prowling off Grenada, where Taylor has 60 sculptures, might come across a typist with hands permanently poised above a concrete keyboard, or a bicyclist frozen midpedal propped against the edge of a reef, or a table set for breakfast, complete with a bowl of stone oranges. “I’ve gone back to visit some of my older pieces and found long beards of sea sponges growing off of a fi gure’s cheek, or big fans of coral on the forehead,” says Taylor. The statues are built from a special kind of pHneutral concrete that’s more than 10 times stronger than the stuff used in parking garages, a perfect anchor for growing sea life. Taylor, who spent his childhood living in Malaysia, Spain and Portugal, seems perfectly suited to this project. The 36-year-old has worked as a diving instructor and engineer as well as sculptor. But perhaps his biggest infl uence, he says, was the graffi ti he began doing after his family settled in southern England. “Graffi ti is so uncontrolled—it’s governed by chance and opportunity,” he says. “That’s what I love about underwater work. Now I’m just providing the walls. The sponges and coral decorate them.”

—MATT THOMPSON

JERASH, JORDAN

Channeling History “Charlton Heston was wrong,” announces Stellan Lind, a tall Stockholm native wrapped in a toga, speaking to the 500 spectators in a large hippodrome 50 minutes outside Amman, in the Roman ruins of Jerash. “The chariot race was seven times around the Circus Maximus, not nine! And the spikes on the chariot wheels in Ben-Hur? Another Hollywood invention.”

With that, a trumpeter sounds the signal and a Roman legionnaire clad in full regalia enters the arena. From under a steel helmet, the centurion barks a command in Latin. Rows of soldiers emerge from another door and march toward one another, raising their shields and clutching their gladii. The soldiers advance and begin the “fi ght.” Amid the loud clashing of metal, the unmistakable sound of an imam’s call to prayer drifts across the crowd.

Lind sweats in his seat high above the action, surveying the scene like Emporer Titus. He’s the unlikely founder of the largest Roman historical reenactment in the world, the Roman Army and Chariot Experience, or RACE, and de facto general to the 45 actor-legionnaires who battle bloodlessly below (shows are twice daily, Saturday through Thursday).

“I’m the crazy guy who moved to Jordan to make his boyhood dream come true,” he says, mopping sweat from his brow with the fringe of his toga. As boyhood dreams go, this is a pretty eccentric one, but the result is a meticulously researched blend of history lesson and Hollywood spectacle.

The soldiers amass in formation and prepare to launch their javelins as the onlookers fl inch. Soon chariots appear, harnessed to Iberian-bred steeds, and begin racing around the ring—seven times. Eventually, the RACE reaches its climax: Two gladiators emerge, dressed in rags and animal skins. One wields a trident and a net, the other a ball and chain. After a heated match, the crowd signals its disapproval for the vanquished soldier.

Lind pauses and thrusts out his hand: thumb down.

With that, the defeated gladiator kneels, and the winner stands above him and fi nishes him off with a splash of red dye.—MARY WINSTON NICKLIN

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

DANCING SCREEN Next time fans of 3-D technology see a willowy hero jump out of their screens, it won’t necessarily be a blue Na’vi warrior. On a cool night in downtown St. Petersburg, the Mariinsky Ballet, better known in the West as the legendary Kirov, is set to join the ranks of Vincent Price horror fl icks and the recent James Cameron blockbuster by becoming the world’s fi rst ballet to televise a live performance in 3-D.

The Mariinsky Theater has been outfi tted with high-tech cameras for a gala concert, a medley of the company’s most acclaimed works, which is being broadcast for free across most of Europe. For viewers who have yet to buy a 3-D TV (just about everyone), the organizers have set up viewing salons in Paris, Moscow and here in St. Petersburg.

The house lights dim, the curtain opens, and after the orchestra quietly plays the fi rst bars of Swan Lake, Mariinsky prima donna Ulyana Lopatkina takes the stage. For once, the best seat in the house isn’t the tsar’s box but the foyer outside the auditorium. That’s where Mariinsky’s superstar artistic director Valery Gergiev and assorted other theatrical VIPs don specially designed glasses and take in the show on a giant 3-D fl at-screen. Immediately after the exhibition concert ends, the theater kicks off the 10th Mariinsky International Ballet Festival with the premiere of Anna Karenina. Unfortunately for viewers in Moscow and Paris, that performance can only be seen the old-fashioned way—by ticket holders.

Sports channels have already embraced 3-D, with ESPN, Discovery and Sky Sports all jumping on the bandwagon; now high culture is getting in on the act. New York's Metropolitan Opera has been simulcasting performances in HD since 2006, but the Mariinsky appears to have taken the technological lead. “We need to continue to experiment,” Gergiev says with a smile, promising that this is only the beginning for the 150-year-old theater.

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—JAKE RUDNITSKY

QUEENS, NEW YORK Hunkering in the shadow of the elevated J train, which rattles past the rooftops of Richmond Star Fish Hill, Cameo Pet Shop isn’t your run-of-the-mill animal emporium. With its vintage fi sh food posters and century-old mechanical cash register, little has changed here since owner Steve Gruebel returned from the Vietnam War in 1970 and took over from his father. Thousands of cats, dogs, birds and fi sh have come and gone since then— all except one, a hulking, scarred, snaggletoothed black pacu fi sh named Buttkiss, who has resided in a tank at the front of the store since John Lindsey was mayor. Having just celebrated his 44th birthday—including a festive party that turned out dozens of longtime neighbors— Buttkiss is probably the oldest pet fi sh in New York. How old is he? He’s so old that he has arthritis in his gills, and one regular customer swears he’s developed glaucoma in one eye. Gruebel isn’t convinced. “How can a fi sh get glaucoma?” he asks—adding with a wink that fi sh oil is often used to treat the disease in humans.

The cloudy lens, he contends, is from Buttkiss rubbing up against the sides of his 75-gallon aquarium. After offering to demonstrate, Gruebel turns and peers into the tank. On the other side of the glass, Buttkiss approaches, “wags” his tailfi n playfully and darts back and forth, rubbing along the sides of the tank like a clumsy puppy.

Gruebel bought the fi sh from a wholesaler in 1967 and sold him a year later. In 1970, after Buttkiss outgrew his owner’s tank, Gruebel welcomed him back to the pet store.

Since then, the fi sh has become a neighborhood fi xture—not to mention Gruebel’s loyal sales partner, one who can reliably identify new customers. “If you walk in the door and say, ‘Holy cow, look at that fi sh!’ then I know you’ve never been here before. Because everybody knows Buttkiss.”—PETER KOCH