Neither snow nor rain nor dark of night.......

     .....shall stay Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. from their dogged pursuit of all things cultural.  He is pleased to report that last Thursday evening's concert by the Baltimore Symphony was not cancelled on account of snow (unlike almost every other event in the region) and they were among the handful of the faithful who were able to mush on over to the Meyerhoff to hear a terrific concert featuring a young artist named Augustin Hadelich who played the heck out of Brahms's only violin concerto and then favored us steadfast concert-goers with a dazzling performance of one of Paganini's show-off pieces for unaccompanied violin. A night to remember for sure.
      The roads were clear enough by Saturday to venture downtown to the fabulous Landmark Theater (how many movie theaters do you know that have a full bar?) where the sleeper movie of the year was playing----namely "The King's Speech".  It took guts to make a movie about a king's speech impediment but it turned out well enough to rake in a dozen Oscar nominations and will fight it out for top honors with "The Facebook"  which is also a first-rate flick.
      Sunday afternoon they were lucky enough to find a parking place among the snowdrifts just a block from the Fell's Point Corner Theater where they saw an excellent performance of a play called "Mauritius" which is about the unlikely subject of stamp-collecting.  Actually it is about human foibles like greed and avarice in the context of what seems on the surface to be a rather benign activity but it made for a really gripping play even though nobody was shot or stabbed and there were no explosions or car chases.
     Uncle Jack exhumed another chestnut from the archives this morning and has attached it below for those who may be snowbound and unable to reach the library this week.

                             Clothes Make the Man?

Sometimes Uncle Jack wonders why he never amounted to anything
even though he is a high school graduate and also enjoyed many
other advantages including a nagging mother.
   Here he is entering the stage of advanced decrepitude with
hardly enough money to buy a bloodworm when the spots are running
and all around him he sees people half his age pulling $20,000
boats behind their $40,000 4WD pick-up trucks and living in
$400,000 houses and going off on vacations to places Mrs.
Stonebreaker never even mentioned in geography class.
   Uncle Jack knew he must have done something wrong somewhere
along the way but he didn't know what it was until last week
when he read this article in the paper about clothes.
   This article had a lot of good advice in it for people who
want to amount to something and it is too bad Uncle Jack didn't
read it 45 years ago because he might have been a success today
instead of not having two nickels to rub together.
   This is one thing Uncle Jack did not know:
   "For any kind of business career, one needs, at minimum,
three good suits. They do not have to be tailor-made, but you
should go to some trouble to make sure they fit. If you can
find a good custom tailor who will do alterations, it's worth
the time and effort."
   You can see what Uncle Jack was up against right there because
he can tell you he has never owned more than one suit at a time
in his whole life and he has never owned a suit that fit.
   Every suit Uncle Jack ever bought from J.C. Penney or Sears
Roebuck seemed to fit o.k. when he was standing in front of
those triple mirrors in the store but as soon as he got home
and he bent over to get a beer out of the bottom shelf of the
refrigerator his suit would try to cut off his arm at the armpit.

   Also it would always turn out that the pants were too long
and Uncle Jack could not afford to go to a tailor so he would
fix the cuffs with paper clips.
   According to this article you cannot make a very good
impression in most business circles if you go around with paper
clips holding up your cuffs.
   "Shirts should be white or plain light blue; cotton is best.
They should not have contrasting collars, oddly shaped collars,
or French cuffs."
   Uncle Jack was glad to read that about shirts because shirts
were one thing he thought he did right. Most of the time he
wears a light blue shirt made of l00 per cent cotton that does
not have any strange kind of collar or cuffs.
   Wearing the right kind of shirt does not seem to have done
him any good in the business world, though, and he would hate
to think it was just because his light blue l00 per cent cotton
shirt has "I Got Crabs at Austin Fish Company" written on the
front.
   "Shoes should be simple, too. Plain black lace-up shoes
without fancy stitching or thick soles are all one needs; and
they should be meticulously polished."
   Uncle Jack really goofed when it comes to shoes because he
usually wears plastic shower clogs from Taiwan except when he
is going out to a fancy restaurant like Sam and Omie's he puts
on his fake Nike running shoes from the shoe department at Ace
Hardware. Neither one of them takes a very good shine, either.
   Most of the time, though, he goes barefoot and the newspaper
article says this is definitely not the way to get ahead unless
you are Jimmy Buffett.
   "If you want to get ahead you should dress for success. To
my knowledge nobody objects to a dark blue suit, a plain shirt
and a dark tie."
   If you want to know the truth Uncle Jack is not so sure he
wants to be a success any more since he read that article in
the newspaper.
   If the price of success is having to wear a dark blue suit,
a dark tie, and black leather shoes all the time he thinks maybe
there is something to be said for being a failure.

Much has happened since Uncle Jack last visited the Johns Hopkins library worksite more than two weeks ago.  Lots of concrete has been poured for one thing and much of the sub-surface early work has now been obscured by this slab.

It looks like the dirt floor in the background is also being prepared for another layer of concrete.  It can't be much fun working outside like this when the temperature never gets above freezing.  Sleet and freezing rain are forecast for tonight and tomorrow.  That should add to the fun.

Uncle Jack's admiration for architects, engineers and builders has blossomed since he started watching this project take shape a few months ago.