Jazz Sneaky Smock Attack

My dear, demented friend sent me a link to the Daily Nebraskan today about a university opera production of Madama Butterfly. I spent many years in Lincoln reading The Daily Nebraskan aka The Rag. That is how I became a NYTimes crossword puzzle junkie. The Kimball Recital Hall, where the opera will be performed, is a nice hall. I saw many music and dance performances there. It sits on the south side of the sculpture garden. The art department building, Woods Hall is on the north side. My dear watercolor professor's classroom windows looked out on the garden and toward the Kimball. I made countless drawings and paintings outside in the sculpture garden. The front of the Kimball Hall is designed to be a band shell for outdoor concerts in the sculpture garden, so it looks like it has a Neanderthal forehead. The third side of the rectangle is the simply elegant Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery designed by Philip Johnson.


The building is far more beautiful than his Amon Carter Art Museum in Ft. Worth, Texas. The last side of the rectangle is formed by the oldest building on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, Architecture Hall.

This very funky 19th century building shows up in the movie "Terms of Endearment". It was while Debra Winger was in town to film the movie that she and our governor, Bob Kerrey, future member of the 9/11 commission, began their affair. At that time my boyfriend lived in a third floor apartment that overlooked the patio of the governor's mansion, and the driveway to the gubenatorial garage. The highway patrol officers would chauffeur Ms. Winger to the mansion.....the grill would be hot.....

The last time the boys and I drove up there, in 1999, we went to a Jazz in June concert in the sculpture garden. We got a t-shirt at the concert that is now the star of the Smock Sneak Attack. It sports an image of a giant mosquito playing the trumpet.

Nowadays that mosquito t-shirt provokes a new buzz. After years of expecting preschool kids to don a paint shirt without complaints, and having my expectations drowned in a sea of whining and resistance, I started a new game. I just have to announce that it is time for the Smock Sneak Attack, and each kid quivers with excitement about having a t-shirt popped over his head while he is pretending extravagantly to not expect it. The t-shirts are becoming costumes and characters! The jazz shirt from Lincoln is the star. Many kids also groove on my sons old soccer and baseball uniforms sporting the number three.