Really, I need to be more interesting.

For someone who can yak more than prudent and churn out in authorly fashion more baloney than Oscar Meyer, I sure am at a loss about what to write about on this blog. I mean, who wants to hear about all the junk I found while cleaning out the cabinet under my cook top? If I had stumbled across a forgotten Picasso or a stack of rare Confederate bills, that might have been worth a good story. Alas, poor me, I found only powdery fiber pills, a collection of half-burned candles, three large boxes of wooden matches (gas stove, still works when the power takes a hike) and some really nasty shelf liner hidden behind my spatulas. And some other stuff, equally not worth mentioning. My days are way too exciting.

I did read a good book recently. It's not a new release, but I just got around to it. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. (I just realized there is no underline button up yonder on my tool bar. Must be one of those Html things. Let's just skip that and go for italics. Who knows what I might end up with if I start playing with codes.)

Extremely interesting read. It's non-fiction about the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and a serial killer who made the most of the crowds and confusion. A friend recommended this book when I visited the lovely Windy City several years ago and we went to the Field Museum. Jackie Kennedy's dress exhibit was there at the time and it was really cool. I picked out a couple of outfits I would wear even today. However, Jackie's pillboxes have nothing to do with the book except by proximity of the exhibit (Field Museum) to the area where the fair was held. But it was still cool and that's where I heard about the book for the first time.

Anyway....

The book is well written and reads like a riveting novel...albeit with little or no dialogue. Mr. Larson has a firm grip on 'the cliff hanger'. "I'll read just to the end of this chapter" often turned into two or three chapters before I had to stop and let the dogs out, then in, then out again.

I had no idea the first Ferris Wheel debuted at this Exposition. And it was nothing like the one at the Piedmont Interstate Fair. This sucker was big. Huge! The rim arced at 264 feet into the air, as high as the tallest skyscraper in Chicago at the time. 28,416 pounds of bolts held it together. Thirty-six cars carried the passengers. One car weighed thirteen tons, for a combined weight near one-million pounds. And that did not include the additional 200,000 pounds of passengers when filled to capacity. For just one turn, the wheel took twenty minutes. That baby hummed and when a sudden storm blew in off the lake bringing a tornado to the Midway, the wheel did not shift more than one-half inch. That's impressive. They just don't make 'em like that anymore.

Shredded Wheat was also introduced to the world for the first time at the Fair. Alternating current electricity was chosen for use and that choice influenced how electricity would grow across America. Go General Electric. A new tasty treat was unveiled: Cracker Jack. The fair saw the likes of Buffalo Bill who made enough money from his Wild West Show concession to found a town in Wyoming. Bill pulled in a cool million bucks that by today's standards would translate into around 30 million dollars. Other notable names to pass through the fair are too many to list, but a few are Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Clarence Darrow, George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Philip Armour and Marshall Field.

The fair was an architectual and landscaping wonder. Daniel Burnham (the Flatiron Building and Union Station) directed the efforts of America's brightest imagineers. (Some say Walt Disney's father was so intrigued by the fair that he talked of it often. Walt obviously listened and a mouse and a magic kingdom was born.) Frederick Law Olmsted worked his own magic to transform a swamp into a lush landscape.

The Chicago World's Fair was a thread that connected far more of America's history and culture than I realized. Even the sinking of the Titanic years later held a strong but terminal thread to the fair. While Burnham sailed on The Olympic, The Titanic's sister ship, another of the fair's architects, Frank Millet, sailed on the Titanic. Mr. Millet went down with her.

So where does the serial killer fit in? In 1886, a handsome man by the name of Herman Mudgett made his way to Chicago from New Hampshire by means both fraudulent and murderous. That same year, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle revealed his new detective to the world, and Mudgett assumed the name of Holmes. The bustle of the fair year was perfect for a man who was the definition of psychopath. And Holmes was very very good at it. Fifty years after Holmes commited his atrosities, Dr. Hervey Cleckley wrote about psychopaths in The Mask of Sanity. He said: "a subtly constructed reflex machine which can mimic the human personality perfectly....So perfect is his reproduction of a whole and normal man that no one who examines him in a clinical setting can point out in scientific or objective terms why, or how, he is not real." (pg. 88 of The Devil in the White City. Hardcover edition. 2003) Like I said, Holmes was very good at being a psychopath.

Chicago, while building the fair and during its run, brought a host of young women to the city for work. Most of these young women came from small towns and had never been on their own. They were perfect fruit for the slick, handsome, Ted Bundy-ish Holmes to pick. No one knows for certain how many victims he claimed. Speculations ran into the hundreds, but Holmes, who was not a reliable source, claimed much less. No matter the exact count, Holmes murdered dozens of innocent people in horrendous ways.

When I visited Chicago and my friend told me briefly about the Exposition and about Holmes, I thought the book sounded interesting, but it took me three years to actually get it and read it. I don't think I could have enjoyed it more fresh from my trip than I did several years removed, but I could have gotten in a few more reads through it. Great book. Great author. Read it.