November 16, 2010
Owl Hauling Day
I was looking at an image of Chicago’s Harold Washington Library Center, and it reminded me of a funny day at work back when I worked there.
It was the day that they put the frosting on the cake, so so speak. It was a Saturday. It was the day that the acroteria were put in place. That was a new word for all of us. Acroteria is the plural form of acroterion: “[a] decorative pedestal for an ornament or statue placed atop the pediment of a Greek temple; the term has also been extended to refer to the statue or ornament that stands on the pedestal.”
We thought that acroteria sounded like the title of an eighteenth-century volume of pornography, one of those works given a classical-sounding title to throw the Church off the scent. We joked about how our library department owned a rare third printing of the second edition of the Acroteria (the one with the plates).
We stood at the glass wall by the freight elevators on the ninth floor and watched pieces of the various acroteria being hoisted up on ropes. Carlos referred to the foliage as “metal lettuce.”
Best of all was when they hauled up the owls. You can imagine. Owl Hauling Day was a very very good day at work.
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Incredible. Just yesterday I was admiring what I now know to be an acroterion on one of the older, classically styled office buildings in downtown Fresno, California.
I see acroteria everywhere I look now that I know what they are! I’m glad you saw one in Fresno.
Wait, you worked there too?
Oh, yes, I worked at the Harold Washington Library. In Chicago. For three years. As an archivist and exhibit curator.
Not, alas, as an owl hoister.
Alas indeed. I was there in Computer Services for a while, where I also failed to hoist any owls. Or view any, from that subterranean lair.
This just made it to “Best of Wikipedia.” Conspiracy?
It’s all a conspiracy. All of it. That’s how I know it’s a conspiracy.