Like the undead rising from the grave, some of Hollywood’s superannuated stars are lumbering back to the big screen.  

There’s Sylvester Stallone, still violent after all these years in “Bullet to the Head.”  Arnold Schwarzenegger playing an unlikely southwestern sheriff in “The Last Stand.”  And Bruce Willis is on deck with yet another “Die Hard” venture, set in Moscow.

My blog is practically a two-for-one discount.

I'm thinking about about the 1893 Chicago World's Fair through two books.... Erik Larson's Devil in the White City, as well as my adventure rescuing Shepp's World's Fair Photographed.

Devil in the White City itself is "two-for-one;" it's about how the Fair was imagined, constructed, enjoyed, and destroyed.... AND about the psychopathic serial killer Henry Holmes.

Where and when did the world first enjoy Pabst Blue Ribbon?  1893 World's Fair.  How about Cracker Jack?  World's Fair.  That gadget we take for granted keeping our jeans closed...

I don't know how I went to school 90 miles from Chicago and yet never knew anything about the 1893 Columbian Exposition.  I first learned about it a few years ago watching the PBS specials Make No Little Plans and Chicago: City of the Century.