January 2007

Thurs. & Fri., January 25 & 26
Fight Nights
Cathedral Hall

Tuesday, February 6
Informal Smoker
Tower Club Bar

Thursday, February 22
Cigar Society Dinner
Speaker: Rick Kogan

Tuesday, March 6
University Series
Speaker: Robert Wallace

Tuesday, March 20
Informal Smoker
Tower Club Bar

Tuesday, April 3
University Series
Speaker: Jack Zimmerman

Tuesday, April 17
Informal Smoker
Tower Club Bar

Tuesday, May 8
University Series
Speaker: Charles Wheelan

Tuesday, May 22
Informal Smoker
Tower Club Bar

Tuesday, June 4
University Series
Speaker: Ted Foss

ONE OF THE OLDEST AND greatest traditions of the University Club is the discussion of intellectual, social, legal, artistic, historical, scientific, musical, theatrical, and philosophical issues in the company of educated, bright, and appropriately provocative individuals, all under the beneficent influence of substantial amounts of tobacco and spirits. 

The University Club Cigar Society embraces this tradition and extends it with its fortnightly Informal Smokers, monthly University Series lectures, and quarterly Cigar Society Dinners, in which cigars, and from time to time pipes and cigarettes, appear as an important component of our version of the classical symposium.

All University Club and Tower Club members are invited, and guests interested in a smoke and a drink in good company are always welcome.

To be included in the Cigar Society's mailing list, write to the Secretary, Curtis Tuckey, at tuckey@post.com.

I have learnt with you the wisdom of contemplative quiescence,
While the world is in a ferment of unmeaning effervescence,
That its jar and rush and riot bring no good one-half so sterling
As the fleecy clouds of fragrance that are now about me curling.

from My Cigar (1895) by Arthur W. Gundry   

We will inaugurate the University Series with a discussion led by club member Mark Warden.

Mark D. Warden, club member, president emeritus of Daley College, and former student (Chicago AM '62, PhD '66) of Leo Strauss, will speak on Leo Strauss and Neoconservatism at the Tower Club. 

Leo Strauss has been often called the intellectual father of contemporary neoconservative foreign policy.  Paul Wolfowitz, who has been one of the primary architects of our Iraq policy and a neoconservative, has frequently mentioned the name of Leo Strauss as one who sees the spread of democracy as the solution to the political problems of mankind and the guarantor of world peace. The intent of Dr. Warden's brief talk is to convey a sense of the thrust of Strauss's teaching and question whether it can truthfully be described as the intellectual justification of current neoconservative policies.  Cocktails at 5:15; lecture at 5:30; discussion to follow at 6:00.  $30 includes open bar and light hors d'oeuvres.  Bring your own cigars.  RSVP to Sarah Lewis.

The University Club's Fight Nights are the premiere boxing and cigar events of the City.  Cocktails at 6:00pm in College Hall, dinner at 7:00, and Golden Gloves boxing in Cathedral Hall at 8:30.  Cigar smoking throughout the evening.  Black tie.  Fight Nights for this January are sold out.  For waitlist availability, call 312-696-2297.  The next Fight Nights will be held in November.

Rick Kogan began his career at sixteen, working for the Chicago Sun-Times during the tumultuous Democratic Convention of 1968.   He is currently senior staff writer and columnist for the Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine and host of the popular WGN-AM "Sunday Papers" radio program, which airs in thirty-eight states and Canada. He was named Chicago's Best Reporter in 1999, Chicago's Greatest Living Journalist in 2002, and was inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame in March 2003.  Mr. Kogan lives with his wife in Chicago. 

It is our good fortune that Rick Kogan, of a fabled Chicago legacy, has put forth a work so whimsical, wistful, and wondrous.  —Studs Terkel

Robert Wallace, professor of classics at Northwestern University and cigar club regular, will present A Whirlwind Tour through Greek and Roman Coins, from the world's first issues struck in western Asia Minor in the sixth century BC, to the silver-washed masterpieces of ancient art that marked the fall of Rome. A bit of economic history, a bit of politics, a slide-show of lots of smashing images, and plenty of glittering silver and gold.  Cocktails at 5:15; lecture at 5:30; discussion to follow at 6:00.  $30 includes open bar and light hors d'oeuvres.  RSVP to Sarah Lewis.

Professor Wallace (BA Columbia '72, MA Oxford '77, PhD Harvard '84) has an ongoing project with the American Numismatic Society to analyze the metallic composition of early electrum coinage.  He is recently co-editor of Poet, Public, and Performance in Ancient Greece (Hopkins, 1997), and is currently writing a book about Damon, the Greek music theorist and teacher of Pericles.

Jack Zimmerman grew up on the southwest side of Chicago and graduated from the Chicago Conservatory of Music.  He spent four years in the Navy during the Vietnam War and worked as a college instructor, freelance trombone player, piano tuner, newspaper columnist, and PR man.  Presently, he works in the public relations department of Lyric Opera of Chicago and writes newspaper columns for Liberty Suburban Newspapers and the Chicago Journal.  His novel, Gods of the Andes, was published by New Leaf Books in September 2006, and a collection of his short writings, 10,000 Years in the Suburbs, was published in 1994 by Lake View Press.  He lives in Chicago with his wife, Charlene.

Jack Zimmerman writes like the guy next door—if you happen to live next door to Richard Russo, Studs Terkel, or Mark Twain. Gods of the Andes is funny, touching, compassionate, the story of all of us who grew up on pavement in the city with the big shoulders. —Harold Ramis

Charles Wheelan, club member and lecturer in public policy at the University of Chicago, will talk about his forthcoming book, An Introduction to Public Policy.  Cocktails at 5:15, lecture at 5:30, discussion to follow at 6:00.  $30 includes open bar and light hors d'oeuvres.  Bring your own cigars.  RSVP to Sarah Lewis.

Professor Wheelan has a PhD in public policy from the University of Chicago's Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies and a Master of Public Affairs from Princeton.  He is the author of Naked Economics, a book that the Chicago Tribune described as "clear, concise, informative, and (gasp) witty."   He also wrote a series of essays to accompany Terry Evans's photographs for their recent book, Revealing Chicago.  He is currently the author of a regular Yahoo! column, The Naked Economist, and a frequent contributor to the Motley Fool on National Public Radio and to 848 on WBEZ.  He lives in Chicago with his wife and three children.