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Lady Topham Catt

@ladytophamcatt.bsky.social

1.6K followers 440 following 3.6K posts

Short. Black. Mom. Wife. Fighter against the tyranny of pants with waistbands. Classic film, plus Chicago history & architecture. Lotsa cussin’. Mainly pictures of things I like peppered with the odd rant or two. she/her

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 12d

I wrote about the incredible collection of modernist architecture in Chatham commissioned by Black professionals looking to make their mark on Chicago in the midcentury

Best Former House of Royalty: Mid-century modern home of ‘Soul Queen’ Helen C. Maybell Anglin — Chatham

hicago history is often hidden in plain sight in the structures that surround us. From the extraordinary terra cotta-clad buildings standing sentinel over Cottage Grove to the bungalows marching along...

southsideweekly.com

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Reposted by Lady Topham Catt

Robert Loerzel @robertloerzel.bsky.social · 10h

Eternal Silence, the statue of a cloaked figure at Graceland Cemetery, is getting the spa treatment.

A statue is wrapped in plastic, with scaffolding surrounding it as well as the monument behind it.

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Reposted by Lady Topham Catt

Jim Lindstrom @jimlindstrom.bsky.social · 12h

The storm howls around her #chicago #photography #BlackAndWhite

Black and white photo taken in an alley in Chicago. In the top right, a woman's face (a mural on the corner of a building) looks up and to the right. Around her the image swirls and blurs, making it hard to tell exactly what's going on. The bottom left of the image appears almost black and looks like the unlit back side of an image (facing us). Between it and the mural, a wooden utility pole is semi-visible amdst the swirl. Power/communication lines vaguely seem to connect to/from it. In the background, they sky seems messy and angry, like a dust storm is howling by.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 1d

It looks so good!!!

Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 1d

Dr Hannibal Lecter is bucking tradition in pushing to eat human livers due to what he says is a taste for fava beans & to support drinking a nice chianti

Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 1d

Did a car write this

CNN @cnn.com · 2d

The people who are most vulnerable to the hard-to-breathe air that comes with climate change may inadvertently be adding to the problem, new research finds. https://cnn.it/4pWQMoh

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

I would go watch a still photograph of Ann Blyth as Veda for 2 hours. I will definitely enjoy myself!

Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 2d

I am in dire need of some escapism via the movies. If any of you South Side film nerds are in the same state, Doc Films in Hyde Park is kicking off their Joan Crawford: Actress as Auteur series tonight with Mildred Pierce. See you there, besties! docfilms.org/calendar/202...

Joan Crawford: Actress as Auteur

docfilms.org

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 3d

*this kind of shit* Fuck it. I really need to just give up on written communication tonight.

Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 3d

Oddly enough, the employee handbook does not specify

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 3d

I have a longstanding policy against answering work texts outside of work hours. I claim it’s work-life balance, but it’s really to prevent me from doing kind of this shit.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 3d

I have no choice

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 3d

I advised someone on my team to take “dick leave” when I meant to text “sick leave.” It was nice knowing you all, but I’m afraid I must go walk into the sea.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 3d

Oooh, this is the guide for me!

Screenshot from guide linked in OP reads:
“Chapter I.
GENIUS NOT REQUIRED.”

Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 3d

You might be cool, but you will never be as cool as Richard Hunt.

Best you can do is go see Freedom in Form: Richard Hunt at the Loyola University Museum of Art. It's only on view until November 15.

Color photo taken through a doorway in an art gallery. A wall has been wrapped with a large black and white photo of Richard Hunt in 1962, looking effortlessly cool as he rifles through some metal salvage and levels a forthright gaze at the camera. He stands in front of a cool car and a there's an even cooler building in the background. In front of this wall is a white pedestal holding Untitled (ca 1980) a small sculpture of welded chromed steel by Hunt.

Color photo of Richard Hunt's Glider (1966), a small sculpture of welded aluminum sitting on a pedestal in a gallery. On the wall in the back and to the right is printed a quote from Hunt that reads "To me, metal is alive. The forms tell their own story--how they resisted the torch and the hammer."

Color photo of Hunt's Hybrid Figure (1977), an abstract and angular yet graceful welded steel sculpture sitting on a white pedestal in a gallery, its shadow taking dramatic flight on the wall behind it.

Color photo of a display of Hunt's tools. Barely seen in a roped off area behind this is his actual workbench, a dusty vest slung off the back of a chair and other tools left as if he might return to them at any time. Arrayed on a wall above this are pictures of Hunt at work in his studio, accomplishing the amazing.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 3d

Don't apologize -- we need all the beauty we can get these days. Thanks for sharing!

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 3d

I work in early edu & I am all over Chicago for my job. It is beyond heartbreaking to see neighborhoods I associate w/kids & their caregivers learning & playing together become the scene of military occupation & attempted murder. We will get through this. We have to. But my soul keens for our city.

Lynn Becker @cmgiulini.bsky.social · 3d

A single image by the Sun-Times photographer Anthony Vazquez encapsulates our present moment: a masked soldier in the hatch of an armored military vehicle with blacked-out windows aims his gun at unarmed citizens filming with their cellphones.
chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/10...

Border Patrol shoots woman on Southwest Side; agents, protesters battle for hours

The shooting occurred Saturday in Brighton Park when federal patrols were "rammed by 10 cars," according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security, which has yet to be verified. In the p...

chicago.suntimes.com

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 3d

It's specifically old post offices in the USA that retain their postal seal that I love, but I'm always willing to add a new obsession & that is a BEAUT!😍

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 3d

I don’t know why I even checked for O’Shea

Reposted by Lady Topham Catt

Robert Loerzel @robertloerzel.bsky.social · 3d

“I would like to know by what authority United States troops come in here and shoot our citizens without the slightest warning,” the mayor of Hammond, Indiana, said in 1894. www.chicagotribune.com/2025/06/22/i...

In 1894 Pullman strike, Illinois’ governor fought president’s decision to send in troops

During the Pullman Strike of 1894, the governor of Illinois decried President Grover Cleveland’s move to call in the federal troops.

www.chicagotribune.com

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Reposted by Lady Topham Catt

dmercer.bsky.social @dmercer.bsky.social · 3d

@ladytophamcatt.bsky.social Are you still collecting old post offices? I spotted this one yesterday at 4822 S. Kedzie.

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 3d

YES!!! And I’m ashamed to admit how many times I’ve been by this building & paid it no mind. That’s why ya always gotta look up! Thanks for sharing, Debbie!!!

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Reposted by Lady Topham Catt

Darren McLean @darrenmcleanuk.bsky.social · 3d

A Trompe l’oeil ceiling in imitation of beams, joists and carved decorations.

A photo focusing on the decoratively painted ceiling. There are large beams which are real, and smaller joist and carvings which are fake, being painted decoration

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 4d

If my grandmother judged someone as unintelligent, she’d say they didn’t “know their ass from a hole in the ground.” 😭

Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 4d

10 (ten) cars. Sure. Must’ve been like in the movies, with each car patiently waiting its turn. GTFOH.

NPR @npr.org · 4d

JUST IN: Authorities were on patrol when they were "rammed by 10 cars," according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security. One of the drivers "was armed with a semi-automatic weapon," prompting officers to open fire, DHS said. via @wbez.org

Federal agents shoot woman they say 'boxed in' authorities on Chicago's South Side

Authorities were on patrol when they were "rammed by 10 cars," according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security. One of the drivers "was armed with a semi-automatic weapon," prompting...

www.wbez.org

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Lady Topham Catt @ladytophamcatt.bsky.social · 5d

CHINGA TU MIGRA

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