March 20--The crowd at the 26th Studs Terkel Community Media Awards and Scholarship Benefit that took place 10 days ago was composed of journalists, activists, filmmakers, teachers, students, political consultants, radio folk, a former alderman and a woman named Zhang Xiaolan, who was making her first visit to the city and who said, "My name in English is Agnes. You can call me Agnes."
OK, Agnes, what brings you to Chicago?
She explained that she was here doing research for her Ph.D. at Beijing Normal University. "My major is the theory of Western history, and I do a lot of oral history for this," she said. "Mr. Terkel is very important to me, and I am here to learn all I can about him and his work."
Terkel, who died on Halloween in 2008 at the wonderfully seasoned age of 96, continues to inspire. The Chicago icon had a long, influential and fruitful life: television star, radio host for more 45 years on WFMT-FM 98.7, actor, activist, author of such oral history books as "Division Street: America," "Working," the Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Good War" and a more than a dozen others. Some of this year's winners had never met Terkel, but all talked with admiration of the inspirational shadow he has cast on their work.
Sitting about midway back in the theater of Film Row Cinema of Columbia College Chicago, where the event took place, was Tom Weinberg, who had won a Terkel award more than a decade earlier and remains a person who more than most embodies the Terkel essence.
That can be summarized by what Terkel said a couple of years before his death: Asked what his epitaph might be, he thought for a moment and said, "Curiosity did not kill this cat."
It has been curiosity that has fueled Weinberg, from those days many decades ago when he first began to explore the possibilities of then-new video technology. He would go on to make the most of that by creating the long-running WTTW-Ch. 11 video showcases "Image Union" and "The '90s,"; producing all manner of films and becoming a teacher and mentor.
Though busy now with a cute little grandchild to occupy his time and fill his video camera, he continues in his role as the head of Media Burn, a vast archive of some 6,000 videos from the last four decades that recently celebrated its 10th year in operation. The Media Burn website is mediaburn.org and be forewarned: When you visit, you should make sure that you have ample time to spare since you will likely get pleasantly lost in its wonderland of fascinating images. It has become a go-to site whenever a notable Chicagoan dies, because it provides compelling and enlightening afterlife for such people as Terkel, former White Sox owner Bill Veeck, Jane Byrne, Ernie Banks and Minnie Minoso.
After the Terkel ceremonies, presented as always by the Community Media Workshop, Weinberg was talking to friends at a wine-beer-snacks reception. He was talking about his recent trip to Honduras. He has been traveling there for the last two decades, not for vacations but rather because he has been on the trail of a lost city that was believed to be hidden in the dense greenery of that country's La Mosquitia jungle. (Weinberg is in early discussions with the Tribune about possible collaborative efforts.)
Initially grabbed by long-standing rumors that the jungle held a "White City," also referred to in legend as the "City of the Monkey God," Weinberg first visited in 1998 aboard a U.S. military helicopter. He and filmmakers shot stills and video from above as the chopper dipped into the valley where they thought the lost city to be likely located.
He came back in 2012 on what was a breakthrough trip, as part of a team that was able to identify from the air a crater-shaped valley, encircled by steep mountains, as a possible location.
A lot of people, organizations and governmental agencies have been involved, always a tough juggling act. The most recent trip, which took place in February, was made up of a large group that included, among many, folks from the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping at the University of Houston, U.S. and Honduran archaeologists, anthropologists, Weinberg and his filmmaking colleagues Steve Elkins and Bill Benenson, and various support personnel, including Honduran Special Forces soldiers to provide security.
National Geographic also sent photographer David Yoder and writer Douglas Preston. Of this most recent journey, Preston wrote that, "The valley is densely carpeted in a rain forest so primeval that the animals appear never to have seen humans before." He quoted another member of the expedition, ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin, saying, "This is clearly the most undisturbed rain forest in Central America. The importance of this place can't be overestimated."
They were there for nearly two weeks, and, as Preston wrote (his article and photos are available here ), the expedition "emerged from the jungle with dramatic news of the discovery of a mysterious culture's lost city, never before explored."
Weinberg is understandably excited and says, "We see the light at the end of the jungle. A full scholarly analysis of whatever is there will likely take decades. But the documentary we're producing won't take that long. Images are likely to be seen on TV, in magazines and online worldwide over the next months. Our documentary or series or whatever we fashion will tell the whole history and back story of our quest. We hope to have that finished within the year."
He was asked what it was like to finally have hit the jungle ground in Honduras.
"It was absolutely stimulating, exciting, mind-expanding and mind-blowing to be in a place so pristine and untouched," he said. "Plus, actually seeing the evidence of the lost civilization was the culmination of 20 years of trying to piece together a huge puzzle in the natural world. Oddly, I wasn't scared of anything happening to me or to us, despite seeing poisonous snakes and a few wild animals. I'm not sure if that was because I was blinded by my enthusiasm or by my curiosity."
rkogan@tribpub.com
