ice sculpture

I think it's an octopus.  Whatever sea creature it is, it's testimony to the coldness of the weather that an ice sculpture is just sitting there, outside the conference center.  A morning of these temperatures drove me to buy a stripy woolly hat with large ear flaps (actually, I rather like it, though it's rather Kensington Market c. 1970 - it just doesn't smell, as such hats did in those days, of damp yak).  Some cruel group of people have scheduled next year's MLA for Chicago, where assuredly, the hat will be traveling to again.