Funny, I Didn't Hear Anyone Say "Patriarchy"

It's been a busy few days here in the Windy City, what with various people visiting and cookies that needed baking and getting ready to go out of town.  And a giant march.  A girl barely has time to blog.

My friend Sarah was in town for the American Library Association conference, so we had lunch and went on a boat tour of downtown architecture.  The volunteer docent talked for ninety minutes non-stop about the details of architecture and the history of buildings in Chicago.  She was beyond impressive.  It's a good tour to take if you're in Chicago, but you might want to time it better than we did and go when it's not 90 degrees with the sun beating down.  Wow - when did I think I'd ever say that?  I've become a real Chicagoan, I guess, and have come to expect that cool lake breeze.

On the way downtown - and if you need me to tell you my means of transport, you really haven't been paying attention - a woman sitting next to me struck up a conversation.  She looked to be in her 30's and was in town with her husband, brother, niece, and assorted other family visiting from Cleveland, Tennessee.  They were staying in Rogers Park and were headed to Daley Center to pray for people.  She was a very nice woman, and she asked me if there was anything I'd like her to pray for on my behalf.  A job, she suggested/asked?  (We had been talking about my job search.)  I'm not really into prayers for specific things, so I awkwardly suggested that she pray for "general goodness" which really has to be the dumbest thing I've said in weeks.  And that's a high bar.  I probably should have suggested that they head to Springfield to help figure out Illinois's pension problem.  Still, it was nice of her to offer.

Sarah is someone I used to babysit.  Probably the first time I babysat for her she was younger than her three-year-old daughter is now, and that's just weird to contemplate.  But it was fun to catch up, and I was able to give her a heads-up that she should expect gigantic crowds in the area on Friday, Friday being the day of the ginormous Blackhawks Stanley Cup celebration.  If I had failed to mention it, the topic would have come up anyway because as we were walking  along Michigan Avenue we saw this:

Yes, that is a Blackhawks helmet on the lions in front of the Art Institute.  Apparently at other times the lions have worn Bears helmets and Bulls jerseys, and White Sox and Cubs gear.  The Cubs gear must have been out of some desire for baseball team equity or something, unless perhaps it was back in 1908 which is possible since the lions have been there since 1894.  We also saw a line of people waiting to get into a store on Michigan Avenue - turns out it was the Blackhawks store.  We love us some world champions.

On the way home, I got off the Red Line a couple of stops early to go to the new weekly market on Argyle Street in the Uptown neighborhood.  This is an area with a lot of Thai, Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese stores and restaurants.  Apparently the branding of the area (branding being all the rage in commercial redevelopment) has been somewhat controversial because you can't call it, for instance, Little Burma since that excludes the non-Thai businesses, etc.  So they settled on Asia on Argyle which has a nice alliteration.  The CTA station has a cool feature not seen at other stations:

The sign just went up this winter, and it sounds like people didn't like it.  Go figure.  I think it's okay, because I'm not so concerned about these sorts of signs.  The brand is the actual fact that there are a ton of Asian shops and restaurants.  Why does it surprise anyone that putting up a sign is pretty irrelevant to what people think of the area?  The market itself was nice, and I got to meet my Alderman, Harry Osterman.  (His mom was Kathy Osterman, for whom my beach is named.)  By all reports he's a good guy, and he certainly seemed friendly enough when I went up to him and introduced myself.

Friday morning at 7:30 a.m. one of the local news stations was showing massive crowds of Hawks fans, a sea of red and black, and the parade wasn't scheduled to begin for three hours.  The city estimated two million people attended - which is about one of every five people living from the Wisconsin border to Joliet.  Did I mention that we love us some world champions?

Through careful planning, I missed the crowd on Friday and spent a couple of hours with my cousin, Jeff, and his wife, Patty.  They live in Los Angeles now but used to live in Chicago.  We met for lunch at one of their old favorite places, the Heartland Cafe in Rogers Park, and it was good to catch up.  Cousins are great - you have the bonds of family and past that let you reconnect easily, but you don't (or at least, I don't) have a lot of baggage that gets in the way.

Saturday was a very busy day and I will spare you the details, but it did include baking cookies and brownies to take to church this morning for a bake sale the kids are having.

My new church, Second Unitarian, is located in Lakeview - often called "Boys Town" because over the past twenty or thirty years it has become something of a gay mecca.  They (I should start saying "we") have a really active social action program at 2U (as the church is called).  A 2U group will be marching in the Gay Pride Parade this afternoon, and the kids are having a lemonade stand/bake sale.  Hence, the cookies and brownies.  Yeah, sometimes I outdo myself.  I can't walk in the parade this year, as I am going to drop off the cookies and then head to Omaha for Goldnerpalooza, a Celebration of All Things Goldner.

Luckily, on Saturday afternoon there was another pride event that a 2U contingent walked in, so I was able to participate in something.  I could describe it as an event created by people who felt that the official Pride Parade was too corporate, political, and organized.  Or I could just tell you that it's called Dyke March.

This is a gay pride march the way gay pride marches used to be, back when the Supreme Court was upholding laws that criminalized homosexual activity and before politicians east of San Francisco decided they liked gay voters - and even before Subaru identified lesbians as a great market.  There are no corporate sponsors and from what I could tell no politicians.  It's run by something called the Dyke March Collective which made me look around for people passing around granola and weed.  I saw neither.

What I did see was a sea of humanity ranging from a bunch of very boring looking people, such as myself, to a few people wearing much more unusual clothing:

Yes, that's a tail.  And she was blowing bubbles.  Why not?  But there was more diversity than just somebody in a leopard costume.  There were straight people, gay people, transgendered people, and everyone in between.  There were drummers (of course there were) and people with babies and some motorcyclists (although they didn't ride their bikes in march.)  There was a woman with a two-sided sign in three languages protesting the treatment of gays in Chile, Russia and Greece.  She spoke with an accent but the fact that she's holding a cigarette while carrying the sign is prima facie evidence enough that she is from somewhere in Europe.

I even met a young transgender lesbian from Omaha.  She was friends with one of the people from church and had come out - pun definitely intended - for the weekend.  I offered her a ride back but she already had a Megabus ticket for Tuesday night.

2U hadn't gotten their yellow "Standing on the Side of Love" shirts yet from the Unitarian Universalist Association, so I wore mine from the UU Congregation of Fort Wayne.  That was a good transitional step for me - sort of like one foot in the past and one in the future.  It's harder for me to let go of my Fort Wayne congregation than I had thought it would be.

Anyway, twenty years ago, all it took to be provocative was some drag queens and a couple of "We're Here, We're Queer, Get Over It" signs.  It's harder to do that now, what with the Supreme Court striking down DOMA and professional athletes coming out and over half of Americans supporting marriage equality.  And so, of course, if one's goal is to be "out there" one must continue moving farther out.

And so they did.

First off, this was a march and not a parade.  There were no floats and not even any easily identified groups. Some people carried banners but we all just sort of moved along as one snakelike mass of a couple thousand people.

Along the way we were greeted by folks who had obviously come out (no pun intended) to watch, and a somewhat larger number of people who had made the mistake of attempting to drive in Uptown during the march.  Everyone was either friendly or quietly sullen (most of the sullen ones were in cars and I can't say I blame them.)

Of course there were chants as we walked along.  They had so many - fifteen - that they printed them on a little piece of paper which was handed out.  A young woman next to me, walking with her boyfriend, commented that some of the chants probably wouldn't bring many people over to our side, and I can't say I disagreed with her.  I won't repeat them here because my nephews read the blog and in Aunt Karen's mind they aren't ready for R movies or strong language.  I will plead guilty to occasionally (okay, often) cursing like a sailor but that doesn't mean I'm comfortable shouting those words in the street.  It's that Methodist decorum that I inherited from my mother.  So I joined in some of the chants, and parts of others, and otherwise just took the whole scene in.

The topics of the chants were pretty wide flung - not just GLBT and women's issues, but prisons (anti-) and the Palestinians (pro-) as well.  Quite a radical group, and it was fun to be part of it.  It was especially fun to walk behind these women:

Check out the Hawks tattoo.  This picture is so Chicago pride.  Of all kinds.

And now, to 2U to drop off the cookies and then I'm hitting the road for Goldnerpalooza.  Have a great Fourth of July and we'll catch up soon.

Writer's Block

I probably should have read the poem.

If I had read the room better I would have done so, rather than reading a couple of Driveabout posts at the Tallgrass Writers Guild open mic night tonight.  Live and learn.

When I was at Litfest earlier in June, I came across a group called Tallgrass Writers Guild which has an open mic night every month at a Lincoln Park coffee shop conveniently located three blocks from - what else? - the Red Line.  It sounded like a good way to get more objective feedback on some of my little writing projects, which consist mostly of the Driveabout and some random poems.

You're given ten minutes and I had timed it so that I could read two posts and one poem, but Whitney, the lady who presides over the group, broke in about two-thirds of the way through Fort Stockton to remind me I only had ten minutes.  So either my timing was way off, which is possible, or she didn't care for what I will admit ended up being a fairly tedious history of Fort Stockton.  It had sounded better when I'd practiced at home.

Everybody else read poetry, some of it quite good.  My problem with poetry readings is that I usually need to read or hear a poem a couple of times before I get it, so much is lost on me if I only hear it once.  I did refrain from the urge to ask someone to re-read one of their poems - which would be high praise from me, actually, but sometimes comes across as "I wasn't paying attention; please repeat."  Anyway, this was definitely a poetry group and people only read their poems once.

It's also a book group.  They were all talking about books (of poetry) they had published or were writing.  I hate to go all Gen Y on you, but I just kept wondering why they didn't simply do a blog.  Lots of people do. It's not like most people make money from selling their books of poems, although perhaps I'm wrong about that.  No, probably not.

The guest writer was an excellent poet named Timothy David Rey.  He looked to be in his late thirties and therefore has some of his work online.  The rest of the writers looked older than me.  Sort of like bridge only without the high school brainiacs.  I'm not sure what that says about my interests.  Okay, I'm pretty sure I know what that says about my interests but I don't like the answer so I'll just ignore it.

I do find it helpful to get a flat response.  Nearly everyone who reads the Driveabout is a friend or relative, and the only feedback I get is positive.  That's most heartening, but it's not necessarily complete.  And since I've decided to turn the Driveabout into a longer piece, less positive feedback is helpful.

I've been struggling with the format because I want to fictionalize the story - fiction being more honest than non-fiction.  (Non-fiction is weirder than fiction, but for this story the weird will take care of itself.)  The other day I finally made myself start and then realized that was a story I simply didn't want to write.  So I've now begun again, in a very informal first person format which at least sounds like me and which I enjoy.  Which isn't to say that anyone will enjoy reading it, hence the value of disinterested feedback.

That is, if I get it written.  After all, I still live a block from the beach, and it's summer.

Oh, here's the poem I would have read if I'd been smarter.  I'm not saying the folks at Tallgrass would have liked it better than Fort Stockton, but at least I would have gotten the genre right.

Things Said in Church This Morning

“Life and death and the moments in between” said the minister.
“Birthdays come around so fast” said a woman of a certain age.
And as one enters the second half of one’s life –
Oh, hell, let’s be clear:
As I enter the final half of my life –
Time moves much too quickly.
Perhaps it’s like riding a bicycle downhill?
Except there are no brakes, nothing that slows you down
So that those moments rush by
What had once been long anticipated becomes a memory all too fast.
Giving one –
I really mean me, of course –
Only one choice which is to savor every morsel, every moment,
Every experience, every effort.
As on a bike, keep your eyes open, right?
Don’t pay so much attention to the speedometer that you forget to look around.
And by all means watch for oncoming traffic.

Fear not, dedicated reader.  That is all the poetry that you will see on this blog.  As for the fictionalized Driveabout, who knows?  Maybe I'll write the whole thing in rondel form.

Hillary Clinton, the Lone Ranger, and Me

It's funny how things work out.  I bought a cheapo $12 subscription to the Chicago Tribune a month ago because I wanted the free Cubs shirt that came along with it.  And I will say that I've generally enjoyed reading the Trib (it's a four-day-a-week subscription because seven days of news in a row would be more than I can handle).  I've learned that the most important issues facing Chicago are A) the Blackhawks' fight to win the Stanley Cup and B) the state's pretty alarming pension crisis - in that order.

But another thing I learned today was that there is an Edgewater Historical Society that has a museum and just opened a big exhibit yesterday.  This is my neighborhood.  The museum is in an old fire station about a mile away from my apartment but it's not on a street that I really travel, so I probably would never have known about it if I hadn't wanted that Cubs shirt.

This afternoon on my way home from church I got off the Red Line a station early, at Berwyn, to walk over to the museum.  I am so glad I did!

Edgewater is on the far north side of Chicago, bordering Lake Michigan as you might suspect from the name.  It's south of the Rogers Park neighborhood and Loyola University, but north of just about everything else.  It technically includes Andersonville, which is to the southwest of where I live, but a lot of people think of Andersonville as separate from Edgewater.  There was a time when this sort of jurisdictional inconsistency would have bothered me a great deal, and I take it as a sign of enormous progress that it no longer does.  At least, not too much.

The Tribune article (which I won't link to, since you need a "digital plus" subscription to access it and I assume you, dedicated reader, don't have one) was about a special exhibit that the museum has to celebrate its 25th anniversary called Living Treasures of Edgewater.  They selected 25 people who have made a significant impact on the neighborhood, and gave each of them a plaque.  The exhibit at the museum describes each of the individuals, and you learn a lot about the recent history of Edgewater by reading their stories.

But let's start further back.  Edgewater was developed by John Lewis Cochran in the late 1880's in the area just north of the City of Chicago - unincorporated areas that were (and still are) called Lakeview and Andersonville. This was after the Great Fire of 1871, but I am told by my friend Brook who lives in the neighborhood that because it wasn't in the City of Chicago yet, the post-fire prohibition on wooden buildings did not apply here so there are still a few wooden houses.  (In fact, the fire station that is now home to the historical society's museum was originally a wooden structure.)

Cochran built a lot of homes and also the famous Edgewater Beach Hotel.  There is a building at Bryn Mawr and Sheridan that people call "The Pink Hotel" which I thought was the original hotel, but it's not.  The original hotel (at the same location) was demolished in 1971.  The current building is a condo/co-op.

Anyway, the most interesting thing about the Edgewater Beach Hotel is that when it was built in 1916 (with an expansion in the 1920's), it was, appropriately enough, right at the water's edge.  Look at this picture from the museum's collection.

Source:  Edgewater Historical Society
http://www.edgewaterhistory.org/ehs/local/edgewater-beach-hotel

When Lake Shore Drive was built in the 1930's, they brought in fill to move the lake several hundred yards to the east (to the right in the picture shown above).  (Can you even imagine how much fill was required for this?)  This north part of Lake Shore Drive was actually built more in the 1950's, from what I can tell.

Lake Shore Drive now is a major vehicle thoroughfare, which I can assure you is well traveled because I can see traffic 24/7 from my window.  It is also, apparently, a test lab for car horns.

The second best thing about Lake Shore Drive is the Lake Shore Trail, which is an 18-mile pedestrian/bike path that starts from Hollywood, where I live, and goes south for, well, 18 miles.  You can take it to Navy Pier (about seven miles south), the museum campus, and further south although I've never ridden past Navy Pier so I don't know exactly where it ends.  That will be another adventure sometime.

The best thing about Lake Shore Drive are all the beautiful beaches - free and open to the public - along the lakefront.

But I digress.

Edgewater is a wonderful neighborhood.  Part of that wonderfulness is the fact that it is very diverse and yet everyone seems to get along.  This store, which is on Clark Street, sort of symbolizes Edgewater to me.

You've got the GLBT rainbow colors, the name "Gordono's" and a sign saying it's a Jewish deli.  Of course, this one store doesn't take into account all of the people who make up Edgewater - immigrants from Central Europe and Africa, old people, young people and families, people of all races and religious backgrounds - but it sort of illustrates my point.  My friend Beth says that Edgewater is the first neighborhood everyone lives in when they move to Chicago.  On the street in Edgewater you hear so many languages, see gay and lesbian couples holding hands, and pass by little old men as well as young parents pushing strollers.  And dogs.  Good Lord, there are a lot of dogs in Edgewater.  But, like the people, the dogs are all well behaved and generally friendly.

Back to the Edgewater Historical Society and the Living Treasures exhibit.  I'm new to the city, of course, so I've never heard of any of the 25 people.  But while I was there, a couple who have lived in the neighborhood for many years came in based on the Tribune article (they said to the nice lady at the front desk) and mentioned that they knew a couple of the people who were listed in the article.

The individuals honored included a few who had positions of formal leadership - an alderman, a rabbi, a school principal - but most of them were just regular residents.  All of them went above and beyond their job descriptions in doing something to make Edgewater special.

For instance, take Sheli Lulkin.  She was concerned about Lake Michigan's rising lake levels and worked to make sure that appropriate steps were taken to protect Sheridan Road properties - something near and dear to me, because that's where I live.  On my morning walks I had seen a large pile of rocks at the very north end of the beach, and had remembered it largely because I thought my sisters' and brother's kids would have a great time climbing on it.  But they had a picture of this same pile of rocks in the Sheli Lulkin exhibit, because the rocks are part of a lake stabilization project.  It was sort of cool to learn why those rocks were there, since I had felt an oddly personal connection to them.

The honorees reflect the diversity of Edgewater.  People who immigrated from Israel, Ethiopia, France, Germany, and the south side of Chicago were among the group.  They worked on just about every issue you can imagine:  crime prevention, environmental concerns, human service needs, equal protection and human rights, gardening and neighborhood beautification...the list goes on and on.  And I'm going to say here, because as I like to remind you this is my blog and I can say whatever I want, that it is so nice to live in a city where elected officials are honored for their work to make gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered people full citizens of the community, rather than being voted out of office for it.  Have I mentioned how much I love Chicago?

I think it's great that they are honoring people who are still around to accept the honor rather than waiting until they die, which is often what happens.  And this kind of exhibit is also a great way of showing that every person can make a difference if he or she chooses to do so. History is made up of people like Sheli Lulkin and my buddy Viggy.  It is us, not them.

The rest of the museum consists of some smaller exhibits about the area's history and development, political history (more on that in a minute), and a wall of fame (my words, not theirs) of people who are from Edgewater.

One learns from this exhibit that if it weren't for Edgewater there would have been effectively no popular fiction written in the 1970's other than Harlequin Romances, since both John Jakes and Sidney Sheldon are from the neighborhood.  Other notable Edgewaterians (I'm not sure what the actual noun would be, but don't you think there's sort of a ring to Edgewaterian?) include Clayton Moore (a.k.a. The Lone Ranger), cartoonist Herbert Block, athlete Fritz Pollard (who, along with Jesse Owens, was one of the medal-winning African-American athletes at the 1936 Berlin Olympics who embarrassed Hitler and his Nazi myth of Aryan Supremacy), and actress Lois Nettleton (whom I had never heard of by name, but recognized her immediately from her appearances on Seinfeld, among other things).

Photo credit:  Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Nettleton

That is quite a list, and there were some others which I didn't include here.

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten the part about politics.

I recently read City of Scoundrels by Gary Krist, which is a very interesting history of "The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago" as it is subtitled.  The book is about events during the summer of 1919 - starting with a blimp exploding over downtown, and including a protracted race riot, a crippling transit strike, and the murder of a little girl - that gave people the sense that the city was completely out of control.  The mayor during this time was "Big Bill" Thompson who was the last Republican mayor of Chicago and whom Wikipedia refers to as "among the most unethical mayors in American history."  That is actually quite a strong statement - the ethical part, not the Republican part.  Although maybe that, too.

Anyway, while not defending his ethics, Krist maintains that Thompson was an effective mayor during his first two terms - modern Chicago began with projects that started to be realized during his tenure.  Krist comments briefly about how the mayor who followed Thompson (and whom Thompson then followed four years later in what was not a successful administration) was a good-government type whose ethics were above reproach but who couldn't get anything done and whose aggressive enforcement of prohibition drove crime in the city to unprecedented heights as bootleggers and gangsters violently defended their territories.  (While I obviously would prefer my politicians honest, what I really want is for them to be able to accomplish great things for their communities and if I had to choose.....well, I'm living in Chicago so you get an idea of my priorities.)

Of course, Krist didn't have a "native son" relationship with William Dever, the interregnum mayor.  The Edgewater Historical Society does, as Dever was one of two mayors, both Democrats, from my neighborhood, so the museum's exhibit doesn't talk much about the results of Dever's service.  Enough that he was our guy.  Still, it was funny that I only know the names of two mayors before 1955 (when Mayor Daley the First took office),  and both of them are in the Edgewater exhibit.  (I learned a third name today, Martin Kennelly, who was the second Edgewater mayor and who preceded Mayor Daley from 1947-1955.)

The museum talks about the fact that the neighborhood is strongly Democrat, which is a nice change of pace for me, and includes in the politics exhibit a large picture of Edgewater's most famous daughter, none other than Hillary Clinton, who was born in Edgewater Hospital.  Take that, Barack Obama.  If she's elected President, they will probably have to put a new wing on the back of the building.

From the beach to the shops to the homes to the history, I love my neighborhood.  And the Edgewater Historical Society museum?  It's not quite the Museum of Science and Industry, but it's home.

Hey, did I just say "home?"

Blues, Books and I-Wish-Hipster-or-Yuppie-Began-With-a-B

As a number of my friends have pointed out, the first weekend in June was the first full weekend I've spent in Chicago, despite having moved here nearly six weeks ago.  But fear not, friends, I have been making up for lost time.  This past weekend I made it to three festivals in 24 hours, and hopefully that will stop the "have you spent a full weekend in Chicago yet?" line of questioning.

First up, on Friday, was the 30th Annual Chicago Blues Festival.  This is a free festival put on by the City of Chicago (and a ton of sponsors) in Grant Park downtown.  According to its website, it is the largest free blues festival on the planet, and it is the largest of Chicago's many music festivals.  Typically a half million people will attend over the course of three days.  It is massive.

What's funny however, is that it is unexpectedly hard to find.  When I got off the subway late Friday afternoon, I expected to see a large stream of people walking toward the festival; my plan was to follow them.  But there was no "them," or at least not enough of "them" that I could differentiate "them" from the rest of the sea of humanity leaving work on a Friday afternoon.  That's how big Chicago is:  an event that draws half a million people (granted, not all at once) is not easily distinguished from the rest of the city.  Anyway, I found it the same way I find anything else in downtown Chicago:  I wandered around a bit, completely without a clue, and eventually figured out where to go after exhausting all other directions.

Of course, with a music festival you start to hear the event before you see it, and that helped.  I came in from the back so my first encounter was with a small stage (they have five stages).  This was a smaller group, John Primer and the Real Deal Blues Band, and they ended their set with "Sweet Home Chicago."

Much to my surprise, I did not hear that song again.  Perhaps it's just too obvious.

The Blues Festival is one of those events where they make you buy annoying food and drink tickets at a separate booth from where you actually get the food and drink.  I dislike this for two reasons:  first of all because it makes you decide in advance how much you plan to eat and drink, and often you have to do it in the absence of knowing how much food and drink costs; and second, because it makes you have to stand in two lines rather than one.  I always feel like I'm in the Soviet Union, standing in the egg line, then standing in the bread line....you get my point.

But it was in the ticket line that I met Mr. Miller.  He and I started chatting, and then were joined by a young woman whose job as a bartender seemed well suited to her outgoing personality.  For instance, I know his name is Miller because she asked him what his favorite beer was and he answered, "Miller, because that's my name."  Mr. Miller is one of those older guys who looks younger than he is, despite, he told us, having had 19 children.  The bartender was somewhat flabbergasted at this and Mr. Miller said "yeah, it was a lot of fun," and I suggested that there were ways to still have a lot of fun without getting so many kids out of the deal, but luckily the conversation quickly turned into Mr. Miller telling us he was 71 years old.  "Get out," said my bartender friend, and I also expressed disbelief.  So Mr. Miller whips out his wallet to give us proof, at which time I observe that he has two Illinois driver's licenses.  (I guess that would be drivers' licenses, with the possessive after the plural.)  "I have several ID's because I travel a lot," said Mr. Miller.  I didn't even know where to begin with that one, so I let it drop, and then confirmed that the ID (the one I looked at, at least) did support his claim to be 71.

The interesting thing was that the name on the ID wasn't Miller.

But hey, it's Chicago.

Anyway, another interesting thing, I thought, about the Blues Festival were some of its sponsors.  There are the usual suspects (a beer brand, a soft drink brand, an IT brand, and a couple of miscellaneous large corporations) but the sponsor list also included the tourism departments of the States of Mississippi and Louisiana.  I guess those are bluesy places, along with the City of St. Louis, which had a booth as well, and they must figure that people who like the blues might go on vacation there.  Perhaps they're right - after all, I like the blues and I traveled through Mississippi and Louisiana.

After looking around, hearing a local band play for a while at one of the smaller stages, and getting my first Chicago hot dog since I moved here, I headed over to the main stage, where Earnest "Guitar" Roy was just getting started.

On stage I saw something I haven't seen since the last time I went to a women's music festival:  a sign language interpreter so that deaf people can follow along.

Like drive-through bank machines embossed with braille, I've always wondered how necessary this type of accomodation is.  Not that there's anything wrong with it.  And of course, with blues music the interpreter really only had to know about fifteen words so he had a relatively easy night.

"Guitar" Roy was great, and then the Blues Queen of New Orleans, Irma Thomas, took the stage.  She was even better.

Blues songs, like country music, seem to have more than their share of funny names.  "You Can Mess With My Husband but Please Don't Mess With My Man," is nearly as good a line as the country song, "If You Want to Keep the Beer Ice Cold Set It Next to My Ex-Wife's Heart."  The Blues Queen of New Orleans had the crowd on our feet with "Hip Shakin' Mama" and then I started to see something curious.  At first I just saw one person waving a handkerchief, but then it caught on.

And then,

Noticing this growing movement, Irma explained to the rest of us that this was called the Second Line, a New Orleans tradition.  The First Line in a parade are the main marchers.  The Second Line is made up of people who are just walking along with the music waving their handkerchiefs.

Now that we knew what was happening, everybody in the crowd joined in.  I didn't have a handkerchief but I had a white napkin left over from my hot dog dinner, so I pulled it out of my pocket and started waving it.  Good arm exercise.

Another thing I did that everyone else was doing was to snap a picture of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois Building:

When in Rome, as they say...so I've become a minor Blackhawks hockey fan.  I don't have a jersey or anything, though.  At least not yet.  But they're pretty cool so who knows what could happen by next season?

The headliner Friday night was Bobby Rush and his Blues Band.  I'd been sitting down for a while at this point, and it was starting to get just dark enough that it made me realize that it would be a good time to check out the port-a-johns while I could still see.  So I took a little break and when I returned I just stood at the back of the amphitheater, along with a bunch of random people and an enthusiastic group of exhibitors wearing blue Intel jackets.  There were a fair number of uniformed police officers around, and I assumed there were at least a few in plain clothes, so I was a little surprised when the wind shifted slightly and I caught a quick but clear whiff of marijuana.  And then it was gone.

I was starting to wear down by this point so I listened to Bobby for a while and then decided to find the Red Line home.  On the way out I saw some other musicians playing.

I found the Monroe Red Line station, which as you know isn't on Monroe at all, and called it a night.  I had big plans for Saturday, after all.

Those plans began with hopping back on the Red Line Saturday morning to head back downtown.  This time when I got off at the Harrison Street station, which is actually on Polk and State, I went one block west rather than three blocks east, and found myself in the middle of the Printers Row LitFest. It is a free event, organized by the Chicago Tribune, that brings together authors and readers of all types.  Part of it is a street festival, although without music.

Lots of book vendors and exhibits by publishers, writers' groups, and so forth.  There was also a display by a yarn shop, which happens to be located in Printers Row, so I checked in with her about weaving classes which, along with bridge, is on my to-do list.  But I may delay my weaving career, because I'd rather use time this summer to figure out what I want to do about novelizing the Driveabout and you can't do everything at once.  LitFest inspired me.

Printers Row itself has a number of older buildings which are impressive.  One of the buildings had this plaque above its door.  It's kind of a high standard.

They have a ton of speakers and workshops at LitFest - all of them free, but many requiring advance tickets.  I had come across it just the day before (thanks to my $12 subscription to the Tribune) so it was too late for me to get into the workshops.  I did see the 90 Second Newbery Film Festival - where kids submit videos of a minute and a half that act out a Newbery Award winning book.  The auditorium was filled with librarians who had read every single book that was mentioned.  If you work with kids (elementary through high school), you might find this to be a fun project.  Just check out their website.

While I was wandering through the tents I heard a 20-year-old poet who participated in a program called Young Chicago Authors read some of her work.  It was very powerful and very good.  She also read some poems that other people had written but hers were the most evocative, I thought.  It's tempting - and I know this because I succumb to it all the time - to write about topics that are both political and personal by emphasizing the big picture.  I think they are more powerful (especially in poetry) when you focus more on a personal angle.  This young woman did that, and she was excellent.

I found a great hamburger place, if you're ever in the mood for such a thing when you're in Chicago, and then went to hear Boston Globe reporters Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy talk about Whitey Bulger.  Bulger is the mobster who was also an FBI informant for decades, during which time he allegedly killed a bunch of people that the FBI knew about.  (They made a Law & Order episode based on this story, if that sounds familiar.)  Then Bulger disappeared for more than a decade until a neighbor in Santa Monica recognized him on TV, and his trial is starting today.  It was interesting to hear the reporters (who have written a book) talk about Bulger and their experience covering him for over twenty years.  Plus they had great Boston accents.  Fortunately, everyone was very polite about the upcoming Hawks versus Bruins Stanley Cup battle, so there were no fisticuffs.

Thus ended my LitFest experience, so it was back to the Red Line to go a few stops north to the Old Town Neighborhood and the Wells Street Art Fair.

Remember Mr. Miller from the Blues Festival?  In another episode of Big City/Small World, I saw him as I was coming out of the Clark & Division L station (which is, curiously, located at Clark and Division Streets.)  Really.  At first I didn't believe it as he walked right past me but then I looked and realized yeah, this is Mr. Miller.  I wasn't sure what name he was using that day, however, and I didn't particularly want to start a conversation, so I didn't say anything.

The Wells Street Art Fair is a nice art festival.  It goes on for about five blocks, and is very popular.  I arrived about 2:30 and as the afternoon wore on, the event turned from art fair to huge street party.  I can't estimate crowds, but there had to be 10,000 people, nearly all of whom were carrying a large cup of beer.  The preferred dress of most of the 20-something guys seemed like something straight out of the 1980's - button down shirts (some short sleeved, some long), often madras or plaid but also solid blue or white, and Bermuda shorts.  Thank goodness none of the women had Big 80's Hair, or I would have thought I was traveling in time, and I didn't care much for the 80's.

Most of the exhibitors are what you'd expect, but they did have a large installation of a car with a giant snake-shaped balloon popping out of it.  My favorite part of it, however, is the sign.

I couldn't get the entire installation, but you can sort of get a sense of it.  The sign says "Please Don't Jump on the Art!"  It's not as good as the "people have died" sign, but I liked it.

Initially I'd planned to walk through just to check it out and see if I could find a spoon rest (I did), but then I saw that at 3:30 Sophie B. Hawkins was going to play, followed by the Smithereens.  These were not to be missed, so I hung around and enjoyed the shows.

Sophie B. was certainly getting into it.  Her version of Janis Joplin's "Cry Baby" seemed oddly post-millennial, or something, to me - she hit all the right notes and performed with a lot of energy, but there was something authentic missing, even when she went all the way to the floor.

Still, I'm not complaining about a free concert.

By the way, the woman in the black shirt in this picture is someone I'd met a couple of times in Fort Wayne.  Again, Big City/Small World.

The crowd got a little older for the Smithereens.  (I guess I was time traveling after all.)  It was funny to see a bunch of guys my age and older doing air guitar (to be clear:  in the crowd, not on the stage).  I was standing behind a guy who seems like the Smithereens Number One Fan, in addition to being a big Blackhawks fan.

Everywhere I've ever been - even in the south - I've heard the "don't like the weather, wait ten minutes" line as if it were something unique about their region.  Right, weather changes.  Everywhere.  But it is very true in Chicago, and I am still not used to bringing along a jacket everywhere I go.  By 6:30 the clouds seemed to be beating the sun and my t-shirt wasn't warm enough, so I decided to call it a full day and head back home to Edgewater, where I enjoyed some Indian food and was able to put on a sweatshirt.

Sunday was uneventful and although fun, not of particular bloggage interest until I was coming home, once again, on the Red Line (this time from visiting my friend Val in Lincoln Park).  I don't remember for sure where they got on - I think Belmont or Addison - but a group of six early 20's guys, all very clean cut and white, and all wearing white dress shirts and black pants, got on my car.  A couple of them had name tags and one had a red handkerchief tied cowboy-style around his neck.  They were a friendly group and offered me a homemade chocolate chip cookie from the plateful that one of them was carrying.  I initially declined, but eventually did have one - the guy with the plate was sitting right next to me and the cookies smelled delicious.  They tasted just as good.

Anyway, all these guys are Irish, and are visiting Chicago for a few days for a bachelor party for Fergus, a red-headed accountant from Cork.  None of them live in the United States, and both the bride and the wedding are in Ireland, so it was a little unclear to me what exactly they were doing other than clearly having a great time.  They were really nice boys and we talked about Ireland for a while.  As the train approached my stop at Bryn Mawr, I told Victor, the best man (and baker of the cookies) to make sure that he got Fergus back on that plane, and he seems like a very good friend because he said that yes, he was going to make sure of it.

Mr. Miller, the woman from Fort Wayne, the boys from Ireland - the randomness of it all is really fun.

Yes, I love Chicago.

A Bridge Too Far

Maybe it dates back to the very early 1970's, when Mom and Dad would have other Moms and Dads over to play bridge.  Mom would wear her black and white houndstooth coat dress and they'd serve hors d'oeuvres and canapes and drinks and all us kids would have to stay downstairs - or at least out of the living room - and it all seemed very grown-up and even a little exotic, this whole bridge thing.

Or maybe it's because a decade and a half later, when there was a group of people in the Planning Department who played bridge at lunch, I was Number 6 and thus only got to play if two people were out sick, which didn't happen often.  As anybody who knows me knows, the best way to get me to want to do something is to tell me I can't do it.

But whatever the reason, I've always been vaguely fascinated by bridge.  And for a variety of reasons, none of them particularly compelling, I've never really played.

I had hoped that I'd be able to play with my Mom (without the coat dress, sadly, although certainly with some sort of snack) while staying in Omaha this winter.  But with the holidays, her bridge club only met once so all I got a quick refresher and just played for a short time.

But along with learning how to weave, learning bridge is on my to-do list now that I'm in Chicago.  (As an aside, I am so glad the term "bucket list" appears to have passed out of fashion.  In addition to being just a dumb phrase, in my humble opinion, it always seemed so passive.  Either put something on the list of what you're going to do, in which case it's really a to-do list, or stop kidding yourself.  Yoda was right.  Do or do not, there is no try.)

Whatever the inconveniences of living in a city of 2.7 million people, one of the great advantages is that when you Google "Chicago bridge club" you get a long list of choices.  So I did that the other night and selected, largely due to its proximity to my preferred mode of transportation, the Red Line, the Lawson Bridge Studio which meets on Monday and Wednesday evenings.  I emailed to find out whether they were open to beginners and was pleased to learn that on Wednesday nights in fact, they were, and you didn't even need to bring a partner.

And so last night I went.

The group meets at the Ann Sather restaurant on Belmont, and fills up the entire west half of the place.  There were 46 people, and I was the youngest person in the room except for about three guys until four high school kids young people so smart that you could see it oozing from their ears from Whitney Young Magnet High School showed up.  I was reminded a bit of what my Dad said about twenty years ago when we went to Florida at Christmas.  He loved being in the airport, populated as it was by a lot of old people retrieving their grandchildren: "I feel so young!" he'd said.  Now, twenty years later, I get it.

The Lawson Bridge Studio advertises itself as "friendly game - cookies served" which actually is a pretty good plan for most of one's life, come to think of it.  The cookies were okay, although store bought (I'd hoped for house baked at Ann Sather, but it's easier to stop at one when they're store bought).  The friendly game part was just as advertised.  It's just that they're not exactly used to have more-or-less complete novices wander in.  And while I've been around what I now know is called "social bridge" or "party bridge," I'd never played duplicate contract bridge.  In case you've never played, duplicate contract bridge involves a lot of equipment:

These little plastic boxes just hold the cards you use to bid.  There are plastic cases called "boards" that hold the playing cards themselves, which are pre-dealt, but I didn't get a picture of those.  And they have little computers that look like big digital calculators at each table.  I was pretty intimidated by all this stuff, I will admit.

My "guaranteed partner" was Phil, the Director (they have a Director!), and he told me to hang out while we waited to see whether there was going to be an odd or an even number of people show up, to see whether Phil would be able to play or whether I'd be assigned another victim partner.  So I spent about twenty minutes trying to stay out of the way and then moving from table to table as more and more people arrived.  It was chilly last night, so I had a jacket which I didn't want to hang up because I was afraid I'd forget about it when I left.  Thus I carried the jacket from table to table, along with my cup of coffee.  I'm proud to report that the jacket, which is white, remained white the entire evening despite its proximity to coffee being carried from here to there.  Still, moving around was clumsy and it added to my initial sense of awkwardness.

At first Phil assigned Bob to size me up.  Bob asked me whether I played American Standard and he didn't mean it as a trick question.  Of course, I was without a clue so I explained my bridge experience, which mostly consisted of watching other people play.  Then he started talking about points for bidding and I started to remember that, oh yes, you have to count the points in your hand.  Even since last December, I'd forgotten about that rather central aspect of the game.  Phil later asked me whether I'd studied with anyone.  Studied with anyone!  I guess there are classes that you can take but they way he said it made me think of some sort of musical prodigy or something.  Definitely not me!

I've played a lot of cards - generally euchre, having spent most of my adult life in Indiana - so the actual playing of the game was relatively straightforward for me.  Follow suit, try to get to your partner when your hand stinks, void a suit when you can so you can trump, etc.  Not that I'm great at it, but I know how to do it.  The challenge with bridge, as you know, is bidding.  It is a combination of secret code and art form.  I felt a bit like I'd walked into a room full of people speaking a foreign language.  Well, in fact, I had.  Some of it I picked up enough to get by but I know that I blew several hands.  Phil was very patient.

The reason it's called "duplicate" is that everybody plays the same hands over the course of the evening.  That's what the boards are for:  after you play each hand, you put your cards back into the board and then it is passed on to the next table.  The purpose of the little computers is to feed the hand results into a laptop that then keeps the total scores.  You can check it out here if you are so inclined.  The website lets you go back and see how other people played the game, letting you see whether and how you could have done better.  Actually, I wasn't the worst player, which just goes to prove that I've got remarkable luck.

Most people were very friendly - and I met a guy who had grown up in Omaha, which I brilliantly deduced by observing his Rosenblatt Stadium t-shirt.  Somebody told me about another bridge group that has a 30-minute lesson beforehand.  Phil told me about a learn-to-play-bridge program that you can download from the American Contract Bridge League's website, and I did that when I got home so that I can be all ready for next week.

Now I just need to run out and pick up that houndstooth coat dress.

In Which the Driveabout Becomes the L-About

Yesterday felt vaguely familiar.

As I was wandering around downtown Chicago looking for the Millennium Art Fair, I felt like I was back on the Driveabout.

First, there was the sense of not knowing where the heck I was.  Downtown Chicago continues to confuse me.  Partly, I think, it's because I arrive there by coming up from a hole in the ground and am therefore completely disoriented to begin with.  Partly it's because I'm great with a map but have no intuitive sense of direction, and Google Maps likes to flip around so I never have a solid sense of north for any extended period of time, which I generally find helpful in orienting myself.

But it was more than that.  It was the fact that I was just so in awe of what I was seeing.  Cool stuff, like a building called the Carbide and Carbon Building.

Talk about Old Industry.

Or the best We'll Tow You sign I've seen since Chattanooga:

Take that, Walgreen's.

My plan was to check out the art fair and then go to "Do-Division," a street festival on Division Street.  Chicago has a ton of these festivals, I am told, and they're all fun.

It took a couple of times walking around the block, but I finally found the art fair.  It was nice - a couple of blocks long, with everyone all battened down against the torrential rain storms that were generally predicted but, mysteriously, went around us.

There was a performance artist:

Yes, this is a person.  A little boy walked by and touched her skirt.  He looked genuinely shaken - as I would have been had I been six years old - when the fabric moved since she really does look like a statue.  She'd been dancing when I first walked by, but then stopped when no one stepped forward with another tip.

The rest of the exhibitors consisted of painters, photographers, jewelers, and artists in wood, leather and fabric.  One photographer's work was so vibrant that I really thought he used multi-media until I got close enough to see it wasn't three dimensional.

But I can only spend so long at an art fair, so I figured out my way from the Loop to where I thought the Division Street festival began (at Ashland, according to one website I consulted), which seemed simple enough - just get on the Blue Line toward O'Hare and get off at the Division Station which is right at Ashland.  Can't be any easier than that!

Of course, it was Friday about 4:30 p.m. so there was quite a crowd at the CTA station, this being the Loop and all - about a quarter of whom appeared headed to O'Hare, at least judging from their luggage.  The train came and it was already packed before another hundred people tried to get in each car (okay, I'm exaggerating a little, but just a little.)  I wasn't able to get in, which turned out to be fine, because about three minutes later another train came by, this one with much emptier cars, so I was able to find a seat.

Three stops later, I hopped out at Division and Ashland.  I looked around, and there was no sign of a street fair in sight.  Undeterred, I decided that I would have something to eat and then go looking for the festival.  I saw a sign that made me think that I was back in Milwaukee:  Podhalanka Polska Restauracia.  Or something like that.  My Polish isn't very good, but I can tell a Polish restaurant from across six lanes of traffic.  I beelined over.

Podhalanka looks like an old neighborhood cafe and it operates that way.  Before 5 p.m., I had obviously beaten the evening crowd, but it took a while for the food - the waitress was chatting with somebody at the end of the counter, but I think the main reason was that the cook (both the cook and the waitress looked like your great aunt from Warsaw) was making my cabbage pierogies from scratch.  They were certainly worth the wait, and during the interim the waitress had brought me wonderful bread.  This is the kind of bread I associate with old Central European restaurants - white, sliced, and with a brown crust that you have to work at to tear apart.

While I was eating I grabbed the Reader, one of those free local entertainment magazines which lists all of the events around town.  According to the Reader, Do-Division began a few blocks further west, at Damen.  The sky was looking somewhat ominous and walking west meant I would be that much further away from the L, but in classic devil-may-care Driveabout fashion, I headed out in search of the festival.  The fact that I was no longer hungry didn't hurt my outlook.

The merchants who organized Do-Division accomplished their goal with at least one person, me, who had never been on Division before and who definitely will come back as a result of coming to the festival.  When you get just a little west of Ashland, there are so many restaurants, one after the next.  (Podhalanka is just east of Ashland.)  Some look very high end, and some are sports bars, and there's a lot in between.

There was a place called the Milk and Honey Cafe which had a sign up that said they were now serving Beer and Wine - milk and honey, apparently, not being quite enough anymore.  I saw a bakery with amazing cakes.

In a way, Division Street seemed very Milwaukee-ish.  Perhaps it was the Schlitz globe sign:

And then I found the festival, right at Damen where the Reader said it would be.  It was pretty typical of a festival, I guess, with rather ho-hum commercial vendors (cell phones, etc.) along with more interesting craft/clothing offerings from local merchants.  I signed up for a $12 subscription to the Chicago Tribune because it came with a funny t-shirt.

The Trib used to own the Cubs, remember?  Do you get why it's funny?  It's unclear whether this is an old shirt, left over from when the Trib owned the Cubs....okay, if you have to explain a joke, I guess it's not so funny.  Anyway, I'd been wanting a Cubs t-shirt and now I have one.

It was still very early when I arrived, but they did have a band playing.

Yes, that's a shark balloon in front of the stage.  No, I don't know why it's there.

I had a beer (if you paid close attention to the picture above, you'd know it was a Coors Light) and walked around.  It was fun, but I was getting a little weary of tourism at that point - apparently my tolerance has dropped significantly of late - and I knew it would be something of a production to get home.

It was a strange and good feeling to want to get back to my neighborhood.  Strange in the sense that it's been a while since I've had a neighborhood, and good in the sense that this is how I am feeling about Edgewater, where I live.

Division Street is in the West Town neighborhood.  One of the cool things that they had at the festival which I liked a lot but didn't want to spend $180 on it plus have to schlep it home, was a framed stylized neighborhood map of Chicago.  If I see another one around and it's a bit lower priced, I may pick it up because it's a nice reference if nothing else.

Thanks to Google Maps (even though I knocked it earlier, it's a lifesaver) I found the Damen Blue Line stop at Milwaukee Avenue (see?  Milwaukee!) and headed southeast so that I could change trains at the Loop and head north.

Of course, I got completely lost during what was supposed to be a short walk from the Monroe Blue Line station to the Monroe Red Line station.  I will offer two pieces of evidence in my defense:  no one else seemed to know where it was, either, and neither station is actually located on Monroe Street.  Finally I started walking in what seemed to be the right direction, after I had eliminated all other directions through trial and error, and then saw a nice Red Line glowing on a sign, a beacon calling me home.  Once I get to a Red Line station I can find my way with a high level of confidence, and made it back to Bryn Mawr station without any trouble whatsoever.  Other than they charged me for a full fare, rather than a transfer, but I wasn't in an arguing mood so I figure that's a buck seventy five that is my contribution to the CTA.

It still wasn't raining when I got to Bryn Mawr, so I stopped in at Francesca's, a very nice Italian restaurant about two blocks from my apartment, and had a salad (cabbage didn't seem like enough vegetables for the day) and a glass of wine.  I sat at the bar and started talking with a guy, and mentioned I was from Fort Wayne.  He laughed, having just spoken to a friend in Michigan that day who said that he (the friend in Michigan) was having a friend from Fort Wayne come visit.  Yes, Fort Wayners are everywhere.

And now, Saturday afternoon, it's clouding up again just in time for me to head out to a friend's.  Our plan was to watch some of the Black Hawks game and then check out a festival in Lincoln Park, but we may end up ordering pizza at her place.  Which, since I haven't had Chicago pizza yet, wouldn't be the end of the world.