A Celebrity in Our Midst...

Last night, Dad was on TV, discussing the local implications of the Madoff scandal, and I couldn't be more proud. Check him out:

The Joy of Visitors - Part Two

On Sunday, we got an earlier start to our day, hoping to avoid the morning brunch crowds, but our efforts were to no avail. We still had to wait almost a half hour at Yolk, but at least Joy greatly enjoyed her eggs Benedict, and Nicole was entertained by her choice of green eggs and ham (made with pesto). When our appetites were sated, we headed over to the Art Institute to check out the new Modern Wing, where I was able to get everyone in for free on our family membership, thereby skirting the controversial increased admission rate.

Joy and I in the Modern Wing at the Art Institute.

Like just about everything else in life, I wasn't sure that the Modern Wing lived up to all the hype. Given the size of the structure from the outside, I was expecting the gallery space to be much larger, but much of the interior space was dedicated to the spacious, light-filled atrium, which the Art Institute will be renting out for tony private events. The first floor contained a small gallery for special exhibits, currently featuring recent paintings by Cy Twombly, and a dedicated Modern Wing gift shop, featuring the sort of design gifts that have always been the hallmark of the MoMA and Museum of Contemporary Art stores.

The second floor housed the largest exhibition space, with separate galleries for art from 1945-1960, art from 1960-present, and architecture and design. Not surprisingly, I found the works from 1945-1960 to be the most accessible, consisting of works by Jackson Pollack, Yves Klein, and Willem De Kooning, many of which were on display before the move to the new wing. Mark Rothko was also represented in that gallery, and of course, I still failed to sense the emotions supposedly evoked by his juxtaposition of colors. I can't help but think of the song "Nothing" from A Chorus Line -- no matter how hard I try to feel something from his paintings, there is often nothing, although the one at the Art Institute makes me slightly nauseous, because it is so orange. The only time I have ever cried in front of a Rothko was at the Milwaukee Art Museum, and it was solely because my eyes started to water from not blinking enough when I was staring at it.

Joy was particularly enamored of the architecture and design section, considering she is going back to school for industrial design. There were some pretty fabulous pieces of furniture in there that I wouldn't mind having in my apartment, if I had unlimited resources. The highlight though, was an interactive exhibit demonstrating motion sensing technology, in which your motions manipulated the movements of a spiderweb digitally projected onto the wall. It was very cool, and very popular.

I did enjoy some of the pieces in the 1960-present section, which I think was perhaps the greatest beneficiary of the move to the Modern Wing. Although many of the pieces were uncannily similar to the collections displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Milwaukee Art Museum, I still enjoyed seeing works that had not previously been displayed at the Art Institute, such as an entire room dedicated to Gerhard Richter, who produced a series of texturally fascinating paintings during the late 1980s, and a brilliantly staged Jeff Koons sculpture of a woman surprised in the bath which was housed next to a window to accentuate the themes of voyeurism running through the work.

The second floor contained a whole room dedicated to Gerhard Richter, whose abstract works I particularly admire (above). Also newly on display on the third floor was this fantastic Le Corbusier (below).

The third floor hadthe smallest amount of exhibition space, but contained probably the most popular works in the entire wing: European art from 1900-1950. There can be found the Picassos, the Dalis, the Magrittes, and sculptures by Brancusi and Joseph Cornell. My initial impression was that there was not much more space dedicated to these works than there was before the renovation, but there was a greater balance of artists than previously, and there were a number of new works, such as an astounding collection of works by Cornell, donated entirely by one donor, and completely absent from the museum's previous incarnation.

I was particularly impressed, and delighted, to discover for the first time the works of Matta, a Chilean painter whose pieces I greatly enjoyed. As many museums as I have been to, and as many art history classes I have taken, I found it so refreshing to have my eyes opened to something that I hadn't seen before. All in all, that singular experience made the whole excursion worthwhile, and would have been worth the $18 price of admission alone. What more can you really hope for from an art museum, but to expand your knowlege and appreciation of art?

Matta, The Earth Is a Man, 1942.

I also can't express enough how great it was to have an opportunity to go to the Modern Wing with Joy, who is an artist herself, and has much the same background in art history that I do. Although I enjoy visiting the Art Institute with all manner of people, and sharing my love of art and my tidbits of knowlege about the famous artworks with pretty much anyone who is willing to go, it was really satisfying to get to have a high-level discussion about the theory and practice of art with someone just as passionate (if not more) as myself. It was the perfect inaugural visit to the Modern Wing.

When we had seen all there was to be seen in that part of the museum, we met up with Nicole (whom we had long-since bored to death), and headed over to the Park Grill for some light refreshments. The weather was cooperative on every front (not too hot, not rainy, not too windy), so I even allowed myself to be persuaded to sit outside on the patio to do some people watching.

We then headed home for some R&R, and some research on routes for Joy and Nicole to take to the Vic Theater, where Sonic Youth was playing that night. My visitors also took advantage of some cable television viewing, before we headed back out for yet more food - this time deep dish pizza at Giordano's. I was glad that they let me choose the pizza; I have never understood all the hype surrounding Lou Malnati's. I think they must have the best marketing department of all the Chicago pizza heavyweights, because they are on every Food Network, Travel Channel, you-name-it special on Chicago that gets made, and their crust is terrible. When you're eating deep-dish, the crust is important, and it should be bready and buttery, not dense and hard. I just don't understand how they have won such legions of fans. There's no accounting for taste.

After eating, Joy and Nicole headed off for the concert, and I closed out the weekend on a quiet note. I was glad to have them up for a visit; it's always nice to reconnect with old friends, and every time I get together with one of my friends from college, it sparks my hope that we can overcome all of the distance that separates us to stay in touch. Call me naive, but I firmly believe it can be done, with enough determination.

The Joy of Visitors - Part One

On the agenda for the weekend was a visit from Joy, my sophomore year roommate from college, and her friend Nicole, who were in town for a Sonic Youth concert. Joy came into town on Friday night via the much-lauded Megabus, but her experience was less than stellar: her bus had a flat tire, so instead of arriving at 10:30 in the evening, she arrived at nearly 1:30 in the morning after spending three hours along the side of the road somewhere between St. Louis and Springfield. It was decidedly not a good time.

To make things right, I took her to Taste of Chicago on Saturday, employing all the tricks I have acquired in my years of Taste attendance to make it the most pleasant experience possible:

• I pre-purchased tickets at Dominick's before Taste of Chicago started, when they cost $6 per strip of 12 tickets, instead of $8. That way, you basically get four strips of tickets for the price of three strips purchased at the festival itself.
• Using a map of the festival grounds, we made a game plan the night before, so that we could pace our eating to include all of our must-try items.
• We packed a Taste "care-package" consisting of bottled water, a roll of paper towels, a plastic knife to cut food for sharing, a Tide-pen, and hand sanitizer.
• We entered the festival on Balbo, the least crowded entrance, and got there shortly after it opened at 11:00, to try to dodge some of the crowds.
• I dispensed preemptive stomach medicine, to head off any discomfort at the pass.

It was a good day to go to Taste of Chicago -- not too hot, not too crowded, and most importantly, during the wettest year on record in Chicago, not rainy. I was glad that I got to go this year, but the actual food I sampled was somewhat of a mixed bag. The beignets from Lagniappe were pretty wretched; they had been fried in the same fryer with the stand's catfish, and tasty unpleasantly thereof. My wildcard pick for the year was the pork-filled banana dumplings from Sabor Latino, but the one I received was entirely overcooked, and contained no discernible meat filling. The miniature steak gordita from Los Dos Laredos was incredibly cute, but somewhat bland. It could have benefited from the presence of onion, and some cheese. I suppose you get what you pay for when you stick to the cheaper tasting portions, when you're trying to stretch your tickets.

The first photo taken with my new Nikon S630: pierogis from Kasia's Deli.

On the positive end of the spectrum were the always dependable potato pierogis from Kasia's deli (I am, and always shall be a devotee of the dumpling arts), the chocolate-covered frozen banana from Aunt Diana's, and of course, my favorite all-time Taste item -- the pickle on a stick from Vienna Beef Hot Dogs. Some of my greatest childhood memories of going to Taste of Chicago with my parents center on what seemed at the time to be an enormous pickle on a skewer, practically the size of my forearm. Pickle juice would be running all down my arm and all over my face, and I could barely finish one on my own. I don't know if the pickles have gotten smaller, or I've just grown up, but even though they aren't as huge as I remember them, the flavor was pure childhood nostalgia.

I am normally terrible at the self-pic thing, but this one isn't too bad: Joy and I in front of Buckingham Fountain, during the Taste of Chicago.

Even though we still had a sizable number of food tickets remaining, all the fried food so early in our day had made us uncomfortably full, so we headed back to the condo to sleep it all off, and enjoy some air conditioning instead of toughing out the hottest part of the day. When we had finally regained some appetite, we headed out for a light supper at Cafecito, but discovered that it closes early on weekends. Instead, we ended up at my other favorite neighborhood haunt, Tamarind, for sushi and appetizers.

After dinner, Joy was in the mood for a walk, so we took the bus up to North Michigan Avenue for a bit of window shopping and wishful thinking, before the ubiquitous rain started up again, and we waited an unprecedented amount of time (for Michigan Avenue, epicenter of Chicago bus-bunching), to catch a ride home.

On the way, we heard from Nicole, whose flight had arrived early at Midway, in an attempt to dodge the incoming severe weather, so we detoured to the train station to meet her. Sadly, the evening ended on another negative note for Joy, who misplaced her cell phone after making a final call to link up with Nicole. We may never know if she dropped it and somebody picked it up, hoping to score some free long-distance calls, or it fell out of her pocket and off the platform, but it was nowhere to be found. Luckily, we managed to meet up with Nicole before the phone went AWOL, so other than the inconvenience of reporting her phone stolen and losing all her contacts, the trip was not adversely affected in the short run. Nevertheless, we would have to wait another day to try to salvage her vacation.

Updates...

Just in case anyone was wondering, I think I weathered the mono crisis unscathed. My sore throat is gone, and I am relatively convinced that my current tiredness is more a result of my hot apartment keeping me awake at night, than illness. And on that front, things are looking up as well. The repairmen installed the pump in the air conditioner today, and the unit has been keeping things at a comfortable temperature all evening. So, hopefully the next few weeks will be smooth sailing... knock on wood...

It's Getting Hot in Here...

Ladies and gentlemen, summer has arrived in Chicago. While most would probably hail this turn of events as a positive development for the city, I for one, am not a fan, especially when the start of summer is heralded by severe storms, a tornado drill at work, and a power outage in the suburbs on the very same weekend that I was going home. Also add to the mix the failure of my week-old air conditioner, and I think it's safe to say that I'm already counting the days until fall. If it weren't for the joint confluence of Audrey's bridal shower, and Father's Day, I could have remained downtown, where I would have at least had a fan, internet, and television, but alas, it was not meant to be.

The bridal shower fell on Saturday, with nearly all of our high school crew in attendance. Like so many parties of that era, Nikki (also the maid of honor), threw the party at her parents' home. The buffet featured Audrey's favorite foods - pot roast, pizza bagels, and latkes. Bucking tradition, the bride opted to forgo the traditional shower games in favor of a "roast," which I found to be a clever touch. Overall, the party was pleasant enough, but I couldn't shake my normal sense of discomfort with the fact that people my own age are getting married. I can still recall being six years old, and Audrey and I used to sit on her bedroom floor and fight over who got to be Wedding Day Midge, swearing that some day we'd be each other's maids of honor. Obviously, people's relationships change over time. Nevertheless, to me, marriage still feels very much the same -- like a hypothetical event for the very distant future. That doesn't mean it's not right for other people, I just have a difficult time wrapping my head around it.

From left: Stephanie, Nikki, Me, Lindsey, Audrey, Sarah, Claudia, Ashley, and some random chick who got in our picture of high school friends.

After 28 hours, the electricity finally came back in the wee hours of Sunday morning, so I was able to commemorate Father's Day with one of Dad's favorite meals: Lentils a la Brasserie du Theater. In keeping with my assertion that Dad is a complex guy, he also has favorite foods that are almost exclusively complicated to make. The traditional family anise cookies he holds dear require hand-shaping and glazing. The swiss chard he loves so much requires tedious washing and chopping. And the lentils, which were inspired by a meal that we had in Versailles, outside of Paris, require three pots cooking simultaneously on the stove, and a substantial amount of prep work.

Dad and I at the Palace of Versailles, 2007.

The dish consists of imported Puy lentils, incorporated into a mixture of very finely chopped carrot, celery, and shallot fried in bacon fat, in a warm bacon/red wine vinegar vinegrette, garnished with two poached eggs and lardons of bacon. Is it delicious? Yes. Is it worth all the effort? Only to make Dad happy, and to bring back memories from our journey across the north of France, in search of the history of the Allied invasion of occupied Europe. The trip was great, and the food was fantastic, but it takes a certain amount of dedication to replicate the experience at home.

Later in the afternoon, we went as a family to see Up in 3D. It was a good choice for Father's Day, given the themes it touched upon, but, as Pixar films are apt to do, it packed an emotional wallop. I was crying my eyes out in the first ten minutes or so, and I kept tearing up throughout the remainder. Overall, I thought it was pretty great, and I appreciated that the use of 3D was fairly subtle in most of the movie. Instead of packing the films with 3D sight gags, the technology was used to enhance the field of depth in aerial scenes and so forth. Plus, there were two awesome Star Wars references near the end, which put a perfect capstone on the experience for me. I doubt there's anyone left who hasn't seen Up by now, but I highly recommend it.

However, the positive note that Up had placed on my weekend was diminished by returning to the condo to find that the air conditioner wasn't working. It had been malfunctioning on Friday evening, just as the temperature was amping upwards, but Dad thought he had fixed it by restarting the unit, and it seemed to be fine when we left for the suburbs on Saturday morning. By Sunday night, however, it was a sweltering 78 degrees inside, and I've been doing battle with the damn thing ever since. The repairmen came today, and decided that the pitch of the unit was incorrect to promote proper draining (which apparently also explains my recent indoor humidity woes), and their attempts to repair it were unsuccessful. They are supposed to return tomorrow to install a pump to remove the excess water from the unit. Until then, I can only hope that they resolve this problem before the weekend, because I have company coming. More on that later...

Happy Father's Day...

Today I want to take a moment to wish everyone a Happy Father’s Day, although I believe the only father reading my blog is my own.

Growing up, I considered myself somewhat of a Daddy’s girl. Dad was busy being a provider for most of my childhood, working very hard to make a life for me and my mom. Mom had to be the disciplinarian, while Dad got to swoop in at the end of a long day and be the good guy.

However, as I have gotten older, my relationship with my dad has gotten much richer and deeper. I have come to realize that my dad is a very complex man – he is always surprising me with new facets to his personality, and as I have gotten older and more mature, I have become better at recognizing and appreciating all of his different sides.

For instance, Dad is a man who takes a curmudgeonly stance on approximately 98% of popular culture, but finds childlike joy in any number of unexpected things, like comic book movies. Dad has his work persona, which he has cultivated to be commanding and somewhat intimidating. Yet he is the same man who writes me a poem every year for my birthday. Here is a sample from this year’s offering:

It's your birthday, number 24

I remember that night, pacing the floor

Waiting for Mom to recover her feeling

And all the while, my mind was reeling.

I wondered that night, how it would turn out.

Facing the burden, I was full of doubt.

I must confess, things have gone well;

The story is fabulously good to tell!

Although he often says that he liked me better before I learned to talk back, I suspect he secretly enjoys sparring with me, now that we’re on a more even intellectual footing. I may give him a lot of crap, but it always comes from a place of love. Even if I sometimes hide it beneath a veneer of argumentativeness, I love my father very much, and I consider myself very fortunate to have him in my life. Happy Father’s Day, Dad!

I am the law, and the law is not much...

Yesterday, the Red Eye, the free daily newspaper from the publishers of the Chicago Tribune and my loyal lunchtime companion, ran an article on Chicago's indecipherable municipal code, and what its obscure laws and regulations can mean for your summer. For example, it is legal to barbecue on your balcony, but not if your balcony is made of wood and your building is a certain number of years old. It is illegal to bring alcohol to many Chicago festivals held in parks administered by the Chicago Park District, but acceptable to "brown bag it" if you are on a picnic in said parks. If you are under the age of 12, you can ride a bike on city sidewalks, but not within the "central business district," whose boundaries are far more expansive than I would traditionally define the Loop. If there is a way to make the law more confusing, it's been done.

As a sidebar, the article featured a smattering of other city ordinances, many of which are common sense but seldom observed. There is a law prohibiting urination and defecation on and and all public and private property, excepting temporary structures erected to serve as toilets (such as port-a-potties). Frankly, I think if the city actually tried to enforce that law, the jails would be full of homeless people and sports fans alike.

The local press is fond of covering obscure and ridiculous laws. Several months ago, while researching past aldermen for work, I ran across a treasure trove of old Tribune articles covering the yearly pursuits of a group of city legislators who would dredge up inane and outdated laws to overturn. They did this primarily to get their names in the paper, but also to draw attention to the need for a review and reconsideration of the city's monumental municipal code. While these anachronistic laws provide their share of laughs, I think they provide an interesting window not only into the time they were written, but also into the times in which they stricken from the books:

• In the 1970s, the City Council saw fit to strike down a law making it illegal to drive cattle through tunnels. Certainly, such concerns seemed ridiculous in the world of highways and mass transit, but in a world where Chicago was best known for its Stockyards, and hundreds of thousands of animals met their demise within the city limits, it would have been completely rational to write a law that kept them from blocking traffic in the underground streets downtown.
• Also during the 70s, the City Council struck down a law making it illegal to dispose of garbage and kitchen waste in outdoor privies. Now, I'm not sure what difference it would have made (surely, the privies would have smelled equally bad no matter what you put into them), but I'm sure they had their reasons.
  
• It remains illegal for people under the age of 18 to hang off the back of streetcars - a law enacted in the 1930s. I think that's perfectly reasonable - just think of the bodily harm that could befall a child who lost their grip and fell into busy city traffic! Never mind the fact that Chicago hasn't had streetcars since 1947, when the newly-formed Chicago Transit Authority took them over and shut them down.
• Until 2001, it was illegal to wear a hood in public. No word on when that law was enacted, but given the widespread popularity of hoodies as a fashion statement, and Chicago's arctic weather patterns, I'd say it's a good thing we've gotten the all-clear from the city.
  
• In 1986, in the Cold War fervor of the Regan era, Chicago's City Council voted to make the city a "nuclear free" zone, where it would be illegal to produce, store, or test nuclear weapons. I'm pretty sure there were never any nuclear test sites in Chicago, but it was a nice symbolic gesture to ban them in perpetuity. In the post 9/11 era, the law was rewritten to read that, "no person shall knowingly... design, produce, launch, maintain, or store nuclear weapons, or components of nuclear weapons." It's good to know, that should we ever, god-forbid, have a nuclear terrorist here, whatever is left of city government will be able to hit them with a fine and some potential jail time. What a relief!

In a way, I suppose my penchant for these anachronistic laws is based on the same curiosity that draws me to ghost signs. Both are obscure clues to the life of the past which persist in the present. Few people care enough to remove them, so instead, they languish in obscurity for those who are intrepid enough to search them out.