The Mayors of My Life

I've got the final recap of my roadtrip in the pipeline (after finally finishing uploading 340 photos - yeesh!), but we interrupt my slacking to bring you some Breaking News!

HO-LEE SHEEEIT!

Amy texted me at work to tell me Mayor Daley wasn't seeking a seventh term as mayor. For those who don't live in Chicago, this is a BIG DEAL. Shocking - I honestly thought he was going to stay in office until he had a chest grabber like his old man, Richard J. 42 of the last 55 years has had a Daley running Chicago, so it's going to be hard to imagine this city Daley-less. Not to mention all the $$$ we're going to end up spending peeling Richie's name off of every surface that matters in this town. Seeing as "Da Mare" has been in power since I was in 8th grade (ack), I thought I'd take this opportunity to look back on the Mayors of Chicago in my lifetime.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

If I could accomplish even half of what I set out to do, I think I'd be quite pleased with myself. Unfortunately life tends to get in my way - work takes out a significant portion of my time during the week: I leave my apartment at 6:30 every morning, and get home between 6 and 7 at night (depending on traffic and when I can pry my ass out of my office chair). So by the time I settle in and eat, it's usually close to 8pm which leaves me about 2 hours or so of free time. I think I may be slightly manic as I tend to have short intense bursts of inspiration and desire to work on my aspirations. Unfortunately, those bursts tend to happen at inappropriate times - like when I'm at work, or at 10:30pm on a weeknight when I really need to go to bed. On the weekends I tend to try to squeeze in all the errands I was too lazy/didn't have time for in the week (i.e. laundry, grocery shopping, naps) which leaves me only sporadic blocks of time of which to work with. Add what I think is a slight case of ADD (I swear I would have been medicated as a kid had I been born twenty years later) which I'm noticing is getting worse as I get older, and I'm shocked I can finish any kind of artistic endeavor.

AnyWAY, the point of this post was not to bitch about how I don't have time to do the things I want, but to tell you what those things are. Like the essay you'd always be stuck writing that first week back to grammar school in the fall ("This summer I wrote my bike to White Hen for Slush Puppies every day and bought baseball cards from Roadway Pharmacy" [this is seriously what I did]), here's a list of what I hope I can accomplish this summer. Please note I am a realist and know there's no way I can get all of this done. I will put these in order of what I feel is doable, and also because ordering lists soothes me. Hey, I can't help that - I'm anal retentive.

Post 100: Back in Time When the Floor Shook

To my amazement, this post marks the 100th entry on my blog since I started it at the beginning of the year. I'm shocked to an extent that I've maintained it for this long, as I've never kept anything like this running for more than a couple of weeks. This has evolved into a hockey/sports blog, which wasn't really my intention. No worries, as soon as the NHL playoffs end, I'm sure this blog will become more of my original vision - a home for my snark, random links and stuff I find interesting. I bet you can't wait!

In "celebration" of this occasion, I got the new scanner humming and present you with the following - pictures I took of the Chicago Stadium - the home of the Blackhawks, Bulls, circus, ice capades and random bad concerts prior to the United Center. I don't remember exactly when I took these photographs - it was somewhere between 1988 - 1990 as I did a history fair project on the Wirtz family. Don't ask me why - I guess it was a little more respectable than just a project on the Blackhawks. Of course I no longer have the actual report I wrote as it was done on a typewriter. In any case, one day my dad drove me down to the Stadium to take pictures for the posterboard. I just remember my dad attempting to nervously rush me as back in those days the neighborhood was pretty bad and there was CHA housing close by. Looking back, it's rather comical to think someone was going to shoot us as we took a few pictures, but my dad was being parental I suppose.

Seeing these photographs again bring back so many memories: the anticipation of seeing a Hawks game, feeling the floor shake when the crowd roared, the way your feet would stick to the floor, the swear words I learned at a young age. There will never be another place like it. Le sigh.

A post about the shitstorm that was Game One of the SCF later - I'm going to run across the street now and see if I can still get breakfast at McDonald's!

Flickr: On Art and Film

We had Monday off, and Amy had a $5 off admission coupon, so we headed to the Art Institute. I hadn't been there in years (at least six because I went before I knew Amy), so I was stoked to finally see the modern wing. I enjoyed it - it's not as deep as say MoMA, or as experimental as the MCA, but they had a good variety, and the building is quite incredible. I will complain the wood floors can be quite loud for anyone not wearing sneakers. They had several pieces by a couple of my favorite artists.

As a painter, Fernand Leger is usually thrown into the Cubist movement - pretty evident as you can see by his paining The Railway Crossing (1919) on the right. I am hot and cold on cubism - depending on the artist I can take it or leave it. But my real love for Leger can be summed up in two words: Ballet Mechanique. Anyone who has taken a history of film class has probably seen it. Made in 1924, it is a silent experimental short of well - a mechanical ballet. Besides who couldn't love a film that includes Kiki de Montparnasse.



They also had Marcel Duchamp's Hat Rack (left). I know some people have issues with the concept of readymades, but I think they're genius. Several friends and I traveled to Cincinnati last spring the see the only American gallery showing of "Surrealism and Beyond." They had a lot of great pieces there including Duchamp's Fountain and L.H.O.O.Q - I can now die happy. They understandably didn't allow photos in the exhibit, but my friend did sneak a blurry picture of Fountain. My other favorite work of Duchamp is his film Anemic Cinema (1926). It includes one of my favorite quotes of all time - "Parmi nos articles de quinquillerie par essence, nous recommandans le robinet qui s'arrête de couloir quand on ne l'ecoute pas" (Among our articles of lazy hardware, we recommend a faucet which stops dripping when nobody is listening to it).




Lastly, I must explain the meaning of the photo to the left. That's me with Van Gogh's Bedroom In Arles. Being a film major, I was required to take four semesters of art history. I didn't mind as I actually enjoy art - except for impressionists - how many fucking haystacks can you paint Monet? I will date myself and say that most classes consisted of the lights being turned off and viewing the artworks via slides. It doesn't take much for me to fall asleep - honestly I fell asleep several times in band in high school and I was in the percussion section. So most classes were a struggle to stay awake even though I was interested in the subject matter. One particular class we were discussing Van Gogh and this painting. Being half asleep, I scribbled in my notes the painting's title as "Bedroom at Oral." Logic dictates that this is wrong, but for some reason, I thought that was the name of the painting. Several weeks later I was discussing the possible paintings that may be on the final exam with my friend via phone. The conversation went something like this:

"Well how about Van Gogh? Do you think Bedroom at Oral will be on the exam"

"What?"

"Bedroom at Oral - you know, the Van Gogh painting?"

*silence*

"That's Bedroom at Arles you idiot!"

Yeah, it's been over ten years and I still haven't lived that down.

Flickr: Summer in Chicago (11 Photos)

Took these last August when Amy had family in town. I thought it would be nice to put some summer photos up - it's an excellent reminder that eventually the sun will be out and I can wear sandals again. Unfortunately not soon enough. I swear, the older I get, the more I can understand moving south for the winter.

I still have lots of photos to upload. I have half of the pictures from Germany last summer (including all of Hamburg & Flensburg), the trip to the Sign Museum in Cincinnati last spring and all kinds of odds and ends. I could just upload them in a bunch, but since I'm so anal rententive on tagging and researching certain things, it takes me forever, and honestly I just have to be in the right mood to do it. I just ordered more memory for my computer because it doesn't help it is slower than molasses when I try to multitask like use the internet, itunes and fool around with my photos. If that doesn't help I'll have to start considering a new computer in the near future. I think my current one is about three, which is good, but really that's almost ancient. If I upgrade I'll think I'll make the jump to a laptop - probably a Mac Book Pro.

I really should sleep now.