While we were strolling along Michigan Avenue, I paused to take an interesting self portrait. See if you can spot me.
If you know my travel habits, it's easy. I have a tradition which borders on superstition. On the first day of a trip, I wear the same green and blue striped Polo shirt. They family calls it my "travel shirt," and it can be spotted in photos from across the country and across the years. This is the second of its kind. The first one is filled with holes, but it has a place of honor on a shelf in my closet. The shirt is rarely worn in a non-travel context and my people are slightly unsettled if I leave home without wearing it.
Anyhow, my photos from Millenium Park have prompted more than one Daddy D reader to ask "what is that thing?" Let the mystery be solved: It's the Cloud Gate, and for obvious reasons it attracts crowds to its reflected clouds. It was designed by British artist Anish Kapoor. Here's the info from the Milleneum Park webpage:
The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect the city's famous skyline and the clouds above. A 12-foot-high arch provides a "gate" to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives.
Inspired by liquid mercury, the sculpture is among the largest of its kind in the world, measuring 66-feet long by 33-feet high. Cloud Gate sits upon the At&T Plaza, which was made possible by a gift from AT&T.
My observation that people in Chicago won't make eye contact with strangers in combination with my Cloud Gate encounter has had me singing the old Heart song "Dreamboat Annie." Here are the salient lyrics:
Going down the city sidewalk alone in the crowd
No one knows the lonely one whose head's in the clouds
Sad faces painted over with those magazine smiles
Heading out to somewhere won't be back for a while...
Sometimes, life is a song.
Saturday, August 08, 2009
What Is That Thing?
Mostly Uneventul Travels
We made it from our hotel to the gate at O'Hare's American Airlines terminal in what must be record time: 38 minutes. That's good news, even though we wound up having to sit around for a lot longer than expected. Everything had been going smoothly. Flights were on time, trains were right on schedule and the (seemingly dozens of) taxi drivers we hired along the way seemed to be taking efficient routes between our destinations. Then, we got on the plane in Chicago. We had been sitting there for about 25 minutes when the pilot announced that the mechanics had given the ol' girl a once-over and she was unfit to fly. So, we got off the plane.
Now this was frustrating, to be sure. The Captain seemed grateful for my response when he spoke to me, seemingly in a random fashion, saying "Sorry for the delay, but it's better to be safe." I said, "Sir, I couldn't agree with you more."
Happily, we were in a major airport and there happened to be a spare MD-80 sitting in a hangar. We were delayed about two hours, but it's not the end of the world.
Here's the thing: the American Airlines personnel at O'Hare said they could not check us through on our new connections, that we had to wait until we got to Dallas. We did not believe them, so we called American Airlines on the telephone. Guess what? The guy on the phone checked us through! We are convinced the people on the ground in Chicago were straight-up lying because they just didn't want to fool with it. What other explanation could there be?
When it was all finished, we got home slightly more than an hour later than we had planned, so it wasn't a big deal, at all.
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The good people of Chicagoland were nice enough, I suppose. I can't say they were unfriendly. I can say they were for the most part non-friendly. It's like eye contact is some kind of social transgression. It was the biggest collection of isolationist introverts I could possibly imagine. When we, as southerners, tried to engage them in witty folksy banter, they would get kind of wide-eyed. I swear, if small children had been around, those people might have huddled protectively around them. Mostly, they seemed to walk around like robots, staring straight ahead surrounded by some kind of no-speak zone with a mantra something like "don't look at me, don't speak to me, I am safe here on my own little emotional island." When I broke away from my traveling party, I very much felt alone in a crowd.
And, oh by the way...there seems to be some kind of constitutional prohibition on Coca-Cola products there. I've never seen so much Pepsi. Maybe that's what wrong with those people.
It was a great trip, but I'm glad to be home where people engage in conversations and the Diet Coke flows freely.
Friday, August 07, 2009
Second City Sights and Sounds
(Chicago)- Off to Illinois for a conference, I was sternly instructed by a friend who lived here for a time that I must prioritize the consumption of pizza, Chicago style. Where better to do that? It's true, some things just speak for themselves. So, a couple of hours after landing at O'Hare, I put my priorities in the proper order and got it done.
Having only the big chains and one Louisiana-based pizzaria to compare it to, I'm no expert of the quality of this particular kind of pie, but it was good. I hope I chose wisely. I wouldn't want to face harsh criticism for not sampling something truly representative.
Several hours were spent walking around downtown, including Michigan Avenue and the lakefront. Hoping not to look like some kind of bumpkin, I kept telling myself not to look up at the tall buildings, but I couldn't help myself. You have to take in the sights.
There's no avoiding the white-hot spotlight that brands the traveling companions and me as visitors. Wandering around aimlessly with maps and train schedules, we call attention to ourselves anytime we speak in our Louisiana accents. So, I've tried to use this to our advantage. On several occasions, I have successfully disarmed locals by ratcheting up the drawl just a little and saying "We're from the country. We don't get out much." After hearing that, people typically are very helpful.
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What would a trip to the big city be without baseball? 
As luck would have it, the Cubs are on the road, so we were off to the other part of town and the much-maligned U.S. Celluar Field. The Angels are in town to play the White Sox. The weather was spectacular and the game was exciting. Jim Thome hit two home runs to thrill the Southside crowd. The ballpark seemed nice to me. The evening offered everything you would expect, including hot dogs and beer, so I left happy.
Back to those accents: It seems like I fell asleep and woke up in a Saturday Night Live skit or something. You think we talk funny, you ought to hear these people! At the game, the easily distinguishable Chicago brand of American English was on abundant display around us. To my southern ear, it was funny to hear. I wonder how long, if I lived here, it would take for me to talk funny too?
So far, the experience has been positive. The people are pleasant in a subtle, passive sort of way. The big news, though, is that in my quest to visit as many big league ballparks as possible before I die, I added another one to my list, even if it is the "other" stadium in town.
