Pre-Pitchfork Madness
me: I’m a little worried about the heat. We’re going to have be sure to drink lots of water.
Brendan: Oh, it’ll be fine. It’s indie rock. We’ll just be staring at our feet.
south of the loop
If It’s Brown, Flush It Down
Walking home from work today, I passed a woman who was probably in her 50s, but looked sturdy and weathered. She was wearing a bright yellow t-shirt that said “let it mellow.”
Is there an anti-flush campaign in Hyde Park that I don’t know about?
Stephen Who?
Pitchfork Music Festival begins on Saturday! My friend Brendan arrives in the Windy City tomorrow night, hopefully well-hydrated and carrying extra sunscreen. Because Pitchfork does not allow for reentry. I find this appalling, and also somewhat overwhelming: two long music-packed days in Union Park with no place to go but the Port-a-Potty.
Although Brendan has assured me that my messy apartment will make him feel right at home, I still feel compelled to clear a path to his bed before I crash tonight. And so you’ll have to turn to the Chicagoist for a summary of what awaits me on Saturday and Sunday (and for arguably the best hipster t-shirt ever). There are actually very few bands I know well; strangely, this makes it exciting. Everybody is treating this like the sleeper hit of the summer, so my expectations are high but unspecific. Who knows what I’ll discover… (hopefully not the stench of a buncha fuckin’ hippies).
* * *
current book: just finished the first story in I Sailed with Magellan. Loved it. Very Billy Lombardo-esque, or, rather, Lombardo is very Dybek-esque.
current music: today required the familiar comfort and upbeat twang of the Old 97’s.
current socks: I am wearing so many bandaids that it looks like I’m wearing socks.
Unable To Put Two Words Together
Let alone an entire fucking blog post. So.
- Had a No Good, Very Bad Day for more reasons than I can say on the internet. It started off with me getting to work late and went downhill for there. As Julie recently said, it feels like I walked into another Monday.
- Finished Sweet Thursday, which I’ve grudgingly given 3 1/2 stars. If I figure out how to write again, I’ll start reviewing all the books I’m reading. Feeling a bit dried up, creatively speaking.
- Realized that one cannot use the stairs at work, since the stairwell doors are locked from the inside. Did not realize this, of course, until I was actually locked inside the stairwell. I had to walk down three flights of stairs in order to take the elevator back up.
- I now have to stay awake long enough to restore some order to my tornadic apartment, as one additional person AND two 12 week old kittens will be here for the weekend. I predict chaos.
* * *
current book: I Sailed with Magellan by Stuart Dybek, a Chicago writer most famous for Coast of Chicago, which was Chicago’s “One Book, One City” selection a few years ago.
current music: it’s been a fairly high volume week for tunes in my little hole at work. Entre Rios, The Libertines, Canasta, Arto Lindsay, Kings of Convenience…
current socks: slices of citrus fruit with the word “JUICY” written across the bottom. Thanks, Julie.
This Used To Be My Playground
Friday afternoon on my way home from work, I saw some boys playing in one of the school playgrounds. They seemed a little old for playgrounds, maybe 11 or so, but I was remembering the Billy Lombardo book I just finished, in which the Wallace Playlot plays a prominent role in the neighborhood boys’ lives. The Wallace Playlot actually existed in Bridgeport, and it was where the boys played softball, and more importantly, where they grew up. Nobody realized the impact the Wallace Playlot had on their lives–maybe not even the boys themselves–and one day, the playlot was gone, ready for a “new development.”
Lombardo’s book is a series of short stories, most of which are about Petey, whom I take to be a rough approximation for Lombardo’s own boyhood. The stories start when Petey is about seven and follow him into young teenhood. The Wallace Playlot disappears when Petey is maybe ten or twelve, and suddenly, the next story shows him smoking pot and hanging with a rougher crowd. The implications are a little heavy-handed for my tastes, but the point still rings true: the Wallace Playlot was where boys learned how to be boys, and once gone, they were thrust quickly into manhood.
As I walked down 59th Street on Friday, these boys were playing some variation of a “fortress” game. Three were standing on a piece of wooden playground equipment, and three were standing on part of a building (a windowsill, maybe) a little ways away, and they threw small objects at each other, trying to duck and throw at the same time.
I thought how great it was that even in Hyde Park in 2006, these boys had found their Wallace Playlot. And then I hear, “Y’all muthafuckers cain’t throw for shit! Ha!”
* * *
current book: still on Sweet Thursday, still undecided.
current music: saw Canasta live on Thursday night at the Subterranean, where the played a great (if a little short) show.
current socks: I totally wore the watermelon socks with my green Keens on Friday.
Lousy Wednesday
Got to the Metra station this morning just as the train doors were opening–I ran through the masses of people that were pouring out and got to the doors just as they were closing. I banged on the window, but the conductor was just turning away. Waited–in the rain and the thunder and the lightning–for fifteen minutes for the next train to come. Realized I had forgotten my lunch on the kitchen counter.
When I got on the train, I opened my book. The next chapter was called “Lousy Wednesday” and began like this:
Some days are born ugly. From the very first light they are no damn good whatever the weather, and everybody knows it. No one knows what causes this, but on such a day people resist getting out of bed and set their heels against the day. When they are finally forced out by hunger or job they find that the day is just as lousy as they knew it would be.
On such a day it is impossible to make a good cup of coffee, shoestrings break, cups leap from the shelf by themselves and on the floor, children ordinarily honest tell lies, and children ordinarily good unscrew the taop handles of the gas range and lose the screws and have to be spanked. This is the day the cat chooses to have kittens and housebroken dogs wet on the parlor rug.
Oh, it’s awful on such a day! The postman brings overdue bills. If it’s a sunny day it is too damn sunny, and if it is dark who can stand it?
* * *
I just had four–or maybe five?–Miller High Lifes, so I’m not feeling especially articulate right now. But I did find out that this led to 800 hits on the Canasta website today. I’m “Dawntread from the University of Chicago.” (Dawntread is the username under which I made the comment recommending Canasta. Please do not judge me for it.)
Goodnight.
I Bet He’s From Texas
I met my workout buddy at Ratner, the U of C gym, on Saturday morning. Neither of us had any idea that the Ratner pool was the site of the swimming events for the Gay Games. Every stereotype about gay men? In the flesh. In large numbers. Cute gay boys prancing and strutting about in darling little Speedos–many of which sported flowers or swirlies. We saw several men wearing t-shirts or sweatshirts that said, “KY LIQUID SWIMMERS.” The pièce de résistance, the crème de la crème? A cute gay boy in a Speedo and a cowboy hat prancing about by the pool.
As we left the gym, a man ran up to us and offered us free bottles of water. I took mine and exclaimed, “There’s even a rainbow on the water bottle!” The man responded, “Well, we want everybody to know that not all Christians hate gay people.” A noble cause, indeed!
The Jesus Water (so named by my Jewish workout buddy) has a website on its label: www.myfreewater.com. Take a look, if you dare. I took the quiz that determined that I am neither a good person nor good enough to get into Heaven. The “lakes of fire” were mentioned. Apparently even gay Christians like a little fire and brimstone.
Is staring at this considered “lustful,” even if it’s just admiration of the human body? Even though we both like boys?
* * *
current book: Sweet Thursday. About 60 pages into it and I neither hate nor love it. I’m still not convinced it will change my mind about Steinbeck, but it’s good enough to keep me (mostly) open-minded.
current music: “Busby Berkeley Dreams” by The Magnetic Fields. “I should have forgotten you long ago / but you’re in every song I know.”
current socks: it’s definitely sandal/flip-flop weather. But I am very excited to wear the socks Julie just sent me–the watermelons in particular. The tops of the socks are red with watermelon seeds printed on them, and the sides and bottoms are the green rind. You can bet I’m going to wear them with my green Keens so that they form the rind. Yes. I am the biggest dork ever.
And On Our Right Are The Crack Dealers…
I live just south of the Midway Plaisance (which was the midway for the 1893 World’s Fair), just south of the law school, near nowhere in particular. The 59 bus route goes down my street, but otherwise, it’s not very busy.
But last Thursday night, I got home around 11pm. And as I was walking toward my apartment building on 61st Street, I was passed by … a bright red double-decker tour bus. Filled–not to the max, but filled nonetheless–with passengers. I’ve seen some of these buses downtown, but certainly not anywhere near the South Side. Certainly not at 11pm. And certainly not driving west down 61st Street, headed straight for Cottage Grove.
How do you think the bus driver explained that wrong turn?
Godzilla Takes Highland Avenue
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-2013696913284272407&playerMode=embedded]
The Thing Itself
Six kinds of wonderful indeed! I just discovered LibraryThing thanks to former MAPH-mate Dan, and I can’t get enough. You should all immediately follow these steps to achieve a state of satisfaction. You will achieve something akin to bliss if you are OCD and already have a library database on your own computer:
1. go to www.librarything.com
2. type in a username and password. it took me a minute to understand the simplicity of this, but that’s really all there is. type in whatever you want, and you’re signed up.
3. begin adding books.
What, you’re not convinced? Check out my profile and my catalog. And anyways, how do you not fall head over heels in love with a site that offers you the option of uploading a picture of a tapir as your profile image?
