Tuesday: pouring rain in Chicago. Not that that stopped anyone from going out in it -- the streets were still teeming with tourists...and with Teamsters. Every other block seemed to be torn up and blocked off with traffic cones and gates. I walked about seven blocks until I came to the Museum of Contemporary Art.
I love art museums...all kinds. The staid, painterly Old Masters, and the deeply weird as well. I half-remembered seeing some of Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs at this museum on a previous trip to Chicago, without knowing about the NEA controversy. I'd only seen the exhibit at all because there were two women coming out from the exhibit hall talking in loud voices about how disgusting the pictures were, how grossed out they were, etc. and I had to find out what THAT was all about...! I've always thought that if we degenerated completely into an Orwellian time of extreme censorship that I would want to be on the board of censors to decide what was too shocking for everybody *else* to see...I always want to reserve the right to look at anything and everything *myself*....
(And P.S. I remember that the Mapplethorpe photographs weren't all that controversial or upsetting....there were about six scary S&M type photographs, but the rest were gorgeous black and white images of flowers and celebrities, with deep inky, velvety blacks and sharp, blinding whites, and all the subtle shadings of gray in between. It's really too bad -- unless it's true that there's no such thing as bad publicity -- that people remember him as just a pervy photographer who got Jesse Helms' panties in a twist and then later died of AIDS. A lot of his stuff was truly masterful: http://www.mapplethorpe.org/portraits.html)
For some reason, there was a open-air market set up outside the museum. I'm sure all that produce was happy to be out in the rain, but all those plastic-bagged breads were surely steaming and molding away as people bobbed around with their umbrellas, picking their way through the merchandise.
Inside, all the personnel were wearing t-shirts that said Fear No Art.
The first floor was a complete disappointment. A few "artists" had taken the extreme view of Mapplethorpe to heart and slapped up images on the walls of various themes of homosexuality or exposure -- but without Mapplethorpe's talent or technique. I don't care whether you're gay, but I don't think gayness is automatically art. (It's hardly even avant-garde any more.) I dismissed most of it as non-art. Close ups of crumpled white t-shirts...boring (not art). Extreme close ups of body hair...zzzz...not art. Lots of guys kissing and masturbating, and what I decided was just bad snapshots of people's once-beloved ex-boyfriends (snore -- and definitely not art). One large blow up of a guy picking his toes (not naked, thankfully...and not art). A guy with his pants down, pissing on a chair (definitely not art). Disturbing images of inexplicable rivulets of blood with no source shown (which was probably a blessing) and rapturous expressions (not art). And then, oddly juxtaposed, the occasional well-composed photograph of flowers in a vase (art).
I'd put on the same tshirt from the day before, thinking who would care? -- I'd keep my coat on. But once I'd been walking around the museum for awhile, I decided the chicken marsala stain was a Statement. I sat down to dig out my Chicago guide book, intending to ditch this crummy museum -- and being very glad it was Free Tuesday, because I would have been annoyed to have spent money on these bad exhibits -- being careful to choose a room that didn't have anything *too* weird on the walls.
(Decided the t-shirts on the museum personnel were a misprint. They should have said: Fear Not: No Art Here.)
I tore the map out of the back of the Frommers (stubborn perforations...I left a pile of little perforated bits on the bench, wondering if someone would come by later and fence it off, thinking it was "art.") Why do they include a map at all if they're not going to indicate each street? I drew my intended route right on the map, since it was going to be a throwaway.
I went up the stairs, hoping the museum would redeem itself, but there was room after room of I Don't Get It. A room of Julia Oldham doing what can only be described as bug performance art -- videos of her crawling around making mechanical, repetitive motions and clacking and clicking. Although I have to say it was marginally interesting to see that in this century, Kafka wakes up as a cockroach, but wearing a strappy red minidress (points for originality).
Nice architecture, although the stairs were black and you had to watch where you were going because the risers were not all obvious. Cool stairwell though, with what looked like a koi pond at the bottom.
A room of Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan art, and some rejects from Alexander Calder. And then, a surprise: a room with gorgeous black and white photography of Chicago scenes, taken at night, every detail sharp as a tack. Spectacular, and almost carried the day.
Followed by a room of pink and yellow neon bars - Hello Kitty Morse Code in UPC? and lots of caterpillars of schoolchildren, whom I hoped hadn't been trekked through the bizarro penis-o-rama on the first floor...(!)
The museum did have a fabulous gift shop. There were some "cakes" shaped and formed out of washtowels, very cleverly done. After seeing some of the "art" upstairs, though, I did wonder if the funky kitchen gadgets for sale were supposed to be some kind of nudge-nudge-wink-wink kinky sex toys, so I averted my eyes.
Outside again, the rain and wind had picked up and there was a big waft of basil from the outdoor produce stand, as if trying to blast the bad imagery out of my head.
I walked in the rain, looking for LaSalle, which kept cueing up the theme to "All in the Family" in my head, with one wet sleeve (the arm not holding the umbrella), and the hems of my pant legs getting heavier and heavier on the slog to Carson's for ribs. The ink ran on my crummy map as if it cried all the way across the river to Wacker Drive. I passed a woman with a very cool Merimekko umbrella (hey lady! where'd ya get that cool umbrella??), around vacant lots ringed with chain link fences, sandbags at their metal feet to keep them from blowing over, and more ripped-up roads. A female construction worker with a long, wet ponytail, snapping her gum and carrying a stop sign (with blob of cement still stuck on the bottom). And finally, Carson's, a lighthouse in the mist for the soaking wet and hungry.
Not an extended-pinkie kind of place :) The first item on the menu was Garbage salad (gimme some gahbage!) a chop salad of cukes, tomatoes, scallions, artichokes, egg, hearts of palm, bacon -- a plate o' garbage will set you back $8.95. Also a black and blue salad on the menu of steak and roquefort. Soon, I was seated in a flowered banquette surrounded by photographs of baseball players, sucking on spicy bones -- bliss! and potato skins while the Supremes crooned "Come See About Meeee...." Good bread and real butter and real sour cream. The bread was good enough to steal, but unfortunately, the waiter took the bread away before I could steal it.
Outside in the slop again I flagged down a taxi and a guy in a turban took me to Marshall Fields where I snapped a picture of their Tiffany dome and shopped for lingerie. Took a short walk a few doors down to the Chicago School of Massage where I waited for my (walk-in) appointment to be available (and stole their copy of Vogue, criminal that I am).
Buffed and kneaded and loose as a noodle, I crawled into another cab to deposit me back at the hotel, where the actual festivities of the conference were starting that evening. Listened to the keynote speaker (the dude was wound UP -- must have had about forty cups of java to talk that fast) and balanced the free hors d'oeuvres on a plate while Melissa and I planned where to go afterwards. Chicago is famous for its blues, but unfortunately, my only exposure to actual blues is Tom & Jerry doing "Is you is or is you ain't my babehhhh..." so Iwas no expert. We decided on the Back Room Jazz club.
Took a "Lady Diana cab ride" on a flight through downtown Chicago where Melissa squeaked in fear next to me as the driver attempted to run down a pedestrian. He drove so fast that even the most devoted atheist in the world would have had to cross himself and reconsider his relationship with Jesus. He did deliver us whole, deathwish notwithstanding -- and possibly back a few minutes in time as well. I paid but did not tip the lunatic.
We'd gotten there so early they were still doing the soundcheck, and they seated us at the bar, although every table appeared open. It was a classic jazz club, brick walls, red cups with little flames on the little round tables. We thought the place was dead (Tuesday night after all), but it turned out that every table was reserved and we discovered we were lucky to have our seats at the bar, because the place filled to capacity in no time for Bill Perna and Persistence -- a 7-pc band of two trombones, trumpet, keyboard, bass, sax, and vocalist. They cranked up the wahwahwah....and covered Benny Goodman and Count Basie and Ray Charles standards, until there was nothing but the thrum of music, the flares of lighters and cigarettes, and everyone tapping their toes like the Rippington's hep cat.
The vocalist was fantastic. She looked like Janice on the Sopranos, but she sounded like Teena Marie, and by the time everyone in the room had had a few drinks, they were ALL singing along to "I Can't Help Myself...(Sugar Pie Honey Bunch...)" and "Get Ready" and "Runaround (Lou)." The band continued to play classics when she took breaks, playing Duke Ellington (Don't Get Around Much Any More) and Sinatra/Bennett (I'll Be Seeing You) and other standards.
Hearing everyone sing along to "Mustang Sally" (ride, Sally ride...!) and the white wine I was drinking made me think about my mom. And I'd just read before we left that there had been a subway accident in Chicago, and I was thinking that I was glad I hadn't been on it and how that kind of near-miss always makes me think someone is watching over me. (Cheers, Mom...how do you like that saxophone wail...?)
The cab ride back was with a much more mild-mannered (and rare) woman. We tipped big time because she didn't try to kill us, and because we were still giggling and bubbling with the wine from the bar.
and you knew who you were then...
girls were girls and men were men
Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again
Didn't need no welfare state
everybody pulled his weight
Gee, our old LaSalle ran great
Those were the daaaays....