I passed a panhandler on the street this week, and he called out to me “Hey, Clint Eastwood!”
The grandkids called my wife for her birthday, and reassured her that “You’re not old. Grandpa’s old.”
This morning I walked up the stairs to the top of our building (twenty floors). I was waiting to take the elevator down (save the knees) when the roof inspectors came by.
“You live on twenty?” one asked.
“No, I just walk up the stairs for exercise,” I replied.
“Twenty floors?! You’re kidding!”
Posted inNews from Chicago|Comments Off on How old do I look, anyway?
In the 1999 movie The Watcher, James Spader’s character, Campbell, lives not far from our house on Argyle Street. Every night Campbell walks across the street from his apartment and has dinner at Phở Xe Lửa.
One evening Campbell is having dinner with his colleague Hollis. Hollis is frustrated by the mechanics of eating a bowl of phở, and declares the venue “the worst restaurant in Chicago”. (Campbell counters that it’s a fine restaurant.)
We’d been by the restaurant many times since seeing the movie, but we never ate there. Tonight we decided to give it a try.
Alas, after twenty-two-plus years, the Health Department closed them down a few weeks ago.
We are lucky in that we live next to Lincoln Park (you can see part of it in the “Edgewater Beach Now” picture on the right side of this blog). Although I have spent many hours in the park this summer, I still haven’t seen all that it has to offer. Today we travelled a few miles south of our building and visited the park’s North Pond. (Lincoln Park is about seven miles long.)
North Pond has been reclaimed, restored, and is now a native prairie and wetland area. We saw lots of butterflies and bees in the extensive wildflower fields. Down by the lake we saw a Great Blue Heron.
We did not see this particular bird, but one that looked just like it
There was a birder there who identified the heron for us, and told us that it was a young one, probably making his first trip down from Minnesota or Northern Michigan to the south. He could tell by its color that it was male. He said it would probably winter over in Texas or Florida. I remember seeing birds like this on January bike rides through Brookshire.
Ducks and turtles were also out on the lake. In addition, we found a Michelin-starred little restaurant tucked away in the park.
North Pond Restaurant
Although we did not eat there – advance reservations only – CVH went inside and spoke with the general manager, and now she wants to go back and have brunch.
We continued our walk and went around the Nature Museum, which has been edifying Chicago residents since 1869, if you can imagine. That was before the Great Fire! (Although North Pond was not here at the time, the Fire did reach this far, miles from the O’Leary barn.) The original museum burned in the fire, as you might expect.
Nature Museum on North Pond in the Springtime
The grounds around the Museum are a delight for city dwellers. The location was popular with what appeared to be wedding engagement photo shoots. We tried not to insert ourselves in too many of them, but it was a busy place.
Not as busy inside the park as it was right outside, though. It was perfect Sunday weather for visiting the park, and traffic was horrendous. Outside the park cars kept circling, looking for parking spots and honking their horns. Fortunately, we didn’t hear any of this inside the park, and more fortunately, we took the bus.
After the museum area, we went to the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool.
Really pretty.
The Lily Pool has been around since 1889, and its fortunes waxed and waned over the years until it was restored about twenty years ago. It is just stunning now. More photo shoots. Old-timers will note that the Muzak has been removed.
A Chicago (or maybe Evanston) artist has installed a number of Buddha heads around the city. Several of them lie between the lakefront bike path and the freeway, and I pass by them regularly.
The artist, Indira Johnson, says the images are intended to invoke feelings of calm and peace.
There are those who, noting that this is not a traditional way of depicting the Buddha, complain that this is cultural appropriation. Rare, though, is the art piece that doesn’t upset someone.
The Balbo Monument consists of an ancient Roman breccia column on top of a plinth. It commemorates a difficult transatlantic seaplane crossing by the Italian aviator Italo Balbo. The column dates to the period of Julius Caesar, and comes from the ancient port city of Ostia. It was a gift to Chicago from Benito Mussolini.
Not well thought of by everybody
I’ve always been fascinated by ancient Rome, so I thought I’d best go see it while I could, before it is cancelled out of existence (it has already been removed from Google Maps). I rode a Divvy bike downtown to seek it out.
The Balbo Monument in prouder days
It’s not too hard to find if you’re looking for it, but it doesn’t stand out anymore. The pine trees in the photo above have grown all around it to hide it from view, and it’s surrounded by a ten foot chain link fence. Still, it’s fascinating to see something that stood in the city when and where Cleopatra’s ships unloaded their grain to make Roman bread. As long as you don’t focus on who gave it to us.
I had no idea, but there is a whole series of these books for elementary school children. With titles like “What Did We Do Before Online Shopping?” and “What Did We Do Before Social Media?”
I should get busy writing and knock out a few myself. How about:
“What Did We Do Before Seat Belts?”
“What Did We Do Before Low-Fidelity Streaming Music?”
“What Did We Do Before College Was Unaffordable?”
“What Did We Do Before Strict Drunk Driving Laws?”
“What Did We Do Before People Shot Up Schools And Churches?”
“What Did We Do Before Free Pornography On The Internet?”
Today’s Wall Street Journal has an review of a new Chicago skyscraper. Otherwise laudatory, the writer found it necessary to mention that the building, and Chicago, sits on the east side of Lake Michigan.
It’s bad enough that the WSJ feels it is necessary to mention Chicago is on Lake Michigan, but the east side?
Posted inNews from Chicago|Comments Off on The New Yorker Perspective
