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Dept, of Lo, She Rises
Chicago
It's been more than a month since I put my brain in gear and posted here. It's been a month of little ambition and fewer spoons, I guess. But I'm going to get back to posting, I swear to god.
Doing this - getting back up on the blogging bicycle - is more difficult than it once was. I try to find something interesting to say, and when I can't find something that meets that description (at least in my own eyes), I write nothing at all. Worse than that are the times when I do have an idea I think is worth writing about - and I still can't put pen to paper. But there comes a time one must attempt it, she said portentously.
So here I am, on a fairly sunny Sunday, with nearly all our windows open and the tiniest breeze making it truly enjoyable, ready to write about Chicago.
I was 26 when I arrived in Chicago in January of 1981. It was supposed to be a three-hour tour three day visit with my friend, the late, beloved, and indescribable Ed Sunden. I was headed for Los Angeles, to look for work at one of the area's weekly newspapers, but I never made it. I met Bob, and the rest is history.
And now I'm thinking about why I consider myself a Chicagoan. I'm not sure native-born Chicagoans would, but I've learned since coming here that the city is mine to adopt.
I've been here well over half my 67 years of life. Within the first two weeks, I knew I loved the city the same way I loved Bob when we'd drive north on what is now DuSable Lake Shore Drive, at 4:30 a.m., after the Barbarossa* closed, and the lights of the apartment hi-rises looked like jewels in the darkness.
Forty-two years later, I still love that drive. I love Lake Michigan, blue or grey, with whitecaps or still, on the other side of the Drive. I love the city's musical history; it's where I learned to love jazz, where I sang in an unsuccessful rock and roll band, where I became comfortable with Blues Before Sunrise.
I love all the big things, of course; the museums, Millennium Park, the Lincoln Park and Garfield Park conservatories, and even if I'm no longer comfortable going to the Lincoln Park or Brookfield Zoos, I acknowledge them. I love the El, and the fact that I can travel all across the city via its Red, Green, Purple, Brown, Yellow, Pink, and Orange lines.
I love the food: Italian beef sandwiches in their drippy glory, and deep dish, about which the late Anthony Bourdain was wrong. And Thai food. And Japanese food. And food from all corners of the Indian subcontinent (ah, Devon Avenue - Pakistani restaurants east of Western, Indian restaurants west of it, all of it delicious), I love ribs and rib tips, and hot dogs without ketchup, dragged through the garden, and ... well, you get the picture.
I love other things that maybe aren't so big or famous. I love that this is a news-oriented city. I support the scrappy Sun-Times and the even scrappier Reader and Block Club Chicago news outlets. I even support the damnable Tribune; I may hate it for a lot of reasons, but it's Chicago through and through.
I love the alleys, and the pigeons; I even respect the rats, although I admit that they're more of an honored enemy than a friend.
What ties this city together are its people, the ones born here, and the ones, like me, who chose the city. I have no desire to leave Chicago, not even to move to a near suburb. I'm happy in Rogers Park, at the city's far north border with Evanston. I'm a Northsider, but the South and West Sides, and the Northwest Side where I lived for the first five or so months of my sojourn, are just as much part of my city. In fact, as South and West Siders will tell you, their neighborhoods comprise the geographic majority of the city, and woe betide any Northsider being dismissive of them. Not a smart move.
So here's to all the neighborhoods; to Logan Square, to East Garfield Park, to Austin, to Edgewater and Uptown, to Pilsen and Little Village, to Englewood and West Garfield Park, to Humboldt Park, to Back of the Yards, to Albany Park, to the Loop, to South Shore ... you are all Chicago. Here's to the people in the three-flats and the bungalows, in the hi-rises, in the garden apartments, in the tough and dirty neighborhoods, in the places fighting gentrification, in the shiny Near North and the dusty West Side.
Those of us who choose to love Chicago are protective of it. We dislike it when non-Chicagoans try to tell us what to do, or tell us that we're living in a hellhole. We can fight amongst ourselves, we can yell and scream about our problems, because we live with them, and we know they have to be solved. Police violence, racism, weirdly interbraided economic decline and success; taxes, schools, fights over who has power in this place - we know Chicago can be ugly, and messy, and mean.
But if you're an outsider? STFU about Chicago . And I guess I am a Chicagoan. Why? Because I say so. You wanna make something of it, or you wanna go for a cocktail, and talk politics?
(Oh, and if you know the origins of the designs below, well, you may be a fellow Chicagoan.)
* That beloved 4 a.m. bar is where Bob worked as a bartender, where I listened to live folk music and met the first people I cared about in Chicago. It's long gone, but unforgotten.
It's been more than a month since I put my brain in gear and posted here. It's been a month of little ambition and fewer spoons, I guess. But I'm going to get back to posting, I swear to god.
Doing this - getting back up on the blogging bicycle - is more difficult than it once was. I try to find something interesting to say, and when I can't find something that meets that description (at least in my own eyes), I write nothing at all. Worse than that are the times when I do have an idea I think is worth writing about - and I still can't put pen to paper. But there comes a time one must attempt it, she said portentously.
So here I am, on a fairly sunny Sunday, with nearly all our windows open and the tiniest breeze making it truly enjoyable, ready to write about Chicago.
I was 26 when I arrived in Chicago in January of 1981. It was supposed to be a
And now I'm thinking about why I consider myself a Chicagoan. I'm not sure native-born Chicagoans would, but I've learned since coming here that the city is mine to adopt.
I've been here well over half my 67 years of life. Within the first two weeks, I knew I loved the city the same way I loved Bob when we'd drive north on what is now DuSable Lake Shore Drive, at 4:30 a.m., after the Barbarossa* closed, and the lights of the apartment hi-rises looked like jewels in the darkness.
Forty-two years later, I still love that drive. I love Lake Michigan, blue or grey, with whitecaps or still, on the other side of the Drive. I love the city's musical history; it's where I learned to love jazz, where I sang in an unsuccessful rock and roll band, where I became comfortable with Blues Before Sunrise.
I love all the big things, of course; the museums, Millennium Park, the Lincoln Park and Garfield Park conservatories, and even if I'm no longer comfortable going to the Lincoln Park or Brookfield Zoos, I acknowledge them. I love the El, and the fact that I can travel all across the city via its Red, Green, Purple, Brown, Yellow, Pink, and Orange lines.
I love the food: Italian beef sandwiches in their drippy glory, and deep dish, about which the late Anthony Bourdain was wrong. And Thai food. And Japanese food. And food from all corners of the Indian subcontinent (ah, Devon Avenue - Pakistani restaurants east of Western, Indian restaurants west of it, all of it delicious), I love ribs and rib tips, and hot dogs without ketchup, dragged through the garden, and ... well, you get the picture.
I love other things that maybe aren't so big or famous. I love that this is a news-oriented city. I support the scrappy Sun-Times and the even scrappier Reader and Block Club Chicago news outlets. I even support the damnable Tribune; I may hate it for a lot of reasons, but it's Chicago through and through.
I love the alleys, and the pigeons; I even respect the rats, although I admit that they're more of an honored enemy than a friend.
What ties this city together are its people, the ones born here, and the ones, like me, who chose the city. I have no desire to leave Chicago, not even to move to a near suburb. I'm happy in Rogers Park, at the city's far north border with Evanston. I'm a Northsider, but the South and West Sides, and the Northwest Side where I lived for the first five or so months of my sojourn, are just as much part of my city. In fact, as South and West Siders will tell you, their neighborhoods comprise the geographic majority of the city, and woe betide any Northsider being dismissive of them. Not a smart move.
So here's to all the neighborhoods; to Logan Square, to East Garfield Park, to Austin, to Edgewater and Uptown, to Pilsen and Little Village, to Englewood and West Garfield Park, to Humboldt Park, to Back of the Yards, to Albany Park, to the Loop, to South Shore ... you are all Chicago. Here's to the people in the three-flats and the bungalows, in the hi-rises, in the garden apartments, in the tough and dirty neighborhoods, in the places fighting gentrification, in the shiny Near North and the dusty West Side.
Those of us who choose to love Chicago are protective of it. We dislike it when non-Chicagoans try to tell us what to do, or tell us that we're living in a hellhole. We can fight amongst ourselves, we can yell and scream about our problems, because we live with them, and we know they have to be solved. Police violence, racism, weirdly interbraided economic decline and success; taxes, schools, fights over who has power in this place - we know Chicago can be ugly, and messy, and mean.
But if you're an outsider? STFU about Chicago . And I guess I am a Chicagoan. Why? Because I say so. You wanna make something of it, or you wanna go for a cocktail, and talk politics?
(Oh, and if you know the origins of the designs below, well, you may be a fellow Chicagoan.)
* That beloved 4 a.m. bar is where Bob worked as a bartender, where I listened to live folk music and met the first people I cared about in Chicago. It's long gone, but unforgotten.
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And yes, I'd forgotten that we discovered MnStf so soon after discovering each other. That, too, was a wonderful discovery!
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Blame the Umbrian ancestry! :o)
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(Stateside, the arguments for and against deep dish can rise to the level of religious fervor; I largely stay out of it, and just enjoy the food.)
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I'll be in Chicago in a couple of weeks for family stuff, and my brothers and I are planning on watching a Cubs game at Lou Malnati's. (The original plan was to go in person, but sticker shock intervened. I knew how much the prices had gone up, but apparently my brother David didn't.)
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I understand this, because I still have deep roots in Nova Scotia, in my hometown of Wolfville. Perhaps the roots we are nurtured by from one place help us as we grow roots elsewhere, and are nurtured in turn by those. She said ridiculously.
I hope your Lou Malnati's Cubs watch is a load of fun. And if you have a spare moment, you're invited for tea and cookies at Casa KathBob.
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The Blues Brothers - Sweet Home Chicago.
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