Oroboros

I slept last night! The effect is magical. I met Heliotrope downtown last night for an art installation show called Site Unseen at the Chicago Cultural Center. If you just read the New City article I linked to, you got all the information wrong. Aimee Lee played violin in Preston Bradley Hall, there is no Aimee Bradley, she's a typo. And Ms. Lee did not discuss Western Literature with the audience. People gave her pieces of paper with stories of jouneys they had taken written on them, and she played a violin piece she thought related to the story. She did not speak. She was wearing antennae and a long raw-paper cape and paced around the hall. Her pale green evening gown matched the decor. Trope pointed out she was supposed to be a snail leaving a track. The piece was called "Trails" or "Tracks" or something and was supposed to be about leaving your mark on the spaces you traverse. I thought it was very cool. Trope thought it was strange. I thought Trope was hot.

It is interesting that any time you read in the paper about anything you actually know about, they get it wrong. One is left with no choice but to conclude that everything you read that you don't know about is also wrong, but you can't be sure how. Trust No One.

Ms. Lee felt drawn to the hall, which used to be the circulation department when the CCC was a library. So do I. Legend has it the opulent building was built with funds donated by Queen Victoria after the Great Fire. The Queen was concerned that the public library had burned down, and wanted to help rebuild it. Chicago, of course, did not have a public library, her proud citizens preferring to spend their free time in gambling dens and houses of ill repute. But the city fathers were more than happy to take the money and build stuff (since their big pastime was trying to upstage New York in any way possible). Thank you, Queen Victoria! There's one born every minute . . .

Speaking of P. T. Barnum, the circus is in town. Hopefully we will get to go for free - Trope knows the paymaster from back when she was an aspiring country singer, and before. She came by the other night to catch up with Trope, which was interesting to say the least. She lives on a rail car: the circus travels by train and sets up camp in towns along the route. Reminds me of that Ani DiFranco song "Freakshow" (alas I'm told there are no longer actual sideshow freaks. How disappointing). After 2000 I swore not to give Ms. DiFranco any more money until Bush was out of office, because of that whole Nader fiasco. I hear she has some new stuff out; now that Bush has been re-elected I'm not buying that either. Thanks, Ralph, you've made all our lives poorer, cheaper and less fun. And look at all you've accomplished for the environment and civil rights over the past four years! What a hero.

Speaking of people who are full of themselves, I have no explanation for yesterday's post other than lack of sleep. An interview with myself? Could I get any more self-involved? And the imaginary bunny was a mistake, too. The other voices in my head won't shut up about it. "When is it going to be my turn?" Blah blah blah.

I meant to link to Kunstler's Eyesore of the Month. Keep clicking the "Previous Month" link to see them all. The social commentary accompanying the photos is priceless. This guy's so full of himself he's a human oroboros, but his take on the state of our built environment is dead on.