– It is possible to fly. Just run in the prevailing direction of the wind, and jump.
– People do not tie their scarves in knots around their necks for fashion (“We wear our scarves just like a noose…But not cause we want eternal sleep…”-Regina Spektor), but rather, to prevent the scarves from being unwound by the wind. If you don’t wear them like that, you won’t have a scarf for very long.
– You really can feel the weather changing in your bones.
Chicagoans, I’m reading at an open mic this Saturday. Info:
This Saturday, November, 7, Caffeine Theatre presents a poetry reading and discussion of Williams Carlo Williams’ legacy featuring several local poets.
Including: Amy England, Charlie Rossiter, David Breeden, Todd Heldt, Sid Yiddish, Dara Weinberg, Scott DeKatch
Following the 3pm performance of MANY LOVES (by Williams Carlos Williams) on Nov. 8
(The Coffeehouse will begin approximately 4:45 and last about one hour)
Free with ticket purchase to either the 3pm or 8pm performance of MANY LOVES on Nov. 8
Tickets are available at caffeinetheatre.com. $20 ($18 for seniors, $16 for students, and $14 per person in a group of ten or more)
Caffeine Theatre at Lincoln Square Arts Center, 4754 N Leavitt (south of Lawrence).
Caffeine Theatre’s Coffeehouse Forums expand the conversation ignited by the performance, and in the coffeehouse tradition, provide a space for dialogue on the big questions, and a forum for enjoying coffee and talk.
This morning, I woke up, with great effort, and walked down Thomas Street to a doctor’s appointment.
The leaves were talking to the sidewalks, the wind was sweeping the streets, and I wondered if I had dreamed it all.
As I crossed Rockwell, I saw three people getting out of a van. Two of them were helping the third into a wheelchair to navigate the sidewalk.
As they lifted their friend onto the curb, they said to each other, seemingly out of nowhere, these simple words: as if the thoughts in all our heads had come to their lips. As if they, too, couldn’t believe it quite yet.
“Four years!”
“Four years, baby!”
“That’s right!”
If this is a dream, it’s the dream MLK had, and it’s a reality. And if it is a dream, we get to live in it for – as my cosidewalkers said – four years, baby. Dream on.
I have been receiving congratulatory text messages and calls from my friends up and down the West coast – SF, CA, even Vancouver – my college roommate Kristel and Mike called me from Canada to officially inform me that the rest of the world is hugely relieved – and all of them sending love and support to Chicago. Today, Chicago sends that same love back to all of you. Today, we in the USA are the smile on the world’s face.
Last night, I saw a show at Improv Olympic here in Chicago, in the Wrigleyville neighborhood, which reminded me of a touristy section of New Orleans. I went with an actress friend who takes classes there. We saw the 8 pm show, Revolver and the Deltones (an improvised musical group). The theater was packed – there must have been over a hundred people – and as we were leaving, a new group of people was coming in and buying tickets to the next show. They have two theaters which each play two shows a night, six nights a week. It’s effectively an improv rep. Coming from audience-starved Los Angeles, I was stunned and overjoyed. My friend and I stood outside waiting for the 22 bus down Clark Street to our respective east-west sub-streets, and this was our conversation: “I can’t believe it.” “I know.” “No, really, I can’t believe it.” “I know.” “No, really – ” “I know.”
I just discovered Jason Robert Brown’s weblog, and the news that he’s writing the music for a Kennedy Center symphonic adaptation of E.B. White’s TRUMPET OF THE SWAN, with playwright Marsha Norman. These are all such good things, and remind me that there’s a world beyond Sarah Palin.
As I discovered when I was elected one of the 3 writers for the Stanford Band’s halftime shows, in 2001, I’m not really a comedy writer. I’m a punnist, whether or not they’re funny. It’s all about how words sound. To this end, here’s the Palin Pun that I think of every time I hear her name:
Sarah Palin:
Parasailing.
(a moment of silence for the pun)
T minus ninety minutes to the debate. Biden my time. I’ll be watching it with Robert and Caitlin in their Ravenswood apartment, the same place where I saw Obama’s acceptance speech. I think we’ll all remember where we saw these events for a long time.
Yours in trepidation.
I unrolled myself from my second bus, and came in for a very well deserved drink after a day of simultaneous babywriting and grantsitting – no, wait – and I overheard two musicians at my cafe talking about a local independent record label, and I know the owner – I’ve met him twice. It’s a small community here. I knew who they were talking about. I was connected to someone who’s someone in the Chicago indie music community. That feels pretty good.
I’m coming to the end of my time as a nanny. I’ve been working part-time as a babysitter for an eight-month-old girl to help pay the bills. Between that and all this theatrical grantwriting, my income has finally caught up with my bills, and I’m able to stop that at the end of this week. It’s nice that just as that starts to happen, I start to feel like I know some of the artists here.
Babies are usurpers of metaphors. Today, the sky wants to rain but can’t, like a child that wants to go to sleep, but can’t. The windows on the bus are foggy, like they were in Denver. And I miss Los Angeles with all the teeth in my skull, but Chicago is pleasantly distracting. Again, like a child. It’s here, right now, so I suppose I have to pay attention to it.
I’m going to set up the back room of our apartment like a rehearsal room this weekend.
Yet with a hint of pride, Hyde Parkers observe that the South Side neighborhood hasn’t had a first-class restaurant in living memory. There is no movie theater. Night life is mostly limited to Jimmy’s, a 55th Street tavern whose existential grit survived a recent remodeling. A set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica long sat on a shelf so barstool arguments could be settled without fisticuffs. Jimmy’s debates are over the ontological proof of God; elsewhere, they might be about batting averages.
“Intensity is our byword,” said Richard Epstein, a U. of C. law professor.
Dara Weinberg 