tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-351902262024-02-28T07:12:56.070-08:00View of the marching fishesstrasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.comBlogger425125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-38703569239791488202015-09-07T21:44:00.000-07:002015-09-07T23:09:47.071-07:00Lucha Libre<div class="p1">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkmK1ej35vqFbf-saDUqc4BXiW2Ko4PaHrK2Z8W6HZvOT0wv-3yLBXsxHDOOAcGYjqHryFBT9xuBqy9vObqavkKznXHdjWRUIYALghJxiUTqUYRXr9tc1VVhSJz8sWvt4b33k0tg/s1600/LL.biling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkmK1ej35vqFbf-saDUqc4BXiW2Ko4PaHrK2Z8W6HZvOT0wv-3yLBXsxHDOOAcGYjqHryFBT9xuBqy9vObqavkKznXHdjWRUIYALghJxiUTqUYRXr9tc1VVhSJz8sWvt4b33k0tg/s320/LL.biling.jpg" width="260" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Great poster eh? I didn't design it.</td></tr>
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<span class="s1">I was taping down the power cables for the DJ. It was 30 degrees in the shade. The crowd was growing, and we were way behind schedule. Organizing a Lucha Libre wrestling exhibition was not something I am equipped to do. There were a thousand different things demanding my attention: one of them, to my irritation, was Sana, who was refusing to get out of my hair.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I called over Ricky “The Janitor”, who was my entree into the local wrestling scene. The day before, I had shown Sana the posters of the wrestlers I’d made up before the event, and she’s told me she liked the guy with the fuzzy ears on his head.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Hey Ricky - is Kidd Foxxx here? Could you introduce Sana to him?”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The Janitor took Sana to where the other wrestlers were standing - Invictus, The Mercenary, Kid Prodigy - and called one over to Sana.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I went back to taping down power cables. A minute later, Sana returned, wide-eyed.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“So, did you talk to him?”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“No,</span> I was shy. But you know, he wouldn’t tell me his real name. Even your friend didn’t know his name. The only people that know his real name are his parents.”</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sana "The Ruler" with Kidd Foxxx.</td></tr>
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<span class="s1"> Later, I saw Kidd Foxx in our jury-rigged backstage area and told him what Sana had said. He grinned wide enough to crack the greasepaint fangs on his face.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Really? She gave me a backstory? Man, my kids are going to love that!”</span><br />
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<span class="s1">Now, I have had some low-level adventures in my life, and have been lucky to meet some interesting people doing it. But there is nothing in my history to date that would lead anyone who knows me to expect Lucha Libre Wrestling Promoter to appear on my resume.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYEtDE3blVqVASighOmsNBMgVyQ96Cq6MMqTtFqRsFgvA4UisJ4fYOr6Y_LHNiQWEviOh5rmXAwbea4z-XhyluFPBJJbSq9VFF_H-uw9E_p0iSguY6al1qgHrFfqVOCfpPSTrV-g/s1600/IMG_4249.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYEtDE3blVqVASighOmsNBMgVyQ96Cq6MMqTtFqRsFgvA4UisJ4fYOr6Y_LHNiQWEviOh5rmXAwbea4z-XhyluFPBJJbSq9VFF_H-uw9E_p0iSguY6al1qgHrFfqVOCfpPSTrV-g/s320/IMG_4249.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Wrench, the Heel-in-Chief. </td></tr>
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<span class="s1">Not long after moving to Chicago, unable to work and more-or-less a full-time stay-at-home Dad, I decided to start volunteering for a local group that advocates for, and organizes events in, the nearby park. The Unity Park Advisory Council (UPAC) has been around in one form or another for 20-odd years, and essentially forced the city to turn a run-down playground surrounded by parking lot into a well-serviced and heavily used green space with an extensive playground.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">By the time I joined, the political fighting was long over, and the group’s primary focus has been organizing events in the park. They’ve got quite good at it over the years, and have a solid roster that attract great crowds - Art in the Park, Pumpkinfest and Earth Day are all staples on the neighborhood calendar.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I had time, spend too much of my mental energy on social media, and wanted to work on my photoshop skills, so I started insinuating myself into their communications and fundraising efforts. This year, they voted to just make me in charge of that part of their work.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">As such, I have had more-or-less total control over the group’s Facebook page, so I was the one who received a message, last December, from a local woman whose brother was an amateur wrestler. Would UPAC be interested in putting on a Lucha Libre show for the community? </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The answer was, of course, yes, Yes, a thousand times YES. Or at least, it was from me. The rest of UPAC was more restrained in their enthusiasm, but gave me the go ahead to see if I could pull it off.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Now, to say that I was entirely unqualified to do this is an understatement. Logan Square, where I live, has been working-class Hispanic (Latino? I’m not even sure what term is better) for decades, but has been gentrifying rapidly. My family and I are very much a symptom of the gentrification. I know no Spanish, nothing of wrestling of any style, and have less than three years in the neighborhood.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Fortunately, Rachel (the young woman who approached us) and her brother “The Janitor”, had all the connections we needed, and lots of ideas. They would arrange for the ring, the MC, the referee, and the talent. Rachel hit the fan conventions and scored autographed headshot from WWE superstars for our raffle. The Park Council (coordinating through me) just needed to handle everything else - permits, insurance, publicity and whatever costs came up. The wrestlers asked for nothing other than pizza and water.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I figured that our costs - transport for the ring, food and insurance could be covered if we could get local businesses to be “match sponsors”: they’d get promotion and their banner on the ring if they kicked in a donation of a certain size. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Here’s the thing I discovered: it turns out that people are really happy to have their businesses associated with shirtless, sweaty men in masks. We very nearly had to turn our late-responding sponsors away (mind you, the last one gave us 100 beers for the wrestlers. So we found a spot for them).</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BA-ZOO-KA! BA-ZOO-KA! BA-ZOO-KA!</td></tr>
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<span class="s1">Our publicity followed a similar pattern. Within a day of me putting the announcement up on Facebook it had been shared all around Chicago. I know that sounds pretty lame in the standards of internet viral images, but our park isn’t even big enough to hold a soccer field. Our bigger events attract 600 people that drop in over the course of the day. Our last movie in the park brought in 2-300. This one was attracting thousands of views.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Our event brought in probably 1,000 people (at least one carload of which had driven down from Milwaukee for the show) and it was FANTASTIC. I hadn’t seen any wrestling since I was a kid, and wasn’t a big fan then. I’d never seen it live, but let me tell you, I was really impressed. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Those guys were working HARD - there is a lot of acrobatics going on under the full summer sun - and they were super entertaining. How many other human endeavors are there where you have to throw a 300 pound guy across a ring, act like a Shakespearean villain, while wearing a full-head mask wearing spandex shorts in the blazing sun? I might add - they all did this essentially for free. One of them (I don’t know if he was Mike Strong or “Mike Strong”) fell asleep at the after-party because he’d been up the entire previous night at his job as a truck-driver. He’s kind of my hero now.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike Strong, triumphant.</td></tr>
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<span class="s1">Anyway, the crowd got loud, early and often. They cheered the good guys, they boo’ed the bad guys (they also cheered Bazooka, one of the bad guys, but he was pretty irresistible - theatrically teaching the ref to count to three, hollering to the crowd in Spanish, carrying on a back-and-forth conversation with his wife during the match). The safety tape we set up to keep people back from the ring barely held from the weight of young boys straining to get closer to the action. Pretty much none of the matches we were told were going to happen occurred in the order they were supposed to or with the wrestlers we’d expected, but no one seemed to care.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">For her part, Sana was entranced. She was spellbound throughout and even though Kidd Foxxx lost (he was betrayed by Invictus, his tag-team partner and left to the mercy of Luis “The Wrench” Morales and Johnny Andrews), she still had a fantastic time - though she wanted to know if there are any girl wrestlers. Turns out there are - one was at the event, and chatted with Sana. We are apparently going to her first match next month. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">I think Sana might have a new life goal. I am not entirely sure that I would be all that disappointed if she pursued it.</span></div>
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strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-43342322378331577812014-08-29T17:27:00.002-07:002014-08-29T17:27:50.066-07:00Ice bucket thingI know there are a few people who read this that don't "know" me on Facebook, so if you ever wondered what I looked like wet, or what my older daughter's most unhinged cackle sounds like, here's your chance.<br />
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<br />strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-87946763224074607992014-08-11T08:21:00.000-07:002014-08-11T08:21:12.275-07:00The Beach (a true story, in verse)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiFYUx4cdhw6qQuT_ULbUKBylGqsMfS1IsBmec_-Q7E-3TGaDqldNsMOcOKuk21wlnzYpFhXgQO1OI2jSrFu06JGfgLUfjdUBcZXXXcLzY63c-rzOT1V6JJ3qlYK92jLdnm9Pasw/s1600/20140809_153500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiFYUx4cdhw6qQuT_ULbUKBylGqsMfS1IsBmec_-Q7E-3TGaDqldNsMOcOKuk21wlnzYpFhXgQO1OI2jSrFu06JGfgLUfjdUBcZXXXcLzY63c-rzOT1V6JJ3qlYK92jLdnm9Pasw/s1600/20140809_153500.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">The Beach (a true story in verse)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">O sun! O pitiliess, idiot sun</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Shining, warming everyone</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Swimming in Lake Michigan</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">But only burning me</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">My beloved, my beautiful daughter</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">has wet sand with which to scour</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">the reddened skin of he who’d begot ‘er</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br />Yes, poor peeling me<br /><br />O sand, o sand, my hair has gotcha<br />My ears, my mouth, I could use a scotch<br />There’s even sand in my… hey! watch!<br />Who just threw water at me?<br /><br />A little girl, apparently unsupervised<br />hair the colour of my sand-reddened eyes<br />A grin at my daughter, promising surprise<br />And a squirt gun pointed at me<br /><br />With mud, with guns, we were arranged<br />From shore it must have looked quite strange<br />Super soaker in my face at point-blank range<br />As I sat in the Michigan sea<br /><br />You red haired devil, where is your Mom?<br />And Sana, I don’t want sand in my bum!<br />I hate the beach! This place is dumb!<br />So to the land I did flee<br /><br />I grabbed my shoes, picked over the shells<br />To the facilities to make myself well<br />Forgetting that if the beach is hell<br />The men’s room there is Hades.</span>strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-69910839081359695602014-08-06T13:35:00.000-07:002014-08-06T13:35:13.601-07:00The long ride home<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Per Travis’s comment on my previous post, and stealing an idea from a Facebook friend, I present you, my loyal readers (sic) with a photo-essay. The conceit is to take a photo at ten-minute intervals during a bike ride. I selected the ride home from Amynah’s work/Sana’s pre-school, as I do it all the time and was not, today at least, carrying Inara.</span></div>
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I was hampered in my “every ten minutes” plan, in that I was not wearing my watch. Also, I wasn’t always near that which I wanted to photograph at the appropriate times. So, this doesn’t really follow the conceit at all.</div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Photo One: I leave Amynah at the Pschiatric Institute where she spends her days. They let her out for weekends, and have been very good at humouring her belief that she’s a professor there.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Photo Two: The Oakley Boulevard overpass over the Eisehower Expressway, looking east. Below me is the Blue Line “L” train that Amynah and Sana take in less clement weather. A gentleman panhandling for change blessed me with the spirit of God right after I took this shot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Photo Three: This is the portion of the Green Line that runs down Lake Street. There’s a fantastic bike path running down either side. The visual effect of the bridge, plus the shadows makes it a little like biking directly into an M.C. Escher sketch. Last week in this </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px;">neighborhood Amynah and the girls and I were biking along and came up on two twenty-something gentlemen weaving back and forth across the lanes, projecting an attitude that seemed to welcome whatever trouble society would care to give them. We caught up to them and one of them looked over at Sana: "Hey girl! You look like you're having fun. You guys got the whole family out! That's great!" They blew through a red light and got ahead of us - when we caught up again, one was standing guard while the other urinated unabashedly on an elementary school. I waved and wished them a good day.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Photo Four: This is a railway underpass somewhere in the Kinzie Industrial Corridor, where the fishmongers warehouses are surrounded by razor-wire fencing. Initially I wanted to take a picture of a pothole so deep you can see Chicago’s original brick roads, but it didn’t turn out. Instead, I took a shot of this: it’s hard to make out, but this is a fairly elaborate bed. Amynah goes under this bridge a lot, and she told me the guy who made this thing got chased out by some gentlemen who appeared to be gang-affiliated. They’ve since moved on, and this guy’s set up his home again. I’m not sure, but it might be the same guy who blessed me by the Interstate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; text-align: start;">Photo Five & Six: This is in the “Ukranian Village” part of Chicago, which is still a magnet for Ukrainian immigrants today. Every time we pass by this church, Inara informs me that she intends to celebrate her birthday here. I don’t have the heart to explain to her the half-dozen reasons why that probably won’t happen.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Photo seven: This church is the next block over. Sana has claimed it as HER birthday church. It’s a lot more elaborate than I could capture from my bike - the things positivily bristling with towers. Right after I took this shot, a trio of ten-year-old boys rode by on BMX bikes, the most twig-chested of which was singing Chamillionaire’s “Riding Dirty” in a surprisingly convincing baritone. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Photo 8-9: Chicago is “mostly” on a conventional grid pattern, but it does have a few diagonal streets, to which the local architecture has had to adapt (and let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve tried to turn left on a bike at a five-point interstection).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Photo 10: HOME! (almost): Peaking over treetops of the actual Logan Square from which my neighbourhood takes its name is the Illinois Centennial Monument, steps from my apartment. There’s about a hundred other things on this corner that probably would have made for a better photo, but guess which idiot you know wore his jeans today and was desperate to get home and into a shower so just-take-the-damn-photo-already-and-move-it? Me, that’s who.</span></div>
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strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-925547882908314842014-06-28T17:12:00.000-07:002014-06-28T17:12:27.883-07:00Really Inara? Not even the Venus Flytraps are cool?<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidos12hk6xCSLvYeD_lJUi3_23mk5Qn6TQBkyhcP9VOhnYdNWTyK7JuYYd8BRFhlyb-HLl59EuiHPwSUJuQZAtADjxvoLg2oG8CgElGz4fpeNsojvnHqrJ8sthqr057mh7VZW9Lw/s1600/IMG_2694.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidos12hk6xCSLvYeD_lJUi3_23mk5Qn6TQBkyhcP9VOhnYdNWTyK7JuYYd8BRFhlyb-HLl59EuiHPwSUJuQZAtADjxvoLg2oG8CgElGz4fpeNsojvnHqrJ8sthqr057mh7VZW9Lw/s1600/IMG_2694.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Jeez I’m not great at this blogging thing. I feel terrible about it, because I originally started doing this to write about my life in Strasbourg, and I got a certain amount of mileage out of “new baby” in Los Angeles, but at a certain point “new baby” took up all my mental energy and my distaste for Los Angeles left me uninspired for topics. Then my blogging muscles atrophied. Plus, I got more competent at travelling, thus losing the wellspring of my writing inspiration: travel mishaps.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">All of which is a shame, because I now live in a new city that I love, and have a whole new genre of mishap about which to write, namely parenting-related ones. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As I am still awaiting permission to work in this country, I am home most days with Inara while Sana and Amynah do their various things at the University (pre school and professoring, respectively). I get two days a week during which Inara is in a small local daycare, both so that she has kids her own age to hang out with, but also so that I get some mental health/writing days.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkwGvomPktritJWIuz5tW0989naCJS2U2cV73eHbqJLX1WuTrhVp1AUbrfDDFn0nfWOBKeX7MOXYXXOppBSP5qTNZDfqjxFdfWuUk_Aq5ezAl-WnVsfH0xQWrp_k-yjhbhgn6jSQ/s1600/IMG_2677.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkwGvomPktritJWIuz5tW0989naCJS2U2cV73eHbqJLX1WuTrhVp1AUbrfDDFn0nfWOBKeX7MOXYXXOppBSP5qTNZDfqjxFdfWuUk_Aq5ezAl-WnVsfH0xQWrp_k-yjhbhgn6jSQ/s1600/IMG_2677.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This week, I put Inara on her tricycle and we toddled off to the daycare, only to arrive at an empty house - they were closed for vacation. I’m sure, technically speaking, they had told me this, but since we ourselves were focussed on preparing for and then embarking upon our recent visit to Edmonton, this crucial fact appears to have slipped my memory.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So: a day with Inara, no plans, no routine to fall back on. On a whim, I decided to bike to the Garfield Park Conservatory, which the Internet tells me is one of the jewels of the Chicago Parks system (which is saying something).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Accordingly, I took a quick look at Google Maps, loaded Inara onto the bike, stopping for a brief chat with our mail carrier beforehand. She looked at me as if I were </span><span style="font-size: 11px;">crazy. I'm not sure if it was in a</span><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> "that's a lot of biking" way, or a "you're going to get yourself killed" way.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; text-align: center;">This is where “travel mishaps” and “parenting mishaps” converge. Only after the fact did I discover that Garfield Park is supposed to be in one of Chicago’s more dangerous neighbourhoods(See Footnote) - which might explain my perhaps paranoid sensation that, when I took a wrong turn en route, the young gentlemen who appeared to be conducting business on the street corners greeted the sight of a gray haired dude in cargo shorts on a bike with a Elsa Princess Doll in the basket and a chattering three-year-old in the rear seat with the gape-mouthed amazement they might greet the spectacle of a rampaging flock of ostriches.</span><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It was, nonetheless, a pleasant enough ride and the Conservatory itself was wonderful - there were lots of pretty flowers for Inara to get mad that she couldn’t pick, noxious berries she couldn’t eat, and exotic trees for her to ignore, saving me from reading any of the helpful signs up (J<a href="http://www.garfieldconservatory.org/history.htm" target="_blank">ens Jenssen something something landscape artist something something?</a>). She did love the koi pond, and expended a great deal of energy outside chasing a chimney swift. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So, anyone considering visiting me in Chicago should know: if plants are your thing, we have them, apparently.</span></div>
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<i style="font-family: Helvetica; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px;">(*) Given that someone in my </span><span style="font-size: 11px;">neighborhood</span><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> recently felt they had good reason to put up a homemade poster on our street corner reminding passerby that dogfighting is both cruel and criminal, I really have no idea how to judge which </span><span style="font-size: 11px;">neighborhoods</span><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> are good or bad anymore.</span></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFaJ7m0USwlm6kFu54xlj6myTFHPUZvSPhJrUPxK3CA-9q25byRutwVCyLEhlc2JvuUAgwBmtGbs4kXJQxakHyO_Xnnem_3167bNGOYccH6aDKF1jP71sQhfqWLO6M8BFbWySC2g/s1600/IMG_2715.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFaJ7m0USwlm6kFu54xlj6myTFHPUZvSPhJrUPxK3CA-9q25byRutwVCyLEhlc2JvuUAgwBmtGbs4kXJQxakHyO_Xnnem_3167bNGOYccH6aDKF1jP71sQhfqWLO6M8BFbWySC2g/s1600/IMG_2715.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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<!-- Blogger automated replacement: "https://images-blogger-opensocial.googleusercontent.com/gadgets/proxy?url=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-xWjsmrpOYQc%2FU69RAYRwg6I%2FAAAAAAAADdY%2FV9hxmcsNFFw%2Fs1600%2FIMG_2677.jpg&container=blogger&gadget=a&rewriteMime=image%2F*" with "https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkwGvomPktritJWIuz5tW0989naCJS2U2cV73eHbqJLX1WuTrhVp1AUbrfDDFn0nfWOBKeX7MOXYXXOppBSP5qTNZDfqjxFdfWuUk_Aq5ezAl-WnVsfH0xQWrp_k-yjhbhgn6jSQ/s1600/IMG_2677.jpg" -->strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-18678204865564197172014-04-02T12:21:00.001-07:002014-04-02T12:21:20.858-07:00Professional writingHey, I don't often write here about what I write elsewhere, but here is something I wrote, <a href="http://the-toast.net/2014/04/01/less-magic-kingdom-mermaid-war/">published elsewhere</a>, now advertised here.<br />
<br />
That elsewhere is the-toast.net, which is one of the more reliably funny sites on the Internet, and I am delighted to have made their cut. It isn't often I get to take my preoccupations of history, over-thinking pop-culture, higher education and France and make a big joke out of it all, but I think I managed.strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-1863135510218138752014-01-16T16:19:00.000-08:002014-01-16T16:19:36.642-08:00Apparently, I REALLY liked Frozen.<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Prompted by a Facebook conversation with my cousins, and having just seen the movie with Sana, I was inspired as a writing exercise, to write about the Disney movie "Frozen." It is far out of the normal concerns of this blog, but since I wrote it, I thought I might as well put it out there, so that my readers can see happens when ninety percent of my household's pop culture intake is Princess related.</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWnx361Yy0S8mGTqxQiNk7PLQgTZExxpIa9eNSCFNrOpXHMAYHOpSpCwJLTUD4LRr6P8ILX3FuZgU5DXQHZ8K_UGZQWRL9Mi_M6FW5vYECQVpPsKM7kmEwlHQ0Tb6KpUpAC8vxA/s1600/illus-003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuWnx361Yy0S8mGTqxQiNk7PLQgTZExxpIa9eNSCFNrOpXHMAYHOpSpCwJLTUD4LRr6P8ILX3FuZgU5DXQHZ8K_UGZQWRL9Mi_M6FW5vYECQVpPsKM7kmEwlHQ0Tb6KpUpAC8vxA/s1600/illus-003.jpg" height="320" width="202" /></a></div>
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The headline question of Akash Nickolas’s Atlantic article
on the storytelling innovations of Disney’s “Frozen” was <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/01/does-prince-charming-really-need-to-be-reinvented/282908/">“Did Prince Charmingreally need to be reinvented?”</a> Nickolas saw the “bad prince” of that movie as a
manifestation of how society tends to devalue the interests of girls and argued
that subverting the Prince Charming trope was yet another example of “shaming
girls’ fantasies” – part of a dishonorable tradition that sees the narrative
clunkiness of Star Wars forgiven while the ham-handed writing of Twilight books
is eviscerated in the popular media.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That proposition that “women’s” stories are mocked for
faults ignored in entertainments catering to boys cannot be doubted. And there
is also no doubt in my mind that a huge component of that is due to a
discomfort with girls’ sexuality: look at how Carly Rae Jepsom and Justin
Bieber were treated by the media when they first came out. Both made bubble gum
pop, both catered to the same young, largely female demographic, - heck, both
were even Canadian. Only one was made the constant butt of Late Night
comedians, because only one of them was a crush object for little girls. No one
would care about the saccharine blandness of Bieber’s music were it not for the
gender of his fans. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, in that sense, Nickolas is correct that the
entertainments of girls are subject to a critical rigour that boys are not. But
is Prince Hans of Frozen a reaction to that criticism? More to the point, is
Prince Charming, in any form, really that central to the “Princess” fantasies
of little girls?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The very short answer is no, not in the Disney movies that
created him nor in the folklore they pilfered in order to do so. Can you name
any character trait of the Prince in the original Snow White movie? Of course
not; he has none. Even in the original fable he shows up only after Snow White
has been poisoned: Disney introduced him earlier in their version to make his habit
of kissing non-consenting coma patients less creepy. And in the Grimm version
it isn’t some magical “true love” kiss that saves the Princess, it is the
clumsiness of the Prince’s servants. He essentially wrests the Princess’s
unresponsive body – which he had never laid eyes on before - from the seven
dwarves that had been diligently caring for her. In carrying her coffin away
his porters slip, thereby dislodging the poisoned apple from Snow White’s
throat.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Prince Philip of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty is a similar
cipher – he at least is brave, in that he fought a dragon, but he defeated it
only because he’d been given a magic sword and shield. Other than that –
another young man feeling entitled to plant kisses on unconscious women. In the
original story, Sleeping Beauty had been asleep for nearly a century before her
eventual rescuer was even born. That is somewhat creepier, but at least in
Grimm’s version, he didn’t wake her with a kiss: they actually talked for an
hour or two before getting married (at least in one sanitized version of the
story – the Italian version is much more brutal. More on that later).</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The examples go on: in the story, Cinderella rejected her
suitor three times before he tracked her down and browbeat her into marriage,
in the movie he doesn’t even search for her in person. In the Little Mermaid
“Prince Charming” nearly marries another within a day of meeting her, in the
book he goes through with it, causing Fish Girl to die.</div>
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<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQyzc6acooos92GHGV8hBRDE_2z9sDjvaFyOtam06Cw1LVuj7Ed6AcUppJTtTu_RQ0Sk6oQPP96uo8y5eu2EsZmMGUuMoOxaYhmHp1OiPWdU_H2v6IqFzVTee4c4bt2PgEEOH4dA/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQyzc6acooos92GHGV8hBRDE_2z9sDjvaFyOtam06Cw1LVuj7Ed6AcUppJTtTu_RQ0Sk6oQPP96uo8y5eu2EsZmMGUuMoOxaYhmHp1OiPWdU_H2v6IqFzVTee4c4bt2PgEEOH4dA/s1600/Unknown.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Can you spot the elements not found in Hans Christian Anderson's "Snow Queen"?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, to Nickolas’s central question: did Prince Charming need
to be reinvented? The answer is, he already had been. Disney’s “Prince
Charming” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">was</i> the reinvention, for
the Princes of the original stories were anything but. Snow White’s Prince
forced her mother to wear red-hot iron shoes and dance at his wedding to her
stepdaughter until she died (if Snow White objected to this barbarity, no
record of it survives). Sleeping Beauty’s rescuer eventually led her to live
with his mother-in-law, who tried to eat her own grandchildren.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even with Disney’s conventions, it was inevitable that
“Prince Charming” would be undermined the instant he became an actual character
in the story, rather than a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">deus ex
machina</i> swooping in at the end. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Prince Hans was not the first not-particularly-noble Prince
to occupy that role: the sometimes amphibian Prince Naveen was a womanizing
layabout, the genie-enabled “Prince” Ali was a imposter and a thief, and “Flynn
Rider”/Eugene Fitzhubert of “Tangled” a professional criminal. Every single one
of them had a discernible personality. It is a fairly stock “charming rogue”
personality, but even that is more than the prototype Prince Charming for whom
Nickolas yearns.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Princes
acquiring a (shared, transplantable) personality is a mere side-effect of a
happier event, namely the Princesses in question developing characteristics and
agency of their own. Again, can you imagine the Disney versions of Snow White,
Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty having a conversation? </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You like animals? I like
animals too! What about housework – do you do that? Me too! My hobby is being
verbally and physically abused – what about yours?”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Belle: “I like to read!”</div>
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<br /></div>
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[Awkward silence]</div>
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<br /></div>
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“And sing!”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
[Dainty cheers!]</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That started to change with the Little Mermaid. Mind you,
her hobby was, if I recall correctly, plundering undersea graves for their
riches, but it’s a start. Modern audiences can no longer accept the notion that
girls should marry the first person to wake them up, and so Princesses are
given time to actually get to know their Prince, and become agents in their own
stories. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the more the
Princesses became real people, the more their love interests needed to be real
people as well.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, hardworking underprivileged Tiana gets the lazy scion of
royalty Naveen, cloistered innocent Rapunzel gets the hardscrabble
man-of-the-world Flynn and Princess Anna – denied the natural bonds of family
and starved for human affection of any kind – gets the cynic Hans, for whom
family was a real obstacle and affection a tool for his own ends.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In that sense, Hans’ villainy was required for the story: he
was the ying to Anna’s yang. In other ways, his role in actually advancing the
plot –menacing Elsa, betraying Anna – could have been filled by any generic
baddy. His relationship with Anna was superficial, and thus so was the betrayal
that Nickolas decries. This was by design, because the movie was ultimately
about the relationship between the two sisters.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is that relationship – and not Hans’ knavery – that is
Frozen’s true innovation, overturning not only Disney’s own established tropes,
but also those of the fairy tales the Mouse Kingdom mangled to do so. And it is
here that Nickolas’s contention that there is a “Prince Charming” fantasy
object for girls goes from being wrong, to being wrong-headed.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVh1T9HMNniLSGQS3C5K_pX8hN-N1AMesMXViPqu8Tig2dhRMnXI7jA6T2XHH40cJcMPsk5bqu4BacbPidyuJ0VvPFoLZOO7XMBdSqGd_CEVSwZGJm6FXURgiOlQKTm01hVo-U-A/s1600/Snow_Queen_by_Elena_Ringo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVh1T9HMNniLSGQS3C5K_pX8hN-N1AMesMXViPqu8Tig2dhRMnXI7jA6T2XHH40cJcMPsk5bqu4BacbPidyuJ0VvPFoLZOO7XMBdSqGd_CEVSwZGJm6FXURgiOlQKTm01hVo-U-A/s1600/Snow_Queen_by_Elena_Ringo.jpg" height="234" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The primary purpose of the folk tales passed down from
European peasants to their children, collected by the Brothers Grimm or
imagined by Hans Christian Anderson, was to provide instruction to children
both about the evils of the world, and about their duties to the world. The
original tales were as brutal as the times out of which they were born – thus,
in some Italian versions of Sleeping Beauty she was raped into consciousness.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the point of almost all of the “Princess” stories was to
prepare young women to leave their families. And to do so they had to a) be
prepared to accept that “fate” would provide them with a husband they would
love (as they rarely had any choice of their own in the matter) and that b)
they needed to cast aside their own families for their “happily ever after.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Parents, and their step-proxies, are uniformly absent, evil,
or useless in both the Disney movies, and the stories on which they are based.
Mothers (edited into step-mothers to make the stories more digestible for the
parents reading them) are depicted as particularly malign. Fathers are usually ineffectual
against their daughters’ abusers or conveniently dead.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This carries on a long tradition of societal misogyny in
which independent women – the Maleficients of the world - were suspicious at
best, but it helped solidify patriarchal culture in another way. They sent the
message that it was wrong for daughters to trust their mothers if they were to
become mothers themselves. Submit to your husbands ladies, and don’t listen to
the older woman who has already made her way in life, might have your better
interests at heart, and might <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>effectively subvert your man’s authority over you.
Mothers-in-law are threats to the sovereignty of a husband over his wife – thus
why they remain a bogeyman in popular culture today.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To reach their destiny, in other words, women have to walk
away from their natural inheritances and turn their backs on their natural
affections. Nickolas’s counter example of boys’ equivalent fantasy objects,
comic books heroes, makes the contrast even more explicit. Spiderman needs to
avenge his failure for his father figure (Uncle Ben), Bruce Wayne is avenging
his father and striving to match his contributions to Gotham, Superman is
driven by his father’s words and wisdom, Tony Stark the scion of the Stark
dynasty, Luke Skywalker hero worships his conception of Annikin, and his
reconciliation with Vader saves the galaxy. It is in <i>embracing</i> their
inheritance, and accepting their power, that men become their true selves in
these stories.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not so for girls. Removed of the distracting gore of the
source material, Disney’s movies make this subtext of fairy tales fairly
explicit. After Snow White’s Evil Stepmother dies by misadventure in the movie,
Snow White logically became the de facto Queen. Yet she walks away from her
throne (or rather, is carried), to become the consort of prince she just met in
a country whose name she is not even told. Sleeping Beauty was betrothed at
birth – it was happenstance that she was rescued by the Prince she had to marry
anyway. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This isn’t just a technical point: to achieve their
“destiny” in Disney movies, the women not only need to abandon their legal and
familial inheritances, but also their essential selves. Rapunzel had her healing
power taken away from her by her “prince” in order to be saved, Ariel gave up
her kingdom, her friends, and her very body to hook her two-legged Kingfish. </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM2aiqIsAu1wVLkTRsqTeo9soqwTZ3gmsgx4DMtScJcvMsYZvUTq2iy3e0e24_5mQ4xEkkBL_RA6lyKm0DO3kMNB2AoMDrapj1AJjtklYfTZzwmmgq2IPT3N-60us_4RWQ2S-wjg/s1600/images.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM2aiqIsAu1wVLkTRsqTeo9soqwTZ3gmsgx4DMtScJcvMsYZvUTq2iy3e0e24_5mQ4xEkkBL_RA6lyKm0DO3kMNB2AoMDrapj1AJjtklYfTZzwmmgq2IPT3N-60us_4RWQ2S-wjg/s1600/images.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now THERE's a romance.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Getting back to Nickolas’s article, let us be clear: “Prince
Charming” is a Disney invention, not a timeless fantasy of little girls. And it
is absolutely ridiculous to assert that girls want “Prince Charming” over
nuanced storytelling in an article predicated on Frozen breaking box-office
records. Prince Charming is a trope invented by Disney that is sending a very
specific message, and the particulars of the “Prince” had been undermined even
by Disney long before Frozen.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Despite that undermining, the underlying message that “your
man is your destiny” had remained constant throughout every Disney princess
movie until this year’s offering. Even here, men folk are not being hard done
by: Anna and Elsa’s father is portrayed as good-hearted if wrong-headed. Anna
gets an actual love interest, one who was prepared to risk death to try and
save her. While no expert in such matters, he was equally handsome, by cartoon
standards, as Prince Hans, and at least as brave. Princess Anna – and by
extension, the little girls for whom she was an avatar – was not denied her
rescuing hero. So, if Anna and all the little girls bobbing along in her spunky
wake were not denied a “Prince” at least as princely as Aladin’s Ali or Rapunzel’s
Flynn, to what was Nickolas objecting?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anna and Elsa were the first Disney Princesses to have any
important siblings at all (Merida, having been conceived by Pixar before being
bought out by Disney is not canonical) and the only ones with sisters. Again,
Brave aside, they are the only Princesses that had any real family by the end
(Rapunzel’s parents were aspirational objects, not people: they didn’t even
have lines in the movie). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In short, Anna and Elsa saved each other: they gave up
nothing – not their inheritance, not their family, not their true selves and
not Elsa’s magic powers. The faceless interchangeable Prince Charmings were a
Disney invention, the Princes of Grimm Brothers are artifacts of a culture
based on the subjugation of women. Neither are in any way “fantasy” objects
demanded by little girls – they were stories we made up in order to scare and
control them. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For centuries, little girls have been told to fear their own
strength, to fear the stranger, to fear the woods and even other women. In
Frozen Elsa could not be controlled and, with her sister, conquered the fear
that caused her such pain. In doing so, they upended centuries of lies, and struck
a blow against a much greater evil than Prince Hans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-34750381792036781602013-12-30T16:12:00.002-08:002013-12-30T16:22:14.055-08:00If think Christmas is a zoo where YOU live...<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNy0JJUTUOB2tgKtIHpyZyZNSJWb79WTTW8PBgn3WuvjtotnXMi8LTvuAQEnTTYvJpOeECu6PpvPafhPOs0VzuiNWgKUtDBXm1I1rnUYjfY_PiTB8yQwRDeIsC900Nv2I-dX3Rmg/s1600/IMG_2039.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNy0JJUTUOB2tgKtIHpyZyZNSJWb79WTTW8PBgn3WuvjtotnXMi8LTvuAQEnTTYvJpOeECu6PpvPafhPOs0VzuiNWgKUtDBXm1I1rnUYjfY_PiTB8yQwRDeIsC900Nv2I-dX3Rmg/s640/IMG_2039.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">RUN! SNOW ZOMBIE! <br />Merry Belated Christmas! It’s our first Noël in Chicago, and
given the temperatures I would have happily spent the entire holiday hiding
under a blanket pretending to acclimatize to the ice desert without.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfnPCk1jJdEEBhlujxPEtBL9e24EPgL84tgKsb7uA_z5ejzWwlVaZzo_Rr505dvZOfWJB8HoPBl-gpwQar6RV9qSwsGxnR7RCpXPzBWwHxA89eYrqRXLj8Zjz3Mn59X96Mk2bafQ/s1600/IMG_2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfnPCk1jJdEEBhlujxPEtBL9e24EPgL84tgKsb7uA_z5ejzWwlVaZzo_Rr505dvZOfWJB8HoPBl-gpwQar6RV9qSwsGxnR7RCpXPzBWwHxA89eYrqRXLj8Zjz3Mn59X96Mk2bafQ/s320/IMG_2047.jpg" width="320" /></a>However, this Christmas brought visitors in the form of my
elder sister and her brood, which meant that Amynah commenced a two-month
neurotic obsession with turkey recipes (and boy, did that ever pay off).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It also meant that we felt duty-bound to show them the best
that Chicago had to offer. As usual with the first few guests that we’ve hosted
in our various cities, these visits are as much an opportunity for us to learn
about our new homes as it is to play tour guide. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6gi9vff2loQsl1sBJXQsq7hTBjLR0UdnZu6hx8q-mZsxhsO-UXs2LTRcT6kLvLzZycSxb5b9Y1EB1O0RNc62CtVUhJGnEa-0vzeUycwCv2URKl-a4tAd7e31lNbLRlKkuVH4GOQ/s1600/IMG_2050.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6gi9vff2loQsl1sBJXQsq7hTBjLR0UdnZu6hx8q-mZsxhsO-UXs2LTRcT6kLvLzZycSxb5b9Y1EB1O0RNc62CtVUhJGnEa-0vzeUycwCv2URKl-a4tAd7e31lNbLRlKkuVH4GOQ/s320/IMG_2050.jpg" width="320" /></a>Fortunately, our guests interests coincided nicely with my
existing knowledge of Chicago: the Lego store downtown and the Shedd Acquarium worked
well for the eight-year old, the local cafés pleased the 12-year-old, and the
92-year-old ice cream parlour at which the Beatles once ate worked for my older
sister.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
New to us all was the Lincoln Zoo Christmas Lights. The
Lincoln Zoo is a fantastic Chicago institution – it is both free and within
biking distance, so I’ve spent many hours there with one mini-Reynolds or
another in the summer. In the winter the animals presumably summer in Florida
or something and the trees are taken over by billions of Christmas lights. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjotmYtxz2JaeIb6WfPeMQNzC_e87NLmX1_HiIKWtYFPeC7VbWLnbU1NNzw0kPL8Fw4aAQWLOPPyi-tFZShM-cBh1d1z5ntedsAdAX2ym9Ac0khH2zHV1YW5MUQ3GzrU9k1ylpy1w/s1600/IMG_2069.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjotmYtxz2JaeIb6WfPeMQNzC_e87NLmX1_HiIKWtYFPeC7VbWLnbU1NNzw0kPL8Fw4aAQWLOPPyi-tFZShM-cBh1d1z5ntedsAdAX2ym9Ac0khH2zHV1YW5MUQ3GzrU9k1ylpy1w/s320/IMG_2069.jpg" width="320" /></a>We lucked out in a number of ways – the weather the day we
ventured out was a full 17 degrees Celsius warmer than it is today, and our
numbers precluded taking the car, meaning I avoided the mayhem of trying to
park at what proved to be the most popular and crowded event in the city that
day. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t imagine what the
cold-weather animals that remain make of the whole experience, but the people
are fascinated – the night we were there, Chicagoans were shuffling around the
place gazing up like a horde of stargazing zombies with no conception of
personal space.</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw7R0R2OA_3VJCSYrHtDGTDzotOO2Z8cP_P-dQWY_GDbAMVhizj7N0gfvQbk3xPn2PPBz63km5K9PjDoo9F64WLNoIYFckVTGH0eCPRGvtzqK0sN9w8eNBGOERlCot2MaXFPzWDQ/s1600/IMG_2005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw7R0R2OA_3VJCSYrHtDGTDzotOO2Z8cP_P-dQWY_GDbAMVhizj7N0gfvQbk3xPn2PPBz63km5K9PjDoo9F64WLNoIYFckVTGH0eCPRGvtzqK0sN9w8eNBGOERlCot2MaXFPzWDQ/s200/IMG_2005.jpg" width="200" /></a>Best of all, the experience broke me out of my incipient cabin fever, meaning I got to take pictures of Christmas lights, instead of coming up with bizarre at-home art projects…. ahem.</div>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment-->strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-52788873632149620492013-12-15T09:48:00.000-08:002013-12-15T09:48:50.686-08:00Santa rides the blue line<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOopt9SzRxN7KYvL_uxXZG8PXNucwRHFfs038CAhtQCH63e883xKU4dfK8uxH16LfIf3_apGcuSvylkEDhMoIELjNsVVPTb08HiQEp74-bL893Fu70eoEXSUkM4G3mDBhOmgzOEw/s1600/IMG_1861.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOopt9SzRxN7KYvL_uxXZG8PXNucwRHFfs038CAhtQCH63e883xKU4dfK8uxH16LfIf3_apGcuSvylkEDhMoIELjNsVVPTb08HiQEp74-bL893Fu70eoEXSUkM4G3mDBhOmgzOEw/s320/IMG_1861.jpg" width="320" /></a>Last night Sana and I ventured out into the frigid Chicago
night, wading through a fresh load of 5 inches of snow that had settled onto
the previous 5 inches. We were making our way to the local L-Train stop, to see
one of the Windy City’s more elusive seasonal charms.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once we made it to the station, I brushed off the detritus
of the twenty or so snowballs Sana had mashed onto my bum, and we settled onto
the platform to wait. On the platform with us were a number of other families
with small children, and a smaller number of increasingly confused commuters.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then it appeared: The Holiday Train. It was out in
Christmas lights from stem to stern, windows plastered with festive decorations
and crewed by green and red clad elves, but the highlight was, without a doubt,
Santa.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgInbHKSHLJprMjgM04IfIrdrxqzd-fLGzgAEFU3UYaeRmTU3tzGEgcEpDpZN8cWerDQyt81E5-gyCRj-d5PkE6QW4CgSemVsXdaat5hg3_TvyLLNCm9STC464qB_XDJqFAr20uqA/s1600/IMG_1866.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgInbHKSHLJprMjgM04IfIrdrxqzd-fLGzgAEFU3UYaeRmTU3tzGEgcEpDpZN8cWerDQyt81E5-gyCRj-d5PkE6QW4CgSemVsXdaat5hg3_TvyLLNCm9STC464qB_XDJqFAr20uqA/s320/IMG_1866.jpg" width="320" /></a>Every year, Santa visits Chicago and rides every single one
of Chicago’s many El Train lines in an OPEN CAR, waving at passers-by and
talking to lucky kids at each station. Yesterday was his visit to the Blue
Line.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We caught him on his way to O’Hare Airport. My initial idea
was to ride for one or two stations and then hop on a regular train to get Sana
in bed at a reasonable time. However, once we were aboard, it was too much fun
to leave.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDdKTFc7D-blu6CxMLqTuBplsaapOUl7lFBLvzm1qiqM6qfi709xyGrdFQDgw5YE-JDpe2uvQ6aA8qTBU4S9J4SKEl3AUNI-B-QZvYKO1Yn4qKv-RRUjz4WWOnnrFkMjvk4xZ6ow/s1600/IMG_1879.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDdKTFc7D-blu6CxMLqTuBplsaapOUl7lFBLvzm1qiqM6qfi709xyGrdFQDgw5YE-JDpe2uvQ6aA8qTBU4S9J4SKEl3AUNI-B-QZvYKO1Yn4qKv-RRUjz4WWOnnrFkMjvk4xZ6ow/s320/IMG_1879.jpg" width="213" /></a>Sana rides the rails with her Mom every day, so the changes
inside the train were more striking for her than for me – even the seat covers
were holiday themed, and the grab-bars were all decked out like candy canes.
Santa’s helpers were giving out candy canes, and the florescent interior lights
were all red and green. The transit ads were replaced by cheesy Christmas
themed jokes (“How do you brush snow off a Christmas tree? With a pine comb!”).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Soon after we got on, a large family group at the other end
of the car started singing “Feliz Navidad” – most of the car joined in. A few
stops later, and the whole car joined in singing Happy Birthday to someone
called Lisa.</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQJzP6r24zLyAyI0z1dACgzTmkzUFoVwISm2mCsGeGaHNrz6CMCkF4IHkWMGfDmCatRNx9nhbgUkXfTapjl1AimPDASOlWCoC41ovbB4ZAS7RuW2BedCI58sYaMgval89cwxe1g/s1600/IMG_1889.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQJzP6r24zLyAyI0z1dACgzTmkzUFoVwISm2mCsGeGaHNrz6CMCkF4IHkWMGfDmCatRNx9nhbgUkXfTapjl1AimPDASOlWCoC41ovbB4ZAS7RuW2BedCI58sYaMgval89cwxe1g/s320/IMG_1889.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sana and rode the whole way to the airport, at which point
we were able to get out and Sana could talk to Santa (who had somehow managed
to avoid freezing solid in his open car traveling at 45 mph in sub-zero
temperatures). Sana was appropriately star-struck. We promised him cookies for
Christmas Eve.</div>
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<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/k6fRGUWYvDw?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From what I understand, much of the decorations and a great
number of the staff volunteer their time for the project, and the train
delivers food to various charities around the city. Nothing is being sold, and
the signs for the private sponsors are discreet. The whole thing really seems
to have been done just for the joy of the season. As it happens, riding the
Holiday Train was to be the first time Sana had encountered a real-live Santa –
and I rather appreciate that it occurred in that context rather than, say, as
part of a sales pitch for photo packages in a mall concourse.</div>
strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-7424156642331725322013-11-04T12:37:00.001-08:002013-11-04T12:38:11.472-08:00To the last trick or treater of the night<div class="MsoNormal">
To the last Trick or Treater of the Night,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When our door buzzed, at 8PM, I was not surprised – I was
even somewhat relieved: we had only a few candy bars left, and I was happy to
be rid of them. My daughters were already in the bath – far less tired than I,
the one who had ran the darkened street chasing a ghost through crowds of
monsters and miniature, Iron Men, all with a fairy princess on my back,
whipping me with her ladybug scepter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I plodded to the door, the phantom and fairy in their
bath chattering at their mother. I open the door, candies in hand… but the “Happy
Hallowe’en” died on my lips. For that, I apologize.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You were young, if one defines “young” as “born sometime
during the Reagan administration.” You opened you candy-sack with a facsimile
of an embarrassed smile. It is not clear if yourself were in costume: you were
wearing nice loafers, slacks, and a conservative looking wool coat, above the
collar of which peaked what looked to be an amateurish neck tattoo. Last Trick or Treater of the Night, were you a
neck-tattoo guy dressed as a banker? Or a banker dressed as a neck tattoo guy?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWpNvWWIrsTnkbvx7_pRHnVJvaCD8sjUI6ZqoZCN3X8SZ86wxfGm3xa6qSUVMmHhIt2jY-14DgtrwyhCF_buZPb5KCLzRKOpaHIKHaRiToCH6-ZF8YVTP72yZDAOQNfIW-ohNtIA/s1600/20131031_193315_resized_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWpNvWWIrsTnkbvx7_pRHnVJvaCD8sjUI6ZqoZCN3X8SZ86wxfGm3xa6qSUVMmHhIt2jY-14DgtrwyhCF_buZPb5KCLzRKOpaHIKHaRiToCH6-ZF8YVTP72yZDAOQNfIW-ohNtIA/s320/20131031_193315_resized_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No matter, on the sidewalk below was a baby carriage, in
which I assume – but am not sure – was a baby, who I will do you the credit of
assuming – but again do not know – was in some kind of costume other than
“sleeping baby wrapped in blankets.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Please understand, Last Trick or Treater of the Night, back in the mists of time, I too was a new father, so eager that my child should enjoy all of her “firsts” that I was heedless of whether or not she
understood or would even remember why there was suddenly a tree in the house, or a flaming cake in
front of her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But lets be honest: your child does not have teeth. Unless
you were planning on using your blender to make a Snickers-slurry and
spoon-feeding it to him/her, there is no way you were “trick or treating” on
his or her behalf. Again: as far as I could tell, your child was not even
awake, so it’s not like they were experiencing the wonder of the wandering grotesqueries around her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In any case, I do not mind that you are probably old enough
to remember an age in which Dave Grohl was a drummer and Billy Ray Cyrus only
needed to be ashamed of his own career. I do not mind that you may well have
tucked a Cabbage Patch Kid (which you are also old enough to remember) into a
baby carriage in order to score candies from the neighbours. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But next time, bro, say “Trick or Treat,” ok? It was the
least you could do.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sincerely,</div>
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Your neighbour.</div>
strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-10245095450127036482013-10-10T22:07:00.001-07:002013-10-10T22:07:37.430-07:00Al Capone and meAs part of a project to get me out of the house, keep my writing muscles in shape while waiting for the government shutdown to end and my green card to be processed, and to better acquaint myself with my corner of Chicago, I've offered my services to <a href="http://logansquarist.com/">Logansquarist</a>, a hyper-local website covering all matters between the North Branch of the Chicago River and Pulaski, Diversey Boulevard and... uh, whatever the southern border of Logan Square is. The old railway line maybe?<br />
<br />
Anyway, it's a history column, which presents some difficulties in that I know nothing of Chicago's history other than 1) mobsters and 2) fire.<br />
<br />
My first piece resulted from Googling "Al Capone" and "Logan Square." <a href="http://logansquarist.com/2013/10/10/uhaul_al_capone/">It came out well, I think.</a> If not, it's worth checking out for the photographer they sent out after me, who appears to know what she's doing behind the lens much better than I do with responsibility for a column about a neighbourhood whose physical boundaries are still a mystery to me.strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-13814310547631159562013-10-03T12:40:00.001-07:002013-10-03T12:40:05.797-07:00Hello? Anyone here? (Taps microphone)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiW_jqv9vhSyuF_GFsP8usmqG6Bq_fOEWFh39_Hv6FsTOnXzrCTrdxUbtbE18HsQcwuweGD5CEqRGIgiQLNvYHI0oG8ujYS1BSTXdoTAmodGwoROtBGh63uTLtbkC5st0sEtS2BQ/s1600/IMG_1160.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiW_jqv9vhSyuF_GFsP8usmqG6Bq_fOEWFh39_Hv6FsTOnXzrCTrdxUbtbE18HsQcwuweGD5CEqRGIgiQLNvYHI0oG8ujYS1BSTXdoTAmodGwoROtBGh63uTLtbkC5st0sEtS2BQ/s320/IMG_1160.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This seemed apt for a 6AM stroll.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Boy, I am lousy at keeping the cobwebs out of this place. I'm not going to write much now, either: I woke up at 5:30 this morning in order to do an interview with a gentleman who had neglected to turn on his phone. On the plus side, I thereby gained the chance to say goodbye to Amynah, as she has abandoned me with the girls for the next four days in order to visit her new nieces in Calgary.<br />
<br />
I have a number of things I could write about (anyone want to learn about some urban legends about Guelph ON? I have a doozy), but have lacked the motivation to do so for some reason. One thing I am doing is researching some of the history of my corner of Chicago, the fruits of which should be online soon-ish (Al Capone!)<br />
<br />
Another thing I am (sporadically) doing is getting up in the early AM to write, read, and wander my local streets with a camera. Not being an early riser by nature, this has happened exactly twice in the past two months, but I'm hoping to make it a more regular thing.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-HgbXXFaz96uViC3zHcrFMVSWy8uTHtJxgJapAmMb9tb5y2jxFU5MVb7mKy5v8RzUhsSB-Q2No3zzqhGTm6uaPefOXL6-_r_lzHv8w9j3gU8PIdyneAUyRV-APiSVDQKEcC4ruQ/s1600/IMG_1047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-HgbXXFaz96uViC3zHcrFMVSWy8uTHtJxgJapAmMb9tb5y2jxFU5MVb7mKy5v8RzUhsSB-Q2No3zzqhGTm6uaPefOXL6-_r_lzHv8w9j3gU8PIdyneAUyRV-APiSVDQKEcC4ruQ/s320/IMG_1047.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our building has a small garden out back.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7ri8vdo1GozKmu9NwuXA39LSXEyPHTKJQMA7x98Z4akJtPWqxOEzO16YSnT9pr5WTNccsPTHlEAW7R5IFAAkKZxxTg-O7l-wKWulws4s0piUPOKV5GzYm-ofUeviuEY0zyv_6hA/s1600/IMG_1059.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7ri8vdo1GozKmu9NwuXA39LSXEyPHTKJQMA7x98Z4akJtPWqxOEzO16YSnT9pr5WTNccsPTHlEAW7R5IFAAkKZxxTg-O7l-wKWulws4s0piUPOKV5GzYm-ofUeviuEY0zyv_6hA/s320/IMG_1059.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There's a community garden one block away, growing food for the preschool across the street.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiI2uaK-0qOCZirvNeJSrz7RDu2eINjyOTgqydI8cSGLIu3fR8TzDwLH3jkWSZ73ZmY5IcgL6YRoBDAD_MHdWTJnNaGDelOf2fhIvoRq3LLRzpb-CqBdOlK_DlPK38BQ7buLqYqg/s1600/IMG_1080.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiI2uaK-0qOCZirvNeJSrz7RDu2eINjyOTgqydI8cSGLIu3fR8TzDwLH3jkWSZ73ZmY5IcgL6YRoBDAD_MHdWTJnNaGDelOf2fhIvoRq3LLRzpb-CqBdOlK_DlPK38BQ7buLqYqg/s320/IMG_1080.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not a new photo to my Faceboook friends, I think the building (which exists outside of this puddle) is a home for Hispanic seniors.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigM8HffGuc15NmhRqg3ykN1Sn47ift7qGOi58aPGZNnb4UWZEbvl_kkcIG2jp6rISWMZuWASMuCHImvHKJ2IhWwV9hdRK6t8WKtc7yv3SNeT2TNuahxd-FaEwiUwFinx-OJLyaQg/s1600/IMG_1152.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigM8HffGuc15NmhRqg3ykN1Sn47ift7qGOi58aPGZNnb4UWZEbvl_kkcIG2jp6rISWMZuWASMuCHImvHKJ2IhWwV9hdRK6t8WKtc7yv3SNeT2TNuahxd-FaEwiUwFinx-OJLyaQg/s320/IMG_1152.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sometimes you can see the original brickwork peeking out from the potholes in Chicago's alleys. Sometimes, they never covered them up.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZFd8Jy_vduGAEhsIJWWYwEwDGOLrVdt4ZoD1U9-xn1iUJKwWMdkhyUQPHz3g7VvivqBqKZoGKmkOvmmrQPZBa_6WlqE7zNQQL6kCnM8S05_jtd7PNMERrP34bLJD8Y_ABgG5IZw/s1600/IMG_1158.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZFd8Jy_vduGAEhsIJWWYwEwDGOLrVdt4ZoD1U9-xn1iUJKwWMdkhyUQPHz3g7VvivqBqKZoGKmkOvmmrQPZBa_6WlqE7zNQQL6kCnM8S05_jtd7PNMERrP34bLJD8Y_ABgG5IZw/s320/IMG_1158.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There is a lot of large-scale graffiti in this neighborhood: this wall marks the edge of the parking lot of the "Mega Mall" a giant permanent flea market. Among its reputed vendors are those that sell, among other things, dead batteries and used underwear. I have thus far resisted the temptation to investigate.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-40153244334653781532013-07-30T14:36:00.001-07:002013-08-01T14:19:37.049-07:00Still writing, sort ofAn article I wrote while still living in France has been published in <strikethrough><strike>The Beaver</strike></strikethrough> <a href="http://www.canadashistory.ca/Magazine/In-This-Issue">Canada's History</a>'s August/September issue, which I understand to be on newsstands now (also available on whatever i-Things you might be reading on these days). The short form is that Canada ends up "invading" El Salvador in support of a fascist dictator. It does not go well for his people.strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-71781058281250180402013-07-21T21:11:00.002-07:002013-07-21T22:05:14.713-07:00Inara: a bewildered tribute on the occasion of her second birthday<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Yesterday was Inara’s second birthday, an event I’d been
dreading for weeks. Inara only just started part-time in a local pre-school,
and we’re not connected with any particular social group that we could
manufacture a party for her. For someone who has created an entire month-long
even around his birthday (Mark Reynolds Awareness Month) this was
heartbreaking. I know that at two years old, she won’t
<i>remember</i> any party we throw for her, but surely she deserves
<i>some</i> kind of celebration, right?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Rf3Aa9g7OSzhqbJbC_bp0kucLv2QvJnkpHtxLqWclL13pU5Y0DVx7pELxfA60byCLwNP5hsbt-VQ824q9I-yk1cyCdnvjpTBr1ti3fNeMlqJz0_c0J7jYWg1TEIvhQV9BjWg6g/s1600/IMG_0857.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0Rf3Aa9g7OSzhqbJbC_bp0kucLv2QvJnkpHtxLqWclL13pU5Y0DVx7pELxfA60byCLwNP5hsbt-VQ824q9I-yk1cyCdnvjpTBr1ti3fNeMlqJz0_c0J7jYWg1TEIvhQV9BjWg6g/s400/IMG_0857.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I should, at this point, explain something about Inara’s
personality: I cannot explain Inara’s personality. She is
inscrutable, possessed of a stone-faced stare that would unnerve a Marine and a
smile of such warmth and brilliance that she will reveal it only to her closest
family. I can almost never guess what world she is visiting at any of the
frequent moments that she faces the middle-distance, gaze turned inward,
murmuring indecipherable half-words of her own device, unaware of my increasingly
elaborate attempts to draw her attention to her dinner, or the need for her to
wear shoes, or to check in with Ground Control. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She is, in other words, much like I was at the same age.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So it was hard to believe she was serious when, a week ago,
we started asking what she might like for her birthday.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Do you want a cake for your birthday?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No. No birthday.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“How about a picnic?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No birthday!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“But what about birthday presents?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“No birthday! No!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Initially I excused her recalcitrance as the result of a bad
mood. But the same questions the next day yielded the same answers. And the
following day. My only conclusion was that she didn’t know what a birthday was.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Saturday morning, I came into her room and started singing
Happy Birthday… instant temper tantrum. I stopped, she immediately calmed down
,fixed me with a glare, and shouted “No!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/LxSp_lfn72w/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LxSp_lfn72w?version=3&f=user_uploads&c=google-webdrive-0&app=youtube_gdata" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LxSp_lfn72w?version=3&f=user_uploads&c=google-webdrive-0&app=youtube_gdata" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>Every subsequent mention of “Happy birthday,” every phone
call from a grandparent or Aunt, led to the same reaction: “No! No birthday!”
She refused to even look at her presents until Sana told her that one of them
was a Cookie Monster. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wanted to test if it was the general concept birthdays she
objected to, or hers alone, so I told her that my birthday was coming in about
two months. Could we sing happy birthday to me? It turns out yes – she happily
launched right into the song. But when I said “Now let’s sing it for Inara!” she
slammed her spoon on the table and yelled “No!” Her objections, whatever they
might have been, were specific to her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I still don’t know what her problem is, though maybe she
recognizes her 730<sup>th</sup> day on the planet as the threshold past which
she’ll need to give up her bottle, learn to use a toilet, and start putting
into her retirement plan. I cannot be certain: the girl is and likely long will
be a mystery to me. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I know one thing. “Inara Appreciation Day” will happen next
year. There will be no singing. <br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment-->strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-62327246056634053242013-05-28T09:14:00.000-07:002013-05-28T09:14:14.461-07:00Egrets, I saw a few.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM6mlAs7R5SOULGWkxD4wJx51uo5yGpENjpIbSHFxm9bmCBiEAGfK9nzh1Px-ybDbaxKykyBD07xp5RmYuVSiPU1bqfbP-zOwEj3RDGoxneNs5S2R5JHLn_7ngQXPob11wNhPo5g/s1600/IMG_0758.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM6mlAs7R5SOULGWkxD4wJx51uo5yGpENjpIbSHFxm9bmCBiEAGfK9nzh1Px-ybDbaxKykyBD07xp5RmYuVSiPU1bqfbP-zOwEj3RDGoxneNs5S2R5JHLn_7ngQXPob11wNhPo5g/s320/IMG_0758.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm not even sure she's looking through the right end.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sana is at the age where she’s asking questions about the
world around her. Some of them are even driven by genuine curiosity, as opposed
to fuelling her apparently incessant need to Talk All Of The Time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In an effort to help her understand the world, I am trying
to break things down into categories for her: that thing flitting across the
sidewalk was not a “birdy” but a specific kind of birdy – a robin maybe, or a
pigeon. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The problem is that, once she realized that different
looking birds have different names, she wanted to know what they all were.
Which would be great, except that I only know maybe half a dozen kinds of
birds. One of those is an ostrich, and I have dearly held hopes that I will someday be able to bust out that knowledge on the streets of Chicago.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In any case, Sana's curiosity almost immediately exceeded my extremely
limited store of ornithological knowledge. So, I dutifully dug out my binoculars,
downloaded the Audubon society’s app onto my phone, and drove the family out to
the Moraine Hills State Park, about an hour’s drive out of town. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVhtzBKRzHYGOsnBgBIMQUBGI7j9K0oIHiyl0j7RXcLpusIo0QIo4Csrr9e2tjiLj62rEDdFQDARtMXrys4W4fXhFh_vgp8vaMOrF7_msdXeaRnZEPbyaSNJkMKyDDRK_HU7pv2w/s1600/IMG_0734.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVhtzBKRzHYGOsnBgBIMQUBGI7j9K0oIHiyl0j7RXcLpusIo0QIo4Csrr9e2tjiLj62rEDdFQDARtMXrys4W4fXhFh_vgp8vaMOrF7_msdXeaRnZEPbyaSNJkMKyDDRK_HU7pv2w/s320/IMG_0734.JPG" width="320" /></a>The park was entirely misnamed, as Moraine Hills is probably
ninety percent moraine marsh and swamp. Which was fine – the girls were happy
to tromp through the woods either way, and I did my best to point out the local
bird-life to Sana while desperately trying to figure out which of the thousands
of possibilities provided by my phone that it could be. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
As it was, I recognized some ducks and a robin on my own.
The black bird with the red patches on its wings turned out to be,
unsurprisingly, a Red-Winged Blackbird. There were some cranes, an egret, a
cardinal and a few goldfinches. There was also an undistinguished brown thing
with wings that I cannot identify and thus must conclude was a space alien.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGdp4qhMQUZnu0g6nUzChx1QACoGkoGB2BdmHlxgfKzJ1rl4lrv9ZDcH7wzjdYPeRI8K2Cz0oQdMR_-3mft2VRmOe9I5cQg6VLFftMH3tN_9IQ3hI8VfmuvEIdSjg_rYAqh0eXdg/s1600/IMG_0755.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGdp4qhMQUZnu0g6nUzChx1QACoGkoGB2BdmHlxgfKzJ1rl4lrv9ZDcH7wzjdYPeRI8K2Cz0oQdMR_-3mft2VRmOe9I5cQg6VLFftMH3tN_9IQ3hI8VfmuvEIdSjg_rYAqh0eXdg/s320/IMG_0755.JPG" width="320" /></a>Sana, of course, lost interest after failing to figure out
how the binoculars were supposed to work (her method: hold binoculars to her
eyes, point them to the ground, complain loudly that she could see no birdies).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After walking two slow miles in the woods, the girls were
tuckered out, so I pressed on the remaining two miles to retrieve the car. When
I came back, Amynah, Sana, and Inara were clustered around a fisherman, who was
holding a live catfish that he’d just caught. Inara was particularly entranced,
touching it, patting it, and looking in wonder at its brother - bloody and gutted
- in the man’s cooler. She seemed delighted to learn that both were destined to
be the man’s dinner that night. (“Yeah! EAT THEM!”)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, even if Sana seemed more interested in adding to her
stick collection, and Inara in fish viscera, the trip wasn’t a total loss: I
think I might like birdwatching. I’m so glad I have my kids around to inspire
new interests.</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCmEV2sY-vzbfUHDzPN7wdCNvsxRFZVFrDdT2WzjzFP7Niff3FG-Av7jF3An9luJgk7oBpMsDmdC7aTNB1venbG-wsroGh7npdZ4WNd4PvgWvyTgPi6fifAVqcuaRiDcRZ1GyfbQ/s1600/IMG_0779.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCmEV2sY-vzbfUHDzPN7wdCNvsxRFZVFrDdT2WzjzFP7Niff3FG-Av7jF3An9luJgk7oBpMsDmdC7aTNB1venbG-wsroGh7npdZ4WNd4PvgWvyTgPi6fifAVqcuaRiDcRZ1GyfbQ/s320/IMG_0779.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Muddy-winged brown thingy"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<!--EndFragment-->strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-88240860277000792262013-05-26T20:19:00.002-07:002013-05-26T20:19:55.545-07:00Take me out to the ball park. Don't need a game.
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2k2rc1mBA1nfCLUG4tzzHN8cCo6GJoqRKbt46FkIutxfLC-o-l7YMuOCh-yjy9n2LsnpVLWfjk8naX3q0xzxlVtUtHTZSEhkPsb0Id9M7ovIJxMfaXEu9OmC4O59JHEHo7Chaog/s1600/IMG_0449.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2k2rc1mBA1nfCLUG4tzzHN8cCo6GJoqRKbt46FkIutxfLC-o-l7YMuOCh-yjy9n2LsnpVLWfjk8naX3q0xzxlVtUtHTZSEhkPsb0Id9M7ovIJxMfaXEu9OmC4O59JHEHo7Chaog/s320/IMG_0449.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spoiler alert.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of all the professional sports about which I do not care,
baseball is the one about which I care the least. On the other hand, I’ve gone
to more baseball games than I have for any other professional sport.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On my last one, I went to see the Cubs play the Padres in
Wrigley Field with my Dad. My Dad, to my surprise, actually likes baseball
(also to my surprise, he played in high school). We had excellent seats – ten
rows back from third base.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Despite my misgivings, I had an excellent time: can’t really
tell you what happened on the field with any detail, but the ambiance was
amazing. Somehow, in a relatively small and old park like Wrigley Field, the
million-dollar business of baseball feels like an picnic held by your local
library’s ladies auxiliary. </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFNqx-GoIVzEt8u22_jfpY8P2Uuahezv7-jXo7ktiS7YOI9T86udC5RQKqV3F6o5BcEnRxDeVtIoTrQHcQXmpAxs_BGzLJr-l5z99Z-MrYgK3YT4HbY2cQ_FwwnCHQEYi-reLXg/s1600/IMG_0320.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivFNqx-GoIVzEt8u22_jfpY8P2Uuahezv7-jXo7ktiS7YOI9T86udC5RQKqV3F6o5BcEnRxDeVtIoTrQHcQXmpAxs_BGzLJr-l5z99Z-MrYgK3YT4HbY2cQ_FwwnCHQEYi-reLXg/s320/IMG_0320.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inside of Wrigley.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We were greeted at our seats by Pat, a retired teacher who
showed us to our seats and carried on an entertaining feud with the beer and
peanut vendors. The field was groomed by what looked to be volunteers from a
local high school. The singer of the National Anthem wasn’t any sort of celebrity
(unlike in Los Angeles or New York) but a talented local. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The other fans in our section were regulars, and knew Pat
and her fellow ushers, and were quite happy to carry conversations with their
neighbors and - despite looking like stockbrokers with a hairdresser on standby - delighted to do their part to sing "Take me out to the ballgame" in the seventh inning. All in all, it felt like being at a village fair, except we were all
there to watch millionaires scratch their crotches spit, and occasionally chase
after a ball.</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMiPQV4qajCUkXeEGWfA3NxelWoLh4LGJcWQhtIbla8_igHUuVm5oDkbMlVfzyQuvPdWJiCs-wSCOkMokJWARKjAEaUUicT6uxKWykXa2i5Aq6REBJ_RyHDkanfmJxckUllvqMNA/s1600/IMG_0348.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMiPQV4qajCUkXeEGWfA3NxelWoLh4LGJcWQhtIbla8_igHUuVm5oDkbMlVfzyQuvPdWJiCs-wSCOkMokJWARKjAEaUUicT6uxKWykXa2i5Aq6REBJ_RyHDkanfmJxckUllvqMNA/s320/IMG_0348.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sneaky sneaky boy.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Aside from the people watching, I entertained myself by
trying to take action shots during the brief seconds when there was anything
resembling action. I still don’t much like baseball, but apparently I quite
like going to baseball games.</div>
<br />
<br />
<!--EndFragment-->strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-8288679001758052042013-05-15T15:18:00.004-07:002013-05-15T15:18:42.162-07:00Not to be a shill or anythingBut "Chicago Fire" (the TV show) used our apartment a few weeks ago for an episode that airs tonight. Judging by the ambulance without and fake blood within, I don't think they were filming a tea party.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEc8GaElyOVMeE4CYCxogbxsll8W4oP3Jx5ARRG86Uc1uOJ6FHg6XbCXyGreajFzAVFnATlmzD07wTIV9XS5xgIcA2qQN43W8iJfOMI7qpKjFAOzKOrtF6iU82UjGgpg46KOc8jA/s1600/IMG_0140.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEc8GaElyOVMeE4CYCxogbxsll8W4oP3Jx5ARRG86Uc1uOJ6FHg6XbCXyGreajFzAVFnATlmzD07wTIV9XS5xgIcA2qQN43W8iJfOMI7qpKjFAOzKOrtF6iU82UjGgpg46KOc8jA/s400/IMG_0140.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-78882688398826694192013-04-24T15:05:00.000-07:002013-05-04T21:21:16.032-07:00Route 66 V: The under-written conclusion!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhppqgHSRnMRb2Ehyphenhyphenvxx9gTUzI0l-_EJ6_HYTAHRxXRQLyiW6xiuX4zzvty8XoD4jAB08VW6WrKyAdw5ohzbIif4VsSfXgvY8NNavf4l3qQmXNofEn3Cl6uhtDBtjzl4nFaVHsK5w/s1600/IMG_9580.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhppqgHSRnMRb2Ehyphenhyphenvxx9gTUzI0l-_EJ6_HYTAHRxXRQLyiW6xiuX4zzvty8XoD4jAB08VW6WrKyAdw5ohzbIif4VsSfXgvY8NNavf4l3qQmXNofEn3Cl6uhtDBtjzl4nFaVHsK5w/s400/IMG_9580.JPG" width="400" /></a>I’m just about ready to wrap up this whole Route 66 thing,
not because I’m running out of stories, but because as we progressed further north,
and I became more and more anxious about getting to Chicago in time to pick up
my house keys, we ventured outside of the car less and less.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The first major exception was in Catoosa, Oklahoma. This is
the home of one of the most famous of Route 66’s landmarks, the Catoosa Whale.
Essentially, the whale was a homemade waterpark built by a man named Hugh
Davis, as an anniversary gift for his wife Zelta. The whale served as a slide
and diving platform for the surrounding pond.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwJSmhQucko63r6jh7sudTZPY9BNmNN2imYHo5IRxuo1bZ4n15tM4hrTTHlG8JBArXTcsxvDBkYcUtrAwM7a33Jsg_U7KNdHvWv7iIv4EHkHEhJKc8LATP1ca-VIDdazWu4pHyUg/s1600/IMG_9589.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwJSmhQucko63r6jh7sudTZPY9BNmNN2imYHo5IRxuo1bZ4n15tM4hrTTHlG8JBArXTcsxvDBkYcUtrAwM7a33Jsg_U7KNdHvWv7iIv4EHkHEhJKc8LATP1ca-VIDdazWu4pHyUg/s200/IMG_9589.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Am I the only one that find this creepy?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On its own, this would be a charming story, but what made it
fascinating, for me, was the guidebook’s deadpan description of how this
community waterhole had previously been used by the Davis’s – Zelta
specifically – as an alligator farm. Why would one farm alligators? How does
one keep alligators alive in Oklahoma for most of the year? How does any parent
let their children swim in a pond owned by a known alligator enthusiast? I do
not know, and cannot guess at the answers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD0hVXWYMrW9O0LUgQwRbOEO2PbemYU8CmTNlFws4IFwHIR2nbFANAW7wKjIvI2IJ7uhlcF-wQ3uFXtCo0s1Oin_0my1yXPBmlK6cLtiTPsnuiZ4i0Lz8dmjFWVnhi-oD0InvtfA/s1600/IMG_9593.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD0hVXWYMrW9O0LUgQwRbOEO2PbemYU8CmTNlFws4IFwHIR2nbFANAW7wKjIvI2IJ7uhlcF-wQ3uFXtCo0s1Oin_0my1yXPBmlK6cLtiTPsnuiZ4i0Lz8dmjFWVnhi-oD0InvtfA/s400/IMG_9593.JPG" width="400" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD0hVXWYMrW9O0LUgQwRbOEO2PbemYU8CmTNlFws4IFwHIR2nbFANAW7wKjIvI2IJ7uhlcF-wQ3uFXtCo0s1Oin_0my1yXPBmlK6cLtiTPsnuiZ4i0Lz8dmjFWVnhi-oD0InvtfA/s1600/IMG_9593.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Our second major stop was a late lunch in Baxter Springs, a
town situated on a small segment of Route 66 that cuts across the southeast
corner of Kansas. There, we were fed and entertained by one of the two Sue’s
who are the proprietor’s and presumable eponyms of “Angels on the Route.” A
restaurant and gift shop located in a small and – judging by the “To Rent”
signs on the storefronts – shrinking town, “Angels on the Route” represented a
real gamble on Sue’s part: she renovated a wonderful century-old pharmacy,
returning it to it’s wood-beamed, brick-walled, high-ceilinged glory, and
filling it with a kind of service (“Your coffee’s ready! Get it yourself,
because I’m making your sandwiches”) that made you feel instantly at home.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sue also took the trouble to direct us to the local sights –
the Rainbow Bridge, whose architectural significance I should probably be able
to relate but can’t – and the tow truck that was the inspiration for Mater in
the movie “Cars.” Apparently, there was a local gentleman named Dean in the
area who could turn his feet backwards (we saw pictures) and was the reason
Mater tended to run away in reverse – we didn’t get a chance to meet him,
unfortunately.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGdrnyXXW9fi9tp4kMQBw4ifcJCxH_u2VORO-eWDughF7EhO1w42bSeWWcYskzDXl3-_byqvv2ltgEcBJ2a6kTbJLfjWcXOokGXjeFf_p5yhB_Y62JLQukZtJmN0RqBZsc7C_cng/s1600/IMG_9600.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGdrnyXXW9fi9tp4kMQBw4ifcJCxH_u2VORO-eWDughF7EhO1w42bSeWWcYskzDXl3-_byqvv2ltgEcBJ2a6kTbJLfjWcXOokGXjeFf_p5yhB_Y62JLQukZtJmN0RqBZsc7C_cng/s400/IMG_9600.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Looking back over these posts, I realize that I’ve failed to
capture, at all, what it is like to travel with four old friends in a small car
for five straight days. We talked a lot of crap, of course, but also absurdist
role-playing games (ours devised a
town in which the copper miners, copper smelters and copper thieves can created
a self-sustaining, entirely enclosed economy). We only got lost once (not when
I was at the wheel) and almost crashed once (when I was). We listened to a lot
of each other’s music and drank a lot of local beers. We discovered that Tim
has some weird ideas about Wisconsin. But most of all, we sang:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzvvpwssMPEnuFbx4BKrbZh9Hj-C3s1z3Wz5L63uQhNbJigh7-QyoDTrBF3m9RYyxU_M9OSJQ4nWQ' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<!--EndFragment-->strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-54416883448523120752013-04-19T16:01:00.002-07:002013-04-19T23:06:23.013-07:00Route 66 IV: Ghost dogs<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0z_cdskjQSPn5Xg_UOG5CsoFvm2R6dWP7CGItYd0TdTp5Z-efiRNFJL_3uY4DukJXYeSAbrzk-YB9exXO6F8icdrvsyT9uL8qGnlTY3BSJ5c9P3qTwV1lvJV7sgkORmpM2EvzIQ/s1600/IMG_9526.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0z_cdskjQSPn5Xg_UOG5CsoFvm2R6dWP7CGItYd0TdTp5Z-efiRNFJL_3uY4DukJXYeSAbrzk-YB9exXO6F8icdrvsyT9uL8qGnlTY3BSJ5c9P3qTwV1lvJV7sgkORmpM2EvzIQ/s400/IMG_9526.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have to put a disclaimer here: I am writing this post on
my last bloggable adventure while in the midst of another one: I am currently
twenty-two stories above downtown Chicago because the makers of “Chicago Fire”
are currently re-painting and re-furnishing my apartment in order to film some
sort of televisual mayhem there for upcoming broadcast.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I therefore have none of the <i>aides
memoire</i> that I normally have on hand to render my adventures with the
accuracy and vividness to which I pretend to myself that you, my loyal readers,
have become accustomed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV7ZR9rTOVrq9La6DrQMHVXXzFJY0L7YRM6M9P0yPZwhgMNlKZvodSRApfDkpq_S-e8QdytQC7ecvwAJ_uhuL3NtqLks05BYso0DLqljjp8kLgnb5b77zd2fdUshD9ILSX1XJIpA/s1600/IMG_9484.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV7ZR9rTOVrq9La6DrQMHVXXzFJY0L7YRM6M9P0yPZwhgMNlKZvodSRApfDkpq_S-e8QdytQC7ecvwAJ_uhuL3NtqLks05BYso0DLqljjp8kLgnb5b77zd2fdUshD9ILSX1XJIpA/s400/IMG_9484.JPG" width="400" /></a>In any case – after enjoying the hospitality of a very
understanding friend in Albuquerque, my increasingly hirsute and malodorous
friends piled once more into the Civic and we continued our journey East. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our major stop for the day was a ghost town called Glenrio,
which straddles the New Mexico/Texas state line. The town’s fortunes (and
geography) shifted according to the transportation means of the day – the
Ozarks Trail, the railway, and finally Route 66 – all of which finally ran
through town. The construction of the Interstate drained all of the traffic
away from its motels and gas stations.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The old Route 66 at this point is not paved (if it ever was)
and is now essentially a utility road for the local farmers. In February, it
was a dusty line cutting through desolate fields, a playground for tumbleweeds.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Needless to say, within five minutes of pulling onto the
road, the car’s low-fuel light came on, because one should run out of gas when
one is visiting a ghost town in the middle of nowhere, when no-one knows where
you are. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyqxY50hkb0ltLfw4r5q__OAAWFx-s_EvydBVpcstPCHqWsmKbMoT6eyFUPEzAkvOlMrq3kUlO-WqZJbUK2-MqbJU_7adM3nTX7WvF6BFU3cMxYRcG6wOC_xmqX8T2BQdz6N1NJQ/s1600/IMG_9489.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyqxY50hkb0ltLfw4r5q__OAAWFx-s_EvydBVpcstPCHqWsmKbMoT6eyFUPEzAkvOlMrq3kUlO-WqZJbUK2-MqbJU_7adM3nTX7WvF6BFU3cMxYRcG6wOC_xmqX8T2BQdz6N1NJQ/s320/IMG_9489.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The "album cover" shot.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We stopped at a ghost-motel at the outskirts of the ghost
motel, the only inhabitant of which was, on the evidence, a ghost-dog that was
furiously barking at us but which we never actually laid eyes on. Mind you, it
did sound like it was some distance away, but I blame that veil separating us from the Other
Side distorting the sound. Or the dog was at the farmhouse further back on the road.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As fascinating
and evocative a ghost towns are in the imagination, in reality they’re
frightening largely because they are minefields of broken glass, ragged bits of
rusted metal, and floorboards of uncertain solidity screening basements hosting
wildlife of unknown temperament. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzLfq_wYZ-u0T4dftVsIs6Qs-g8kHi3qmOHKrk_liOrk_y31nJmkLbPq7Tf8jI7q36LeI3ifQUBX5_9n4zyfxgM1p_ponNHFV6NSjMu90aTWTWd1Jzr8CfoV2rVlgWpUXEXd7SYg/s1600/IMG_9506.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzLfq_wYZ-u0T4dftVsIs6Qs-g8kHi3qmOHKrk_liOrk_y31nJmkLbPq7Tf8jI7q36LeI3ifQUBX5_9n4zyfxgM1p_ponNHFV6NSjMu90aTWTWd1Jzr8CfoV2rVlgWpUXEXd7SYg/s400/IMG_9506.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jon goes over the top.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Readers might scoff at my timidity, but the Route 66
guidebook we were relying on had specifically referenced the feral dogs that
were the sole remaining inhabitants of Glenrio. Of the many souvenirs I hoped
to pick up on this journey, rabies was not among them (neither was tetanus,
which means I probably shouldn’t have cut myself scaling the barbed wire fence
the feral dogs had erected to protect their ghost-motel).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
NEXT! <i>A combination alligator pond/children’s
swimming hole</i>!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Addendum: I am leaving out the Oklahoma City bombing memorial, my temper tantrum and the ensuing arm-wrestling match, the best burgers we had on the route, and all of Texas. I only have so much space.</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<!--EndFragment-->strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-42785870117319643182013-04-18T19:50:00.001-07:002013-04-18T20:15:18.159-07:00Route 66 III: DEATH FROM ABOVE! TRY OUR SNACK BAR!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_4bAeFO_u-KLdliQhxUQ4PvRk0AGMnYTtiIJHmq4SB2SqCM95PNxaei4VQfKs3tqcrI2zyQJ46L4ukEblvX0rA37cTyxX2H-cqHezvi5T9iVYeqHC_vVHaoWatU_ZK5C6jkltwg/s1600/IMG_9298.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_4bAeFO_u-KLdliQhxUQ4PvRk0AGMnYTtiIJHmq4SB2SqCM95PNxaei4VQfKs3tqcrI2zyQJ46L4ukEblvX0rA37cTyxX2H-cqHezvi5T9iVYeqHC_vVHaoWatU_ZK5C6jkltwg/s640/IMG_9298.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the most photographed site on Route 66. It's an abandoned gas station near Flagstaff, of no particular historic or architectural significance, but it does have its own exit just off the main highway. Broken dreams, everyone!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Trivia question: Does anyone know how Flagstaff Arizona got
its name?<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
A: Trick question. It was named after a flagpole. I can only imagine what local highlights the town
fathers rejected before settling on that one. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<blockquote>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“Gentleman, this town needs a name, and I feel it should be
a testament to the spirit and enterprise of the people that settled this
beautiful place. What’s the first thing we built here?” </div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote>
“Well sir, I reckon it was the pig fence. After that, I
think there was the privy? Then, a whole caravan of us pitched in to get the
saloon and brothel up pretty quick. And then there was the vomiting-shed out
back of the saloon. Then there was the jail… and I guess the flagpole we put in
front of the jail. Does that count?”</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote>
“Sigh.”</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzSqIpNN81kaw_eIyIUKOJbHpSY1CXV9LWXhKvGgdPf7zKJ25ZL_FvgUCZv2nwZRpwDqMnWjd5JfQQBfXWhB0psmCYwWi_tlZQ-BGRYGpbZmQ_EU_UGP56pFoQhz022IFtOTKdIQ/s1600/IMG_9229.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzSqIpNN81kaw_eIyIUKOJbHpSY1CXV9LWXhKvGgdPf7zKJ25ZL_FvgUCZv2nwZRpwDqMnWjd5JfQQBfXWhB0psmCYwWi_tlZQ-BGRYGpbZmQ_EU_UGP56pFoQhz022IFtOTKdIQ/s320/IMG_9229.JPG" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzSqIpNN81kaw_eIyIUKOJbHpSY1CXV9LWXhKvGgdPf7zKJ25ZL_FvgUCZv2nwZRpwDqMnWjd5JfQQBfXWhB0psmCYwWi_tlZQ-BGRYGpbZmQ_EU_UGP56pFoQhz022IFtOTKdIQ/s1600/IMG_9229.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzSqIpNN81kaw_eIyIUKOJbHpSY1CXV9LWXhKvGgdPf7zKJ25ZL_FvgUCZv2nwZRpwDqMnWjd5JfQQBfXWhB0psmCYwWi_tlZQ-BGRYGpbZmQ_EU_UGP56pFoQhz022IFtOTKdIQ/s1600/IMG_9229.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Despite the mundane name (and misspelled plaque
commemorating the original flagpole) Flagstaff was a beautiful town, the kind
of place you could imagine ne’er do wells and triggermen washing up in before
heading out into the surrounding hills. It’s been cleaned up quite a bit since
then, boasting a gourmet café and fancy bagel shop that hosted us for
breakfast. The walls of the latter – Biff’s Bagels – had become a veritable
shrine to the town’s deceased canines, with photos of furry faces and handwritten
eulogies to missed canines lining
the walls from floor to ceiling.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our primary goal for the day was not far from Flagstaff: a
local attraction called Meteor Crater. I will not leave any of you in suspense
as to the nature of that attraction: a mile-wide hole in the ground left by a
chunk of malevolent space-iron 50,000 years ago.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t want to sell Meteor Crater short: it was spectacular,
the accompanying interpretation center entertaining and educational and the
tale of its original owner’s twenty year subterranean quest to mine a hunk of metal
that had, in fact, evaporated on impact, blackly comic.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I die, however, that is not what I will remember about
Meteor Crater.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJVbmW3MAMOURpLKLSxsxFVTuFI2F5ooByUdIMK0mPZclQdiQ2vAgy7XCg1rfxh_Qn5of_XbBv5a0kUPuxFiNglndz40WRDIqfpr7izmhyf3GB0-VXqB4RoUsJZySkTmB7s4wx5w/s1600/IMG_9323.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJVbmW3MAMOURpLKLSxsxFVTuFI2F5ooByUdIMK0mPZclQdiQ2vAgy7XCg1rfxh_Qn5of_XbBv5a0kUPuxFiNglndz40WRDIqfpr7izmhyf3GB0-VXqB4RoUsJZySkTmB7s4wx5w/s400/IMG_9323.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Anyone who’s traveled a North American highway has probably
seen those roadside notices to tune in to a designated AM radio station for
information of weather conditions, or traffic, or local attractions. Meteor
Crater has one of those, and on a whim we decided to tune in, and am I ever glad we
did.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The station was a repeating loop of a gravel-voiced man,
clearly doing some <i>pro bono</i> work from his normal job doing
colour commentary at Monster Truck rallies.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“METEOR CRATER! A MYSTERY 50,000 YEARS IN THE MAKING!
EXPERIENCE THE IMPACT OF A TWENTY THOUSAND TON METEOR EXPLODES IN THE ARIZONA
DESERT!!!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Geez buddy, couldn't you at least say "Spoiler Alert" first?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He carried on like that for a while (“BE SURE TO STOP AT BETTY’S DINER IN WINSLOW!!! SEE THE GIRL ON THE FLATBED FORD!!! ENJOY THE NEW SUBWAY RESTAURANT IN THE INTERPRETATION CENTER!!! METEOR CRATER!!!”). Suddenly, the
loop cut to what I presume was a scientist of some sort, clearly recorded in the
1970s. He was not introduced, which was probably for the best, given what we
heard.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His reedy-voiced lecture began… “There has been increasing interest from
the public and the scientific community in…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“METEOR CRATER!!! EXPERIENCE THE IMPACT!!!” cut in Monster
Truck Man, possibly thinking to himself “SHUT UP NERD!!!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course Tim, Travis and I spent the rest of the day
TALKING LIKE THIS and interrupting each other’s sentences with sudden
interjections of METEOR CRATER!!! It never got old.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Next: <i>We visit a ghost town and nearly get </i>METEOR
CRATER!!!</div>
<!--EndFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.6pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 11.6pt;">
<br /></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs6GD1IHRKd30_X2vyEfZSYDV5uNqKOV4nZOLC2_dRgcZnUbVuSgRRn5kK4RxvAAerwlz-FKOG-64tcZTMFBoVZUEzwpD28TA8W6LosEGGoToQYbIwO-LiKPaoHImACf2OPsfuEw/s1600/IMG_9363.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs6GD1IHRKd30_X2vyEfZSYDV5uNqKOV4nZOLC2_dRgcZnUbVuSgRRn5kK4RxvAAerwlz-FKOG-64tcZTMFBoVZUEzwpD28TA8W6LosEGGoToQYbIwO-LiKPaoHImACf2OPsfuEw/s400/IMG_9363.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Petrified Forest National Park. This is a rock that looks like a log, which <br />
is cool in theory, but looks very much like a log in practice.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT7FnA7WJQVC83sEBzjnfy2c_dnJQK0HV5jT8-21PrjDmNojh2g-13GGE6thi38UzHz3RAHjWJt5gKQYxgi5zGoQAtaA5-3pceXOMnknlMhqemJ24IB_53eyC9KiuAhqlT2kKT2A/s1600/IMG_9419.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT7FnA7WJQVC83sEBzjnfy2c_dnJQK0HV5jT8-21PrjDmNojh2g-13GGE6thi38UzHz3RAHjWJt5gKQYxgi5zGoQAtaA5-3pceXOMnknlMhqemJ24IB_53eyC9KiuAhqlT2kKT2A/s400/IMG_9419.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Painted Desert, NM.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-34036194622718692842013-04-14T14:07:00.000-07:002013-04-14T14:07:16.758-07:00Route 66: Dam the drink
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEqCkIq3fF7sclhxQBduDWP3pksYXsQiO1VOEDvPYYsH1lgJnLi1F92SRPI4BFL3e0iq9h4cz2B7dQ80zV0nWFipEzO50BySs4nKQtLFGXyyt9FLZoB4SfFfsvgBH-mLYXFjIqMw/s1600/IMG_9162.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEqCkIq3fF7sclhxQBduDWP3pksYXsQiO1VOEDvPYYsH1lgJnLi1F92SRPI4BFL3e0iq9h4cz2B7dQ80zV0nWFipEzO50BySs4nKQtLFGXyyt9FLZoB4SfFfsvgBH-mLYXFjIqMw/s400/IMG_9162.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hoover Dam. Hard to get a shot that properly <br />conveys the magnitude of the thing.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I hesitate to skip over the Las Vegas detour we indulged in
on our Route 66 trip because I’m afraid no one will believe the reason why:
nothing happened. We had an excellent steak dinner, and wandered through a few
casinos, but none of really gambled and I, personally, was too worn out from
the drive to stay out very late, despite all my worst intentions. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, a bit of a bust, debauchery-wise. On the other hand, it
was conveniently close to the Hoover Dam, AKA the Holy of Holies for the
engineer in our complement, at which we duly paused on our way out of Nevada. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We rejoined the Mother Road in Arizona, and headed off the
Interstate roughly in a place called Kingman. Our trajectory into the desert
was immediately diverted into the Kingman International Airport Industrial Park
by a sign that promised a local distillery. Our eyes dancing the prospect of
grizzled cowboys peddling washtub firewater and snake-venom whiskies.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdzUet_YNDJp_jNShyphenhyphenLp9N7US4JMIECIxSh09m7fPVOJEkV0TwjVQSKcb1-8zw5OqTv3NWyNgWq8utRh8p8C877EPsX7FWDeJHUVuZB1EXXCWvA1t92ZQFagCQnb14nmhvDtx0RA/s1600/IMG_9211.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdzUet_YNDJp_jNShyphenhyphenLp9N7US4JMIECIxSh09m7fPVOJEkV0TwjVQSKcb1-8zw5OqTv3NWyNgWq8utRh8p8C877EPsX7FWDeJHUVuZB1EXXCWvA1t92ZQFagCQnb14nmhvDtx0RA/s320/IMG_9211.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grand Canyon Caverns. There was also a sign for Harley <br />Davidson parking, "All others will be burned."</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Pushing through the door of the Desert Diamond Distillery,
we entered the sales room and tasting bar, in which promisingly amber bottles
glinted through the miasma of fermentation and high-proof alcohol. The décor
was, as you would expect, burnished wood and tarnished metal. Even the brochure
that I just discovered I kept from the visit played into our preconceptions…
“Come on in and set a spell. Take a gander around our Still, you might get
lucky and see it steamin’…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On taking up the invitation and bellying up to the bar we
were surprised, and more than a little disappointed to learn that the twin
tipples of the Triple D were… vodka and rum. Never having developed a taste for
rum, and being somewhat afraid of vodka, we were not inclined to shell out for
full bottles, but we indulged in a few sips of several of their varieties, and
bought a gift pack of mini bottles for later consumption.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I ducked into the bathroom before hitting the road, only to
find my traveling companions missing on my return to the showroom. They had
somehow finangled a tour with… a man who I think might have owned the distillery,
though maybe he just worked there, or just happened to have been passing by and
decided to pull a fast one on some tourists. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6jPrYzAdI3vmzh68YTlXRViTco51twrGL1zom4xRmAAgXxAwCTsi-EKyCNUw2HsISPIYU0oeuA55QpjNh04WAmibOurI2tPokE96hqPlv3aghKWPX7qj3y9fM-kWLOFbdHIpuYw/s1600/IMG_9220.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6jPrYzAdI3vmzh68YTlXRViTco51twrGL1zom4xRmAAgXxAwCTsi-EKyCNUw2HsISPIYU0oeuA55QpjNh04WAmibOurI2tPokE96hqPlv3aghKWPX7qj3y9fM-kWLOFbdHIpuYw/s400/IMG_9220.JPG" width="400" /></a>Any casual Dorothy and Toto who only visited the showroom
would only have seen down-homey old-timey plain-speakin’ Old Westness. Behind
the curtain, however, was the Wizard as he truly was: a computer controlled,
twenty-foot tall still of gleaming , stainless steel, precision-cut to exacting
German standards.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The man giving the tour (who had a very East Coast accent,
for a man selling Gold Miner Rum) was rightfully proud of his machine – it was,
he boasted, the first of its kind in North America, and the Triple-D offered
seminars to other small distillers around the country on its use. With a couple
of punches of a button, it could produce any kind of hard liquor of any grade
you could want: “Even whiskey” he said, as if gagging on the word. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The discombobulation I experienced between the cowboy
esthetic and the futuristic production carried throughout the rest of the tour.
You rather expect that when someone goes to the trouble of setting up a
distillery at great cost and difficulty that they have some love or affinity
for making spirits. Yet our guide seemed keener on the swamp coolers that they
used to keep their barrels from drying out than he did in the nuances of his
product: “You know, I just read a book on this, and these barrels can add tens
of thousands of different chemical compounds that affect the flavour,” he told
us, adding in a wondering tone. “Can you imagine? <i>Tens of thousands!</i>”
He only <i>just</i> read up on this?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And no, he never explained what a swamp cooler was, let
alone why each bottle bore the words “hand crafted” when the whole process was controlled
by the algorithms pumping through the digital heart of the Alco-Matic 3000.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Next: Meteor crater! <i>Meteor Crater! <b>Meteor
Crater!!!</b></i></div>
<!--EndFragment-->strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-75703744850120442562013-04-12T15:54:00.000-07:002013-04-12T15:54:26.583-07:00Route 66, Post Number 1
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirFo2kPZr5_e6fOivppu5WE_eQVRbH2s_Qa-18_ddV6vUKALvbraEdfl-n4mP1PsZ_6OhZj11ql5sIL1j9JQODyIvcLe0UlCyMTRYHyNDdhZRi1dCz3vwKQDONCWaDuJxJ5U0u5g/s1600/IMG_9126.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirFo2kPZr5_e6fOivppu5WE_eQVRbH2s_Qa-18_ddV6vUKALvbraEdfl-n4mP1PsZ_6OhZj11ql5sIL1j9JQODyIvcLe0UlCyMTRYHyNDdhZRi1dCz3vwKQDONCWaDuJxJ5U0u5g/s400/IMG_9126.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Ok, I am finally getting around to writing about my trip to Chicago. I am going to split it up over a few different posts, of whatever length I feel like, at whatever rate I choose. I get roughly 20 uninterrupted minutes a day to write these days, if I am lucky. Bear with me.</i></div>
<br />
It has now been a month and a half since I left Los Angeles,
and I have yet to offer the city the valediction I produced for Strasbourg (of
course, given that I spread that particular farewell over the better part of
three months or near-daily posting, you can hardly blame me). I don’t think
anyone who knows me would be surprised to learn that I failed to fall in love
with Los Angeles, even as it gave me a couple of daughters, a host of new
friends and the means to fulfill <a href="http://strasmark.blogspot.com/2010/03/mammoth-murder.html">one</a> or <a href="http://strasmark.blogspot.com/2011/04/death-valley-iii-in-which-i-finally.html">two</a> boyhood dreams. On the other hand, everyone I knew who lived there assured me
that they came to love the city – it just took them five or six years. Los
Angeles does not give her favours away easily, and I had only three years to
charm her.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
If I never got to know Los Angeles the right way, then I
could at least leave it the right way. Given that Chicago was my final
destination, the right way could only be via Route 66, asphalt muse of
troubadors of Americana and Dust Bowl nostalgists for decades. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsoKdAfkm1uDfJiGm7AvgzDo-EbQJzJfGLtoyavPvSv9LgbSKd9o10h0YO91D77UfzWDqBTca9gRG3CZmmpE6b5Fc6c9S_EZOrisqyANwbqoie423cBvCY-HDgHTIzOV_y6sjKtg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2013-04-12+at+5.43.09+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsoKdAfkm1uDfJiGm7AvgzDo-EbQJzJfGLtoyavPvSv9LgbSKd9o10h0YO91D77UfzWDqBTca9gRG3CZmmpE6b5Fc6c9S_EZOrisqyANwbqoie423cBvCY-HDgHTIzOV_y6sjKtg/s400/Screen+Shot+2013-04-12+at+5.43.09+PM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The reason people go the other way: Beach volleyball the morning we left, ice skating the evening we arrived. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My companions on the road were to be the same trio that
stood idly by my side as I recklessly married Amynah lo those many years ago
(thus putting me on a path that lead to me moving from Los Angeles to Chicago
in the first place). Like the Avengers, each heeded my call and left the
comforts of their hearth and home, abandoning uncomprehending children and
understanding wives to assemble in Los Angeles (making me Nick Fury, I guess?).
We gave ourselves one week in February to drive 2,451miles (3,945 kilometers),
from the mellow warmth of So-Cal into the late-winter charms of the Windy City.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKgg5SqRxvDy7dwN6Ta2w7SIekcB_1y2yTJ5ft7CRTv-kN__MSEAbOqHPspE4kCDbTL4ArBOoih50yZM1LYeXSY8wmCwn6gAzuJ-Go5U0Dra_vJq5kZBWptSorfXtHF5Qf1PdGug/s1600/IMG_9113.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKgg5SqRxvDy7dwN6Ta2w7SIekcB_1y2yTJ5ft7CRTv-kN__MSEAbOqHPspE4kCDbTL4ArBOoih50yZM1LYeXSY8wmCwn6gAzuJ-Go5U0Dra_vJq5kZBWptSorfXtHF5Qf1PdGug/s320/IMG_9113.JPG" width="212" /></a>We began our journey Sunday morning at the traditional “end”
of Route 66, the Santa Monica Pier, scene of a million cinematic first dates,
breakups, criminal escapes, gun fights, and dance parties. We gazed idly over
the Pacific, noted the Santa Monica police SUV with a surfboard mounted on its
roof (in case some enterprising thief tried to steal someone’s good vibes or
something?). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We shoved off set course for the east: through Santa Monica,
Beverly Hills, Hollywoods West- and Regular, through Silver Lake and into the
belly of downtown, up to Pasadena, and then through the sprawl of the
northeastern suburbs – Acadia, Monrovia, Temple City et al. At some point we
joined the Interstate, hopping on and off where the old 66 re-asserted itself
(it was at this point of the day that we put on “Call Me Maybe” for the first
of what would prove to be many times. There is video. I will post it, pending
permission).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbmVskVw-6oRz0-cYWL0FLCfQcnLyxgJx1hiMIrBhug0AHOXxl8Ez1om6nAuH-b5w6H1gZAYxC17ybSpjNXzfaskO7QqJ-urHzOfse-3VRQ8OKVRhf-AKnVR2VhbnelGfdVKqSKQ/s1600/IMG_9136.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbmVskVw-6oRz0-cYWL0FLCfQcnLyxgJx1hiMIrBhug0AHOXxl8Ez1om6nAuH-b5w6H1gZAYxC17ybSpjNXzfaskO7QqJ-urHzOfse-3VRQ8OKVRhf-AKnVR2VhbnelGfdVKqSKQ/s320/IMG_9136.JPG" width="320" /></a>It was on one of these stretches that we encountered Elmer
Long and his “Bottle Tree Ranch.” It’s hard for words to describe what Elmer
created out in the middle of the Mojave, but I’ll try: a shaded oasis of iron
and glass, welded trees displaying a glittering foliage of bottles and cast-off
power-line fuses, each topped with pawn-shop oddities and antiques salvages
from junk yards and the surrounding desert over the course of decades. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7gzQZZUz80HiPL5k1a2o4DXkLqwrbBMNr3x2F-kaELFaiHtS5SXzllIAiBHzzc1AUo86067RX0fTQ7VSjUDsN0iF_ORqilvOiQQQ0r8tYFNbL6-gpeK3l5vwdAVdXOLOpINopXQ/s1600/IMG_9130.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7gzQZZUz80HiPL5k1a2o4DXkLqwrbBMNr3x2F-kaELFaiHtS5SXzllIAiBHzzc1AUo86067RX0fTQ7VSjUDsN0iF_ORqilvOiQQQ0r8tYFNbL6-gpeK3l5vwdAVdXOLOpINopXQ/s320/IMG_9130.JPG" width="320" /></a>Elmer graciously talked to the four of us for twenty or so
minutes, telling us about how, as a child, he and his father would go searching
for treasure in the desert. Over the years he piled up an enormous trove of
glass, metal, old guns, typewriters and California Highway Patrol motorcycle
helmets. One day, the inspiration struck to turn it into an art installation,
and so the Ranch was born. There were easily a few hundred “trees” up already –
some bearing bottles more than a century old - and Elmer said he had thousands more to put up. It would
have been easy to have spent hours there, and Elmer certainly seemed amenable
to chatting, but the road was calling.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<o:p> <i>To be continued....</i></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-58320478269611190582013-04-02T07:06:00.000-07:002013-04-02T07:06:18.956-07:00Read someone else's blog!I am, today, featured on the excellent "<a href="http://brianbusby.blogspot.com/">The Dusty Bookcase</a>,"reviewing <a href="http://brianbusby.blogspot.com/2013/04/trotsky-accidental-terrorist.html">The Sixth of December</a>. The Dusty Bookcase is the project of Brian Busby, which he has dedicated to the forgotten and obscure of Canadian literature. It's always worth a read, despite his questionable taste in guest contributors.strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-84555713594597835332013-03-30T14:04:00.001-07:002013-03-30T19:21:42.398-07:00Repeat after me: It is a big city.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles></xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]><style> /* Style Definitions */table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}</style><![endif]--><!--StartFragment--><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGlnKthXJsrIdvTwY4SeG9pVouFrMIy3fZ-yu2cIurN-oIVMZqpnzo3XF5D9Gi1j4RcHHjLAs6TNQTj_Y02HIbv_fPAlERQgFJpA0Q_i-7QZGiAbqJqEQuKjUlNrC1jeUBNbbiWQ/s1600/IMG_9618.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGlnKthXJsrIdvTwY4SeG9pVouFrMIy3fZ-yu2cIurN-oIVMZqpnzo3XF5D9Gi1j4RcHHjLAs6TNQTj_Y02HIbv_fPAlERQgFJpA0Q_i-7QZGiAbqJqEQuKjUlNrC1jeUBNbbiWQ/s400/IMG_9618.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our neighbourhood, after a snowfall. </td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal">On arrival in Chicago after a soon-to-be-blogged about week on Route 66 with three of my best friends, we checked into a short-term rental apartment, while waiting for Amynah and the girls (and all our worldly possessions) to catch up to us. The owner showed us all the fixtures, and then gave us some advice as to where among the hundreds of excellent options to eat and dine in the local neighbourhood we should choose to satiate our beer-lust. Mindful of Chicago’s reputation for gun violence, he assured us that the immediate area was safe, but to be cautious.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“You, know, it’s big city.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Shortly after we moved in, there was a fairly large snowfall. At near 11 PM at night, there was a buzz on our door. A large man stood outside with a shovel, asking if he could shovel our steps and sidewalk for a few bucks. We informed him that we were new in the neighbourhood, at which point he welcomed us and said it was a good place to live.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“But you gotta be careful – you know, it’s a big city.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Last week, I was walking down our street with the girls. Directly across the road from our place, I was accosted by a group of people sitting on their stoop. While Sana and Inara marveled at their dog, they too welcomed me to the area, promised me further details over a future beer, and assured me that it was </div><div class="MsoNormal">a wonderful place to live.</div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgytFGX4fHSqCMz1QMQ_orVBk5hOtGU14c4MohxlemUxF7eb-sOccvu1wZrNK6Lw9FDZylpDS0tQPWvpwWLjFaYmzFLIZi92c6OKxK_D49SraHH7q9sEWYWArY-oVJWgDbUZ4aT8Q/s1600/IMG_9769.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgytFGX4fHSqCMz1QMQ_orVBk5hOtGU14c4MohxlemUxF7eb-sOccvu1wZrNK6Lw9FDZylpDS0tQPWvpwWLjFaYmzFLIZi92c6OKxK_D49SraHH7q9sEWYWArY-oVJWgDbUZ4aT8Q/s400/IMG_9769.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the El-Train. Sana already has the thousand-yard stare of a regular commuter.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“But you know – it <i>is</i> a big city.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We’ve enrolled Sana in a pre-school, not far from where Amynah works*, so the two of them ride the El-Train together three times aweek, leaving Inara and I to fend for ourselves. Friday was the warmest day we’ve had since moving here, so we went for a walk – saying hi to other parents wandering around with their kids, picking up some fresh-baked bread at the local <i>boulangerie</i>, searching for shoots of tulips in the neighbors gardens, stopping in for coffee at the local hipster café.</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE80k3N7XAdsz_AtXMmVSt7aRzsgtZ_QLUBAl_LkJ_IHRi4IDKXNEy0t-nBZ24mG1gfXtpEuRNKJyrm92Pbfsj0UCd3icTaDodtD5BAlMpbm2rMK-sboEwtLPm3uwBafwmyP5X6g/s1600/IMG_9019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE80k3N7XAdsz_AtXMmVSt7aRzsgtZ_QLUBAl_LkJ_IHRi4IDKXNEy0t-nBZ24mG1gfXtpEuRNKJyrm92Pbfsj0UCd3icTaDodtD5BAlMpbm2rMK-sboEwtLPm3uwBafwmyP5X6g/s320/IMG_9019.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Right there, in front of the red brick building (picture is from Jan.) <br />
Imagine this place full of families. Now imagine gunshots.</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Late in the afternoon, I took her to the local park. It was packed with kids chasing each other and yelling, parents tending to boo-boos or chatting with one another. Suddenly, there was a loud crack. I looked over to the nearby apartments, where I saw one young man holding his side and another running away. Throughout the park, parents grabbed their children and hustled them to the further exits – “Why do we have to go?” “It’s…uhhh… time to have dinner, baby. Now, let’s <i>GO.</i>” Grim fear and bewilderment on everyone’s faces.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Inara was screaming as I pulled her off the slide and hustled her back home. It did not console her when I said, as the sirens grew louder in the distance, “Well, you know, it <i>is</i> a big city.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now, gun violence in my immediate proximity aside, I want to assure my readers (both of you!) that so far, I <i>love</i> this city. The people are friendly in an open, genuine and engaged way that I have never experienced before (such that neighbours will invite you out for beer before learning your name). There are more excellent cafés and affordable-yet-deliciousdining options than there are people. I’m not sure how that works, mathematically, but it does. It’s an interesting <i>looking</i>city, with a street life that never seems to stop. Public transit is extensive,clean, and used by people who refuse to make a big deal out of surrendering their seats to toddlers. It’s going to make a good home for us, and I suspect I’ll be doing a lot of blogging about it – assuming that I don’t get shot. But first: my Route 66 Adventure!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">* Two weeks ago, Amynah’s building was locked down because of a shooting at a grocery store near campus. So, Yay Chicago!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><!--EndFragment-->strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35190226.post-59035444775397968652013-03-04T13:49:00.000-08:002013-03-04T13:49:04.762-08:00Windy City update<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1jYwbETXH5ofrVdN5rZWK6Oy_GD775SFUS7M6IPn-c-swWGsf0GC9f9KoQLVfnWiv3c-adDwZ3tCnzTvQt18gzFYf3MsWV_MvOQizp7aT-2eEOriEKSiM7sl7yvvQetjFt8WXLA/s1600/IMG_0102.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1jYwbETXH5ofrVdN5rZWK6Oy_GD775SFUS7M6IPn-c-swWGsf0GC9f9KoQLVfnWiv3c-adDwZ3tCnzTvQt18gzFYf3MsWV_MvOQizp7aT-2eEOriEKSiM7sl7yvvQetjFt8WXLA/s320/IMG_0102.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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In case anyone checks this blog in order to learn about my life or whereabouts, I live in Chicago now. In the weeks to come, I hope to write a bit about the means by which I got here (hint - look at the photo) and my impressions of the city. Until then, unpacking awaits.strasmarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03332469508592595136noreply@blogger.com0