Memoirous

This is how you know you’re getting old: you Google=that song where the singer does that thing. If I even had a clue I’d be able to narrow the search. It’s like having your navigation turned on but forget where you’re going. Thankfully someday we’ll all be using Google just to complete sentences. So I think (but can’t remember) that’s how I stumbled upon the 80s song Mad About You by Belinda Carlisle. And then, I remembered. That hair, those earrings, the shoulder pads. Floral dresses and . . . the jean jacket. In the early 80s I had hair that length, that color of blonde, hoop earrings—but not the jacket. I really really really wanted the jean jacket. We were particularly poor in the 80s and the few times I went shopping at the Brickyard Mall (since demolished). I priced the jean jackets but they were too much. There was a sort of jean jacket, the kind that wishes it were a real jean jacket, but not as hip or cool. I tried it on and rolled up the cuffs, and there was t...

The Lincoln Park Zoo This is not exactly a museum, but it is a memory. I remember going to the Lincoln Park Zoo on numerous occasions. It was FREE! (Though over the years I’ve had two bikes stolen, locked up out front of the zoo—so not quite a bargain!) Through the years animals have come and gone. Gone are the elephants. Humanely it was not possible to keep such a large animal in a small enclosed space. The polar bears have also suffered. I’d have to say one of the most popular exhibits has been the Ape House which went through a recent renovation: They now have a great outdoor playground. The old house really did come across like cages behind glass (as opposed to the new facility which is also cages behind glass but disguised to look like a jungle). One of the my first observations at the zoo was not so much the animal behind the glass, but the animals in front of the glass. The people who came ritualistically, daily, to connect with their friend, their special hairy a...

Art Institute of Chicago What a wonderful world to get lost in—this place of armor, hydra heads, Nighthawks , Ivan Albright, Louis Sullivan, and miniature houses/interiors. When I first came to Chicago in the early 80s you could get into the Art Institute with a donation. I once paid 25¢, rather donated . I have to admit I wasn’t always an aficionado. Today I work for a gallery, helping to curate their exhibits and write up descriptions. Back in 1982 I used to think what was the difference looking at art in a book or up close in person. Then I turned a corner. It happened in Washington DC at the Corcoran, I turned a corner and came across the Moor , with his black bold face, flaring nostrils. I loved that picture. And, because it was hard to find my way around, I kept turning that corner and encountering the Moor. At lot of how I discover cool stuff is by getting lost. When I came back to Chicago I paid a visit to the Art Institute and it was as if I’d woke up; I was ali...

Shedd Aquarium I find it rich that the aquarium is one of the most expensive museums in Chicago. It costs as much as a trip to Europe and yet every day during the summer there are long lines waiting to get it. Forget Spring Break—you’d need to start lining up in February when the wind whips in off the lake and freezes you as you walk down Roosevelt Avenue from the train. It could easily cost a family of 4 $200 for same-day admittance . Hard to believe that when I first visited the Shedd in the early 80s it was free. Truly you could not pay someone to go there. The place was always empty, and smelled like a chlorine pool, one with a little bit of mold growing in it. This was before the addition of the Abbott Oceanarium. Back when I went the niftiest thing was when a guy or gal in a scuba diving outfit entered a tank to feed the sharks. The divers burbled around while the lazy sharks lay at the bottom totally uninterested in fresh meat. I just checked the website: $89.95 for ...

I moved to Chicago in 1982 from Dayton, Ohio and going to university in Athens, Ohio. So, yeah, Chicago was the big-time. I immediately set out to explore the city. I remember every weekend depositing my token into the turnstile and hopping a train to downtown to walk around or explore a museum. The museums opened up whole worlds to me. Museum of Science and Industry The Museum of Science and Industry in the early 80s seemed super corporate. For instance there was the General Motors Gallery and the AT&T Gallery. Nowadays this is somewhat standard. You can’t even build a stadium without naming it, not for a benefactor but a business. The Ramen Noodle Arena. Quicken Loans. Remember the Enron Stadium until they went belly up, taking investor money with them. I believe the AT&T Gallery had a display of telephones, a concept so far in the past that it now belongs in the nostalgic Main Street display, the one with “gaslight” lamp posts and the ole Walgreens Pharmacy, wher...

I’ve often dreamed of having a patron, someone to champion me and my work. There have been many famous mentorships between established artists or those prominent in the field and those struggling for recognition. Even within social networks (I’m not referring to Twitter here or Facebook) such as the New York School, the circle of poets and visual artists who met socially at taverns and each other’s apartments or summered on Fire Island together, there was mutual encouragement and camaraderie. But to be honest, I sort of fail big-time at networking. It’s like I just can’t step over a perceived hump. What might help is becoming inebriated or high, but that also isn’t in my personality make-up. So I stand there like a lug, the proverbial observer. Not a bad thing for a writer—just not helpful in promoting one’s work. So yes, I sit around fantasizing that one day my prince will come. To be discovered. Of course, and this goes back again to networking, you have to put yours...