Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Diary: The Year of the Magnet Castles
YEAR 30 was THE YEAR OF THE MAGNET CASTLES
Soundtrack:
1. Doris Henson, When You Go
2. Funkadelic, Cosmic Slop
3. Smashing Pumpkins, Starz
4. Smashing Pumpkins, Bring the Light
5. M.C. Breed, No Frontin' Allowed
6. Eminem, Evil Deeds
7. Ladytron, Cease 2 Exist
8. Mazzy Star, Unreflected
9. Elisabeth Blair, Secret
10. Unkle, War Stories
11. J.T., Murder Mitten
12. Nova Moturba, Burning Rain
13. Sufjan Stevens, Chicago
14. Tori Amos, Black Swan
15. Radiohead, House of Cards
16. James Brown, There Was a Time
17. Joy Division, Love Will Tear Us Apart Again
18. Miles Davis, All Blues
19. Bjork, Mouth's Cradle
20. Bjork, One Day
21. Tori Amos, Girl Disappearing
22. The Velvet Underground, Heroin
23. Kansas, Carry on Wayward Son
24. R.E.M., Hollowman
25. Ladytron, Discotraxx
26. Radiohead, Iron Lung
Navel Gazing:
What a weird year... I always listen to the music and then make up my mind about what the year should be called, but it's never premeditated, and if I have an inkling beforehand the result usually isn't what I expect. As a result, the name may be more intuitive than allegorical.
I don't know exactly what a magnet castle is.
I do know that the last year felt sort of like an add one extension to my MFA eduction... I felt that I was learning and in a very structured and deliberative way. However, whoever was deliberating wasn't me, because most of the plans I made this year didn't quite pan out as expected. A little spooky. The year itself was vivisected between two cities, cut up with numerous weddings and funerals, I broke a lease so I wasn't living where I expected, and I didn't get the job I expected. In fact, I've worked three different jobs in the last twelve months, and soon I will be working the fourth. I spent the hottest summer and fall of my life in New York only to arrive in Chicago just in time for the coldest winter and spring since 1995-1996. My very capable wife is finishing up her career education, and I am in the role of breadwinner for the first time ever. The permutations on the Gothic Funk enterprise have been... interesting. And my big literary achievements this year have been a few successful readings, more way-pre-dinosaur time travel stories, an adaptation of Beowulf more violent than a Frank Miller comic, and the publication of a naughty poem. Still no word on Hungry Rats. I've been with such a fog that I haven't gone to church or posted here in months. Kind of strange: I have gotten a lot of reading and writing and exploring done.
One thought, though, does strike regarding the name: "Magnet Castles." Could they be cities? After all, cities, and specifically city centers are concentration fabricated metal things that could be more conveniently magnetized than an arbitrary patch of countryside. Or perhaps more meaningfully, cities are metaphorical social magnets, siphoning resources and human beings and repelling each other, with tension in both directions. In the second instance, this has certainly been the case for me this year. One of the last substantive posts I published here was a 21 point comparison of New York and Chicago. I still buy most of the arguments I made there, but in another way they seem frivolous, silly, kind of missing the point.
Of course, maybe it's frivolous and silly to compare cities so obsessively from any angle. But I can't escape the impression that moving back to Chicago transformed New York for me, and utterly changed Chicago itself. When I first moved to New York, I disliked the city. I was going there because a good, solid MFA program had accepted me, but I wasn't thrilled about New York itself. When I left last November, I had come to accept a grudging affection for that city. Now, in June, there's nothing grudging about it: I can be almost as full-throated in my praise of New York as I am of Chicago. This is in spite of the fact that the same things that bugged me about New York before (the crowdedness, the speed and impatience, the pretension, the Yankees) still bug me. Chicago does seem smaller than it did before, but I do not know that this is significant either. The most enduring impression I've ever had of Chicago is that it is a fundamentally lonely place, and maybe that's part of my affinity for it. I feel that maybe I am a fundamentally lonely person, which doesn't mean that I'm always feeling lonely or sad, nor does it mean that I revel in the melodrama of isolation. But solitude motivates me, stimulates me, and brings things into clarity. I've always felt that I do my best reading and writing alone in diners, when I am at a booth and all of the other booths are crowded and noisy, or when I'm up alone at five in the morning when the rest of the neighborhood is quiet and dark. That is one thing I've always loved about Chicago. The Red Line is lonely, the skyscrapers are lonely, as is the lake fading into nothing far away, empty and blue, and gray in cracking ice through the winter. Anyone who has seen the Loop at night (giant quarter-mile high shadows fall across empty alleys and streets) knows how lonely it can be, and it is a far cry from Midtown Manhattan. Blue and still and peaceful. The Blues radiated from here, after all.
On to the final point on magnets and castles and cities and things. If one accepts the notion of a human soul (and I do) and accepts a definition of city preferring institutional and social interaction at one place as opposed to the physical shape of the place itself, it is quite reasonable to say that a city has a soul. This is true in almost as literal a sense as can be said of a human. Comparing one city to another is a lot like gossiping about our friends and enemies: we may make honest and worthwhile observations, but we can never quite touch on the substance of what they are in such a conversation. Maybe that is why I am so touchy and invested in Flint, although I have not lived there for a substantial time since 2003: it is a soul that I've felt that I've known. Maybe I've been a bit of a hypocrite when it came to Chicago and New York.
Anyway...
A long and short year... an chopped and trunchated year... all sorts of meanderings. I do feel like I've grown a lot, but can't really pinpoint how or when.
Labels: Chicago, DIARY, New York City
1 comments.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Diary: The Mysteries of Chicago, Part 1
I've started rereading Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, one of my favorite novels of all time, in preparation for the inception of the Gothic Funk Nation this February. The timing of all of these events, however, is uncanny, since in some ways the "plot arc" of December 2007 for me had a lot in common with the early English gothic novel in general, and The Mysteries of Udolpho specifically.
As such, when I'm trying to make excuses for the fact that I went AWOL here for the last fifty-or-so days, I might as well attempt to tell the story in the gothic style towards which it is most intrasigently propelled. I sit here now, on an uncharacteristically warm night in January in Chicago – a steamy and cloudy night with thunder and lightning, and perhaps later even hail and tornadoes – and I think back a little over a month, when everything was different...
I did post here less often in the weeks leading up to the move. It had been a very mild autumn in New York; it hadn't snowed at all by Thanksgiving, the leaves were changing in fits and starts through November, and by the last week many were still green and clinging to their branches. I went to the Met and the Frick Collection for the last time. I ate at Kinara's and El Paisano. I read from my novels at the Guerrilla Lit reading, and Marco and Scott put together a going away party for Jess and myself. It was the sunniest I'd ever felt about New York, but of course, we'd been gearing up to move back to Chicago for months at that point.
As the date approached, however, a few things began to come unravel. For the most part, it was nothing worth worrying about: moving is never simple, and of course the actual packing took much longer than I'd anticipated. The logistics of the move were in flux until the last minute, and most disconcertingly, three months of searching had not procured me a job at all. Friends were on the lookout, but nothing had really materialized.
The one saving grace was the apartment: I had found a place through a for-the-moment-unnamed rental agency, and they had taken Skylar around to several places. He recommended one: a large house in the East Village renting for $800. It had a basement and an attic, though I wasn't to have access to these parts of the house. A retired Polish policeman lived in a small apartment at the back; the house had been his family's and his ex-wife was the landlord. More, he believed that the second floor, which his parents had inhabited, was haunted. Skylar told me about this and showed me a number of pictures: a wrought-iron fence; tiny closet-like bedrooms and massive, looming arches connecting the dining and living room. Although the heating would be expensive in the winter, the house was too good a deal to pass up. The rental agency had faxed me the paperwork and I had mailed them my signatures and $1600 in rent and security deposit. I was happy to have had, at least, this one important issue resolved.
On the night, Friday, that the move finally was to take place, I picked up the Budget truck, and Jess helped me pack all day and then left for class. About the time Jess left, Scott arrived and helped me pack, and then Marco showed up at around eight. He had taken two weeks off work to help me with the move, and then to finish his novel. We'd planned on leaving at eight, but with expected and unexpected delays, we didn't really get on the road until midnight. I got a parking citation for leaving the truck parked and unattended in front of my apartment before heading out. We drove down Flatbush and crossed the Manhattan bridge. We took the West Side Highway. A strobe went off in my face for pushing through a red light. The night was not off to a good start.
We crossed the Washington Bridge and made it out of New Jersey after two. The weather was mostly fine, though a bit windy, and the only unnerving thing about this phase of the trip were the massive and sometimes spasming semis barrelling down along both lanes. It took over four hours to cross Pennsylvania on I-80, and both Marco and I were tired as we crossed into Ohio and the sun came up. We stopped at a rest area and I shut my eyes for fifteen minutes. Then, we continued on. We crossed the Cuyahoga River and the sun shot out from behind the clouds. We passed a horrific accident in which a passanger was impaled through the head by the corner of a shouldered semi truck. We drove through a couple hours of countryside and finally through Toledo; the first city of any size we'd approached since we'd actually left New York. On their northern spurs, both Ohio and Pennsylvania are quite desolate and intimidating. We stopped for a moment in Luna Pier so that I could update my parents on my progress and look out over Lake Erie. Then we jogged agross the crumbling and potholed roads to I-23, and drove the rest of the way up to Flint and Flushing. It was after noon when we finally arrived.
The next 24-hours were a fair respite. It was my mom's birthday, and after Marco and I had taken a four-hour nap, I took her out to Red Lobster for dinner, and my dad treated Marco, my sister, and myself. We got a decent sleep that night, and I dashed off to church for the Sunday opening of Advent at St. John Vianney in Flint. We had a lunch and got on the road again.
The last stretch of the drive was much shorter, but more harrowing. It was freezing rain, and occasionally whiteout snow, for the entirety of the two hundred miles between Lansing and Gary, and the trip must have taken at least an extra hour or two. There was black ice under the overpasses, and while the semi drivers seemed now to understand the laws of physics, many others were driving too far out. The snow finally subsided for good as we left Hammond and entered Chicago. We took the Skyway, and on the huge bridge at city limits we couldn't even see the skyline because the air was too thick and wet. We cruised fast along the Dan Ryan, but the Robert Taylor Homes had all been torn down, and it looked like the countryside for awhile. We passed over and through and alongside and under the Loop and exited onto Augusta. I followed Augusta and Milwaukee to the rental agency, where the landlord had assured me I could pick up the keys, checking on the time and date.
It was locked, however, and all of the lights were out.
Twilight was falling on Chicago, and there was no way to get into my new apartment.
Labels: Chicago, DIARY, gothic
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Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Concept: Chicago vs. New York in 21 Subjectively Determined Categories.
1. WORK
NEW YORK.
Easier to find, easier to keep.
2. HOUSING
CHICAGO.
Easier to find, won't rob you blind. Although you aren't as likely to be able to make a cassarole while sitting on your bed.
3. PUBLIC TRANSIT - EFFICIENCY
NEW YORK.
One late Sunday night, not long after I'd started living in New York, I got annoyed for waiting fifteen minutes for a subway. Then I remembered that in Chicago, I'd be blessed to have a train arrive after so long at such a time. Likewise, my apartment is a twenty minute walk to the subway, and a further twenty minutes to Union Square; my New York friends consiter this forty-minute public transit commute a great inconvenience. Now it does have to be acknowledged that New York stations are much dirtier than those in Chicago, but who cares? You're not spending as much time in them.
Exception: Chicago has two airports and two trains serving them. New York has two airports and zero trains serving them. What gives?
4. PUBLIC TRANSIT - ELEGANCE
CHICAGO.
Of course, I've read plenty about the train wreck that the CTA has become. And, of course, it is the job of public transit to be "efficient," not "elegant." But let us consider the potential here, for what could be if both systems were fully updated and maxed out on efficiency. On the one hand you have New York's bewildering spaghetti plate of letters, numbers, colors, dashed, solid, and dotted lines, and geographic morphing... it's taken almost two years to figure all this out, and I still make mistakes from time to time. Chicago's transit map, on the other hand is a work of art. Bright colors radiate from the core of the city like bicycle spokes, intersecting between the center and the periphery with the neat, solid black lines of bus service. Together, on a to-scale map that (shows streets and major features to boot), it presents a service that is immaculate, accessible, and seemingly comprehensive. If only the reality were so!
5. NEIGHBORHOODS.
CHICAGO.
New York neighborhoods are more conspicuously different from each other; they look different... the Brownstone isn't endemic to New York like the Brick Tenement is endemic to Chicago. But in Chicago the roots are deeper and more penetrating, more lasting, so that the difference between Bridgeport, Canaryville, and McKinley Park might as well be the difference between day and night.
6. PIZZA
CHICAGO.
Frankly, I don't even know why this is a debate. I once heard a compelling argument that New York style pizza is celebrated around counters by commuters on their way to work, and hence a source of camaraderie. A nice thought, but doesn't reliance on such an argument instead of the taste of the thing betray the point in the first place? New York style can be a soupy sweet snappy crunchy treat, but it is literally and figuratively crushed by the dense, rich, complex, and visually mighty Chicago-style.
7. MAYOR
NOT-A-TIE.
Now this is a difficult call. Since I've been reading Medieval history lately, I'll ask a comparable question: who do we like more, Charlemagne or Emperor Justinian of the Byzantines? Charlemagne was a able diplomat and something of the maverick true believer. His efforts managed to create a short-lived cultural Renaissance among subjects locked into mutual acrimony, but they also led to the creation of that most illogical and aberrant of all political institutions: the Holy Roman Empire. His greatest contribution in the long-term was probably the lower-case alphabet, and Bloomburg's will probably be Midtown traffic tolls. Whereas Emperor Justinian (and his successors, and theirs) integrated religious orthodoxy with state theology, autocracy, and political purges. He reinforced one of Byzantium's chief weaknesses: that provinces existed only to pay homage to the glittering capital. In doing so he was able to preserve a civilization that, by all logical rationales, ought to have died out eight-hundred years sooner than it did. J. Daley destroyed much of what was great about Chicago in the name of keeping it peopled and thriving, and his son is doing the same. If you read between the lines, I think you know both who I favor, and the massive reservations I have about that choice.
8. MUSEUMS - ART
NEW YORK.
I did expect New York to walk with this one, but I didn't expect it to be such a rout. The Met (which it took me six days to take in) has four times the square footage of the Art Institute and ten times the collection. Though what really hurts my feelings is the diversity and expansiveness and eclectiveness of the Met... after all, the Art Institute's pride and joy are their Impressionist works, which comes as close to boring me as any school of art really can. Also, just as Chicago has three museums to go toe-to-toe with the Museum of Natural History, MoMa has a right to take on the Art Institute, and doesn't do poorly in the contest. Both cities have, of course, numerous smaller collections of quality, but those in New York (the Frick, the Guggenheim, the Whitney) appear to be somewhat better endowed. I have to confess: I think I will miss this about New York more than any other single thing.
9. BASEBALL TEAMS (AND THEIR FANS) THAT I OBJECT TO
CHICAGO.
The Cubs have the most obnoxious fanbase on the planet, but Yankees fans are almost as obnoxious, with the added penalty of being frequently psychotic.
10. BASEBALL TEAMS (AND THEIR FANS) THAT I KINDA DON'T MIND.
NEW YORK.
If Cubs fans are frequently obnoxious, and Yankees fans are frequently obnoxious and psychotic, then White Sox fans are a generally decent non-obnoxious bunch, who nevertheless tend to go a little bit psycho. Whereas I've never even met a Mets fan I didn't like.
11. MUSIC
TIE.
To be fair, this, more than anything (for me, at least) comes down to a few key battles. Blues vs. Jazz, for instance (I go with Blues, and therefore Chicago). Or House vs. Hip Hop (which just rips me apart). I would have to go with the idea that New York does, in the end, represent a more diverse array of music on the whole, but the kinds of music that I love the most were perfected (and remain so) in Chicago. So there is no way to resolve this. It is a tie.
12. MUSEUMS - SCIENCE
CHICAGO.
Decisively, though not overwhelmingly. The comparison has to begin with the American Museum of Natural History vs. its equivalent, the Field Museum. Not only is the AMNH larger, but its execution is fresher, bolder, and its exhibits are more astonishing. The Cladographic exhibition of fossils is brilliant, and the Rose Space Center is visually striking and intricate. But unfortunately, that's the bulk of what New York brings to this question. The Museum of Science and Industry steps in on Chicago's behalf. As does Adler. And together, these three institutions, any of each could easily absorb one or several days exploring, do trump the AMNH. As for Shedd vs. the New York aquarium, there's simply no comparison. It's ironic that an aquarium so far from the ocean could display sea life with such panache. But then, it is situated on the world's most colorful deposits of Silurian marine life.
13. GRAFFITI
NEW YORK.
Unless one wants to lean heavily on Pilsen murals (which might be against the rules), this particular comparison is probably the worse spanking Chicago gets. In New York, there's graffiti everywhere, and a lot of it is awesome.
14. THEATER
CHICAGO.
I've seen some great theater in New York. But what I've never seen in New York a brilliant blackbox multimedia political parody of Scooby Doo in which $5 buys admission plus all the PBR you can drink.
15. SKYLINE
TIE.
Too different to compare. Early and changing building ordinances in New York imposed many different requirements on buildings for setbacks and spacing. This, combined with Manhattan's density, its irregular streets downtown, topographical variation, and the lack of alleys has created a rugged, craggy skyline that looks like mountains eroded over hundred of millions of years. Chicago, by comparison, is stark, austere, monolithic. There appears to be more of a plan to its layout, with the neat grid and fixation with clean rectangles. At the same time, Chicago has managed to avoid a lot of the explicit commercial construction that plagues New York, and despite the recent construction of (what a friend calls) "architrocities" on the periphery of the Loop, the Loop itself seems more quintessentially American: sharp and angular. Mountains rising from the prairie.
16. PARKS
NEW YORK.
Millennium Park is a marvel... let's just admit it. It looks like one of those awesome computer-generated cities-of-the-future we saw in the early 90s. And all of Chicago's flagship parks have something to offer. It's just that New York offers a lot more of this. How many worlds have been driven into and through Central Park? And how has Prospect Park been impacted so thoroughly by rolling meadows right there between Park Slope and Crown Heights? Hell, even Corona Park, with its lakes and lagoons and the Unisphere seems like this dreamy thing that half-Queens and half-Martian as envisioned by Ray Bradbury.
17. COFFEE
NEW YORK.
I'm sure the cities are neck-and-neck for fancy schmancy gooey deluxe coffee treat stuff. But I've never cared about that. Small coffee black no sugar is my poison. You can get it on any busy street corner in Manhattan for about a dollar. You don't even get it that cheap in Flint!
18. WATERFRONT
CHICAGO.
Now this is perhaps the most obvious of all. In fact, the New York waterfront has a nice level of diversity, being some 1 part pretty park space, 3 parts industrial sprawl, 3 parts highway/roadway, 4 parts other. What is truly objectionable about the New York lakefront is the lack of access in most cases. Not only does Chicago have twentyish miles of beautiful parklike setting, with dripping grass and black oaks, beaches, rocks, waves and sky, but most importantly, it's all public! For the last two years I've lived about two blocks from the East River, but I have to walk over a mile if I actually want to touch the water.
19. NEW YORK'S LEGITIPAPER (NEW YORK TIMES) VS. CHICAGO'S LEGITIPAPER (CHICAGO TRIBUNE)
NEW YORK.
No contest.
20. NEW YORK'S RANKING TABLOID (NEW YORK POST) VS. CHICAGO'S RANKING TABLOID (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES)
CHICAGO.
No contest.
21. CITY.
CHICAGO.
What can I say? I'm a Midwestern kid. More on this tomorrow...
Labels: Chicago, CONCEPT, midwest, New York City
4 comments.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Diary: 10 Reasons why Certain New Yorkers should Move to Chicago.
10. It's true that East Coast girls are hip (I'm sure you dig those styles they wear), but the Mid-West farmer's daughters really make you feel alright.
9. Why eat this when you could be eating this?
8. CBGB's was priced out and closed down. But the Double Door, the Metro, and the Vic are still going strong. Bonus: The Brew N'View on the North Side and DOC Films on the South Side.
7. Rent: $750
Neighborhood: Pilsen/ Little Village
Bedrooms: 2BR
Bathrooms: 1 bath
Pets: Cats OK
Parking: No
Map: 2137 W. 18th Place, 60608
2137 West 18th Place. Pilsen two bedroom, one bathroom available immediately. Bright, clean, laundry, near park, blue line and bus stops. Cats OK. $750/ month plus security deposit. Utilities not included. Call Matt, 630-854-7743
6. Waterfront, the middle of NYC. Waterfront, middle of Chicago.
5. One of the greatest skylines in the world (the difference between the New York and Chicago skylines is the difference between quantity and quality).
4. The World's Largest Free Blues Festival, its equally impressive jazz festival, and Lollapalooza.
3.
483 miles to this.
302 miles to this.
263 miles to this.
237 miles to this.
166 miles to this.
0 miles to this.
317 miles to this.
2. No Yankees (and effectively no Yankees fans).
1. You'd Get To Hang With Connor And Jess!
5 comments.
