Category Archives: Chicago

Mosè in Egitto at Chicago Opera Theater

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JT took me to another opera, the April 21st performance of Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto at Chicago Opera Theater.

Altogether, this was quite a different experience from that at Chicago Lyric. Harris Theater is nestled in the bowels of the earth at Millennium Park. Attendees cram onto one relatively small elevator, which fits the parking garage aesthetic of the entry and other public areas. It’s more than just stark and cold, or minimalist. It’s aggressively industrial, the kind of place where you’d expect the scent of leaked oil, disintegrating rubber, and pervasive dampness. Not a place where you’d expect an art like opera to grow and thrive. JT said her husband hates Harris Theater; it’s easy to see why.

Off the elevator and in the theater we descended steep gray steps made of a hard material that suited the garage theme and flanked in spots by flimsy handrails. As the average age here doesn’t seem to be any younger than at Lyric, the purpose of the design seems to be to facilitate vertigo followed by a fall — fortunately, not mine this time. As I looked around, I half expected Blue Man Group to appear.

Baritone-bass Tom Corbeil (Faraone), who is very tall and looked to me to be very young, couldn’t project beyond the first few rows — that’s where we were, and we could hear only just barely. In addition to a weak voice and unvarying volume, Corbeil’s performance suffered from awkward staging exacerbated by his idea that a pharaoh should be stiff, down to his rigid fingers. As his wife Amaltea, mezzo-soprano Kathryn Leemhuis overcame the silliness of the padded gold lamé gown/shroud she’d been stuffed into, to put on a passionate show as the voice of womanly care and reason. Baritone-bass Andrea Concetti (Mosè) and tenor Jorge Prego (Aronne) sang and acted capably, although Prego’s expressions at time reminded me of a young Brent Spiner. To me this seemed a difficult role because it’s superfluous to the plot; he’s overshadowed by the two couples and Mosè. Second banana, fifth wheel — never easy, and the role of Aronne adds little.

The real show stoppers are tenor Taylor Stayton as the Pharoah’s son, Osiride, and soprano (and flaming redhead) Siân Davies as his Israelite lover Elcia. The plot is thin and straightforward, so they end up singing about the same things over and over. Fortunately, both have the vocal power and acting range to stretch the material.

The set, dominated by a slanted glass pyramid sheet, and the costumes lacked flair or imagination, even on a budget, and the staging detracted from the interrelated dramas — Pharoah vs. the God of the Israelites, and the son and his lover vs. his father and her God. Too much was performed straight on or at 180 degrees to the audience (not unlike a first-grade play), random movements were substituted for action, and the ensemble (serving as both Egyptians and Israelites) was too small to project either an Egyptian force or an Israelite throng, making the plot’s very large sticking point (emigration) seem very small. At times, the combined staging and lighting reminded me of Catholic mass — surely not the desired effect. Worse, the staging of the piece’s deaths and the parting of the Red Sea was clumsy, confusing, and on the border of laughable — also surely not the desired effect given the human and personal drama that has gone before.

I couldn’t help noticing one of the ensemble members, partly because he is very tall — as tall as Corbeil — and because, sporting a beard, he’s very handsome. I liked him, too, because he seemed comfortable in his own skin, fluid in his movements, and, despite his height, never calling attention to himself to the detriment of the principals. Through clues in the program and on the Chicago Opera Theater Web site, and my intuition, I figured out he’s baritone-bass Benjamin LeClair. JT looked at his history and declared it impressive for an ensemble member. She speculated that he simply wished to appear in this rare production, even if only as an ensemble member. He also served as cover for Moses. I’d like to hear his voice, especially if he can project better than Corbeil. I’d love to see him again, even if not on stage!

And so, with the deaths duly died and the Israelites on the other side of the Red Sea, we departed, and I was able to get home early enough not to suffer the next day at work — at least I was alert enough to discover the tall and handsome (and too young) Benjamin LeClair.

“Under City Stone” and other murals

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I don’t know the history of the murals under the 55th/Lake Park overpass, but I’m under the impression that they predate my 1979 arrival in Hyde Park by a couple of years. They may have been relatively new and fresh, but even then they struck me as depressing and disturbing. I’ve never read the narrative in its entirety, but “butcher’s hooks” still sticks with me. The people pictured, many contorted with their heads thrown back, look tortured to me, as though their creator were a contemporary if less fantastic Hieronymus Bosch.

I understand that for some time there had been a search for the artist. With so much information online, you’d think she’d be easy to find, but not so. At long last, however, it seems that she turned up. I saw her, or someone, refreshing the mural at the northeast end of the overpass. Later, as winter approached, a handwritten paper sign appeared with thanks to the neighborhood and a promise to return. Sadly, by season’s end the sign had weathered the winter better than the mural, its bright, touched-up sections already streaked from the melting snow, rain, and dampness. As others have noted, while the idea of viaduct murals seems like an attractive addition to urban life, their practicality is another matter.

Under City Stone

Even later, toward the southwest portion, large sheets of steel imprinted with black-and-white and colorful artwork were bolted up around the entrance steps to Metra. I also spotted a young man working on the uncovered southwest end of the mural, which for now looks like new.

So the viaduct’s walls are currently a mishmash of restored, faded, and, in places, obliterated mural and spanking new sponsored sheet metal print art, all without any explanation.

It keeps us coming back to find out what’s next.

Under City Stone

Update: Here’s part of the story of the murals from the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference site. The murals on the north and south sides are different. The south side mural, the more fascinating to me, is pictured.

Caryl Yasko is redoing one panel of Under City Stone on 55th this year — more will follow next, more money is being raised. Note that there was improper grouting allowing continued water seepage. This is the mural that uses James Agee’s poem (by permission). Most will be redone in oil as per the original. Pulling together contributions and in-kinds is Mary Guggenheim. Heritage Foundation’s Rescue Public Murals initiative is involved. Hundreds are helping. Can send contributions c/o CPAG, 1259 S. Wabash, 60605, 708 655-8919 or undercitystone@gmail.com. Yasko writes:


Yasko first painted “Under City Stone” in 1972. The name of the mural comes from the James Agee poem “Rapid Transit” which runs the length of the north side of the 55th Street underpass. It was one of the Chicago Mural Group’s first projects. Funding came from the National Endowment for the Arts, Hyde Park Merchants Association, and citizen donors. With funding from the South East Chicago Commission and Chicago Public Arts Group, we are restoring one of the murals’ 13 sections. Contingent on funding and support from you, we will restore the remaining sections in summer and early fall 2009.


Mural on the south side of of 55th has undergone some restoration by Damon Lamar Reed, and work continues along with column restoration on 56th south side.

Spring into fall

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With the cooler, even cold temperatures of what seems like a premature fall, and distance from my surgery and permanent separation from Ignatius the tenacious fibroid, my energy levels have risen. During the past year or two, I seemed to spend several hours of every weekend in a torpor of deep napping. I still doze off every now and then, but usually not for entire wasted afternoons at a time. With my shoulder (impingement syndrome) feeling better after a couple of bad days earlier in the month, this weekend I was able to collect and toss the trash, clear junk off the coffee table, stay on top of the dishes, clean the bathroom, vacuum, and take care of laundry. It may not sound like much to a normal person, but for me it was quite an amazing feat. This doesn’t mean, of course, that the place is straightened up, clean, or presentable.

Last Sunday, the 4th, I met J. at the Homewood train station. But I didn’t meet just J. He called to tell me that G., the disabled man he drives to church and Caribou Coffee, was still with him because, when he had tried to drop him off, they’d found the house deserted and locked. Because someone was expected at 2:30 p.m., we went to a bagel place to kill the time. G. could have come with us — we were headed to an art fair at Swallow Cliff Woods — but J. would have had to drive north, then south, then back north again. Waiting worked out, and G. even got a bowl of chili out of it. He’s diabetic and sometimes seems to have wildly fluctuating glucose levels, so J. is reluctant to provide him with anything other than coffee for fear it will have an effect on his numbers. Chili may not be healthful, but I figured it wouldn’t make his glucose spike, either. He enjoyed it, and I appreciated feeling free from guilt.

Finally, we took G. home, then made for Swallow Cliff Woods via Wolf (“Woof” in J.’s lingo) Road. Along here are still some cornfields, old farmhouses, decaying outbuildings, and remnants of rural culture. Parts of it could pass for southern New York or the flatter bits of central Pennsylvania. Sadly, however, more corner signs have sprung up advertising lots for sale — that open field bordered by trees is probably doomed to become another strip mall because there just aren’t enough of those in the Chicago area.

Further north, although I am not sure exactly where, we came across a place where the fields had been converted into a McMansion development. The houses are so large that J. thought surely some of them must be apartments. But no — I’m certain they are single-family homes. I can’t fathom why people choose to live in enormous houses on relatively small plots of land squished together. For the money, I’d rather have a more modestly sized house on a few acres, with a little breathing room outdoors as well as in. The style of these dwellings added to their strangely mass produced ostentatiousness — from the glimpses I had of the materials and look, I thought they were intended to mimic European country chateaux. That is, if country chateaux were clumped together on dimes of land in suburban subdivisions. A man’s home truly is his castle — minus the estate.

After a few wrong turns here and there — thanks to Google Maps on the iPhone, at least we avoided driving into cul-de-sac traps — we arrived at Swallow Cliff Woods. The sun was peering out intermittently, throwing a little cheer and warmth across the field where the artists had pitched their tents.

After picking up some honey, J. settled in at a tent where what he called “fuzzies” — hand-crafted Christmas decorations and the like — were sold, while I wandered ahead. As happens periodically, I found myself tempted to buy a block of amethyst — it looks so magical, and reminds me of my late aunt — but as also happens I resisted. Instead, I headed for the Forest Preserve District of Cook County tent, where they were attempting to find people to recruit as volunteers. I had to break it to the friendly woman that I’m unable to serve, but we had a good talk about invasive species and what volunteers do. I mentioned Volo Bog State Natural Area, which is touted as the only quaking bog in Illinois. In a show of competitiveness, she hastily pointed out that portions of one of their bogs also quake. J., who had appeared, duly noted one of the places she mentioned as a good spot to visit.

The find of the day was Joe Nowak (For the Love of Nature), a wildlife photographer who prides himself on his unretouched photos, taken with a 35mm camera on Fujifilm. His photos are amazing — a red-tailed hawk illuminated by a ray of sunshine, a great horned owl so blended into the tree bark that it takes several efforts to find, a deer scratching its ears with a hind hoof. He and his wife told us that the owl photos are possible thanks to a woman they call the “owl whisperer”; she has an uncanny ability to sense and spot owls and their nests even while driving full speed down the highway. She’d found the camouflaged owl on a golf course and alerted them. His photos and their conversation were delightful.

You can’t visit Swallow Cliff Woods without walking up the old toboggan run stairs. For some people, this means making dozens of trips up and down in the pursuit of fitness. For me, one round trip, with many rest stops on the way up, then broken by a walk in the woods before heading down cautiously, tests the limits of my worn knees and aching back and lungs. Later, on the long way down, we were passed, back and forth at least four or five times, by a determined woman who almost bounded effortlessly. From the bottom we watched her slightly splayed stride, which looked easy. An older man, who also made the round trip several times, did so much more laboriously, soaking his shirt with perspiration. That was me after one trip up.

This time at the top we veered down a path to the left instead of taking the main trail straight ahead. While more level and less of a challenge to walk, it was more interesting visually, with tree-covered ravines that reminded me of New York and Pennsylvania. This seemed to be the way less traveled, a little more hushed, except for a few people like us walking along and the lone cyclist who couldn’t, wouldn’t, or didn’t read the sign prohibiting bicycles and who flew toward and past us with a cheery whoosh.

I remember the summer evening we were at Swallow Cliff Woods after dark, when thousands of fireflies lighted intermittently, transforming the familiar into the magic. Now the fireflies are long gone, having taken summer with them.

Later, we undid all the good we’d done our bodies with dinner at Hackney’s in Palos Park.

The following Saturday, the 10th, J. called me in the morning — unusual for him. I deduced correctly that he’d worked overnight. He wanted to go to Bonjour, and we arrived in time for him to order the breakfast special — Madame or one of her helpers even threw in a drink sample and a miniature croissant. While we chatted, I amused myself by watching people walking away from the neighborhood’s annual book fair with bags, boxes, and carts of books. (The next day, I encountered a young woman on the Flamingo’s elevator who “just wanted to get some groceries” but had succumbed to the allure of the printed word, buying a bag full of bargain books that was clearly weighing her down. “Now I have to go back,” she lamented. “For food.”)

While J. mailed his taxes, I shopped the biography and poetry sections. I found a two-volume biography of John Adams, a volume of Catullus, and some other treasures. I saw, but didn’t buy, a multi-volume poetry set inscribed in spidery writing with a woman’s name, “Bryn Mawr College, 1903.” I doubt many of my college books, not nearly so beautifully bound, will resurface in such fair condition at a 2085 book sale.

While I cleaned the bathroom, I let J. sleep for an hour or so, the off we went to the Chicago Botanic Garden. We shopped; checked out the orchids, which strike me as ranging from sexy to sinister; and walked around the nearly dead rose garden, the English walled garden, and the waterfall. The walled garden reminds me of The Secret Garden, naturally. Oh, to have a private walled garden retreat where magic at least seems possible. Walled gardens and waterfalls — where dreams are real, or reality a dream.

This time, we found Blind Faith Café without too many detours. The menu had changed, so J. chose a Native American-inspired entrée while I opted for black bean tostadas, both vegetarian. We also picked up baked goods, etc., to go. He’d commented earlier that some of the wall quilts seemed to have disappeared, while I noticed that the merchandise — T-shirts and the like — were missing. J. had better hold onto his old Blind Faith Café vase, as it could soon prove to be nearly one of a kind.

And so home, tired, sated, and happy for a time. Outdoors, among the trees, I come alive.

Let the Fantasea begin

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On 24 September, after an al fresco dinner overlooking the river at Rivers, a friend and I took a cab to the Shedd Aquarium for a members’ preview of the new oceanarium show, Fantasea.

I didn’t follow the renovation of the oceanarium, so I didn’t know anything about it. In some ways, I still don’t, because we didn’t walk around it afterward. Much of the work, however, seems to have been focused on making Fantasea possible vs. making wholesale changes to the visible and/or aqueous parts of the exhibit — at least, from what I could see from my seat next to the new railings between seating sections.

When Ken Ramirez joined Shedd in the late 1980s as assistant curator of marine mammals and training (he’s now vice president of collections and training), he said that the Shedd would never put on marine mammal shows (implication: like SeaWorld), only educational presentations highlighting the whales’ and dolphins’ natural behaviors, performed on cue. I’m sure I’m not making that up because I seem to recall talking about it with several docents at Lincoln Park Zoo. We even may have discussed it with Ramirez himself when he served as a guest dinner speaker at the 1993 AZAD conference we hosted. I saw the presentation a few times and noticed, or think I noticed, that music and a little showmanship crept in over time, but it remained primarily educational and plain.

Never say never, however.

Now it’s definitely a show. A show complete with video, music, costumes, staging, lighting, and props. All that is missing are dialogue, plot, and curtain-call roses for the female lead, a young girl selected from the audience (possibly a privileged person’s daughter, pre-selected and rehearsed, judging from her, shall we say, flair for the dramatic). I’m getting ahead of myself, however.

As we sat and waited for what our rear ends told us was a very long time, a lot of important-looking people wandered into the other seating section — the aquarium’s board of trustees, which was holding a meeting afterward. I asked my friend how I can get a seat on the board; it looked like a good way to prop up my sagging confidence. She told me to have and donate lots and lots of money. It’s that simple. That’s really too bad, though — don’t my lots and lots of wisdom, insight, and vision compensate for my lack of funds and connections? Anyway, seated in front of the VIPs were “special guests,” a couple of elementary school classes.

We were shown some videos, one highlighting Shedd’s history. Perhaps an older native Chicagoan might have recognized some of the people pictured (who, in their day, probably had and donated lots and lots of money). My friend disliked the music, which managed to combine a New Age sound with a funereal rhythm, all cranked painfully loud.

The next video captured everyone’s attention, showing the beluga whales’ return trip from Mystic, Connecticut, on a FedEx cargo plane. Placed into slings, lifted by crane onto a truck and then presumably onto the plane, flown, and trucked again like so much freight, reassured by their handlers, and finally released into their pool, the belugas surely wondered what they had done to deserve this and when the nightmare would be over. I may be anthropomorphizing, but I can imagine only that these intelligent and emotional animals must find being packaged and transported bewildering and stressful, even if they have experienced it before. This video was so touching that some audience members seemed to shed a few tears. Not me, of course.

An introductory video excited us, especially when we saw the red-tailed hawks.

A staffer came out to introduce the preview, warning us that Fantasea is a work in progress and that the animals may choose not to perform their natural behaviors on cue. Like actors (and co-workers), even trained animals may not feel like co-operating. At this point, the young girl lead was selected from the board’s side of the audience and given a giant glowing Fantasea logo necklace.

Let the Fantasea begin.

The cast of Fantasea characters includes a sea lion, a rockhopper and a mini-flock of Magellanic penguins, beluga whales, two red-tailed hawks, and the stars of the finale, the showy and popular Pacific white-sided dolphins. The supporting cast consisted of humans dressed to resemble, in a stylized sense, their animal counterparts. Ahead of the hawks, a feathered human “flew” in along a ceiling track; before another act (the dolphins? Now I can’t recall), three people sporting bowlers and umbrellas dropped in via trapeze swing contraptions. Between acts, video showed strangely dressed people swimming and ambulating through surreal, almost psychedelic environments, while the girl lead turned on her necklace and apparently directed the action with a little help from the spirit guides.

As for the animals, the sea lion performed some imitative flipper waving, but, as my friend dryly observed, his best trick seemed to be swallowing prodigious quantities of fish. It’s all positive.

A man dressed in a penguin-style wet suit appeared, carrying a rockhopper under his arm. When he discovered the Magellanic flock of three or four in a box on wheels, he pointed them out dramatically to his rockhopper companion, who seemed nonplussed. The Magellanic penguins proved difficult to entice out of their box (I suspect penguins are like flamingos — if you can persuade one to move, the rest will follow). The man set the rockhopper down, leaving the bird to hop up our aisle to the amazement and delight of the crowd (especially those close enough to touch it). I can’t remember much else other than the man retrieving and tucking the rockhopper under his arm again.

The belugas performed much as they have in the past, perhaps a little closer to the audience and a little more flair in the cues from the trainers.

After the flight of the human hawk, a woman dressed in a quasi-Robin Hood outfit appeared with a red-tailed hawk on her fist. The hawk flew from the seating side to the opposite island. A similarly dressed man appeared with a second hawk for the audience to see more closely, but his hawk was having none of it, bating and falling off the glove repeatedly.

The show wrapped up with the Pacific white-sided dolphins, who, like the whales, spyhopped, flopped, leaped, and flapped their way to an ovation, the most enthusiastic of the evening.

The girl returned the glowing necklace with more dumb show, and so Fantasea ended.

Afterward, the hawk handler told us the birds are blind in one eye — that’s why they’re nonreleasable — while we commented on the difficulty of indoor flight for even a fully sighted raptor. To a couple of our questions she responded that certain ideas didn’t fit into the “story line.” Here she lost me.

Story line?

The concept behind Fantasea is to connect the visitors to the animals. We guessed that the trainers and others, like the flying human, filled the role of spirit or animal guides, although I’m not sure that most, or many, average visitors would catch onto that — it wasn’t clear.

My opinion of Fantasea is colored by my childhood and my experience. I wasn’t raised on the Disney diet, and I didn’t learn to anthropomorphize animals. They weren’t furry variations on humans; they were more interesting to me for the things that made them different from humans and each other, such as their adaptations, behavior, and interrelationships. A cat was more than cute and cuddly; it was an effective hunter, capable of strength and speed. In every house cat I see shades of lions and tigers. What I do not see is a singing and dancing Disney character or even Sylvester the Cat. My experience as a zoo docent reinforced my perceptions. That’s why I see Fantasea from a different perspective than the Chicago Tribune critic, who praised its “thrilling moments and truly eye-popping production values.” I’m quite sure most of the audience would agree with this assessment, not mine.

From my skewed viewpoint, the show seemed lacking in a few areas. For example:

Story line. Aside from the girl running from point to point with her periodically glowing Fantasea necklace and meeting the guides and animals, there was no story line. The connections that are supposed to be at the heart of Fantasea made little emotional impact; there were no “ahhh” moments that I noticed, except perhaps a bit of surprise when the rockhopper hopped up the rocky steps. In addition, the red-tailed hawks didn’t fit the program. In nature, these animals would not be found together, but at least the sea lion, whales, penguins, and dolphins share aquatic environments and adaptations. While the red-tailed hawk may be found in coastal areas, it’s not an emblematic water raptor in the same way the osprey or even bald eagle is. The one’s short flight and the other’s brief appearance seemed tacked on; they didn’t seems to be an integral part of the barely discernible story line.

Animals. How can a show that features six species be said to be short on animals? With the backdrop, bright lights, garish video, blaring music, kitschy costumes, props, girl guide with glowing necklace, and human shenanigans, the animals got quite lost in all that sensory overload. The focus is on them such a short time and is disrupted by so many human interactions that they become almost ancillary to their own show.

Education. With the emphasis on “connection,” little in the show provides education or even an attempt at it. To me it seems connections are made and formed with species that we understand, respect, and relate to on some level. All this requires some knowledge acquired through education. At the end of Fantasea, I knew no more about why should I want or feel connection with the sea lion, penguins, belugas, hawks, or dolphins than I had before. Not even the simple point that we all depend on clean water was made. You might learn more at — dare I say it? — SeaWorld.

Shedd has more than SeaWorld to compete with — nonstop action movies with sophisticated animation that makes anything possible, games, virtual reality, facebook, texting — our attention spans seem shorter and more easily diverted than ever. As long as we don’t love simple pleasures anymore and need constant and greater stimulation, a mere educational animal presentation doesn’t cut it. That’s a shame, because all the video, music, lights, and staging detract from the heart and soul of the show and from what’s important — the animals.

I also wondered about the animals, especially the rockhopper penguin. I’ve read that Antarctic penguin species (compared to their temperate climate counterparts, like the Magellanic penguins) do not fare well in temperatures that are even moderately too warm, becoming prone to disease and death, yet here is an Antarctic species paraded in air that’s at least 10 to 15 degrees warmer than its optimum range. It wasn’t until I’d slept on it, though, that I realized what bothered me more — that the rockhopper was treated like a prop. To me, this sends the wrong message; to form a connection with wild animals, we first must respect what they are, which is neither stage prop nor pet. Rockhoppers aren’t objects to be tucked under the arm and carried about like a clutch purse. The thought of it disturbed me even in my sleep.

For all my hand wringing, however, supplemented by that of my friend, perhaps the best commentary came from a little boy I’d noticed early in the evening because he was wearing a St. Thomas the Apostle School t-shirt. After the show, his mother encouraged him to go talk to the trainers. Ignoring her, he spread his arms wide and ran away up the steps, saying, “I want to fly like a hawk.”

For at least that brief moment, he’d made a connection.

Life at street level

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Saturday, September 19, I invited J. over for an end-of-summer dip in the pool. It’s been a cool, cloudy September, and with the neighborhood urchins back in school only a few hardy residents have been coming out to do a few laps. The sun, sinking toward the south, now hides behind the building most of the day, so there’s nothing for sunbathers to bask in. The pool, once crowded and noisy, is empty and quiet now.

The pool’s water is warm, but the breeze can be nippy on wet skin. J. finds it hard to get into the water, so he lowers himself slowly, while I start to shiver and my teeth to chatter when I get out and the air hits me. I noticed that a young woman who jumped in for a few laps scurried inside after a brief rub with a towel. There’s no drying off naturally at sunset when the 65-degree Fahrenheit air is blowing.

Dried off and warmed up, we decided to eat before J. continued on to work. He mentioned Western Avenue, which seemed too far to me under what felt like time and energy constraints. We settled on Calypso Café — not his idea of new and adventurous, but at least we hadn’t been there in a while, and the menu is pretty varied.

This trip also gave me a chance to see what was left of Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop — which is nothing, just a very clean excavation, with no sign of construction that I could tell. Ostensibly, a clean site presents a better picture to potential investors than a doomed building, although I wonder who’s buying or lending right now. As I told J., it looks to me like the University of Chicago wanted to flex its muscle and show the neighborhood it means business.

To me, this raises the question of what business the university is in, exactly. Given the number of times they contact me by phone, e-mail, and mail to plead for funding, I would think they’re focusing on their core mission, which I think would be education, research, and medicine. On the side, however, they can’t seem to resist the real estate business — owning and managing the local shopping center, buying property and providing vague explanations, and now buying and redeveloping the old Harper Court.

J. asked me if other big universities carry so much weight in their neighborhoods. To his surprise, I laughed. The University of Chicago is a flea compared to, say, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

I like Ann Arbor. From the bed and breakfast where I stay, I can walk to countless local boutiques and shops, like Peaceable Kingdom and the People’s Food Co-op and Café Verde. For those students who require their suburban comforts, Borders and Starbucks are right off the main campus. But my favorite, even now that many of the brick streets have been paved over, is Kerrytown, a quaint and quirky shopping center where you can find so much variety at the shops or the frequent farmers’ market. At Kerrytown, I feel like I’m in a small village artisans’ market — something that the “college town” of Hyde Park sorely lacks. So much here is spread out and is purely utilitarian; many of the limited storefronts are dedicated to salons, dry cleaners, locksmiths, optometrists, dentists, and the like. A great boutique like Parker’s Pets (akin to Kerrytown’s Dogma and Catmantoo) is isolated on a boulevard, away from other shops in an area that has little to draw pedestrians. Open Produce and The Fair Trader are also wonderful additions to the area, but they’re far from the heart of the university, and students and staff would have to go out of the way to shop there — with little else nearby to browse except a dollar store.

Now imagine Parker’s Pets, Freehling Pot and Pan Company, Bonjour Bakery and Café, Toys Etcetera, The Fair Trader, Istria Café, and Open Produce all on one or two blocks. Throw in a movie theater and even a small venue for folk and world music nearby, and you’ve pictured downtown Ann Arbor. If the university is going to micromanage Hyde Park, can’t they come up with a master strategy and vision that’s as conducive to community and participation as Ann Arbor? Even the 55th Street side of the Hyde Park Shopping Center, with its landscaped courtyard and arts, garden, and book fairs, is a step in the right direction.

My understanding is that a mixed-use high-rise is planned to dominate Harper Court. Perhaps density is ecologically “green” and the best use of urban space. I’ve noticed, though, that high-rises don’t foster community in the way that clustered storefronts and courtyards do. Imposing and bulky, often with little open space, high-rises seem distanced from their surroundings. They don’t entice the neighborhood to gather. Much of urban social life happens at street level, spilling out from restaurants, pubs, taverns, cafés, shops, and three flats, not from high-rise hulks.

Nowhere in Chicago is this more evident than in Lincoln Park, where the main streets like Lincoln and Clark, Armitage and Diversey, are filled with people shopping, eating, drinking, and hanging out in front of the most popular places.

By contrast, the primary commercial street near the University of Chicago is 53rd Street, where many of the most interesting shops (including those that were once in Harper Court) have disappeared, including, for example, the Chalet (replaced by a chain) and the import store (owner retired and moved). Because of the proximity of Kenwood Academy and for other reasons, the police discourage loitering, so what makes Lincoln Park sociable, popular, and successful is considered a threat in Hyde Park. Even men playing chess are dangerous, at least according to those who had the chess tables at Harper Court removed years ago, driving the rowdy players over to Borders and Harold Washington Park, where they continue to disturb the peace with their intent stares at chess pieces.

I’d be happy to be wrong, but unless the street level of a high-rise complex is engaging in design and offers something for many, the university’s plans don’t seem to add all that much to the development of community except a modern face. Unless there’s something really compelling at that level, I suspect most of us will still be at the park watching the chess players, at Promontory Point soaking up rays, or indulging in a croissant at Bonjour, and still wishing there were some place to go and some place to hang out in Hyde Park.

Milton Ehre, 1933–2009

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Milton Ehre, 1933–2009

A measure of age and experience, or simply the passage of time, is how many people we’ve known who are no more. When you’re young, death is extraordinary, but as you age it is expected. Every generation sees it leaders, scientists, thinkers, artists, and celebrities pass out of existence and even sometimes forgotten (I’ve been asked who Clark Gable was by those who had no reason to know). While millions mourn the untimely death of Michael Jackson, I turn to the less surprising passing of Milton Ehre, University of Chicago professor emeritus of Slavic languages and literatures.

Like the late Wayne Booth and Ned Rosenheim, Mr. Ehre was one of a handful of professors who made a strong impression on me, yet of most of those I have only a specific memory or two. Saturday night at Wildfire J. recalled something his father had said at dinner years ago, and I realized how vague all my memories are. I don’t remember details or conversations, only sensations and feelings.

Mr. Ehre’s name, with its resonance with “millionaire,” made some of my classmates titter quietly. He probably knew it and was amused by it. From what I understand, he was no ivory-tower academic, nor were his classes easy. Any pre-med hopeful who thought Mr. Ehre’s or Mr. Rosenheim’s classes were going to be a free pass to a good grade must have wished they’d pursued something less demanding, like Shakespeare or Anglo-Saxon literature.

I must have liked Mr. Ehre’s teaching style because I found myself in more than one of his classes. His beard made me think of him as a human Ursa Minor — a diminutive bear of a man.

Except that he talked funny.

I came from what had to have been the whitest of white-bread towns, where almost everyone I knew from school had the unremarkable flat accent of the western New Yorker. Some parents, displaced by World War II and its ravages, spoke with European accents, but most of us with our dominant British, Polish, German, and Italian ancestries, looked and sounded as vanilla as the ice cream at Dairy Queen. My first few weeks at the small university in the big city, where I met Sikhs, Jamaicans, Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indians, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans — and New Yorkers. That’s right, people with the truly alien accents of Brooklyn and Queens.

I don’t know exactly where Mr. Ehre was from, but it almost had to have been somewhere in New York City. His appearance, his accent, his mannerisms gave him a character every bit as colorful to me as the impression left by turbans and salsa parties.

With Mr. Ehre as professor, I expanded my literary repertoire beyond the safe confines of the British Victorians and the American storytellers. After completing Literature and Society in Modern Russia (1860–1914), a history department class which at first I left with an incomplete, then a B, Russian and Soviet history and even Baba Yaga seemed to make more sense. It was as exotic a world to me as the Japan of The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, which I no longer recall (time for some re-reading?).

Of Mr. Ehre, of whom my memories are so vague, I can say only, “He was a man, take him for all in all, / I shall not look upon his like again.”

The lusty month of May, 2009 edition

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It’s that time of year when suddenly I notice the signs of spring, or perhaps suddenly they appear.

I spotted one of the first dandelions last week from on board a CTA bus — there was just a scraggly handful of them. Today the lake at 53rd Street is sporting a thick pelt of them Like last year when I first noticed those patches, I wondered why entire swaths of grass were yellow before I realized what they were. I may be mistaken, but I associate dandelions with late March in western New York. Spring’s harbingers seemed to appear a month earlier there. But that could be distance and nostalgia speaking.

Earlier, I’d noticed the bushes at the Flamingo sprouting leaves. Last weekend, finally they appeared on some of my favorite trees, including the horse chestnut across the way. Now some of the trees along 55th Street are in full white flower.

Last weekend, twice I flushed a male cardinal, once by the back gate and once by the back door. While the cardinal is a snowbird, a favorite of Christmas card producers, he’s in nesting mode now, less shy and more protective of his territory.

When I came home the other evening, I stepped off the sidewalk to look at what appeared to be a patch of dead white grass surrounded by healthy green grass. As I was prodding it with my foot and realizing that the clods had been loosened from the earth, something made me look to my left. There, a few feet away under the bushes, the mama rabbit I’d been worried about all the long, cold, snowy winter was peering placidly at me, her nose twitching. Oh, I can’t be 100 percent certain it’s her, but this one had a similar silver coat and a similar alert but unafraid demeanor. I’ve seen two rabbits together, so I am hoping there will be babies this year just like the last couple of years. I miss my two companions of a few summers ago, who sat under my table while I wrote, more like favorite pets than wild animals.

Today dawned sunny and so clear that the deep green of the watered grass (April showers) and the deep blue of the lake are almost painful under the cloudless sky. The anticipation of such agonizing beauty is what keeps me going through March, when even I have had enough of pewter skies and leaden waters.

If I could burst into song, I would.

Afterthought: While I was at Bonjour for little more than one hour, clouds appeared in the west. By the time I got home (where the maintenance people had removed the pool cover and were painting the patio furniture, more indications of spring), clouds were intermittently blocking the sun. From clear to cloudy — or springtime in Chicago.

Fall of an elder (tree)

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[I meant to post this in May. Spring has come and gone and will come again.]

The tree on the southwest corner of 56th Street and Hyde Park Boulevard took a long time to die.

First, the leaves of one limb would turn yellow, dry up, and fall off, and another would follow, and another. By last autumn, one limb of leaves remained, and it was dying. Of course, when winter came it didn’t matter — it looked like all the living but leafless tress around it.

It made me sad to think of spring arriving, knowing that at least one prominent old tree would still be a stark hulk against the blue skies after all its brethren had burst into bud.

That’s why I was relieved a few weeks ago to find a crew cutting it down. By the time I arrived at the bus stop across the street, they had cut its limbs off, and one man had sawed through about half the trunk. I had shown up in time for the crucial moment. One of the crew cleared the other southbound lane and halted traffic. I wondered how they were going to control its fall, then I noticed that the ropes tied to the tree were anchored to a bar on the front of one of the trucks. As the truck slowly reversed, the tree tumbled. It seemed almost like a gentle fall rather than a hard crash. I could imagine that the spirit of the dead tree was relieved of its burden at last.

By the next morning, all that remained was the stump and some wood chips missed during the cleanup. Within a few days, the stump had been cut down and removed, and all that is left today is a large, roughly circular patch of wood chips, the kind the Chicago Park District and landscapers sometimes put on the bare patches under healthy trees.

I miss that tree, and the one on the southeast corner behind the bus stop that was struck by lightning or torn apart during one of the spate of micro-bursts that have devastated so many trees here in recent years. I miss their shade and their guardianship of the ad hoc footpath through the park and of the bus stop, each a little like the sole remaining pillar of an ancient gate. When I look at the wood chips that mark the location of the one and the three spindly bushes that encircle the patch left by the other, I feel like I am visiting the grave sites of respected, beloved elders. Both look like scars that will take a long time to heal.

I wonder if their spirits ever leave, or if they too still mourn.

Lights, camera, 911

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Late yesterday afternoon I was able to get a seat at Bonjour, where in the colder weather I like to watch darkness fall outdoors. It’s a cozy, reassuring feeling to be warm indoors with people under bright lights when the darkness descends and the cold gets colder. I was writing, drinking coffee, and waiting for J.

Behind me was something I’d never seen there before — a wood screen with a painted floral design. Despite sleeping much of the day (a bad habit I thought I’d broken), I was still tired and too incurious to look into this phenomenon.

An older, ashen-faced man looked at me several times without focusing and then told a young man at the counter that he’d better call 911 — he couldn’t feel his legs, and he thought one had an area of discoloration.

The poised young man called and relayed questions and answers such as: “How old are you?” “He’s 59.” He told the man, who had the same emaciated, weather-beaten look as the late Jacques Cousteau, that he’d been advised not to give him anything to eat or drink. They decided to elevate the man’s legs, and he arranged a chair for that purpose. The young man was willing to help but hesitated to touch the patron’s bare, toothpick-thin legs or his socks, so he finally grabbed his shoes to heave up his legs.

The paramedics arrived within minutes and asked the man questions about his health breathing, medications, and so forth. They also wanted to know how he’d gotten there (walked) and how he’d felt when he’d left home. They took his blood pressure — 100/70. He said something about going home, but the paramedics told him that he was going to the hospital. More showed up with a stretcher-chair, and away they went. All this took no more than 10 or 15 minutes.

J. showed up moments later and, after some discussion, was the first to realize that it was a fireplace screen. We watched as cake after cake was lifted carefully off its plate and doily and placed behind the screen, then J. spotted what I’d overlooked — a camera. A photo shoot! It turns out that they were taking photos for the Web site that is apparently in the works. Someday the rest of the world can drool over gâteau au chocolat from Bonjour.

While J. went in pursuit of yet more treats, a girl began hanging around behind me, trying to talk to Madame. “Comment ça-va?” Madame asked. “How are you?” I translated (loosely). The girl looked at me helplessly. “Tell her, ‘Très bien,'” I suggested. She struggled. “Très bien,” I repeated. She said in that fast, breathless way children have, “I’m learning Spanish at school,” perhaps to explain her apparent deficiencies in French. Then she added, “I don’t know any French.” I told her that that is all right, as I don’t speak Spanish. She failed to recognize my attempt, which I won’t re-create here. Sigh.

Madame gave her two ornate, pastel-colored lollipops, but after running off for a few seconds with them, she returned and said, “I don’t think my mom would want me to have these.” I saw her with them later, so even her cautious mother knows better than to turn down a gift from Madame. Meanwhile, my mind had blanked on “merci.”

We stopped at Treasure Island and Borders and came out to tiny snowflakes sparking in the streetlights. With no wind blowing, the air was warm enough that it was hard to mind this precursor to winter.

Next we headed to Valois, where you can “see your food.” I found myself puzzled by the juxtaposition of the Chicago skyline on one side with alpine mountains on the other — not exactly representative of downstate Illinois.

At the Flamingo, we watched as an experienced male bald eagle and his young bride successfully raised two offspring, despite the latter’s rather stupid mistakes, such as turning tail to a 40 mph wind and stepping on the kids. As I told J., it was the old man eagle’s fault for going after a young trophy wife. Almost on that note, he decided it was time to leave for work.

Au revoir.