Milwaukee

There are few who know me who have been spared tales of my affection for the city of Milwaukee. Back in the day, when my friends were spending their summer vacations in exotic places like Greece or even California, I would spend mine with my grandparents in the Cream City.

To this day I look forward to our all too infrequent trips 90 miles to the north. And I dread the thought that yet another of my favorite haunts up there will have disappeared since the last time I visited.

Today on my annual birthday visit with my family, we sadly discovered that the Harry Schwartz bookshops have closed. At this point it's clear to say that I am clearly not up to snuff on all things Milwaukee as it turns out that the stores announced their closing last January. The Downer Street shop, as well as a suburban location have re-opened under new names, having been taken over by former Schwartz managers. Happily the Downer shop, now under the ownership of Daniel Goldin has not changed significantly under the new ownership and hopefully it will retain its position as the anchor of a very wonderful little urban enclave under the new name, Boswell Book Company. I wish them good luck.

Thankfully my favorite restaurant in the world, Karl Ratzsch's, is still alive and well Downtown. The taste of the liver dumpling soup always brings to mind my father and his love of the stuff which he passed on to his son. While my own son wouldn't touch it, it turns out that my carnivorous little daughter loved it, and this little bit of heaven should live on for at least another generation.

From what I could tell, the economy has hit the city pretty much as it has hit Chicago, as evidenced by ever more empty storefronts. But times change everywhere and resilient Milwaukee will be just fine.

It was good to be back, I promise not to be gone so long next time.

Ornithology

Some serious harassment of a Cooper's Hawk by several crows, Rogers Park, Saturday, November 28, 2009.

Ornithology

Seen during the past week:

• Bald Eagle, last Saturday, Starved Rock.
• Brown Creeper, last Sunday, Chestnut and Dearborn.
• Red-tailed Hawk, Robert Black Golf Course, Pratt and Ridge.

The ultimate urban experience

A while ago a former colleague at the Museum changed jobs and went across the street to work at the School of the Art Institute. He told me that he was leaving the realm of dead artists for the realm of the living. That gave me pause to think. On the surface it seemed like a compelling idea. His description conjured up images of leaving the old, creaky fossils behind in favor of the new, the exciting, and most important, the relevant. Thinking it through a bit however I realized that somewhere in the future, maybe ten years, maybe one year, heck maybe even less, much of what we find relevant today will become trivial, trite, or just plain silly. Yet the important work that has stood the test of time will remain fresh, enlightening, yes even relevant, while most of the art produced today, (as is the case with most of the art that has ever been produced) will be forgotten.

I was reminded of this today, on the Solemn Feast of All Saints. We Catholics dedicate the entire month of November every year to our departed ancestors. During today's feast, we celebrate the lives of people who lived exemplary lives, so much so that we believe they unquestionably dwell as citizens of that very unearthly place that St. Augustine described as the City of God. On the second day of November, the day of the Feast of All Souls, we reflect on the lives of all our departed. The two feast days are most popularly observed in Mexico as El Dia de los Muertos. Contrary to its (to our ears) macabre name, the Day of the Dead is very much a day of celebration and festivity as people reconnect with their deceased loved ones.

If there is one thing that distinguishes the Roman Catholic faith from most other Christian traditions, it is our devotion to those who came before us. We believe that the history of God's love for His people does not end with the last page of the Bible. At mass we proclaim that we believe in the "communion of saints." That is, we are members of an extended family of believers that not only encompasses the living of every race and nationality, but also those who came before us, and by extension, those who have yet to come.

Today in the Cathedral, the point could not have been clearer. We worshiped in a building that was built well over a century ago but is filled with adornments from our own era. The congregation every week comes from every corner of the globe. The liturgy, a work in progress for the past 45 years is based on liturgy that is almost two thousand years old. The music ranged from the Renaissance to practically yesterday. Jesus' words in the Gospel reading, commonly known as the Beatitudes, uttered so long ago, are pointedly centered on the present:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, there's is the kingdom of God..."

And while mass was devoted to those who lived in the past, the squeaks and squawks of the children sprinkled throughout the building reminded us of our future.

The Church is indeed about the timeless, as well as the here and now.

Which is perhaps why so many have strayed. Our culture today hasn't much time for, or interest in the timeless. I often hear the sentiment, "I just don't get anything out of going to church." It's trendy these days to say "I'm spiritual but not religious", meaning of course, "I believe in God but I don't go to church". The churches that do have growing numbers are charismatic, ones that offer a heaping helping of "spiritual experience". More reflective, traditional churches are struggling.

For me, the point of going to church is not what I get out of it. It is the collective experience of belonging to something that is much greater than myself, something much greater in fact than the sum of all its parts. I believe that we go to church for each other, for God, for our families, past, present and future, for our friends, for people we will never know, and yes even for the guy sitting next to us who shakes our hand during the greeting of peace but who wouldn't otherwise give us the time of day.

That to me is what sums up the urban experience. Our destinies are all tied together, whether we like it or not. Along with those who came before as well as those who will succeed us, we live, love, work, struggle, fight, build up, tear down, care for, and leave our mark on a place that we will eventually leave behind. That in a nutshell is the fabric of a city.

City of Man, or City of God, one thing is certain, we all need each other.

We made the List!

Chicago may have lost its bid to host the 2016 Olympics but we do have one thing going for us.

We have a building on Travel and Leisure magazine's list of the "The World's Ugliest Buildings."

Mayor Daley could not be reached for comment.

Spanning the globe from Pyongyang to Portland to well, Chicago, it's a strange list in my opinion. Lists such as these are always completely subjective and ten people could put together ten entirely different lists.

It seems that the major criterion to make this particular list is that the architects simply tried too hard. What is also bizarre, also in my opinion of course, is if you go on to look at their list of the "World's Coolest Buildings" you may find it difficult distinguishing to which list a given building belonged. Although I didn't take a complete survey, from a cursory view I noticed that buildings by Frank Gehry made both lists.

I suppose that's what separates great architects from lesser ones.

So of all of Chicago's ugly buildings, which one distinguished itself enough to make this esteemed list?

Why the Harold Washington Library.

Congratulations to one and all, a fine tribute to our city!

Look and Leave

I spent lunchtime one day last week at two exhibitions that deal with the urban experience in two very different forms.

The first featured the work of photographer Jane Fulton Alt who documented New Orleans after the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina.

Alt, also clinical social worker, was on volunteer service working with other health care professionals accompanying the residents of the Lower Ninth Ward returning to view what was left of their homes for the first time, three months after the disaster. The effort was dubbed "look and leave" because the area was in no way inhabitable at the time. In her statement Alt writes of the effect on her, both emotionally and physically. So moved was she by the experience that she felt the need for others to see the ravages of one of the worst natural disasters in this nation's history. Thus began the project.

Alt's formally composed, large format digital prints are unpopulated, traces of life are depicted archeologically, in bits and pieces, personal momentos left behind, signs painted by triage workers indicating what was to be found inside a flooded home, a recently built church intact save for the fact that its steeple had toppled into the street. Covering everything is a whitish silt that settled after the flood waters receeded, dried and cracked in the sun, forming a ghostly patina. In a particularly moving picture, the interior of a home with fresh footprints in the cracked silt bears testimony to the length of time it had been deserted.

Most of the photographs were made in the Lower Ninth. Two exceptions are of New Orleans icons at both ends of the spectrum, one, a picture of the facade of the now notorious Superdome where thousands of flood victims sought refuge. The other is an atmospheric image of St. Louis Cathedral behind Clark Mills' famous equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson shrouded in a dense fog. The latter image might at first appear to be a promotional shot for a tourist brochure, except for the smashed lamp post in the foreground.

There is no such subtlety in the photographs of the Lower Ninth.

The depth of the devastation is so numbing that coming to the exhibit with a blank slate, a viewer might be overwhelmed by the banality of the destruction portrayed in the pictures.

Of course one would have to have lived under a rock for the past five years not to have some idea of the dreadful toll that Katrina took in the Gulf region, and especially in New Orleans.

To bring home the point the exhibit includes a soundtrack of New Orleans music, a slide show of photographs of the people of New Orleans, and ample didactic text of Alt's, describing her work. I don't normally like over abundant text and gallery soundtracks. I feel that the pictures should speak for themselves and that music is a too easy a venue for swaying the emotions of the viewer. But in this case the music and the text are necessary in that they ground the work as they evoke a sense of place to anyone who has ever known what it means "to miss New Orleans."

In her statement, Jane Fulton Alt notes that the visits of many of the people to their homes in the Lower Ninth Ward were both their first and their last.

I once had a conversation with a New Orlinean who told me that all's back to normal in his hometown. If I were to visit he continued, I'd never know anything ever happened.

I knew exactly what he meant. The French Quarter, the Garden District, all the restaurants, shops, and music venues are up and running and your casual visitor might not notice anything wrong. But in another account I heard what was a different truth. You may not see it in the physical city, downtown that is, but you see it in the eyes of the people who wait on you. New Orleans will never be the same.

A book of this work has been published. It is named after the effort Alt participated in which inspired the project, Look and Leave. It is available in the Cultural Center bookshop.

While Alt's photographs are an elegy for a lost city, the exhibit across the street at the Chicago Tourism Center was a full steam ahead look at the possibilities of the future. It was called Big, Bold, Visionary, Chicago Considers the Next Century. Unfortunately the show came down this week but it contunues to live online here.

I will discuss this exhibit in a later post. Please stay tuned.

His first opera

I took my son to the opera last night, Tosca at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. It was my first opera too, same company, same building, 33 years ago. Theo was adamant that his first opera be the same as mine so there we were. We sat in the very last row of the upper balcony which was just fine because he could stand up to see better and it didn't bother anyone.

He was by far the youngest person in the audience. At eight, he is in fact the minimum age for admittance. There was some trepidation among a few of our neighbors way up there but that was relieved when they realized he was not going to be fidgety, at least not more than the average adult in the audience.

I'm not sure if his experience had the same impact as mine did so long ago, I was ten years older, by myself, buying a turnback ticket a half hour before the sold out performance. I was also in the midst of an obsession which would last several years. His obsession for opera was set aside this summer when he fell in love with baseball. Yet he maintained, at least for our sake, his enthusiasm, and seemed to have a good time. At the very least he got to be out on the town with the big folks way past his bedtime on a school night.

As for me, I got to pass down something to my son that has been an important part of my life. Not to take too much credit but I think I'm also doing my part to help insure that opera will be around at least for another generation.

Of course this would not have been possible had we not lived in a city that supported culture. I always felt lucky to be exposed to so many different experiences that a big city afforded and I'm glad that my children will have the same opportunities. While it's not always easy to bring up kids in the big city, the rewards are many.

It was a night that neither of us will forget for a very long time.