clumsy dance

Koolhaas' SPL
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

“But in his acceptance speech in Stockholm, Pablo Neruda, born Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in the lonesome town of Parral, Chile, proclaimed that ‘there is no insurmountable solitude.’ He added: ‘All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song.’”

Can’t recall where I snagged this from originally, but I pull it up every once in a while to remind me where I'm going.

I get my thing in action

I really got into the Existentialists when I was in school -- maybe it was the whole Paris angle and the thought of Sartre and de Beauvoir hanging at Les Deux Magots, but at the time I was convinced that it was the philosophy of doing that interested me -- that we are all about our actions. Or, assuming it was Frank Lloyd Wright who said it: "What a Man Does, That He Has".

Either way, it occurred to me not too long ago that the ideas behind Existentialism showed up on my radar much earlier than that philosophy class in college -- and that would have been on Saturday Mornings in the '70s, perched in front of the TV, watching HR Puffinstuff, The Boogaloos, Scooby Doo, and -- one of my favorites that no one I've ever asked can remember -- The Hudson Brothers Saturday Morning Variety Show.

In the bridge between shows Schoolhouse Rock would air. Loaded with goodness, packed with subversion, it taught me to sing the Preamble to my country's Constitution (which still makes me all misty) -- and it also taught me the fundamental underpinnings of Existentialism, by wrapping them in a little ditty called Verb:

I get my thing in action
Verb!
To be to sing to feel to live
Verb! That's what's happening!
I put my part in action
Verb!
To run to go to get to give
Verb! You're what's happening!
That's where I find satisfaction
To search to find to have to hold
Verb! To be bold!
When I use my imagination
Verb!
I think I plot I plan I dream
Turning into a creation
Verb!
I make I write I dance I sing
When I feel really active
Verb!
I run I ride I swim I fly
Other times when life is easy
I rest I sleep I sit I lie
Verb! That's what's happening!
***
I get my thing in action!
Verb! That's what's happening!
To work to play to live to love.

Prokudin-Gorskii

This image was taken in 1909 -- in color. Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii took it under the employ of the Tzar of Russia (right: the last one) along with a truckload of others using a three filter RGB process: some just as beautiful; others more so.

If the turn of the century (the one before this last one) is recorded forever in sepia tones in your mind, check out his images to change that forever. Be sure not to miss the "Exhibition Schedule" menu -- categories include:
• Architecture
• Ethnic Diversity (whadya wanna bet they didn't call it that then?)
• Transportation
• People at Work

There also a whole section on how he created these images with three color filters -- very much like the way early digital imagery was captured.

Have fun. Be amazed.

palimpsest

paper towel palimpsest
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Palimpsest is one of my favorite words, probably because of those plump plosives, but mostly because the thing itself (a piece of parchment on which the original work -- usually an illuminated manuscript -- has been scraped off so that the surface might be used again) says so much about the impermanence of creation and the created thing: The impulse to keep going, to do it again, to make and do and create even in the face of limited resources and a shortage of school supplies.

It whispers of a Tibetan Mandala inside the world of Western art: Make this thing now, lay it down with intricacy and attention and beauty, and then sweep its component parts into the stream where they can be shared with the world. Because the world needs them.

And then make something new. Start again.

stranger than fiction

“Ruth Padel...in her brilliant, frantic, wide-ranging I’m A Man (2000)...makes the connections between rock and myth absolutely plain (partly by using capital letters):

JIM MORRISON FOUND DEAD IN BATH IN PARIS? Wife Clytemnestra and lover murder Troy veteran husband in bath. MARVIN GAYE SHOT BY DAD IN BEDROOM? Oedipus kills father at crossroads. HENDRIX CHOKES TO DEATH IN HOTEL? Ajax stabs himself on beach. MANAGER ROMANCES BABY SPICE IN HOLIDAY HIDEAWAY? Zeus rapes Europa in Crete.”

Ian Sansom writing in the London Review of Books about Johnny Cash

funktionslust

driveby #2. blurred.
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

"Funktionslust, a German word meaning 'pleasure taken in what one can do best'."

David Gessner writing in the March/April issue of Orion

(Loving the subscription, Dad: thanks.)

waiting for yuschenko

Yuschenko's had a rough week already, and it's only Monday. Reminded me of our meeting with the man around this time last year -- excerpt harvested from a family blog, dated 11 April 2005 -- cameraphone montage is from the same vintage:

This last week I got the bright idea to schlep downtown to the Palmer House to see Viktor Yuschenko, the newly elected President of Ukraine, when he appeared at an event hosted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. I thought we’d hear about the Orange Revolution or his near fatal dioxin poisoning – but I was wrong about that.

Instead, we had the pleasure of standing in line for over an hour to get in, and then waiting over two hours for the good man to arrive. (The event was scheduled to start at 7.30 – it got underway shortly after 9.30.) We spent our time with 1,398 other folks – most of whom were Ukrainians; half of whom were harboring a vicious flu bug that my sweetie promptly contracted and collapsed with 24 hours later. All good fun for only $25 a head.

When the good president arrived he showed a video clip of the footage from the election (generating the most moving moments in the 4 hour long ordeal) and then proceeded to introduce his wife (a Chicago girl) before he addressed the crowd – in Ukrainian. The crowd went wild. We didn’t understand a word. The translator soon kicked in and made it clear that there would be no cogent political insights this night: just a strong fund raising appeal and a big note of thanks to the Chicago Ukrainian community who supported him with 99.6% of their votes (a result that he compared to Soviet times).

Big lesson learned: By the time they get to the big chair, they’ve run out of interesting things to say. We’ll save our time and trouble for the struggling masses from here on out.

silly love songs

We’ve all been on the receiving end of one of those insufferable wedding compilation CDs full of enough sugary goo to put you off love and marriage for good. Having weathered several rounds of take-home treacle in the last few years, I was pleasantly, gratefully surprised to receive this little gem at the wedding of the most stylishly heart-warming couple of them all: Anne & Jay.

Jay did the mixing, and as you will see: Anne landed herself a goodie. I’m still listening and grinning like a goof eight months later.

together
I want you to be my baby • Louis Jordan
I’ve got a feeling I’m falling • Louis Armstrong
When U Love Somebody • Fruit Bats
Dream a Little Dream of Me • Mama Cass Elliot
Love is All Around • REM
Love Makes You Feel • Lou Reed
I want to be your mother’s son-in-law • Macy Gray
Ain’t That Love • Ray Charles
It’s Crazy • Sarah Vaughan
Summertime • Sidney Bechet
Near You • Marlene Dietrich
Dance Me to the End of Love • Madeleine Peyroux
A Thing Called Love • Johnny Cash
I Found a Reason • Velvet Underground
I Love Your Lovin’ Ways • Nina Simone
I’m in Love with a Girl • Big Star
Let’s Get Lost • Chet Baker
Not Given Lightly • Chris Knox
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go • Madeleine Peyroux
Little Trip to Heaven (on the wings of love) • Tom Waits
My Little Corner of the World • Yo La Tengo
Such Great Heights • Iron & Wine
Love in Outer Space • Sun Ra

Languedoc: Where the Schist Hits the Fan

tasting notes
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

If I ever had any hesitations about terroir being for real (and I haven’t, but just for kicks let’s pretend I have) all I need to do is spend another Saturday tasting nothing but wines from one or two regions to be reminded that there are some qualities of the soil that unmistakably assert themselves within the grape.

For wines from the Languedoc, it’s schist. A metamorphic rock that makes up much of the soil in the Southern part of France, its calling card is a rocky, mineral taste that puts a memorable edge around the wines that are produced there.

We tasted Bordeaux alongside the Languedocs, and while the Bordeaux were lovely, they weren't as interesting. The Languedocs came across like the brassy, sassy sister to the quieter, more demure, probably blonde, Bordeaux. Bordeaux is a lady; Languedoc is a dame.

I'd rather hang out with a dame.

Here are a few of the winners (from a field of 10) that came across during Saturday’s Wine & Politics seminar with Tyler Coleman, aka Dr. Vino (he's a political economist), at the University of Chicago Graham School:

Red Wines

Mas de Daumas Gassac (Vin d’Pays) 2003 $30 • a bright and balanced Languedoc

Chateau Pichon-Longueville, Baron (Paulliac) 2002 $50 • just what you expect from a well-behaved Bordeaux

And a nice white with notes of honey and butter from Bordeaux (when you’re feeling lady-like)

Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte (Pessac-Léognan) 2003 $50

p.s. and for anyone who's interested: I didn't shame myself too badly with that Tinto Pesquera. It was pronounced "very good" by the table. (phew.) Dinner was at Riccardo's, a new Italian joint right next door to the eternal Grinder on North Clark that's still working on getting its liquor license. Until that fateful day (probably a few weeks away) there's no corkage fee.

strandbeest

Theo Jansen evolves beach creatures out of PVC piping. For a living. And it’s one of the most extraordinarily beautiful things I’ve ever seen. On film, anyway. I’ve never seen them in person (although I did get to see Jansen speak at last year's GEL Conference), but it appears, from his website, that the next “open day” (for seeing the creatures propel themselves by wind down the beach, I'm assuming) is this coming Saturday, April 1st at Ypenburg in the Netherlands (and no, I don’t think the Dutch are into April Fool’s Day, so if you show up the odds are good he’ll keep his word).

Regrettably, his site could stand to evolve some – the usability is really rough – so I’ve taken the liberty of linking in a couple of his critters here. Site of origin for all of these is strandbeest.com, and there’s more where these came from.

Animaris Currens Ventosa

Animaris Geneticus Ondula

while walking

toads croak in chorus
summoning Spring to the woods
I open my coat

mello yello

mello yello
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Sun today. Snow pack melting back at last, revealing last year's leftovers long trapped beneath the ice.

n joy lfe

n joy lfe
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

“When I was in college, in the Vietnam- Watergate era, sullen mugs trumped smiley faces. ‘Happiness was very uncool,’ my friend Michael Kinsley recalls of his Harvard days. ‘There was a huge premium on being depressed.’ Leon Wiesteltier, who graduated from Columbia about the same time, agrees that ‘happiness was considered embarrassing, a mark of shallowness.’ He still calls joie de vivre ‘a sign that you’re not paying attention’.”

Maureen Dowd writing in Saturday's New York Times.

About the image: This license plate threw me a little bit. I'm a Western girl so I'm used to this kind of talk -- heck, I've got family in the Bay Area -- I'm just not used to encountering it with such unbridled enthusiasm in Chicago.

ligatures & loveliness

Buick Sky Hawk V6
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Jan Tschichold was a hard-core typographer in Germany during the first part of the 20th Century. How hard-core? The Nazis sent him to prison for practicing his trade the way he wanted to practice it. He called it “New Typography”. (Actually, he was German, so he called it “Die neue Typographie”. And the imprisonment? There was some noise about Communism too, but that would take longer to blog about.)

I vaguely remember reading something he wrote about ligatures, so I went diving into The Form of the Book to ferret it out to illustrate this image. (Realize it's not a traditional ligature because it unites two words, but it still makes me melt -- the way the descender on the "y" creates the stem for the "H" -- it's so lovely.)

Couldn’t find the passage, but did find this, which I think beautifully sums up the role of the designer – know your craft; make it lovely, useful and good; and then get out of the way. (And yeah, it’s a little bit over the top. But that’s Tschichold.)

Immaculate typography is certainly the most brittle of all the arts. To create a whole from many petrified, disconnected and given parts, to make this whole appear alive and of a piece – only sculpture in stone approaches the unyielding stiffness of perfect typography.

For most people even impeccable typography does not hold any particular aesthetic appeal. In its inaccessibility, it resembles great music. Under the best circumstances, it is gratefully accepted. To remain nameless and without specific appreciation, yet to have been of service to a valuable work and to the small number of visually sensitive readers – this, as a rule, is the only compensation for the long, and indeed never-ending, indenture of the typographer.

Jan Tschichold
The Form of the Book

(Well this is interesting: It appears that my Hartley & Marks paperback copy of The Form of the Book is now out of print and the few that are left are retailing for $100 on Amazon. Nice return on a $22 investment.)

b.y.o.b.

monticello cellars
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

What to bring to a BYOB dinner with Dr. Vino? I have no idea.

This one was good, but now it’s gone. Twenty years old and, according to the friend who brought it by, 5 years older than it should have been. (Yeah, but so was that philosophy professor I dated as an undergrad, and I didn't mind the extra miles on that one so much either.)

So for tonight it’s either a Tinto Pesquera 2002, or I’ll cop out with something that Dr. Vino served up at his Wine & Politics of Spain, Argentina and Chile seminar last year. List below. They’re all good, and they’re all pretty cheap.

2003 BenMarco Malbec, Argentina $19

2003 Nifares Toro, Spain $10 (smooth like buttah)

2004 Martin Codax Albarino, Spain $11

2000 Casa Silva Carmenere "Los Linguas", Chile $15 (merlot look-alike w/o the "Sideways" stigma)

2001 Lacrimus Rioja Crianza, Spanish $19

talk to me, langston

What I'd rather be doing today, instead of schlepping to work: Listening to historic recordings at the Poetry Archive »

[update] Scratch that. Site keeps crashing Firefox.

of long tongues & flying carpets

crown fountain on cameraphone
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Besides a public terrace and restaurant on the third floor, the addition has sprung a long tongue of a bridge – 15 feet wide and 620 feet long – that it’ll stick right up the ass of Millennium Park.

No one knows more about all things visual than the Art Institute, so I must be mistaken in thinking that this attenuated ramp, which rises in a straight shot at a five-degree angle from the midsection of the park to the third floor of the new wing, will be a blight on the eastern horizon. (I’m also probably getting the wrong signals from the extruded aluminum sunscreen over the east pavilion’s glass roof. Piano has dubbed it a ‘flying carpet,’ but to me it whispers ‘patio enclosure.’)

Deanna Isaacs writing in: The Magic Bridge: The Art Institute believes an elevated path from Millennium Park will bring newbies to the museum in the Chicago Reader

I haven’t seen the plans for the AI addition so I’ll reserve comment for the time being, but to your question, b1-66er: Rants like this are one of the reasons I dig Chicago.

chicago politics

"If people running for office had to believe everything they said, we would have mimes running for office."

A Chicago politico on the radio this morning, during a recap of Tuesday's Primary Election.

I think Pirandello would get a kick out of this town.

mexican hot chocolate

mexican hot chocolate
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

For those of us in Chicagoland who thought a Vernal Equinox was enough to bring on the Spring, I offer consolation along with today's (and Friday's and Saturday's) forecast for snow flurries: One last chance to cuddle up with a mug of hot chocolate before we bid this whole blustery mess good-bye.

If you've never tried Mexican Hot Chocolate I recommend Ibarra, which is easy to find in most grocery stories along the "ethnic" aisle. Cheap too: usually not more than $2.50 or so for a box that'll keep you going all season long. It comes in lovely chunks that are ready to go: Chocolate blended with sugar, cinnamon and ground almonds.

Just scald some milk, drop in a few chunks of chocolate, pull out the hand blender and whip it up to frothy goodness. Then find a comfy spot from which to sip contentedly while you curse the endless winter.

who's your daddy?

garanimals
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

In this picture I’m 6. I’m modeling my new Garanimals (remember those?) for my dad and step-mom. I’m vamping. I feel unabashedly beautiful (and this may be the last time I feel so unabashed – feeling pretty gets complicated as you get older).

Behind me is my dad’s stereo, flanked by his JBL speakers. It’s the only thing against the wall. It was one of the few things in the room.

My dad was in the music business and the stereo was the hearth of our home. And just like a log fire, the kids weren’t allowed to touch it – but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t frequently ablaze. He’d lay down the demo tracks with keen anticipation (they arrived on our stoop with almost the same frequency that the milkman delivered dairy) – whether it was vinyl on the turntable or tape on the reel-to-reel – and, if it was good, he’d turn it up loud, saying: “Listen to this. Do you hear that? Just listen.” And we would, and the amp tubes would glow like embers while he pointed out the riffs and rhythms and beauty of it all.

I got my rock and roll education from my dad – which made things complicated when I hit high school and needed to rebel (I took the jazz route and I’m sure he was laughing at me the whole time, knowing how easy one transitions into another). But now I appreciate classic rock like a kid coming back to the Mother Tongue.

Nothing soothes me like the Doors’ Light My Fire; nothing quiets me like the Eagles’ Hotel California. And no memory is quite as precious as that of my dad lowering the needle to the vinyl to listen again to a well-loved track, gently, like a priest placing the sacrament on a parishioner's tongue, saying “Listen to this. Just listen.”