Chicago Chihuly

On one of my last trips around Chicago before I left for warmer climes, my friend C. and I went to the Garfield Park Conservatory, an excellent conservatory in a perhaps not so gorgeous part of the city. It has rooms by various plant and climate regions (a desert room, a tropical room with tons of palms, a fern room), some nice garden space, including a Monet garden after the one at Giverny in France, and these undoubtedly priceless Chihuly flowers sticking up from a water feature. I'm glad I got to see it before I left.

I don't know when the exciting NC photos will start appearing, but I'll try to cough something up soon.

Pacifist overtures

I went to see a very interesting and very rare production of Stephen Sondheim's Pacific Overtures last night, done here in Chicago by Porchlight, a small musical theater company. It's a musical about the opening of Japan in the mid-nineteenth century, and if one more usher, director, board member, or whoever had told me that I had to read the synopsis first, and that this show is "from the Japanese point of view!" I would have walked out.

The director, in his notes, drew parallels to Iraq, and noted that Japan took the Western intrusion and used it; the show ends with a paean to Japanese global achievements and popularity. Such an earnest and well-meaning production, and even an intermittently well-meaning show, still can't take the horrific stereotyping out entirely. When you have a number about geishas preparing happily for the Western influx, it just isn't going to go over well. Nor is it going to go over too well when a cringing young official gets jeered at and bossed around by Perry's sailors when he tries to turn them back. In general, the officials could have been done with a little more dignity. They might not have been able to keep Japan closed in the face of Perry's cannons, but they didn't have to be played as helpless and ridiculous, either. On the other hand, some of the other characters were played with a real sensitivity and well-roundedness.

So it's up to you, if you can endure those uncomfortable elements. Musically, I actually liked it very much; it's slightly more melodic Sondheim. The production is excellently and minimally staged, allowing for a lot of good dance choreography (and some rather lacking fight choreography). The cast is uneven. David Rhee, the Reciter (the central, self-ironizing role played in the revival by B.D. Wong) was a little too obviously the best trained actor in the show, and rather intense -- maybe because he felt he had to make up for the others. (I'd have taken his mike off, if nothing else, to level the sound.) This was cleared up on the way home when I looked at the bios and found that he is an Equity member who has played on Broadway and at Steppenwolf. The rest are local actors of varying experience, some of whom were excellent, and some of whom were certainly good local talent, but not up to Rhee's level. Beautiful costumes -- what costume designer doesn't love to go nuts with kimonos? and a decent little 5-piece band behind a screen. If you are a big Sondheim or musical fan, by all means run, don't walk. But only if.

Today, life is good (Obamapalooza, II)

I was at the rally last night in Grant Park to watch history be made -- very quickly, as it felt. We were settled in for the long haul (and just as well, because even if you were ticketed, if you didn't come early or on time, you probably didn't get in in time for the big stuff). Ohio's call provoked a huge cheer, then Virginia, then CNN (which was on the big screen in the park, with commercials blacked out) called it for Obama and it was almost stunning. I also didn't expect McCain to concede with such celerity, nor Obama to come out and give his speech so swiftly thereafter; I guess they decided to let everyone go to bed, especially on the east coast.

A huge, fairly well-behaved crowd, ethnically mixed as you'd expect in a big city but not more so, so to speak, with a bewildering array of t-shirts, ranging from "got hope?" to "Al Franken 2008." Obligatory boos for states called for McCain, gracious clapping during his speech. Not the best choice of music, Obama staffers: one of the commercial breaks featured Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten," and I thought to myself, I'm leaving.

You may not have seen everything we did at the Park; for that matter, I didn't see anything that happened on TV after Virginia was called, because they switched coverage first to McCain and then to park coverage. First we had an invocation by an African American bishop, then a few words and the Pledge of Allegiance by a white man, then the national anthem by an African American woman who was not great. The crowd around me started singing to drown her out. Afterwards, a few songs were played to fill in the gap: "Signed, Sealed, Delivered," some Brooks & Dunn, etc. And then the First Family was announced and... you saw the rest!

A few photos for you:

The crowd at Congress Plaza, waiting to start getting into the park. This was about 7:30pm.


Another crowd shot, in the park.



And finally...

Those beams of light behind the jumbotron are not actually fairy lights being emitted for Obama, as Jon Stewart might joke; they're security searchlights.

The Promised Land (Obamapalooza, I)

East o' the moon, west o' the sun, or the other way around... Who knew that the promised land was south of Balbo and north of Roosevelt? Preparations are massively underway at Grant Park for the Obama rally on Election Night. Streets are already blocked off (including the aforementioned Balbo), as well as the sidewalks all around, to prevent you from either scoping out or sabotaging the grounds, I assume. In order to get around the grounds, my friend and I had to cross over Lakeshore Drive (hence the across-the-street shot here) and walk down to Museum Campus and cross back to Michigan on Roosevelt. Quite a detour. Yet not big enough to fit the million and more who are expected, I don't think, so I don't know what they will do; plans are probably hampered by Buckingham Fountain's renovation, which means that a huge section of the park is already closed.

As you can see, other than the fencing all around, white tents and pavilions are going up, as well as huge towers with massive klieg lights, and no doubt some wind machines to blow the fairy dust all around. We also spotted rows and rows of port-o-potties, and a parking lot next to the grounds was almost full, though I don't know where all those people were -- we couldn't really see through the trees. Security is already ramped up; in addition to the blocked off streets and policewomen standing at corners to redirect, we spotted a Homeland Security truck turning into the parking lot and a federal police car circling the area.

Very little has been announced about the rally, except that I do know I'm not one of the 8,000 who got tickets and will be in the inner circle. I hope they communicate it well at some point, but anyone who tries to drive through downtown on Tuesday night is a born fool.