Chicago MMXII

You're out of touch. You're out of time.

CHF things possibly of interest to ppl here:

http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Philosophy/2012f-Michael-Silverstein-Americas-Tongues.aspx - about regional US accents!
http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Arts-And-Architecture/2012f-Victor-Goines-New-Orleans.aspx
http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Public-Affairs/2012f-Nate-Silver-Baseball-and-Politics.aspx

Jesse and I are going to this one - http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/History/2012f-George-Chauncey-Gay-History.aspx.

I'm torn between the one about accents and this one - http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Arts-And-Architecture/2012f-Lawrence-Weschler-Harrowing-Masterpiece.aspx.

The Chicago Humanities Festival booklet came yesterday. Anybody going to anything?

Ooh, just checked out the site, and lots looks good -- G. Achatz, N. Silver, J. Hodgman, 19th-C. celeb culture, mid-20th C. gay history, living alone as a demographic shift, serial TV dramas, the "other" '60s, American dialects, etc.

When I was a college freshman, I really wanted to take a gay/lesbian history class offered by visiting prof Esther Newton, but it was so popular that basically only upperclassmen were able to enroll.

I did, however, perform in a theatre piece directed by Newton's partner, Holly Hughes.

I've got to be careful because I always want to go to EVERYTHING and overextend myself. I picked two on Nov. 3 (railroads and crossing color lines) and the mid-20th C. gay history one on Nov. 4. I think that's doable.

You're probably not missing anything with the dialect thing. To me any general interest talk about dialects winds up being the linguistic equivalent of buying an issue of Glamour and trying to actually read it.

What about for us dilettantes, though?

Eh, I think you may be disappointed.

Well -- it's not high on my list, and there's a good chance that, as in past years, I'll be lazy and go to none. But whatevs.

I just think talks like that are likely to confirm what you already know rather than tell you something ~new~ about dialects in the USA.

I'm kind of disgusting today. I put forth the absolute minimum effort with my appearance this morning, I ate stinky things for breakfast and lunch (bagel w/ lox, onion, and cream cheese and an Italian sub, respectively), I'm wearing dumpy jeans, and my zipper keeps falling down.

in case anyone is interested, a friend of mine is launching a quarterly journal w/ smart north american soccer writing, and the release party is thursday at Cleo's in ukranian village

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/xi-issue-one-launch/Event?oid=7327789

I'm only interested in super stupid soccer writing, no go 4 me

well then: http://www.bigsoccer.com/community/

haha

So we had a really nice time in the Yoop this weekend. It's so pretty up there! Granted I'm not much of an outdoorswoman, but I wish I had a week to hang out at a lake cabin and do lake things and hike some and smell trees and listen to quiet forest sounds. And everything is so cheap! God.

We ended up stopping in Lena, WI for lunch on the way back to Chicago and I can enthusiastically encourage people making the trip to eat lunch at Verna's whenever possible. They are only open until one, but they will cheerfully make you a tasty lunch even if you stumble in at 12:45 and not make you feel bad about it at all.

Also I bought a grip of spray paint at the Walmart up there so take that stupid spray paint ban in Chicago.

Chicago Humanities Festival has a podcast now of talks from previous years. Mostly just the big keynotes, but good stuff.

Would love to see the UP.

Flights up there twice/day if you don't feel like driving, but the drive was surprisingly easy (note: Jesse drove the crazy urban expressway part of the trip, and I drove the mostly two-lane, slow down to 25 mph through small town part of the trip).

In other words, you should go.

This is what the sunset looked like from K8's reception:

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/539215_780993116437_1281406344_n.jpg

Also I love that carl is now stanning for the Yoop. Soon we will assimilate you all.

haha I would be a bigger stan if I could transport up there a la Star Trek since a seven hour drive, however easy and scenic, isn't something that I want to do very often. BUT I definitely feel like I have a better understanding of the Yooper diaspora and why you love your homeland so much.

I Get Yoopers. Ask me how!

Yeah, the drive sucks. We were about 3 hours behind you guys yesterday, as far as I could tell from your twitter posts. There was a big accident just north of Green Bay that had the whole road at a standstill for miles, probably at least a 45 min delay. I felt bad for being annoyed b/c I'm sure the people involved didn't have a very good day.

Jesse will have to confirm or deny, but somewhere around that area (I think) we ran into traffic that was related to an accident. From what I could tell from my back seat rubber necking, somebody had put at least one car in the ditch. I saw two firefighters casually strolling down the slope with a crowbar and the jaws of life.

Really nice neighborhood by neighborhood visualization of crime data in Chicago: http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/

A coworker drove up to the U.P. last week as well -- kinda made me want to do a big road trip sometime soon. Not with the A/C-less car I have, though. Kr and I have occasionally talked about flying to Boston and then renting a car and driving up to Maine.

Ha, yeah, no road trips in that car. Driving to Bridgeport was bad enough. ;)

Have we discussed Lillie's BBQ? Went there tonight and was blown away.

I was just reading about BBQ places looking for a new one. That was a consideration. It's so easy to be disappointed though. I really don't care for the places that bring out the BBQ mostly dry and then have the regional sauces at the table.

Lillie Q? In Wicker Park? Pretty solid. Tri-tip sandwich is awesome. Best BBQ remain Uncle John's on the south side, though. Take out only, though. Smoque is great but is the most overrated. Most underrated: Whole Foods smokehouse BBQ. Big Lincoln Park WF and WF in the south loop both have smokehouses, and their brisket is ace.

Coworker brought in guava pasteles this morning. I <3 u coworker!

mmmm my favorite

i love bocadillo, those little cubes of guava paste. Good snack!

http://www.bocadillo.net/ImagenM/boc10.jpg

does anyone have any interest in going to quenchers on saturday to see bellini, bottomless pit (ex-silkworm), and coffin pricks (ex-monorchid, skull control, red-eyed legends, circus lupus, etc.)? bottomless pit are very good live.

I would totally be into seeing Bottomless Pit, but that day is also my son's first birthday party and I think my wife may kill me if I make other plans that night since her parents will be in town.

i'm not sure any of that means anything to me
would i like it?

i was wondering if anyone wanted to see swans with me in october, but that's p far away and i'm not 100% on it myself

i'm working on a rolling best of 2012 spotify playlist if anyone else wants to subscribe to it: http://open.spotify.com/user/naamme/playlist/3K5QFXimWUlhrtqZWfIies

you might like bottomless pit, they have transcendental guitar solos (but are not psychedelic). don't think you'd like coffin pricks, and i don't really know much about bellini other than they used to be on touch & go and had an album with damon che (from don caballero) on drums

i would love to see swans but am not sure about that show, it's on a weeknight and kind of $$$ iirc, but i am definitely thinking about it

hmm. i'll think about it! transcendental guitar solos yes pls, always. will check them out today and let you know. i could drive if you want.

swans is $$ and on a very unfortunate day, but holy shit would i love to hear some of the new album live (again, since I think they played the apostate at our show last year? iirc?)
will be huge

there's a good number of live bottomless pit videos on youtube but not many with solos for some reason. andy cohen from silkworm/bottomless pit is one of my most influential guitarists, like half of my guitar style is trying to sound like him and failing. and tim midgett plays an awesome aluminum baritone guitar. anyways i don't know if it'll be your thing but i'm pretty sure i'm going so just let me know.

aight

Amanda, ask Jesse about The Swans.

carl you might appreciate the cover of the new swans album if you have not yet admired it
http://factmag-images.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/fayv_SwansTheSeercvr.jpg

That is pretty creepy!

And unsettling!

Took me way longer than it should have for me to realize just why it was so creepy.

carl -- did you see the student i posted for you?

jvc -- teeth!!

exactly! i don't know why i didn't notice them the first time i saw the cover.