I am home from ADVENTUR! I did not break any limbs. This is important to establish, I know people worry.
I caught the El down to the University of Chicago campus, which apparently much like Neal Caffrey exists in a state of eternal spring. I have seriously never been there when the weather is bad. Or maybe it just loves me that much. I certainly love it.
Anyway, I had heard there was an exhibit on Chernobyl and the people who live illegally within the Exclusion Zone. But given that it was an exhibit in the library, I didn't think it would be worth the trek just to see that, so I planned a few other stops afterward. I was right -- the exhibit is interesting but not exactly overwhelming. I did get to wander around Harper Memorial Library, which is one of those crazy designed-by-Escher, bigger-on-the-inside buildings where you can't find some rooms unless you know they're there.
Afterward I headed over to the
Oriental Institute to see my old friend the Lamassu, who is Lammasutastic as ever, and the replica of the
Hammurabi Code stele, which for some reason I am thoroughly entranced by and have been for about twenty years. I don't know why, but I could stand and stare at the cuneiform for hours. But after I stop staring I have to walk away hurriedly because right behind the stele cast is the case with all the giant-eyed votive dolls and they freak me
the fuck out.
I was planning to make a quick stop at the
Seminary Co-Op, a famous local bookstore (and also in the building where that hilarious water fountain is housed), but I decided I might as well hit up 57th Street Books as well, which is run by the same organisation. You can kind of tell, because both of them are multi-room labyrinths built from bookshelves.
Since I was on 57th street anyway I abandoned my plans for a bagel on campus and instead went to
Medici for lunch. I did not, and I know Chicagoans will groan, have the pizza; I was craving their super-thin fries. And I had a glass of lemonade, which they make with crushed ice and soda water, om nom nom.
After lunch I headed up to the Smart Museum of Art, which was my other real goal for the weekend (I can see Hammurabi anytime). They have two exhibitions going right now,
The Tragic Muse and
After The Readymade. I wasn't all that hot on The Tragic Muse; I thought the theme was sort of weak, and the exhibit itself wasn't very compelling. After The Readymade was a lot smaller but much more interesting, at least to me. Andy Warhol is always good for a look, and I like the way readymades present; it took me a long time to warm up to Duchamp but now I'm quite fond of him.
There was one piece that I thought was
brilliant, by an artist named Erwin Wurm. It's called "Urinal from Six Famous Objects" and the first part consists of a sweater hung on two nails, folded so that it looks a bit like a urinal; posted next to it are diagrams of how it was done, which are simple enough. And that would be sort of interesting in itself, except that next to the diagram are two more nails and a table with a couple of sweaters on it. There's a sign next to the nails that instructs you to pick up a sweater and make a urinal of your own.
Now, I'm not exactly someone who enjoys rules at the best of times, but it's pretty transgressive to pick something up in a museum and mess around with it, especially after coming from the Oriental Institute which is PLASTERED with DO NOT TOUCH signs. You kind of think the placard is a trick or something, and even once I established that it wasn't (there's another placard below about the transgressive nature of the act) it took me a couple of seconds to decide that I could, in fact, actually do it. But I did pick up the sweater and made if not a perfect urinal then at least a passable one. I mean, that is
experiencing art.
There was also a long tube full of eggs attached to one wall. It was pretty fascinating.
The plan after that was to catch the bus back to the train and take the train straight home, but this is the miracle of Block 37: if you are on the Red Line, you can get off at Lake, exit through the south end of the station, turn right, walk forty feet, and find yourself standing between a
Beard Papas and an
Andy's Frozen Custard.
So I stopped off at Lake and got a frozen custard, got back on the train, and now I am home. And I can say I have seen a glass tube with forty eggs in it attached to a wall, which is more than I could say this morning, so all in all the day is firmly in the plus column.
And now there is new Doctor Who! Which I shall watch this evening, because it might be nap time now.
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