Ed is in Chicago

Beartown

2007-02-02T20:21:00.000+04:30

Chicago Bears are playing in the Superbowl on Sunday. So let's all sing along:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sct9igr7wMA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAc84a7mSO4&mode=related&search=

Books

2006-12-11T22:00:00.000+04:30

I have been trying to finish an essay for the first time in about 3 years - on the writings of 9th century man of letters from Basra, Abu 'Uthman 'Amr b. Bahr al-Jahiz. He's great. Here is him on books, not long after the introduction of paper to the Muslim world from China:

"A book is a receptacle filled with knowledge, a container crammed with good sense, a vessel full of jesting and earnestness. If can if you wish be more eloquent that Sahban b. Wa'il, or less talkative than Baqil: it will amuse you with anecdotes, inform you on all manner of astonishing marvels, entertain you with jokes or move you with homiles, just as you please. you are free to find in it an entertaining adviser, an encouraging critic, a villainous ascetic, a silent talker, or hot coldness...

"Moreover have you ever seen a garden that will go into a man's sleeve, an orchard you can take on your lap, a speaker who can speak of the dead and yet be interpreter of the living? Where else will you find a companion who sleeps only when you are alseep, and speaks only when you wish him to... You denigrate books, whereas to my mind there is no pleasanter neighbour, no more fair minded friend, no more amenable companion, no more dutiful teacher, no comrade more perfect and less prone to error, less annoying or importunate, of a sweeter disposition, less inclined to contradiction or accusation, less disposed to slander or backbiting, more marvellous, cleverer, less demanding or quarrelsome, less prone to argument or more opposed to strife, than a book."

Oh seek and ye'll find...

2006-12-08T21:44:00.000+04:30

I have been singing the star-spangled banner to myself all week. It’s a beautiful tune. Far better than our rather dirge-like effort (the title of which tune, as all you trivia buffs surely know, is reputedly ‘America’). Here is a site with some old versions, if you want to hear it again: http://www.star-spangled-banner.info/...
and so let us all join together and sing...

Oh, say, can you see...
by the dawn's early light... what so proudly we hail'd...
at the twilight's last gleaming?

Actually the words are pretty crap, so we’ll leave it there. I always thought it said “Oh seek and ye’ll find...” something. Another lyrical dissappointment. I often find that song lyrics that I imagine to be correct are more satisfying that the real ones. A case in point is the syntactical elegance and concision of my mistaken hearing of the chorus in Aretha Franklin's Natural Woman:

"...cos you make me feel
you make me feel
you make me feel like a man should, a woman..."

And who was it who misheard the refrain of REM's The Sidewinder Sleeps as

"Calling Jamaica..."

Which I still find more plausible than the ostensibly accurate lyrics

"Call me when you try to wake her up."

He just doesn't sing enough syllables to make it possible.

Anyway, the starspangled song was in my head as I went to the cast party for a production of Henry IV part 1 that we have been working on and which had its final night last Saturday. And as luck would have it, I had an opportunity to wheel the song out. In fact I had gently suggested that the cast sing it for me at a rehearsal a few days previously, but had only got Evan, our composer, to play it on the ‘cello. Back to the cast party... and I am getting myself a beer from the fridge. I stop in the hallway to talk to Ezster, my Hungarian actor friend who is another spouse/spousal equivalent of a graduate student, and who taught the cast a thing or two about stagecraft. And what do I hear piping up from the next room, but about 16 ragged voices lifting in song – the national anthem – but not their national anthem. No, they were raucously enjoining God to save a Queen on whose house their forebears (or 4 bears?) had turned their backs some 3 centuries back. I guess its because they had been acting an English play, and running around in hose invoking concepts of majesty, honour, nobility and the like.

But, now, what do I do, but rush in there as the strains of our national song are croaking to a halt, and pipe up with their very own (misinterpreted) tune? And what do they do, but take it up equally enthusiastically and raucously? It was truly very stirring.

In fact people I have met here tend to be a bit sheepish about American patriotism (mind you, I have not knowingly met anyone who voted for Bush, either – darn liberal inteelectuals). But late at night with a good play behind you and a few beers inside you, it clearly makes all the difference. Ezster was amazed. How come they knew all the words. I overheard Tian-Tian (she’s from Kansas) explaining that every sporting event they ever go to incorporates a national sing-song. Yes, but have you ever watched the mouths of the England football team as the camera pans across them before a game? About 1 in 10 (or 11?) of them is singing – they don’t know the words damn it! They don’t care. British patriotism is less about flags and tunes, and more about thinking foreigners are a bit weird and should really be more like us.

More Mexican stuff

2006-12-08T21:10:00.000+04:30

I have been trying to publish these photos, off and on for about a month. It's all stuff from the Museum of Mexican Fine Arts. Not every piece there is great art but it is very lively and varied. The range of media worked in is almost endless. See Flora in front of a piece made entirely from...?

...can you guess....?

... made entirely from beads.

Around Pilsen you see lots of other signs of the Festival of the Dead - decorations which resemble Halloween, but focused on flowers, skeletons and other dead people, rather than monsters or anything. One bakery had a couple of life-size bun corpses:

Reminds me of a comic strip in Viz. What's his name, anyone?

If all the seas were ink...

2006-11-26T23:52:00.000+04:30

God said “If all the trees in the world were pens, and the sea supplied [ink], with seven further seas after it, the words of God would not be exhausted”

Quran, 31.27

Did this Quranic verse inspire the following anonymous doggerel?

"If all the world were paper and all the seas were ink, if all the trees were bread and cheese, what would we have to drink?"

Halloween

2006-11-01T22:39:00.000+04:30

Jacob is asleep on my knee, pinning me down before the computer, so I will take the opportunity to give y'all a li'l update of our lives in these here parts. (OK enough of that.)

Sometimes it hits you hard that you are in America. I had almost forgotten that Halloween was coming up. I can't remember when I last went to a H party - but oh yes.. now I think it we did do a bit of pumpkin carving with rest of the dissolute expatriates in Kabul.

But I've never seen it like this. Last night the streets were teeming with teenies in superman costumes and monster outfits, with men in drag and girls dressed as imps. On Friday we went along to a concert given by the UC symphony orchestra where everyone but us and a few other audience members was in costume. The horns were dressed as daisies and the double basses were gangsters and a torreodor. The conductor was some kind of crazy witch and the leader was a plump chap in a tight red dress and suspenders. It was nice to see more than the usual half-hearted efforts. Plus the choir came down the aisles and sung at us from either side, and school children specially drafted in came and danced their ballet along to the pieces - Bizen, Saint-Saens, Barber etc.

(ooh! pins and needles! shift legs)

Then there is the Mexican thing. Now I am told that this is not connected to Halloween. A couple of weeks ago we went along to Pilsen - the former Czech, now Mexican 'hood (neighbourhood) - and went to the Mexican Fine Arts Center (centre) where they have an exhibition for the Festival of the Dead which is some kind of mixture of Christian and Aztec customs. It's full of crazy stuff that place. They have a whole room dedicated to shrines of people from the Chicago Mexican community with their portraits and candles and significant artifacts from their lives - among them a respected Spanish-language broadcaster, a young man killed in a road accident, and an old lady who had been full of life and wisdom (she used to say you spend half of your life squeezing into uncomfortable shoes and the other trying to find the perfectly comfortable pair to make up for it).

Then they have a whole bunch of paintings, collages, etchings, sculptures (made from, wood, straw, metal, feathers, wicker, plastic and a host of other materials) depicting death-life, regenerations, jolly skeletons, such as...

Blue bike rock

2006-10-27T01:44:00.000+04:30

Here is me and my boy, posing with a newly purchased bike a couple of weeks ago. Moving to a new place is constantly confusing - whether its Kabul or Chicago seems to make little difference - there are all these little things to get a hang of - how to get the phone to work, and where to find a postoffice and all that. It's a great relief to be able to zip quickly from place to place on the bike now.

We got the bike from a collective which exports good bikes to poor places and sells poor bikes to Chicagoans to fund it. This ol' baby set us back $50. (The bike)

It's getting a bit chilly now for fun cycling, and the wind tends to alter its direction in order to give me extra exercise. But it means that Flora can get between her son and the library in quick time and I can jaunt off to my Henry IV rehearsals.

bolt from the heavens

2006-10-13T06:03:00.000+04:30

the blog has been under posted recently, as our modem was struck by lightening last week in a great Midwestern thunderstorm of epic proportions. It looked like some overenthusiastic gothic horror filmmaker had designed a film with God as producer. But after hours on the automated phoneline (I'm sorry. I didn't hear that. Did you say you want to disconnect your phone?...) to AT&T our friendly local telecommunications giant, we were sent a new one in the post. At the moment I am writing from the library, but I have high hopes for further more permanent connectivity.

I really have to post a few photos. We went on a little trip to the Mexican neighbourhood, Pilsen (yes - it used to be the Czech neighbourhood) last weekend, so I will put some of them up if any came out alright.

My 'hood

2006-09-30T04:52:00.000+04:30

Friday 29th September, a dark and rainy night

Hyde Park continues to grow on me as a neighbourhood. It’s got a nice mix of folks in it. It is a bit like North Oxford or somewhere. It has plenty of foreigners and academics involved in the University, of course, plus there is a large black community. It also has a cooperative supermarket with broken machines and disorganised shelves, but a big heart. The man at the fish counter recommended that I try Tilapia the other day. I said

“How do you cook that?”

He said “It’s versatile, you can bake it, fry it, broil it… You can roll it”, and made me promise to come back and tell him how it tasted. A few days ago a dishevelled crazy accosted us as we left the supermarket. He screeched “I am not a bum!”

“I never said you were,” I thought.

I do a lot of walking round and round in Nichols Park, right by my house here in Hyde Park (as I have not been able to find the ‘Hyde’ Park – indeed, I am sceptical of its very existence.)

I go round and round with the pushchair (buggy) with my copy of Henry IV part 1 in my hand, whilst Jacob looks at the trees, or just nods off. Having a baby is a great way to get people to open up to you. As I pass by people smile at me and my son, or stop to talk to one or both of us.

Yesterday there were a couple of tramps (bums) on a bench with a supermarket trolley full of stuff, and some beers and a few old supermarket bestsellers strewn across the park path. I passed them several times with the pushchair (buggy). On the first, the more bearded of the two said,
“How ya doing there?”
as I passed. I smiled back at him.

As I passed on my rotations of the park the next few times I had my head buried (on purpose?) in my Henry. The more bearded of the two was saying to the other things like,
“But do you really like women? You really like women, don’t you?” And the other was muttering.

Up by the playground a large black dog barked at a tiny black dog with a beard – it barked so hard it pulled its owner by its tugging on the lead (leash).

On the sports field children were playing baseball – a big fat father was shouting things like “Get out there! Back up! Back up!” to his ten-year old charges, and on the other side of the field I could see an American football game (a football game) being played and hear piping voices say “Hut, hut, hut.” I’m not kidding. That’s what they said.

Walking round a grassy knoll, a group of small blond kids drove by in red plastic motorised car.

Nearer the playground on my way back again, I saw a little group of black teenagers walking along. The girls swung their tight-clad hips and the boys loped in their loose swaddles. When I overtook them I noticed that they were younger than they had seemed. The slimmer of the two girls said “get out the way. Don’t you see you holding up the man with the baby?”

As I drew level with them the girls stopped and cooed, “What a cute little baby.” We exchanged pleasantries. The boy in a black basketball shirt said

“Er.. what’s your race?”

I said, “Um.. what do you mean?”

He said, “What’s your nationality?”

I said, “Oh, I’m from England.”

He said, “Oh.”
It was a strange way to ask where I am from.

On the way out of the park, the beardy tramp (bum) said “This a NICE neighbourhood! I LIKE Hyde Park. It’s SOOO peaceful! Shhhh! Don’t wake the baby!”

Race

2006-09-30T04:51:00.000+04:30

17th Sept

Before coming to Chicago, one of the things I was worried about was race. I know that Britain is hardly an ideal society, but still you hear and read and see so much about the divisions in America. Of course you do get a sense of division here – so far all the students and faculty I have yet met at UChicago are white or Asian, and almost all the employees on the desks and the cleaners are black American or recent immigrants. But it’s not quite like in the movies.

Reading a paper, or going into a bookshop, or looking at lecture lists on university noticeboards, you see title after title on race relations, the struggle against inequality, the division of wealth in society. If not at the level of mass culture, then certainly in intellectual circles, the problems dogging the country are being discussed and chewed over to a very great extent. Now this is probably quite obvious – that a society should strive to overcome its problems, and yet somehow I did not expect it. What I had been led to expect from cinema and articles in British newspapers was complacent enjoyment of the fat of the land from the patricians, and seething rage from the dispossessed.

Anyway, in short I have been sensitive to the question of race since I have been here. One of the few things I knew about the area where we live, and where the University is located, Hyde Park, is that it is surrounded by poor black areas. As Zach, the Israeli guy who lives upstairs said “Hyde Park is a settlement” – we are surrounded by the dispossessed.

And yet the area is very nice. It is the most racially integrated area in the city, leafy and affluent, and people are polite and seem happy.

I needed to get some photocopies to start processing my work permit. I walked up and down East 53rd street a bit, and asked a couple of people. A very tall, large greying black man of past middle age walked towards me with a limp. I said
“Excuse me, do you know if there is anywhere I could get photocopies done round here”
without stopping or looking at me he said
“No sir”, he growled, and limped on.

I asked a young guy, and he rapped out fast detailed instructions and disappeared, I found the place.

There was a black woman working behind the counter in UPS where I did some photocopies who was talking to a white lady customer. The white lady was making jolly conversation, and the black lady was polite but rather monosyllabic. Then the black lady says

'I'm sorry, I am soo tired'
The white lady says
'You’re tired, you poor thing'
The black lady says
''Cuz we got ourselves a new church. Been up every evening this week till 1 or 2 am. Then I get back home, and have to come out here.'
The white lady says something like
'You MUST be tired'
'After a while it takes its toll, y’know'
The white lady said, 'it sure does'
And then she said
‘You know, I’m proud of you doing all that work, and you always so efficient when we come in here’

Welcome to Americkee

2006-09-30T04:49:00.000+04:30

Monday 25th Sept, a bright afternoon

The house is full of the smell of lentils. I am sitting at a sunkissed desk in our Hyde Park Apartment, reading the Financial Times and I’m feeling at home. I just spoke to the perky postman to ask him where our packages are, and he directed me to call the appropriate number. The exchange between us filled me with glee, partly because he was so perky, but also because it represented a first of something that I had been told to expect in America, as you will see:

"Jus’ call that number there."
"And when do you usually come round?"
"Aam usally round here in th’afternoon, but it deepends. Today aam running a little late, see. But if you like I can just leave it in the hall for you if you not around…"
"Thanks, that would be great."
"…now that I know who you are – now you got your name up!... (he turned and jaunted off, calling over his back to me) I LOVE that accent. You have a good day Mr Roberts."

He alas didn’t say “that British accent”, but it was still deeply satisfying.

2006-09-17T20:34:00.001+04:30

LUCCA STATION: DelVecchio
This is the best T-shirt I have seen.

2006-09-17T20:34:00.000+04:30

PISA: Boy pointing

2006-09-17T20:33:00.000+04:30

PISA: Sheltering from the rain

2006-09-17T20:25:00.000+04:30

BADIA: At the Lake

2006-09-17T20:24:00.001+04:30

BADIA: At the Lake

2006-09-17T20:24:00.000+04:30

BADIA: At the Lake

Can't you just feel the cool water flow over you? Mmmm! It's going to be much missed when arrive in the windy city.

2006-09-17T20:18:00.001+04:30

POGGIBONSI: .Mark chooses specs

2006-09-17T20:18:00.000+04:30

POGGIBONSI: .Mark chooses specs

The young lady was very keen on Mark getting something outlandish. She kept on offering him specs that she recommended as being "molto particolare". My favourite were a pair of black wraparounds with red legs on which the words "Exalt. Cycle." Unfortunately he left empty-handed.

2006-09-17T20:14:00.000+04:30

TOURISTS 2: HUGE BABY THREATENS TOWER

OK, OK, I couldn't resist a little camera trickery myself in the end. But photos are so much better when Jacob is involved.

2006-09-17T20:12:00.001+04:30

TOURISTS 2: What on earth are they doing?

You guessed it, they are all pretending to prop up the leaning tower....

In their THOUSANDS!

2006-09-17T20:12:00.000+04:30

TOURISTS 2: What on earth are they doing?

2006-09-17T20:11:00.001+04:30

TOURISTS 2: What on earth are they doing?

2006-09-17T20:11:00.000+04:30

TOURISTS 2: What on earth are they doing?

Is the lady behind Boussena about to do a cartwheel or something? Or signalling to the orbiting alien mothership?

2006-09-17T20:10:00.003+04:30

TOURISTS 2: What on earth are they doing?

2006-09-17T20:10:00.002+04:30

TOURISTS 2: What on earth are they doing?

Who is this man waving at? Can anyone tell me that?

2006-09-17T20:10:00.001+04:30

TOURISTS 2: Floral Lady

The greatest outfit worn on the streets of Rome in 2006?

2006-09-17T20:10:00.000+04:30

TOURISTS 2: Semi-naked in Church? - Wear bag.

2006-09-17T19:52:00.002+04:30

ADDIO FLORENCE. I HAVE LOVED THEE WELL.

This man always used to sit at his window near the car park at the Due Strade.

2006-09-17T19:52:00.001+04:30