Friday, June 8, 2007

June Bugs

My mom keeps getting attacked by owls and my dog keeps getting trapped in the attic.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Goodbye Carl Sandburg

Gather the stars if you wish it so.
Gather the songs and keep them.
Gather the faces of women.
Gather for keeping years and years.

And then …
Loosen your hands, let go and say good-by.
Let the stars and songs go.
Let the faces and years go.
Loosen your hands and say good-by.
- Carl Sandburg, “Stars, Songs, Faces.”


Chicago claims Carl Sandburg. In the future of America, in which every other city’s schools, airports and roads will be made of 100% pure Ronald Reagan, Chicago will stand tall on the legs of Carl Sandburg.

(In point of fact, Sandburg lived in the Chicago metropolitan area for a period fourteen years between going pinko in Milwaukee and raising goats in North Carolina).

Stint
Function: noun
1 a : a definite quantity of work assigned b : a period of time spent at a particular activity

Example: Between a brief stint as a socialist and a long stint as a goat herder, Carl Sandburg served a moderate stint as a poet in Chicago.


I have lived in Chicago for five months as an Executive Dandy Fop.
My folks visited from North Carolina two weeks ago, and my in-laws were in town this week.
I present Chicago to them as if it is mine. I delineate its flaws, expound on its successes, sift it like gold dust from silt.
This is the fifth city I have panned through during my lifelong stint as a transient and I find it is increasingly difficult to maintain the level of easy confidence that ratifies my rash perceptions.

Stunt
Pronunciation: 'st&nt
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: English dialect stunt stubborn, stunted, abrupt, probably of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse stuttr scant -- more at STINT
: to hinder the normal growth, development, or progress of

Example: Carl Sandburg’s stint as a poet in Chicago irrevocably stunted his ability to disassociate himself with that city in perpetuity.


I am stunted by the growing awareness that although we claim cities as we wander them, explorers, conquistadors, colonials that we are, it is the difference that is elusive and often illusory.
I can stand on my hind legs and scream, with gestures, “This is the city in which I live! It is just like the city in which you live! In the areas that it is not just like your city it is not entirely dissimilar to your city except that this one cannabalizes the corpse of Carl Sandburg instead of the carapace of Ronald Reagan!” but this would not make me much of a tour guide.

Stent
Pronunciation: 'stent
Function: noun
Etymology: Charles Thomas Stent died 1885 English dentist
: a short narrow metal or plastic tube often in the form of a mesh that is inserted into the lumen of an anatomical vessel (as an artery or a bile duct) especially to keep a previously blocked passageway open
Example: In an emergency global procedure a number of shiny plastic stents were inserted into the collective unconscious to keep our imaginations from collapsing under the weight of chain stores and strip malls.

Chicago, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, I’m going to need you all to pitch in together now. I’m going to need you all to wash your hands, take your stent (expandable wire form or perforated tube, your choice), insert it into the closest natural conduit, and together we can counteract the disease-induced localized flow constriction that is keeping us from returning each other’s calls.
And Chicago, it would help me out a lot if you could try to raise a high chin to the wind without a zombie poet whipping you with a pennant. If this fails perhaps another more customized mascot could be created, such as Flippy the Wonder Mullet or possibly Salmonella the Beer Soaked Bratwurst? Baby, let’s talk.

In the days that my in-laws were in town the most unique thing I saw was a pair of white plastic go-go boots thrown over the fence of the old folk’s home, white in the green grass and gemmed with dew. They remain to this very day. Each time I pass them my explication for their presence changes, it is a great mystery. I eye the other commuters with suspicion, watching for a slip of polyester or a dab of false eyelash adhesive to reveal the shoeless perpetrator. This mystery fascinates me, compels me to look past Carl Sandburg in my search for Chicago. Because the soul of a city is the people - the living people - that claim it as their own, festooning the uniform facades with boots and bottles, with love notes and ticket stubs, toothbrushes and transformers.

When I finally find Chicago I will place it with care into a sack of diadems, baubles and shiny rocks which I will open when my days have jumbled into a pile and I no longer remember what they were supposed to mean anyway. I will run my fingers over its contours and my tongue over my gums and hum a single note for hours in the thrall of my discovery.

(Look to your left to see a dead poet shackled to a Denny’s. Look to your right to see the specter of footless go-go boots. Before concluding your tour of this ghost town today, remember to loosen your hands and say good-by).