TASTING CHICAGO: Rainy Relaxing

Rainy Day Freedom
nan turpin photographs

We are Tasting Chicago for a few days and today it’s a taste of daytime rain.

Like Camelot, Chicago seems to do its best raining at night, when so many of us are doing our important work of watching television.  Today is Saturday-always a treat- and it’s raining.  We have street fairs and festivals going on all over town, outdoor concerts ditto, all the things that covered all our calendars for today and tomorrow and every day.  

We are tired, desperate for an excuse to do nothing and here it is, the gift of a rainy Saturday.  Chicago can rest.  Do we remember how?  And, even scarier, is that the sun trying to come out?  

This reporter has lived in small provincial towns where not much happened that was visible to the naked eye.  Calendars stayed clear and footsteps echoed on the side streets.  On a rainy day we remember those times and places with kindness.  Not so bad for a while.  A chance to have a quiet thought; read a little further; write to a friend.  A little time to wonder what we’d do next.

CURATION NATION; Curating a Chicago Alley

“Activated” Alley After
nan turpin photographs

Primary Source decided to cover the May Day/Haymarket/Immigration rally that closed the block of Clark Street in front of the U.S. Immigration center.  It was a chilly late afternoon with a spitty kind of rain and she decided to call it a day and so missed the Loop Alliance downtown “activation” event, part of their “place-making” caravan around Chicago.

Loop Alliance announced a preliminary set of activations paced at one a month and last night was downtown. Here’s a link to get you into their world.  There’s a good picture from the party last night but this link really stars those who heard the call through increasingly smaller carriers of technology and responded and emoted through the favored event automatic responder of the day.  Press 2 for extra exclamation points.  Teasing aside, however, their reach outs and shout outs and tweets and re-tweets are the confetti left after what sounds like quite a load of fun in the confines of a place where people not at the party will be loading and unloading and checking clipboards and adjusting the elastic wraps that keep their spine together.  Ships that pass.

http://do312.com/events/2014/5/1/chicago-loop-alliance

We did take an early morning look at the Sullivan Center Alley between State Street and Wabash, the morning after.  This morning the only signs of a party were the blue plastic toilet chateaux (2) and a hand sanitizing station.  And also the mural by what yesterday’s Chicago Tribune called “Street Artist Don’t Fret” (see artist’s signature in lower left corner of mural).

Yesterday Primary Source was churlish about the formal civic-non-profit-corporate complex organizing spontaneity and funk.  This morning, walking through alley in question, P.S. was charmed by the project.  The organizers could not have chosen a better alley in this city of alleys.  It runs a block between what used to be the two sides of Carson, Pirie, Scott Department Store, the prized Louis Sullivan building.  Raised loading docks punctuate the length of it and the place vibrates with the hustle and shouts of labor past and hard work to come.

The last two pictures in this photo essay are from this morning’s prowl, the look of just another day in a Chicago Loop Alley, nothing to see, just the usual dumpsters, the warning signs, the massive hanging fire escapes, an occasional short-cutter, a worker or just some guy who wants out of the fray for a while, have a sit, have a think and then get back out there.

The usual alleys tend to be pot-holed, puddled, and oil and grease-slicked.  They are a terrain to be danced around, leaped over or walked through.  You choose the alleys you embrace them.  Last night’s activated alley was power-washed before the party (Chicago Tribune, May 1) to make sure the party was not uncool in any way.  The rats had to watch it all from their holes.