CD 11 Joni Mitchell - Shine

Shine is Joni Mitchell's first studio cd in almost 10 years. Coming somewhat as a surprise, since she was alleged to have left the business in 2002, Mitchell claimed that the war and pressing environmental concerns compelled her to write again (the cd includes a jazzy remake of her hit Big Yellow Taxi). Highly touted as one of the best of her 17 albums to date, Shine begins with a beautiful piano overture. Music that is both mellow and complicated follows, with the trademark Joni soprano sax adding interesting accents. The addition of Greg Leisz (who had played on k.d. lang's Torch and Twang, amongst others) means there is a lot of pedal steel guitar, which is sometimes puzzling in the jazzy folk mix that Joni is offering here. The lyrics sometimes become a bit too didactic for the subtlety of her music, but, sadly, it seems likely that that might be owing to the political context that she's addressing rather than a lack of lyrical ability on her part. Like many musicians of her generation (most notably Paul McCartney), Mitchell has made her cd available at Starbucks. Maybe that's where the 5 people who are still buying cds are hanging out (guess that includes me!)

Book 24: Half of a Yellow Sun

This book provides a well-written and fairly compelling fictional account of five characters living in Biafra immediately before and during its brief struggle for independence from Nigeria in the late 1960s. Perhaps it is true that all wars share a good deal in common - innocent people get killed, women are raped, children go hungry, officers become disallusioned and/or corrupt. However, by the end of this book, it felt a little as if each of the required scenes for a war story had been checked off a list. Still, the book kept my interest, I learned a little bit about a part of the world I know nothing about, and found many of the characters to be a satisfying blend of seeming contradictions.

Book 23: Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Fun Fact 30

Lately I have been going back and reading the early work of some of my favorite writers. I had read and loved Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay several years ago. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is his first novel, a great coming of age book about Art Bechstein's adventures in Pittsburgh the summer after his college graduation. At times deadly serious, at times wildly humorous, this book is an interesting meditation on the nature of friendships and sexual relationships (hetero and homo)at that stage of life. For an added twist, Bechstein's father is in the mob. His girlfriend's name is Phlox, his boyfriend's name is also Arthur, and his best friend is named Cleveland. What happens when they all come to know of each other's existence? Chabon's excellent storytelling and compelling writing style make the implausible seem like it could really have happened (perhaps in your own life).

Fun Fact: Amazingly, this book was his master's thesis at the University of California - Irvine! No wonder he went on to win the Pulitzer for Kavalier and Clay!

Feist - The Reminder - CD 10

The Reminder is Feist's 3rd cd and it is very good. It has already appeared on many "Best of 2007" lists. You may be familiar with her work without knowing it. Feists' song 1234 has been on the ipod commerical for some time now. In fact, that platform is largely responsible for her surprising popularity given her ecclectic and largely jazz-like style. She sometimes sounds like Rickie Lee Jones, sometimes like Norah Jones, sometimes like a cabaret singer, and sometimes like no one you've heard before. There is a lot of subtlety to this album. It is the kind of cd you hear something new with each listening. Highly recommended, it definitely makes my Best of 2007 list.

Holidays on Ice - Book 22; Fun Fact 29

What better way to spend Christmas than to listen to David Sedaris' sardonic take on the whole holiday enterprise? Even though we had heard much of it before, we laughed out loud listening to this book on our drive to Athens last week. Santaland is one of the best send-ups of Christmas ever! Fun fact from Sedaris: did you know that Satan is an anagram of Santa? Merry Christmas :^)

LAFS - Experience 29

Right before the holiday break we held our first official session of LAFS - The Lesbian Association of FilmwatcherS. For our first meeting, we watched two rite of passage films - Racing With the Moon (which we all watched in advance) and My Life as a Dog (which we all watched together). Both were good, but neither held up in the way we thought they might. Still, it was a fun night and an excellent initiation of the group. Our post Christmas meeting will feature a discussion of the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men and and (re)viewing of one of our all time favs, The Big Lebowski. "The dude abides."

North Pond - Restaurant 34

Before taking off for Athens, we had a lovely pre-Christmas dinner last Tuesday at North Pond Restaurant. The restaurant is housed in a beautiful craftsman building in Chicago's Lincoln Park. They feature dishes made from organic (but not vegetarian) ingredients and the food is delicious. We stared off with a visually attractive and tasty amuse bouche with smoked fish and goat cheese, which was on the house. Appetizers featuring scallops and shrimp followed, and then salads featuring beets and pate. Finally we had mixed winter vegtables and skate for dinner. Our favs were the amuse bouche and the shrimp appetizer, but it was all very, very good. This is a great place to come for a special dinner -- but be forewarned: if you go, be prepared to lay down some serious cash at the end of the night.

Murphy's Red Hots - Restaurant 33

Here I am out in front of Murphy's Red Hots, just around the corner from our apartment on Belmont and Racine. This place features dogs of all sorts from Chicago to Polish to Italian, as well as excellent crispy french fries. It's great to have a reliable hot dog stand nearby -- you never know when you might get the urge. (I've already succumbed several times!)

The Night Watch - Book 21

Sarah Waters is a young English writer who skillfully explores sex and gender in historical novels, but the device she uses in this book (beginning the story at the end, after WWII, and moving backward in time to the beginning of the war) came off a bit too gimmicky. Tipping the Velvet is her first and her best, a great book set in Victorian England. I've tried her others and found them to be good but not great. Sort of like Paul McCartney after The Beatles in Wings. Not bad, but no comparison to what came before. Check out Tipping the Velvet if you're interested in Waters at her very best.

Movies 18 & 19: Weekend of the Coens

It was a Coen Brothers weekend. On Friday we went to see No Country for Old Men. Great story, but the last 1/4 of it seemed somewhat disconnected from the first 3/4 of it. Tommy Lee Jones is fantastic. As many have noted, there is quite a lot of violence, but so much so that it almost begins to seem cartoon-like at a certain point. You really can't go wrong with the Coen Brothers. On Saturday we went to see Romance and Cigarettes starring James Galdofini, Susan Sarandon, and Kate Winslet, with the Coen Brothers serving as executive producers. Kind of a post-modern musicial about a middle aged couple and their discontents. It was a bit uneven, but there were a number of really funny moments spread throughout the movie. It was worth the price of admission alone to hear Susan Sarandon singing Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Heart." The singing and dancing New York cops that flounced across the screen throughout the film were also pretty good. To complete the Coen fest, we're planning a reviewing of The Big Lebowski and O Brother right after Christmas.

Books #19 and #20 - Sacred Games and Shantaram

If you think you might be in the mood for a 900+ page book on the seedy underside of life in Bombay, I've got two for you to consider - Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. If forced to choose between the two (and, really, who needs to read nearly 2,000 pages on this particular topic?), I'd recommend Sacred Games. The shifts in time and perspective can be confusing, especially at first when the reader is also forced to cope with several non-English words in every paragraph (fewer than half of which are defined in the less-than-helpful glossary.) However, as one catches on that most of these terms are variations on "buttfuck" or "(insert relative) fucker", a fascinating story emerges about the professional and spiritual trials of an underworld kingpin and the mid-level policeman tracking him down (sort of). The characters are complex and the plot is compelling enough to maintain interest throughout most of this impressive novel.

Shantaram starts strong, retelling the semi-autobiographical tale of its amazing author which begins with his escape from prison in Australia and flight to India to avoid serving time for a drug-induced murder (this book was actually written while the author was in jail completing this sentence, which may go some way to explaining its extraordinary length.) The main character is refreshingly humble and non-macho and the writing is terrific. Unfortunately, about 2/3 of the way through, he ends up involved in armed conflict in Afghanistan and, I don't know, the book just lost me after that. I finished it, but the emotional richness it began with seemed to generate into a bad Rambo knock-off by the end. Still, the first part is so good that it might still be worth a go.

Moretti's - Beer 26

Last night we went back to Rose Angelis, an excellent northern Italian restaurant that was discussed earlier on this blog. Kate had the same dish as last time -- spinach half moons filled with cheese and cooked in a brown butter sauce - yum! I had ravioli cooked in a sauce made of pulverized sun dried tomatoes. Mmmmm. After sharing these meals and just about finishing both of them we were so full that we couldn't even manage to think about dessert. Although we can't count the restaurant again for 10 x 40 purposes, I did have a new beer, a Moretti, which was a lighter colored beer with a medium strong taste to it.

Book 18: The Essential Triathlete

Of the several triathlon books I have read, this one is probably best suited for the first timer in terms of the perspective it provides. The author tries to persuade beginners of the wisdom of simply finishing the race, rather than setting time goals and so forth. Just breaking the tape takes enough physical and mental preparation in his view. He certainly persuaded me.

The heart of the book consists of several training charts that prepare the reader to reach this goal. The problem is he conflates the sprint and standard triathlon training chart into one chart, undermining the whole idea of keeping training and race goals as modest as possible. I think one could easily adapt the chart back down to sprint level, but it was frustrating not to find one dedicated to that level of racing in a book that is designed for the first timer.

Suzanne Westenhoeffer - Performance 12; My Pie - Restaurant 32; Park West - Place 27

Last Saturday we went out with a group of the girls to see famed lesbian comic Suzanne Westenhoeffer at the Park West, where she was doing a benefit for a local non-profit, the Lesbian Community Cancer Project (the LCCP). The evening started with some delicious pizza and drinks at My Pie, around Clark and Fullerton. This place features deep dish pizza and maybe the best pizza crust we have encountered while here in Chicago. After adequate food and drink were had we walked over the Park West, a few blocks south on Clark and Armitage. We had really good seats in this very comfortable venue where we proceeded to laugh pretty continuously for the next hour and a half. Westenhoeffer's show is a combination of set pieces interspersed with banter from the audience. And really, when all is said and done what's better than laughing at and with your own kind?

Amitabul and Selmarie- Restaurants 30 & 31; Fun Fact 28

Last Friday we joined a couple of friends after work and headed over to Amitabul, a restaurant featuring vegan Korean food. This is a great place that is very different from the vegan restaurant we visited a couple weeks ago. Whereas Karyn's cooked tried to replicate meat based comfort foods with vegan ingredients, Amitabul centralized a wide variety of really tastily prepared vegtables. We each ordered a dish and then shared, and they ran the gamut from mildly to wildly spicy, from salty to fruity sauces, with mushrooms, peppers, rice, noodles, etc etc. The servers were very friendly and the atmosphere very cozy and warm. To top it off, this restaurant is very low priced. We had a meal for 4 with an appetizer for under $60. The only possible drawback is that it's located on the NW corner of the city, near the Superdog on Milwaukee and Devon, so it's a little bit of a haul -- but well worth it!

After dinner we stopped in at the Cafe Selmarie for dessert. I had a truly amazing chocolate mousse cake. Kate had orange chocolate decadence which was good, but not as good as the aforementioned mousse. Our friends had cherry pie.

Fun fact: In the middle of our desserts two strange women came up to me and one asked if I knew who she was. Of course I didn't initially, not having a context in which to place her. But then I realized it was my old friend Margie, who I went to high school with here in Chicago roughly 30 years ago! She currently lives in Oregon and was just in town visiting her family for the weekend. What are the chances that the two of us would meet up and recognize each other in this huge city? Amazing!

CD 9: Cat Power: The Greatest; Fun Fact 27

This CD was given to us by our friends Stephanie and Moe when they visited earlier this summer. Reading an interesting article about Cat Power by Sasha Frere-Jones in this week's New Yorker reminded me that I had not yet blogged about it. Cat Power (real name: Chan - pronounced Sean - Marshall) has been around for a while and has played with some pretty big names including Patti Smith, Liz Phair, and Eddie Vedder. Early success and addiction issues seemed to have led to some uneven performances characterized by extreme stage fright, though most critics recognized her raw talent throughout those perilous years. (She certainly looks like she's having a great time performing now, if the picture here is any indication.) In any case, her new CD, The Greatest, is getting a lot of attention, suggesting that it may well become her breakout recording. She has a great voice, which puts me in the mind of white soul singers such as Shelby Lynne or her foremother Dusty Springfield. (And you really can't go wrong with Dusty, now, can you?)

Fun Fact: This is not the first time The New Yorker has commented on Cat Power's work. Check out this 2003 story, by Hilton Als.

CD 8: Gipsy Kings - Este Mundo; Fun Fact 26

We have started to think about taking a trip to Spain in a couple of years. We'd like to spend two weeks there, with each of choosing a theme to focus on. My theme will be music and Kate's theme will be religious art (icons, etc.) I was talking with our friend Miriam about this one day on the phone (she's travelled to Spain many times) and she was kind enough to send us several discs to get us started. The first one we listened to was The Gipsy Kings' "Este Mundo." Their music is said to be designed to bring traditional flamenco music into the pop world. This was a very accessible and entertaining place to start our musicial exploration of Spain. Thanks Miriam!

Fun Fact 1: The Kings are actually from France, as their parents fled Spain during the Civil War.

Fun Fact 2: Their cover of "Hotel California" is included in the soundtrack to the Coeh brother's film, "The Big Lebowski" (one of my favorite movies of all time - "The dude abides!"

Rock and Soul Class Part I - Experience 29; Fun Fact 25; CDs 6 &7

Last night I finished the first semester of a year long class on the history of rock and soul, taught by WXRT DJ Terri Hemmert (pictured right) at Columbia College in downtown Chicago. Fun Facts: Terri was the first woman assigned the morning drive slot in Chicago radio, over 25 years ago. I used to listen to her show when I was home from college working downtown during the summer. Columbia College is the largest media and arts college in the country.

This first part of the class focused on the roots of rock and soul starting with Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith in the 20's and ending up with The Beatles and Black Sabbath in the 60's. It was a fantastic in-depth review of the popular music of this period, facilitated by Terri's truly amazing dvd collection.

Next week the real students in the class will take the exam (in this case it pays to be a poser ;^) and then we'll all meet at a Thai restaurant across the street for an end of the class celebration. Kicking off the holiday party in advance, Terri gave all of us two fantastic cds. The first is called the College of Rock and Roll Knowledge is basically a review of the central roots artists that we studied this term, including Billie Holiday, Louis Jordan, Big Mama Thornton, Irma Thomas and others. The second is the 2007 edition of her Christmas disc which includes Christmas songs from artists who performed in Chicago during the term. Both are sensational and include excellent picutres of Terri dressed as Santa and Terri as a dj at maybe 4 years of age! Thanks for a great term Terri! See you next semester!

Another Pre - Experience 28

This is yet another catch-up post. We were invited to another "pre" dinner at our friends Mary and Amanda's place on Thanksgiving Eve. (We had three Thanskgiving dinners when all was said and done.) They cooked up a really tasty turkey (very moist) and had all the great traditional sides and the company was great too! If this keeps up we'll be as big as houses by the time we return to Athens!

Thanks to Mira and Eric for the great picture, taken just before the party was breaking up. (I lifted it off their great website, Life of Miric.)

First Winter Storm! Experience 27

The first winter storm of the season arrived in Chicago today, and it is looking like a doozy! It started out this afternoon with some beautiful big flaked snow, but by the time we got out of the movie (see below) the temperature had risen and it was sleeting, leaving the streets with a layer of ice on top. Here's hoping this is a sign that we're in for a very white holiday season!

For The Bible Tells Me So - Movie 17

Today we braved the beginning of a winter storm and slogged over to one of our favorite theatres, The Music Box, to see a documentary called For the Bible Tells Me So. This film focusses on five families that have gay children, as well as strong, fundamentalist Christian belief. How do they reconcile, or fail to reconcile the two? Two of the families include very public personas (Gene Robinson, Episcopalian Bishop of New Hampshire pictured above and Chrissy Gephardt, daughter of Congressman Dick Gephardt) and the other three families are everyday folks. This interesting and sometimes moving film shows the real and often very damaging human consequences of the anti-gay rhetoric of the religious right. It also offers an interesting and more complicated interpretation of what one interviewee calls the fifth grade level fundamentalist interpretation of the bible verses from Levitcus and Romans that are invariably trotted out to justify such beliefs. In one of the most powerful scenes a family tries to get in to see Rev. James Dobson at Focus on the Family in Colorado and is arrested for their efforts. Great way to portray a literal refusal to engage a challenging viewpoint. The movie is playing at least through this Thursday here in Chicago. Two thumbs up, way up!

Jin Ju - Restaurant 29; OB - Beer 25; LaShondra Barnett - Performance 11

Last Sunday I went to a discussion led by LaShondra Barnett about her new book, I Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters and Their Craft at Women and Children First bookstore on Clark and Foster. This is a great book filled with interviews of black women songwriters ranging from Nina Simone to Alicia Keys. About 25 people turned out to hear Prof. Barnett (she's in Amereican Studies at Sarah Lawrence) talk about the accomplishments of these women as well as the way that they are usually diminished through a focus on the personal. Afterwards, I met up with Kate and we had dinner at Jin Ju, a Korean restaurant just down the street. We had a delicious scallion pancake and a tasty seaweed roll for appetizers. We each also had an OB beer (Oriental Brewery) which was a pretty unintersting lite beer. For dinner, Kate had Bi Bim Bop (a variety of mixed vegtables mixed together in a hot stone bowl right there at the table) and I had tilapia with eggplant and mushrooms. Both had excellent sauces with just the right amount of kick to make them interesting. The atmosphere was pretty quiet, it being early Sunday evening, but I'm sure the place jumps during the weekend! I've been told that there are cheaper places to get this quality of Korean food, so stay tuned for more soon!

Poker with the Girls - Experience 26; Fun Fact 24

This is also a catch-up post. I've played poker with a group of friendly south-side girls a couple of times now and it has been great fun! These girls are good poker players! In the first tournament I took 3rd place and in the second I had high hand. Can't wait for the next game which will probably be sometime after Christmas.

Fun Fact: It's not legal to play poker for money in Illinois, even in home games (so it goes without saying that these games were all on the up and up, purely for entertainment.) Illinois is perhaps the strictest state in the country when it comes to poker. I was surprised to read in the paper the other day that the police busted a cash game in a private home and that bars with separate rooms for playing were also being threatened with losing their license. An attempt to eradicate the Capone legacy? Strong lobby by the neighboring casinos? Either way, the casinos seem to have the market cornered when it comes to cash games. No such restrictions exist where we live in Ohio, where you can get a legal cash game pretty much any day of the week (as long as no liquor is being sold and the pot isn't being raked for private profit.)

Karyn's Cooked - Restaurant 28; Beer 24

This is a catch-up post: About a week before Thanksgiving, our friend Kathleen came to Chicago from Athens for a conference and we were lucky enough to be able to arrange a dinner with her on the one (chilly!) night she was in town. Kathleen's a vegetarian, so we thought we'd try Karyn's Cooked, Conscious Comfort Foods, located two blocks away from the Chicago stop on the Brown line. This is a place that makes traditional comfort foods, with only vegan ingredients. (There is also a Karyn's Raw which serves only uncooked foods, located on Clybourn and pictured here).

We decided to share three dishes. Kathleen ordered the ribs, Kate ordered a Buddha bowl (mixed vegtables and rice), and I had polenta with mushrooms. They were all very good, but I think that anyone of them on their own might have been a bit much for us. Combining the entrees seemed to really add to their flavor. We also each had a Scarecrow organic beer, a flavorful light amber. We then decided to split a piece of coconut cake which was the largest piece of cake I have ever received in a restaurant! Despite it being very tasty, even the three of us together could not finish it off.

Karen's Cooked was a nice treat, but an even greater treat was having dinner with Kathleen and catching up on all the comings and goings in Athens!

Ras Dashen - Restaurant 27; Beers 22 & 23

On Saturday we went to Ras Dashen an Ethiopian restaurant on Broadway north of Hollywood to celebrate our friend Aileen's birthday. Although we were still feeling the effects of several days of big eating, we thoroughly enjoyed the food here. We had excellent appetizers - a much lighter version of something like a vegtable pakora. This was followed by a platter that included a wide variety of tasty vegetarian treats served on top of the traditional spongy Ethiopian bread. Our favorites were the specials --a mushroom based and a pumpkin based dish, as well as a lentil based dish off the regular menu. We also had a Windhoek beer (a tasty lager) and a Harar (which was also very good - it had a little more bite too it.) For dessert, we had a really good coconut creme brulee -- very light and flavorful. Some friends had coffee too, but that stuff was so strong I wouldn't have been able to sleep a wink! Great meal! We plan to return soon.

Pre-publicity for Who's Your Daddy - Book 17

Here's some ad copy from my forthcoming book, which will be out in
March. (I snatched it off the Ashgate website). I guess this counts as
as a book that I've read ;^)

The Founding Fathers, Pop Culture, and Constitutional Law:
Who's Your Daddy

Susan Burgess

Series: Law, Justice and Power

Applying innovative interpretive strategies drawn from cultural studies, this book considers the perennial question of law and politics: what role do the founding fathers play in legitimizing contemporary judicial review? Rather than promulgating further theories that attempt to legitimize either judicial activism or restraint, this work uses narrative analysis, popular culture, parody, and queer theory to better understand and to reconstitute the traditional relationship between fatherhood and judicial review. Unlike traditional, top-down public law analyses that focus on elite decision making by courts, legislatures, or executives, this volume explores the representation of law and legitimacy in various sites of popular culture. To this end, soap operas, romance novels, tabloid newspapers, reality television, and coming out narratives provide alternative ways to understand the relationship between paternal power and law from the bottom upIn this manner, constitutional discourse can begin to be transformed from a dreary parsing of scholarly and juristic argot into a vibrant discussion with points of access and understanding for all.

Contents
Preface; Introduction; A fine romance: judicial restraint as a romance novel; Who's your Daddy? Judicial activism as a soap opera; Space aliens save country from ruin? Critical race theory as tabloid science fiction; Did the Supreme Court come out in Bush v. Gore? The instability of judicial identity; The drama of contemporary constitutional discourse: Lawrence v. Texas as a makeover of Bowers v. Hardwick; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

Reviews
'Top, bottom, homosexuality, illegitimacy and more. Here all the stimulating issues surrounding queer theory enliven the traditional debates over authority for constitutional interpretation. This book is Susan Burgess at her path-breaking best. Like her earlier work and her professional contributions Who’s Your Daddy? is both fun and very important.'
John Brigham, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

'For nearly a decade, Susan Burgess has been producing some of the most provocative scholarship at the intersection of cultural studies, law, and politics. This book draws together and significantly extends her previous work. Interesting, insightful, and laugh-out-loud funny, Who's Your Daddy?: The Founding Fathers, Pop Culture, and Constitutional Law will change the way people think about old questions of legal power and judicial legitimacy.'
Keith J. Bybee, Syracuse University, USA

Defining Moments in Music - Book 16

Defining Moments in Music is a (small and paperbound) coffee table book, but before you write it off let me say that it is packed with interesting information about key songs, events, inventions, performances, albums etc that pertain to the development of pop music in the 20th century. I started casually flipping through it for ideas for my women, gender and rock course and soon found that I couldn't put it down, despite the fact that it's more encyclopedic than narrative in form. It would make a great gift for any music lover that you may have on your holiday list.

First Friday at Old Town - Experience 25; Fun Fact 23

One of the most purely enjoyable things that I've done since I've been here is playing in First Friday at the Old Town School of Folk Music with my friends in the women's acoustic ensemble. On the first friday of each month students at the School offer performances ranging from folk to rock to dance. It was great to be a part of an event where adults were all doing something that they love with pure abandon (rather than perfection).

The Women's Acoustic Ensemble (WAC?!?) is a great group of women who meet every Monday morning, led by the friendly and talented Andrea and Aerin who teach us a wide variety of songs. At First Friday, we played a song by Feist called "I Feel it All" and then we joined another ensemble to play "The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac. Both songs have various levels of harmonies, making them especially fun to sing as a group. I had such a good time that night! I hope we're able to do it again soon! Thanks to Nancy (the bass player in the group) for sending the fun pictures.

Fun Fact: The building that currently houses the Old Town School used to house the Hild Public Library, a place where I spent many happy hours as a kid hanging out in the towered stacks of books (which seemed enormous to me then, but were probably pretty modest in size). It is really fun to be back in the same building as an adult, again doing something that is bringing me a lot of joy.

"Pre": A Thanksgiving Event - Experience 24

Here's a picture of us taken by our friend Marissa (and then another of us with Marissa) at "Pre," a fantastic pre-thanksgiving dinner put together by our friends Cyndy, Terri, and Julie 2 weekends back. The food was fabulous, as was the company. After stuffing ourselves on a variety of traditional thansgiving food and drink we had fun with a rousing game of Master Clue. (How do kids manage to follow the complex rules in these games? I promptly messed up about 5 minutes in.)

A sit down dinner for 20 of the girls is no small feat, but it went so well that the organizing trio is considering staging "Pre 2" - a Christmas event. Stay tuned for details.

Gay and Lesbian Film Fest - Movies 14, 15 & 16

We've been absent from the blog for a while, but now we're back again. It's a hard to maintain the balance between doing 10 x 40 and documenting 10 x 40. I'm afraid we're better at doing than documenting ;^)

The GLBT film fest was running over the last couple of weeks. It is a huge film fest featuring over 70 films across 11 days. We saw three films, Vivere, a German film about unlikely relationships across generations. It was pretty pretententious and slim on plot. We also saw a film called The Gendercator, a science fiction dystopia that sends a 70's lesbian 40 years into the future where those outside traditional gender roles are compelled to have sex change operations. This film has engendered (pun intended) a good deal of controversy due to its alleged treatment of transgender folks as (however inadvertantly) aligned with the religious right to reestablish firmer gender lines through surgery. Rather than avoiding the controversy as some other cities have, it was screened in Chicago at the LGBT Center on Halsted and was followed by a panel discussion. The film was not very good and the discussion quickly slid into identity politics of various sorts. The last film we saw was the best of the lot, it was called Between the Lines and it focused on hjira, the so-called third gender in India. The picture above is a still from this film. It consisted almost entirely of interviews with various hjira which was quite interesting, but there was almost no critical commentary outside of the personal experience presented.

Traveling Mercies - Book 15

Anne Lamott is a person who has lived a lot of life and managed to come through the other side. Thanks to her good sense (and good sense of humor) this book is not so much a victim-y detailing of her descent and recovery, as much as it is a compelling story of how she began to catch glimpses of grace in everyday living. To this end, she offers a series of short vignettes on various topics including hair, beauty, illness, kids, family relationships, politics, music, drugs, eating, sex, etc. All are informed by her trademark self-depricating humor. This is a good book to read when you feel like you'd like to see the world differently from the way it usually presents. I bought a copy of it about 7 years ago shortly after a dear Aunt of mine died, but never quite got around to reading it until last week.

I had been thinking my Aunt quite a bit in the last week or so, missing her more intensely than I normally do in the normal course of life. One day I was waiting for the red line train at Belmont, heading south towards downtown. As is pretty common these days, it was slow and running on the wrong side of the track due to construction on the line. When it finally came, I boarded hastily looking for an empty seat and as I sat down I looked up to find a woman who looked remarkably like my Aunt. Same age, hair-do, style of scarf, lipstick type. Then she started to talk to me, just as my Aunt would have talked to a total stranger, about what she was doing that day, where she was going, her kids, her earlier life, crocheting caps for cancer patients and so forth. It could have been my Aunt. Really. Even though I knew better, it felt like it WAS my Aunt, so much so that I felt a real pang of loss, again, and had to choke down a few tears as I climbed up the subway stairs and hurried down the street to my appointment.

I thought about it all week. At the end of the week I learned that in the christian church All Saints Day (November 1) is supposed to signify a time when the boundary between this world and the next, the material and the spiritual is said to be very thin. I don't think I ever heard that in all the years I spent in Catholic Church as a kid. It's a good spin. I wonder if it holds in the subway too. Anyway, I lit a candle on Sunday in memory of my Aunt, feeling more at peace about her than I had for quite some time.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows - Book 14; Fun Fact 22

Don't want to give anything away to the one or two people on the planet who still haven't read this book, so I'll just say it's a worthy ending to J.K. Rowling's fantastic Potter epic . . . minus the epilogue which was rather uninteresting and flat. Kate finished this book when it first came out and I finally finished it during the move. Our Athens friend Miriam sent us a review of Harry VII from the National Catholic Reporter that does a great job of capturing the excitement surrounding the emergence of each new book in the series . . . and how that can never be fully regenerated for future readers of the series who can just burn through all 7 volumes at once. Fun Fact: Dumbledore is gay . . . but perhaps you already knew that ;^)

Control - Movie 13; Fun Fact 21

Last night we saw the movie, Contol, about Ian Curtis the lead singer of Joy Division, a leading post-punk band that was big in the very late 70's. Curtis wound up killing himself, crushed by the demands of celebrity, increasingly severe epileptic seizures, and the problems that ensue due to an ongoing affair that his wife threatens to leave him over. (Other accounts discuss severe mental illness, which seems to make more sense - the movie leaves you wondering what led him to feel so utterly trapped and without hope.) Shot in black and white, the movie does a good job of capturing the bleakness of his homelife from adolescence to the end. Great music throughout. I think that "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is one of the best songs of this genre. Joy Division reformulated under the apt name New Order after Curtis' death and went on to produce some interesting early electronica / dance music.

Fun Fact: The name Joy Division is taken from a brothel frequented by German soldiers during WW II.

Specimen Days - Book 13

Michael Cunningham is such a great writer that you just have to excuse his rather bleak take on the world. Like other books that I have read by him ( The Hours, A Home at the End of the World) this book is in the end the story of human endurance in the face of high odds and periods of incredible lonliness and alienation. It is composed of three novellas, all set in New York, all integrating the poetry of Walt Whitman in one way or another. The first is a story of Irish immigrants set at the dawn of the industrial revolution, the second is a kind of post 9/11 police procedural mystery that seems to signal the beginning of the demise of capitalism, and the third is a post-apocalyptic story cast in the mid 21 century after capitalism has led to the destruction of pretty much everything. Each story features recurring characters types. Sounds hokey, but he manages to pull it off very well. I had read the first story months ago and then put it down as I was not in the mood for grim destruction. But when I picked it back up recently I found I could not put it down. Cunningham is really an extraordinary writer. Great book!

Dylan and Costello - Performance 10; Chicago Theatre - Place 26; Fun Fact 20

We went to see Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello on Susan's birthday on Sunday. What a great show! Dylan's band was really good and they played a lot of long jams on both old and new songs. Dylan's voice was extremely raspy, even for him. And he made up some new melodies for his old songs. But the real star of the show was Elvis Costello. From start to finish he was pure energy and entertainment, with great song selection and enthusiasm. He sang many old favs as well as some new songs including several anti-war songs, and even a humorous old chestnut from the 20's about elections and politicians. Even his banter from the stage was great. Although it was relatively brief, it was one of the best performances we have seen. Ever. We both came away wishing that he would have been alotted more time. The Chicago Theatre was a great venue in which to see them both. Its a cool old theatre with high ceilings, ornate decorations, and a wide main floor. So much more intimate than an arena venue which they undoubtedly could have filled. We were about 15 or so rows back on the side and had a great view of the whole show. Fun (?) Fact: Dylan did not talk to the audience once during the entire show -- until the encore when he introduced his band.

International Film Fest: Movies 10, 11, and 12

Because we're still playing catch-up from our brief hiatus due to moving, we need to mention that the annual Chicago International Film Fest was held a few weeks ago and we attended several movies, including Jellyfish (an Israeli movie about the joy and despair and magic in the lives of several women), and a grouping of some very interesting Animated Shorts. But our hands down favorite was "Jump" a documentary about several teams of teens from across the country competing in the national jumprope competition. Wierd interaction of athletic competition with zealous Christianity for many of the teams. Talk about extreme behavior! This film doesn't have a distribution deal yet, but if it comes to a theatre near you, we highly recommend it.

The Sparrow - Peformance 9; Fun Fact 18

Last Saturday we took in a performance of the play The Sparrow at the Apollo Theatre, located about 1 1/2 miles from our apartment. It was a beautiful night, so we decided to walk down to meet our friends Karen and Josie for dinner before the show. We decided on Indian Food at the Raj Darbar, mentioned previously on this blog. We shared chicken tikka masala, chicken shahi kurma, saag paneer, and a chick pea dish whose name escapes me at the moment. They were all pretty good, but not as good as they had been when we visited last month. The play, however, was excellent. It is the story of the girl with magical powers and their effect for good and ill on her small town. Though it got a little Carrie-esque towards the end, highlights of the play included the singing and dancing and the enormously creative staging that seemed to really define the play itself. Fun fact: This acting troupe consists of a bunch of college friends who decided to come to Chicago to contribute a new troupe to Chicago's lively independent theatre scene.

Gale Street Inn - Restaurant 26; Fun Fact 19

Let the birthday celebrations begin -- with ribs! Sunday is Susan's 46th birthday and we got the party started with some excellent ribs at the Gale Street Inn on the northwest side of Chicago. Fall of the bone meat topped with excellent sauce, cooked just right. Yum! The place was packed, even though it was only Thursday night. We'll definitely be visiting Gale Street again. Fun Fact: The Gale Street Inn is not an inn, nor is it on Gale Street. Go figure!

Across the Universe - Movie 9; Fun Fact 17

I went and saw "Across the Universe" at the afternoon show today at the Landmark Theatre on Diversey, Clark, and Halsted. Yes, I know that it had been playing to mixed reviews, but I liked it. (Plus it was fun to see a movie for the bargain matinee price of $7.00.) In order to enjoy it you have to be ok with musicals and all of the hokiness that can go along with them on film, really like Beatles songs, and be interested in the ambience of the 60s. If that appeals, this is the movie for you. If not, take a pass. I think this might account for the wildly uneven reviews. Fun fact: Bono has a great cameo as a Californian who is way ahead of the New York LSD learning curve.

Eviction and New Apartment - Experience 23

As the little girl said in Poltergeist . . . they're back. Now that we're all settled into our new place we're ready to resume blogging and will be catching you up on our recent escapades over the next several days. Most of you probably know by now that we were evicted from our old apartment due to excessive landlord greed trumping any and all concern for the well-being of tenants. That's the bad news. The good news is we survived the move and our new apartment is fantastic. Not only is it bigger and equipped with a fantastic old clawfoot tub, it is also much more homelike with gorgeous old wood in each room. But don't take our word for it. Check out these pictures and you be the judge.

Red Light - Restaurant 25; Tiger - Beer 21

Last weekend our Athens friends Margie and David Barba were in Chicago visiting their daugher Emma who recently moved to town. We met them for dinner on Sunday night at a great west loop Asian fusion restaurant called Red Light. We started out with an excellent crab cake appetizer as well as some yummy sweet potato fries. Susan had scallops on polenta and Kate had "Shrimp 99", both of which were very good. But as so often happens, we really liked the appetizers the best. Susan also had a Tiger beer, which was pretty tasty for a lager. We were all so stuffed from dinner that there was no room for dessert! However, the very best part of dinner was catching up with the Barba's and getting all the latest dish from Athens. Hope they come to visit the city again soon!

Blame it on Fidel - Movie 8; Fun Fact 16

We thought we'd warm up for the upcoming International Film Fest with this interesting movie directed by Anna Costa-Gavras. This film is great story told through the eyes of a 9 year old trying to figure out the world as constructed for her through the eyes of her lefty parents who are busy with their friends battling facism in Spain and Argentina in the 70s on the one hand and through the eyes of the nuns who are her elementary school teachers on the other. What in the world is a kid to make of all this? This film offers quite a compelling portrayal of family life and this young girl's maturation in a complicated world and home. Although it had some pacing problems, particularly in the first hour, we both really liked it and thought that it was worth staying with throughout.

Fun Fact: Several reviewers have speculated that the movie is loosely based on Anna Costa-Gavras' life with her very famous and very politically left father, Constantino Costa-Gavras, who is perhaps most well known for his gripping movie portraying the plight of the disappeared in 70's Argentina, entitled "Missing" starring Carrie Fisher.

iHole - Performance 8; Las Mananitas - Restaurant 24; Fun Fact 15

Last week we joined a bunch of the girls at a Gayco production of iHole at a theatre in the (LGBT) Center on Halsted. We started out with a fantastic margarita and pretty good fajitas at Las Mananitas. I've heard margaritas called truth serum and having tasted this powerful version I can certainly understand why! After dinner we staggered over to the Center for a great comedy show by a local gay themed troupe whose skits (the titles of which were presented on a giant iPod screen) addressed everything from Jane Addams' sexuality to the trails and tribulations of dealing with aging parents. Great company, tasty drink, fun performance. All in all, a pretty good night!

Fun Fact: according to the Urban Dictionary, an iHole is someone who ignores you pretending not to hear you because they have ear buds in, or somewho who thinks they're a bad ass on line. Hmm. Wonder which one they were thinking of when they named the show?

Bob Dylan - Modern Times; Elvis Costello - My Flame Turns Blue - CDs 4&5

At the end of the month we're going to the Dylan / Costello concert at the beautiful Chicago Theatre to celebrate Susan's birthday. In preparation we've been listening to a bunch of their discs, including these two, both of which we like very much. The Dylan disc is kind of swing / country with lots of steel guitar, snare drums and reflections on topics relevant to the later part of life taking the forefront. "Spirit on the Water" is a favorite.

Elvis' disc is a live performance with the Metropole Orkest which is a hybrid of jazz, big band, and classical orchestra. It includes a variety of songs, including some reworked classics from his new wave days wuch as "Watching the Detectives" as well as some of his new work such as his collaboration with Burt Bachrach, "God Give Me Strength" (which was originally written for Grace of My Heart, a great movie about the girl group era, loosely based on the life of Carole King.) This is an interesting, but mellow disc, full of very satisfying surprises if you're in the right mood.

Both Dylan and Costello seem to be interested in revisiting older genres and they do it well. Perhaps this common interest is what led them to tour together this year. In any case, it should be a great show!