Anyone who ever visited me in Chicago, undoubtedly had the pleasure of eating at Huey's Hot Dogs. Above you can see the remains of my Veggie Dog (No Onions, No Hot Peppers!) with Fries and a side of cheese. The fries are the best around and the hot dog was great, too. Jerri, Suz and I started there and Mark and Dan showed up shortly thereafter. Everything was going smoothly until Jerri, with her ever-expressive arms, accidentally spilled a full glass of water all over me. When I asked what she was trying to say, she commented on one of the buttons on my bag. It says "Future Librarian". Jerri's always creative mind thought that is said "Future Lesbian". Hate to break it to you folks, but I'm really a future librarian, not a future lesbian.
After Huey's, Suz and I headed down to Intuit Gallery to see a show of Henry Darger's work. If you don't know anything about Henry Darger, he was a reclusive artist who lived in Chicago and created a 15,000+ page graphic novel about seven sisters called the Vivian girls. You can check out the movie In the Realms of the Unreal to find out more about him. The show consisted of some of his watercolors, pages from the book and a re-creation of his apartment. It was great to see. There was also a collection of mug shots that was pretty interesting.
Suz and I then headed down to the Loop and paid $0.25 for every 5 minutes of parking in order to run around Millennium Park for 25 minutes. One of my favorite things in Chicago is the public sculpture known as The Bean. It's officially called Cloud Gate by Anish Kapoor. Above is a photo of just a small part of it with ice formed on it.
That night we got to have dinner at Yes Thai and I got to eat two of my favorite things: Tofu Satay and Rama Special with Tofu. It was wonderful, and Jerri and Mark and Dan and Ali joined Suz and I and we had both good food and good conversation. After our meal we headed to The Hopleaf to meet up with some of friends and finish off the night.
Sunday started out with a trip out to Oak Park to meet up with my good friend Nate. I got to see his beautiful house, meet his new wife and their kids! It was a relaxing morning with a great breakfast, good conversation and good laughs as always.
After Oak Park, Suz and I headed back into the city and straight to the Old Town School to enjoy the rest of the day immersed in Jug Band music. At 2pm, we saw a new documentary called Chasin' Gus' Ghost. It was great. Once that was over, we went to the Jug Band Jam in the basement. There were so many different instruments in attendance: banjos, guitars, fiddles, washtub bass, jugs galore, kazoos, a banjo uke, mandolins, washboards (yes, plural), and too many homemade percussion instruments to talk about. It was just great.
The highlight of the day was the evening benefit concert. Our good friend Arlo put together the Will Shade Gravestone Benefit Concert. It brought together a collection of great Jug Band performers including what for me was the highlight of the show: The Carolina Chocolate Drops. It was awesome to see them live.
Here is Suz, Sally, Me, Jerri, Mark and Arlo after the concert. We then headed over to The Grafton to finish off the night with curry fries, drinks and more good conversation. For me it was the end of a perfect weekend. Suz and I headed back to her place and my flight left early on Monday morning. Overall it was an AWESOME weekend! I'm so glad I made it out there, even if it was for such a short time.
2 comments:
Yay! This post made me happy! Come back soon!
Post a Comment