Tag Archives: chicago

Sundays in My City – A Night at the Opera

Ok. I lied. I went to the theatre with three boys under twelve with ants in their pants, what do you think? Just had to use it in my title because it is THE favorite album of mine, that’s all.

We went to see a Broadway musical… in Chicago… I wish I could tell you that I saw Spamalot.

Shut up! This is a hold-up, not a botany lesson. I want you to hand over all the lupins you've got.

Or Wicked. Or The Lion King. Or Billy Elliot. But Nooooo….

It is a musical based on a Disney movie. Like, 100% based on the movie... Wouldn't it have been enough to just watch the movie, again?

Every time I walk into one of these classic theatres, I am startled by the beauty inside. The ornate, intricate designs overwhelm the senses and quicken my heart. Faced with the beauty, I feel guilty for not dressing up. I imagine that the walls and the chandeliers whisper, “We wish you had taken the effort to look as good as we do and help us remember those days…”

Congratulations, Charlotte, on winning “America’s Manliest City” title

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… despite having a girl’s name. It’s like a boy named Sue, isn’t it? You have been taunted and toughened and become the manliest of them all now that you are all grown up.

Mars Chocolate North America announced today the release of the second annual COMBOS ‘America’s Manliest Cities’ study – crowning Charlotte with this year’s top spot of manliness.

Mars, yes, the candy company, commissioned Bert Sperling, the people who brought us “Best Places to Live” studies (in case you have actually heard of these studies), to conduct the “America’s Manliest Cities” study for the second time. This is a marketing move, as far as I can tell, to promote Combos. You can check them out at Combos.com: Home of the Comboviore. And yup, they are really going after a certain demographics, hard.

Charlotte, N.C. now has chief bragging rights on manliness thanks to its top 10 rankings in the sports, manly lifestyle, manly retail stores, manly occupations and salty snack sales categories.

Naturally “salty snack sales” is one of the metrics. I wonder whether instances of men dying of heart attack and high blood pressure is also taken into account for the study. Have no fear because we know men dying will be well taken care of in these cities since the quintessential Manly Occupations (fire fighters, police officers, construction workers and EMT personnel) were added to the mix this year.

I don’t know what Manly Lifestyle means, in all seriousness. Can someone explain to me? Because here is my thought process when I saw “Manly Lifestyle”:

Watching sports, drinking beers, hanging around bars, shouting, yelling, hooting.

Smoking. Driving. Smoking while driving. Smoking while driving while using the earth as his personal ashtray.

Having big loud supped-up cars that can supposedly go very fast. But ooops. You live in a crowded metro city so your speed is constantly lower than 50 MPH. Better move to Montana (which is not on the list).

Wouldn’t you think that men who work on farms and ranches with their bare hands, and bare chest *swoon* should arguably be the manliest?

Hmmm. Brokeback Mountain. Oh. Never mind.

Well, the study did not say you have to be straight to be manly. I am down with that.

Hmmm. Brokeback Mountain. So it is kind of stupid that Wyoming is not on the list.

Wyoming should definitely be on the list.

Maybe that’s why they did not dare do “The Manliest STATES” because that would totally not be targeting people who may buy Combos and be caught dead with a bag of Combos in their hands walking around when their neighbors are wrestling with steers and cattle and other miscellaneous large animals that men in these mountainous ranges wrestle with their bare hands.

Maybe that’s why the study was confined to Metro Cities. So metrosexuals are not good marketing target for Combos?

Mars feel that they need to step up to market to “manly men” because, eh, Combos look kind of suspicious? Cylinder shape with gooey filling inside?

Do straight men naturally suspect eating anything that’s cylinder shaped? But they sure like hot dogs.

Ok. Focus: Men in metro cities. Think. Harder.

Construction workers. Jack hammers. Wolf whistles.

Wife beaters.

Marlon Brando. A Streetcar Named Desire.

Stanley is without a doubt a "manly man". Hot. But. What an asshole.

“Stella!” For once I just want to do this in the middle of a crowd.

Wife beaters.

West Side Story. Jazz hands. Definitely manly. Yup.

: Possibly the most macho Jazz Hands you’ll ever see

And my mind went on and on. See? It is all very confusing.

So here are the rankings of the 50 cities included in the study:

Charlotte, NC (▲ 1 spot)
Columbus, OH (▲ 5 spots)
Kansas City, MO (▲ 5 spots)
Nashville, TN (▼ 3 spots)
Baltimore, MD (▲ 32 spots)
Milwaukee, WI (▲ 11 spots)
Chicago, IL (▲ 39 spots)
Indianapolis, IN (▲ 1 spot)
Washington, D.C. (▲ 36 spots)
Philadelphia, PA (▲ 20 spots)
Denver, CO (▼ 6 spots)
St. Louis, MO (▼ 6 spots)
Columbia, SC (No Change)
Harrisburg, PA (▲ 12 spots)
Cleveland, OH (▲ 4 spots)
Orlando, FL (▼ 2 spots)
Salt Lake City, UT (▼ 1 spot)
Birmingham, AL (▲ 5 spots)
Detroit, MI (▲ 1 spot)
Cincinnati, OH (▼ 16 spots)
Richmond, VA (▼ 9 spots)
New Orleans, LA (▲ 5 spots)
Phoenix, AZ (▼ 1 spot)
Houston, TX (▲ 15 spots)
Oklahoma City, OK (▼ 22 spots)
Toledo, OH (▼ 16 spots)
Minneapolis, MN (▼9 spots)
Memphis, TN (▼ 17 spots)
Louisville, KY (▲ 2 spots)
Seattle, WA (▲ 10 spots)
Boston, MA (▲ 7 spots)
Atlanta, GA (No Change)
Providence, RI (No Change)
Dayton, OH (▼ 19 spots)
New York, NY (▲ 15 spots)
Jacksonville, FL (▼ 15 spots)
Pittsburgh, PA (▼ 8 spots)
Grand Rapids, MI (▼ 14 spots)
Dallas, TX (▼ 5 spots)
Rochester, NY (▼ 4 spots)
Las Vegas, NV (▼ 13 spots)
San Diego, CA (▲ 1 spot)
San Francisco, CA (▲ 5 spots)
Tampa, FL (▼ 19 spots)
Sacramento, CA (▼ 4 spots)
Buffalo, NY (▼ 11 spots)
Oakland, CA (▼ 3 spots)
Los Angeles, CA (▲ 1 spot)
Miami, FL (▼ 7 spots)
Portland, OR (▼ 3 spots)

I know there is a reason why I instinctively like Portland… Miami got beaten by San Francisco? I blame it on David Caruso.

Charlotte won the crown but Chicago is the biggest winner this year (and of course I am biased): Chicago had the biggest move in the rankings, going from 46th to 7th, reportedly due to the addition of the “Manly Occupations” category.

We clearly have the best Men in Blue (and Red and Yellow and White and Brown and Black and so on…)

The following is said without any trace of sarcasm. Seriously.

The Chicago Blues definitely deserve The Manliest Award this year because many of them are confident enough in their own skin and self-identity to host (and give permission for their fellow officers to host and attend – this is a giant step away from the stereotypically homophobic environment associated with police departments in general, and specifically the Chicago PD in the past) the 14th annual International LGBT Conference for Law Enforcement & Criminal Justice Professionals for the first time in Chicago, ending with the Chicago Pride Parade this past Sunday.

I salute you, officers! Rock those self-confident booties of yours!

Sexiness comes from being comfortable in your own skin. Rock on!

Sundays In My City

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(Actually these pictures were taken this past Friday…)

This post should be titled:

I went to the Chicago Hawk’s Parade and all I got was this set of lousy pictures showing the bottom of the Stanley Cup!

Whenever I manage to get my acts together or am not too embarrassed to backdate my post or decide to overlook my poor photographic skills, I participate in Unknown Mami’s…

Unknown Mami

It is obvious I have been having too much fun with this Welcome-to-the-21st-century COOL photo editing website picnik.com. Because they have been acquired by google, I know they will not be doing evil with my photos…

Hope springs eternal

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Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;

Wait the great teacher Death, and God adore.

What future bliss He gives not thee to know,

But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:

Man never is, but always to be, blest.

The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

Essay on Man by Alexander Pope

Living in Chicago teaches you that even though there seems to be no end to the miserable winter, spring will arrive eventually. And when it comes it is the most glorious, blissful sight.

It teaches you to appreciate spring when it finally arrives overnight, without warning, because it soon disappears as stealthily and as suddenly as when it comes.

It teaches you to be grateful to the wonders that are unfathomable yet are within your reach.

It teaches you the strength of human spirits and will, part of which depends on our ability to forget the physical pains and sufferings that we went through even while we have vivid memories of the ordeals. Of which, child birth is a prime example: if we could remember the pain physically, we would have all stopped at one child.

What we love: Toy Maker at Museum of Science and Industry

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Honestly the best $5 you can spend at a museum: watch your toy being made along the conveyor belt and have your name laser etched into the toy.

HOW COOL IS THAT?!

This beats all the crap toys your kids whine about at the gift shop everywhere you go…

p.s. Those are my boys’ heads in the video…

p.p.s. I also love the song “Computer Song” by Jim Noir

Fall in Chicago. It is back!

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Fall arrived in our neck of the woods towards the end of September. That was when I realized our maple tree was the first one on the block to start turning red.

Living in Chicago for over a decade has taught us to appreciate a sunny mild day with a blue sky dotted with big fluffy clouds when we are blessed enough to witness it. The day is always treated as The Perfect Day.

We have learned to treat the weekends with 50-degree temperature during the long winter with reverence. All of the sudden the neighborhood comes back alive, people venture outside without their jackets as if it were summer already.

Carpe diem. We are the experts here.

The first week of October, despite the ominous clouds at the edge of the dome, we decided to go on our annual Pumpkin Farm trip because my husband would soon be away for a 3-week business trip. It paid off because the temperature immediately dropped down to the unseasonably cold and stayed this way until this weekend.

Maybe the Corn Angels the kids made that day brought Fall back to us…

Corn Angels

Apple picking may still be in the stars for us.

Got Summer? Or, On the Agonizing Ritual of Closet Reorg

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Apparently not this year.

Despite its severe winters and famous 3-foot snow, Chicago has always delivered hot and humid summers. These two things are not mutually exclusive, I am sure, according to a meteorologist, but in my mind I always wonder, while either dying from motion sickness from all the shivering or from dehydration when my body turns into a water tank with holes, “Why out of all the cities did we choose this place?! WHY?!”

This year, we had a very cool summer. How cool?

I went through the whole year without seasonalizing my closet… I have basically been living on the clothes I hauled into my closet last fall. And it is LIBERATING!

You know the twice-a-year ritual:

You say goodbye to your sweaters and place your summer clothes on the hangers. Later you stash away your shorts and tank tops and bring out your t-necks and wool pants. The fat clothes, much to your dismay, are still applicable. You may or may not decide to look through the clothes you put away for when you lose weight. Probably better if you don’t. Since if you do, you will realize, by the looks and the styles, that they have been there for A VERY LONG TIME…

Although I love the changing seasons in the Midwest: the 2 weeks of spring, the 5 weeks of fall, I always dread the implications: Summarizing/winterizing the closets. More so because as soon as I am done reorganizing the closets, the temperature will drop/increase to be “unseasonably” WTF.

Every. Single. Time. Murphy’s Law.

I especially dread the re-organizing of my children’s closets: They are not like us. We get to wear the same clothes every year, or pretty much the same “fat” clothes in my case. They grow. Like weed. And they grow out of their clothes before they have the chance to wear them twice. Here is when I envy people with only one child.

Outgrew the clothes already? Pack them up! Haul them away!

When you have multiple children, now is the time to go through every single piece of clothing and agonize: Will No. 2 be able to wear this one from No. 1 two years from now? Will he have grown big enough in time to wear this sweater? Why can’t they grow in sync, as in, No. 2 will conveniently be able to wear No. 1’s hand-me-downs a few years later? Why do they have to grow OUT OF SEASONs? i.e. yeah, No. 2 can now wear No.1’s old clothes, but ooops, these are the sweaters, and we are now in July!

You also need to separate them by sizes, by seasons, by the types of clothing: pants, shirts, shorts, t-shirts, sweaters, jackets, gloves, hats, snow boots, Halloween costumes.

I regret for not having planned the births of my children with precision whenever I am sitting on the floor, surrounded by piles of clothes, assaulting my anal-itis.

Don’t even get me started on the stress I go through, when in the middle of the summer, I receive the Overstock catalogue from Lands’ End: “50% off on Winter Jackets and Snow Boots!” How am I supposed to know how big/tall these kids are going to be 6 months from now? But I’d better get the winter equipments while they are on massive discounts so we won’t be caught with nothing when winter comes suddenly. Which happens in Chicago, it feels, every year. And why do I have to worry about winter when I am sweating like a pig? Curses, Lands’ End!

So, yes, this year I have been living in jeans and long-sleeved shirts when it is cool, and jeans and t-shirts when it is warm. I haven’t touched any skirts or shorts. I didn’t even pack my capris when we went to the beach for the summer. I lived in my swimming suit that week.

I did make the attempt to summarize my closet this August when I decided that oh, yes, the temperature is going to stay summer-y finally…

closet

The pile has been on the floor since…

This weekend I’m just going to box the summer clothes up again and hang up the sweaters, again.

And you know what? Maybe we will see Summer, again…

You can’t fight Murphy’s Law…

p.s. Here is if you need an explanation on WHY cool summers do not mean Global Warming is not happening to respond to snide comments from the deniers…

“We will not become what we mean to you”

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This is yet another picture I took of the art works that resonated with me when we went through the new Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago.

“We will not become what we mean to you.”

I think about that sentence often ever since…

I’m interested in how identities are constructed, how stereotypes are formed, how narratives sort of congeal and become history.

This is how the artist, Barbara Kruger, explained the thoughts behind her creation.

Valiant Struggle No. 11

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Valiant Struggle No 11, originally uploaded by The Absence of Alternatives.

This piece is part of the Public Art exhibit in Chicago: “A Conversation with Chicago: Contemporary Sculptures from China“.

Valiant Struggle No. 11 by Chen Wenlin

I like “Protest Art”, or art with a message, as much as the next socially conscious and politically aware person. But can we say “Didactic”, let’s just call a spade a spade, eh?

Chen’s other sculptures, including the original piece with the same name, do not seem as “hitting you on the head with a giant hammer”… Perhaps the choice of red and gold was pushing it a bit too over the top?…

p.s. Is it just me? I had no desire whatsoever to get my own pictures taken with this sculpture. It would be like having your picture taken with a lecture that’s written with you in mind… Am I the only one that is reading the irony in this situation?

Bring your swimming trunks when you visit the Crown Fountain in Chicago…