More Skeery Graveyard Stuff...

Well, it's not ALL skeery. But due to popular demand, here are some more pics from our cemetery stroll.


Judging from the previous post, you might think that all the monuments in Graceland are of the vintage variety, but they are still burying folks there to this day, as far as I know. Witness this relatively modern example, which graces the grave of an architect. Magpie that I am, I was attracted by the big hunk of aqua glass, glistening in the sun.


Here is the final resting place of another famous Chicago architect. Nice bas relief, Louie.


Speaking of bas reliefs, check out this portly fellow.


Not too far from Mr. Huck, just across the lane, is this monument to a fireman. I would say "fire fighter" to be politically correct, but I think the guy considered himself to be a fireman back in the day, and so I will honor his self-perception.


The stonework and detailing of some of these monuments is just stunning. Note the Celtic tracery on this cross...

and on the wall of this vault.


Speaking of vaults, check out this one with its subterranean entrance and its own ventilating system. I have to say, that creeped me out a bit...


This angel, rather the worse for erosion, resides near the Sullivan stone and the Celtic cross.


Although the cemetery is incredibly well-kept, vandals have managed to make some inroads. I'm not sure how long ago this damage was done, though. This place has been around a long, long time, and this looks like an old, old monument.


This is one of the newer monuments, but, since it features an angel (or specter) emerging right out of the granite, I think it's also darned sinister.


Finally, I think this sculpture most aptly portrays the atmosphere that pervades a cemetery. If only we could have one moment more...

A Trip to Graceland

No, not to the shrine of white trash decorating aesthetics, although somewhere I have some pictures from my visit there with Beth several *ahem* yes, several years ago, but to the vast cemetery on the north side of Chicago where so many of the city's greats are buried. Jeff and I went for a stroll through the necropolis several weeks ago, and I've been meaning to upload and post my pictures of the place for a while now... so turn on all the lights (or, depending on your mood, douse them) and enjoy.


This is the infamous Graves (yes! Graves!) Monument, which, before the days of digital photography, was reported to resist all attempts to photograph it clearly. As you can see, it photographs just fine. But it IS way creepy!



I found the door of this monument to be much more chilling than a huge honkin' statue of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. The door, slightly ajar, chained and padlocked against... vandals who would break in? Or something that might break out? Hmmmm?



Well, I guess if you were born far too late and in far too distant a land to be interred with all the trappings of a pharaoh, if you have the do-re-mi you can do the next best thing--insist upon your own pyramid. All kidding aside, this tomb has lovely details.

The angel,

the steely eyed sphinx,

the stained-glass window, visible through the door to the mausoleum itself... Say, that dude has some keys--think that might be St. Peter?
And I'm sure it all had some deep, meaningful symbolism connected with it. Or else the guy (or his family) just thought it was cool.


Daniel Burnham, whose architectural vision shaped Chicago as it rose from the ashes of the great fire, is buried in Graceland, and you might think he would also command an imposing tomb such as our pyramid guy's. But you would be wrong. Here is Daniel's grave, set on a tiny, wooded island on Graceland's small lake--an island he shares with his wife, his children, and their spouses:



Among the other famous markers in Graceland, this purportedly haunted statue has a particularly remarkable history:
It is supposedly the final resting place of Inez Clarke, and the statue is alleged to move around in her little case and sometimes even disappear from it. Over the years, children visiting the cemetery are said to have encountered Inez playing near the monument. Odd that, because it turns out that Inez never existed in the first place! Check out the link for the whole story.

There's just no way to do justice to all the weird variety of monuments to life and death in this place. I have far more photos than I can share here, but rest in peaceful assurance that the place has stone trees
and real trees (skeery ones at that!), rows of tombs worthy of inclusion in a Hammer horror movie, and silent sentinels, keeping constant prayerful vigil and creeping out passersby for the foreseeable future and beyond.

But I think the most unnerving photo of the bunch was this one, which shows how wind, rain, and ice can all but obliterate images on stones that we know were meant to last, well, if not forever, for some approximation thereof:

I mean, what the heck WAS this supposed to picture?

Pleasant dreams!

IKEA, Oprah, and a Possible Mirage

Tonight is random night... just some recent incidents, thoughts, and such...

First, IKEA. Now, I like to go to IKEA occasionally. I like their candles and their kitchen gadgets, and I live in hope of finding a duvet cover in a pattern I like. I don't like it enough to go on the weekends. It's a zoo there most of the time, but weekends are impossible. Since I'm really just biding my time at work, using my office as a staging center for my job hunt, AND since IKEA is having sale, yesterday I decided to take off right after lunch and drive through the half-hour or so of suburban sprawl to get there.

I grabbed a cart and started filling it, but sparingly. Since I was alone, I had to make sure I could carry everything to the car by myself in one trip. Those of you who are IKEA veterans know that you cannot take carts to the parking lot. And there is no system to guard your cart if you have to leave it on the dock to bring your car around.

So anyway, I got some candles, some picture frames, some glass jars with airtight lids, some wooden hangers, a big tote bag to use at the farmers' market...I'm sure there were a few more items. After about an hour of shopping, I headed to checkout where the only real option was the self-serve kiosks. The lines for a cashier were ridiculous, and I had just shy of 15 (smallish) items, so self-serve it was for me. Except the scanner at my kiosk was for shit. I don't know if it's IKEA's self-checkout system in general, or if it was just the kiosk I got stuck with, but the scanner rang almost everything in twice. And you can't just delete the double ring yourself--you have to wait for an attendant to come and key in his or her code. Annoying, but simple, Right? Except that there were nowhere NEAR enough attendants working the self-serve lanes. Each time I double-rung something, it took longer for an attendant to acknowledge the blinking red light that summoned him or her to the problem kiosk. After the fourth double ring, I waited a full ten minutes for an attendant to show up, at which point I just gave up and left all the stuff at the kiosk, half checked out.

And then drove empty-handed back to work. At least a gallon or so of gas wasted... which really sucks nowadays.

Sheesh.

I wonder how long it will be before I venture back there again? Maybe never.

Now to Oprah.

I was "working from home" today, so I decided to do something I very seldom do: watch Oprah. Today was a summer version of her big "favorite things" show where she talks about great products and gives the audience piles and piles of merchandise. When the studio audience found out that this was a giveaway show, they went completely NUTS! The elation! The prayerful, upturned faces mouthing "Thank you, Jesus!" The middle-aged ladies jumping for joy as if they were high-school cheerleaders! The greed was palpable, just oozing out through the TV. It was raw and unfettered. It was so ugly. And all this for stuff I'll bet most of them never, ever use.

The big ticket item was a Weber grill. Audience members received it so that they could grill the to-die-for turkey burger Oprah wants them all to taste made from a recipe from Donald Trump's Palm Beach resort. Other stuff included (and this is not an exhaustive list), a tank top with spandex built in to smooth the torso, "Fit Flops" (a kind of Earth-Shoe-like flip flop), a wheelie weekender bag with a Garvin GPS system and a $200 hotel chain gift card tucked within, lots of make up, a cookbook, a self-help book, a CD of some lady singer...I'm sure there was more, but I don't recall it all.

My point is, how much of this stuff will those lucky ladies (and the handful of men) in the audience ever use? Maybe it's my situation (like, facing the possibility of having to tighten the belt in the fairly near future) that made me find this display of conspicuous consumption and raw greed to be, well, disgusting.

And finally...I walked up into Evanston this afternoon for a little stretch of the legs, and as I returned to Chicago along the lakefront curve, I noticed that I could see downtown, crystal clear. There was the John Hancock building. There was the Sears Tower. And the condo highrises all along the lakefront, marching row upon row all the way down to the Loop. It was beautiful! I wished I had my camera. But it was weird, because I've walked and jogged that stretch a hundred times before and NEVER seen downtown from there.

Later, when Jeff came home from work, we decided to walk up to Evanston again to eat at Cross Rhodes,a small Greek restaurant we like. I grabbed my camera, because I thought that the city would look GREAT in the waning light.

Alas, when we rounded the curve on our way home, the scene was as it always was: lake and more lake. No towering buildings glimmering in the distance.

And now I wonder... did I see a mirage?

Time to Plant!

Finally, we appear to have passed the point of frost warnings (although it WAS in the 40s last night and may be again tonight), and so I made my first foray into planting my balcony container garden this weekend.


First things first--we went to the Farmers' Market and I picked up a couple of nice, healthy basil plants. I'll probably get one or two more within the next few weeks.

Then I went out to the garden center, where they always have nice (but pricey) plants.


This haul plus the potting soil set me back more than $90!! And this is only enough to plant the balcony boxes and the two window boxes I put outside our west-facing sunroom casements!

You'll notice that there is a singular lack of yellow flowers. I used to buy marigolds to provide some sunny blooms, but they never do well in my boxes. They go nuts on the raised beds on the parkway in front of the building and in the little niches beside our walkway, but they hate my boxes! So I had hoped to find some yellow million bells to vary the color a bit, but no such luck!

Another missing element in this assortment of annuals is the infamous trailing accent plant. A few years ago, I found a bunch of nice creeping jenny plants. Yes, I know. Invasive weeds. Which is probably why they have disappeared from the market. But really, in second-floor balcony boxes they are lovely! Last year I substituted vinca, but I found them to be stringy and annoying. I thought maybe some sweet potato vines, but they were SO expensive at the garden center that I thought I would search them out at Lowes or Home Depot... but again, no such luck. They were all sold out. Sigh. At any rate, the million bells are great trailers and so are the scaevola I placed in the front of the boxes... I just like to have some foliage trailing as well as flowers. Maybe I'll find some in the next few weeks.



I planted them all, with the scaevola, million bells, and lobelia in front, some begonias in the middle, and these weird squiggly leafed coleus bringing up the back (they are supposed to grow to a foot tall). With the next paycheck I'll buy some more plants for all the pots I have tucked away on that balcony, and I'll uncover the lawn chairs so that I can sit and enjoy my little (well, miniscule) urban garden.

A Cool Antique High Rise

Although about a mile and a half or so south of us the lakefront is festooned with thirty and forty story condo and apartment buildings, once you make your way north of Loyola University into East Rogers Park you are in the land of three or four story buildings--except for this one. It is our sole lakefront high rise, built in 1923 if you are to believe the cornerstone. (An aside here--when one builds on sand, which really does provide the underpinnings of most of the land near the lake in our neck of the woods--one has to expect that the building will settle. Forever, maybe. Our six-flat, built in 1920, is STILL settling. I shudder to think how that settlement plays out in THIS edifice, cool though it is.)

The wonderful thing about this building is not its general Addam's Family ambience, although that is atmospheric indeed. It is its strange stonework that sets it apart--you won't find anything like it in modern architecture, and certainly not in a modern apartment block.

For example... the atlantes that support the faux gothic window pediment:

Atlantes--isn't that a wonderful word? Thank goodness for Jeff's little architectural details field guide!

Here's a closer look:

Thing One and

Thing Two.

Now let's pull back a little, and look at the central facade detail:

Notice the sculpted lozenges set in regular rows all up the front of the building. Perhaps they are simply decorative geometric motifs or a more ambitious array of heraldic shields? Mais non, mes amis.

They are faces.

Here are a couple of examples:

Mr. Get-Out-of-My-Yard-You-Young-Hooligans! and

Mr. He-Found-WHAT-Lurking-in-the-Pantry?

Now, scroll back up to the photo of the whole building and turn your attention to the demi-turret that hugs the corner. Near the base of this turret, at one story above ground level, are three friezes.

Two bratty little girls with sloppy socks (here is one) flank an Old-King-Cole-esque figure:

He's even identified as "the owner."

But my favorite parts of the building are these:


These caricatures put me in mind of similar stone heads that adorn the walls of the Temple Church in London. This is but one phalanx of these caricatures--there are two of them, and not one head is the same on either of them.

Here, take a closer look:

There's this world-weary fellow,

and this big lug, who looks kindly enough (but I wouldn't let him pet any rabbits),

but my favorite is THIS guy, who is clearly belching!

I love this building. I have no idea what it looks like inside, and I'll bet after 85 years of settling there is not a level floor or plumb wall in the entire pile, but the stonemasons who carved the details of this facade were masters of their craft. I'm so glad that such a building still stands, and so close to me.

Around the 'hood

A few weeks ago, I took a little constitutional around the neighborhood carrying the camera. I thought I'd share a few snapshots from the photo foray.

These buildings are one block to our east, right on the lakefront. As you can see, a couple of weeks ago the trees were still winter-bare. Now they are budding like crazy. Spring was late in Chicago this year, but it's catching up!

The building directly across the alley is covered in ivy. In fact, every year the landlords (it's an apartment building) have to cut the ivy back to reveal all the back windows.

Here's something we didn't see much of in Chicago this winter!







And here is a peek (tantalizing, I hope!) of one of the most fascinating buildings in the neighborhood. It's three blocks south of us, and it's the tallest building in our part of the neighborhood. I'm going to devote my next post to the amazing details on the facade of this building. Let's just say that you don't see work like this anymore on anything. Stay tuned!

Uh Oh. More Snow.

Oh, it's coming down, all right, although this picture is from Sunday night, when we got a quick layer of fluffy wet stuff that was pretty much gone by morning, but--as you can see--it piled up nicely on the wires outside our back windows. This round of snow was supposed to start overnight, with several inches on the ground by morning, but it was just starting to sleet as we headed out the door. We figured if it got too awful, they would close the building and send everyone home, but at least we would have put in an appearance. We got about halfway to work, though, and it had become so sloppy and slippery that we just turned around and headed home. And actually, they DID close the building at 1:00 this afternoon. I had plenty to work on, so I didn't have to stop to make a scary and no doubt lengthy drive home.

So far (fingers crossed) we haven't gotten anywhere near the foot of snow predicted. I just hope that holds.

Okay, here's an odd slice o' life that happened yesterday--it made me wonder if I had been transported from the cash register at Costco in Glenview to Torquay and the reception desk at Fawlty Towers. I dropped in to Costco to pick up some Rainbath, pine nuts, dried cherries, etc., and, as always, the checkout lines were long. I wheeled my cart to a spot behind a lady who looked to be in her 60s, but who knows these days? She had a package of blueberries in her hand and a case of bottled water in her cart.

I always leave a respectable amount of room between the end of my cart and the keister of the person in front of me... I don't like it when people bump me from behind, so I try not to do it to others. However, this dame just backed right up into my cart before I had a chance to move it. She whipped around and gave me the nastiest look, and I apologized, but she just kept glaring. Finally, she turned her attention forward again. Whew.

She put her blueberries on the conveyor belt and left her bottled water in her cart. As the berries moved toward the checker, I placed one of those separator bars on the belt and unloaded the few things from my cart.

Then the fun began.

The checker asked the lady if she only had the two things--the berries and the water.

"WHAT?" shouted the lady, in frustration and disgust.

The checker repeated her question.

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!" the lady shouted. "I'M DEAF!!!"

The checker pointed to the berries, and then to my items. "Only these? Or these too?"

"NO!! NO!!! THOSE AREN'T MINE!!"

The checker nodded, handed her the change from her order, and then started to ring up my purchase.

"NO!! THOSE ARE NOT MINE!! I'M NOT PAYING FOR HERS!"

At this point, the person helping the checker wrangle the carts and purchases brought the cart with the water around, placed the blueberries in it, and guided the irate deaf lady toward the door. We could hear her voice ringing through the store as she headed for the exit, yelling about how she was deaf, not stupid.

Um... I dunno. I kind of beg to differ.

Takes all kinds, huh?

At least the checker took it all in stride and good humor. I'm afraid I would have gone all Basil Fawlty on her ass.

P.S.: By the way, I started this yesterday, but I couldn't get the picture to upload, so I wrote the bulk of it on 2/6, not 2/5. Just so the chronology makes sense...

A Winter Walk and Other Random Thoughts

This afternoon the temperatures climbed into the thirties (heat wave!), so Jeff and I decided to take a long walk up into Evanston to visit the comic book store (where I discovered in a book about the worst places to live in America that I had actually lived in TWO of them--Allston, MA, and Syracuse, NY) and to take in the Irish session at Nevin's Pub.

The lake was just beautiful. As you can see, it's been a cold winter so far. The shore has really iced up. The photo above is of our little neighborhood beach--the northernmost beach in Chicago.

Here's a view of the lake just about at the Evanston border:



Check out the "icebergs"!

One of the most interesting parts of the walk around the lakefront curve was realizing just how shallow the water has become. When we first moved to Rogers Park eight and a half years ago, the tops of the tallest of these pilings were mostly underwater.



The walk was invigorating, the temperature above freezing, and the sidewalks had been cleared (well, most of them), so we made pretty good time. Once we got to Nevin's though, we had worked up big appetites. Usually, we only opt for a couple of beers and maybe an order of chips and gravy or "harp strings" (fried onion tendrils) to split. Today, though, it was fish and chips for Jeff and bangers and mash for me. Except for the order included EIGHT bangers! Yikes! But you know, I was hungry. Weight Watchers be damned, I ate them all. I'll go back to counting points in the morning.

Alas, when we left Nevin's, the temperature had dropped considerably. At least, it felt like it had. We hoofed it home, though, making better time than we did on the way up to Evanston because we were just so daggone cold!

A nice way to spend a not-all-that-cold Sunday afternoon. Well, not all that cold for a while, at least.

Other random thoughts:

Last night we finished watching The Cranes Are Flying, the fifties Soviet classic about love torn asunder by World War II. I first saw this movie YEARS ago, when I was a college freshman studying Russian. The professor brought this film and several others (Ivan the Terrible, anyone?) to class for us to watch. I remember loving the movie and crying my eyes out. It was a ten-tissue tearjerker, and no mistake. I have owned the Criterion Collection DVD for a couple of years now, but we just never got around to watching it until this weekend. What a wonderful film. It still holds up, after all these years. I cried my eyes out. But the most fascinating thing about the film is the glimpse it gives into Soviet life during the war--the terrible sacrifices, the horrific losses. We pride ourselves on having won that war, but without the involvement of the Soviet Union, Allied victory would have been impossible. Anyway... check it out if you get the chance.

I have a new printer!! My old one died a couple of weeks ago, so I purchased a new one that scans and copies as well. The first thing I printed? The first 100 pages of the novel so that Jeff could start reading and commenting. He gets first dibs! Scary, though.

It's snowing again, although "they" claim it will turn to rain by morning. I am tired of snow. But the idea of rain ON snow. Ugh.