Literary Chicago: Ruth Ozeki - "My Year of Meats"

"I had a lover in the Year of Meats. His name was Sloan and he was a musician from Chicago."

"Sloan lives in the penthouse of one of the high-rise apartment buildings that cluster along Lake Shore Drive as it winds around the southern perimeter of Lake Michigan. From his vantage, the horizon line is negligible, obscured by smog and slatted blinds. Floor-to-ceiling windows from the gray lake and the steel waves that lap the concrete shore. The carpet is gray and mimics the water."

This description of Chicago reminds me of Martin Amis's character riding the Blue Line from O'Hare in his book The Information (coincidentally, in that post, I reference Ruth Ozeki as well). Writers love to make this city sound bleaker than it actually is. It is setting the mood for a single scene, but it's interesting when it becomes a trend. Algren of course wrote about the roar of the L and the seedier parts of Wicker Park but he is probably most remembered for his over-quoted "never a lovely so real" to define the city.

This isn't to say that I think grittiness is an insult. But maybe perhaps the romanticiziation of the idea is a bit outdated. Then again, this story was taking place in 1991 (and The Information was written in 1995). This was a time when the murder rates and overall crime rates were even worse than in this year, which itself has seen a spike in murder and crime. So maybe the romanticiziation is appropriate, that things may have appeared to be too good in this city over the past decade, and now the ugliness is starting to rear it's thorny head again.

Or maybe I'm just trying to make the city sound worse than it actually is. 

Runoff

Wrote the majority of this a week ago. Better late than never. Better luck next time, Chuy. 

The skies are spitting at us trying to deter us from voting today. I say us but I mean you. I voted when it was sunny a week ago. Early voting lasts for two weeks and we can still barely get one third of the city to vote.

So that's why the skies spit at us. Because we get the weather we deserve.

I'm sitting at the bar at the Hideout waiting for Mick Dumke and Ben Joravsky to woefully announce the imminent results of Chuy Garcia's loss in the mayoral runoff, the first in this city's history. It's only a matter of time. The bar being out of Daisy Cutter is a sign. That scattered laundry basket on Elston Ave. is a sign. My flat tire last night was a sign: Chuy won't win.

It sometimes feels like I live in a bubble. I saw exactly one (1) sign in someone's yard supporting Rahm Emanuel in my neighborhood. Logan Square is populated by Chuy. My social media is nothing by Chuy supporters. My hood has more 'Raht' stickers than 'Rahm' posters. Creative signs and wheat-pastes have sprouted on brick walls like buds on the trees along the boulevards are about to.

And he's still going to lose.