Fire Sale

Fire Sale was overall not bad. I’m not a mystery person at all, and I’m not really an action person either. It was hard for me to get into the characters with such a plot-driven novel. And plot-driven isn’t bad, but I don’t know that I really could find a character to latch on to, or care about, if that makes sense. V.I. was okay herself, but I didn’t really buy her, she seemed too kitschy, forcefully abrasive. I also had a slight problem with the “preachy-ness” of the book, the background liberal agenda or whatever you want to call it. I feel like the author tries to hide it, but it comes out, and that annoys me. The rich people were portrayed so thinly, and I think they would be more interesting if they had depth (they could still be evil, you know). Aside from that, though, this was really not bad. I did feel the plot was slow going at first, there’s lots of setting up to be done (maybe this is how it is with all mysteries), so I did have some of that “heavy page” syndrome of wondering when things were going to get going. What I did like about the book was of course it being set on the southside of Chicago. I wonder, if the book were not set here, would it work at all? I don’t think so, because Chicago is a character here was well. Overall, it was nice to read a genre novel with good writing. I don’t know that I’m a convert, but still, no regrets on the time spent.

Wicker Park: Algren's 'hood (and mine too!)

Sometimes on my way home from the farmer's market, bags stuffed to the brims with the spoils of the harvest, I walk a block out of my way to pass by 1958 West Evergreen Street. As I stare up the third floor, I can't help but wish that some of the words that swelled, the images that sharpened, the ideas that formed up there in that apartment will drift down and assault me, the enchanted bearer of vegetables. Algren lived on the 3rd floor

I know the neighborhood has seen a lot of changes since then-- hell, the old timers won't let you forget it. It's a point of contention for sure--from 'it was better before the yuppies and their cookie-cutter condos, when, fill-in-blank-here with now-defunct local tavern, was open." to the cabbies that tell you, "Twenty-five years ago, I wouldn't have agreed to take a fare over here." It can be hard to be an outsider, especially if you don't know the history. It's clear the neighborhood's changed, but it was probably the same story when Algren walked Division. From the Pottawattomies to the days of the "Beer Barons" in their mansions on Hoyne Avenue to the rough Polish neighborhood Algren knew, Chicago had already seen a lot of changes.

Algren on Division Street

Maybe that's the point, I think, as I, hands-in-pockets, wander on a colder day down Division. I finally walk inside the dimly lit Rainbo Club that Algren used to frequent (some say with Simone de Beauvoir)-- in the 30's and 40's the club featured jazz and burlesque performances. The stage still stands behind the bar. I know I don't fit in with the skinnier, artsier, hipper crowd that claims this hang-out. But I order a beer anyway, and remember Algren wasn't always the biggest hit with his neighbors either; afterall, West Evergreen Avenue would still be West Algren Avenue if he were.

Richard Wright

Perhaps the most widely appreciated African-American author to hail from Chicago (although not originally) Richard Wright deserves his own blog post on here.

He was born in Adams County, Mississippi in 1908 and came to Chicago as a postal clerk at the age of 19, at the height of the Harlem Renaissance and the so-called "flowering of Negro literature" (James Weldon Johnson). During the great depression era Wright's government position was eliminated and he began to gain an interest in the Communist Party; he officially joined in 1933. There's, of course, a curiously common theme at work here that includes most of Chicago's great authors (and will be fodder for a later blog post). Wright was soon writing proletariat poems and his first novel, Uncle Tom's Children came in 1938 to great critical praise and a Guggenheim fellowship followed in 1939.

His second novel, Native Son, came in 1940, which garnered him immediate popular attention. This work was noted for its violence and a murder trial that it is speculated was based upon the Leopold and Loeb murder case that Clarence Darrow is famous for. Literary critic Irving Howe wrote that "The day Native Son appeared, American culture was changed forever. No matter how much qualifying the book might later need, it made impossible a repetition of the old lies . . . [and] brought out into the open, as no one ever had before, the hatred, fear, and violence that have crippled and may yet destroy our culture."

Wright moved around between New York, Chicago, and Paris where he died in 1960.

His list of works thanks to Wikipedia:

Fiction

* Uncle Tom's Children (New York: Harper, 1938)
* Native Son (New York: Harper, 1940)
* The Outsider (New York: Harper, 1953)
* Savage Holiday (New York: Avon, 1954)
* The Long Dream (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1958)
* Eight Men (Cleveland and New York: World, 1961)
* Lawd Today (New York: Walker, 1963)
* Rite of Passage (New York: Harper Collins, 1994)
* A Father's Law (London: Harper Perennial, 2008)

Non-fiction

* How "Bigger" Was Born; Notes of a Native Son (New York: Harper, 1940)
* 12 Million Black Voices: A Folk History of the Negro in the United States (New York: Viking, 1941)
* Black Boy (New York: Harper, 1945)
* Black Power (New York: Harper, 1954)
* The Color Curtain (Cleveland and New York: World, 1956)
* Pagan Spain (New York: Harper, 1957)
* Letters to Joe C. Brown (Kent State University Libraries, 1968)
* American Hunger (New York: Harper & Row, 1975)
* Big Boy Leaves Home (2007)
* Black Boy" ( Harper and Brothers 1945)

Essays

* The Ethics Of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch (1937)
* Introduction to Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City (1945)
* I Choose Exile (1951)
* White Man, Listen! (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1957)
* The Man Who Lived Underground

Poetry

* Haiku: This Other World. (Eds. Yoshinobu Hakutani and Robert L. Tener. Arcade, 1998)

Music in Devil in the White City

Even though Devil in the White City was not the most literary work, with its use of embarrassingly unconvincing metaphors and its omniscient narrative style, I loved it for its history, its details, and its lists of central, as well as tangential, facts. I knew very little about this specific time in Chicago, and Larsen cast a wide net in gathering information and stories for this book, and I'm grateful for this new awareness that I have of my city. I love it as a book about the architecture of Chicago and about the 1893 World's Fair, but I could have done without Holmes. Frederick Law Olmsted was my favorite "character" of the book. His views on landscape architecture and the anecdotes about his obsessive nature related to his work were a pleasure to read.

One of the things that caught my attention reading this book were the passages regarding the music of the Exposition. Larsen writes about the day George Ferris officially sent the Wheel for its first spin, and the forty-piece Iowa State Marching Band who played "My Country 'Tis of Thee" from aboard one of the ferris wheel cars. What an amazing site that would have been.
Following that, Ferris blew a gold whistle, which his wife had given him, and the Iowa State band began to play "America" setting the wheel in motion again. On the dedication day of the Exposition, a 5,000 person choir singing Handel's "Hallelujah" chorus and accompanied by 500 musicians. I read elsewhere that this was actually a 5,700 person choir. I did some additional research to see what else I might turn up.

One thing I found out was that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed there, which was the culmination of its first major concert tour. Also, the first Indonesian music performance in the United States took place at the Exposition. Finally, the Stoughton Musical Society was the only chorus invited to play American music. The Society gave two concerts in the Music Hall of the World's Columbian Exposition on August 14 & 15, 1893. Below is the complete concert program that they performed:

1a. "Turner" (pub. in 1802)-- Abraham Maxim
1b. "Invitation" (pub. in 1793)--Jacob Kimball
1c. "Contentment" (pub. in 1805)--John Cole

2. Duet: "Arrayed in Golden Light"--Oliver Shaw

3a. "Emmanuel"(pub. in 1790)--William Billings
3b. "New Bethlehem" (pub. about 1800) --Edward French
3c. "Majesty" (pub. about 1790 [1778]) --William Billings

4. Trio: "Omega" --Oliver Holden, pub.about 1793

5a. "Austria"(pub. in 1790)--Nahum Mitchell
5b. "Greenwich"(pub. in 1793)--Daniel Read
5c. "Heavenly Vision" (pub. in 1786)--Jacob French

6a. Solo and Chorus: "Ode to Columbia's Favorite Son" (1789) --Oliver Holden
6b. "Chester" (pub. in 1770)--William Billings
6c. "Ode on Science"(pub. in 1798)--Jezaniah Sumner

7. Song: "There's" Nothing True But Heaven" --Oliver Shaw

8. "Easter Anthem" --William Billings

9. "China"(pub. in 1788)--Timothy Swan

10a. "New Jerusalem" (pub. in 1802)--Jeremiah Ingalls
10b. "David's Invitation [Lamentation]" --William Billings
10c. "Mount Vernon" (pub. in 1803) --John Cole [Oliver Holden]

11. Quartette: "When as Returns This Solemn Day" --Lowell Mason

12. Anthem: "Jehovah's Praise" (pub. about 1837)--Edward L. White

God I am hungry! The Chicago Hot dog

A Chicago style hot dog is like a piece of great art. It is tasty and delicious. It follows a great plan, starting with small little steps, and progressing in steps to build the final product: A hot dog that is second to none. Perhaps a Chicago style hot dog is more like a great architect drawing and constructing a building. Although it was never mentioned in Devil and the White City, I am sure that as a true Chicagoan, Burnham himself enjoyed a hot dog or two from time to time in between lavish French meals. After all, like so many other great things, the Chicago style hot dog originated at the World’s Fair.
Author’s note: I can’t back that Burnham thing up. He may have only liked to eat large difficult to pronounce French meals. But since he was a Chicagoan, and the fair was his baby, then the Chicago style hot dog could rightfully be called Burnham’s grandchild. Since Burnham was a family man, it stands to reason that he would have been interested in his grandchildren.
A Chicago style hot dog begins with a great bun. This is the foundation in our building analogy. The bun sets the tone for the rest of the hot dog, and only one type of bun will do in a Chicago style hot dog. The type of bun we are looking for in this case is a good all American white bread bun covered in delicious poppy seeds. Not too many poppy seeds, not enough to make you fail a drug test, but enough to flavor the bun while at the same time making it just messy enough with black seeds falling off in every bite.
The second addition to our hot dog building is the hot dog itself. This is the equivalent of the interior of our building. Just as the interior of a building sets the tone for its functionality, so too does the type of hot dog set the tone for the entire hotdog. It may be the most critical ingredient in the overall blueprint of the hotdog. Chicago style hot dogs are all beef; we don’t allow that inferior Oscar Myer pork product to carry the name of Chicago hot dog. That said, not any all beef hotdog will do. In order to be a true Chicago hot dog, the dog must either be either a genuine Vienna Beef hot dog (made where Elston, Damen, Fullerton and the Chicago river meet on the north side)or a Kosher’s Best hot dog, the latter being the hot dog that is blessed by a rabbi, and guaranteed to contain no pork. (For information on what the hot dog does contain read, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair) This part of the hot dog is critical. Without one of these brands of hot dog, you have at best an Alberta dog. And that is Canada. Do you want to be Chicago, or Canada?
The most important part of this hot dog is that it is to be steamed until it is fully cooked. A grilled hot dog is acceptable, but only in instances in which steaming is unavailable. . Under no circumstances is the hot dog to be broiled.
Now that we have a building that has a great foundation (the poppy seed bun) and an interior that will fit our purposes (the hot dog itself) Now we need to make the building pretty. After all, in a city whose skyline features the Sears (not Willis) tower and the Hancock building, we insist on great looking architecture. This architecture is another feature that distinguishes Chicago hot dogs from others: the toppings. We start off with tomato wedges and a kosher spear pickle, cut lengthwise to fit into a bun. On top of this we pile sport peppers and raw white onion. For flavor, neon green relish is added. It is very important that the relish is neon green; if any other color is present in your hot dog, the results could be disastrous. Put the hot dog down immediately and seek out a true Chicago hot dog before disaster strikes. Top all that off with yellow mustard and a dash of celery salt, and you have yourself a Chicago style hotdog that is not only functional, but easily as beautiful as any piece of architecture. After all, buildings crumble, but a hot dog is eaten. And, if I may go out on a limb, people will still be eating hot dogs long after the great buildings of the Earth are nothing but rubble, because, well, people have to eat.
AUTHORS NOTE: Under no circumstances should you put ketchup on a Chicago style hot dog. If you notice any person over the age of 12 and under the age of 70 doing this, it is your right, neigh, your duty as a Chicagoan to correct them, using physical violence if necessary.

GOD I AM HUNGRY! CHICAGO HOT DOG

Haunted Japan

Mount Fuji, an active volcano, is the highest mountain in Japan and one of the nation's three "Holy Mountains." The mountain is a well-known symbol of Japan and more than 200,000 people climb it every year. While Mt. Fuji is one of the most beautiful places on Earth, the forest that lies at the base of the mountain, Aokigahara (Sea of Trees) is by far one of the creepiest. The Death Forest - which is reportedly so thick that even in high noon it's not hard to find places completely surrounded by darkness - boasts the highest number of suicides, second only the the Golden Gate Bridge, with more than 500.

The trend supposedly began after the publication of Seicho Matsumoto's novel, Kuroi Kaiju (Black Sea of Trees). Matsumoto's 1977 novel tells the story of a woman who has a love affair with a young public prosecutor. He is blackmailed by the woman's husband, and the only escape for the lovers is a double suicide inside the dark and mysterious Aokigahara forest. It should also be noted that a Sixties novel, The Pagoda of Waves, featured a woman who killed herself in the Aokigahara forest; the story was later turned into a television drama series. Making matters worse, the best-selling Complete Manual of Suicide described the forest as "the perfect place to die". In 1999 the manual sold more than 1.2 million copies.

In the 70s, the problem got national attention and the Japanese government began doing annual sweeps of the forest in search of bodies. In 2002, they found 78. Uplifting signs are scattered throughout the forest in order to to dissuade others who venture inside. "Your life is a precious gift from your parents," reads one. "Think calmly once again about them, your siblings and your children. Don't agonize over problems yourself - please seek counseling." In 2004, director Takimoto Tomoyuk was shooting a movie about the forest and stumbled upon a wallet containing 370,000 yen (about $3,760). Thus began the proud Japanese tradition of Aokigahara Scavenging where people are running around the Death Forest, looking for dead guys to loot. I'm including a link with pictures of Aokigahara, but be warned: they're pretty brutal.

http://usagiyjay.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/bosque-de-aokigahara/