Anish Kapoor’s famous Cloudgate, in Millennium Park, Chicago, now has an equally mesmerising choreographed light show, Luminous Field, by Luftwerk, enhancing the experience of the work furthermore.
This looks incredible. Oh man, I have never missed Chicago more! I loved the Bean. I worked down the street from there and would stop by every few days to stare at the reflections. I wish I were there to do a little disco dance under these lights.
Want to visit, stat.
‘Shit Chicagoans Say’
well played… well played indeed!
I lived in Chicago a little less than a year, but there are still a few things I said or heard so much that I wish they’d made the cut, too:
- “Are you gonna bring a jacket? The low’s only 30 tonight.”
- “Barleycorns? No. Not Barleycorns.”
- a series of “Is it on Upper Wacker? Lower Wacker? East Wacker? West Wacker?”
- “How about Portillo’s?”
- “You want to take a cab all the way to Wicker Park?”
- “How was Butch McGuire’s last night?” / “Awful.”
- a fight about the best deep-dish in town, with at least one person adamantly supporting Lou Malnati’s
Ani Vrabel on Kanye West’s “Runaway” (from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, 2010)
(iTunes, Rdio, Spotify)It has been a year of four ZIP codes in three cities, nine different roommates, six months of storing clothes in a suitcase, and more than 200 nights spent on an inflatable bed. It’s been a year of feeling temporary, discovering new neighborhoods, and cramming my belongings into plastic stacking drawers that become a makeshift dresser in unfurnished sublets.
It has also been a year of Kanye West.
Read about why in Unbest, which (!) the New York Times was nice enough to include on its list of “The Top 10 Top 10 Lists of 2011.”
It’s that time again, when people can’t help but wax a little poetic about the last 12 months (I’m no exception) and make resolutions for the next year (from which I abstain — for scientific reasons, sort of). I made new friends and lost touch with some others. I did some things I’m really proud of and some stuff I’m not so proud of. (I also did plenty of things I feel very neutral about, even though I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe I “should” feel not-proud of them.) There was a break-up in there, as well as a lot of laughter and late nights and big decisions and uncertainty and moments that felt like the best of my life.
But just that — that sounds a lot like 2010 and 2009 and basically every year of my late teens and early 20s. This year, though… man. I got my Master’s degree. I spent Wednesday evenings all summer at long happy hours, re-discovering how great Chicago and my classmates could be. I turned 23 over a dinner of Thai food and a gift of tickets to see The Decemberists, who put on an excellent show. I spent seven months sleeping on an inflatable bed. I had my first real job interview and didn’t get laughed out of the editor-in-chief’s office (my definition of a success). I sent a text to a friend in New York along the lines of, “So I’m actually moving to NYC in a week. Can I ship all my shit to your apartment in a couple of days? I’ll be there right after.” I lived on her love seat for a week, which was the start of an exhilarating, crushing relationship with the city, one that is more complex and fulfilling than any I’ve ever had with a human being. I saw my bank account dip lower than it’s been since I was 13. I accepted an internship with my favorite magazine, and shook my head in disbelief every morning I swiped into the building. I took another internship with a company that intimidated me — so much technology! — but I’m going back full-time starting in 2012. I spent a week eating, drinking, and enjoying the unbelievable March warmth of New Orleans with friends. I think I cried more than I did in 2010 (which wasn’t hard, since I only cried two or three times last year), but nothing that brought me to tears was upsetting or memorable even a week later. I spent Sundays all spring playing on a softball team with my friends (and then eating pizza and drinking beer at a nearby bar). I went to Lollapalooza in August, and danced my ass off a Girl Talk concert in March. I ate a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I saw my parents for 18 days between January and November, but am somehow closer to them now than I think I’ve ever been. I bought a piece of furniture for the first time. I ate Thanksgiving dinner next to the dance critic for the New York Times. I worked hard on my final project in grad school, and was so tired after it that I couldn’t stand straight when I finally got to Maine to visit my family. I (sort of/finally) learned to ride a bike. I survived one of the biggest storms Chicago has seen in 50 years and spent my snow day stomping around Northwestern’s blanketed campus.
TL;DR — 2011 & I got along well, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to say the same for 2012.
Bye, Chicago summer.
Alright. Here come the lolla posts. Honestly, it was one of my favorite weekends of the year—-and there have been some great ones. It felt like a vacation, and at the risk of sounding a bit hip, it really was like an alternate reality—with my bed at arms length. Id wake up, put on whatever bands I was gonna see that day, let my hair be way crazier than was probably acceptable, and then went outside all day. I don’t know if I could do Bonnaroo or not. This was the perfect balance of being crushes by thousands of humans and then heading home to your own apartment to reflect on it all.
Oh yeah, this is a video of Lissie covering Pursuit of Happiness by Kid Cudi. Awesome.
I took a video of this, too — all 5 minutes! — but A. it makes Cloverfield look like high-grade production because I was jumping around too much and B. you can hear my off-key sing-scream way too clearly for me to put it on the Internet (same goes for my recording of me & some friends losing our minds to Cee-Lo’s “Fuck You”) so here is Lauren’s.
After the first rain storm yesterday.
