But dodging them, oh yes, is so much fun. Time it just right to dodge an pensioner and slip past some fat kid yapping on his phone. Duck quickly to the right in order to bypass the French couple moving as slow as humanly possible. It’s an art.

Watched Hancock at the AMC Empire on 42nd, which is now officially my most visited US cinema (2 visits). Deconstructing superheroes is well and good, but Hancock sort of misses the mark a little. I’m not sure where, but it really feels like a first act of sorts, perhaps setting us up for a sequel. There’s no real conclusion, it just sort of peters out, and I was frustrated at the lack of resolution to the backstory.

Superhero films are on the way out. I say, blindly. But I remember the excitement I felt at seeing Spider-Man up on the big screen, way back in 2002. Now it’s all starting to wear off, with formulaic plots and rehashes (was there any need for another Hulk movie?). I’d like to see Iron Man, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

I think The Dark Knight is a different matter, though. Batman Begins was a real breath of fresh air: gritty realism, post-modern superheroism, a real sense that this was comic book stuff with the gloves off. The sequel seems to be continuing this, and I was glad to see that Christoper Nolan (oh! of course! he also directed Memento: isn’t it funny when you like two completely different things and they turn out to have a common link?) is going for a minimal-CG, maximum-reality take with this one.

I’m still cautious about Watchmen, though.

Ah. There’s a mouse under the microwave. I’m glad I ate out.

Probably catch a movie tonight, do a little shopping tomorrow, and then head home. I read an obituary of some old BBC journalist in a newspaper over here, and it really depressed me. It had some line like, “He worked with the BBC into his old age before disputes over a 24-hour news channel, which he described as ‘the stupidest idea ever come up with’.” It depressed me because this, in a nutshell, is Britain. Aging farts and pointless objectioning. This is where I am returning to.

Oh, the receptionist at the hostel recognised me from two weeks ago, which was nice.

Anyway, here is the Kentucky Report. It’s long, so take your time. Don’t feel you have to read it straightaway. Make a note. Get some tea. Please excuse the initial style, I think I was going a tiny bit insane.

Monday 1st

Boy, I feel like a regular Peter Petrelli, to tell you the truth. It feels like every time I read a novel, I end up absorbing that author’s style. It kills me, it really does.
Anyhow, I ended up getting to O’Hare three hours early, so what I did, I killed some time walking up and down the concourse, checking out all the restaurants. They all looked pretty phony, though, and they were pretty busy, too. I’m not going to go in a crumby-looking restaurant if it’s empty, so I’m not standing in line to get in. Anyway, you can’t be stone cold sober in a crumby place like that, and I didn’t want to chance buying liquor. I can’t stand the sorts of phonies who line up to go to crumby places like that, either.
The plane was one of those tiny Embraer ones, the little Brazilian twinjets which are all the rage these days. The interior goddam killed me, it really did. I’m telling you, there wasn’t enough room to swing a cat. I’m not kidding. One row of seats on the left, two on the right, and a tiny washroom right at the back. I goddam near banged my head on the ceiling. You could fit three of those planes in a big old Boeing, I’m not kidding.
So what happened then was, I spent most of the flight just reading. I get a real kick, just reading on a flight when you’ve got a cup of orange juice and the view out of the window to look at. It knocks me out, it really does.
We nearly got delayed coming in, but we ended up being pretty much on time. I feel sorry for anyone who’s coming to Cleveland, though. I don’t want to say it’s a crumby place just from my first impressions, but it has a real crumby, middle-of-nowhere feel. I feel sorry if you’re coming to stay in Cleveland and you have to walk through the rain across a crumby expressway to get into the city. It’s terrible, it really is.
I didn’t know whether to pick up my baggage for the connecting flight to Louisville, so I went up to ask the guy at the Continental desk. You could tell he was a real phony, chatting with the passengers and acting like he was the big guy. It killed me, it really did. The guy he was talking to was a phony, too. He was an oldish guy, maybe 60 or something, wearing a crumby US Army cap. What kind of phony wears an Army hat?
The Continental guy and the crumby Army guy kept on talking so, what I did then was, I talked to this woman at the desk instead. She was pretty old, but she looked pretty friendly. “Hey,” I said, “I’m real sorry to be a bother, but I just got off the flight from Chicago, and I’m changing planes here, and I don’t know whether I need to pick up my baggage. Could you help me out, ma’am?” I admit it, I can be a real phony sometimes. It turned out that my baggage was going to Louisville, so I didn’t need to pick it up. That was a relief, I can tell you. I don’t think I could stand going to pick up my baggage and haul it all the way to be checked again. It’s not like it’s that big of an issue, but the idea of it was a real pain in the ass, I’m not kidding.

Monday 1st/Tuesday 2nd/Wednesday 3rd

Anyway, long story short, ended up nearly missing the flight (I was on Central Time, Cleveland is Eastern, and the gate didn’t say the right flight). Got into Louisville, phoned Sarah up, and eventually got picked up outside by her and her bro Morgan, who turned out to be older than I expected (about a year younger than me, I think.)
Many u-turns later, we ended up in Owensboro, a smallish town about two hours away, and I was introduced to her mom and pop, Pat and Roger, both likeable folk with a good sense of humour. We went to a local restaurant, Colby’s, for dinner, and I was struck by the sheer friendliness of the staff. Oh, and the “y’alls”, which really are common in the South. Y’all.

Tuesday – spent most of Tuesday planning the rest of the week, but Roger took us out on a bike ride round the surrounding countryside, which was fun, and we walked the dog, a big old Corgi called Padfoot. Later went for barbeque ribs/beans/chopped meat, which was good (and so it should be: Owensboro hails itself as the BBQ capital of the world).

So today, we travelled to Mammoth Cave National Park. As the name suggests, it’s got a lot of cave (the longest cave system in the world, in fact), but there’s also plenty of surface park. Sarah, Morgan, their cousins Clay and Taylor, and I went kayaking down the Green River.
Which, you know, was fun. It took me a while to get the hang of paddling, but eventually I got to the point where I could go at quite a good pace without too much effort. And then it happened. Morgan and Clay had outpaced us, so Sarah, Taylor and I were meandering leisurely down the river, going for all the shallow parts with trees and strong currents because it was more fun there. We got to one part, and – honestly I don’t remember going into it. I just remember seeing a lot of turbulent water, and thinking maybe I should avoid it, but also wanting to go straight through it. I saw Taylor get into some difficulty. Then the next few events happened in about three seconds, but it both felt a lot quicker and a lot longer.

1) The kayak got caught up in a strong current and swung around to the side.
2) I started to sense it might be tipping over. You know that feeling when you so don’t want something to happen that you almost deliberately make it happen, just to get it over with?
3) Literally the next thing I know is that I’m underwater. I mean, fully under, with a nice view of the weeds and my flailing arms.
4) I quickly take inventory. Camera round my neck: probably dead. Bottle of water in my right pocket: undrinkable. Ziploc bag with my phone and wallet in my left pocket: might be alright. Gloves in my lap: no idea.
5) Only then do I wonder about personal safety.
6) Luckily, my life jacket brings me up to the surface with a bump.
7) My first instinct is to fish my camera out, which sends me under again, but then I get it above water and try it. Doesn’t work. Crap.
8 My gloves are floating on the surface, so I grab them.
9) I find I can wade to a nearby island quite easily.
10)The island is covered in spiders.
11)Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Taylor is a little way down the river and is sinking rather rapidly. His paddle, meanwhile, is floating off for a little trip of its own.

So, after about ten minutes of wailing and teeth gnashing, we get underway and make it to the finish in time to limp wetly back to Mammoth Cave for the 4pm New Entrance Tour. It’s called the New Entrance because it was new in 1921.
Mammoth Cave – at least the tiny fraction we saw of it – is pretty stunning. Jaw-dropping heights await you as you squeeze along the tiny metal walkway down huge subterranean canyons. You get rooms with perfectly flat ceilings thanks to the layer of sandstone above the limestone in which the caves were eroded. I’d have loved to have taken one of the more advanced caving tours, because it would be a real experience to uncover some of the lesser visited, deeper, darker parts of the cave.

Friday 4th/Saturday 5th

On July 4th, 1776, a group of disgruntled colonists decided, as a tax evasion measure, to declare themselves independent of Britain. Two hundred and thirty two years later, the citizens of this little-known country decide to celebrate this thriftiness with guns, fireworks, and food.

Naturally, it kicks any British holiday into the ground. And then smacks its head with a rusty shovel. And then buries it in an unmarked grave somewhere deep in the woods.

So we went to a fireworks warehouse to pick up some fireworks.

Wait.
Just think about that.

A fireworks warehouse.

In Britain, you can pick up about three titchy bottle rockets from your newsagents and that’s your lot. In America, they have a warehouse full of mortars, rockets, pinwheels, big bumper fun packs of explosives, smoke bombs, smoke grenades, firecrackers, and roman candles. If it has gunpowder, you can probably get it here.

And the place was packed with scrawny peroxide blondes with their butch, tattooed husbands hefting shopping carts of fireworks to their Ford pickups while the kids toddled along behind them.

The fireworks themselves had great names like “Loyal To None” or “One Nation Under God,” replete with imagery of eagles and waving American flags. The best thing, however, was the fact that they were all made in China, and hence this was a twisted, Chinese view of American patriotism. It was all fantastically decadent.

We ended up with about $400’s worth of low-grade explosives. The family and I proceeded onwards to Aunt Mackie’s spacious country house, out in Henderson, where the Humphrey clan was staging a 4th of July get-together.

It’s a great house, by the way. A great big pond out front – perhaps I should say lake – trees, rolling expanses, a swimming pool, and a view out across the corn fields to the distant railroad. It doesn’t get more American South than this. (And it is the south. Don’t believe what the guidebooks tell you: Kentucky is firmly and resolutely part of the South.)

So I swam a few lengths and did a few dives with Taylor and Clay out in the pool, while everyone else crowded around the barbecue. Having feasted upon “hot dogs” and “hamburg-ers”, Roger asked me: “Would you like to try a little shooting?”

Now, hey. I’m as leftie liberal anti-gun as the next guy. Guns are bad and dangerous. Guns kill. People who like guns are a little weird, yeah? People who buy Guns And Ammo magazines and collect shotguns and rifles and pistols and debate the merits of 9mm over .45 and know what a receiver is and can clean an M16 are people I’d normally think to stay away from. Guns are for right-wingers and weirdos. You’d never find me firing a gun. Guns should be tightly controlled. Banned. The Second Amendment is a crock. Boo to the NRA.

But, hell. When you’ve got a big old 20 gauge clasped in your hands, when you slip in a shell, hit the button, pull the bolt back and load it into the chamber, when you raise it to your shoulder, rest your cheek against the stock, hit the safety with your thumb, put the dot on your target, and – pull the trigger, make that damn clay pigeon disappear in a puff of smoke, feel that recoil smack against your shoulder, stumble backwards a few steps – it is divine. I was hooked.

I shot stationary clay pigeons. I shot boxes. I shot mud. I shot flying clay pigeons (and hit a couple). I used the Winchester 20 gauge, the 12 gauge, the Ruger .22 pistol.

It was like the very brain slugs I’d been running from had latched on to my brain and convinced me of the error of my ways. Suddenly the Second Amendment seemed like the best idea since – well, the first one. Suddenly gun ownership seemed like a natural and sane thing. Suddenly I realised why the 4th of July is such a big deal, why anti-federalists are always banging on about state freedom, why the American South regards itself with such swagger and conceit.

So, naturally, what do you do after firing a few guns around? Fire a few rockets around. At dusk, the men wheeled up the cart of fireworks and we began shooting rockets off over (and into) the lake. If you angled it right, you could get them to bounce repeatedly off the lake surface, leaving crazy trails of smoke hanging on the water. Sometimes they would go under, emitting green-white chemical bubbles in their wake before exploding with a tiny pop. I threw a smoke grenade, which lasted so long I picked it up and ran around with it for a bit. Then we moved on to the mortar shells, all 36 of them, which we fired off at random before uniting to fire six at once, which was quite a show. The fireworks lasted for ages, which I guess you’d expect from $400’s worth.

The Fourth of July. Decadent, depraved, everything that is wrong with America – and everything that is right.

Saturday, Sarah, Roger and I went to a resort in Indiana called French Lick. It was built in 1912 with a gloriously huge central dome which the critics said wouldn’t hold up – so the architect stood on top of the roof as the last of the support structure was knocked away and, true to his design, it held and has held for 96 years. After the Depression it became a Jesuit seminary, before falling into disrepair and being restored as a casino and holiday resort.

The main lobby is simply stunning. Underneath the famed dome is a massive expanse of carpet, surrounded by six stories of hotel in a ring around it. The interiors are decorated in gold leaf and Roman columns and stained glass windows, with impeccably-dressed staff.

Our destination, however, was a little further away, at the stables. Inside we were met by a gentleman with a cowboy hat, handlebar moustache, and red, white and blue bandana around his neck, who led us through to the horses.
Now, I vaguely recall going on a horse in a tiny circle at some circus or other years ago, but disregarding that, I’m a complete beginner. Roger (more experienced than us) and Sarah got on theirs first. My horse was Star, of the distinguished… small and light brown breed. Swinging my leg over and into the stirrup, it briefly felt like climbing onto a bike or into a kayak, before the horse moved and I realised that my vehicle had a mind of its own.
And so off we went, led by a guide from the stables around their lengthy track through pasture and forest. The thing to realise about riding a horse is that unlike a bike, you have no direct control – it’s more a case of trying to influence your steed in the right direction, if you’re lucky. For the most part Star moved on autopilot, taking the corners, getting surer footing on steep climbs and descents, stopping up when one of the other horses stopped to pee. I guess the horses have done this trail countless times before, so they know it like the back of their hand. Hoof.

From there we went back to Mary-Anne’s, where there was more shooting and swimming. Roger, Morgan and I went back at 9ish to watch a documentary on Hunter S Thompson, his life and times. I’ve been reading Fear and Loathing in America, a collection of his letters.

I take exception to 99% of the cheap goddamn garbage you put on the air. Your scheduling is a monument to everything rotten in America … and you have the gall to sit there and call my July 3 letter “profane.” You ignorant freak; from now on I’ll address you on your own level.

And I never realised he was from Louisville, you know. I’d built up an image of him as Raoul Duke, this larger-than-life, drug-taking, alcohol-abusing, authority-smashing uber-journalist, the fast-talking-yet-calm-sounding freak as portrayed by Johnny Depp, so it was quite a surprise to see footage of him from the 90s and 00s where he’s just a guy in his 60s wearing a hat in his messy kitchen in Aspen. Oh, he was still brilliant into his old age – his legions of friends and frequent guests attest to that – but it was a real eye-opener to the fact that even your heroes are still ordinary people, and they aren’t Raoul Duke 24/7. (In fact, it’s something he complains about in a 70s interview: when people booked him for talks they were booking the larger-than-life Duke, not the real Thompson.)

So he killed himself: a shot to the head in front of his typewriter. As happens far too often, I only really got into him after he died, though I knew what he was all about from Warren Ellis’s fictional homage, Spider Jerusalem. But unlike when other great legends have kicked the bucket I didn’t really feel sad when he died. It feels like this is exactly how it should have happened.

67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun – for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax – This won’t hurt

Sunday 6th

Roger said to me: “When you go back to England, and they ask you: “What are those Yanks like?” – tell ‘em you met a shotgun-shootin’, cigar-smokin’, Hunter S Thompson-readin’ general surgeon, and he was pretty strange.”

Monday 7th

Smell that sweet magnolia bloomin’
See the ghosts of slavery ships

So I said my goodbyes and reluctantly left Owensboro with Sarah, headed for the lazy Southern opulence of Louisville. My jaw dropped as we entered the country club where we were to meet her Uncle Rick – My God! The place is like walking into the Great Gatsby, only built for small blonde children, dashing about the shimmering pool as their tall, dashing blonde fathers play golf and stand about in polo shirts, swimming trunks and sandals, and introduce themselves with hearty, strong handshakes: “Hi. I’m Jack Allen. Pleased to meet you. I just spent a year in Bermuda selling insurance. Say, you play golf much?” Meanwhile, the Botoxed blonde women with impossibly wide sparkling white smiles are ever-present, watching over their spawn. It is gloriously decadent. I feel as if my very presence, with dishevelled black hair and hopeless disregard for fashion is somehow anathema to these polished, flawless lives.

Rick seemed a good sort, though, and after dinner at a Chinese restaurant we retired to his elegant suburban Louisville home: as pretty as you’d expect from a former architect. In the morning, Sarah and I arrived, after some GPS navigation woe, at the Mohammad Ali Museum. Old Ali is, of course, a Louisville son, and I confess to visiting not so much to pay homage but to find out exactly why he is feted as a hero by so many. Two hours through the informative and engaging museum, and I think I had my answer: not only was he the best sportsman of his generation, and a joy to watch: he knew it and was refreshingly unashamed about saying it. But what really elevates him above the rest is his personal spirit: his ability to be a philosopher and a campaigner as well as a fighter and an icon.
The occasional frankness of the exhibits impressed me: it would be easy, in these times, to gloss over Ali’s devout Islamic faith; ignore his relationship with the objectionable Nation of Islam; cover up his questionable remarks about women. The exhibits don’t hide from this: they don’t condone it, and it’s refreshing that the museum doesn’t just present Ali as perfect and infallible. (No one is.)

So we said our goodbyes outside the airport, and I was a sole traveller again. Security posed a bit of trouble: I felt that sick thump of stupidity realised when the guard pulled my two highly deadly and pointy Swiss Army knives out of my carry-on – I’d completely forgotten they were in there. That’s a cool $25 to have them posted home, thanks.

The flight was delayed by two hours, so I did a little reading. No less than 11 subscription forms tumbled from the pages of Wired and Atlantic magazine (I counted), which I carefully gathered up, folded into two, and placed directly in the bin. Back to NYC, then.

I got off at Berwyn in the northern suburb of Andersonville, far from downtown, and as I strolled down the rainswept, tree-lined avenue I realised that this was my first foray into an American suburb. As I passed gas stations and 7-11s and dental practices I realised how this place had a much more genuine feel of America about it, compared to the cosmopolitan city centre. 

After a longish walk I saw the Neo Futurarium, a doorway next to, rather fittingly, a funeral home. Inside, the anticlimax of a small waiting room with several chairs awaited, where I sat confused for a few minutes before heading upstairs. There I found a door, which I opened cautiously, before being told to wait a little while. Eventually I and the increasingly large crowd of attendees went through to a room with chairs of all descriptions and a blue-and-white sky motif across  the walls. You could tell that this was going to be something different.

Our hosts, Ryan and John, appeared and gave us a short introduction before taking our money. In a novel twist, to see the show you must pay $7 plus the roll of a die. I rolled 2 and hence paid $9. As I stood in the queue I could hear a recording of this seriously squeaky voice repeat: “Hi, what’s your name? Have a nice show!” After I paid, I walked through to see a seriously squeaky young woman in giant sunglasses ask me “Hi, what’s your name?” “…Matt,” I said, as she scribbled on a name sticker. “Have a nice show!” she said, handing me a nametag with “sausage wallet” scrawled upon it. Sticking it on, I walked through to the theatre. I say theatre, but it was really a small room with seating for 150 around a small central stage. I say stage, but it was really just the floor.

Seriously squeaky young woman, real name Jessica, came out and introduced the show. There were six cast members in total tonight, including new girl Caitlin. We all received pamphlets with a list of 30 plays on. Above the stage, a clothesline with pieces of paper marked 1-30 pegged to it. We had to shout out numbers and they would perform the plays, trying to cram 30 of them into 60 minutes. And so it began.

There’s no way I could describe them all, so I’ll just pick the highlights:

• 20:A play not about Politics, but kind of about Politics, but not Really. Well, kind of. “I just felt like eating sandwiches with Barack Obama.”
• 9: Tiny Pride Parade. With tiny gay Action Men and party poppers.
• 11: Marshmallowed: The cast fill their mouths with marshmallows while embracing the audience and telling us how lovely we are.
• 25: The Neo-Retrofuturists’ Arcade. Tetris, Donkey Kong and Asteroids on stage. With accordion accompaniment and real barrel jumping.
• 27: Oedipus Simple. Oedipus: “Oh no! I killed my father and married my mother!” Greek chorus: “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you!” Oedipus: “Oh! Gouge gouge gouge gouge.”
• 3: This City Dreams You. Oddly affecting this one. To a song which I have just discovered was called “Back in your Head” by Tegan and Sara, two of the cast members, illuminated by torches held by a third, find each other on a dark stage and embrace. Two more cast members, wearing lamps strapped above their heads like giant snorkels, try to get close but can’t reach each other. They remain, isolated, bent over, until the song abruptly ends and all we can hear is the heavy, laboured breathing of those on stage. One by one, the torches go out, until there’s just one left, one with the lamp strapped to his head, and then finally he too goes, and the stage is completely dark.

I came out stunned. It was a fantastic experience - experiment - and I’m left thinking: these are my people. I’ve always hoped that somewhere out there, there are people who still have that bohemian spirit, that artistic temperament, that love of the weird and the new and disdain for the everyday and conservative. Who knew I’d find them above a funeral home in a nondescript suburb of Chicago?

I chatted with two of the cast, John and Heather, who I think have been with the show throughout its twenty year history. (I imagine the lineup has changed a lot over the years.) John, strangely enough, has actually played Norwich in a punk band called Screeeching Weasel whom I took to be just a minor college indie band but in actual fact, I have just discovered, are apparently rather famous indeed, so shows what I know. I bought a book of their scripts for $16, which I shall treasure forever, and I promised them that whenever I’m next in Chicago I’ll pay them a visit.

I’ll never see this show again, because it’s forever changing. At the end of every show they roll a die and add it up over the week and the number they get is the number of plays they take out and replace, so after a couple of months the show is completely different: as they say at the end, “If you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it… once”.

And that’s sad, in a way, that all these brilliant plays are going to be lost: but it’s also exciting. The fact that out of all the endless moments and all the infinite things going on in the universe you happened to be in the right place at the right time to enjoy this single, particular moment is irresistible. It’s something you have to live with when travelling: you make friends for twenty minutes, or maybe a day at the most. You enjoy a city for a week and then you have to move on. You experience a perfect moment, some divine combination of light and sound and location, and then it’s gone, poof.

I remember when I saw Owen Pallett at the Waterfront I was struck by the transitory nature of each of his songs. They were a one-time only construction, put together on his loop sampler effects pedal and then wiped out with the flick of a switch at the end of each one. Same deal.

And so I caught a train back to the city, listening to the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Of course, what with them being from Chicago, the tracks seemed to have a certain freshness, some previously undiscovered subtlety to them as I watched the city fly by the window. Farewell, Windy City. I could have done with another three days to see all of you, but it was certainly fun while it lasted.

And the embers never fade
In the city by the lake
The place where you were born

Neo-Futurists, Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind on Wikipedia

The Pier itself, a trendy riverside development of shops and amusements, located scenically next to a water treatment facility.

Chicago has a ton of interesting architecture, from the first wave of skyscrapers, to the modernist boxes of the 70s and 80s, to today’s post-modern towers. It also features the Merchandise Mart, an absolutely friggin’ huuge building. It wouldn’t even fit in one photo. 4 million square feet, 372 km² of floor space. 

Having concluded the tour, I proceeded to purchase an ice cream after standing in a queue behind the slowest two women on the Earth. “Hmm. Does he want… ketchup?” “…I don’t know. Maybe. Perhaps we should get ketchup, just in case.” “Okay.” “Also, may we have another hot dog, but with mustard?” “Also make that other one with ketchup too.” 

Chicago has quite a lot of beach, which is surprising, but makes sense given the proximity of ole Michigan.

I wandered up north to the Magnificent Mile, Chicago’s premier shopping district along Michigan Avenue. At the Water Tower mall I browsed seven levels of shops and a large area of Macy’s before finding a handy little travel shop and getting a new bag together with some very handy sealable airtight bags.

Also, an advert for Fiji Water made me angry. America has made a surprising effort towards going green, although their solution to global climate change appears to be something along the lines of replacing their gas-guzzling, 20 mpg SUVs with biodiesel-guzzling, 25 mpg hybrid SUVs. Nevertheless, it’s a welcome start.

But when Fiji Water are running adverts bearing a picture of the product, a photo of Earth from space, and the legend “A convenient truth.” or “Earth protects Fiji, and vice versa”, I get a tad annoyed because this is a company that transports plastic from China to Fiji, uses six kilograms of water to manufacture each 1-litre bottle, fills them up with supposedly “high quality” Fiji spring water, and then ships the bottles from Fiji to the US and the rest of the world, producing 250 g of carbon dioxide per bottle. Oh, and guess where all those bottles end up? Not making homes for polar bears, that’s for sure.

Rant over, we move on to the John Hancock Centre, offering reasonably good views over Chicago, especially when the weather is nice, which it wasn’t today.

Aaarrgggh. Yesterday morning I discovered a pretty 10 cm split in the bottom of my bag. Now it’s totally open at the bottom, and bales of duct tape can only do so much. Except it’s Sunday and nowhere’s open until 11am. Grrr.

Anyway, yesterday I had lunch with the Mayor of Chicago’s transportation advisor, Charles “Chuck” Abraham. I’d signed up for this walking tour of Chicago, not really knowing what to expect, but I had a great day. Chuck, not only being transportation advisor for the Mayor of Chicago and previously an advisor for ill-fated presidential candidate Governor Dukakis and a Cambridge alumnus trained in law is also a Chicago historian and seems to know absolutely everything about the city. And he bears a striking resemblance to Alan Ruck, kind of.

Anyway, a group of us (which steadily dwindled in numbers as we went on) set off for a walkabout.

The modern-yet-traditional Harold Washington library, named after the much-loved first elected black mayor of Chicago.

A uniquely-designed prison, with the Sears Tower towering in the background.

So we decided to go for pizza pie. Chuck took the group to a charmingly authentic Chicago eatery, where we got two deep dish medium specials, which were honestly rather delicious. And huuge.

The interior of Macy’s: whoa.

The beautiful dome in the GAR hall, a place for ex-Civil War soldiers to talk about their experiences.

This was a treat: the completely restored dome in another part of the building opened to the public a few days early. It’s been under restoration for a while, and hasn’t been open to the sunlight since 1920-odd, so even Chuck had never seen it like this before.

So we made our way up for Stevie Wonder’s free concert, passing the big shiny bubble thingy in Millennium Park upon the way.

Stevie Wonder was… disappointing. For one thing, people ruin everything, and here they had decided to ruin it by putting tents in front of the stage so we literally couldn’t see anybody, putting down their big chairs everywhere, TALKING LOUDLY ABOUT POLITICS and then one particular moron said “HEY MAN! WE SHOULDN’T BE TALKING ABOUT POLITICS WHEN STEVIE WONDER’S PLAYING!!” (except with a lot more swearing, you understand) and then proceeded to talk loudly for an hour longer. The sound was bad, too. Jesse Jackson turned up, though.

Thanks a lot, beardy.

A rather lovely little installation in Millennium Park.

And the bubble, which makes for great photographic opportunities.

From thence, with only four of us left: me, Chuck, a French girl called Natalie(?) and a German real estate intern (not sure of her name, either: such things seem rather unimportant in the grand scheme of things), we went to another free concert by a Senegalese jazz band, who were way more entertaining than old Stevie, given that we could hear and see them. It took place around Millennium Park’s brilliant huge outdoor stage, which is another point to Chicago’s city planners. They sounded sort of… Cuban jazzish, but with African influences. Liked them.

So, as Chuck left us for the evening, the German girl said she was going to visit this blues bar she went to, so we decided to tag along. Alas, the stringent door guy wouldn’t let me in, due to me being under 21. (stupid law.) We wandered around for a bit, trying to find somewhere that looked a bit friendlier, but eventually gave up and headed back to the hostel. Shame, but that’s the law, I guess.

To-day I shall buy a new bag, go on this river cruise I booked, possibly go up the John Hancock Center, and finally visit a dadaist play recommended by Chuck: Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

I decided to stroll down to the Art Institute of Chicago, not far from my hostel in the expansive Grant Park. On the way I stumbled across the Taste of Chicago festival.

I had intended to save it for later, but I realised there’s simply no way (and no point) to ignore it, so I bought 12 tickets for $8. There are tons of stalls selling food from all over, at prices ranging from 4 tickets for a sampler dish to 8 or 9 for a full snack. I bought some tasty enchiladas for 8 tickets, and later on a surprisingly large mini meatball sub for 4 tickets.

I’m very surprised to realise that over the past two days I’ve spent something like seven or eight hours in three different art galleries. But there’s something about them I love. Seeing paintings in their true habitat: seeing the real thing, with brush strokes and swirls of thickly-applied paint rising off the surface, and every new gallery offering something to catch your eye: a classic that you’ve seen in print a hundred times, or a painting you’ve never laid eyes on before but which draws your attention now.

The Art Institute of Chicago had a good selection ranging from Greek to Chinese to American and European art. Unfortunately, due to renovation, a great deal was closed off (including the 20th century American galleries, which feature the truly awesome Nighthawks).

And here it is, Ferris Bueller fans:

I like the way the high ISO on the first photo has created a great deal of noise, echoing the divisionism of Seurat’s painting.

I like this guy. (Not shown: Jesus)

Jupiter is so totally giving up on women.

In a side gallery there were works about homosexuality and AIDS. The pile of sweets is the first piece of art that I ever ate. Visitors are invited to eat from the pile and contemplate how the diminishing mound reflects the deterioration of a terminal AIDS patient.

This is by the famed gay artist David Wojnarowicz.

An extract:

One day this kid will get larger. One day this kid will come to know something that causes a sensation equivalent to the separation of the earth from its axis. One day this kid will reach a point where he senses a division that isn’t mathematical.

…

One day this kid will begin to experience all this activity in his environment and that activity and information will compel him to commit suicide or submit to danger in hopes of being murdered or submit to silence end invisibility. Or one day this kid will talk. When he begins to talk, men who develop a fear of this kid will attempt to silence him with strangling, fists, prison, suffocation, rape, intimidation, drugging, ropes, guns, laws, menace, roving gangs, bottles, knives, religion, decapitation, and immolation by fire.

I left the Institute and returned to the festival, where the distant sound of Chaka Kahn could be heard. If you don’t know the name (I admit remembering only my dad mentioning her once or twice) you’ll certainly know her hit I’m Every Woman.

Chilling on the grass, watching the world go by and listening to Mrs Kahn certainly endeared me to the Windy City. (Or was it endeared to me? I don’t know.)

Anyway,  this bit was written at Newark Airport.

“Please keep bags and packages with you at all times, until they are checked.” Oh, thanks for that last bit. I mean, I did say to the woman at the check-in counter that I couldn’t give her my luggage to be put on the plane because I had to keep it at all times, but then she pointed out that it was checked, and so I could safely hand it over.

Anyway, after a bemusing half-lucid dream featuring a conspiracy against me and my attempts to wake up from the dream because I had a plane to catch, I woke up at 7:15, had a shower, went down to the lounge and surfed the web for a bit, before presenting myself at the front desk at 9:15 to board the shuttle to the airport, which I had ordered the previous day for 9:30.

“Oh, hey, you ordered a SuperShuttle? That already left, man. Hey, you should call them, maybe?”

No. No time, not faffing about on the phone. Contingency! Three hours to get to the airport and I had no idea how long it would take. I hurried to Times Square 42nd St Station, caught a 3 train to Penn Station, learnt the intricacies of the US rail system in about two minutes (apparently the designers thought it sensible to include no fare or destination or time or platform information anywhere in the station, and furthermore, as a useful aid to passengers, Newark Penn Station should have a single name sign measuring a foot square so you know where you are), boarded a train, got to Newark Liberty International Airport Station after nearly getting off at Newark Penn Station, checked in at a kiosk, got the Airtrain to Terminal 3 and, a little over an hour after I left the hostel, was ready to go, so my initial fear was unwarranted, but still it is a very sensible idea to have a contingency plan for any plausible situation and thus I did the right thing and this sentence is increasingly too long and so I shall stop.
I do love the accent of those Brooklyn/Long Island(?) women. “Oh Gawud!”

An uneventful flight touched down at Chicago O’Hare airport, named after a Navy pilot who shot down a wing of Japanese planes in WW2. It is the busiest in the world, but I’ve heard that said about LAX, Heathrow, and Tokyo Haneda, so I don’t trust anyone anymore. Anyway, the designers obviously decided it should be impossible to get around so they put in moving walkways that don’t move, signs that point in every direction except the right one, elevators to nowhere, and maps that bear no correlation to reality. After half an hour of searching, I finally got to the train station: admittedly quite atmospheric in silver and blue high-ceilinged cryptness. On the train a woman, bringing her son back from somewhere, chatted to me about Chicago and the food festival they (and I) are going to and such, which went some way to alleviating the bad welcome I’d got at O’Hare.

Found my way to the hostel pretty easily, and whoa, what a hostel. I walked past it because it looked more like a hotel. Inside a massive entrance lobby I signed in and headed up to the expansive dorm, where I decided to go stick my contact lenses in,.

Contact lenses nowhere to be found. I searched and searched, but to no avail. I can only assume that … well, I dunno. Maybe I left them in New York, maybe they fell out while being baggage handled. I have next month’s with me, so it’s not a problem, just a bother. Got a new case for $3 from the local equivalent of Boots.

I think a lot of the people in my dorm are solitary travellers like myself, which is kinda nice. It’s always depressing when everyone else around you is in a large animated group having fun. Pfft. This hostel has a load of events going on, so I might sign up for the tour tomorrow. I appear to have completely by accident arrived the day before STEVIE FRIGGIN’ WONDER is going to play for FREE. Ohhh yeah.