My Kind of Razzmatazz

Lucky William had a chance to visit Chicago for his sixth birthday.  Lucky me, I had a chance to visit it with him. Our birthdays are close together, so Elizabeth invited both of us to go on a business trip with her.  While she worked, he and I explored Chicago.

If he goes back a hundred times, a thousand times, he will still find something new. We hardly made a dent in the attractions, but my exhaustion level after four days told me we covered a lot of it: Navy Pier ferris wheel and swings, Children’s Museum, Shedd’s Aquarium, Lincoln Park Zoo, Millennium Park fountains and Bean, Field Museum and William’s personal favorite, the Lego Store. We hopped from plane to taxi to water taxi to city bus, and threw in some old fashioned pedestrian action as well. We saw pirates, bears, mummies, sharks, lions, dinosaurs, a tall ship, skyscrapers, a White Cheeked Gibbon that slammed into the glass where William was standing and hissed at him, and made a video starring the trash cans of Chicago!  In spite of the sights and sounds of a new, exciting city, William’s most asked question before we left the hotel was, “May I take my (Nintendo) DS with me?”

Playing Checkers at the Childrens' Museum, and ducking from the camera.

Navy Pier

Pulling away from Navy Pier on the water taxi on our way to Shedd Aquarium.

We arrived at the Shedd Aquarium and looked back at the city and Lakeshore Dr.

Shark in the Water!

The light level in the Aquarium was not a photographer’s friend, and there was no flash allowed, but I had to take a picture of the shark for William to go along with the shark tooth he bought at the Childrens’ Museum Gift Shop. We landlocked Tennesseans long for the sea, and William seems to be no exception. Chicago isn’t well known for sharks, but some strange things have been found in the Great Lakes since the St. Lawrence opened!

William and I both give the Lincoln Park Zoo our highest recommendation.

Lions....

....and Tigers....

....and Bears. Oh, my!

William got a dragon tattoo. Mine was a mythical bird.

William's entire head can fit inside a tiger's jaws!

We rode the carousel.

This is the White Cheeked Gibbon that swung back and forth and suddenly smacked into the glass where William was standing, and hissed at him. The whole crowd jumped back, but William loved it.

At the Field Museum we toured the mummy exhibit.  William wanted to see brains, of course. In the pirate ship exhibit we saw a treasure chest full of silver coins, the only sunken pirate treasure ever found, and were horrified to see and read about a gibbet, used to execute captured pirates. It is a metal cage like a straight jacket into which the pirate was locked and dangled from a pole at low tide, to wait for his death by drowning as the tide came in. I was horrified.  William didn’t seem to take it personally. It was all in a day’s work for a pirate, I guess.

Dinosaur overlooks Chicago.

Hey, there, Matey!

The Lego Store - a top attraction!

Navy Pier Swing

Navy Pier Swing and Ferris Wheel

William and E. go for the thrills.

We had the time, the time of our lives in Chi-CA-go! And so we left the windy city, in much the same way as we entered it, with William playing his Nintendo. I’ve posted the events of our trip so we can revisit and enjoy again, and to let William know what we did in case he was absorbed in Pokemon at the time.

Waiting for the plane home, and playing with the Nintendo.

The Garden as a Photography Studio

Garden beside the Art Institute, Chicago

Impressionistic view of the Art Institute garden

A beautiful garden is constantly changing. Spring flowers fade, summer blooms take their places, and periwinkle turns to crimson. The whole face of a garden can evolve naturally into something else in a week’s time, so I don’t know why I felt the need to alter the beauty I saw in the garden next to the Art Institute with my camera.  The shadows beneath the luminous branches, the varied greens of the leaves, the patterns formed by the branches created an already perfect place.  Still, I could not ignore the urge to move the camera while the shutter was open to create an intentional blur.  I wasn’t sure what would turn out until I looked, but the impressionistic result is an entirely different garden from the one that actually appeared before my eyes.

It often takes many attempts at intentional blur to get something pleasing.  I was trying to keep track of six year old William on our recent trip to Chicago, and he wasn’t about to hang around as I turned the garden into a studio while leisurely trying to achieve my goal, so I was very happy that my one and only shot turned out as it did.

Perfectly Boring

Jamie and William make plans for the uninteresting trash can video.

William and I met our friend Jamie, who lives in Chicago, outside the Field Museum. Jamie invited William to help him make a video with his iPhone camera, but William didn’t want his picture taken, as usual, and I suspect he had an overloaded brain from the dinosaurs, pirates and mummies he had just seen inside the Field.

Jamie, not one to be diverted from a creative mission, convinced William that a video had to be made. William didn’t have to be in it, and it could be something completely boring, like grass growing. In fact, nothing interesting would be allowed. A discussion followed as we wondered whether something devoid of interest would be inherently interesting, and if so, was it even possible to make a video of something uninteresting.

Field Museum

The Bean at Millennium Park

Several subjects were rejected as too interesting, but finally they settled on trash cans, and we began the long walk from the Field Museum to Millennium Park. The plan was to look for a place for lunch along the way, but I guess that was just too interesting for William and Jamie, and an empty stomach probably contributed to William’s eventual meltdown.

I hope I will see the trash can video. Garbage cans were featured in long shots and close ups. William hid behind one and slowly flipped the lid closed while Jamie filmed the mysterious self-closing trash can. The documentarian followed another trash can as it meandered down the sidewalk, William hidden on the far side doing the driving. My suggestion of panning along some wood slat fencing and ending up at a cluster of green trash cans was rejected as too interesting. William thought photographing a dumpster by the train tracks through the balusters of an overpass would be good, but, again, way too interesting, so it became a portrait of a lonely dumpster, the image uncluttered by any other object.

William in the garden next to the Art Institute. A rare photo of him not hiding his face from the camera.

So it went, until Jamie lost interest in the city of Chicago’s various solutions for refuse containment, and decided William should become the star. He could be a statue, or walk like a pidgeon, or hold his head in such a way with his mouth open to pretend he was catching water spouting from a fountain.  Even better, be in pictures with street performers! All great ideas, unless you are dealing with the stubbornly camera shy, two hours late for lunch William.

Statue with no head.

Hiding from the juggler.

I had to abandon my preferred role as approving, indulgent grandmother for that of scowling, we-are-not-putting-up-with-behavior-like-this disciplinarian, as I tried to clutch the hand of a six year old intent on running from the relentless camera, and keep him from darting onto Michigan Avenue. Jamie was using my camera to produce all this mayhem, which was good in a way, since I then had two hands free to wrestle a squirming octopus.

The cost of war. Protesters in front of the Art Institute.

More protesting in front of the Art Institute.

Enjoying the fountains at Millennium Park.

We threaded our way past jugglers, war and tax protesters and children splashing in fountains at Millennium Park. Everyone was having a great time.  I would have a good time once I got William back to the hotel.

If Abe is fake, is he still Honest?

Then we lost Jamie  as he slipped into some kind of creative coma and disappeared into the crowd to shoot a seven foot giant wearing an Abraham Lincoln costume, and who knows what else.  Since he didn’t come back and he had my camera, I began to have my own breakdown.  William straightened right up, intuitively sensing that mine was the preemptive hissy  fit.

There are many twists and turns to the rest of the story, but let’s just say I liked it much better when it was perfectly boring.

I read this post to William and asked him how he liked it.  He says it’s boring.