A little thing

[muckefuck]

monshu lured me down to the northern margin of the River North "douche vortex" for a show at his favourite gallery. We came early, well before the douching hours. I came extra early, in fact, because it was super gorgeous out and I felt I'd accomplished enough at the office (or at least as much as I was going to). Of the thirteen artists (all contemporary Japanese), about half caught our attention for some reason or another and one (Kimura Hideki) we really liked. They all demonstrated technical sophistication, so even when the work wasn't especially interesting, you could still admire the craft. As we were leaving, we bumped into the professor from Tennessee who was going to speak later and pumped him for answers to our questions (How do you "etch" cotton? What did Kimura work with before he started painting glass?), including the ones we hadn't even asked.

Last time we went to a show there, we ended up dining at a mediocre Thai place for lack of a better option, so this time I insisted we do some research first. There seem to be a lot of good restaurants in the area, provided you don't mind crowds of Trixies (e.g. Café Ibérico) or pricey bistro food (almost everywhere else). Of the three budget options, one was closed, another was dodgy-looking Indian, so we ended up on a badly-situated picnic table in the parking lot of Big & Little's on Orleans.

One of the owners (Big) confirmed that this was the location of a Jewish deli I'd visited twenty years ago, but like me he was also stuck on the name. I wanted to try their fish, but I was stuck on the pork belly po' boy, so I ordered that with an ahi poke taco on the side. The fish was good quality, but dowsed with something that stung like jalapeño juice, which dampened my enthusiasm. The belly was so fatty that it was like eating a chicharrones sandwich, but the condiments were so luscious I didn't mind. The GWO had the "Zeus burger" (which is topped with a fried egg for some reason) and accomplished the miracle of eating it all without louing himself even once. They had their famous foie gras fries, but truffle fries at a quarter the price were fine with me.

Before we left, the sun had dropped behind the skyline and it was cooling rapidly, but it was still more than nice enough for a leisurely stroll through the Moody Bible Institute Campus and into Bughouse Square, which was a riot of ornamentals. Get away from the lack and their are crabapples aplenty; even the hawthorns are getting started. It was one of those nights so perfect it feels like it's been this way for months, despite the fact that we're all only two nights away from being damp and shivery.