Día de los Méritos

The annual Pilgrimage to Pilsen was particularly successful this year and I can thank in part Fig for that. He took the weekend off and contacted me a while ago about doing something. I told him that I'm not much for the parade or parties and that the only observance I try never to miss out on is the Día de los Muetros exhibit at the National Museum of Mexican Art. He was totally game, having never been to Pilsen nor had much exposure to Day of the Dead.

The day started out inauspiciously before it was even day when I was awakened at half past two by assholes kicking over the fenceposts in the parkway. They were particularly brazen about it, too. I yelled out the window, "Can you go fuck up something else?" and they guy just turned to me calmly and said, "Can we go fuck up shit on the next block?" He and his pal set off in no hurry, leading me to suspect they'd be doing just that, so I wrestled a bit with whether to contact the police. No way was I calling 911 and running the risk of someone getting shot over some half-rotted wood, but I figured it would be useful for there to be some record of the incident and I found a way to report it online. Of course I slept terribly afterwards. A thunderstorm blew through about an hour later, which brought it's own trouble but at least lessened my worry that they'd return and pick up where they'd left off.

I found monshu in a decent mood. He even made some requests and didn't seem put out when I informed him I wouldn't be there for Dad and Stepmom's visit around midday. The southbound train was just pulling in to Granville and I did something I never do: I flat out ran for it. When I reached the top of the platform, I saw a masked man in a green costume blocking the door on the last car from closing. "Just for you!" he said as I galloped toward him. "You're the best!" I screamed back before jumping aboard.

The trip was uneventful until I got the the Clark/Lake station. Two women d'un certain âge were studying a map of the Pink Line and we discovered we were all heading to the same place. They'd arrive from Washington state on Thursday and had a packed itinerary. They were architecture hounds and most of the conversation was about buildings. (At one point, one asked, "Are you a fan of the Cubs?" and I abashedly murmured, "I'm from St Louis." A man across the aisle smirked as she replied, "Oh, never mind then.") But they did want to know a bit about shopping and dining so I gave them some pointers I hoped would help out.

Despite my best efforts, I was still half-an-hour late for my rendezvous with Fig, who'd given up waiting on the platform and wandered into a Dunkin half a block from the station. This was located inside a shiny modernist building which I later discovered was La Casa, a dormitory for students who can't afford to live on campus. It houses a resource centre geared toward the needs of first-generation college students. This is exactly the kind of innovative initiative that makes me love the Pilsen community so much.

The Museum was surprisingly sparsely-attended given the day and hour. Neither of us likes crowd scenes and I thought we'd be driven out within in hour but we stayed for two. Just as well that one of the galleries was closed since they'd completely redone the permanent exhibition (I only recognised a handful of pieces) and expanded it by a room. The feature exhibition was particularly impressive this year, almost like a best-of edition in celebration of its 30th year. It also felt more thematically unified than in previous years.

Every year there's a mix of traditional ofrendas and what I call "artists' ofrendas". The former fall into two categories, genericised examples of regional variations and personal altars. The latter into two also: individual and group, with the latter tending to be more abstract and pointedly political. This year, instead of being mixed, the three regional exemplars were in the first room, the second was given over to personal altars (both "traditional" and "artistic"), and the last contained the two "political" pieces: one for BLM and one for Orlando.

I warned Fig beforehand that there's always one ofrenda that makes me tear up. I should've anticipated a memorial to Orlando, but it completely blindsided me. It was a powerful reminder that the massacre was as much a loss to the Latinx community as it was to the LGBTQ (something White cismale fags like me tend to forget). The most impressive of the artist's pieces was one for the Sandra Cisnero's mother, which took up a whole wall. (I had to explain to Fig that this was absolutely not typical of home altars.)

The exhibit ended with a fascinating juxtaposition of traditional mercantile activities associated with the holiday (mainly in the form of terracotta dioramas) and contemporary commercialism. The accompanying texts were decidedly mixed, but also balanced. On the one hand, the organisers are proud of the role they've had in bringing Day of the Dead to the attention of mainstream White society, but at the same time they don't want to see it deracinated.

Afterwards, we followed my usual m.o. in such matters and walked all the way to Blue Island (stopping in at Bombón on the way) before doubling back and eating at the first likely spot. Fig wanted something vetted, so we went to Bistro 18, which was packed when we walked in. Maybe I didn't order the right thing, but I wasn't too impressed. My "enchiladas" were really flautas and my salad was manky; the chilaquiles in his "Chilango" had my mouth watering, however. Since he'd never had tres leches before, I all but forced a spoonful of Bombon's (rompope flavour) on him, which he pronounced good. He wanted to get back and accomplish a few things and I wanted to complete my mission of finding tamales for monshu, so we parted ways. I asked the owners of the café for a tip and got somewhat confusing directions to El Milagro on Loomis which just happened to have pollo en mole as their special of the day.

Had I had more time coming to meet him, I definitely would have taken the Brown Line from Fullerton in order to enjoy the vistas. I decided to do this going back, even though it would mean possibly fighting Cubs fans for a seat on the train at Fullerton. After all, at worst I'd be standing for only two stops. And if I hadn't done it, I wouldn't have run into my buddy Mito, who was headed to Loyola to finish some grading. As a special bonus, our train went express from Wilson to Granville.

Back at Kindred, I heated the tamale for the GWO, who'd basically skipped lunch. It was a hit--as were the caramel shortbread cookies from Bombón, albeit not to the same degree. My sweet tamale (coconut and raisin) was pretty damn impressive, too, so it might be worth sampling Milagro's whole menu next time. We both snoozed a bit and then I ate most of monshu's tuna salad so that instead of hurrying home I was able to stay until after dark and read to him.