Oct. 1st, 2018 11:59 am
Three decades by the Lake
I wasn't able to determine the exact date of the 30th anniversary of my arrival in Chicago but today is a terminus ante quem making last weekend a very convincing candidate for Anniversary Observed. How did I celebrate? By doing some favourite things I could only do in Chicago with some favourite people who probably can't imagine living anywhere else.
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princeofcairo and mollpeartree rescheduled our lunch date on Devon for Saturday. Accomplishing a single simple task at the post office took me half as long as expected (i.e. 20 minutes rather than 40) giving me a little time to kill at the resale shop while I waited for them to arrive from the South Side. They let me pick so I'd settled on Ghareed Nawaz, a 24-hour takeout place with minimal concessions to in-house dining.
I can't say what was the first restaurant I ever visited on Devon (probably an old standard like Tiffin or Viceroy) and I didn't eat at Ghareeb Nawaz until graduating. I remember that trip well: Brahman Bear brought me up to have a kurta made and this greasy spoon is where he demonstrated how to properly eat with your hands. Named after a prophet of Islam, it was whitewashed with green trim and a prayer room in the back. Samosas sat stacked on a paper plate on the counter and the clientele was overwhelmingly Pakistani cabbies.
The cabbies are still there, but they've been joined by Desi families and white gentrifiers like me. The samosas are in a proper glass display case but the chai is still self-serve from decanters next to the register. Menu choices have exploded but their prices mademollpeartree profess astonishment. And the white walls have given way to stone mosaic but I'm willing to bet there's still a prayer room in back.
After that, we made our usual circuit, stopping for cookies at Mughal Bakery and groceries at Patel Brothers. Sadly, one important stop is gone: India House Books is now a shuttered storefront and the doubling of Islamic bookstores can't begin to compensate for it. Viceroy is closed now, too, though the expanded building around it still bears its name. I disregarded my longstanding loyalty to King Sweets and went to corner rival Pak Sweets for habshi halwa and Kashmiri tea. (Sorry, King, but I'll be back.)
That night was my 30th high school reunion, but rather than spend it eating horrendously overpriced hors-d'œuvres in some suburban roadhouse I passed it 600 miles away joking around with my new neighbours on the back porch. They'd been burgled the day before but were already able to joke about it. With all that spice in my belly, I didn't dare drink, but I had a sip of Amaro Nonnino along with them just to be cordial. I begged off visiting Jackhammer afterwards.
As I was preparing to leave the house Saturday, Scruffy got in touch regarding an extra pass for the Chicago Expo at Navy Pier. He wasn't willing to put off going until I was finished playing the flâneur or to make a return trip, but he was gracious enough to stop by on Sunday morning and hand over his three-day passes. I couldn't find anyone to go with but I didn't try that hard. Honestly, after watching an LCD Soundsystem video which made me sob like a Supreme Court candidate, I wasn't sure I wanted to go.
But I pulled myself together and made the trek down. I suppose the rain showers kept tourists at bay because Navy Pier was much quieter than I remembered it--and the exhibition space was further from the entrance. It was well-attended but I was still able to move through the broad aisles fairly rapidly, following Monshu's methodology of making one quick complete pass and then returning to booths of particular interest.
In the end, one quick pass was enough. My pain medication was making me woozy and I was conscious of having to make it back home before the Cubs game ended. It's not that there wasn't plenty of good stuff to look at, but after an hour-and-a-half it was beginning to run together. I photographed a half-dozen pieces of particular interest for later posting and called it a day.
My most rewarding interaction came after being ambushed by Welsh. There was a booth in the middle of the north wall with a large sign displaying "YN YCHWANEGOL" in letters as large as "IN ADDITION" surrounded by the names of contemporary artists, one or two of which I sort of recognised. I went up to the staffer and said, "Ŷch chi'n siarad Cymraeg?"
He didn't; he was a Trentino who'd been hired to direct a publicly-funded gallery in Llandudno and he was happy to talk about it. I enjoyed listening to him present all of the pieces in turn even though none of them particularly interested me. When he asked about me, he offered me the option of being a collector or someone associated with the expo, so I chose collector; he gave me his card and tips on some other galleries to check out, none of which I remembered thirty seconds after leaving his booth.
Could dorky 18-year old me have conceived of one day being a confident settled urbanite offhandedly taxonomising Indian sweets and looking at $650 prints with something more than just casual interest? I think he could have. Prep school had already left me a completely different creature than I'd been at 14. Still there's a thrill to watching my oldest nephew (who I'll see this weekend) anxiously consider his college prospects and thinking, "You've come a long way, baby."
princeofcairo and mollpeartree rescheduled our lunch date on Devon for Saturday. Accomplishing a single simple task at the post office took me half as long as expected (i.e. 20 minutes rather than 40) giving me a little time to kill at the resale shop while I waited for them to arrive from the South Side. They let me pick so I'd settled on Ghareed Nawaz, a 24-hour takeout place with minimal concessions to in-house dining.I can't say what was the first restaurant I ever visited on Devon (probably an old standard like Tiffin or Viceroy) and I didn't eat at Ghareeb Nawaz until graduating. I remember that trip well: Brahman Bear brought me up to have a kurta made and this greasy spoon is where he demonstrated how to properly eat with your hands. Named after a prophet of Islam, it was whitewashed with green trim and a prayer room in the back. Samosas sat stacked on a paper plate on the counter and the clientele was overwhelmingly Pakistani cabbies.
The cabbies are still there, but they've been joined by Desi families and white gentrifiers like me. The samosas are in a proper glass display case but the chai is still self-serve from decanters next to the register. Menu choices have exploded but their prices made
mollpeartree profess astonishment. And the white walls have given way to stone mosaic but I'm willing to bet there's still a prayer room in back.After that, we made our usual circuit, stopping for cookies at Mughal Bakery and groceries at Patel Brothers. Sadly, one important stop is gone: India House Books is now a shuttered storefront and the doubling of Islamic bookstores can't begin to compensate for it. Viceroy is closed now, too, though the expanded building around it still bears its name. I disregarded my longstanding loyalty to King Sweets and went to corner rival Pak Sweets for habshi halwa and Kashmiri tea. (Sorry, King, but I'll be back.)
That night was my 30th high school reunion, but rather than spend it eating horrendously overpriced hors-d'œuvres in some suburban roadhouse I passed it 600 miles away joking around with my new neighbours on the back porch. They'd been burgled the day before but were already able to joke about it. With all that spice in my belly, I didn't dare drink, but I had a sip of Amaro Nonnino along with them just to be cordial. I begged off visiting Jackhammer afterwards.
As I was preparing to leave the house Saturday, Scruffy got in touch regarding an extra pass for the Chicago Expo at Navy Pier. He wasn't willing to put off going until I was finished playing the flâneur or to make a return trip, but he was gracious enough to stop by on Sunday morning and hand over his three-day passes. I couldn't find anyone to go with but I didn't try that hard. Honestly, after watching an LCD Soundsystem video which made me sob like a Supreme Court candidate, I wasn't sure I wanted to go.
But I pulled myself together and made the trek down. I suppose the rain showers kept tourists at bay because Navy Pier was much quieter than I remembered it--and the exhibition space was further from the entrance. It was well-attended but I was still able to move through the broad aisles fairly rapidly, following Monshu's methodology of making one quick complete pass and then returning to booths of particular interest.
In the end, one quick pass was enough. My pain medication was making me woozy and I was conscious of having to make it back home before the Cubs game ended. It's not that there wasn't plenty of good stuff to look at, but after an hour-and-a-half it was beginning to run together. I photographed a half-dozen pieces of particular interest for later posting and called it a day.
My most rewarding interaction came after being ambushed by Welsh. There was a booth in the middle of the north wall with a large sign displaying "YN YCHWANEGOL" in letters as large as "IN ADDITION" surrounded by the names of contemporary artists, one or two of which I sort of recognised. I went up to the staffer and said, "Ŷch chi'n siarad Cymraeg?"
He didn't; he was a Trentino who'd been hired to direct a publicly-funded gallery in Llandudno and he was happy to talk about it. I enjoyed listening to him present all of the pieces in turn even though none of them particularly interested me. When he asked about me, he offered me the option of being a collector or someone associated with the expo, so I chose collector; he gave me his card and tips on some other galleries to check out, none of which I remembered thirty seconds after leaving his booth.
Could dorky 18-year old me have conceived of one day being a confident settled urbanite offhandedly taxonomising Indian sweets and looking at $650 prints with something more than just casual interest? I think he could have. Prep school had already left me a completely different creature than I'd been at 14. Still there's a thrill to watching my oldest nephew (who I'll see this weekend) anxiously consider his college prospects and thinking, "You've come a long way, baby."