I went to this show at Above the Law theater last Sunday (November 23), and forgot to post about it. They are still running this show until December 21, so if anybody interested, you still have a chance to see it.
Whenever I attend Above the Law shows, I try to take mom with me, because it’s very close to home, and the theater is tinym so she can always see well (especially because she is always the first to be seated by the staff).
They rarely publish their show synopsis, but this time, there was an email with the following description:
Struggling sculptor Brindsley Miller and his fiance, Carol, are having a party with the aim of impressing Carol’s bombastic father, Colonel Melkett, and millionaire Georg Bamberger. They hope the two men might purchase some of Brindsley’s sculptures. Without permission, they have borrowed the furniture of their fussy neighbor, Harold, to make their own flat more presentable. Just before the guests arrive, the main fuse blows, plunging the flat into darkness. What follows is a frantic romp with unexpected visitors, mistaken identities, and surprises lurking in every dark corner. Only we, the audience, can see the action that ensues in the dark. As you might expect, the results are chaotic, disastrous and downright hysterical.
If I won’t read this description it would be impossible to understand what’s happening on the stage, but to be honest, even with this description, it was confusing in the beginning.
The idea is that 90% of the show time things happen in a complete darkness, because the fuse is blown. Nobody would enjoy the show in a complete darkness, so the way the set it up was that at the time the lights were suppose to be on, they went off, and vise versa. So most time, there was light, but the actors acted as if they are in complete darkness. And at the time, somebody was turning on a flashlight, the lights were dimmed.
It was funny. Probably a little bit too grotesque:). Brilliant acting, as always.
We have a communal fridge near Rogers Park Metra station. Actually, it’s a little pantry with two blocks of shelves and a fridge in the middle (I believe, I posted the pictures earlier). Local stores sometimes drop off some produce there, but mostly it’s people who have some extras, or leftovers, or just want to share. Anyone can drop stuff on the shelves or in the fridge (labeling containers, if they are not industrially packaged). And anyone who passes by, can take anything out.
Yesterday, although I didn’t need to take a train, I walked there to drop off several unused cans of vegetables, a bag of green beans which we decided not to cook after all, and plastic box with roasted vegetables (we had a lot left, and I forgot to give a box to Anna & Family when they were leaving).
There were several people around when I approached to drop these items off, and the pantry was far from being empty, but the way they reacted at my offering made me regret I didn’t bring all of our leftovers there: oh, they are already cooked? Just warm them up? God bless you!
I recently read about one behavioral experiment: theology students where asked to deliver a talk on Good Samaritan, and half of them were notified right before they were ready to leave, that the talk time was changed and they were late. Then, in the way to their talk all of them were presented with a situation when a stranger was in a distress and needed help. While a substantial part of not-in-a-rush students stopped and tried to help, none of the those who thought they were late, stopped.
Unfortunately, being in a hurry is a major reason for not helping those in need. So many times I would plant to bring my leftovers to the communal fridge, but was in a hurry to catch a train, and knew that I would walk a bit slower with the leftovers, and all these minutes would accumulate, and I can always freeze what I didn’t eat, and in any case, what difference a pint of soup can make? I am nit saying “never more,” but ai will try very hard. I won’t forget the faces of those with whom I talked yesterday by the communal fridge, with their gray wrinkled skin and missing teeth.
We all are Rogers Park. Please forgive me. I will try to be better.
Today was my last market day of this season – I will be gone for the next two weekends. I had no time and no reason to go but went anyway, especially when I saw their Instagram post this morning:
As usual, my mom said that she didn’t understand anything, but enjoyed the acting. I told her that the plot is twisted enough so she might not have understood it even if it were in Russian 🙂
I intend to use every summer-y day that is left to the fullest. On Sunday, I went for a long bike ride, then I had breakfast on my balcony, went to the Glenwood Market to buy flowers, and then went to the beach. It was so lovely there that I lost track of time, and forgot for a moment that I had several things which I had to do (and as a result, I have a long list of what I was supposed to do but I didn’t).
And then, there was something new and special. I went to the concert at the new venue – they just opened on Saturday!
The venue is called The Checkout (so, if you forgot the website name, it’s close to impossible to Google it!) It is located in the old 7-Eleven building which was rehubed by Access Contemporary Music (and you can read all about their initiatives on their website).
The venue is naturally very small, and no wonder the event was sold out:
I didn’t know anything about Arvo Part, but Boris told me that he was super-avantguard, and the Soviet Estonia officials left him alone, because nobody could understand his music. I confess that I was very close to that “non-sophisticated listener,” and although the musiciants explained quite a bit about his music, I think I should do what they suggested: go to his website and see the graphical representation of his works :).
The future programming is very diverse in all senses of this work, and they do not publish a lot of details about what to expect, but I am definitely open to experiments! I like that this venue is close to my home (less than 40 minutes door-to-door, with all waits). I like that they have no amplifiers at all, and the audience is exposed to the live sound of the instruments and vocal.
On the way back, I saw one of the vocalists on the Red Line platform, and I thanked him for the music (he was the best!) and we talked about life and music all the way until I got off.
On the one-before-last day when my guests were still in Chicago, I made a bad decision regarding taking a bus instead of the L-train, and after an extensive waste of time, we ended up walking to the nearest Red Line station, which happened to be Fullerton.
I tried to make lemonade of the lemons life gave us, and said that at least they have a chance to see one more neighborhood, more upscale than mine, with beautiful houses. They immediately replied: Yes, the houses are beautiful, but there is not a single sign “Black Lives Matter”, or “Love is Love”, or “Hate has no home here!”
On Saturday, my houseguests went to Milwaukee to visit Anna and the girls. I thought I would work on my tutorial, but I ended up catching up on life: cooking and baking, talking with Boris for over an hour, home accounting, and Prairie Postgres business.
And then all of a sudden, it was their last full day in Chicago! It turned out that I didn’t have a chance to feed them an American breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon, so I had to cover that, and then we went to the Loop to check out old skyscrapers, which we also somehow neglected to include in our prior excursions.
Then we headed North, stopping at the Bridgehouse Museum:
Then we went to the Starbucks Reserve, because I ike to change people’s opinion about the Starbucks. The only problem was that it was a weekend tourist crowd, so it took a long time to get everything we wanted to eat in separate lines, but we go everything, including the expresso martinies:
Finally, we went to the Glenwood Art Fest. I made a mistake taking a bus from the Starbucks Reserve. It was the Chicago Air and Water Show, and the traffic in the direction of Lake Shore Drive simply didn’t move! After an hour of staying on a barely moving bus, we got off and walked to the Fullerton station, and finally arrived at the Art Fare.
I know that my friends took more pictures, so I will post more when they share!
Today is Wednesday, which means I have a personal training session over Zoom. My trainer lives in LA, so even though he is an Early Bird, he can’t train me at 5 AM CT. We tried to work it out for several years, and our current arrangement is that on Wednesdays, I go to the office super early and we have a training session in our office gym.
For a while, I was able to take the shower 6 AM Metra train, and be ready just after 6:30, but when the new station opened, the travel time increased, and I opted for taking the Red Line (there are no Metra trains between 5 and 6 AM). I know that in order to be comfortably on time, I need to leave the house at 5:20. Five minutes later is still OK, but tight.
Today, I was ready at 5:22, but I stopped to check whether my flowers needed more watering and lost five minutes. I ran into the CTA station just at the moment when a CTA employee was putting up the sign “Service disruption.” He said he didn’t know what had happened, but something had happened at Thorndale, and the trains were not moving. I sighed and said, “Well, I guess I am going to the Metra station.” Another employee asked: You know how to get there? I said: Absolutely! The train leaves at 6 AM. I will be a little bit late, but not so bad.
I turned around and started walking when I heard her shouting from the station: Could you wait for me? I will go with you!
While we were walking, I learned a lot about her. She lives in Aurora(!!!), and commutes by Amtrak and then CTA every evening. She works night shifts Monday through Friday, and another employee who lives in Waukegan had told her a number of times that she should use Metra, but she was unsure how to get there. We talked about how Jarvis Station was so nice, and such a contrast to Howard, and about the homeless sleeping on the trains, and how it’s scary that Trump wants to put them into some facilities. I told her about my volunteering for the Bight Ministry, and how everyone is anxious, and living one day at a time. She said that the world is a scary place these days, and I must worry about my children and grandchildren. I told her that worrying is not productive, and I am trying to do good things when I can.
She said I inspired her with my active lifestyle, and that my energy was contagious, and that she will see me on the CTA :). I might actually see her when I am returning from the shows!
The Factory Theater was the last of our neighborhood theaters that was on my to-see list, and that was the first time I finally went to see a performance there. The play description looked incredibly appealing:
Also, I realized that the past Saturday was the last opportunity to see it, so I made an effort, even though I was tired and had a million things to do.
The theater foyer exhibited the history of the motion pictures and the invention of the camera
Probably because I had high expectations, it was a slightly disappointing experience. The show “didn’t hold,” which would be understandable if it were an opening night, but that was the closing. I can’t say anything in particular about what exactly was bad, but it felt less professional than three other neighborhood storefront theaters I patronize. I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt: it could be just a one-off, or it could be that I was tired, so I am going to try it at least one more time next season.
Hettie's Reflections 