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Just a few pics from the Chicago-Madison trip.  Go check out Cynsations for more!

Hancock, Drake, Palmolive

Frosty Lake Michigan

Sky view

Oak Street Beach

One of the places where we were today

Outside Glenbard West

If you like The Westing Game, you’re sure to like Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist (illustrator of Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events).   The book jacket says Chasing Vermeer “is a puzzle, wrapped in a mystery, disguised as an adventure, and delivered as a work of art.” A famous painting by Jan Vermeer known as A Woman Writing has disappeared and its mysterious thief has threatened to destroy it. Sixth-graders Petra Andalee and Calder Pillay start out as classmates but soon become friends and fellow sleuths as they boldly venture to follow a trail of clues and track down the missing painting.  Using their wits and intuition, they solve the puzzle of the painting’s disappearance and its mysterious thief  . Chasing Vermeer reminds me a bit of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Petra finds an old used book called Lo! that tells of coincidences throughout time.  As Petra thinks, “Why wasn’t more time . . .  spent studying things that were unknown or not understood .  . . ?  . . . To try to piece together a meaning behind events that didn’t seem to fit?” Perhaps there are no coincidences–perhaps life is really full of patterns and cosmic synchronicity.  Petra dreams of [...]

If you like The Westing Game, you’re sure to like Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist (illustrator of Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events).   The book jacket says Chasing Vermeer “is a puzzle, wrapped in a mystery, disguised as an adventure, and delivered as a work of art.” A famous painting by Jan Vermeer known as A Woman Writing has disappeared and its mysterious thief has threatened to destroy it. Sixth-graders Petra Andalee and Calder Pillay start out as classmates but soon become friends and fellow sleuths as they boldly venture to follow a trail of clues and track down the missing painting.  Using their wits and intuition, they solve the puzzle of the painting’s disappearance and its mysterious thief  . Chasing Vermeer reminds me a bit of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Petra finds an old used book called Lo! that tells of coincidences throughout time.  As Petra thinks, “Why wasn’t more time . . .  spent studying things that were unknown or not understood .  . . ?  . . . To try to piece together a meaning behind events that didn’t seem to fit?” Perhaps there are no coincidences–perhaps life is really full of patterns and cosmic synchronicity.  Petra dreams of [...]

Muddy Waters and his wife Geneva in Chicago, 1951. Image copyright and courtesy of: Art Shay.

Thanks to Paul Berlanga of the Steven Daiter Gallery.

***

From our editorial director Alan Thomas:

The 100th birthday of the great bluesman Muddy Waters arrives next April, but a recent encounter with an extraordinary (and previously unpublished) photograph of Waters prompts us to start the celebration early. It was made in Chicago in 1951 by photographer Art Shay, who himself celebrated a birthday this past spring—his 90th. Shay is a favorite of ours; his prodigious body of work includes the most memorable images we have of Nelson Algren’s Chicago. He shared his recollections of this photograph for us:

“The editor of the New Yorker ended his review of the new Keith Richards book Life with a plangent line from Richards asserting he could never be as good as Muddy Waters or as black. I met the generally acknowledged Father of Rock and his wife Geneva in 1951. Time magazine had sent me to the south side club in which he was performing. I arrived early as usual and there he was, strumming his guitar and cuddling his woman in the hallway. Slivers of dying winter light came down across the pair from some blessed window giving me barely enough natural light. He strummed a greeting using my name letter by letter. Billy Corgan noticed the first print of Muddy in the trunk of my car and bought it to hang in his studio next to vintage prints of some other music giants like the Beatles, Billie Holliday, and Ella Fitzgerald.”

For more on Muddy Waters, check out our books on issues surrounding blues culture, including:

I Feel So Good: The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy by Bob Riesman

Urban Blues by Charles Keil

Blue Chicago: The Search for Authenticity in Urban Blues Clubs by David Grazian

Seems like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition by Adam Gussow

And, relatedly:

A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music by George Lewis

That’s $35.00 per person for three days!!

Not bad, eh?

Okay. So about our trip to Chicago… correction, our SECOND trip to Chicago.

We took our first trip with our boys. Which was fun, but we really didn’t get to do anything WE wanted to do. We spent our time touring museums, which was fun, but I know Kevin was disappointed because we didn’t have time to actually tour the city.

So we went back. Just me and Kevin. And did I mention this was our first trip, just the two of us, in twelve years?? Every other time, we’ve taken the boys. Which was fun, don’t get me wrong, but getting to hang out with just my husband and best friend in the world?

Awesome sauce.

We flew out of Branson. We had planned on using some of our frequent flyer miles (we have so many now that Kevin and I can take THREE round-trip, er, trips now), but honestly? It was actually cheaper to fly out of Branson than it would have been to cash in our miles. And besides, we wanted to cash those miles in on longer flights, like to either coast, than to a city only a little over an hour away.

Branson airport is tiny. As in DINKY. And it looks like a lodge. In fact, it’s so small, that it has one runway – for both take offs and landings. And it was a heck of a lot better than having to drive all the way to St. Louis, which is four hours away, as opposed to Branson, which is only 45 minutes away.

We flew Air Tran and, meh, there wasn’t anything exceptional about it, but then again, I wouldn’t really want there to be. It’s cheap for a reason – don’t expect the royal treatment, but we got up there and back safely, so that’s all that matters.

I actually wanted to stay up there a bit longer than we did (it worked out to be 2 1/2 days), but Kevin didn’t feel comfortable leaving the boys alone for longer than that and it actually worked out better this way anyway – Chicago is great, but we were ready to come home after two days.

We stayed at the same hotel – the River Hotel on Wacker street. (I know – what a name!!). It was $179.00 per night (we booked it through hotels.com), and though that sounds expensive, actually, that IS expensive, it was worth it to us because the hotel is right across the street from the Chicago River in the heart of downtown Chicago so it was close to everything.

The room itself is small, but we actually upgraded to a room with a kitchenette when we got there, so we saved ourselves breakfast money by just eating cereal every morning.

The hotel has a filtered water station (FREE) near the elevators on each floor, so we also saved ourselves money on bottled water while we were there, too.

We flew into Midway Airport in Chicago. Which is actually a little ways from downtown. I was a little worried about how much money we’d have to spend in taxis while we were there, but I needn’t have worried – when we landed, I noticed that we could take the train directly from the airport all the way to downtown (the orange line). It cost us $2.25 per person to take the train, thereby saving us probably close to $30 or $40 dollars (including tip) if we had taken a taxi from the airport to our hotel. True. We had to lug our suitcase around, but we only took our one big suitcase, since it was only Kevin and me, so it really wasn’t that big of a deal. In fact, Chicago’s public transit system is pretty efficient and we didn’t take one taxi the entire time we were there.

BONUS!

We arrived at our hotel around noonish on June

Okay, I know I’m rather delayed in posting about this… but at least I did get around to it!

This year I headed off to Chicago, IL again to attended my 2nd year at the Printers Row Lit Fest. Last year I had a blast, met a lot of wonderful people and sold a bunch of books. This year didn’t disappoint either!

Let’s start at the beginning.

I flew into O’Hare Thursday evening (June 7th). Last year was great, but I didn’t get to see any of Chicago and was determined to fix that this year! My sweetie Sean Hayden was kind enough to pick me up (for those who didn’t know, we met for the first time at PR last year!)

Chicago!

We found our hotel, which I found using Expedia and got for an awesome 32$ a night. It was the Extended Stay American Chicago in Hillside. Considering the price, I was beyond relieved to find out it was not only easy to get to, but in excellent condition. Though not at all fancy (and no maid service though you could exchange sheets and towels at the front desk) it was VERY clean, the room was huge with a full kitchenette and everything worked. I would certainly stay there again.

On Friday we toured Chicago a bit, and visited the most awesome Navy Pier. It was a hot day, but we had a load of fun watching the boats, touring the shops and eating funnel cakes!  We had dinner at the famous Bubba Gumps. Which was pretty neat, though I found my memories of the details in the movie Forrest Gump weren’t so great.

Saturday was the big first day of Printers Row! Which meant getting up at like 5am to have everything ready and loaded. Luckily traffic was awesome and we got to the site early and were able to drive in to unload. Everyone else started arriving and it was a flurry of hellos and set up. The weather was hot but otherwise fantastic. The crowd didn’t seem to be as big as last year, but they were buying! A lot of people stopped to chat, browse (and buy) books and get autographs. Luckily we had a cooler full of ice to keep us from melting in the heat. By 6pm we were closing up (and btw, yes that is a verrrrry long day) and packing our stuff into the center of the tent. We all had dinner across the street where we ate and chatted for a few hours and then I think we all went back to hotels for some sleep.

Sunday we were there early again, set everything up again, and kept on selling! Flashy Fiction and Other Insane Tales did absolutely fantastic! (Of course it does have a really cool cover Add a Comment

Can you see us?

STUDS TERKEL (1912–2008)

“I love thee, infamous city!”

Baudelaire’s perverse ode to Paris is reflected in Nelson Algren’s bardic salute to Chicago. No matter how you read it, aloud or to yourself, it is indubitably a love song. It sings, Chicago style: a haunting, split-hearted ballad.

Perhaps Ross Macdonald said it best: “Algren’s hell burns with a passion for heaven.” In this slender classic, first published in 1951 and, ever since, bounced around like a ping-pong ball, Algren tells us all we need to know about passion, heaven, hell. And a city.

He recognized Chicago as Hustler Town from its first prairie morning as the city’s fathers hustled the Pottawattomies down to their last moccasin. He recognized it, too, as another place: North Star to Jane Addams as to Al Capone, to John Peter Altgeld as to Richard J. Daley, to Clarence Darrow as to Julius Hoffman. He saw it not so much as Janus-faced but as the carny freak show’s two-headed boy, one noggin Neanderthal, the other noble-browed. You see, Nelson Algren was a street-corner comic as well as a poet.

He may have been the funniest man around. Which is another way of saying he may have been the most serious. At a time when pimpery, licksplittery and picking the poor man’s pocket have become the order of the day—indeed, officially proclaimed as virtue—the poet must play the madcap to keep his balance. And ours.

Unlike Father William, Algren did not stand on his head. Nor did he balance an eel on his nose. He just shuffled along, tap dancing now and then. His appearance was that of a horse player who had just heard the news: he had bet her across the board and she’d come in a strong fourth. Yet, strangely, his was not a mournful mien. He was forever chuckling to himself and you wondered. You’d think he was the blue-eyed winner rather than the brown-eyed loser. That’s what was so funny about him. He did win.

A hunch: his writings may be read, aloud and to yourself, long after acclaimed works of Academe’s darlings, yellowed on coffee tables, have been replaced by acclaimed works of other Academe’s darlings. To call on a Lillian Hellman phrase, he was not a “a kid of the moment.” For in the spirit of a Zola or a Villon, he has captured a piece of that life behind the billboards. Some comic, that man.

At a time when our values are unprecedentedly upside-down—when Bob Hope, a humorless millionaire, is regarded as a funny man while a genuinely funny man, a tent show Toby, is regarded as our president—Algren may be remembered as something of a Gavroche, the gamin who saw through it all, with an admixture of innocence and wisdom. And indignation.

—excerpted from Terkel’s Introduction to the Sixtieth-Anniversary Edition of Nelson Algren’s Chicago: City on the Make

**

It’s impossible to pick a representative interview from the hundreds conducted by Terkel in his lifetime, but this clip from 1961 with James Baldwin, and its opening—Bessie Smith’s Back Water Blues, which Baldwin remarks inspired his “forthcoming novel” (Another Country)—is good enough to take your breath away:

Like I said yesterday, people are loving our spring books just as much as they loved those we published in the fall (for which we’re still getting reviews in–maybe I should do another roundup of those).

Here’s what people are saying about Kimberly Pauley’s Cat Girl’s Day Off:

Booklist:

In a multicultural family bestowed with supernatural abilities, such as mind reading and laser vision, Nat Ng believes her ability to communicate with cats is more of an embarrassment than a special talent. Only her family and her two best friends, exuberant Oscar and drop-dead gorgeous Melly, know her secret. When a production crew filming a remake of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off comes to the teens’ Chicago high school, Nat reluctantly agrees to join her friends as an extra. Nat might believe that her talent is unexceptional, but cat-loving readers will thoroughly enjoy where her ability leads her as she tours through the same Chicago landmarks seen in Ferris Bueller. This title has the light, buoyant humor of a Meg Cabot book, with the same blend of superpowers and high-school life that won Pauley many fans with Sucks to Be Me (2008). And the cats! Helping, hindering, sniffing out bad guys, sneering at good guys, the cats shamelessly rule.

Publishers Weekly (full review):

Pauley (Still Sucks to Be Me) offers amusing insights into the minds of cats, snappy dialogue, and a fast-paced plot. Readers should easily relate to Nat, and cat-lovers in particular will find a lot to enjoy in this romp.

Kirkus Reviews (full review):

. . . Since there’s no one else ready and able to rescue Easton, Nat and her pair of slightly off-beat friends take on the job. This leads to one perilous situation after another, many of them featuring the italicized thoughts—appropriately laconic and snarky—of the various cats that Nat seeks out for help. Her bumpy budding romance with classmate Ian adds an amusing love interest to the mix. The fantasy elements, solidly grounded in an otherwise real world, seem ever-so-believable. Lively conversation, strong characterizations and a fast pace make this a breezy read. The funny feline thoughts are catnip for the audience.

A worthwhile adventure and an easy sell for feline fanciers who already know what their pets are saying.

School Library Journal (if you are a subscriber, you can access the full review on their site; otherwise, look in the April 2012 print edition):

Pauley’s homage to Chicago and her favorite teen movie is entertaining, hilarious, and exceptionally creative. Populated with wonderfully eccentric and endearing characters, this lighthearted comedy will be an instant hit, especially among teen and tween girls. One thing is for certain—readers will never again look at their feline friends in the same way.

Charlotte’s Library (full review):

Cat Girl’s Day Off is fast a

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Wow. In three simple steps, Flickr user cshimala blew my mind.

1. Drive around Chicago with a video camera on windshield

2. Speed up resulting footage in video editor

3. Apply mirror effect with same editor

It’s crazy how a simple mirror filter can transform a video into something else.

Check out when he drives under the L.

Share/Bookmark

We didn’t really have a reason to go to Chicago – in fact, I hadn’t really aspired to go to Chicago in my lifetime. The biggest reason I chose Chicago was because it was simply a destination on the Amtrak route and I thought, “what the heck. Why not.” And since the whole purpose behind the trip was to experience the Amtrak train … we went to Chicago.

And I chose Amtrak mainly because when I started thinking about our last big family “hurrah”, (not implying that the boys will never go on vacation with us again, but let’s be real – they’re [nearly] 20 [!] and 17, and we’re reaching a point where they don’t really WANT to hang out with mom or dad anymore … which is normal. I get it), I wanted to do something that everyone would enjoy. And by everyone, I mean Dude.

Dude HATES to fly. He used to be deathly afraid of it. And though it still scares him a bit, we’ve been on so many flights now that he at least doesn’t feel like he wants to vomit whenever we fly anywhere anymore.

Both boys used to be crazy about trains. Especially Dude. When Dude was about three, he was absolutely OBSESSED with trains. Whenever he was around trains, he would actually tremble with excitement. And when we set up the train tracks, he would sit for hours and simply watch them go around and around.

It was almost spooky how obsessive he was. (I wish he would get obsessive about his future, but that’s another post).

Jazz was also crazy about trains. Though not AS crazy as Dude. He was really into the Thomas Trains and in fact, we have a huge plastic tub of Thomas trains/tracks that I have INSISTED on keeping so our grandkids could play with them someday. (Though from the sounds of it, I might only get grandkids from Jazz because Dude is pretty adamant about NOT wanting kids. This attitude sort of crushes me [did I sour my son on kids because of the mistakes I've made with him? I worry about this], but I’m hoping he outgrows it. Because after all, I felt the same way when I was his age. Kids were okay, as long as they were someone else’s).

I remember my mom telling me how much she and my dad enjoyed riding the train down around the Branson area and I thought, “Amtrak! That would be a different sort of experience.” And that’s when I started looking into Amtrak routes, etc.

Since there isn’t an Amtrak station in Springfield, I started looking at St. Louis and voila! Chicago was a nearby destination.

That was the thought process behind going to Chicago. No offense to Chicagoians, but I hadn’t really thought of making a trip up there until that moment.

Let me preface this trip account by saying, we enjoyed the train ride. Yes. It was LONG. (Five and a half hours to get from St. Louis to Chicago). But it wasn’t AS long on the way back and I think it was mainly because I kept myself busy. I had a little trouble reading on the train at first, it sways and is sort of bumpy, and I had a little trouble focusing on the words, but once I got the hang of it, it wasn’t that bad. Even though I get motion sickness being a passenger in a car going across town, I never once felt nauseous on the train. And I think it was mainly because we could get up and move around and the area was so big and comfy that I didn’t feel cramped or closed in.

Riding the train is cheap. I don’t mind telling you that it cost $200 dollars for all four of us round trip. That’s about a 1/8 of what it would cost to fly. So, if you can endure the time factor, and just prepare yourself to keep yourself busy the entire trip, it’s quite worth it and we will definitely ride Amtrak again in the future.

I was a little worried about the type of people who would ride the train; it is public transportation, after all. And I’m sorry if that makes me sound like a snob, but I&rsquo

We got back home about an hour ago.

Actually, we got back into town about 7:00 p.m. But we stopped to eat at Taco Bell, went over to my in-laws to eat cookie cake and sing happy birthday to Jazz, THEN we came home.

And this was AFTER riding the Amtrak train from Chicago to St. Louis for five hours and driving another 3 1/2 hours from St. Louis to Springfield.

So yeah, I’M BRAIN DEAD.

I simply can’t write anymore tonight. But I’ll write about our adventures and share some pictures very soon.

Now? I’m collapsing into my own bed and (hopefully) getting a full, uninterrupted, seven hours of sleep.

And then it’s back to work tomorrow … unless they suspend me. My boss left me a voice mail Thursday, but honest to God, I forgot to call her back so, who knows if I HAVE a job to go back to. Her message didn’t say NOT to, but it was rather a question as to whether I had gotten the shot (no), or if I planned to (no). So. I figured if I was suspended, surely she would have called back and told me not to come in on Monday, right?

RIGHT?!?

At any rate, I’m going to work tomorrow and we’ll see what happens. If I get suspended, then I’ll come home and blog about Chicago.

I know you’re rooting for me to get suspended so you can hear more about Chicago – don’t lie! (*grin*)

And don’t jinx me. Cause I really do love my job and I really don’t want to get suspended.

UGH. I can’t do this “am I going to be suspended this year or not” every single year thing. It’s exhausting. (To live and to write about).

P.S. Kevin and I are thinking about going back to Chicago in June – just me and him. OH YES WE ARE!

I’ve spent most of my Sunday fighting yawns, drinking coffee and researching our Chicago trip …

… that’s coming up in about three weeks.

Whoa.

We’re driving to St. Louis, are staying at our favorite Drury Inn (seriously ya’ll, the “complementary” breakfast is pretty darn awesome. Course, it’s not totally complementary, it’s included in the price of the room, BUT STILL! It beats going out the next morning and looking for some place to eat), then boarding the Amtrak train the next morning to Chicago!

ALL ABOARD FOR SOME FUN!

(Yeah. That was pretty corny).

Kevin found a hotel. He’s pretty awesome when it comes to researching hotels in new places. (Fine. He’s awesome pretty much all of the time). It’s called Chicago’s River Hotel and it’s a two-room suite with a Queen-sized bed and a sofa bed for the boys. It also includes a kitchenette which will hopefully save us money on food. (At the very least, we can eat breakfast and keep some snack foods on hand).

Here’s a picture of our room:

I’m a little worried the sofa bed will be too small for two tall young men, but we’ll likely take the cushions off the sofa/chair and make a bed on the floor for one of the them so they won’t be in each other’s faces all night long.

The hotel is right across the street from the Chicago river and in an area close to pretty much everything. I think we’re going to try and NOT rent a car and use the public transit systems instead. I’ve been looking into Shedd’s Aquarium and the Museum of Science & Industry and we’ll likely spend most of our time at these places. We would also like to go to Navy Pier and Magnificent Mile. We’re only going to be there for three days (2 1/2 when you take into consideration that the train doesn’t actually reach Chicago until about 2ish), and that should be enough time for us to see some fun stuff before boarding the train back to St. Louis.

We’ll be traveling back home on Jazz’s birthday, so we’ll likely treat him to some place nice for dinner that evening.

I’m really looking forward to this trip. It’s going to be a lot different than anything else we’ve ever done and the boys act like they’re really looking forward to riding the train up there and back, too. I think Dude is more relieved than anything else – no flying.

I asked off for some time in June. I’d like to take a long weekend with Kevin someplace. We haven’t really figured out where we want to go yet, but we have A TON of frequent flyer miles burning a hole in our online account.

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