ChinaTown Summer Fair (7/20/2008)

Now that i think of it i probably haven't been to China Town since i moved up north to Lincoln Park, almost an year ago. China Town used to be our hub for cheap yet large portions of food back in the college days, when money was a scarcity. That in no way means that i have abundance of it now, its just that it is little less of a hassle these days. When i found out about the annual China Town Summer Fair i was quite intrigued as that gave me a chance to see the Lion Dance possession(my first..) and grab some delicious street food. The availability of street food is one of the very few things i like about NYC as compared to Chicago. There's nothing like gnawing on a stick of kabob,Kathi roll,Korean beef etc.(the list is endless...) while walking around the concrete jungle in a nice summer day. Its even better in Chicago as its not that crowded and you can always find a place to seat (I do apologize if i have hit a nerve of the hardcore New Yorkians). As it turned out that particular day was exceedingly hot for a street fair and i had to continuously gulp down fluids to keep up with it.

Luckily for me the Lion Dance possession was scheduled to start at 12:30 PM as the previous night being Saturday, i had a long overdue house party at my place. The last one "farewell party for vinmoo" being in November. Being in a depleted financial status these days because of my extensive traveling and expenditure on camera equipments, i reluctantly had to make it a BYOA (Bring Your Own Alcohol) but with a personal guarantee to have some stuff at my disposal to make a colorful yet potent drink out of whatever people bring. We started off with Pomegranate Martini (another of my first, quite good but little bit on the sweeter side) and Appletini's but at the end of the night we ended up with JD reserve "on the rocks" :D. It was quite a night, maybe i was a tad to much into usage of profanities but that i blame on my Americanization :D. We danced on to some Indian and Turkish hot dance numbers. The effects of slightly intoxicated ladies dancing on a wooden floor with high heels on is disastrous as next day i found my poor poor floor filled with numerous small circular dents. It looks like a satellite image of a city just hit by an air raid ( exaggerated of course...there's nothing as bad as that). Potential readers don't say that i didn't warn you:

Wooden floor+Ladies in high heels+Alcohol+Dance music= DESTRUCTION

Anyway, as i was saying luckily for me that the Possession was supposed to start at 12:30 PM. I took the "Red Line" to China Town and was amazed to see so many people on the train, mostly going to the summer fair , plus it being Sunday and the trains running on elevated tracks because of construction(keeping up with the saying "Chicago has two seasons,winter & construction) didn't help the cause.

China Town "Red Line" station

I reached 15 mins before the scheduled start and found the place already overly crowded. It took me some time to find out where the possession was supposed to start and asking the local street vendors was no help as they had no clue about the time and place of it. By the time i figured it out it had already began and it took some hustling on my part to get a few good shots. The dance was being performed by the students of the local martial arts school.I expected a much more professional and colorful possession judging by the fact of what i have seen of it on TV. They were moving quite fast because of the time frame allocated to them being really small which kind of depicts the administrative mentality to cram in as many events as possible rather than paying attention to detail.

Korean beef sticks sizzling on the grill

Chicken wings being grilled

Chinese shoes for sale

Chinese old woman with a straw hat in an Umbrella Shop

After tasting a few of the street food on offer and gulping down couple of coconuts (which were not as cool and refreshing as the ones found along the streets in my home town of New Delhi,India) i walked around a bit to see the wares that were for sale. The two girls with the umbrella hats made me realize how useful those are. I don't carry sunglasses as it is quite cumbersome for me to take them off each time i want to take a shot , not to mention my tendency to misplace any loosely attached stuff(no pun intended whatsoever). Those hats are the perfect solution for enjoying various Chicago summer fests in those blazing sunny days.

The nine dragons wall marking the starting of China Town

The nearby school of martial arts put up a good show of how they train, with some glimpses of an actual contest. Must say that body mass has got nothing to do with the art of fighting and the being thin and agile is a much better option than being big and slow. This being one of the main differences in philosophy in between the east and west. The east has never been a big supporter of brute force until and unless absolutely necessary.

Copyrights @ 2008 Rahuljit Pal.
For More Pictures please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/rahuljitpal

Cirque Shangahi, Navy Pier (07/18/2008)

I am going through my “to do” list as methodically as I have never done before in my life. Is that a new mature more tamed me? Or is that just one of my “do it at least once” obsessions, only time will tell. I do sincerely hope that it is not there to last for long :D.

I have heard of the “Cirque Shanghai GOLD” performance in lot of ads and reviews. But never was able to watch it as I could not convince anybody to come along with me. I find it such a bore (sounds quite British…: D) to watch a show alone, maybe because there is so much time to talk before, during intermission (if any) and after. Of course the whole experience is much more pleasurable if accompanied by a girl, but then again almost everything in life is ;). So after not much of cajoling I got Miss B (names not mentioned to protect the identity, but I know most of the people who are (if ever i.e.) going to read it will know it instantly, and if you know it please don't ask me why that particular alphabet or alphabets have been selected, because I promise to take that secret to my grave....hehehehe) to accompany me for the show.

I always thought that buying stuff over internet will be cheaper, but found out that in case of show tickets it’s not actually the case. Ticketmaster (may God bring bankruptcy to their doorsteps!!!!) charges at least $7 extra per ticket for "convenience fee" and other kind of miscellaneous fees. So I decided that we will go and buy the tickets right there before the show. Plus I found an ad saying that on Fridays they have a special offer of $5 off the Front Balcony tickets if we drink a Chinese lager named "HARBIN" and bring back the caps to the ticket counter. It sounded like a good deal, we get a better seat and a beer, and it was, but it took us some time to track down the bar that was serving that beer. To top it all, the bartender at the "beer gardens" have not heard of it at all, luckily for us her boss came by and suddenly remembered that he did have some Chinese beer stashed up in his storage. Seemed like we were the very few to avail of that particular offer. But it was not a bad lager for a Chinese beer even though $6 was a little steep for the taste. I am not complaining, it got us the $5 off the tickets. We walked back to the Pepsi Skyline Stage to get our tickets and luckily we got it right bang in the center of the Front Balcony. Initially I thought that there would not be too many people, judging by the fact that we got the center front row seats so easily just an hour before but I was proven wrong when I looked around and saw it almost full just before the show.

Miss B was quite enthusiastic about getting one of those Chinese fold able fans as she thought they were being handed out free. Even though I insisted that it was highly unlikely, we kept a sharp lookout for money exchanging hands. As predicted they were for sale only, keeping on with the American tradition that "nothing is for free" or in another POV "everything is for sale". Both of them meaning quite different while being equally true. But the City of Chicago proves me wrong every summer with its free events/concerts/festivals.

So we chit chatted along before the show started, which was mainly me yapping about my visit to the Art Institute of Chicago Museum the day before, with Miss B humming along "hmm's" in regular intervals with an occasional "yes" and "no" thrown in to keep it interesting :D (nothing bad in it Miss B, that's waht i prefer in my listeners anyway).

The show started on time and was quite colorful and thrilling. The performers were nimble on their feet as you would expect from a Chinese performance group (very stereotypical I know: D). There were couple of mistakes but nothing catastrophic. I expected them to be perfect as they have been doing it for a long time and supposedly were quite good at it. I do understand that you can't get all these delicate balancing things right all the time, but they did mistakes in the smaller, easier acts probably suggesting a bit of complacency. I must say though that they have mastered the art of presentation with colorful costumes and lightning.

My only complaint of the night was the lack of respect or maybe showing too much of it by the audience by clapping numerous times in between the acts. In the eastern part of the world its actually considered rude to clap or cheer before the performance is finished at least in the art forms I have been involved in India and as far as I know about the other Asian countries. Pundit Ravi Shankar once sarcastically said before one of his performances in Chicago Symphony Center that "after 25 years of playing sitar in the western world , people are finally becoming aware of our tradition, they don't clap while the artist are tuning their instruments". This kind of cheering is also looked down upon by the theater/symphony/opera goers here in America. Then what prompts people to do it so often? I personally find it very vulgar (sounding British again...) and blame it mainly on the pop culture. The mind of the people are programmed to clap /cheer/shout after every small thing done by the idiots on the stage and they lack the knowledge of antiquates for a particular kind of performance.

The act with the “rotating dishes on top of a stick”(don’t know what else to call it) was one of the most fascinating one. In one of the pictures above one can see that they even stood on their heads while still keeping the dishes revolving, Amazing! The final part of the act was the chain formation. The way they did it was that, each girl climbed on top of the head of another girl thus forming 4 doubles. Then all these doubles came closer to each other in a line and the top girl moved her footing to shoulders of her front the back girls below. Then they ever so slightly moved away from each other to make the stretched double chain formation shown in the picture above. They kept their plates revolving while all these acts were done. It was definitely the best of their acts. It reminded me of the symmetrical designs done by folding a piece of paper, cutting a few holes in it, and then opening it up to see the pattern generated.

The "Balancing Crystal Pagoda's" and the "Hula Hoop" acts are worth mentioning as well. Overall the show was very good with some common yet extraordinary acts of balance and acrobatics and one that i will highly recommend to others.

I still think that Navy Pier is more of a family place i.e after you have kids and all :D. But it sure does give a glimpse of the carnival spirit after the bedtime hours before fading into the night.

As walking is my new found passions these days i volunteered to walk Miss B home. A late night Ice Cream booth tempted us both and i got a double scoop of ice cream (one chocolate & one vanilla) while Miss B opted for an orange juice(i.e as far as i can remember :D). The double scoop was not a good idea on a hot night, i had to gulp it down before it melted and ended up with sticky hands. Miss B was kind enough to let me in her apartment ;) to wash my hands before i called it a day and took my bus back home tired yet satisfied with how the evening turned out to be.

Copyrights @ 2008 Rahuljit Pal.
For More Pictures please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/rahuljitpal

my first visit to the Art Institute of Chicago(07/17/2008)

I decided to kick start my "Things to do in Chicago" by visiting the Art institute of Chicago Museum ( free Thursday & Friday from 5PM-9PM). Even though i wanted to reach there by 5PM and avail of the full 4 hrs of free viewing time, i could not do so because of COMCAST :x. It took me a month to get a technician to fix my modem, after scheduling and re-scheduling for more than 6-7 times because of varied reasons from the guy having "family problem" to him "calling me and me not picking up"(which was utter BS). and for the "icing of the cake" i have to listen through 5 mins of their automated voice service to speak to an actual person before she expresses her sorrow for my inconvienience and reroutes me to another person or puts me on hold. i have to go through this each time i tried to contact them for anything (which probabaly was atleast 25 times last month)and the secret i learned from this experience is that i have to call their toll free number and press the number sequence "1112211"(for internet) & "1111211" (for cable) each after 15 seconds of waiting :D.On this lucky day the technician calls and informs me that he is outside my door, eventhough his dispatch officer told me that they will call me 1/2hr before of his actual arival and believing this to be true i went for a much needed hair cut in a near by Hair Cuttery. So when i get the call , i ask my lovely hair dresser to excuse me for 15mins and i ran through to my house with half my hair cut and other half pointing skywards to meet this highly trained and elusive technician ignoring all kinds of peoples stares.It took me 1 hr 15 mins (he just had to replace the modem because he didn't like the company i had ) before i could go back to get my hair cut finished (the girl over Hair Cuttery thought i was not going to come back, ...DUMB ...wat other choice did i have....).

Anyway coming back to my original theme, i finally reached the Art Institute at 7PM with just 2 hrs of viewing time left, which in retrospect is not that bad as looking and trying to absorb these artifacts/paintings is quite an exhaustive thing. So i grabbed hold of a floor map and ran up the grand staircase towards the second floor having the European paintings on exhibit. To my dismay at the top of the stairs i was greeted with a big sign "WHERE DID VAN GOGH GO" which stated that "As part of a historic, one-time-only loan, many works from the "Impressionist and Post-Impressionist" collection are currently off view while their galleries receive much-needed renovations" which was my primary goal for coming to the museum. My previous big city museums of the western world being "the MET" in NYC and "the Louvre" in PARIS (sadly neither of which i could finish) the Chicago Art Institute looked tiny but i must say they do boast of a very good collection and the paintings left in display were quite impressive.

Georges Seurat,French, 1859-1891 : "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte", 1884
A.K.A the Biggest Masterpiece of Art Institute of Chicago

Antonio Mancini,Italian, 1852–1930: "Resting", 1887

"Resting -while lost in the thoughts the morning after a romantic rendezvous " would have been more apt. The artist has captured the expression and the physical position to the exact specification for that moment....amazing!!

Charles Henri Joseph Cordier,French, 1827-1905,Cast by: Eck et Durand Fondeur,French, 19th century: "Bust of an African Woman", c.1851

The sorrow and position of helplessness captured by the sculpture which is as true as it was 150 years ago is really saddening.

I completely forgot the title of the sculpture and the paintings( the details in them are minute yet immaculate) behind it, will retrieve those details next time around :D

Antoine Louis Barye,French, 1795-1875: "Roger and Angelica Mounted on the Hippogriff", model c. 1840, cast c. 1884

From Wikipedia (the source of 80% of my information..hehehe) i found a poem by Arnold Sundgaards "The Hippogriff " which describes this mystical creature very rarely seen in the medevial art forms.

When Mare and Griffin meet and mate
Their offspring share a curious fate.
One half is Horse with hooves and tail,
The rest is Eagle, claws and nail.
As a Horse it likes to graze
In summer meadows doused in haze,
Yet as an Eagle it can fly
Above the clouds where dreams drift by.
With such a Beast I am enthralled,
The Hippogriff this beast is called.

I also found out that this creature was used in one of the Harry Potter movies as well. I can produly procalim that i probabaly am the only person who hasn't seen a single one of thoose Harry Potter or The Lord of the Ring craps ,yipppeeee!!!

François Rude,French, 1784-1855: " Hebe and the Eagle of Jupiter", model c. 1852, cast c. 1860/80

Hebe is the goddess of youth in Greek mythology,the daughter of Jupiter and his wife Juno and served as the cup bearer of the gods in Olypmus before she was defeated by Ganymede who was a son of Tros, first king of Troy , also called the constellation aquarius (water bearer) which coincedently ;) happens to be my zodiac sign.. hehehe!!

Antonio Canova,Italian, 1757-1822 : "Bust of Paris", 1809

Antonio Canova,Italian, 1757-1822 : "Head of Medusa", 1801

Lambert Sigisbert Adam,French, 1700-1759: "Bust of Amphitrite", c.1725


Cristoforo Stati,Italian, c. 1556-1619: "Samson and the Lion", 1604/07

Behind is the Grand Staircase in the Allerton Building under the skylight , with the natural light from Chicago dusk filling the room with a cooling bluish haze.

Colorful Kashmir Paper Mache boxes being sold in the gift shop

Handmade stained glass table lamps for sale in the gift shop


Adams and Wabash "L" stop as seen from the stairs of the Michigan entrance of Art Institute of Chicago

Michigan entrance of Art Institute of Chicago,with one of the famous lion statues

While walking towards my 151 bus stop i stopped over at the Crown Fountain at the Millennium Park"the Face" which was filled with kids and adults playing in the water in one of the hottest Chicago nights. Its actually an amazing piece of architecture having many small screens in the shape of bricks which actually plays a video of a random person in smiles and changes expression every few seconds. The face changes, spurts out water from a strategically positioned spout near the face's mouth and a vertical drop water fountain from the top on a regular basis.

The Crown Fountain with the city in the backdrop

Kids enjoying the forceful vertical water drop from the top of the face

the reflection of one of the face in the water puddle accumulated in the space between the two fountains

A smiling face with kids underneath

the smiling face spurting out water

I know it will probably take me at least 4-5 more visits to finish of the museum to my satisfaction, of course i will have to wait for the really good collection of Renoir,Monet, Van Gogh etc they boast off to come back and definitely will have pictures of more paintings to post. Unfortunately none of the attendant could tell me when the renovations will be completed. Plus there is the new modern wing built with glass and steel having a skylight throughout to look forward to, which is scheduled to open in 2009. So i will be off to the museum tomorrow and this time will avail of the full 4hrs of free time for sure :D.

Copyrights @ 2008 Rahuljit Pal.
For More Pictures please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/rahuljitpal