Category: Travel

Back in SF. Fight with Evil Bob II last night. Work this morning after no sleep. Haircut this afternoon. Insomnia tonight.

Need to pitch the woo. But where…?

Well, the weekend in Chicago was filled with interesting little goodies… mid-century antiques on Lincoln Avenue, Giordano’s stuffed pizza and Al’s #1 Italian Beef, Dale Chihuly’s silly glass baubles at the Garfield Park Conservatory and a captivating installation called What Barbara Jordan Wore by Donald Moffett at the Museum of Contemporary Art (which has a great permanent collection, by the way, including several recent pieces by my college mate Paul Pfeiffer that just knocked my socks off–one a video loop of a basketball player filmed from court level, flashbulbs going off in the crowd beyond, the other players digitally removed from the court, his pacing perceived initially as triumphant post-hoop posturing, but with the frequent repetition–the loop lasted only a few seconds–his movements seemed like that of a caged animal–really hot work!)

We visited the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings and his studio in Oak Park on the most perfect day of the year. I was especially wowed by his Unity Temple, which seemed like an anti-cathedral, the interior space so intimate and human, grounded heavily by natural materials like cement and stone, but with heavenly light piercing the all-glass coffered ceiling and side windows.

We spent Father’s Day evening with Chris’ dad Stephanie by taking her out to one of the city’s hottest new restaurants, Spring. The emphasis is on seafood, accented with Asian flavors and sensibility. Some of the flavors were all over the map but came together nicely in the mouth–tuna tartare with a citrus vinaigrette and fish roe, lobster springrolls with mint and a curry-passionfruit sauce, seared sea scallops served on a bed of oxtails and mushrooms and topped with broccoli rabe, a flourless chocolate cake served with a chocolate honeycomb thingy, lavender ice cream and citrus confit (cooked in its own fat?), a chocolate dome of milk-chocolate mousse and flourless cake on a chocolate-almond disk, encased in chocolate ganache and surrounded by foamed (!) almond milk.

Today Chris and I went to Geneseo, the kind of town that is called quaint–victorian homes with lawns, a real main street, a public park with a bandshell, and lunch with the ladies. Geneseo is a nice 30-minute drive through corn country from Chris’ mom Pat’s house in Moline, one of the Quad Cities on the Illinois side of the Mississippi. We were accompanied by Beth and Margie (Chris’s sisters), and Beth’s daughter Maggie. I shot some additional video for Chris’ film project about his family, which he started last year. He’s been filming them individually and together, asking them about their memories and experiences growing up. The theme that has emerged seems to be how the family has survived the erratic and often abusive behavior of their father, Jim. Lucky for them, at 60 years of age, Jim decided to have a complete sex change, and became Stephanie. She’s now 67 and lives in Chicago, in a fabulous condo on Lakeshore Boulevard. From what I gather, she wasn’t very good at being a man, embodying a lot of the worst traits that men have to offer–cheating, lying, etc… I think that Jim was so miserable being a man–well, maybe not so much being a man as NOT being a woman, or not being able to DRESS like a woman–that he inhabited his maleness with resentment and anger, and turned it all outward. She’s now engaged with life and ideas in a way that she wouldn’t let herself be as a man. She’s studying art and the violin, and has a little lapdog named Annie. “Mommie take, mommie take!” I’ve noticed that when Stephanie mentions guys, she talks about them in terms of their attraction to her, and when she talks about women, it’s with a yearning, lusty lilt. My own opinion is that Stephanie loves women, REALLY loves women, and has chosen to define herself as heterosexual because her ideas of gender and sexuality are limited by tradition and midwestern values. She loves her creation, though, and her love of self is infectious. She’s my hero in some ways, particularly in how she’s risen so beautifully from Jim’s ashes.

So the past few days have been about hanging with the BC family, drinking Harvey Wallbangers, and eating lots–LOTS–of fat and protein. If I lose weight on this trip, I’ll completely change my opinion of Dr. Atkins. Later, we’re going to Whitey’s, the home of the greatest chocolate malt in the world. Chris and I have previously visited only in the winter, when everything’s under five feet of snow and the malts don’t melt. It’s about something different then, like even food is about things frozen and unthawable. Last night I had my first Whitey’s malt of the trip. Deviating extravagently from my usual chocolate malt, I had a chocolate malt with a black cherry sunday on top. I couldn’t stand to see it end. The malt girls don’t just mix the ingredients together and stick it under the mixer, no, they mix their concoctions a little at a time, and then hold them under the mixing paddles, move them around, pump the cups, add more ingredients, move them up and down. It’s an aerobic workout. All for me. My malt arrives with a spoon in it that doesn’t move. The state is somewhere between liquid and solid, but neither. I think heaven must be something very close to a Whitey’s malt. Or hell. I’d take either.

Today I saw the Virgin Mary, on Highway 19 in Clearwater, a miraculous vision of the Virgin Mary, her rainbow-hued silhouette reflecting eerily off the glass windows of the international-style bank. Usually one has to squint or stretch the boundaries of representation to see those Madonnas on the walls, or those Jesuses in the tortillas, but this Mary was as clear as the olive in my martini glass, and luminous and beautiful.

And then we had lunch and pastries in Tarpon Springs, a former Greek sponge-diving community turned tourist enclave following the introduction of the synthetic sponge. Parts of town are still charming, and every Epiphany the bishop tosses a crucifix into the chilly Gulf and the prepubescent boys of the town dive in after it. The boy who retrieves it gets a special blessing from the bishop.

I had a completely scrumptious almond cookie, the size of a salad plate, that was like an almond orgy, a slightly crunchy outside covered with toasted almonds that, when bitten into, revealed a chewy inside that spilled pleasure into every corner of my mouth.

First a hop into Carol and Bruce’s pool, and then we’re off to the beach, to spend the weekend in Sue’s husband David’s sister’s condo on Indian Rocks beach. Ta-ta!