I did some work on Friday and Saturday, although I didn't accomplish as much as I would like to on a typical work day. I spent most of Friday looking back at a paper I had reviewed, which had been revised. Peer review is one of a scientist's important jobs that doesn't quite fit into the overall plan of the work we are doing: I have to move out of my thinking on my own projects and seek to understand someone else's. I suspect there are more and more such duties as one's career progresses.
On Saturday evening, I went to see The Merry Widow at the Lyric Opera, leaving my computer on campus when I headed into the city. I arrived just in time and hurried up to take my seat. The performance was in English, which I think was a good move. Grander opera can make its point without the need to know what every word means, but I think comedies rely on more understanding. The translation was excellent: I was pretty sure The Merry Widow was not written in English, but it had me questioning that.
The performance was good overall. I was particularly impressed with the comic timing, especially from Jeff Dumas as Njegus. The weakest link was Renee Fleming in the title role. Many performers were hard to hear over the orchestra at times (I read that the singing was not amplified, though the dialogue very obviously was), but she was uniformly. The exception was (the interpolated song) Liebe, du Himmel auf Erden at the end of the operetta, which was superb.
On Sunday, I headed to the north side to check off some more neighbourhoods. I left straight from 11 am Mass on campus, and caught the blue line to Harlem station in NORWOOD PARK. This neighbourhood reminded me of Boston. It had a mix of retail and residential buildings, with mostly wooden single family houses. There was plenty of outdoor space, though it was largely common: the houses themselves were closed. There was one street towards the south that did seem to be full of clones (houses, I mean, not people).
I walked up to the southern tip of EDISON PARK. I only went a few metres into this neighbourhood, but it felt very much like a car suburb: spread out, with shops in a row along a long street.
I turned south and passed into Harwood Heights, a village that is not part of Chicago proper. It is home to more brick houses than I'm used to seeing in the US. Some signs on houses suggested that it was an Irish neighbourhood. I also saw plenty of scarecrows on lawns, perhaps celebrating fall and Thanksgiving (it was easy to forget that Thanksgiving was only three days ago).
I crossed back into Chicago, walking through Wilbur Wright College in DUNNING. There was no-one on campus, hardly surprising for a community college on Thanksgiving weekend. I walked south along Narragansett Avenue, which forms the western border of PORTAGE PARK, so I'm going to count that! This area had more commercial buildings. There were numerous shop signs in Polish: I knew Chicago had a significant Polish population, and I guess I've now found where they live. I also saw a pub sign proclaiming "We" Serve! Food - I guess that's better than We serve "food"!
I reached MONTCLARE and turned east. I finally found myself on something I would consider a main street: full of shops rather than just some scattered among houses. It's interesting to see how the character of the city was changing as I came closer towards downtown. The housing was also denser: more apartment buildings starting to appear. The businesses were a little eclectic: a second hand bridal shop (the signage was unclear, but I assume it sold second hand wedding dresses, etc., not second hand brides), a dance studio... Perhaps a dance studio isn't that eclectic, but it is at least more variety than the pubs, restaurants, drugstores and gas stations that I was passing for much of the afternoon.
I entered BELMONT CRAGIN, which is full of very cute houses: small with extremely sloped rooves. It also seems to be a center of the Islamic population: I saw a mosque and several women wearing headscarves.
I walked east until I hit Cicero Road, which I remembered from my previous neighbourhood-bagging Sunday. It reminds me of Parramatta Road in Sydney: a big thoroughfare that is also a suburban street, full of traffic lights and car dealerships. I was also passing from northern to western Chicago, so Spanish signs became more and more common. I just hit the northern tip of Austin: I had walked the southern edge back in May. I reached HUMBOLDT PARK, the farthest south I was planning to go.
The sun was setting about this time, but I was on a major road and decided to keep walking. I turned north to pass through HERMOSA, and changed my mind. It was getting properly dark, and the road I was on was not so big. My motivation for ending my journey was not so much safety as lack of interest: it's really only the busy roads with plenty of restaurants or other evening-focused businesses that are interesting to walk along when it's dark. So I turned east with the plan of walking until I ran into the blue line. This took me through Logan Square, getting back to the apartments, student/young professional demographics that is much of the Chicago I know. I boarded a train at California station, having covered just over a half marathon of walking, in almost exactly four hours. The map below is not exact but it's very close to the route I covered.
While I was watching some Sunday Night Football (New England was losing to a Manningless Denver), Keigo mentioned that an email had been sent out to the University of Chicago community warning of threats of gun violence the next day. So classes were cancelled and we were strongly advised to stay away from campus.
I followed that advice, and instead invited Arvind to come to my place to work. We spent the afternoon discussing various questions relating to building foldable rigid origami patterns. We also heard the news that the suspect had been arrested (before 10 am, the time he had mentioned), and it turned out that he didn't even have access to guns. So it was back to school on Tuesday, a little disrupted but without fear or worry.
No comments:
Post a Comment