You have better things to do than stalk me, but I’ll make it easy and let you know that I’ll be at the Touch and Go Fest for most of this weekend, especially Saturday, when I’ll be a volunteer beer-ticket-seller. The volunteering is on behalf of Literacy Works, a fine organization which believes in the power of learning. Learning and beer. While I work I may be wearing my Fuck Macy’s T-shirt, since Saturday is the day the Marshall Field’s name dies. (And yes, I know it’s just a department store and I almost never shop there anyway, but at least half of my earliest memories of Chicago are set in the State Street store, so do not underestimate my hoary nostalgia for this stuff.) Anyway, I’ll be volunteering at the fest until about 3 PM, at which time Chris will insist that we go see The Ex perform. (Which is a band, not a person. And not, you know, a band I used to date, or a band made up of people I used to date, which would be a nightmare, since they’d probably write songs called “She Always Interrupts Herself (And Goes Off On Some Weird Tangent)” and “Too Much Diet Coke.”)
And hey, I’m doing a Ragdale Residency again. As of next weekend I’ll be there until the end of the month, writing some new stuff. I wrote part of INTNM there in 2004, which was helpful because I was trying to finish the book, but this time, I don’t have any kind of deadline. To be honest, I’m sort of terrified. I want to work on new things, but I also want to play house with my boyfriend and watch Robot Chicken. But it’s only two weeks, and I have nothing to be afraid of except the contents of my head, right?
Does this mean you won’t be at German American Fest? C’mon, you can’t have too much fest!
Maybe on Sunday! We have 3 day passes but there’s no-one Chris is into on Sunday and I’d only want to see Calexico that day.
Or maybe…now dig this, dig this…maybe, after getting our heads bashed in all day Saturday by the likes of Shellac, The Ex, Killdozer, Scratch Acid, NEGATIVE APPROACH, and *BIG BLACK* (AAAAAAAAGH!!), we can head back to Lincoln Square and get our heads bashed in by the likes of Overpriced Fake-Import Beer, DRUNKEN, UNRELENTING CROWDS, and GERMAN OOMPAH MUSIC (AAAAAAAAGH!).
Oh wait. Beer service dries up at 10 p.m., and the show doesn’t end ’til 10:30. Thanks a LOT, Alderman Schulter!
Yep, Sunday it is.
Having grown up in ChiTown, ’twas a sad day when the ‘chick heard that Field’s had been bought out by Macy’s. Emergency phone calls were made to relatives still living in the Windy City to make a last run for Field’s swag. State Street will never be the same.
I just googled “Marshall Field’s” to read more about the old store for nostalgia’s sake. The google link to a Field’s site about the store’s history was redirected to the Macy’s main page! Way to Shop indeed. I’m sad.
Its not just that a department store’s name is changing. Its the whole homogenization of America, where everything is the same same same everywhere you go and there’s no difference between Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Indianapolis, much less between the midwest, the east coast and the west coast. Really sad. I miss the days when you knew what town you were in because you could pick up the slight difference in accents from the radio DJs.
As you can tell, I also grew up in Chicagoland, so much so that there’s only one Marshall Fields’ here in Milwaukee, and its where I demanded we register for our wedding. Not that I or many of my family/friends could afford half the stuff, but it you can’t go through Fields and dream about stuff you want, and get a crapload of Frango mints on your wedding day, then you might as well forsake all that is Chicago about you.
Enough nostalgia.
Thanks for the link. I’m picking up a “Fuck Macy’s” shirt today! Wish i could be a touch and go, actually, wish I could make it to a lot of Chicago things. But I’m a Milwaukeean now, and I’m off to the grand opening of a new museum, which, at least, was financed and built by Milwaukeeans.
I feel like yours might be the only review of Robot Chicken I’d ever take into consideration, so feel free to spill it.
I need a Fuck Macy’s shirt, no doubt. I didn’t even know they existed, but that was my exact thought upon seeing Macy’s’s’s new ad this morning. Something like: “No matter where you are in the country, you can shop at Macy’s!”
Boo. I miss my Rich’s. Well, maybe not really, because it had become kind of sad. But, you know, the CONCEPT.
I’ve just stumbled across your blog…and have to tell you how tickled to death I am.
I love it. Why I haven’t walked this way before, I have no idea.
B.