okay, I promise posts will not be so unbearably long from now on. For all future interviews, I hope to provide audio. I just messed up this first time. Forgive me.
(this is being typed) september 12 2011
(actions took place) september 11 2011
Interviews
Tiana arrived first. I started interviewing her. I stopped when Nate arrived. Nate, Tiana, Jesse, and myself were present while I interviewed Nate. It was conversational, each of us adding thoughts, and the topics of the interviews were strayed from with other stories not as related to my questions.
Tiana and Nate eventually left. Later, I interviewed Ian after the first delivery. (to be explained soon)
I told each person why I was doing the interviews: because sometimes this city gets me down and I go out into parts of it I have never been before in order to get a change of perspective. For me, Chicago lacks nature. I sometimes feel the need to wander in a forest to clear my mind. This is not an option here and so I have to create my own way to shed overwhelming feelings of anxiety. I asked my friends if they ever go some place in order to relax or gain fresh perspective. I also asked them if Chicago lacks anything that they feel they need.
I thought that I recorded each interview, but I misunderstood the instructions on how to use the sound recorder. So nothing was actually recorded. But I remember quite a bit of what was said.
Tiana said that when she had a busy schedule because of school, she felt like the sidewalk was a highway for busy people such as herself and tourists just got in the way. She doesn't crave nature like I do. What she seeks out from time to time is a quiet environment free from other people. She often goes to libraries or parks at night. Safe parks. She said that she looks for nooks, which the Harold Washington public library has some of, but not as much as other libraries she's been to in California where she's from.
Tiana also noted that she appreciates the architecture in Chicago. She said that all the buildings are beautiful, at least compared to the architecture in L.A., which apparently is just a bunch of stucco.
Because she's from L.A., Tiana sometimes misses the ocean that she was used to there, so she'll go to the lakefront here. She called it a fake ocean. The area she mentioned, a spot of the lakefront walking distance from school, has a marina, and it's too close to downtown to feel as good as the ocean, but it's still nice.
I can relate to Tiana's need to find a quiet place without people. Commuting on the blue line, or down Milwaukee Ave. to the loop most mornings and evenings is exhausting, partly because of all the things in motion that you see and feel passing by.
When talking about a quiet place to just sit and not really do anything, Tiana said that you have to find a place where other people won't think it's weird that you are doing this. It's easy to sense judgment and pressure from others to constantly be productive. If you are sitting and not doing some apparent, tangible form of work, you might even seem creepy to some people, something to avoid.
Nate goes to New Orleans once a year to help out with the Katrina relief effort. He loves New Orleans and has considered moving there. He was on the brink of moving away from Chicago, but got involved with an artist's collective that has kept him here. He told me that starting the collective is like having a baby--burping the baby is gross, but seeing it grow up will be worth it. Compared to New Orleans, for Nate, Chicago seriously lacks a sense of community. Chicago has many neighborhoods, each one with a strong sense of community, usually, but there is not a feeling of cohesion for the whole city. There is not one meaningful thing that Chicagoans can feel is shared and celebrated by everyone here. There are many street festivals and neighborhood festivals, and then there are some big festivals in Grant Park such as the Taste of Chicago and Jazz Fest. While those festivals in Grant Park are very popular, they feel more about tourism than community. Nate loves that his Chicago friends are busy with amazing creative work all the time and on any day he can go see someone doing something that they are passionate about. There is a lot of creative work happening in Chicago, but sometimes the creative communities can feel isolated from each other. Nate made up the term "homer". A homer is someone who represents their hometown or neighborhood with a lot of pride, maybe too much. He's met some people in his neighborhood, Logan Square, who are in their twenties and have never been downtown. These homers feel there's no need to go downtown when everything they know and love is already where they are. With this pride comes the arbitrary disrespect of other neighborhoods. Nate mentioned that a friend of his interviewed people in neighborhoods all over Chicago asking them what made their neighborhood special, and why do they love it. Most of the interviewees had the same response. Someone from each interviewed neighborhood said that they know a really old person on the street, they know the guy that runs the convenient store on the corner, and they feel that their community is strong and somehow better than another neighborhood. They all think they stand out all for the same reason.
We are all different, but our differences are all of the same things.
I can relate to Nate's disappointment with the lack of cohesion in Chicago. It's just such a huge city. I'm not sure it's possible that there could be a city-wide sense of community.
He was going to leave Chicago, but he feels it wouldn't be wise to leave right now. With the arts collective he helped start, West Side School for the Desperate, he feels that he is creating some roots of his own in Logan Square, and that he's creating something for the common good of the neighborhood.
I have to apologize for failing to record these interviews because my writing is way less engaging than the way my friends talk.
Later, I prepared some envelopes with messages to deliver to houses in my neighborhood. Each message reads "Why do you live here? Reply to..." (it's an email address instead of the "...") My friend Ian and I walked around for less than an hour delivering about 50 of these messages in plain white envelopes to houses around where I live. I put the envelopes in non-ignorable places whenever possible. I'm avoiding mailboxes because I think that people get a lot of junk mail, so I don't want my messages to get overlooked with all the junk mail. Sometimes there'd be a beer bottle on a little table next to the front door, so I'd put the envelope under the bottle. Or a bottle of kid's bubbles on a window sill. I initially wanted to slip the envelopes under each door, but with the first door I realized this wouldn't be possible because doors have little rubber and fuzz linings. I didn't think of that. And I felt sneakier than I thought I would. I was very careful to make as little noise as possible when opening the gate, walking up the steps and placing the envelope. I enjoyed noticing the different types of fences, different styles of houses, and variety of lawn decor. Walking around at night feels more like being in nature than in the day time here. Last night there was no one else walking when we were, it was a full (or almost full moon), the sky was clear, and the darkness of night mixed with the lights from street lights, houses, etc. created a yellowy glowy filter through which to see the dark blue of night time on the houses and trees and sidewalks. I delivered some envelopes to a few rows of townhouses that I had never noticed before. It's strange to encounter some houses stylistically so different, and new, from most of the others. It felt like a piece of a different neighborhood within this neighborhood. I kept track of which houses I delivered to so I won't do them twice. I'll be delivering these throughout the semester and hopefully I'll receive some replies.
So after that I interviewed Ian as I did the others. He was neither bummed nor stoked on living in Chicago. He does not feel adventurous enough to feel like moving and he is pretty content with being familiar with the city in his sixth year of living here. Being familiar with the streets and having good friends to be with are his essentials and he's got them. He said because work takes so long to get to from his house, he rarely has time to, and doesn't really feel like, going on a jaunt to somewhere new. He said he usually works on his comics if he has time outside work. But sometimes he arrives to work early and doesn't want to start working early, so he goes on a walk through empty lots down at 63rd street. There is a particular foot-trail that he has visited a few times. The trail was created naturally by people just walking over the same path a bunch of times. There are grasses and weeds there that he likes, but they unfortunately were just cut short. There's also a tree there that he had seen many times until he realized it is actually five trees stemming from the same point. This was exciting to him because it was a surprise. (see how bad my writing is?) Ian also noticed a black plastic bag stuck in a tree in the winter time, because it was winter, and the bag is still there now with some little twigs poking through and the leaves around it. He felt proud of the bag, or something like feeling proud. Like Nate, Ian also said that he feels Chicago is made up of a bunch of separate pockets. It lacks a sense of city-wide community.
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