Bees of Chicago

Chicago: Second Stop on the Road Trip

Sketch by me - Montrose Beach at night, Lake Michigan, Chicago.

Five years ago, one of my closest friends, Ali Noe, graduated high school. When asked how she chose Columbia art school in Chicago she replies, "I picked the furthest school I got into from home." Every year I would promise to visit her, but between expense and inconvenience, it never happened. Finally, I fulfilled my promise with our second stop on the road trip. Ali is a year older than myself, a working artist, and manages at an art studio.

Feel free to scroll down if you just want to look at food recommendations, but I'll start off with some art.

Studio Visits & Art

Although I could fill an entire blog post with Chicago's graffiti, I will instead focus on the Ali Noe perspective. She generously took off from work to show us some of her favorite parts of Chicago. We started off by visiting Autotelic Studios, a building filled with cluttered studio spaces, with a community garden out back.

Ali works primarily with bees, drawing comparisons between the hivemind and technology. The left side of this photo collage is her laser cut bees, the right side features bees printed onto an enormous pillow.

The pickle prize - the artists of Autotelic occasionally have a pickle-making contest, and the winner gets the pickle prize.

Beehive in a nearby community garden.

Later, we stopped by the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), which is free to residents. Luckily, they let us in when we claimed all of us lived at Ali Noe's residence. The museum was sadly empty, with its main gallery transitioning between shows. However, I adored two of the available exhibitions. 

First, I saw Keren Cytter's video installations for the first time. Cytter is an Israeli artist. She writes screenplays based off of television shows, often filming with actors the same day. Her work has a sense of immediacy and honesty. 

Anke just went fishing.
She left her parents at home.
The rest she carried in a plastic bag.
The day was hot and warm. (quote from Cytter's website)

I also responded positively to S, M, L, XL which was a collection of interactive installations. Kris Martin's T.Y.F.F.S.H (2011) was a crowd favorite, consistently surrounded by clusters of people photographing the hot air balloon from the outside. The balloon, inflated by fans, seemed to press against the wall of the gallery, but actually extended through the wall so that viewers inside could go all the way inside. But I found myself spending the most time and thought with Passageway (1961) by Robert Morris. Only one participant could enter at a time. I walked through a spiral passageway until I could no longer see my friends waiting at the entrance. It became progressively more and more narrow. I removed my hat to squeeze farther towards the end. My admission tag fell off as I pressed against the walls. I sucked in, but could go no further. I touched the end, just barely, with my fingertips from outstretched arm.

Finally, we visited the Museum Campus, a park in Chicago.

The roosters of the group standing in front of a Zodiac sculpture by Ai Wei Wei.

We could see Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline from the pier.

Food

Since we intend to cook and fish for ourselves the rest of the roadtrip, we splurged on food while in the city. Ali took us to some of her favorite spots. No matter where we went, we always heard other opinions from passerby. When we stopped at Glazed & Infused Doughnut, a stranger shouted to us that we should go to the place across the street - but I was more than satisfied.

We went to Honky Tonk one night for barbecue. I didn't take any photos because I was far too overwhelmed. Ali and I waited at the bar until a table opened up for all seven of us. We shared a beer that came with candied maple bacon, which was indescribably delicious - thick, savory, and sweet. For dinner we split two platters and some sides. I admit I took more than my fair share of ribs. After we finished eating, my beautiful elf boyfriend remarked "I didn't know I liked meat." 

Although it was no restaurant, I do want to give a nod towards Chicago's mulberry trees. My hands were perpetually stained purple.

Another night, we went family style in Chinatown with a heavy concentration on seafood. We split soups, Thai style shrimp, cuttlefish with glass noodles, and udon.

Cuttlefish at Joy Lee, set in Chicago's Chinatown.

Perhaps my favorite meal was last night (June 23, 2015). We went to the beach at Lake Michigan, opting for the dog section to catch up on some furry cuddles. For dinner, we bought food at a farmer's market to grill on the deck of our RV (yes... our tiny little RV has a deck). Everyone pitched in with food prep and cooking.

Salmon, kale, asparagus, mushrooms, and veggies (potato/celery/onion/carrot).

Parting Words

Ali Noe, everyone's favorite bee-obsessed friend, showed us an amazing time. So we made a card for her as a thank-you surprise. Each of us drew one bee, except my beautiful elf boyfriend (wasp) and Damon (poem).

BEES

Yoda - RV Roadtrip to California Blog Entry

Gaslight Village

Iowa City: First Stop on the Road Trip

Stopping by the road - drawing of me, by Fei Fei

We drove for twenty-six hours from Connecticut to Iowa City, six people packed into a custom RV 'yota filled with tapestries, sleeping bags, and art (fun fact: I'd been mishearing "'yota" as "Yoda" this entire time, and have thus named the RV Yoda. It was a colorful arrangement of people: two hippies, their cousin Damon, my friend Fei Fei from China, and my beautiful elf boyfriend. We stopped periodically to stretch, relax, and eat - then finally arrived at 1 am to join Anna's bonfire in the Gaslight Village.

Anna and Erica 

I met Anna and Erica in India the winter of 2014/15 when I studied abroad with a University of Iowa studio art program. Both have blue hair, which made them star attractions to locals all over India. Though we only spent a bit over three weeks together, we bonded over mutual sarcasm and chai. I promised to visit as soon as possible, though I didn't expect to see them only six months after that promise.

Sketchbook entry - outside Anna's house on Brown Street: In Iowa, everything starts to look like poetry - like the signs lining the street that say "No parking on odd days." We laughed. Can you mail back the ticket, arguing that today was a perfectly normal day, a very standard day? We joked about the reasons behind the sign - maybe on odd days you're more likely to get into an accident, we reasoned.

The Gaslight Village

Upon arrival, Anna took me to the side and asked, "You can't play chess here." 

I nodded in an exhausted haze while Anna explained, "The gaslight village has a weird history. It was designed by Henry Black." She pointed out the oddities surrounding us: buildings cobbled together with an alarming randomness. A wall lined with appropriated tombstones. And, she whispered, a basement door with the scratched out remnants of the word "DEAD".

Some years ago, Anna said, two methheads sat playing chess. One grew angry and smashed the other's head in. Later, a third person passed by. Upon seeing the dead body, they wrote the word DEAD onto the door. 

The path to the door was dark and creepy, under construction, and lined with disturbing murals and partial poems. The Gaslight Village is the outdated home to sixty or so tenants, ranging from art students to misguided writing professors. I didn't take any pictures. There was too much to take in, and I was certain I would die down there beneath the ground. I traced the "E" with my finger. It was just barely there, obscured by countless other scraped away leavings.

Day of Gay Pride

It just so happened that we arrived in Iowa City during a weekend of gay pride events, so Anna was immersed in tabling events. On our way to a farmer's market we passed three stunning queens. 

"Can we take your picture?" asked my beautiful elf boyfriend.

"We're late to the parade," one responded, irritated. So we just stood and admired as they passed by.

The city was awash with pride from cross-dressers to drag queens to small children with rainbow-dyed hair. And yet I couldn't stop looking to the ground, where the sidewalk was peppered with poetry and quotes engraved into the concrete. Every few steps, I had to pause to read.

Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. -Flannery O'Connor

Hamburg Inn

We stopped for a snack at the Hamburg Inn. My beautiful elf boyfriend went to the writer's workshop at the University of Iowa when he was fifteen, and he urgently remembered pie shakes. One picks from an array of pies, then a slice is whirred into an ice cream shake. I learned with few regrets that pie shakes only come in a size large. The pieces of apple pie crust sunk to the bottom were like a reward after a hard day's work. Fei Fei laughed as my eyes glazed over.

Tornado

We were hot and dirty, so we made a quick stop at the lake to swim and relax.

Sketch by me - Coralville Lake

But our visit was cut short by the the heavy roll of thick, dark clouds. A park ranger warned us of high winds and possible hail. We booked it back to Anna's street, folding out the seats into a massive bed to settle in for Cards Against Humanity. But Anna texted me with increasing urgency about forming funnels nearby, high winds, and a tornado watch. We sheltered in her house for a few hours, only returning outside briefly to pick up Mediterranean food from Oasis. We hunkered down to eat lamb, tahini, and falafel. The tornado never formed, but the sky outside turned an eerie yellow. We went outside to stare. "We don't have yellow in Connecticut," I told Anna.

We had planned on checking out a drag show at the Studio 13 bar, but decided to instead drive straight through the night to Chicago. We were taking a roundabout path because the two hippies had tickets in Michigan to see Electric Forest, a music festival. So we were killing time circling around until June 24.

But we had one final stop. The beautiful elf boyfriend recalled a strange sculpture in a graveyard. Us three girls huddled together in a steamy swarm of mosquitos as the boys ran wildly all across the graveyard, searching for a looming angel. We joined them under the two spread wings, the wet ground rising between my toes. I looked at this stranger's grave. She had died so long ago, her husband inevitably dead as well, and yet only his birth date was engraved onto the stone. The death date was left empty. I pictured an immortal man, one who had been married to an angel. Then I poked the ground with my foot, thinking of an empty plot. I imagined myself beneath the ground. June 19, 2015.

SIX TIMES WHEN HAVING YOUR FIRST UNDERGRADUATE SOLO SHOW IS A WONDERFUL BUT NERVE-WRACKING EXPERIENCE

1. When the room is giant and empty and full of potential

and your beautiful elf boyfriend has a cooler jumpsuit than you

2. When your beautiful elf boyfriend is supposed to help but he is too busy being beautiful

and he made a bet with you that he'd stop playing Vain Glory on his IPad for
two weeks if you do a handstand for ten seconds, but you can't figure out how to do it

3. When your friend is supposed to help but she is too busy sleeping

and you're so deliriously tired that you consider using her in
your art show as a performance art piece

4. When you're rushing too much to get the keys for the tools closet so you squeeze through the bars instead

and you're so stressed out about having less than a week to
install your first ever show that you've lost enough weight
to actually fit

5. When even your sugar glider is stressing out

and you just want to reminisce on your own glory days of relaxing
in a pineapple, except you never had any days like that

6. When you're broke so you make all the food yourself

and the chocolate strawberries turn out great but your beautiful
elf boyfriend made them, not you

and you put candied dried flowers onto the cupcakes
as decoration but people actually eat them

Top Five Reasons Why I Loved My Time at UConn

A strangely picturesque view of South Parking Lot

I was skeptical at first, but I loved UConn in the end and here's why:

Metropolitan Opera: Behind the scenes

Spring Semester of Undergrad, 2015

A crooked iphone photo of the Met Opera

For a lady obsessed with cities and clusters of people, the University of Connecticut felt like a farm. I quickly developed a history of escapades to New York City, some three hours away. My drug of choice: the Metropolitan Opera.

I first joined the Met Opera trip as part of the Leadership Legacy Experience. We were meant to bond as a group, so of course I snuck my boyfriend along. In fact, it was our first ever date. My fabulous and very gay friend from Leadership Legacy accompanied us as we shopped for suits, ate $1 pizza, and slept through an extravagant opera performance. As I sat watching my two boys admire their own slender profiles in suits they couldn't afford early that day, I felt a warmth spread through my chest despite the chill winter air. I might have been a bit of a third wheel on my own date, but I was in love with life.

My next visit to the Met was less of a whirlwind thrill. My Oma (grandmother) was dying in Queens, NY and I had no car, no family willing to help me visit her. UConn students were required to sit through an opera rehearsal in the morning before a stingy allowance of only two and a half hours of free time - after which attendance was mandatory at the evening performance. On the bus ride to NYC I quietly drew the trip coordinator aside and explained my situation, dreading all the while that the words coming out of my mouth sounded like excuses and lies. Please believe me, I begged internally. My Oma is alone.

"Can I visit her in Queens during the rehearsal? I promise I'll make it back for the main opera."

Without breaking stride he responded, "We never had this conversation." For a moment I wondered if I understood him correctly. I fretted. I overthought his every word.

Heart pounding as we got off the bus in front of the Met, I tore away from the group, ears aflame, head down. I walked in the opposite direction towards the 1 train without looking back. My identity changed on the hour and fifteen minute trip to my Orthodox Jewish grandmother. I pulled on a long, shapeless skirt over my short opera dress. A jacket hid my shoulders and a scarf covered my bare skin up to my chin.

All my anxieties came pouring out. My fear of getting lost, of new places, of talking to workers I don't know. "I'm looking for my Oma. Ilse Norton. I'm her grandchild." I blurted out to the receptionist. I was nervous, but there was no cause for concern. I quickly found myself in my Oma's hospice room. Her skin was a myriad of pale yellows and greens, draped over bone like thin paper. But her smile spoke of joy. We discussed operas. I begged her to eat. She complained about her Jamaican caretaker - I always did think it was ironic that a Holocaust survivor could be so unequivocally racist - and she praised the two Orthodox girls who visited her weekly. I tried to tell her about my nonJewish boyfriend, but she was very suddenly deaf. Before I knew it, I had to leave. She turned her head in relief and fell asleep.

"Visit her more often," the caretaker asked. "I have never seen her so happy. And she needs to eat!"

It was the last time I ever saw her.

----------------------------------------------------

But it wasn't the last time I went to the Met Opera. Days before the bus was set to depart, and with a full waiting list at that, the boyfriend and I realized we wanted to go along. I emailed the trip coordinator directly and had an unusual bit of luck: he needed a student to take over UConn's official Instagram for the day. Not only could we come along, but I would be the official photographer and invited backstage for a tour along with the Dean of the School of Fine Arts and members of the Board of Trustees.

Naturally, since this was a trip of refined culture and prestigious administrators, I blogged about dumplings, art supplies, and drawing my friend Fei Fei. Not pictured: the obliging boyfriend taking pictures with my phone.

From left to right: me and Fei Fei, delicious dumpling lunch,
my drawing of Fei Fei, who drew the cooks

The Dumpling Man (@ 100 St. Marks Place) has been my favorite go-to for cheap and delicious dumplings for years. Whenever a friend is relying on me for a recommendation, that's where I go, because everyone leaves satisfied.

Glorious art supplies at New York Central Art Supply

New York Central Art Supply is my favorite art supply haunt. Unlike Utrecht and Dick Blick's, NYCAS has a personalized atmosphere. Crowded, tiny, and packed to the ceiling with supplies, there is something for everyone. I never leave without a new pen and at least one soft pastel stick, cradled dustily in its paper.

And yet - somehow - the backstage tour of the opera house surpassed both dumplings and art supplies. At their core, these were artists. I don't know how I didn't realize it before, but somehow I didn't recognize the performers and hands and directors and peers until I saw the insane mess backstage. It felt like my studio space. It felt like home. "No pictures allowed here," said our tour guide. I grinned back at him with vacuous eyes. Click.

Floating house props framed by tons of clutter

Finally, at last, the main event. A thrilling performance of La Bohème. How do you use words to describe an opera? Have you noticed that I went an entire blog entry about opera without once describing the music?

My hand brushed Antonio's and I felt energy from the tips of my fingernails straight through to my core. The translation screens on the backs of the seats were angled so I could see only my own, and the row going straight ahead, and so my mind carried that glow in sync with the music - the chandeliers - the movement of the set and the dance of the actors. An out of body experience: I was in my seat, reading words, and yet I was on stage. In stage. Only the story existed, the story and Antonio's arm around my shoulders.

Paper is Life

A repost from January 11 2015 - In Jaipur

PAPER !

Every artist has that feeling of awe and excitement when they walk into an art store. Some go straight to the paints, others make a beeline for the pens. As for myself, you can find me in the paper section.

When our tour guide Amit asked for an India wish list from each of us, the requests were numerous: my peers asked for everything from henna to elephant rides. But I had only one item on my mind: handmade paper. 

And oh, did he deliver! Yesterday I found myself at a paper making factory. I entered each room with delight and exited with a sense of loss (quickly, of course, replaced by enthusiasm for the next room). There were stacks of paper piled to the ceiling. Orange paper, dusky purple paper, paper with embedded dried flowers. Paper hanging on clothes lines. Wet pulp getting made into paper. Strips of cloth getting made into wet pulp. Crisp, perfect paper. When we took our chai break, we drank while sitting on sheets of paper outside on the ground. I rubbed the dingy worn corners between my thumb and forefinger.

Once back inside, I learned how to make paper, covering my new kurta (a kind of shirt/dress) with a bit of plastic tied on by string. I spread paper pulp over metal mesh in freezing cold water, then stretched a piece of cloth over the sheet. Working with a classmate, we laid hand over hand to flip and press the paper into a pile.

Though the factory workers laughed frequently at my ineptitude, I was sad when it was time to stop, yet fascinated as I watched machinery press the water out the sides of the paper stacks. I wiped away thick, pulpy water with my hand only to watch more seep out.

But the best part was last. I think I hit the pinnacle of happiness in that factory’s paper sample shop. I picked up every sketchbook in zombie like worship. When a worker handed me a bag to carry my intended purchases I thought, “oh, I don’t need this. I won’t be buying that much,” only to take a second bag before filling the first. The bags, of course, were handmade paper.

I literally sank to my knees when I entered the room full of hundreds of sheets of paper for sale. Rather than waste any time on the floor I seized the opportunity to survey paper on the bottom racks, pulling out glorious pieces of deep plums and turquoise. “35 rupees a sheet,” a worker warned me as though I was acting like a crazy person. I think my eyes might have filmed over. What he thought was expensive was only a fraction of the cost of paper at my local art store back at home.

I don’t know if it’s even possible for me to transport all that paper home. I may need to stay in India.

A worker's tshirt - either he doesn't speak English, doesn't share my appreciation of paper factories, or both.

The Barefoot College in Tilonia

Day ??? in India

I stayed for a few days at the Barefoot College in Tilonia. The moment my class got out of our tour bus, which was incongruous and large in the village’s dirt-packed roads, we were greeted by a tiny starving puppy. We named him The Taj Mahal in recognition of an ongoing inside joke - in our admittedly ironic attempt to make fun of other tourists, we would point at random buildings to ask "Is this the Taj Mahal? Is that the Taj Mahal?”

Maybe it’s fate that after two weeks of outright ignoring beggars, we bonded with an abandoned puppy. A small taste of empathy to counter a lifetime of Westernized opulence. A few minutes of petting a puppy before we passed around hand sanitizer and headed into the gift shop.

The Barefoot College operates on a single idea: village life has value. That is to say, illiteracy is no burden, anyone can learn by doing, and there is no need to urbanize. There are 14 different activities at the Barefoot College, including crafts, puppetry, and more. The crowning glory, I would say, is the all-women solar engineering program. Women are brought in from the poorest villages all over the world. The college gives preference to grandmothers because young men tend to demand a certificate upon completion and then get a job in a city, whereas grandmothers have roots. For six months the women train, many of them illiterate, and with no common language. The teachers are not “educated professionals” but former Barefoot students themselves. Then, the graduates return to their respective villages to set up between 50 to 100 homes with solar power.

We were there not only as guests, but also to work. First, we went on a quick tour of the facilities. The dentist, I learned, did not go to school for dentistry. She was trained for a few months by an Italian dentist and now performs basic procedures on the villagers, some of whom were born at the Barefoot College and stayed.

When we visited the night school, the village children’s teacher explained to them that the cost of my round trip plane ticket to India was the same as one of their families made in an entire year. He asked them, “why do you think the Americans came here?”

“To see our school!” one child replied.

Rickshaw in Mathura

A post from Mathura, India - December 2014

“Make sure you keep the rickshaws in a single file line,” warned Amit, renowned art curator and – incongruously enough – our tour guide in Mathura.

“How?” I asked. “We’re not the ones pedaling.”

“Keep the rickshaws in a single file line,” he oh-so-helpfully explained.

Three cows, several cars and innumerable motorcycles later, I was not even sure where the rest of the group had gone. Rainwater fell into my lap through the tattered canvas ceiling. I reached out to touch a mud-drenched cow as we passed by, holding back at the last moment from its downy soft eyes. I drew my hand back hastily as we jarred over a pothole. The rickshaw driver shot me a gaping grin. He hooted as another rickshaw tried to pass us, and started to cycle faster. 

When we arrived at a temple for an Aarti ceremony, we were warned that we must remove our shoes at the outdoor alter. I recalled how many times I had spotted men urinating into the streets. I watched garbage float past in the unrelenting rain. But when I saw women draped in deep red cloth standing knee-deep in the river, I removed my shoes and embraced the cold water. Why come all the way to India only to balk at getting wet?
The priest chanted over an altar, going at a practiced pace so we could repeat the words. He gave us all flowers to place on the altar and poured milk down its sides. We cupped our hands to receive each benediction. As the sun set, I thought how I had not yet lit candles for Shabbat. Slowly, I stopped repeating the priest’s intonation. I pushed wet hair out of my eyes and thought wistfully of dry clothes. 

It’s a fine line for the atheistic Jew, celebrating customs without much deeper belief. I felt an uncomfortable kinship with the Hindu rituals. But I leaned forward anyway so the priest could press henna on my forehead in-between my eyes. By then, it was pitch black outside and Shabbat had begun whether I lit candles or not.
There was dense traffic on the journey back to the hotel. In India, honking is not only common but also necessary, as people often ignore marked lanes and must give warning. Honking expanded into sheer frustration as the roads became entirely blocked. The noise compressed and expanded, taking on a life of its own, rising up like prayer. The road was lined with stares: I rode with my friend Anna, whose bright blue hair often reminded the locals of deities like Shiva and Kali. Ever mischievous, Anne ululated with the cars and we laughed into the messy night.

Day 1 in Delhi: An entry from December 2014

A travel entry from December 2015

If the fourteen-hour flight to India was death, then I suppose that the seven-hour art history lesson today was purgatory. The woman who held the lecture today was a knowledgeable woman with a detailed PowerPoint. I looked her directly in the eyes as I fell asleep over and over again.

As I awoke from one particularly vivid dream about a violent bearded man, I wondered how everyone else was staying awake. I realized I was the only one not taking notes. Notes, I thought blearily. The professors leading the trip had encouraged us to draw during the class and I had taken that advice to heart. Not a single note marred the pages of my sketchbook. Instead I had drawn the speaker herself, surrounded by the images from her slideshow.

I fell asleep, and then woke again. One of our tour guides looked at me with concern and I answered her with what was meant to resemble a smile. She edged away from my grimace. Every time I closed my eyes I felt a gentle roaring at my temples. The very thought of a cool pillow was almost like the satisfaction of sleep.

To stay awake, I began to record how many times the speaker said “yeah?” or “you know?” in her gentle, pleading manner as she tried to drive each point home. Final count was ninety-five for “yeah?” and sixty-eight for “you know?” but to be fair, I fell asleep with over an hour left in the session.

I woke to one of the professors massaging my shoulders. I woke to ask a self-explanatory question (I believe it was something along the lines of why monks settled along the Silk Road, and the answer was obviously financial in nature).

I woke abruptly when I heard the speaker apologizing for taking too long. “NO,” I said too loudly, “this is good,” then fell back asleep.

And then finally, it was over. As I emerged blinking into the sun, I was reminded of exiting a plane, or perhaps of being expelled from a birthing canal. The rest of the day was a blur. I jumped out of the way of an aggressively running baboon. I loathed myself as I ignored a beggar. I stepped around skinny stray dogs. And yet, at the end of the day, I feel strangely triumphant. I’ve made it out of purgatory and I’m excited for the adventures of the next three weeks in India.