Chicago

Left to our own devices for the next couple of days, Caro and I wandered around Chicago marvelling at the buildings, drinking coffee and looking at the art that Chicagoans carelessly seems to leave lying around all over the place.  

Apparently they don't believe in museums or galleries, and stick art right on the pavement where you are liable to trip over it, or step in it (“Honey!  I got art on my shoe!”).  Apparently, they did a very successful exhibition of street cows in 2000, with cows of different designs everywhere.  

I'm not kidding.  

In 2001 it was chairs, which are very funky but also functional as we realised when we looked around and spotted tourists recovering from long walks around the city by reclining on brightly painted chairs covered in sequins, chairs with mannequin heads, chairs made to look like animals.  It was surreal but charming at the same time, and this is the way art should be, I think.  

I mean, you could go around a gallery looking at a bunch of chairs, but that's nowhere near as fun as just walking around going, "Jesus! Didja see THAT one?!"
Bearing that last comment in mind, you might believe Caro and I art-morons.  Actually, you are quite right, so it is surprising that we went to an art exhibition while in Chicago.  OooooOOOoooo!!!  Isn't THAT a bit la-di-da for a couple of Jerry Springer watching lowbrows like us!?  

Don't worry. It may have been at the Terra Modern Art Museum, but it was an exhibition called "New York Noir - Crime Pictures from the 20's to the 60's".  I know Caro loves this sort of thing.  Caro is OBSESSED with True Crime.  She always has had a whole thing about gangsters and the Cosa Nostra, but while in America she discovered the A&E channel.  

This is a bad thing.  

I believe A&E is supposed to stand for Arts and Entertainment, but in actuality stands for Accident and Emergency, due to the amount of blood and gore on display.  Every Tuesday night, it was "Truce Crime Night” when they showed programmes like, "The New Detectives" a real-life show about forensic science in which cameras take you into the morgue while pathologists discuss fatty tissue deposits and powder burns.  This goes on into the early hours of the morning, with "The Justice Files", "The FBI Files", "Arrest and Trial", "American Justice" and so forth.  Many was the night I fell  asleep while some narrator droned on about bodies being discovered deep in the woods, partially consumed by insects when she was found...

It don't half mess with your dreams, I can tell you.

So Caro thoroughly enjoyed the collection of rather gory pictures, all accompanied by text on the various unfortunate gangsters, molls, pimps, prostitutes, murderers, bankrobbers and blackmailers.  The most notable picture was of a woman actually being electrocuted in the 1930's.  This had been taken by an enterprising reporter who had a remote control camera strapped to his ankle.  The headline on the newspaper read, "DEAD!" which certainly puts "Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster" into perspective.

Of course, Caro's love of crime wasn't satiated by this alone.  We were in the city of Al Capone after all. Not that you would know this from Chicago brochures and tourist information.  I mean, we all know Chicago is the Gangster City, but NO IT BLOODY WELL ISN'T says the tourist board.  It's the Second City!  It's the city of The Blues!!  Look, will you just SHUT UP about crime!!

As if.