Term

The baby is full term as of today. If labor comes, labor stays.

We gave her a name tonight. It has three syllables.

Hiatus

I wish I had more time to post, really I do. There is much to share or, in the very least, to process aloud. We're roughly 8 weeks out from the due date, which is causing significant marveling when we can spare the time. This presence, this expanding belly, this persuasive roll of a leg or a hand against my hands, my cheek- how every moment I can spare I am talking to it, to her, to the belly, to what lies just behind it, gaining half pounds by the week, shielding her eyes from bright light, taking note of our voices. We have names for her, gathering about, staking claim...but we haven't settled on any.

School and work are keeping me monstrously busy. So we imagine all that we'd like to write about, but know that this is going to have to wait until late December before we'll again have time...between feedings, burpings, changings, rockings...this is when we'll have much to say.

Context

This is hilarious. The use of Gabriel's Salisbury Hill is perfect, transforming The Shining into a Cameron Crowe vehicle.

"The Librarian," Giuseppe Arcimboldo

300px-The_Librarian
Originally uploaded by chrisbreitenbach.

The great painting on your right was done in 1556 by Guiseppe Arcimboldo and accompanies the Widipedia entry for Librarian. Given that I still have a lot of ambiguity concerning this career path I've chosen, great pieces of art, like this one (disarmingly modern, unbelievably archaic) help make things more interesting, if not necessary clearer.

I feel I've spent the last couple of weeks reacaquainting myself to the vagaries of time management. Prior to this, there was a lot of time and space occupied by fretting, so my ability to negotiate priorities was already compromised. I'm still getting a handle on how much time school related work is going to take up (this is where Netflix really comes in handy) and no doubt beginning a new job on Friday will throw yet another wrench into the works as I work on governing my time. But for now I'm feeling tentatively hopeful. This isn't to say I feel I made the wrong choice, anything but. This seems like the right thing to be doing right now and it was definitely time to step forward and lay claim to one of these interests that has been hovering in my peripheral for so long. I'm certainly looking forward to defining even more precisely what I want to do with this- just what kind of librarian I want to be. Working in the audio/visual field of things is, not surprisingly, incredibly appealing- but there are many areas of the profession that this could extend to, so zeroing in on what's best for me will take some consideration.

In any case, I'll no doubt be writing much more about this profession over the next couple of years. For now, it's way past my bed time.

From the 23rd Floor

Wait, Karl Rove is in charge of the reconstruction efforts?

It was nice of George to step forward and address the nation 2 1/2 weeks after one of the worst natural disasters the country has ever suffered. That he waited so long doesn't exactly mean he's feeling contrite so much as it speaks to the political expediency of the moment. What with poll numbers dropping so low (oh, that little ebb amongst the Republican stalwart!) all that awful press, all that FEMA bumbling. Now isn't the time for finger pointing. No, sir! Now is the time to take a couple weeks to see if your plan to blame local and state officials gains any traction, and if not, well, then, head on down to offer a Marshall Plan. And make sure all that unprecedented federal spending lines the pockets of your buddies!

Of course, some of those so-called fiscal conservatives start getting itchy about throwing so much money at black folks. They're worried, like Republican Senator Jim DeMint, that "throwing more and more money without accountability at this is not going to solve the problem." I don't have time to look right now, but I'd hazard a guess that Jim has supported every Iraq spending bill that's come up since he was elected in '04 without caring all that much that we've been unloading upwards of over a billion a week in that fiasco without much in the way of what legitimitly could be be called accountability.

Cathy's here. I'm writing from my in-law's apartment. We're heading out to celebrate my new job.

You Just Wait

I'm still here, it's just school, work and the baby that have not so unexpectedly gotten in the way. In fact, I'm in the middle of writing my first paper right now. It's been a while since I had to do this under a deadline. Almost 10 years now. A little difficult getting the engine started but I'm progressing along nicely now, thanks to some Honker's Ale and Cannonball Adderley. More on this, I hope, at a later date.

It's going to be difficult for me not to want to write about the baby. I know this must be mundane for most, but it's by far the most momentous and fascinating and exciting thing that I've got going on. How can you not be hopeful? How can I not fawn? But I promise, I'll reign it in- I've been a victim previously of fatherly sentimental goo and it ain't pretty. Cathy's at 25 weeks and counting, a little shy of the third trimester and the little peanut is kicking up a storm. She's waking her mom up repeatedly (from discomfort and early morning work outs) and will soon be gaining upwards of half a pound a week. That's a lot of bubba being added to that little frame. We're taking baby classes on Wednesday nights and our teacher has had three children of her own and talks of vaginas, bloody shows and constipation like she was giving us tomorrow's weather forecast.

Paper's calling me.

Katrina

It’s been almost too hard to bear. Cathy and I sat watching the news on Friday morning barely able to speak- first and foremost because of the sheer level of human suffering and destruction we were seeing- but also because we were overwhelmed and outraged by the magnitude of this administration’s failure to meet the consequences of this tragedy with anything even remotely consonant with reality. And I’m not just talking about the utter lack of coordination, the baffling slow motion delivery of the most basic of human necessities or even the steady stream of habitual lies and distortions (“Sure, we were ready for a Hurricane," they say, " but never in our wildest nightmare scenarios did we ever imagine we’d have to deal with a Hurricane and a flood")- I’m also talking about the absence of anything even remotely smacking of leadership. This is a White House that went days before finally having their heads dislodged from their respective asses and bothering to examine a catastrophe that the rest of the nation had been watching unfold for days in horror. Still, 5 days after the greatest natural disaster this nation has ever faced I'm unaware of Bush having given a primetime national address addressing the public as to what this administration is prepared to do to help those in need. Do they have so little to offer, or are the conditions simply not politically advantagous enough to properly deal with yet?

Please check out Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu’s press release from earlier today regarding Bush’s tour on Friday of those areas devastated by Katrina. Here’s a quote to make your stomach churn:

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast -- black and white, rich and poor, young and old -- deserve far better from their national government.

It was a mother-fucking phony photo-op! Un-fucking believable. As of Saturday, unnamed New Orleans city officials were quoted in one Post article I read estimating that roughly 42,000 people were still remaining in the city. We all know what dire straits these folks are facing. Bush, justifiably I thought, had told Dianne Sawyer in his interview with her on Thursday morning (where he now infamously said, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees”) that the security coordination necessary for getting him into the area without disrupting rescue efforts was one of the reasons he had yet to go. Or perhaps, as truly seems the case, his staff needed a bit more time to ensure the necessary props were in place to offer the necessary can-do pomp. When reality isn’t prepared to meet this administration’s expectations, artifice always is. In the face of untold and ongoing calamity they choose political expediency. Look, behold, see George getting things done! And this parade of grotesqueries grows ever longer when you read and discover that, "Three tons of food ready for delivery by air to refugees in St. Bernard Parish and on Algiers Point sat on the Crescent City Connection bridge Friday afternoon as air traffic was halted because of President Bush’s visit to New Orleans.”

And you’ve probably seen or heard the head of FEMA, Michael Brown lately. He, like the head of Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, were both unaware until, what was it, Thursday? that thousands of folks had been all but abandoned in the New Orleans convention center. You have to watch Brown’s interview with Ted Koppel, where he responds to this most glaring of oversights, to believe it. Crooks and Liars has the video feed but you may have to scroll down a ways to find it.

And speaking of Brown. This guy, unsurprisingly, is just another dude on the Bush administration’s cronyism bandwagon. Here are some choice quotes from a NYT’s article about his background:

Mr. Brown, 50, is a Republican lawyer who worked for the International Arabian Horse Association before joining FEMA in 2001 as general counsel. This week he has become the public face of an agency that critics say has lost focus and clout since it was absorbed in 2003 by the new Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. Brown was brought to FEMA in 2001 by the then-director, Joe M. Allbaugh, an old friend who had run Mr. Bush's first presidential campaign. He was promoted to deputy director in 2002 and to director in 2003

Well, first thing that catches you is the International Arabian Horse Association. You can’t make this stuff up. And then there’s this:

Brown was forced out of the position after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures.

"He was asked to resign,'" Bill Pennington, president of the IAHA at the time, confirmed last night.

And you might with good reason be asking yourself, I know I am, how working for 11 years as commissioner of a breeders’ and horse show organization, an organization you were forced out of because of your incompetence, would prepare you for heading up the largest emergency management agency in the world. According to everything I’ve read, Brown has had no experience, ever, in this area. So, you know, it’s maybe not so surprising that he had no idea over 5000 people were dying in a convention center they had originally been told to take refuge in. Had they been Arabian horses on the other hand…

What’s going to be tough to see over the next few days is just how this administration goes about passing the buck. We know, from 5 excruciating years of experience, that this administration is never accountable for anything. But this time, as Andrew Sullivan wrote, “The gap between Bush rhetoric and reality in America is stunning.”

CNN has gone and collected quotes from different administration officials that really brings this disconnect home. Read it here.

And they’re already shifting tactics, lining up convenient culprits and aiming to shift the burden of blame squarely on the shoulders of local and state officials. This, from a Post article that just went up:

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

It’s all that woman’s fault! If only she wasn’t so stubborn. If only she put herself in our ready and willing hands instead of dragging her feet.

Later, there’s this one from Chertoff to really bring the strategy home:

In a Washington briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said one reason federal assets were not used more quickly was "because our constitutional system really places the primary authority in each state with the governor."

You can see where they want to go with this. We expected the state and locals system to take care of this. Or, in the very least, to take care of the complex legalities necessary to allow for the Feds to adequately take over. We’re so sensitive to the rights of states, we always have been. So, you know, we hung back, wrung out hands, and honored the constitution while we waited for them to reach out for assistance. Dan, take it away:

The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana.

Philip Glass Is the Family Dog

Philip Glass 1973
Originally uploaded by chrisbreitenbach.

In the dream I had last night I was driving in a Minivan with my immediate family. At least I’m pretty sure it was my immediate family, dream logic being so screwy and all. A mournful song was playing on the radio and somebody asked if I knew who the artist was. Speaking authoritatively, I said it was a Philip Glass piece from the early 80’s. I was interrupted, however, by a rumpled Philip Glass himself, who was lying in the far back of the car’s interior, the space usually reserved for luggage, groceries and the occasional minimalist composer. “Actually, “ he refuted, much to my embarrassment, “it’s an 18th century composition, one that has had quite an impact on my own work.” He rummaged about the space and held up a CD. “I think the folks at Telarc have the finest version of this piece available.” Calling me on my mistake, one of my older brothers laughingly pointed to Philip Glass and said, “From no less an authority then the man himself.”

I also recently had a dream about our baby talking at 2 weeks.

Poor Richard's Armonica and Septuagenarian Desires

armonica
Originally uploaded by chrisbreitenbach.

I had no idea that, among his numerous other inventions (the lightning rod and bifocals being among the most well known) Benjamin Franklin also invented a popular, at least in its day, musical instrument called the Armonica. Here’s an excerpt from H.W. Brands alternatingly grueling and fascinating biography of Franklin, The First Amarican:

Franklin did not exaggerate when he described the armonica’s tones as “incomparably sweet.” They had a haunting, ethereal quality, much like that which would characterize “New Age” music more than two hundred years later. Franklin quickly became adept at playing, and took to entertaining guests on the instrument. Others followed his lead. Marianne Davies, a singer who played flute and harpsichord- and who was another young woman charmed by Franklin- became proficient enough to offer public performances. For a time the armonica achieved a genuine vogue. Royal wedding vows were exchanged in Vienna to armonica accompaniment; some of the greatest composers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, including Mozart and Beethoven, wrote for Franklin’s instruments.

You can play an approximation of the Armonica here.

Of those core (and near mythological) founding fathers, Franklin is the one I’d most like to share a beer with. Washington was too regal, Adams too puritanical, Hamilton too overwhelmingly scintillating and Jefferson and Madison too connivingly political. Franklin, however, seems the most human, a Renaissance man securely tethered to the joys of the quotidian, a polymath able to hold his own with experts in the fields (to name just a handful) of geology, linguistics or electricity and yet never flaunting his intellectual prowess to such an extent or degree as to miss the opportunity to gain the affection of the common man. He, of all the founding fathers had the best sense of humor, the most flirtatious sense of fun and the most unwavering and appealing temperament. Of all the founding fathers, Franklin is the only one I can imagine barreling down a water slide, spilling out into the waiting pool and emerging with an amused smile and sparkle in the eye ready for another go.

He was also a notorious, highly accomplished flirt. One of the ways history has distilled Franklin’s character, or that of any of the founding fathers, is to trim away anything but the mythos-Washington chopping down the cherry-tree, for example, or Franklin and his electric kite. To become an icon is to lose nuance, shades and degrees of an otherwise complex life lost to the majority in favor of readily digestible fable. So, in addition to his juiced up kite, most folks, I’m assuming, know something (maybe just a hint) of Franklin’s reputation as a lover. Brand thankfully helps to shed more light on Franklin’s amorous charms, focusing most intensely on his time in Paris when Congress had appointed Franklin to a Committee of Secret Correspondence in hopes of gaining foreign support, namely that of France, for the war back home.

Then in his 70’s, Franklin was well known and adored by the French, who considered him one of their own. In between his talks with Comte de Bergennes, King Louis’s foreign minister, Franklin stayed in the rustic village of Passy, just outside Paris where he summoned his many septuagenarian charms in service of wooing numerous objects of affection.

Madame Foucalt, sister of Madame Chaumot who in turn was the wife of Franklin’s landlord, Jacques Donatien Leray of Nantes, was one such pursued interest. Brand quotes liberally from their letters, the sparring contents of which are a blast to read, with Franklin administering a variety of deliciously naughty reasons why she should sleep with him while she nimbly curtsies and denies him. Franklin tries again:

Adopting yet another analogy, he likened their sparring to war, and proposed a preliminary peace treaty.

Art. 1. There shall be eternal peace, friendship and love between Madame B. and Mr. F.

Art. 2. In order to maintain the same inviolably, Made. B. on her part stipulates and agrees that Mr. F. shall come to her
whenever she sends him.

Art. 3. That he shall stay with her as long as he pleases.

A few more concessions on his part, then:

Art. 8. That when he is with her he will do what he pleases.

Art. 9. And that he will love any other woman as far as he finds her amiable.

Let me know what you think of these preliminaries. To me they seem to express the true meaning and intention of each party more plainly than most treaties. I shall insist pretty strongly on the eighth article, though without much hope of your consent to it. And on the ninth, also, though I despair of ever finding another women that I could love with equal tenderness.

Ben Franklin, founding father, septuagenarian stud extraordinaire.

Beyond Narrative

Mirror
Originally uploaded by chrisbreitenbach.

Though you may not pick up on it at first, there’s a narrative, albeit sublimely fractured, weaving through this film, one Tarkovsky was miffed others couldn’t easily grasp or felt necessary to overburden with symbolism. “It’s no more then a straightforward, simple story,” he assured one prying interviewer, though I can’t help but think this assertion of the film’s simplicity, and even that the narrative is readily apperent, was anything but feigned.

Because we’re all hopelessly tethered to reason, films that eschew the linear can often try our patience. It can make for a rough viewing when things don’t seem to be making narrative sense. You end up with that prickly feeling, you shift around in your seat and think, “Geez, what am I missing here? Does everybody else get this?” Or, more importantly for the health of your sanity, you can give yourself over to the fact that, especially in this instance, the filmmaker probably didn’t expect you to make sense of the film anymore then they could make sense of it themselves. I almost fell asleep twice watching Mirror, but I loved every second of it. Its animating force, illusive as it is, gains in power until it begins to overwhelm.

Mirror was supposedly the most biographic of Tarkovsky’s 7 films. It freely leaps between pre-war Russia, wartime and postwar Russia in the 60’s where an unseen narrator oftentimes reads poetry. (The poems were written by Tarkovsky’s father.) As such, it’s a stunningly, ravishingly hypnotic collection of images, passages and moods. It’s the ambience that carries you, sustained and haunted- with some of the most powerful passages involving wind blowing through fields, leaves, and billowing curtains. Like our own memory, the film is restless, fragmented and episodic. Themes come into focus only to dissolve. It’s an interior dialogue in all its glorious inexactness and lies just beyond the reach and conceits of narrative.

Free the Bean

Free the Bean
Originally uploaded by chrisbreitenbach.

The picture to your right is the view from the 23rd floor of my in-laws new condo located downtown. Very nice. They’ve wanted to have a place in the city for a long time now, so we’re excited to welcome them to the neighborhood. They’ll split their time between here and their other pad in Naperville. It’ll certainly save on their traveling time (and ours!) once the baby arrives.

Speaking of which, she gave her Dad a little kick on Wednesday night. 3, in fact, so as make certain I knew it was her and not her Mom. Just about the most awesome thing ever. Cathy’s 22 weeks today.

Identity Technology

Maybe it’s time somebody collected a books worth of essays on the iPod and its inter/intrapersonal repercussions? And doesn’t the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self sound terribly interesting? I mean, wow, those site graphics of an old slab of vinyl, a cassette abutting an unspooled reel to reel, a super 8 and clunky videocassette are so redolent of this initiative’s promise of investigating that fascinating intersect of technology and identity that I’d love to read some of the stuff they’ve compiled.

I’ve had a lot of inchoate thoughts regarding technology as a reflection of who we are as people so it’s exciting to see folks with more discipline making an earnest effort to understand how this relationship affects us interpersonally as well as, and maybe more importantly, intrapersonally.

This reminds me, I picked up a book recently that was right up this intrapersonal ally. It’s Geoffrey O’Brien’s Sonota For Jukebox: Pop Music, Memory and the Imagined Life. Here’s a blurb from a review:

For O'Brien recorded music -- especially those songs and records that got listened to obsessively, often in one's youth -- becomes a sort of memory-retrieval device, a flawed one, but still a way to tap into recollections of things past, as potent and evocative as a snapshot of a long-lost friend or a deceased parent. "Inside those songs, I know, can be found whatever is left of whole days and weekends and seasons otherwise beyond retrieval. The trick is to locate the seams in the music that will permit an unraveling of what was woven into it," he writes about the Beach Boys.

I hope to get to this one soon.

Coming This Christmas

babyb_arm
Originally uploaded by chrisbreitenbach.

Here’s another picture of our impending domestic anarchy. It looks, like the previous picture I posted, as if she’s sucking a thumb. Well, yeah, the personal pronoun I just used was intentional. It’s a she. We had originally intended to keep the baby’s gender to ourselves but when we realized that each of us thought this had been a request made by the other and that, honestly, neither one of us really cared one way or the other, we decided to tell. “How sure are you?” I asked the doctor. “99% sure.”

Still, easy on the pink frilly stuff. Please.

When we had the ultrasound this past Thursday there was a resident being trained by the attending, so we let him explore for a while provided he took ultrasound pictures at our request. The images on the screen are, like the contents being revealed, in constant flux though he managed just fine and took us on a tour of her heart, feet, hands, spine and even the placenta and umbilical cord. Best of all, she was awake and active so we got to see her legs unfolding and poking out into the uterine walls.

Her due date is roughly December 23rd through the 25th. She will not, despite my repeated entreaties and the world’s great loss, be named Fern.

Baby B

Baby B
Originally uploaded by chrisbreitenbach.

Longer post to come.

Flutter

Ultrasound tomorrow afternoon. Scans will be up on Friday. The quickening came a little over a week ago now. I may or may not have actually felt the baby myself last night (I think it may have been Cathy’s hand fluttering against mine when she herself felt it move) so I imagine it’ll be another week or so before my palm is accommodated with a kick.

DJ Flatwater

DJ Flatwater
Originally uploaded by chrisbreitenbach.

I had the pleasure of DJing Sunday at this year’s Flatwater Classic for about 600 or so Chicago River friendly folks. I played for close to 6 hours, from about 10:00 am until 4:00 pm. Lot’s of people dancing as they took their canoes out of the water and numerous folks approaching to find out what I was playing right then, ten minutes ago and, like, about an hour ago, “you know, it was really nice, she sounded Russian.” Which, of course, was Gal Costa, who really sounded Portuguese and was singing Que Pena.

Other tracks played that good people were curious about:

Marjuragenta by Ghorwane
Shotgun Willie by Willie Nelson
2 More Dead by RJD2
Kinky Reggae by Bob Marley
O Filosofo by Jorge Ben
Rock Your Baby by George Macrae
As by Stevie Wonder (Oh, man, did this ever sound great in the haze and shimmy of the afternoon heat!)

There were a few others, but that’s what I remember from the top of my head. The best compliment of the day came from some 50-something dude who told me, “Man, I’ve been meaning to leave for like the past half hour but the music keeps me coming back.” Well, allright! Hear the music and multiply!

Funky D and His Fabulous Cassette Archive

d drums
Originally uploaded by chrisbreitenbach.

When Dennis turned 34 he decided what he really wanted was a set of drums. That we were all so lucky to know our birthday needs so well. I’ve become dangerously lame when it comes to my own birthday fortunes, forfeiting anything more adventurous then indulging my appetite for ever more books and music. Note to self: One of these days you should ask for an omnichord.

I spent some time with Dennis and his drums this past Monday. Neither one of us is anywhere within walking distance of the ambidextrous effortlessness necessary to really swing, but we both managed to hold down some meek but manageable grooves on the new set while the other added various percussive elements and barnyard hoots. Dennis recorded a lot of it on the trusty 880.

As Dennis begins to get a feel for the skins, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he’ll be inspired to put together an album of his recordings. He has one of the most impressive cassette libraries of personal recordings, dating back to the early 90’s, of anyone I know. In fact, one of my musical obsessions over the last few years has been to work with these tapes (which include a number of improvisations Dennis and I committed, for better or worse, worse probably, to 4-track back over the years), feeding interesting passages, riffs and percussion culled from this sonic molasses to my sampler and rebuilding the tracks from the inside out. The appeal, I think, comes from thinking of this 4-track tape collection as though it were some exotic cachet of sonic curiosities, a hodgepodge archive of musical meanderings waiting to be composted with the help of my sampler, ample sound processing and some Pro Tools editing.

Please, give the drummer some.

The River

Chicago Flatwater Classic 2004, photo by Matt Bins
Originally uploaded by chrisbreitenbach.

This past Saturday Mayor Daley released the Chicago River Agenda. Cathy has put a ton of work and vision into this and biased as I obviously am I can't recommend highly enough that you give it your attention.

No matter what you might ultimately think of Daley and his political priorities I know I’d be hard pressed to disprove his dedication to improving the natural environment of Chicago while in the process setting an exciting precedent for large urban cities throughout the US. Not to resort to a journalistic cliché, but Daley clearly seems to be eying his legacy, sizing up his contributions to the city and deciding, much to our benefit and his good credit, that ecological sustainability and the greening of Chicago’s infrastructure will continue to play a prominent role in defining it. Yes, glaring ecoproblems continue to exist, but it’s hard to avoid evidence of the progress he’s made.

What makes this even more exciting is the role Cathy gets to play in improving, protecting, balancing and enhancing the Chicago River aspects of this vision. That is to say:

-Improving water quality
-Protecting nature and wildlife in the city
-Balancing river uses
-Enhancing neighborhood and community life

You can read more about these goals in the agenda. Pay particular attention to page 11. It’s the one on Combined Sewer Overflows. It begins, “Chicago, like many older cities, has a combined sewer system that carries sewage and strormwater in the same pipes. During heavy rains, the system can become full and cause a mixture of stormwater and sewage to overflow into the river.” Yuck. The antiquated sewer system overflows ‘cause otherwise all that excess water would be appearing in your basement and ruining your excellent comic book collection.

Cathy and I have had dinner conversations about CSO’s. You bet we used the acronym! Over home cooked meals we imagined untreated or raw effluent, otherwise known as the collective intestinal outpouring of our cities near 3 million occupants odiously mixed with stormwater, dumping (pun intended!) into the river in impressive quantities. No doubt for some such talk would dampen a candlelit mood and the gentle coaxing of Marvin Gaye’s voice beckoning through the speakers. But it’s fascinating stuff, and Cathy knows her shit (pun intended again!) and hearing about how the city is tackling this challenge, among others, is one of the joys of having Cathy as an ally.

So, get out and give the Chicago River some much needed love. There are still a couple days left in the Chicago River Fishing Derby where all you gotta do is show up and be given all the particulars you need to fish in the loop. I hope someday we'll be able to fry up our catches and have them for lunch. And on Friday Cathy and I will be checking out the Chicago International Rowing Regatta where I'll be carefully judging the rallying merits of each boats coxswain. And next Sunday there's the Chicago Flatwater Classic which concludes at Ping Tom Memorial Park where I'll be haphazardly DJ'ing summery grooves on behalf of Friends of The Chicago River for the better part of the afternoon.


Update: I mistakingly linked the Chicago River Agenda to the Chicago Water Agenda from 2003. It's fixed now. Though, I gotta admit, the City's web page could really use some help.

Mirabilis Dictu, Peanut

sunflower
Originally uploaded by chrisbreitenbach.

There’s been an elephant in the room that this blog has yet to address. Cathy is in the family way. 17 weeks along at that. Among the many appealing changes currently underway, the past couple weeks has seen an expansive belly transformation, the shape of which now, to Cathy’s great pleasure, clearly denotes pregnancy.

In any case, it goes without saying that we’re both thrilled. In addition to the occasional “Oh, my god!” moment (a moment that has as its catalyst the contemplation of Cathy + Chris= 23 weeks and counting, the ramifications of which will surely astound!) we’ve also been reveling in what is, beyond our own intimate enthusiasms and enchantments, one of lives great quotidian conditions. It’s simultaneously mundane and irresistibly astonishing.

We can’t wait.

Joining the good news is my acceptance into Dominican University’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science. This means I’m one step closer to holding a position where I can both promote and freely provide my own cultural/media obsessions to an unsuspecting public. I have ardent dreams where I’m sending curious patrons home with sturdy copies of Laurie Anderson’s United States I-IV, Tony Gatlif’s Latcho Drome and Gore Vidal’s United States the fineness wherein slakes their demanding expectations and sends them back hankering for more. If this isn’t work disguised as play, I don’t know what is.

This, by the way, is hilarious. But only if you’ve been orbited by Tom Cruise the last couple of months.

What's Goin' On?

I feel as though I've been rather remiss in my posts of late. Soon.