Back in Chicago...

Returned from Sweden last Sunday afternoon, but have been too busy to post. My trip, by the way, was a success: Ira received her visa and will be joining me later this month. Our son, Daniel, (it still sounds strange to me), will join us hear for three weeks in July. Hopefully, I'll be able to get him into some jazz clubs. As he is an aspiring saxophonist, I really want him to experience Fred Anderson's Velvet Lounge.

When I arrived home Claire, my sister, was waiting for me at my apartment. Claire was in town for the Law & Society Association's 2004 conference and was staying at my place until Wednesday morning. Since we only get to see each other about once every two years or so, I wanted to make the most of our time together. At the same time I had to make final preparations for the "But is it Art?" course I'm teaching at UIC, which began on Wednesday, and catch up on all sorts of personal things that were left unattended in May.

In short, it's been a busy, but rewarding week. As always, it's good to be back in Chitown. I love this city, though I'll admit that the poverty remains something of a shock whenever I return from Sweden, which has a much more successful welfare system, in part because they haven't fought in a war for the past two-hundred years and tax kroners go primarily to fund projects at the local level. Ira told me that something like 90 or 95 percent of one's taxes are used at the local level. As a side note, I should say that Sweden's record of pacifism is quite admirable, though remaining 'neutral' in World War II strikes me as an act of extreme bad faith and quite cowardly. On the whole, however, the Swedes seem to have used their democracy to work out a savvy blend of socialist services with an innovative capitalist economy. But let me return stateside...

During her stay Claire and I went to the Art Institute, saw Jim Jarmusch's new film, Coffee and Cigarettes (which I'll report on another time), shopped in Wrigelyville, dined at Standard India's buffet, and just hung out together. It was a lot of fun, and I hope we'll get a chance to see each other again in August, when Ira will be here. At the Art Institute, we spent the majority of our visit in the modernist and contemporary art section. I needed to spend some time taking in the Abstract Expressionist paintings in preparation for teaching Vonnegut's Bluebeard, a fictional autobiography written by a 'erstwhile' Abstract Expressionist painter named Rabo Karabekian. I'm also teaching a book titled A Flight of Birds, which features fiction and poetry inspired by some of Joseph Cornell's boxes, so we spent a fair amount of time leisurely taking in the Bergman's fabulous collection of surrealist art.

I'm hoping that I get a chance to take my English 109 class to the Art Instutute. I'm quite excited about this class, but will save my posts for that later. I need to eat and should get outside since it's a beautiful day. Although I should stay in and write, I think I'll go to Montrose Beach and read Richard Powers' Plowing the Dark and/or Walter Benn Michaels's The Shape of the Signifier.

Signing off...