Listing Through Life

After a day of redecorating our dining room, I headed out for more adventure accompanied by my wife and daughter. We headed to downtown Barrington for supper at Boloney’s and a movie at The Catlow. The movie happened to be Spider-Man 3, which none of us had gotten around to seeing.

My wife and daughter split a turkey club sandwich while I had the Bat-Man-Wich. All of their sandwiches are huge and all are delicious. We also bought a bag of their “nearly famous caramel corn.” We took our food into the theater (you’re allowed to do this here) and ate while waiting for the movie to begin and listening to every rendition of the “Spider-Man” theme song every recorded.

The theater opened in 1927 as a place to see vaudeville shows and silent movies. It’s been modernized some, but still looks much as it did 80 years ago. Boloney’s sandwich shop next door shares ownership with the theater. During lunchtime, the theater lobby is used as an additional eating area. During the evening, customers can bring food into the theater.

The movie was rather silly, with too many villains, but it held our attention.

This is truly one obnoxious piece of “art.” It’s because of its monstrous ugliness that I included it on the list of 30 Things Everyone Should Do In Greater Chicagoland — Get your picture taken by the Monument with Standing Beast by the James R. Thompson Center.

Again, it was dark so the pictures didn’t turn out that great.

Here’s what it says about the statue on this web site:

Monument (Monument a la Bete Debour) is formed of four elements that are interrelated and suggest a standing animal, free portal and architectural component. Creating an environment that invites the viewer to enter “Monument” echoes the dramatically open plan of the James R. Thompson Center on whose plaza it stands. French artist Jean Dubuffet used his 1960 painting cycle called Hourioupe, a word he invented because he liked its sound, as a basis for this large-scale sculpture. He described his sculpture as “drawing which extends into space” and hoped it would reach the man in the street.

On our walk back to the Metra station, we passed through the Richard J. Daley Plaza so we could check off another item on the list of 30 Things Everyone Should Do In Greater Chicagoland — Get your picture taken by the Picasso Statue in the Daley Center Plaza.

It was dark by this time, so the photo came out a bit grainy, but there’s no doubt about where I am.

Even though the statue has gained the affection that comes from familiarity (it’s been around since 1967), it’s still ugly. There used to be a rumor that Picasso had left a letter revealing what, exactly, this was a statue of. But the time when that letter was supposed to be opened has come and gone and I’ve yet to hear what it is. I suspect that Picasso didn’t know himself.

After the concert in Millennium Park, we walked south through Grant Park to Buckingham Fountain. The lights were on, but it wasn’t yet dark enough for them to take full effect. We didn’t stick around because it had been a long day and we still had to walk back to the train station. The right-hand photo below was taken in July of 2006.