Two days ago, I was in downtown Chicago around 6pm.
On the sidewalk, I passed this girl. She gave me her 70th compliment: "You have beautiful hair". I told her she was nice, cool, and that what she was doing is awesome.
Then I went and sat on a vast lawn surrounded by happy Chicagoans, and listened to Tortoise perform with a bunch of jazz heavyweights, here:
The Jay Pritzker Pavillion, designed by Frank Gehry. The first time I saw this, I really felt like Seattle got truly screwed with the EMP, which is ugly and barely functional.
Yesterday, I finally visited the The Chicago Temple, shown above. It is the tallest Christian Church in the world; they have a sanctuary downstairs, and a Sky Chapel upstairs, which you can only get a tour of at 2pm on weekdays. The middle of the building is mostly law offices.
The Sky Chapel was originally going to be a bell tower, but the Great Depression hit in the 20's, when the building was being finished, and so no bell tower was made, just the gorgeous gothic exterior. In the 1950's, when Mr. Walgreen (of the drugstore chain) died, his wife decided to pay for the tower to be converted into a chapel in his honor.
The chapel is tiny, seats only 35 people, and has 16 stained glass panes, along with (the original) powder-blue carpet. Each pane of glass represents a different facet of the Bible, or the history of the Methodist church.
The Minister lives below the Chapel, and has a balcony that we were allowed to visit.
This is Chicago, after all.
