Well, I graduated. Four years of my life have come and gone and I have a little piece of paper with my name on to show for it. Or rather, they're going to mail me a little piece of paper with my name on because of a paperwork mistake which is fitting given the way my time here has played out.

I suppose more important than that piece of paper, though it was the goal, was the time. The important thing was not the destination but the journey. I've met innumerable fantastic people had such wonderful experiences and, on top of it all, I've exchanged caring with the people around me. I'd like to find a more poetic way to put that but it's the best I've got at the moment. through all of my activities and actions I've met people and between myself and them has formed a loving bond, an exchange of caring.

I'll do some sort of lengthy retrospective later. Do not feel obliged to read it.

In other news I now live in Chicago. I have a lovely apartment on Logan Blvd which puts me just to the left of the centre of the city. So far my fores into the city have revealed that I live in a somewhat Hispanic dominated area. We even have a fast food restaurant called "Pollo Loco". Needless to say I love this and will be abusing it for good food all summer long. The other thing my location has to offer me is easy access to all of the public transit lines. So if you're in Chicago for God's sake come visit me!

Yesterday was a pretty good day all told though I didn't get as much real important work done as I might have liked. however, the closing of all of the businesses I needed to deal with meant that I could devote the day to all of my waking time to exploring.

The day's exploration took me out my front door and to the left. Milwaukee Ave is an interesting place and full of things to do. I have a sneaking suspicion I will find that to be true about most of the city and that idea excites me in a way that might be illegal. Since I woke around 3:00 (Don't judge me. it's only the second good night of sleep I've gotten in the last week and a half.) and didn't get out of the house until about five my options were limited. I started with dinner at a local restaurant, "Taqueria Lolita," I recommend this place highly for dates and gatherings. It has wonderful atmosphere and the staff are super friendly and could probably pass their EFL exams. The only thing I can say against them is that my food took forever to arrive. On the one hand this made me fairly certain that they made it right then and that's something I miss in a lot of restaurants in my price range. On the other hand it almost made me late for the movie I wanted to watch so I was torn on my opinions of it. So I'd say bring someone you like talking to/ need to chat up in a quiet friendly environment because you'll get the time to do it and even if the date goes badly the food will have been worth it.

The dinners run between 8 and 12 dollars for most things and you can spend more if you're looking to. I got a lovely plate full of food the name of which I couldn't pronounce and now cannot remember and some orchata (to which I am now addicted) for about 14 bucks. It's more than I usually spend but I figure I can manage it this one time thanks to graduation (and the family members who graciously donated to the "Ansel is Poor" fund).

I followed dinner with a trip two doors down to the movie theatre. It cost me the steep price of three dollars to see a movie which I understand to have come out not long ago, "The Forbidden Kingdom". I will say this right off the bat it was not at all what I had expected, not that I'm sure what that is. I suppose I thought it would be more of a "Journey to the west" sort of story since I know the monkey king would be in it. I also expected Jackie Chan to be the monkey king which didn't turn out to be the case either. It turned out to a throwback for me tot he movies of the eighties in which a young person from a marginalized subculture gets beaten up for being different and then, through a series of difficult to believe events, is transported to a magic kingdom where he is a chosen hero. Our chosen hero must then use the magic item (in this case a staff), which he happened upon by chance in a shop full of junk in the real world (read: hard to believe events), to save said magic kingdom. Then, upon saving the magic kingdom which none of the fully competent combatants could achieve by virtue of not being the "chosen" hero foretold in the omnipresent prophesy. Actually, I think I may have seen this film before. It might have been called "The Neverending Story". now the "Neverending Story" was a long film but it was, by no means, as long as the other film(s) to which this movie hearkens, "The Lord of the Rings". That's right, since LOTR used every special effect known to man and then made up some more that man hadn't thought of yet just to get a jump on us this film fell into the trap of looking just like LOTR about once or twice a minute on average. It even had a lava pit into which the item of power which the "chosen" hero had carried up to the ancient mountain top was thrown. I really would have thought that was something they would have had the sense to avoid. Luckily one of the martially competent sidekicks (?) leapt in and saved the item of power (and the movie to a degree) from that horrible fate. I hope I didn't ruin anything there by informing you that the item of power does not get destroyed.

It was a cute movie and fun to watch until you get to analyzing it at which point you realize you've seen this movie before only now there are Chinese people in it.

Now, before dinner I had run into a Bald gentleman and a dreadlocked fellow from Winnipeg, Ca. They invited me to a show their band was doing that evening and described their music as "Psychedelic Rock". As such after walking back home and making sure that I had not, in fact, misplaced a huge amount of money presumably to pixies I unloaded all of my "muggables" and walked back down Milwaukee to "Elastic Arts". I walked in to an inviting cadre of Canadians and one local. It turned out that there were only two of us there to hear the gig so I hadn't missed anything by showing up late. In fact we waited around until about eleven before they got the show on the road. In the meantime I got to meet the band and discuss conspiracy theories and fuzzy economics with the sound guy whose name I should but do not remember.
The show was unlike anything I've ever experienced. They showed spliced together projection film in the background while the band members wailed on electric guitars, drums, a bugle, an organ and various other small wind instruments. Much use was made of playback functions and other effects pedals. Basically it was a cornucopic cacophony. I could describe it as confusingly clear, bizarrely entertaining and loud. I think the most apt description though was proffered by the other listener. It was "cohesive". I know, cohesiveness is like the basic unit of acceptability in most art. Unity of performance is paramount in holding an audience. This was different though. I say it was cohesive because it didn't feel like it should be. What might have been confused for people who have never met wailing on instruments with which they are only passingly familiar became clearly a closely rehearsed piece of well orchestrated art. Every piece of seemingly extemporaneous sound melded with the whole sometimes immediately and sometimes only over time but it all came together and it worked with the film playing, also seemingly by chance, in the background. All in all it was an exceptional experience which I would recommend to all with an open mind and an ear for good music.

Well, I woke up early today so I guess it's time to hit the city and see what lies to the right hand side of my door (and go to the bank and call Beloit).

Today's Gem. I promised more poetry. So even though there's all kinds of topical stuff about graduation you've been saved from a video set to "Class of '99: wear sunscreen" by my attempt to keep that promise. Here is a poem which echoes the kind of love I'd like.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5WgmbMW7Ek