Milwaukee at last
10 May 07
Today we met Chicago; of course, parking cost more than lunch. We didn’t really research Chicago before we came, so today we just got a first taste, but it’s certainly a place we will have to come back to. I did get this great picture of tourists getting their picture taken.
And look, they left their pigeon behind!
This was in a cafe at the corner of Erie and St. Clair, which if you think about is kind of where we live. Jodi noticed that all the other women were wearing their purses over one shoulder while eating, which made her a little nervous, but not enough to clutch hers to her breast. We walked around Michigan Street, the so-called Miracle Mile, and discovered much to our disappointment that it wasn’t our kind of shopping. Imagine hoping to find Queen West and ending up at Bay and Bloor. Eventually we discovered a great little Thai restaurant called Dao:
We ate a very slow lunch, after which we pretty much had time only to go back to the car and head for Milwaukee, the slow way, up Sheridan gawking at houses and the Bahai Temple. A couple hours later and we’re with friends in Milwaukee and it feels almost as good as being home.
Posted by pzed on May 10, 2007 at 6.11pm
effner
9 May 07
The thing about slowly making your way across unfamiliar territory, taking backroads and just being open to experience, is what happens if experience isn’t open to you? There’s a bit of a danger, if you think “hey, lets just head off into the middle of nowhere”, that you’ll actually find yourself in the middle of nowhere.
After yesterday’s visit to Nashville, we headed up the I24 to Clarksville and turned north on the US41. We meandered, deliberately not taking the express route, across the westernmost tip of Kentucky. There’s not a lot there, but it’s beautiful country, and certainly a nice break from big cities and interstates. We finished our day by crossing the Ohio and driving through Evansville, Indiana, where we stopped for the night.
This morning, we looked at a map and decided just to continue north on the US41. There wasn’t a lot of adventure along this route; I guess our stop at the Goodwill in Terre Haute is the closest you could come, but we didn’t buy anything. Indiana is unrelentingly midwestern. Funny thing is, it’s not that different from the Windsor-Essex-Chatham-Kent region I’ve grown so accustomed to living in.
After about 6 hours of driving through farms and small towns, we decided to head over to Illinois for a while. We crossed the state line in Effner:
I can’t tell from the map whether Effner is in IL or IN. But immediately after crossing, we found the Illinois welcome center:
This is on the US52, and you’re looking at all of it. A few more pictures will convey pretty much the full extent of what we stared at all day today. First, looking back into Indiana:
Farms, lots and lots of farms:
And finally, trains:
I can’t believe how many trains we’ve seen or heard in the last two days. Must be on a major rail corridor heading to Chicago. And heading to Chicago is exactly what we’ll be doing tomorrow.
Posted by pzed on May 9, 2007 at 10.51pm
music city
9 May 07
Nashville was fun, although I suspect it would be more fun on a Saturday night than on a Tuesday morning. It’s funny how there are so many American towns with some kind of mythology about them. Nashville is, of course, the home of country music. The thing is, walking around Broadway looking at all the little country music clubs, you couldn’t help but get the feeling you were in some kind of heritage zone. There’s an L-shaped district (called, if I’m not mistaken, The District) made up of 19th century buildings housing businesses which, like Ernest Tubb Record Shop, have been here for 60 years.
That’s the Nashville Arena in the background. (To digress: when we first started planning this trip, I had hoped the Predators would go a little farther in the playoffs.) I find it remarkable how this little district of clubs and country music souvenir shops is surrounded by modern skyscrapers.
Nashville has become a theme park. What was once the home of country music is now the place where people go to experience the idea of the home of country music.
We also managed to check out parts of the Vanderbilt University campus.
A few more Nashville photos can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pzed/tags/nashville/
Posted by pzed on May 9, 2007 at 10.52am
The long trip home, part one – Monday, May 7
7 May 07
The long trip home will take seven days, from Athens, GA to Windsor, ON, via Milwaukee WI.
Today we toodled across North Georgia, experiencing the unexpected heights of the Chattahoochee National Forest and the devastating lows of the Coconut Bay Cafe in Manchester, Tennessee.
The Coconut Bay Cafe is actually sort of a roadhouse dinner place whose Monday special is domestic longnecks for a dollar fifty. We opted for the two-for-one margaritas. Funny thing is, when you order two margaritas and are told “y’know, ther two fer wahn”, you figure that’s Tennessean for “you’re getting a deal”, but it turns out to mean “you’re getting four”:
One nice thing about the Coconut Bay Cafe: we got to watch a little hockey.
Opening face-offs are my specialty. Jodi wasn’t particularly fond of the decor. We only found the Coconut Bay Cafe because it’s right next to the Ambassador Inn where we are staying tonight. Jodi tells me Manchester, TN, is home to some kind of Bonobo festival, but fortunately it’s not now so we don’t have to wade through the hippies and the chimps to get to our chips and salsa. Tomorrow we’re planning to get up early (but it won’t seem early, it’s the Central Time Zone—it’s like we left daylight savings behind) and drive into Nashville, where we will bum around and hope to find interesting things that aren’t the Grand Ole Opry.
Posted by pzed on May 7, 2007 at 8.50pm
The Fourth World War
4 May 07
Baudrillard, Jean. “The Spirit of Terrorism.” The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Two Towers. Trans. Chris Turner. London: Verso, 2002. 3-33.
The first two world wars corresponded to the classical image of war. The first ended the supremacy of Europe and the colonial era. The second put an end to Nazism. The third, which has indeed taken place, in the form of cold war and deterrence, put an end to Communism. With each succeeding war, we have moved further towards a single world order. Today that order, which has virtually reached its culmination, finds itself grappling with the antagonistic forces scattered throughout the very heartlands of the global, in all the current convulsions. A fractal war of all cells, all singularities, revolting in the form of antibodies. A confrontation so impossible to pin down that the idea of war has to be rescued from time to time by spectacular set-pieces, such as the Gulf War or the war in Afghanistan. But the Fourth World War is elsewhere. It is what haunts every world order, all hegemonic domination — if Islam dominated the world, terrorism would rise against Islam, for it is the world, the globe itself, which resists globalization. (11-12)
Posted by pzed on May 4, 2007 at 11.25am
