That's the St. Paul Cathedral. I've a piece on it for the paper on Saturday, with all my own photos. As usual I live in dread that I got something wrong. I had a dream this morning about getting something wrong, and frantically trying to correct it. The great thing about writing columns that are imaginative extrapolations of an event or fact is this: you can't get anything wrong if you're making it up.
I mean, I second-guess everything after I've made sure it was right and then have agita wondering if I was right. It's not fun.
Well, I've a quandry here. I have three pieces due on Monday, again. Anything that seems like a good idea ought to be set aside for the paying customers. By now we know that Friday is a mix, a digest, a lot of stuff which itself wouldn't be a reason to visit. Oh gee the guy had a dream, let me bookmark that site. Add Lance and a song and Curious Lucre and maybe, yeah, that'll do. But what if there's something surprising?
What if there's a picture of the location of the happiest day of my life? Because I think I found it.
No, that's too much information. Let's post a tweet from someone who was recalling the glory days of his hometown mall, recently fallen on fallow times.
There are millions of us who have recollections like this. But that's not why I bring this up.
Anything ring a bell? I had a ding! moment, and I've never been to the Mall. Wht I wondered was this: how many people in Chicago who hung around a mall area called Peacock Alley know where the name came from?
Behold:
This ran in a Hiatal Bleat two years ago. Peacock Alley was a tunnel that ran from the Congress hotel to the Auditorium. Here's a clothing store ad for a store in Peacock Alley:
It was bricked up, eventually. I don't know if it's still there, empty, full of ghosts. Someone who knew Chicago history, and retail history in particular, chose the name for an area of a mall.
Here's the question: is it necessary to know these things?
I say yes, but I would, wouldn't I. I mean, necessary for people who live there, not everyone. You there, resident of Minot, North Dakota, transplanted to the military base from your original home in New Mexico: what does this suburban Chicago hallway's name refer to? Speak! No, that's not necessary. As with all unnecessary info, though, it's cool if you know it. (I got to use the phrase "domestic water" today!) But for your place, well, the more you know, the more the world fits together.
Why things look the way they do
Why things are where they are
Why they're named what they're named
It's not necessary, but your world is richer for it.
I was driving down the highway with friends. The huge freeway came to a point where it forked under a massive underpass, and the police were stopping everybody and with stop stakes, and making them drive small foreign made East German coupes. Tiny cars. We had to learn how to master them for some reason, and it was very hard to figure it out. By the time we got to a hill I had managed to learn how the gears worked and I got us in town. At that point I am had no idea what exactly we were supposed to do with these; it seems now we were in a communist country and it seemed an odd thing that they would do. "Have a car, drive around see what you like, get back to us when you feel like it.”
That about sums it up, but there's more:
Odd toy tilt-shift view.
LANCE CHUNKHED era, very early. Swanning around on a social whirl with Lori.
ROCK. Yes, ROCK and ROLL. Ever heard of these guys?
They have a website! A site devoted to New England rock history has a write-up. Wikipedia, nothing. A better version here. I've still no idea who Duke was.
Anyway, that's it for now! Thank you for your visits, and I'll see you Monday. Oh - subscriber column at the Substack, concerning the news that Scientists may have found signs of life on a big watery planet.
