Mother & son trip to Chicago

John and I went to Chicago on Monday night, sort of a mother's day trip for me, end of the semester you-got-good-grades trip for him. An overnight in a hotel - the Holiday Inn Merchandise Mart, high up on the 19th floor over the river - and a dinner out - at Osteria Via Stato (a lettuce joint). We got up on Tuesday morning and went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, where there was a big photography show - we both liked Ed Ruscha's Every Buildings on the Sunset Strip fold out book, but neither of us could really see the point of his larger prints of the same store fronts, where he damaged the negatives. There was another artwork with pictures of African people in a light box over big oil drums full of water, so that you saw the images by looking down in the water. It was about remote countries getting stuck with toxic waste, and made me wonder what it would be like to do the same reflection thing with beautiful images instead of political ones - but John did not think much of that idea. And there were Hiroshi Sugimoto photos of oceans that John liked a lot because they were like his own pictures of Lake Michigan.

We went to Calumet Photo, "where the pros go", but had to order stuff, couldn't even walk out of the store with anything in hand, and we had to fax in all this proof that John is actually an art school student, so he could get a $769 light meter for $419.

Then we headed out to the suburbs, Oak Park and River Forest, where we used to live. We went to a used camera store in Oak Park, and then got real Chicago hot dogs for lunch, instead of succumbing to chains and going to Cosi. We drove past our old house, and John's old school, and got on the highway, just as it started to rain.

Coming back it was pretty hard to see, and we saw a three-truck accident. When we got back to Madison, we went over to the Camera Company, and John is pretty sure that the Nikon D200 ($1600 for the body) is the one for him.