Ruminations, Haunts, and Errors

Cubs land Izturis, send Maddux to LA

Always sad to see a great player traded, especially one who genuinely seemed to like the team and fans, but such is pro sports.  It’s not like the Cubs are going anywhere this year, and unlike the fiasco during his first exit in 1992 this time his leaving would appear to be helping the team for the future.

I noted while watching the game on Saturday that the fans gave him two ovations, one for a perfectly executed sacrifice bunt in the sixth and then a larger one (prompting the cap tip) as he walked off the mound as Baker relieved him one batter into the seventh.  They paid homage to not only his skills and execution in that game, but also that they were seeing a Hall-of-Famer leave the field in Cubbie pinstripes for what was quite possibly the final time.

Hence, the Wrigley crowd exhibited an understanding of 1) how the game is supposed to be played, 2) its history and a particular player’s place therein, and 3) the business realities of the sport.  Not bad for a bunch of yuppies who know nothing of baseball and just go to that ballpark for the beer and sunshine, no?

If the new, Metra-based travel arrangements (schedules?!? ugh!) for our annual July 3 & 4 Grant Park rituals didn’t further confirm that we’re not in Lakeview any more, today yet another significant break with that era arrived as I put the new city stickers on the car windshields–without accompanying Zone 383 residential parking permits.  True, they take up less space now, but it also means that some of the prime parking will be off-limits when we want to head over thataway for dinner, alas.

Somewhat ironically, when we decided to stop by Julius Meinl on our way back from Steppenwolf on Saturday, I couldn’t bring myself to park in the 383 zone, even though Liz pointed out that we still had the sticker and enforcement of expired stickers never begins before July 15.  Still, it felt better to go find a spot (relatively easily, as it turns out) over in the LV2 zone:  I benefitted from the 383 restrictions for five years, so I understand how important it is to keep the ‘unentitled’ vehicles out of the way.

Add that to the fact we bought city stickers even though we have a garage, and some might find me daft.  But $75 per car per year isn’t much; call me silly, but I like having Streets & San have enough funds to provide municipal services.  We deliberately stayed in the city, so I think a little civic duty to keep it running and orderly is proper.

But can we reset the sticker rollover date to something like October 1?  Scraping those things off in the heat of summer is just no fun!

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Saturday we escaped the noise of the roofers for dinner at Vinci and The Unmentionables at the Steppenwolf. This show originally caught our eye as John Mahoney and Laurie Metcalf were supposed to be in the cast, but alas both had to drop out about a month ago. Still, it’s live theater and another Bruce Norris show, so out interest wasn’t purely cast-driven.

Like The Pain and the Itch, The Unmentionables is a squirm-in-your-seat examination of people’s views of themselves, and particularly their views of themselves, when faced with life in the real world. While the performances were again good–Amy Morton is memorable as the loquacious, well-meaning, but forever sidetracked Nancy, a part Liz pointed out must have been fun to play–this show was mildly disappointing as its narrative wasn’t particularly tight. Providing less of a plot and more of a situation certainly allowed the freedom to explore a fairly broad theme–do our motivations and principles really drive our actions, or are the former more often created to rationalize the latter?–but it also resulted in a bit more drift and opportuntity for events that seemed to me, if not non sequiturs, at least a bit gratuitous. ‘The Doctor’ is the perhaps the most intriguing character, for he seems to be the only one to accept, in a Zen/Taoist sort of way, that life is messy and the best one can do is help where possible but not fret when changing the world–especially by tomorrow–is beyond one’s capabilities.

Interestingly, our seeing of this show came a week after viewing The Constant Gardener and a day before watching Brokeback Mountain, so I think we’ve pretty much covered the themes of not only western attempts to Do Good in Africa but also wrestling with conflicts between one’s desires/conscience and the pragmatic realities of living in a society that may not value them. Maybe our next movie should be something lighter, more escapist…

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