Chicago: They paved a fetid swamp/and put up a parking lot

the youtube descrip seems to blame the freelance camera guy, but i imagine he isn't the one that didn't the editing.

I mean, there's just so much wrong with the entire situation, starting with why the hell a 4 year-old was being interviewed for his "reaction" to a violent crime.

Yeah that is some troublesome shit all around.

I couldn't figure out why I had cotton mouth for several days last week and then it struck me: I was eating about 8-16 oz. of frozen red grapes a day.

I'm back to it today, though with green ones. Frozen grapes are awesome - like 100x better than not-frozen ones.

otm I love frozen grapes. We rarely don't have a bowl of grapes in the freezer.

i have never frozen a grape!

I've never even heard of frozen grapes. So you just freeze and consume?

I never did until I visited my father in law, he does it all the time. It makes for a nice, cool treat. You pretty much pull a bunch of grapes off and put them in a bowl, freeze, then consume.

they don't break your teeth?

No, they get icy, but soft.

Women's magazines, Weight Watchers, and who knows what other sources have been pushing frozen grapes forever ("A healthy alternative" blah blah blah), but I never liked them until this summer. Now I can't stop.

Fully frozen watermelon didn't turn out so well, but it was really good after about 15 minutes in the freezer.

I've also been eating tons of frozen mangos, which are cheap and delicious from TJ's.

oh i love their frozen mango after it has sat on the counter for a while
i guess i prefer room temp fruit in general because i can taste it better

I can't eat room temp fruit. Or drink room temp water. I will go without water until it is cold.

more room temp water and fruit for me

http://chicago.eater.com/archives/2011/08/02/next-door-cafe-opening-thursday-to-foster-community.php

Probably only interesting to people on Diversey.

that's bizarre

Probably only interesting to people on Diversey.

And Eazy.

Yes, him too.

OK, I'm a LITTLE less appalled than when Dr. aj first revealed to me what the cryptic signage was for, but a cafe/social space run by pirates is still pretty repulsive. Though mega-corps like Starbucks and Panera are not THAT much more benevolent compared to banks and insurance companies, but still.

I think it's weird they're offering 'education' in addition to their 'products'.

repulsive

We're at Petterino's sitting at the bar right next to the door to the patio. You know how when it's cold and people keep opening a door and freezing you and that sucks? This is the brutal opposite of that. Every five minutes it's like a giant, hot animal is breathing all over me.

I do not care for the people who chose to sit outside to eat at Petterino's today.

And who wants to sit outside here anyway as often as cabs run into this place?

Eh, if no one else is going to step up to the plate (Old Town School and Center on Halsted excepted), then State Farm might as well fill the need.

Meanwhile, most theaters in town have shitty lobby space and are only open from 7:30 to 10 p.m. and the only thing to do there is to shut up and watch a play. If they haven't seen the value of community-building, maybe it takes an insurance company to model it for them.

If I were Groupon, I'd open a space like that; free coffee for their freelancers.

That's totally OTM, too. I walked by last night and they had the doors open and a jazz group playing, which was great for the ambience of tue street. Hopefully they take ING's approach and keep the sales out of it.

The whole vibe of that 2 blocks has changed dramatically in the last 6 months. Before TJ's, it was a total dead area between the Clark/Diversey/Broadway kookiness and the Brown line.

I have mixed feelings about that space. On the one hand, we need community spaces where people can hang out inside without having to buy things. Even I feel that need and these days I can always afford the cost of a coffee if I want to sit in Starbucks or whatever. On the other hand, I hate that we've structured our economy/society/whatever the right word is here so that only corporations (or powerful nonprofits willing to play the grant game) can provide these spaces.

So yay it's there, boo it's State Farm, I guess.

exactly

one thing i really really loved about spain was the attention to public spaces. it was clean, well kept, no potholes in the roads, public restrooms at beaches were (no exaggeration) immaculate...i mean, among the other things we can't get right in this country (cough, education), handing over the whole concept of public spaces to corporations bothers me a lot.

handing over the whole concept of public spaces to corporations bothers me a lot.

x1000000000000000000000000000000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNail6JjEiE

<3

So yay it's there, boo it's State Farm, I guess.

This is a perfect summary of my conflicted thoughts.

There is an interesting film from 1979 about public spaces that I think some of you would really enjoy. I think it's mentioned in the semi-public spaces thread. It's called Whyte Styles' The Social Life of Small Public Spaces, and it's a film done about a study commissioned by NYC for recommendations on use of public space. It's is apparently only available on one guy's Vimeo page. I'll link to it later or you can look on Reddit and on the semi-public thread.

Listen to how subversive that song sounds. I don't want to think that I've given up and given in to the Tostitos State Farm Coffee Shop Education Store.

This makes me sad.

I'm going to run into the woods and live on nuts and berries, laterz

I completely agree that its awful to have corporations taking over these public spaces but, for lack of any real alternatives at this point in history, I'll take having tainted ones over none at all. Given the current economic climate (I hated typing that as much as you probably hated reading it), money fot public spaces is way, way, way down the list.

you're right
it just makes me pretty deeply queasy

I met this lady at my bus stop this morning. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2615628/

She was nice, interesting, and chatty. She showed me pics of a mask of her face that is being used in a movie she's filming in the Quad Cities. An demon will be coming out of her mouth.

Well, the city put some work into Millennium Park, and they've done a great job making the Chicago Cultural Center a public space.

are there coworking type spaces accessible around the city? i figure there must be, no?

yep, this one is not far from my place

http://pumpingstationone.org/

super nerdy

awesome

Rooms available at the HWLC too. On the 7th fl -- I used to do tutoring there.

I HAVE NEWS THAT I CANNOT SHARE

It's eating me up.

It's probably good news.

Are you having a puppy?

Argh. Some of you can probably guess the news. It involves my employment and some really stupid fucking shit that some idiots are doing that is stupid but that will probably lead to improvements in my life.

Sorry, vaguely talking about drama is annoying.

Huh, I have never heard of coworking spaces. Cool idea.

i almost started one here in dc! the real estate stuff fell through at the last moment :(

They're going quickly in Chicago with the tech boom. Jaymc, our pal N3ll is looking into developing one.