Corn... currency of the Midwest?

Apparently, there's a big difference between the things in my life that are worth taking pictures of and the pictures I actually take, which is why I haven't been posting much recently. But, for the Halloweeny-Fallness that just happened, there was a brief intersection. So, I went to Richardson Farm, which you can look up online as one of the biggest corn mazes in the world (woo.), with Ellen, Derrick, and Erica (Derrick's girlfriend).

Off we go...

...as Ellen stares at the Sun. I sort of assume there was something else to look at other than the Sun. You could pay $35 a head to go on a helicopter ride, which would have been cool because it's pretty hard to see the shapes of the maze while you're in it. This year it was Abraham Lincoln related because we're in Illinois and something important happened... 200 years ago? My American history is pretty sketchy in the 19th century.

So, this gesture intrigues me. To me it represents the spreading of peace and pure aggression. One of the things that's nice about being in the US is that I get to enjoy the positive side of it instead of wondering why everyone is so mad all the time. I remember waving from a bridge to drivers who were about to go under the bridge and receiving this as my response. Unfortunately, that was years ago, in England, before I could have pretended the driver was a hippy, or just a genuinely nice fellow.

You know, it occurs to me that I didn't ask for permission to put these pictures up, oh well.

Anyway, we had a good time and it was all very wholesome. Also, everyone else cheated, but we stuck to the path, which seems important somehow.

Now, let me find the Halloween pictures.

Heads: Angry

I decided to copy R and A and P...







I'm pretty sure I don't win this one...

Money can't buy

I found a list of banned or challenged books that I think you should look at. The first fifty represent the vast majority of books taught in high school. "Books taught in high school" is a difficult category to throw around, but if you look at the books you'll know what I mean.
In the class that influenced me more than any other, "History of the book, history of the reader," I got a chance to look at old lists of banned books and an article by a book banner/burner and I wonder why we want to ban books at all. I'm not going to go on a free speech rant and talk about American values. I just have difficulty stomaching the idea that someone would read (or not read) a book and respond by taking measures to make sure no one reads it.
However, deep down inside, I don't hate the way things have gone. It's difficult to know if book-banning is successful very often because the tendency of the reading public is to seek those books out and, after a few years, declare them masterpieces. Often, the book doesn't even have to be all that good to get lifted up. Instead, it is deemed important because it made such a significant impact on the culture of its time. For an example of terrible literature that has been lifted up to some literary level of greatness, check out The Wide Sargasso Sea. While I recognize why its important, I want to use the phrases "manipulative trash," "sentimental drivel," and "just plain bad writing" as many as times as possible in reference to it. The problem is, you might go and find out what this poorly-written trashy drivel is all about, and you might even ask me why it's "important."
So, if I feel any guilt in hating this book and wanting no one to read it, it's probably because, by writing this, I've probably encouraged someone to read it. Three cheers for banning books.
Lesson learned: If I want to be remembered forever, I should probably write something that's important and not worry about if it's good or not.
Wait! There is another route... Emily Dickinson wanted all of her poems destroyed. Nikolai Gogol actually destroyed the second half of Dead Souls and the remaining half is lifted up as incompletely genius. I could be on to something here.

Stonecrop

This is a sedum, or stonecrop, plant. On it there are 3 insects. On the bottom left there is a normal sized bumble bee. Bumble bees are pretty big already and this one is a good sized one. On the bottom right is an abnormally large bumble bee. I don't know how it got as big as it is, but if you know anything about the size of stonecrop, you might be able to tell that it's about an inch long. Which brings us to the wasp at the top. That wasp is about an inch and a half long. After these bees and wasps have drank of the sweet nectar, they go into a drunken rage and everyone steers clear.

I just thought you all might like to know about the danger that I live with every day as I slave away among the foliage of a retail rooftop.

Iron Coin

So, here's another picture I took.

Apparently, there was a fire in the top floor and the door is boarded up. Since I took this picture, the wonderful sign, reading "Bombshell Salon," was taken down, leaving a sad looking house with a burnt upper room and the metal frame for a missing awning, but I will never forget the temporary life of this dark humor on Halsted St.

No Currency Exchanged

In response to the fact that I haven't written anything on here since April, I thought I'd share a couple arbitrary things that have happened in my life. These things may seem less important than the degree I earned, the girl I've been dating, the unpaid internship with bookslut.com that I just started, or the time I spent in North Carolina, Ohio, and Kansas, but that's just the way it goes.

Michican Avenue has never been a scary place, but I did fear for my bike after seeing the remains of this bike-locking station. There's a little metal plaque on it that informs the user that it was provided by Bank1, which no longer exists as a distinct establishment, much like this bike-locking location.

Shortly before graduation, I also engaged in the fine art of oversized origami. The reason why you aren't looking at a fully constructed paper crane is because 5 foot tall paper cranes do not support themselves particularly well. The crane is currently under the care of its co-creator (featured in the above image).

I also took part in a competitive game of Scrabble that started out a little rough for me. You may notice that the blank tile allows me to spell "coax" for 10 points. Alas, the first turn was not mine and I don't recall what I put down. I could also have spelled Xiao, which is Chinese, but I think it's a person's name and proper names aren't allowed, not to mention other languages.

In other Scrabble-related news, the word Lei was the only word that me and my close group of friends could spell at a much larger Scrabble party. Also, the "E" in the picture is from Hawaii. So, the whole thing was like a funny joke, except not that funny.

Siblings, I enjoy your blogs, but I feel that mine lacks focus. I need a theme... suggestions?

Concert

I've always felt a little skeptical about going to big concerts. The volume gets to the point where I hear too much buzzing. The harmony is overpowered by the sound of an apocalyptic refrigerator.
On Friday, I went to the Aragon ballroom and was pleasantly surprised by the acoustics. The speakers arched upward from 10 feet off the ground up to 40, stretching to a strange shadowy mural on the ceiling that can't have been a part of the original design.
Anyway, I had a good time... went home, slept for a few hours and went to work from 5am to 9am, which would have been the worst thing ever if I wasn't on the rooftop, from which I could take a series of pictures of the sunrise and generally spend my time watering flowers. Anyway, this post is mostly because I wanted to share the photo.