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Jeex, 2 nice days in a year_ I just listened to Prairie Home Companion, I know, I know, nobody likes it here.... On 8/5/07, Frederick Pollack <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Kenneth Wolman" <[log in to unmask]> > To: <[log in to unmask]> > Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2007 4:33 PM > Subject: Re: I said he was my favorite literary character... > > > > Frederick Pollack wrote: > >> > >> I see Pynchon's point about the "width and tallness" of the wind along > >> 14th St. But as a native and ever-homesick Chicagoan I must say that, > >> for sheer intensity of Venturi effect, any east-west street in the > Loop, > >> between State St. and Michigan Avenue, beats 14th St. by a mile. Plus > >> the tendency for that wind to change direction in an instant - off the > >> prairie, then off the Lake - without losing speed. Carried me and my > >> umbrella a block once when I was ten. > > > > Xmas week 1973 I go to the MLA convention, held that year in Chicago. > > They stuck us in great hotels: I was in the Palmer House. All the > > graduate students are job-hunting, very taut and open to raucousness. > > Male faculty, after a year in Binghamton, act like a bunch of miners > down > > the hills of Colorado. So do the females. We start drinking Canadian > > Club at 9:00 AM. Parties, condolence sessions, bacchanalia all the > > livelong day. I get to witness Leslie Fiedler groping two women at > once. > > The party is the Joyce Society or some such thing and it feels like 100 > > people stuffed into a room the size of a wristwatch. Everyone is > smoking > > something and everyone is real drunk. Later, my roomie and I kill > another > > bottle at 2:00 AM. I leave him watching Lanza in The Great Caruso and > > pass out. Oddly, I don't feel drunk. At 7:00 I get my wake-up call > from > > the desk. Immediately I am convinced I am going to die. My fingernails > > hurt. Once I am able to get out of bed without fear of a technicolor > yawn > > all over the carpet, I discover the pain of water in a shower. Years > > later I am reminded of this horror when I read about a very ill Teresa > of > > Avila confined to a Spanish sanatorium where they tie dead chickens to > her > > suppurating wounds, figuring one poison drives out another. I slink > into > > corners afraid someone will spot me. This is hilarious since everyone > is > > in the Parker House coffee shop nursing independently-acquired > hangovers. > > > > The operator on the phone had cheerily announced that it was 35 degrees > in > > Chicago. That doesn't sound cold. Then I hit Michigan Avenue, hangover > > and brains in hand, and discover a typhoon blowing up...and the freaking > > SUN is out. Binghamton got cold too but the wind always died down when > > the temperature approached laboratory absolute zero. THIS is atrocious. > > "Windy City" they called it. I suppose they still call it that? > > > > ken > > > > -- > The Palmer House should have warned you. Wind chill in Chicago can make > Minnesotans cry. -- Summer, on the other hand, kills people by the > hundreds. > There are two nice days a year. You wait for them. Hopefully see them > out > in a blues club on Lincoln Boulevard. >