If you're in New York City and find yourself with approximately eighteen months to spare then I strongly recommend visiting the Museum of Natural History which is staggering in its scale and scope. The museum is a monstrously impressive pile built at a time when museums were supposed to look good rather than depressing and it occupies what must be an insanely expensive piece of real estate on the west side of Central Park. Having walked through the park to get there I went in through the west entrance which is a monument to Theodore Roosevelt, easily my favourite American president. The entrance hall would suit a palace and the walls are covered with extracts from his various writings my personal favourite being "A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy". I can't help thinking political discourse in America might be improved if we introduced both presidential candidates to a collection of Roosevelt's writings and then beat each of them to death with it.
Not having eighteen months to wander around at my leisure I found myself desperately strapped for time and barely scratched the surface of what the museum has to offer. I was a little disappointed that the butterfly collection was closed for the season which confused me a little as I'm pretty sure the butterflies were already dead. I wandered around in slack jawed amazement both at the sheer size of the place and the sheer number of people trying to get in. Once we were past the entrance hall however it was amazing how quickly everyone got lost in the building, nowhere seemed crowded.
I could have taken the subway to the museum but instead chose to walk from the Empire State Building, strolling up Fifth Avenue and through Central Park. There was no real reason to do this except for the sheer excitement of being in New York, it just goes on for miles. I was aware that Central Park was large in a general sense but I had no idea how big it is. From the centre you can't actually see the city which is quite a trick as "inconspicuous" is not a word people usually use to describe New York. Supposedly its dangerous at night but then a lot of places are dangerous at night which is why I tend to visit them in the day. Also you can get a hotdog during the day.
I was only in New York for one full day so my chance to go sightseeing was strictly limited but I did manage to visit the Empire State Building which has been on my personal must see list for years. From the viewing gallery I could see all of Manhattan spread out before me (although I had to walk around the platform to see it all). But in my opinion a more impressive sight can be had from the street outside because then you can see the building itself. Particularly at night that alone is worth a visit to New York. It just goes to show what greed can do when it retains a little bit of its soul. Too many office buildings, most of those in Sydney for example, are wretched boxes very obviously designed to extract the maximum amount of rental income in return for the minimum investment of materials, labour and design. Vomit inducingly ugly, the very sight of them scars the eyes. Nothing more spiritually bankrupt can be imagined. Then you have something like the Empire State Building, a 104 storey monument to human avarice; and it is beautiful.
This seems like a good moment to end my travel journal. I enjoyed America, or at least the bits I saw. I'm well aware that a large chunk of the country has escaped my eagle eye but that means I just have to come back. A wrap up of my kaleidoscope of epic failure at ASLOK will follow for those who enjoy reading about such things.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Travelling Hopefully - Through Upstate New York
Leaving Niagara Falls at ghastly o'clock in the morning allowed me to renew my acquaintance with Amtrak. The reunion didn't get off to a good start when I discovered that the waiting room at Niagara Falls was closed. It's quite chilly at 6.30am in Niagara Falls. At least my train was actually there waiting to be let of the leash like some mythical beast of legend (or legendary beast of myth if you prefer). Eventually one of the staff wandering around deigned to notice me and I was escorted on board or at least pointed towards a door in the side of the train that I was supposed to use.
Since this was to be an eight hour trip I had splashed out of a business class ticket which got me a comfy seat, free wifi and all the unpalatable coffee I could drink. In the bathroom (really an ambitious toilet) was hand soap in a container which proclaimed to the world that it had been provided especially for Amtrak. Presumably they announce this to scotch otherwise reasonable suspicions that Amtrak replenishes its stores by raiding Motel 6s along its route. Business class was rather quiet as evidenced by the conductors announcements which were audible without being comprehensible. Fortunately the guy in charge of the snack bar would pop back and bellow whatever had been announced just in case it was important.
We left Niagara Falls on time which was a pleasant surprise. The hour long delay we experienced because some idiot had got a truck stuck under a low bridge was, by this time, neither pleasant nor a surprise. Still I got to see something of upstate New York which I believe is the technical term for that part of New York which isn't actually New York City. There were quite a lot of trees and there's definitely an English feel to some of the small towns we passed through along the way. Not surprising I suppose when you consider that the banks of the Hudson must be some of the earliest colonised parts of the country. Admittedly I believe New York was first colonised by the Dutch but perhaps they had visited England and decided that they had a good model to follow for small towns.
Late but only mildly so by comparison with my other Amtrak experiences the train slid into Penn station in New York City. I'd like to give an impression of my view of New York as we approached but I didn't see it. We went into a tunnel and twenty odd minutes later we were there. My last visions through the window had been of trees, when I got out of the station I was surrounded by buildings. And people, lots and lots of people. Through a careful selection process known as blind luck I had managed to select accommodation that was ten minutes walk from Penn station and five minutes from the Empire State Building which was pretty much the only thing on my agenda to see in New York.
The apartment was quite nice (it had a doorman and everything) but the bed was some sort of large inflatable thing which made quite a loud popping noise as it reasserted its original shape. The first time this happened was when I was lying in the dark trying to get some sleep and I honestly thought something had jumped onto the bed. I spent five minutes looking for non existent cats before I figured out what it was (it was late and I was tired) I even briefly considered that the apartment might be haunted before deciding a dodgy mattress might be slightly more plausible. Despite having something resembling a mind of its own the mattress was quite comfortable and I slept on it extra hard to get back at it for scaring me.
Since this was to be an eight hour trip I had splashed out of a business class ticket which got me a comfy seat, free wifi and all the unpalatable coffee I could drink. In the bathroom (really an ambitious toilet) was hand soap in a container which proclaimed to the world that it had been provided especially for Amtrak. Presumably they announce this to scotch otherwise reasonable suspicions that Amtrak replenishes its stores by raiding Motel 6s along its route. Business class was rather quiet as evidenced by the conductors announcements which were audible without being comprehensible. Fortunately the guy in charge of the snack bar would pop back and bellow whatever had been announced just in case it was important.
We left Niagara Falls on time which was a pleasant surprise. The hour long delay we experienced because some idiot had got a truck stuck under a low bridge was, by this time, neither pleasant nor a surprise. Still I got to see something of upstate New York which I believe is the technical term for that part of New York which isn't actually New York City. There were quite a lot of trees and there's definitely an English feel to some of the small towns we passed through along the way. Not surprising I suppose when you consider that the banks of the Hudson must be some of the earliest colonised parts of the country. Admittedly I believe New York was first colonised by the Dutch but perhaps they had visited England and decided that they had a good model to follow for small towns.
Late but only mildly so by comparison with my other Amtrak experiences the train slid into Penn station in New York City. I'd like to give an impression of my view of New York as we approached but I didn't see it. We went into a tunnel and twenty odd minutes later we were there. My last visions through the window had been of trees, when I got out of the station I was surrounded by buildings. And people, lots and lots of people. Through a careful selection process known as blind luck I had managed to select accommodation that was ten minutes walk from Penn station and five minutes from the Empire State Building which was pretty much the only thing on my agenda to see in New York.
The apartment was quite nice (it had a doorman and everything) but the bed was some sort of large inflatable thing which made quite a loud popping noise as it reasserted its original shape. The first time this happened was when I was lying in the dark trying to get some sleep and I honestly thought something had jumped onto the bed. I spent five minutes looking for non existent cats before I figured out what it was (it was late and I was tired) I even briefly considered that the apartment might be haunted before deciding a dodgy mattress might be slightly more plausible. Despite having something resembling a mind of its own the mattress was quite comfortable and I slept on it extra hard to get back at it for scaring me.
Friday, October 14, 2016
Travelling Hopefully - Millions of Gallons of Water
The town of Niagara Falls, NY is best approached at night. That way you can avoid seeing it. There is a casino in town which doesn't dominate the skyline, rather it is the skyline. Nothing else is so tall, so new or so possessed of electric light. Despite the presence of a world class tourist attraction literally on its doorstep Niagara Falls is another decayed old industrial town like Cleveland. However while Cleveland is coming back fighting Niagara Falls seems to have thrown in the towel several decades ago.
About a third of the buildings, commercial and residential, are abandoned and seem to have been simply left to rot. The sidewalks are so uneven that walking along them made me seasick and the town appears to be populated largely by squirrels and stray cats. Which is odd as you might expect one or the other but not both. Such life and activity as does exist sits cheek by jowl with the decay. I exhibited a little concern at being out on the streets at night but my host reassured me that I was reasonably safe. Even so the subtext seemed to be that the inhabitants of Niagara Falls are simply not proactive enough to indulge in violent crime. According to my host the city doesn't actually gain a lot of revenue from the falls. Since it's a state park I presume the money goes to the state of New York instead. If I were the mayor of Niagara Falls getting my town a slice of that revenue would be my first priority. Judging by the signage however the first priority of most of the mayors of Niagara Falls is to get a street named after them.
My hosts live in a lovely mid nineteenth century house which they bought in a near derelict condition for pocket change and are slowly doing up. My room was one of the done up bits as was the bathroom which was accessed by means of a latch on a wall unit which swung the whole thing away giving access to an otherwise hidden room. For somebody who read an unhealthy number of Enid Blyton books when he was a child this was just too good to be true. Even better the house was within walking distance of the only open restaurant that didn't serve its food in takeaway bags. There was a Korean restaurant but it had a big sign on the wall saying "Beware of the dog!" I wasn't sure whether this was a security warning or an indication that the dish of the day was off but either way I decided not to risk it.
So after that cheerful hatchet job on the town of Niagara Falls what about the falls themselves? They are as advertised, one of the natural wonders of the world and well worth travelling to much worse places than this in order to see them. They are magnificent. I took the Maid of the Mists boat ride which takes you right up to the base of the falls past some very concussed looking seagulls. This enables you to get a look at a semi circle of water essentially pouring right off a cliff in front of you. It also enables you to get very wet. For further near drowning experiences you can do the Cave of Mists walking tour. It's very atmospheric as long as you don't mind an atmosphere so full of water that it's difficult to breathe. Essentially you stand at the base of the American Falls while Mother Nature throws a river at you. Rain ponchos are provided for both trips with the result that I spent a lot of the day struggling into and out of luridly coloured sheets of plastic. The colours are to help them find your body if you fall in. With a current running at 50km/h you're unlikely to be able to swim for it.
Wait a minute! Did I say seagulls? Indeed I did. Anywhere there is water and people you will find seagulls. If you spat in the desert you would be surrounded by seagulls demanding chips. The seagulls at Niagara Falls seem a little stunned. It's one thing to fly over or float on water. It's quite another to be hit in the head by several million litres of the stuff travelling at 9.8 metres per second squared. Most of the seagulls were bobbing dazedly about on the surface of the river wondering what the hell just hit them. They were barely capable of lumbering out of the way of the Maid of the Mists as it approached (and believe me we weren't travelling that fast) as it approached. For seagulls at least visiting Niagara Falls must be a bruising experience.
About a third of the buildings, commercial and residential, are abandoned and seem to have been simply left to rot. The sidewalks are so uneven that walking along them made me seasick and the town appears to be populated largely by squirrels and stray cats. Which is odd as you might expect one or the other but not both. Such life and activity as does exist sits cheek by jowl with the decay. I exhibited a little concern at being out on the streets at night but my host reassured me that I was reasonably safe. Even so the subtext seemed to be that the inhabitants of Niagara Falls are simply not proactive enough to indulge in violent crime. According to my host the city doesn't actually gain a lot of revenue from the falls. Since it's a state park I presume the money goes to the state of New York instead. If I were the mayor of Niagara Falls getting my town a slice of that revenue would be my first priority. Judging by the signage however the first priority of most of the mayors of Niagara Falls is to get a street named after them.
My hosts live in a lovely mid nineteenth century house which they bought in a near derelict condition for pocket change and are slowly doing up. My room was one of the done up bits as was the bathroom which was accessed by means of a latch on a wall unit which swung the whole thing away giving access to an otherwise hidden room. For somebody who read an unhealthy number of Enid Blyton books when he was a child this was just too good to be true. Even better the house was within walking distance of the only open restaurant that didn't serve its food in takeaway bags. There was a Korean restaurant but it had a big sign on the wall saying "Beware of the dog!" I wasn't sure whether this was a security warning or an indication that the dish of the day was off but either way I decided not to risk it.
So after that cheerful hatchet job on the town of Niagara Falls what about the falls themselves? They are as advertised, one of the natural wonders of the world and well worth travelling to much worse places than this in order to see them. They are magnificent. I took the Maid of the Mists boat ride which takes you right up to the base of the falls past some very concussed looking seagulls. This enables you to get a look at a semi circle of water essentially pouring right off a cliff in front of you. It also enables you to get very wet. For further near drowning experiences you can do the Cave of Mists walking tour. It's very atmospheric as long as you don't mind an atmosphere so full of water that it's difficult to breathe. Essentially you stand at the base of the American Falls while Mother Nature throws a river at you. Rain ponchos are provided for both trips with the result that I spent a lot of the day struggling into and out of luridly coloured sheets of plastic. The colours are to help them find your body if you fall in. With a current running at 50km/h you're unlikely to be able to swim for it.
Wait a minute! Did I say seagulls? Indeed I did. Anywhere there is water and people you will find seagulls. If you spat in the desert you would be surrounded by seagulls demanding chips. The seagulls at Niagara Falls seem a little stunned. It's one thing to fly over or float on water. It's quite another to be hit in the head by several million litres of the stuff travelling at 9.8 metres per second squared. Most of the seagulls were bobbing dazedly about on the surface of the river wondering what the hell just hit them. They were barely capable of lumbering out of the way of the Maid of the Mists as it approached (and believe me we weren't travelling that fast) as it approached. For seagulls at least visiting Niagara Falls must be a bruising experience.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Travelling Hopefully but Expensively
Cleveland Airport is quite a nice little place. Cutesy sized little planes take off from a modest and restrained runway. Even the TSA officials sound like they mean it when they say "Have a nice day" after they've finished probing your body cavities with a pair of latex covered fingers. Unfortunately my appreciation of this hidden gem of airportdom was soured by the fact that I was there at all. Sadly Cleveland's amenities don't appear to extend to a particularly responsive taxi service. Having taken forty minutes to arrive the taxi driver then took a wrong turn trying to find the station. Since Amtrak chose that morning to deliver what can only be termed a spiteful level of efficiency I missed my train and was stuck with finding another way of getting to Niagara Falls.
Cleveland Airport came to my rescue. In return for nothing more than virtually all the cash I had on me I was provided with a ticket to Chicago O'Hare with the promise that another plane would then take me to Buffalo, New York. From Buffalo the latest in a long line of suffering Airbnb hosts would collect me and take me to their home.
By contrast with Cleveland Chicago O'Hare is so big I'm surprised they've got space for the city as well. I think I've been in smaller countries. I didn't like it as much as Cleveland, everything was quite impersonal and the cavity searches were perfunctory to say the least. Nevertheless they did manage to herd me on to the right plane and by looking out the window I was able to see something of Lake Erie (or possibly Michigan) which I'd been hoping to see from the train.
At Buffalo I was told to look out for a white Kia which would be my steed to Niagara Falls. Not knowing what a Kia was meant to look like I simply threw myself in front of every white vehicle that approached with a hopeful smile. Eventually one of the drivers stopped issuing death threats long enough to ask if I was Neil. Indeed I was and indeed still am. With that out of the way he drove me to one of the habitable portions of Niagara Falls.
Cleveland Airport came to my rescue. In return for nothing more than virtually all the cash I had on me I was provided with a ticket to Chicago O'Hare with the promise that another plane would then take me to Buffalo, New York. From Buffalo the latest in a long line of suffering Airbnb hosts would collect me and take me to their home.
By contrast with Cleveland Chicago O'Hare is so big I'm surprised they've got space for the city as well. I think I've been in smaller countries. I didn't like it as much as Cleveland, everything was quite impersonal and the cavity searches were perfunctory to say the least. Nevertheless they did manage to herd me on to the right plane and by looking out the window I was able to see something of Lake Erie (or possibly Michigan) which I'd been hoping to see from the train.
At Buffalo I was told to look out for a white Kia which would be my steed to Niagara Falls. Not knowing what a Kia was meant to look like I simply threw myself in front of every white vehicle that approached with a hopeful smile. Eventually one of the drivers stopped issuing death threats long enough to ask if I was Neil. Indeed I was and indeed still am. With that out of the way he drove me to one of the habitable portions of Niagara Falls.
Travelling Hopefully - Rachel's Special Cleveland Edition
Before I left on my travels my dear friend Rachel set me a task. Find something interesting about Cleveland. At the time I thought it a difficult, nay, impossible task. However it's turned out to be quite easy. Rachel my dear, the interesting thing about Cleveland is that it still exists. Cleveland is one those old steel/manufacturing cities that pretty much lost their reason for existence when the major employers in town realised there were third world countries out there that had never heard of work safety regulations and didn't care whether you paid your employees a living wage.
It's fair to say that Cleveland was smashed. Industry had collapsed. Poverty, unemployment and the social problems that go with them were rampant. The city's population dropped from close to a million to less than four hundred thousand and the river was on fire. To hammer in the final nail the owner of the Cleveland Browns planned to move the franchise to Baltimore. Cleveland was your stereotypical rust belt hell hole.
I can't say they've completely turned it around but Cleveland is off the mat and fighting hard. There are still parts of the city you don't want to go to and the population drop has given the whole place a hollowed out slightly deserted feel (unless you're downtown when the Browns are playing). On the other hand there are deer (and squirrels) in the suburbs, downtown looks great, the lake is beautiful and public transport is pretty good. They have one of the best hospitals in the United States, a world renowned symphony orchestra and a pretty decent dining and entertainment area. All this plus a science centre that's open whenever the Browns aren't playing at home. Speaking of which, the Browns may be struggling but the Cleveland Cavaliers brought the NBA Championship home this year.
I don't know if Cleveland will survive, times are tough for cities like this but I do know Cleveland will not go quietly into the night.
So there you go my dear, all sorts of interesting stuff about Cleveland and there's plenty more that I can't remember or was too lazy to write about.
It's fair to say that Cleveland was smashed. Industry had collapsed. Poverty, unemployment and the social problems that go with them were rampant. The city's population dropped from close to a million to less than four hundred thousand and the river was on fire. To hammer in the final nail the owner of the Cleveland Browns planned to move the franchise to Baltimore. Cleveland was your stereotypical rust belt hell hole.
I can't say they've completely turned it around but Cleveland is off the mat and fighting hard. There are still parts of the city you don't want to go to and the population drop has given the whole place a hollowed out slightly deserted feel (unless you're downtown when the Browns are playing). On the other hand there are deer (and squirrels) in the suburbs, downtown looks great, the lake is beautiful and public transport is pretty good. They have one of the best hospitals in the United States, a world renowned symphony orchestra and a pretty decent dining and entertainment area. All this plus a science centre that's open whenever the Browns aren't playing at home. Speaking of which, the Browns may be struggling but the Cleveland Cavaliers brought the NBA Championship home this year.
I don't know if Cleveland will survive, times are tough for cities like this but I do know Cleveland will not go quietly into the night.
So there you go my dear, all sorts of interesting stuff about Cleveland and there's plenty more that I can't remember or was too lazy to write about.
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Travelling Hopefully - The Mistake by the Lake
I arrived in Cleveland at 5.30 in the morning in the pouring rain. It was dark, wet and apparently devoid of life. To be fair it was 5.30 on a Sunday morning. I should have been grateful that the Amtrak station was open. A little over an hour later it wasn't, apparently Cleveland Amtrak station is run by vampires because it's only open at night. Cast into the outer darkness I trudged wearily towards the local public transport centre guided only by the incredibly helpful tourist maps that decorate pretty much every corner of Downtown. So good were they that I found it impossible to get lost and turned up at the hotel without a hitch. The hitch came when I got to the hotel, it looked abandoned. Fortunately it was just under renovation although services were a bit limited and by limited I mean close to non existent. Still the bed was comfy which was the main thing. I wandered up to the conference room where the gaming was taking place and essentially forgot about Cleveland for the next seven days.
When the gaming was done though I took advantage of a sunny day to catch the train into the heart of the city. Accompanied by fellow Australian Aaron Cleavin (Aaron is actually from New Zealand but I was on holiday and minded to be generous to the colonies) I headed lakeside to check out the Great Lakes Science Center. The Science Center is a museum dedicated to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) and provides an educational tour for visiting school kids. It also houses NASA's Glenn Visitors Center and is the entry point for visiting the steamship William G Mather which is moored outside. The William G Mather is known as "The Ship That Built Cleveland" due to its frequent trips carting ore for the Cleveland steel mills.
I got all the above information from Wikipedia incidentally because it turned out there was a minor issue with visiting the centre itself. Just across the road from the centre is FirstEnergy Stadium also known as "The Factory of Sadness" which is the home ground of the Cleveland Browns NFL team. A sign on the door of the Science Center announced that the Browns were playing a home game that day (they lost) and as such the centre was closed. I mean science, technology, engineering and math are important in their own way but the Browns are playing goddammit.
Why the Science Center needed to be closed for a football match wasn't fully explained by the sign. Perhaps all of the staff were at the game or maybe the city fathers felt Cleveland could handle the excitement of a football match or the Science Center but not both. Possibly the police (as represented by several overweight officers testing the load bearing capacity of some slightly desperate looking horses) were afraid that the combination of disappointed Browns fans (their natural state) and rampaging science nerds was more than they could handle without support from the National Guard.
Whatever the reason the centre was closed and we had to make do with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame which apparently wasn't considered exciting enough to close during a Browns game. The hall of fame must be absolutely fascinating to people who are fascinated by such things. It turns out I'm not one of them. The most interesting parts detailed the history of and influences on rock and roll from the very early days to the fifties. Plus of course recordings of various artists including film of Elvis in his prime doing what he did best (bingeing on tranquillisers and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by the truckload). For the rest it looked like every rockstar in history had had a combined garage sale and kerbside trash pickup and the results had been placed behind glass in Cleveland.
After exhausting the possibilities for rock and roll based fun (I looked for the drugs and groupies exhibit but couldn't find it) we made our way through a sea of disappointed Browns fans and some suicidally cheerful Patriots supporters to an Irish pub where I ordered Irish antipasta partly because it was the only thing on the menu not made with Guinness and partly out of sheer curiosity.
When the gaming was done though I took advantage of a sunny day to catch the train into the heart of the city. Accompanied by fellow Australian Aaron Cleavin (Aaron is actually from New Zealand but I was on holiday and minded to be generous to the colonies) I headed lakeside to check out the Great Lakes Science Center. The Science Center is a museum dedicated to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) and provides an educational tour for visiting school kids. It also houses NASA's Glenn Visitors Center and is the entry point for visiting the steamship William G Mather which is moored outside. The William G Mather is known as "The Ship That Built Cleveland" due to its frequent trips carting ore for the Cleveland steel mills.
I got all the above information from Wikipedia incidentally because it turned out there was a minor issue with visiting the centre itself. Just across the road from the centre is FirstEnergy Stadium also known as "The Factory of Sadness" which is the home ground of the Cleveland Browns NFL team. A sign on the door of the Science Center announced that the Browns were playing a home game that day (they lost) and as such the centre was closed. I mean science, technology, engineering and math are important in their own way but the Browns are playing goddammit.
Why the Science Center needed to be closed for a football match wasn't fully explained by the sign. Perhaps all of the staff were at the game or maybe the city fathers felt Cleveland could handle the excitement of a football match or the Science Center but not both. Possibly the police (as represented by several overweight officers testing the load bearing capacity of some slightly desperate looking horses) were afraid that the combination of disappointed Browns fans (their natural state) and rampaging science nerds was more than they could handle without support from the National Guard.
Whatever the reason the centre was closed and we had to make do with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame which apparently wasn't considered exciting enough to close during a Browns game. The hall of fame must be absolutely fascinating to people who are fascinated by such things. It turns out I'm not one of them. The most interesting parts detailed the history of and influences on rock and roll from the very early days to the fifties. Plus of course recordings of various artists including film of Elvis in his prime doing what he did best (bingeing on tranquillisers and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by the truckload). For the rest it looked like every rockstar in history had had a combined garage sale and kerbside trash pickup and the results had been placed behind glass in Cleveland.
After exhausting the possibilities for rock and roll based fun (I looked for the drugs and groupies exhibit but couldn't find it) we made our way through a sea of disappointed Browns fans and some suicidally cheerful Patriots supporters to an Irish pub where I ordered Irish antipasta partly because it was the only thing on the menu not made with Guinness and partly out of sheer curiosity.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Travelling Hopefully - Leather & Stained Glass
I am a shambling imbecile! I actually consider myself quite intelligent but even my best friends would agree (in fact, especially my best friends would agree) that when it comes to the task of being a functional human being I swing somewhere between "barely competent" and "alien from another planet". My long suffering host in Chicago is the latest to discover this fact. First I told her I was going to be late then I wasn't (not really my fault, Amtrak had a sudden burst of competence). Then I went to the wrong door and sent my host an increasingly hysterical series of messages because my key didn't open the wrong door. Finally I managed to lock myself out of my own room. More hysterical messages to my host later and she must be about ready to give up on Airbnb and convert her room into a pumpkin patch to make some money.
Despite all of the above I've managed to achieve everything I planned for Chicago. My secret? Set the bar low. Since my stay in Chicago was a short one I had identified precisely two sights that I was determined to see; the Leather Archive & Museum and a stained glass exhibition at Navy Pier. Thanks largely to an excellent public transport system and guidance from helpful (and surprisingly knowledgeable) derelicts I was able to achieve both goals.
The Leather Archive & Museum is a facility dedicated to preserving papers and memorabilia from the leather and BDSM community. The train dropped me in Loyola in northish Chicago a mere five minutes walk from the museum, or ten minutes if you get off the train and start walking the wrong way. Still I found the place without too many problems (Squirrels! Bunnies! Bunnies & Squirrels!). Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, the Leather Archive.
After I was buzzed in I was able to wander around and take in large murals of well muscled men with not a great deal of clothing. The murals are the work of an artist called Etienne whose partner founded the museum after Etienne died in part to preserve the murals.
There is a generous collection of toys or "tools" as I was informed they used to be called. Apparently in the 1950s code for a leather man was "working man". So a leather man could approach a likely looking stranger and simply say, "working man, you?". As such the collection of cuffs, restraints, dildos, chains etc were the working man's tools. Centrepiece was a bright red spanking bench that looked so nice that I personally would have been afraid to touch it.
Also interesting was the memorabilia together with short biographies of various members of the community past & present. For a brief sit down there was a video room showing interviews and clips from fetish movies. The attendant seemed terribly chuffed that I had selected the museum as one of my sights to see in Chicago.
The next day it was grey and rainy so I went to look at stained glass at Navy Pier. Lonely Planet which had guided me to the Leather Archive also directed my here but it would appear that the major display I was expecting had been removed. However there was a modest display of work by Louis Tiffany so it wasn't a wasted trip. There were only perhaps twenty pieces but they were exquisite and delicately beautiful. Brightly lit on a pure black background the work seemed to glow as if it were alive.
I stood there wondering if photos were allowed when a wedding party arrived and turned the place into a photo shoot. The bride and groom were photographed in front of a couple of the more spectacular pieces but I'm not sure if they actually looked at them. Still with my photo question answered I waited until they made themselves scarce then went back and took a few snaps myself.
With Chicago thoroughly conquered (squirrels, squirrels, squirrels) there was nothing left to do but board a train to Cleveland. Enough of this wandering around America like a slightly confused tornado. Now it was time for ASLOK.
Despite all of the above I've managed to achieve everything I planned for Chicago. My secret? Set the bar low. Since my stay in Chicago was a short one I had identified precisely two sights that I was determined to see; the Leather Archive & Museum and a stained glass exhibition at Navy Pier. Thanks largely to an excellent public transport system and guidance from helpful (and surprisingly knowledgeable) derelicts I was able to achieve both goals.
The Leather Archive & Museum is a facility dedicated to preserving papers and memorabilia from the leather and BDSM community. The train dropped me in Loyola in northish Chicago a mere five minutes walk from the museum, or ten minutes if you get off the train and start walking the wrong way. Still I found the place without too many problems (Squirrels! Bunnies! Bunnies & Squirrels!). Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, the Leather Archive.
After I was buzzed in I was able to wander around and take in large murals of well muscled men with not a great deal of clothing. The murals are the work of an artist called Etienne whose partner founded the museum after Etienne died in part to preserve the murals.
There is a generous collection of toys or "tools" as I was informed they used to be called. Apparently in the 1950s code for a leather man was "working man". So a leather man could approach a likely looking stranger and simply say, "working man, you?". As such the collection of cuffs, restraints, dildos, chains etc were the working man's tools. Centrepiece was a bright red spanking bench that looked so nice that I personally would have been afraid to touch it.
Also interesting was the memorabilia together with short biographies of various members of the community past & present. For a brief sit down there was a video room showing interviews and clips from fetish movies. The attendant seemed terribly chuffed that I had selected the museum as one of my sights to see in Chicago.
The next day it was grey and rainy so I went to look at stained glass at Navy Pier. Lonely Planet which had guided me to the Leather Archive also directed my here but it would appear that the major display I was expecting had been removed. However there was a modest display of work by Louis Tiffany so it wasn't a wasted trip. There were only perhaps twenty pieces but they were exquisite and delicately beautiful. Brightly lit on a pure black background the work seemed to glow as if it were alive.
I stood there wondering if photos were allowed when a wedding party arrived and turned the place into a photo shoot. The bride and groom were photographed in front of a couple of the more spectacular pieces but I'm not sure if they actually looked at them. Still with my photo question answered I waited until they made themselves scarce then went back and took a few snaps myself.
With Chicago thoroughly conquered (squirrels, squirrels, squirrels) there was nothing left to do but board a train to Cleveland. Enough of this wandering around America like a slightly confused tornado. Now it was time for ASLOK.
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