I've been thinking about making the Zeitgeist of the Week a regular feature here at Still Medium. Though commitment to reliably maintianing any sort of consistent installment is a bit of a stretch for this girl, I might try to give it a go . . . especially because this week's Zeitgeist, what with Halloween in full swing and my parents in town and all, is completely and obviously identifiable as Cross Dressing. Male/Female Impersonation holds the 2nd-Weekly-Weekly-Geist trophy for various reasons, not all of which might be clear to anyone, ever. Some reasons, however, will most certainly be clear after events transpire tomorrow at the 10th Annual North Halsted Halloween Parade. SIT TIGHT for posted photos -- they're going to be AMAZING!

[Scene]: Sunday's more traditional marathoners -- the front-runnin' Kenyans -- at mile four of the Chicago Marathon. Previously the wheelchair folk had zoomed by, Col and I were just handed official maraton cowbells and Drake-Hotel-sanctioned chapstick to kick off the second half of what would be one of of the most accomplishment-filled weekends in the history of the universse.

Joined by various and sundry others over the course of an amazing forty-eight hour period, we performed feats of unconventional marathoning that pushed and stretched the capacity of the human form to amazing new levels. Included in these unconventional epics were 1) the forty-hour non-sleep blitz, 2) the forty-hour no-need-for-a-shower blitz, 3) the incessant/indiscrimante five hours of t-shirt-reading-and-cowbell-jangling at miles 4, 11, 21 and 26.2 blitz, 4) the double-dim-sum blitz (ok, this one was Jake but we experienced it by proxy), 5) The Victory celebration blitz (go Irish?!) and, lastly, 5) the actual 5:00 a.m. fifteen mile run through Chicago. Seriously. So many accomplishments.

This week's Zeitgeist is a toss-up between Tom Skilling and Chungking Express. Two non-overlapping circles of a Venn Diagram to the untrained eye, they in fact share the common ground of having been heavily influential over the past week.

Yet they cannot both be The Zeitgeist; I must choose and so the honorific goes to Chungking Express. Yes, Tom Skilling dominates the foreboding realm of Meteorology in a seriously amazing, respect-garnering way. And yes, in a sense he (with a regularity that goes far beyond the confines of one week) predicts Mother Nature's Zeitgeist, leads it, shapes its portrayal to the masses and spearheads seminars on it, but [alas] he himself is not it. Chungking Express, on the other hand, deals in the more attainable realms of Love, Asia and Pineapples. Its scope is universal and for this reason alone it should attract a fan base at least as large as Skilling's. Though upon viewing one might find oneself initially doubting its critical acclaim, second and third viewings will undoubtedly lead to toggling with reckless abandon betwixt a sampling of two or three amazing scenes.

This past week was also shaped by:

1) Simple Green for providing a cleaning medium during the dis- and (hopefully successful) re-assembly of my bike.
2) Japanese Pod 101 lessons to for supplementing my evening studies and reminding me fondly of so many a genki fellow instructor.
3) Dubstep for providing an enlightening experience at Cafe Lura.

Yesterday I, accompanied by dear friends Jake and Danielle, made an epic drive to the Buskirk-Chumley to see Regina Spektor, and she put on a completely fantastic show. Regina 4 LYFE.

Outside of the performance, the most curious point of interest encountered on the drive down to Bloomington was when we were escorted off the highway by a state trooper only to be confronted with the choice of turning either left toward Whitestown or right toward Brownsburg. Which would YOU choose?

. . . Love Isn't Always On Time (woah woah woah)!"

Or at least so says Toto in a timbre that Michael McDonald, aka this guy (JD Ryznar, spearhead of the Yacht Rock¹ movement, if you will) deemed "not smooth enough" to qualify as an appropriate karaoke-fied representation of Yacht Rock. "Africa, girls . . . Africa," he said, after vehemently removing Jess (in for the weekend -- hooray!) and I from the entry list with swipes of indelible sharpie. Fortunately for everyone present, greased palms and sweet-talkin' made that sharpie delible and we were able give a weak (yet brilliant in its own right) performance. We won neither Koko's harpoon nor Ian Anderson tickets, but when all was said and done we walked away with the "Steely Dan" glossy featured below and signed by, mmm, neither of the guys in the picture. But still . . .



¹If you haven't seen before, I recommend either Gino (The Manager) or Rosanna

Tom Robbins' Still Life With Woodpecker [10/7 EDIT: link corrected], my current CTA read, is hilarious. After picking it up and putting it down many times over the past decade or so I've finally embraced its Douglas Adams stylings. Read it if you haven't. ASAP.

The gubernatorial race here in Illinois is pretty entertaining, especially when one views the candidates as caricatures (and truthfully, I think it's somewhat difficult to gain a broader perspective, so why not embrace caricature?) . First there's the straight-out diction: Blagojevich, Topinka. Then there's the negative campaign ads: long-zippered-shorts-clad-nodding-Judy-Baar v. the-mysterious-$1,500-check-writing Blago. And lastly, there's Rich Whitney, the Green Party fulcrum of the scales, if you will. Antics ensue.

And here are some pictures from the cee-tay. One is of a mural in the Glenwood Arts District of Rogers Park (on the right), and the other is a pre-Japanese-lesson eastern facing view of the Michigan Avenue at Sunset. Enjoy.

Well, yesterday it was this guy's birthday. He doesn't update his blog anymore due, perhaps, to his having floated off into the upper echelons of drinking good beer and staying at the Ritz, but I still think he's a good fellow.