brownBagLunch_v2

Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was both an artist and one of China’s most revered contemporary poets, who as a young man studied Baudelaire and Mayakovski in Paris. When he returned to Shanghai in 1932, the ruling Kuomintang party jailed and tortured him, calling him a leftist. It was right: in 1941, Ai Qing joined the Communist Party.

BUT 17 years later, in the infancy of Mao’s new People’s Republic, he ran afoul of the Communist Party for subtly criticizing its suppression of free speech. The party exiled him, first to Manchuria, then to remotest northwest China; Siberia, essentially.

Mr. Ai and his family lived in a hut dug into the ground. His job for the next 16 years was to clean out the village’s public toilets.

“He was 60 years old. He had never done physical work in his life and he had to start doing it,” his son said. “Every night, he comes home very, very dirty. But he says, ‘For 60 years, I don’t know who cleans my toilets. So now I do something for them.’

“That’s something I learned from him. He became very powerful in terms of his thinking. He made the toilet so clean, he would see it as a work of art — like a museum, like MoMA.”

To read more, go here.

A sneak preview before the living room is complete.

Eric and I raided the As Is section of IKEA yesterday. We got two table tops, breakfast bar counter and small finished slabs of wood for a side table construction. The new stuff we got were legs, bar stools, hinges and screws for our cheap but tasteful home. We also stopped by the Salvation Army and got lamps, a full dining set and a sheet we’ll make into curtains. I am really in love with our apartment. We start school tomorrow at The Art Institute. We have one day to relax and enjoy living at home before I have a strict schedule. No beer and cigarettes today. Maybe after 10pm. Or whatever.

UPDATE: Our bikes got stolen. My green Sears and Roebuck Free Spirit was swiped along with Eric’s bike at Noon today. Our first floor neighbor said she pulled her car out of the garage and pressed the clicker. But it sometimes bounces off the ground and has a gap. Her bike got stolen last year the same way. It seems someone’s been casing us.

It was only yesterday that I was just a pedestrian walking and catching bus and rail rides around Chicago. My trusty iPhone guided me along the city grid and always directed me to the next stop. It all changed yesterday when we went to Kevin Thornton’s garage. Bicycles, tubes, gears, stands and numerous other parts stood on the floor and hung from the ceiling. There were Schwinns and other great manufacturers represented in this milieu. I had a budget of $50 to $100 to spend on a bike that could get me around the city. I’ve never tried so many bikes that were perfect for my height. Kevin showed me a Schwinn in the $100 range, a shaky Quinton for $50 and a heavy old vintage cruiser for $35. I asked for something between the Schwinn and the Quinton and his assistant, Karen, pulled out the Sears and Roebuck Free Spirit.

I don’t know anything about bikes but I took a look at her and knew she just might be the bike for me. She looks just like the photo on the left but she’s a small, forest green thing. She’s got Shimano Posi-Tron shifters, fenders and a rack.

Eric and I walked her to the nearest Sports Authority on Barry and Clark Street. I got a black helmet as well as a lock. He also carried her up the stairs of the Belmont Metro Station, moved back and forth from one door to the next depending on which side the rail car opened and down the stairs of the Washington stop. She’s a bit heavy and I think I might need to work out my arms and back if she’s going on the el with me again.

We broke her in that evening with a ride along Navy Pier and through Downtown back to Jennifer’s place. Our original plan was to bike through Millenium Park. But as we rode down Randolph, swarms of people were flooding out of the park, crossing the street and just making me nervous.

She’s a solid bike but I am an amateur. I felt fear, caution, and excitement throughout the ride. While we were on the bridge crossing to the Navy Pier River Walk, I wondered if there was a possibility I would crash into someone. Families, couples and bicyclists shared a cement walkway that was about five feet wide. In one instance, an older lady wasn’t aware of her surroundings and had a minor shock when Eric suddenly appeared next to her on his bike.

Balance pedaling, shifting in the center and sharing the limited space with people and cars…I can do that.

If you are interested, you can call Kevin at (773) 610-9442. He’s a really nice guy with a great mental index of the bikes he repairs.

I’m uploading photos tomorrow. So check back! If we nail down an apartment soon, we might travel for three more weeks.

Richard Thompson performs solo in Sacramento, CA on Tuesday and Wednesday evening. Liz Ryder will open for him on Tuesday and my good friend, Michael Frost, will open with his band, Alternative String Band, on Wednesday, July 1st 2009. Wednesday is already sold out. I’m not quite sure about Tuesday night’s performance. Doors open at 6:30 and showtime is 7:30pm. If you want more info on the availability of tickets, go here to Swell Productions or call (916) 441-2500 for R5 Records on 16th and Broadway.

In addition to that, ASB’s website will go live very, very soon…

You may wake up from a mescaline overdose and remember him from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Sven The Clerk at the Flamingo Hotel. He’s appearing this year in Green Lantern: First Flight as the voice of Hal Jordan. You should check out his subtle performance as Gene in Wet Hot American Summer (2001), below. And yes, one can YouTube the entire movie. It’s spliced into ten segments. Enjoy!

Or…

Gene: Now, we need to make 8 gallons of bug juice by snack hour; do you know where the powder packets are?

Gary: [irritated] Yeah.

Gene: In the pantry, above the sink, right next to my bottle of dick cream… Uh, wait, forget that last part.

Gary: Did you say dick cream?

Gene: No! I said next to my… stick… team, you know, stick team! Stickball! Go away, leave me alone!