Kinetic Loop

Red door, St. James Church on Huron Street

Another red door, on the east side of the church

A small bird in a tree at St. James

Red berries in Millennium Park

Stained glass at the 4,300-seat, 130,000-sq-ft, four-level former Shriner Temple, now the Bloomingdale’s Home + Furniture Store (I didn’t see one red fez in there)

Italian composer Morricone scores honorary Oscar
“Among fellow composers, Morricone is not only considered a master of the craft but one of the most daring of musicmakers for his ability to blend seemingly disparate musical elements into cohesive scores. In his earliest films with Leone, Morricone began to combine traditional orchestral notions of composition with an embrace of the experimental and was one of the first composers to make sounds as much a part of his scores as notes: Cannon fire, creaks, gunshots, howls, rumbles, screams, out-of-tune vocals, twanging electric guitars, skittery electronics and junkyard percussion have all been used as effective elements in his compositions.”

Hans Zimmer is quoted in the Reuters article as saying that Morricone is “willing to break every rule, and he’s open to using all kinds of ideas from the avant-garde.”

Art critic Terry Teachout writes about his long interview with Morricone in the Wall Street Journal in Composer With a Harmonica (Feb 1, reg. req.), and reminds us that Morricone is sui generis. “Right from the start, his scores sounded startlingly different from those of any other film composer of the ’60s, in part because of their highly individual orchestral palette,” writes Teachout, and points out Morricone’s modernist ambiguity, quoting the (translated) composer: “Melody has a strong importance in my music, but it is also the one thing I often try to avoid — that one line which communicates a precise fact to the audience.”

There are a few Morricone-inspired ways we can be more creative. Morricone:

• Blends disparate elements into a cohesive whole
• Mixes the traditional with the experimental
• Incorporates the mundane into his work and makes it his own
• Writes complete scores himself and doesn’t send them, unfinished, to a studio specialist to polish.

Interview: Tim Calkins Studies How to Brand Chicago and Attract China’s Attention
“General awareness of Chicago is higher than we initially thought,” Calkins says. “But specific knowledge, for instance that the city has North America’s largest convention center and distribution capabilities, is sketchy.”

Quirky in a Good Way: Why all the hate for Little Miss Sunshine?
The writer also discusses The Royal Tenenbaums and his “favorite marriage of indie-quirk and broad humor,” Me and You and Everyone We Know.

Think negotiating for more money is petty? Hope you like your job
“There’s something almost noble about the way we don’t try to quantify our impact, but, as Neale pointed out so powerfully, there’s something quite stupid about it, too.”

Years ago, a flight I was on from Heathrow to the States landed on tundra without a word. Hours later, without any communication from the pilot or attendants, several Mounties stormed onto the plane. It wasn’t until later that we were told a man had attacked a female attendant and had to be taken off the plane — and that we had landed on Newfoundland. That detour lasted just a few hours. But 10 hours? When it’s not an actual hostage situation?

There are two separate pieces in the Wall Street Journal this morning on the 10-hour delay involving 10 JetBlue flights. Scott McCartney writes in “Stuck on a Plane: Why Nightmare Delays Happen” that long on-board waits seem to be occurring more often, and the over-riding cause is bad decisions at airlines. For example, JetBlue has a policy to fly every trip, regardless of how late the flight is. At times that policy works in their favor; this time, not so much. Tom Peters swears off JetBlue forever, and says:

Assuming the CEO couldn’t have stopped it (he could have), then he should have been on hand at the end to beg forgiveness in person and to have called the situation “an incredible, horrible, disastrous, disgraceful, unconscionable occurrence.”

Another recent example of a long on-board delay is the American Airlines flight that parked on the tarmac in Austin for nine hours. The pilot explained later that if a plane leaves its place in line to return to the gate, it has to go to the end of the line (pilot hours are a factor in these situations, too). Moreover, airport workers said they couldn’t get out to the plane to deliver food and empty waste material because of frequent lightning. The outraged AA pilot finally taxied the plane to an unoccupied gate without permission from controllers. American now caps their wait time in the plane at four hours.

(What JetBlue passengers didn’t see)

McCartney questions why a waiting plane can’t get a suspended status, so the pilot can go to the gate for an hour and let the passengers off for that time. However, “the FAA says that isn’t needed because airlines share an “advocate” inside the FAA command center. Any airline can ask the advocate to lobby for giving a flight a higher priority. ” Which would, again, do fuck-all. But sure, they can ask.

McCartney also mentions the European Commission’s flaccid “passenger-rights” rules from 2005, with exceptions that render the rules completely ineffective for passengers. The absurdity and uselessness of these organizations belong in a Jean Genet play (or Russia, but this is nothing compared to what they go through). One of the EC’s exception releases the airline from responsibility when bad weather or air-traffic congestion is involved. What’s left to delay a plane, aside from mechanical trouble, which is exempt? One of God’s four severe judgments, like wild beasts running amok outside the plane? Mothra vs. Gamera? A massive custard spill on the runways?

Right underneath the second part of McCartney’s article is a half-page advert titled “Another Revolution in Private Jet Travel.” Funny how that worked out.

The other Journal article is “JetBlue Plans Overhaul as Snafus Irk Customers.” Let’s look up the definition of the word irk. According to Merriam-Webster online, it means “to make weary, irritated, or bored.” The media is joining JetBlue on their corporate communications meiosis. I’m going to quote Tom Peters again, who wrote,

Words matter!…The situation was an outright, stretch-the-mind disgrace-horror, but the use of “unacceptable” is also a total travesty. … “Unacceptable,” my tush.

The situation of trapping their customers on 10 of their planes for about the time it takes to fly from Sao Paolo to Chicago, or take a bus from Asuncion to Filadelfia in Paraguay, obviously was acceptable to JetBlue.

The article focuses on how JetBlue will overhaul its procedures, mainly by canceling flights in advance of bad weather, upgrading its crew-communications system, increasing the number of employees and writing a customer bill of rights, which is just a sliding scale of flight delay reimbursements. Oh, and forming a customer advisory council. So, you may still be stuck for 10 hours in the future, in a festering, smelly metal tube, with basic needs going unmet, and if you tried to leave you’d be put in (as Peters put it) a high-security pen, but you’d get the value of your ticket back. Great! Don’t worry, a committee is working on it.

JetBlue has promised full refunds and free round-trip tickets, which could cost JetBlue more than $30 million. What they ought to do is tour the airports with the executive team in a dunk tank, which is especially appropriate considering that the CEO “hopes the chaotic week won’t drain the carrier’s reservoir of customer good will.”

I can’t end this post without an Airplane! quote:

Steve McCroskey: Johnny, what can you make out of this?
[Hands him the weather briefing]
Johnny: This? Why, I can make a hat or a brooch or a pterodactyl…

And just kidding about the movie.

The safest doughnuts on Earth…
“Yesterday we had a file photo of models picking up slices of pizza, and they looked like they had never seen such a thing before. “

The secret life of nuns
“Silvia Evangelisti, who specialises unpromisingly in “gender history” at the University of East Anglia in England, presents a radically different and intriguing picture.”

What You Didn’t Know About Bruce Lee’s Kick-Ass Success
6 Things You Didn’t Know About Bruce Lee’s Success

Delhi’s monkey menace
“On February 8th the High Court in Delhi ordered its rulers to consider expelling an estimated 6,000 urban monkeys to a reserve outside the city.”

Love to Love Chicago
“We thought in honor of Valentine’s Day we would list five of the things we love about Chicago”

History of Westerns with Christopher Frayling
“Cultural historian Christopher Frayling is the author of Once Upon A Time in Italy: The Westerns of Sergio Leone. The book chronicles the history of the spaghetti western. “

I went out to the lake on Saturday. There was a team of mallards around the picnic benches, and at first they were so still and so large I didn’t know if they were real. Then a few of them started pecking more, so I realized that they weren’t public art (you expect to see a lot of that here) but I was still baffled by what they were. The last time I saw birds that big I was at Amboseli National Park, but as I got closer, I realized they were mallards. Cartoonishly large mallards.

They took flight and settled into a paddling by a Chicago Fire Department tugboat, where the ice had thawed.

Then I went onto the Navy Pier, which was mostly empty with an occasional cluster of people, ncluding a few sailors with their families. The indoor attractions (mostly for kids) are open, but not the ferris wheel and other outdoor attractions. I walked past closed food kiosks (funnel cake, popcorn, beer) and docked cruise boats (Thank You For Cruising!) on a path that’ll be crowded with sweaty, serried tourists in the summer.

This box made me think of Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu the Vampyre, which I just saw earlier this month.

I walked out to the end, past the Grand Ballroom, and took some pictures of the ice. I had to go into the stained glass museum to thaw before I even left the pier.

Here’s a pic of downtown from the pier. The sun wasn’t in the best place for this side; I wanted the sun behind me for the lake pictures, but it came out okay, with the barrier in the foreground and the buildings a little fuzzy in the background. You can see the Prudential building on the right, just off to the side of the massive Aon Center.

I love the city in the winter.

“Let her go. She ain’t takin’ any business with her. [Pause]. And don’t forget to kill Tim.”

Al Swearengen/Deadwood

There’s an independent chain of theaters in Florida called Sunrise Cinemas, a smattering of grimy, low-rent, strip-center hovels that are staffed by people who long ago lost any desire to live and frequented by some of the rudest inhabitants of Century Village. The managers are barely people anymore; they wear people suits. This chain, which is arguably the best Florida has to offer, charges $3.50 for a cup of feeble effluvium they have the contemptuous audacity to call coffee.

The Gene Siskel Film Center is the shining, virtuous opposite, with its friendly staff, their well-lit and spacious cafe and their low-priced concessions. The walls are covered with art, everything is clean and Jim Coudal is there to read your palm for free.

Okay, not that last bit. Anyway, it’s located on North State Street, across from the Chicago Theatre. They play independent and international films, and are big on themes and tributes.

The cafe has two long rooms and space for up to 100 people, with plenty of round tables and a few high-tops by the windows. The gallery features local artists and other exhibits, e.g. photographs from the golden age of cinema.

The concession stand (more like a cafe counter) has surprisingly low prices and friendly staff. Candy is $1.25 or $2.25, a small popcorn is $2.00, and a very decent coffee is only $1.00 (most theaters, mainstream or independent, charge at least three times that). The popcorn is the best we’ve had at a theater. They also serve soft drinks, beer and wine.

We saw the new print of Nosferatu the Vampyre as part of the Center’s “Werner Herzog: Visionary at Large” tribute playing through the end of the month, and will return for more Herzog immersion.

Tickets are pretty reasonable ($9 for general admission, with generous discounts if you’re a student or pay to become a Member).

I pinch myself every day
“One season he is dressed as an astronaut, the next as a flamenco dancer, pirate or boxer.”

Tiny engine boosts nanotech hopes
“Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have created a tiny engine powered by light that can be made to sort molecules”

Still fresh?
“Colgate is not strong on big innovation,” says Jason Gere, an analyst at AG Edwards in New York. “The business is in great shape now, but my biggest question is about future growth.”

Gunn takes aim at new target
“There are two big Tim Gunn stories today” (Not enough. I want a Tim Gunn story every day.)

He Got in Trouble for Telling Menotti Jokes. Really? How Naughty Were They?
The distinction between “high-brow” and “low-brow” jokes

Ad creeps
“If the goal is to attract attention with no heed for the comfort or willingness of individuals to see it, then it seems to have been pretty successful to me.”