Bill, the Pittsfield Cafe, Andy Warhol, and Edie Sedgwick

 

Mike with Bill at the Pittsfield Cafe

   On Friday, December 13, 2019 Sherry and I boarded the South shore to The Chicago Institute of Art. Sherry had wanted to see the Andy Warhol exhibit and also did I.

We arrived early in the day and decided to have lunch before viewing the exhibit.

Yes, I will describe the Andy Warhol exhibit, but first I must talk about Bill.

Sherry and I had happened upon a very cool restaurant in the Pittsfield Building named “Pittsfield Café”. This restaurant is a delightful place to eat with tasty and generous servings of food. But my favorite attribute of the restaurant was Bill.

   Bill had immigrated from Greece in 1950 when he was 17. He had worked at night while going to school during the day to learn English. Bill had eventually opened a restaurant in Chicago. He worked hard developing business until he had, at one point, four restaurants in Chicago. Around 1977 he opened the Pittsfield Café. Yes, this restaurant has operated for 42 years (perhaps under different names, I did not ask). Bill is very engaging. Eager to tell his story, which is entertaining and inspirational, one feels as if Bill uses his story merely as a way to make new friends. He is healthy, energetic, and humorous. He does not want to stop working. Just talking to this fellow makes one want to become an entrepreneur of something. Imagine…happily running restaurants for sixty years!

   His son now owns and manages the Pittsfield Café while Bill works as a host and conversationalist extraordinaire.

    As much enjoyment as Sherry and I were to have at the Museum, for me, meeting Bill was the highlight of the day. He is one pleasant person for sure.

   I encourage you to visit Pittsfield Café while in Chicago. And tell Bill that Mike says “hello”.

The Pittsfield Café is located at: 55 E Washington St
Chicago, Illinois 60602

   And you can check them out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Pittsfield-Cafe-179465312135928/

On to the Andy Warhol exhibit;

Warhol self portrait

    I must confess, I have never been a fan of his art work. But I have always been a student of his iconic place in 1960s American culture. While living in Detroit as a kid I would read the “Tempo” section of the Detroit Free Press which covered art, music, theater and such. Always there was something about Andy and his work. Andy challenged prevailing notions of what art could be.

very early art display

   I experienced the exhibit much like going to a rock concert of some 1960s group. But, unlike the obvious aging of the personnel of those 1960s rock groups, Andy’s art has not aged at all. It comes across in person yet fresher than the photos I had seen in magazines, and Tempo.

   Walking through the voluminous display of his art made me feel as though I were back in the 1960s for a while.

   Andy also made films. There is a presentation of some of his films.

I watched one such film “Screen Test Edie Sedgwick” Edie, who I also remember reading about in Tempo, was a 1960s model and actress. She was a close associate of Andy’s. This screen test ran for four minutes and thirty-six seconds during which Edie sat motionless. Not moving her head, making only nearly imperceptible gestures, Edie stared into the camera with penetrating brown eyes that effervesced like the surface of a freshly poured Coca-Cola.

Edie

  Periodically during those four minutes and thirty-six seconds, you can see the slightest curvature of lips toward a smile being actively repressed.

   But mostly it was the blink I favor as art. As humans do, she would blink from time to time. Most blinks were half-blinks. Other blinks were full, deliberate, and ceremonious. It had come across to me that Edie had discovered a way to personalize the moment while being compliant to Andy’s instruction to remain still without facial gesture.

   Andy’s display was enjoyable. It was fun to be up close to these “bigger than life” works of art which even today seem revolutionary.

Sherry...it was her idea to visit.

You can experience Andy’s art at the Art Institute of Chicago.

It will be on display until January 26, 2020.

The St. Petersburg Syndrome

A humorous imagining of a supernatural moment.

And, of course, quite very fictional.

Copyright reserved

     Mick, the aging rock star looked pensively out the window to the roads and fields below. He took a drag from his near-spent Marlboro and flicked ashes casually, uncaring as to their landing. Landing, yes, he was deep in thought as to how to handle his meeting once he landed. The last time he visited Mahone Bay was during better times. The Learjet had been his first and most satisfying. Recently he had purchased a Vision jet but it lacked the sparkle which had been the Learjet, much like his aging self. He carried with him the tortured knowledge that the ignorance of youth was much more exciting than the wisdom of age. And yet it was the wisdom that he now had with which to negotiate. What was he to do? How would he handle this meeting?

    Arriving from the jet to Mahone Bay, the rock star exited the inconspicuous cab with a sense of self-absorbed conceit and narcissism that would cause envy to Satan himself.

     As he reached the steps to the pub two young, blond-haired and smiling women with unearthly attributes of twin similarity opened the doors greeting him. “Welcome Sir”, referring to his Knighted status rather than the gentlemanly. It was obvious to these cover-girl blonds, that he was the ultimate manifestation of wealth and taste. “Nice teeth” was his only verbal response to the blonds which he accompanied with a wide smile that seemed to indicate his sense of total and unchallenged control.

    While incognito to the outside world, the pub staff recognized him immediately, and with the butt-kiss humility he had grown to expect. One of those nice-toothed blonds, Barbara, seated him in an inconspicuous corner of the pub at an insignificant wooden table, scratched and worn. Upon this insignificant table rested a pack of his favorite Marlboro, hard pack, an ash tray, and a bottle of Glen Breton Whiskey, beside two very recently pressed shot glasses, still warm. Mick lit the cigarette with a match, his preferred method.

    He blew smoke rings as he watched the two blond-haired women close and lock the doors. They turned the “open” signs around such that they read “closed” to the outside world. Blond Millicent ceremoniously placed coins in a seriously ancient juke box. The vocal sounds of Muddy Waters accentuated a blues guitar, bursting forth from the musical artifact into an equally old pub. The sound and the surroundings comforted Mick.

Pulling his attention back to the table he noticed his guest had quietly, inconspicuously arrived.

    It had been aboard his Vision Jet that he had received a text message on his smart phone which was dedicated to this one, very special business associate. Only this associate had the number to this particular phone.

“Greetings Sir”, again the Knighted status.

“Have a drink.” Replied the rock star, flatly. Mick waited for his guest to continue.

The guest hesitantly reached for the shot glass, poured the whiskey, a bit of tremble to his hand, and also in his voice as he asked “May I have one?”, referring to the cigarettes.

With the same nod Mick signaled his permission and also prompted the guest’s awkward explanation. A tremble still in his voice, the guest began and then fell silent as if to reconsider within himself how to begin.

“Obviously the task is beyond your skills.” offered Mick.

“I need more time” as the guest poured another shot.

The cigarette dangling from his lips seemed to tremble with even greater frequency than did his syllables.

“You’ve had thousands of years.” replied Mick.

“I” began the guest.

“Be careful. Use all your well-learned politesse.” teased Mick.

The guest defended his failures. “I tempted him in the wilderness. I buddied up with Judas, I have confused generations of people with misinformation. But His presence seems to linger, unaffected.”

“You’ve failed me, Satan. I’m getting someone else to give it a try.”

     As Mick completed his judgment he snuffed out his cigarette, the smoke overwhelmed the dim light of the inconspicuous corner of the pub. Satan evaporated as if he had never existed.

    As the smoke of this supernatural session dissipated, the dim light revealed a woman sitting beside Mick. She was adorned in the richest black hair ever that graced the planet. Her jewelry was worthy of queens and pharaohs. Mick turned toward her and affectionately spoke “Cleopatra, my dear. It’s been a while.”

“I thought you’d never get rid of him. Never liked him, a bumbler without any redeeming charm. Who will you get to replace him?”

“I’ve been thinking Cleo, ever since I slithered out of the Garden of Eden and into your bedchamber…”

“Where I petitioned the gods to give you this form.” she interrupted.

“Yes, thank you.” Mick continued… “Anyway, maybe its time to take a break, after all, it is the Age of Aquarius; rather, it is just the dawning of the age. Let these simple creatures live in peace for a while.”

“Getting too old to strut your stuff on the stage of chaos, Mick?”

“It’s the St. Petersburg syndrome. I see its time for a change. I want to relax for a while. I say, you and me, let’s find that spot around here where we saw the total eclipse back in…” his voice trailed off as he tried to remember the year.

“Nineteen seventy, or thereabouts.” offered Cleopatra.

“Yeh, thereabouts. Let’s take a bottle, wear our bright clothes. Let’s forget all this “practicing the art of deception”. It has gotten old.”

    Mick and Cleopatra sat comfortably aboard the Vision. Having taken a shot of whiskey and puff of cigarette Cleopatra looked at Mick and declared pointedly”I miss the Learjet. It was the only chariot that ever satisfied me.”

With a mischievous smile, confident and narcissistic, Mick replied in a faux tone of ego-damage “I thought I was the only chariot that satisfied you!”

Cleopatra leaned forward. Affectionately touching her forehead to his, she blew smoke into his face.