I loved Chicago. To my mind, Chicago is the city of Obama, David Sedaris, the Blues Brothers, Kanye West. It is of course that and much more. I loved the feeling and mood of this big old city. The Chicago Art Institute is one of the best museums I've seen, with easily the greatest Modern Art collection I've ever seen. They had an embarrassment of Picassos. Almost too much if I'm being honest. Their surrealist pieces were especially strong, with some of Magritte's greatest work.

I went to the Green Mill, a famous jazz club that was a favorite haunt of Al Capone. I saw the exact booth he liked to sit in -- his back would not have been exposed and it was near the exit.

From my journal (after spending time in a beautiful Chicago library):

Public libraries in major American cities attract the world's preeminent thinkers on & practitioners of weirdness. These are the elite laboratories for challenging acceptable societal norms & behaviors.

I went to the Pitchfork Music Festival (lucky timing) because Courtney Barnett was on the billing. I managed to sneak into a talk she had much earlier in the day with a P4K editor. I managed to be at the absolute front of her stage when she went on to perform (only a couple hours of waiting in place). Her latest album came out days after I started my journey and that CD is one of the 5 I carried. It was great to see her... yet again. Always a great performer

Chicago was fantastic. Yet another Midwest city that I could see myself living in.