Grant Wood - Enbiggened

Ah, Chicago! A few days back I wrote that I'd begin posting about last year's cruise, but that was before I realized that Sara, Zoe and I's trip to Chicago yesterday would be so picturesque! So on we go to yet another string of postings from the Windy City.

Several months ago we discovered that the City of Chicago actually dyes the Chicago river green for St. Patrick's Day. This is exactly the sort of thing that we wouldn't even consider missing, so we did a bit of research and found out that the festivities are always on the Saturday before St. Patrick's Day, not the day itself. It's a good thing we checked, because I wouldn't have wanted to ditch work and spend hours staring at a river all day for nothing. Our little Zoe is such a good sport, we peeled her away from her little crib and strapped her into the car seat at 6 am and hit the road for Chicago.

On our way along the Miracle Mile to stake our claim on the river bank, we passed by my second favorite Chicago structure (the Tribune building) and walked into Pioneer Court to be greeted by B.H. McKeeby and Nan Wood Graham as 25-foot statues! It was so bizarre because they were standing exactly where King Lear used to be just a few months ago. We looked everywhere for King Lear but he was nowhere to be found, I assume he had been stabbed with a giant pitch fork. The cool thing about all this is that we got to Chicago very early and were the only ones in the plaza, as compared to an hour later when you couldn't swing a dead cat without scratching 50 drunken Irish wannabes.

Being the super geek that I am, I couldn't just say, "Wow, those guys are big", take a picture and never think of it again. I had to find out who was responsible for these Americana monoliths. I was surprised to see that it was J. Seward Johnson Jr., grandson of Robert Wood Johnson, the founder of the Johnson & Johnson company. Good ol' J. Seward is another one of those great artists that specify in giant works of urban art, and he can do whatever he wants since his dad inherited well over $50 million and a gigantic company. If you're into this sort of thing as much as I am, I recommend you look up J. Seward Johnson Jr. on wikipedia and see some of his other gigantic works of art. A lot of them are famous paintings redone in 3-D like this one.

The name of the sculpture is "God Bless America", but believe it or not, it isn't meant to be as patriotic as you might think, according to what I'm reading online. Notice that the stickers on the suitcase aren't to Hawaii and France, rather China, Taiwan, Bangladesh and India. It seems that America has outsourced it's blue-blooded, Iowa-born hard work ethic to the lowest bidder. Johnson's made his statement in what's gotta be the most subtle way possible, and I just wanna say to him, "Hey, you've got the money and the clout, if you're gonna make a statment, make a statment!" Instead, thousands of tourists take pictures, knock on the massive legs and think about how great it is to be an American. And I guess that's a good thing, sometimes we all just get tired of our fellow Americans making even a subtle mockery of the nation that has treated us all so well...especially a fellow American who has very much enjoyed the rewards that democracy has wrought. Three cheers for America! But enough of the USA, on to our tribute to the Emerald Isle.