Never Change, Josh

Never change, Josh; that would be my best advice for the young man with the chance to be a star. For more than 20 minutes the night I visited the minor league park, Josh Vitters stood calmly and signed autographs for kids and posed for pictures with kids and had kind words to say to each of the young fans.

More interested in photographs, I had no interest in an autograph. But after watching him act as a wonderful ambassador for the game of baseball for that much time, with no other player on either team acting in the same way, I walked up and shook his hand. "Good luck to you," I said, since we baseball lovers need great guys to be the stars of the game.

Never change, Josh.

More Chiefs' Baseball

As mentioned in the previous post, the size of the minor league ballpark puts fans a lot closer to the action than you would be in a major league park. So close you can see the concentration on the faces, or see the tongue between the teeth almost like Michael Jordan.

Here we see two view of future Cub Josh Vitters at the Kane County Cougars stadium. On a different trip to the same ballpark, it was even close enough to hear the angry curse word a first baseman let fly after a throw went flying by him. As the saying goes, "you can't beat fun at the old ball park!"

Minor League Baseball

Forty minutes away from my house in the suburbs of Chicago, the Kane County Cougars are a highly-successful Midwest League franchise, a Class A farm team of the Oakland Athletics. Elfstrom Stadium in Geneva is a wonderful place to watch baseball and have a ton of fun. Since I am not an Oakland fan, I tend not to get out there very often.

But my spring training road trip in late March, logged here shortly thereafter, I enjoyed watching the four Cubs minor league teams work out, including the Peoria Chiefs. The Chiefs, the Cubs Midwest League entry, feature several young future Cubs, including former first-round draft choice Josh Vitters, a third baseman. In early April, this blog showed Vitters in Arizona in a standard photo as well as a polar coordinate semi-abstract shot. Liking the idea of seeing more of this young prospect, I went out to a Chiefs-Cougars game earlier this month.

The young future big-leaguer did not disappoint. For one thing, the size and scale of the stadium make it so much easier to see ballplayers than the bigger major league parks. For another, the atmosphere is more down-home, and several players spend more time on getting to talk to fans and signing autographs for kids. These photos, along with several others, will be favorites of mine, especially if Josh winds up manning third base for the Cubs in two or three years. Time will tell!

More Chiefs/Vitters images in the next post.

Nighthawks

Perhaps my favorite painting ever, Edward Hopper's 1942 masterpiece Nighthawks has been a poster on my classroom wall and a subject for analytical essay in my English class over several years. On the occasion of one of my visits to the Art Institute, it became the core of a poem:

NIGHTHAWK ON THE SIDEWALK


Hundreds of times I have walked this vacant sidewalk,
Hundreds of times and more, always so late at night.
Phillies Cigars still being sold on the five cent ad sign above;
Shops all shuttered, cobwebbed, abandoned across the street.
Every time I walk this curved sidewalk the air is frozen midnight.

And there they are again inside, of course, that couple
Looking bored if not despondent, all eyes lowered,
Never touching, never speaking.

And there he is again inside, as well, back turned to me,
Huddled over his coffee, alone,
Never moving, never speaking.

And the soda jerk is there inside, too, of course -- leaning over,
Dishing up a drink or making a dessert or washing a dish,
Never finishing, never speaking.

Frozen in time, we five nighthawks, never a twitch or a blink--
Four of them here since the middle of World War II, never a joke or a smile.
And tonight I join them again, out here on the silent sidewalk,
Locked away from the yellow light inside, facing the dark future
Lurking around the corner, where I do not wish to walk.
So where exactly is the door that might let me inside?

Greyed Rainbow

Two final works of art from the Modern Wing collection, each paired with a poem, before we look into a minor league baseball player. I have long been an admirer of Jackson Pollock and have really thought the 1953 masterpiece Greyed Rainbow was about his best. Several years ago after seeing the work I wrote a poem. Here it is:

THE NEWS AS GRAYED RAINBOW

Each evening several professional semi-monotones
Punctuate several news reports right on schedule
With a smooth "and that's this edition of the news" --
With the same voice and the same timing and in plenty of time
For the commercials and the comedies-to-come.
Nice and neat it is as if the daily news were
Painted with the precise warmth of Rembrandt
Chalked with the soft pastels of Degas, or
Sketched with the classic optimism of Norman Rockwell.
Most nights the news were better painted by Jackson Pollock
With his canvas flat on the floor, sloshing and
Squirting the paint from the tubes at random

Heading Out

One last post from the Modern Wing of the Art Institute. It seemed to me a must to return to the large, bright, cheery central core area on the way to the main north doors. We see the easy flow of people from area to area in the well-lit room. We see the flow moving around the sculpture.

Target sponsored the free visits during the first week, and they should be thanked for that support. Recent reviews have mentioned that the opening week had large crowds and that perhaps it is a little less hectic there now. But Target supported those crowds, and it was very exciting to be a part of it. Thanks, Target!

Pritzker Garden

A pleasant portion of the Modern Wing is the Pritzker Garden, just to the east of the central core of the building. New but already pleasant and peaceful, this outside area will only improve with age and time for growing.

Museums are designed as places for people to "muse," to relax and to think. Welcoming areas that provide the opportunity for reflection truly enhance any museum.