Chicago -
By ML Van Valkenburgh
1. Heart of a Dog/Mikhail Bulgakov
Bulgakov was one of the Soviet Union’s most banned writers, but largely because the Soviet leadership had no freaking clue what he was talking about rather than for specific political reasons, though his work was highly politicized. I’m reading it because my boyfriend bought me a copy.
Posted on August 31, 2006
By Steve Rhodes
Michael J. Lewis, the author of American Art and Architecture, among other works, reviewed Timothy Gilfoyle’s Millennium Park: Creating a Chicago Landmark in The New York Times Sunday Book Review last weekend, and when I saw the pull quote, I thought, uh-oh, here we go again.
“Starting from scratch,” the Times stated in boldface, “Chicago has turned a wasteland into America’s most dazzling urban park.”
Lewis’s enthusiasm early in his review also set my teeth gnashing – he’s impressed by the $475 million cost of the park, seemingly oblivious to the contract cronyism and mismanagement that drove the price tag so high, instead oddly comparing the park’s cost favorably to estimates for a World Trade Center memorial. Lewis also describes the park’s construction as swift, when the joke around here was that the park was named for how long it would take to get it built.
Then again, maybe Lewis only has Gilfoyle to go by. Fortunately, Lewis recognizes that something is amiss. By the end of his review, he is questioning Gilfoyle’s account of the way the park was built – and its artistic value – in a way that I haven’t seen done here amidst Chicago’s parochial, prideful press.
If only the Chicago media could put their pompoms away long enough to give the ideas at the conclusion of Lewis’s review an airing here.
Posted on August 7, 2006
