Evanston: Lost Route
Evanston: Lost Route
Chicago drinks Lake Michigan. A hundred years ago, after enough people had died of cholera and typhoid, the flow of the Chicago River was reversed, so that the sewage it collected flowed south to Saint Louis instead of east to be re-drunk. This was done by digging a 28 mile long canal. A decade later another canal, known as the North Shore Channel, was dug from Wilmette, just north of Evanston, to divert the flow of waste from the northern suburbs.
A story popular among locals is that Saint Louis bottles the sewage and ships it back as Budwieser.
I rode my bicycle over to the North Shore Channel this morning, rather than along the lakefront, because I wanted to ride through a sculpture park that runs for two miles beside the Channel. The Channel itself is a drab olive band of water about thirty yards wide. An eight man rowing shell was on it, presumably Northwestern’s. It is rather gloomy down there. The Charles River it isn’t.
The sculpture park is in Skokie, the suburb west of Evanston and where the Technology Park on which Carol is working is located.
The quality of the sculpture is unexpected. Museum quality, not amateur night. In fact better than museum quality, because the works are exposed to the elements, as I think sculpture should be.
More than 70 works are found along two miles of grass and trees, bounded by McCormick Boulevard to the west and the Channel to the east. While I was stopped to take a photograph one of those trees, a big one perhaps 40’ high, came crashing down across the bicycle path ten yards from me. It broke off two feet above the ground, where its trunk had rotted.
Since returning home I have found online and downloaded a self-guided tour of the park.
One of my favorite pieces is shown above. As I have learned it is LOST ROUTE by Mike Baur. It is noted that Mr. Baur doesn’t like to explain or comment on his works, an attitude which I admire. My first impression was that it is a whaling longboat with harpoon ready to strike. That doesn’t fit with the title, but then if Mr. Baur won’t explain, it can be whatever I want it to be.
It also brought to mind one of my own poems.
harpooned whale or woman
ghostlike white flesh
stretched taut
filled with sperm
unmoving
The ride along the lakefront is prettier, but I’ll go back to see the sculptures again.
Friday, May 11, 2007