LUMINOUS LINCOLN HEIGHTS LOFT

On my dad's first visit to the Lincoln Heights loft the first thing he asked was "are you sure this isn't where they made Klute?"

Though most other visitors focus only on the interior, Dad was struck by the qualities of the "haunting hallway" as he called it. He snapped these shots, one of the stairway (with the doorway eerily reflected on the black granite on both left and right; and the other of the glowing red square in the hallway.

I could see the wheels turning as he roamed around the place. In under an hour he was out in the hallway with a dust mop. On our first trip out the front entrance he wrote "wash me" in the dust on the granite trim.

Five trips to the nearby Home Depot later, he had (not in this order): caulked the bottom of the shower where the tile had separated from the floor; carefully scrubbed off the most egregious paint spots on the floor and then filled in each gouge with a perfect match of plastic wood; created a simple shade for an exposed fluorescent light in the bedroom, with a beautiful curve that matched the room; bought a hardwood floor compatible vacuum, a new string mop, a new cover for the dust mop in the hall; put up rack shelving to hide some of my storage; covered the plastic connector to the air conditioner with insulated foil to prevent the heat from emanating back into the room; hung my silk Persian rug and my photos of Prague and Chicago; and replaced the dead orchid with another bloom.

Needless to say it was a whirlwind. I tagged around trying to stop him from throwing away everything I owned, handing him screws or extension cords, etc. etc. I was so exhausted by the third day that I called my sister in Chicago to plead for advice. In a hushed voice, indicating the utmost gravity, she said "you haven't been giving him caffeine have you Pammi?".

LINCOLN HEIGHTS LOFT-MENT

It's a Loft, it's an apartment, it's, it's...a loftment! Moving toward the next adventure in my life, this Sunday I take occupancy of my new domicile. Escher-esque design by architect and critic, Joseph Giovannini.

Will the glasses slide off the counter tops? Will the cabinets fall off the wall? No, it is all optical illusion with color and light. I wonder what the cats will think when they try to jump on the counters?

And if it is "Escheresque" who would this Escher character be? 9 out of 10 people I asked did not know, leading me to believe maybe my one year as an art major may have taken me farther away from general public opinion than I had thought. Scroll thru Wikipedia's entry to see some of the most famous Escher drawings.

Another feature--shapes that when viewed from one specific spot appear to be one object. The blue shape shown here is actually three blue shapes painted on three different walls at different depths. Well, I'll see what happens to my brain when I move in this Sunday! This is your brain, this your brain on Escher!

I'll part with my Dad's remark "don't come home drunk darling"!

fin

BULLETS OVER BROADWAY

Last night I was awakened by three loud noises. I lay in the darkness frightened by the sound of gun fire. But something in my brain told me that noise was too…plastic. I decided it had not been gun shots and fell into sleep.

In the morning, I padded down my stairs to pick up the Sunday Times and… there it was—Yellow splats of paint on the door like tiny bright sunbursts. Indisputable evidence of three…paint balls!

A brief flashback followed--a traumatic moment of childhood, being hit by an egg on Halloween, faded with the relief that my neighborhood choice of weapon on a Saturday night was paint guns!