Today I arrived in Chicago for the first time in many years. I am here for a professional meeting, with an extremely compressed schedule, so I suspect that I will not have time to see much of the city this time around.<\/p>\n
Yet from the moment I got off the Blue Line and started to walk through the streets, crossing the Chicago River on one of those beautiful old Richard Serra colored footbridges, I could feel, all around me, the unique atmosphere of this place. The high thrusting buildings of brick, steel and glass are invigorating, assertive, with a kind of brisk take-no-prisoners feeling that makes me understand why Carl Sandburg fell in love with this place.<\/p>\n
Yet there was something more, something just outside of the reach of my conscious mind. After walking a few blocks, I suddenly realized what it was: From the moment I had gotten out of the subway, I’d been nursing an earworm, way in the back of my mind.<\/p>\n
And in one moment of revelation I realized what it was: The lyrics to a song from Pal Joey<\/i>, a 1940 stage musical by Rodgers and Hart that I had not thought of for many years, that I had once performed in as a teenager. It turns out that I had remembered all the words.<\/p>\n
Here they are, for your enjoyment and cultural edification:<\/p>\n
\nThere’s a great big town
\nOn a great big lake
\nCalled Chicago<\/p>\nWhen the sun goes down
\nIt is wide awake
\nTake your ma and your pa
\nGo to Chicago<\/p>\nBoston is England
\nN’Orleans is France
\nNew York is anyone’s
\nFor ten cents a dance<\/p>\nBut this great big town
\nOn a great big lake
\nIs America’s first
\nAnd Americans make
\nChicago!\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today I arrived in Chicago for the first time in many years. I am here for a professional meeting, with an extremely compressed schedule, so I suspect that I will not have time to see much of the city this time around. Yet from the moment I got off the Blue Line and started to … Continue reading “On a great big lake”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17198"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17199,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17198\/revisions\/17199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}