Bourgeois Mentality is First Class Mentality

     Today's format is a little different from previous posts, below is a sample of an essay I just wrote for my Technology and the City class. The assignment was to describe a place, and a place can be anything and anywhere besides the Gold Coast of Rogers Park. So today I went on an adventure with a friend to discover a new place and what makes it special to the community. The place is the Bourgeois Pig in Lincoln Park, for clarification of the title Bourgeois in french means middle class mentality and my experience there was nothing but a first class experience....

     Rustic and vacant on the outside the Bourgeois Pig sits nestled in between two brick buildings just one block off of the Fullerton redline stop. There are a few bikes locked up outside with people who look like Eskimos. Yes it’s the Chicago winter and the warm light that the restaurant gave off lured me in removing my concern of being cold.

     This space is anything but your typical lounge couch café. Walking in made you think that you were a part of an Owen Wilson adventure while in Paris, the style created a good sense of olden times with delicate touches of historic appreciation with paintings of Lincoln, Washington and all of their buddies. Instead of my moment being a midnight in Paris it was Twilight in Chicago when the mystic elements of work and relaxation seem to weld together for that short period of time. Leaving the B Pig to combine the art of lounging crowds and quick hustle and bustle to go cups I got to see this quaint place living in two different worlds almost as if it were a place that lived on the border of a time zone.

     When I walked up to the counter I explained to the woman that I was a first timer and that I had no idea about the place until 20 minutes ago. She offered to create me her favorite concoction, the Jamaican Latte, one of their signature drinks. Warmly complemented I bought a large chocolate chip cookie putting at rest the late afternoon hunger that had recently come over me outside. I waited for the drink, slowly spinning around soaking in all of the wall art. With different historical moments all documented in vintage advertisements and books dating back to an unknown time I felt like I was inside my Junior Year history teacher’s mind.

      Abruptly my train of thought was stopped when a man slowly sipping his coffee cup said, “This is my favorite place in Chicago.” Friendly atmosphere can be determined in so many ways but the easiest way to tell the character of a restaurant is the people that attend regularly. We talked roughly about the place and how the architecture within sets a mood that presents peace, intellectuality and happiness. Conversations like this can really make you reflect on how life’s simple happiness of people interacting the way they should, friendly. Lincoln Park definitely gets misinterpreted; here it gleams with class and pleasure of company in this quaint café.

    After grabbing my Jamaican latte from the counter I found a carpeted staircase to lead me to the only available seating. Like a house, tables were immersed within what should be bedrooms or dining rooms and created a more privatized setting for customers. Each doorway trimmed with dark wood lead me to the next, eventually settling to a table with a large window overlooking the neighborhood behind. I loved this place; it had a character of bringing back the classics with classic values. I think that is what makes it so beautiful with just the right lighting I can see everything in life that I want right in front of me and that is what can make a certain place so special.

    Currently I’m sitting next to two college students on a coffee date, a professor with the typical 70s mustache and in the next room can faintly hear the conversation of two work friends. I have had other visitor’s lurk by but these seem to describe this place eloquently, they are the heartbeat of the moment and keep it alive in today’s time in the attempt to bring us back in remembrance of what was before this moment. As their conversations loomed and my imagination wandered the one painting in our room sucked me in like a Mary Poppins chalk drawing.

     The painting is of a large square in the city with people conversing, it’s interesting because the bottom half of the painting cuts off a clear view of what the scene actually looks like fully. Where most of these people’s feet are located a blur is made leaving it to look like a huge reflection or puddle. This puddle I feel makes the piece incomplete but tied together all at once creates a better understanding of the space that I had been taking up. Not everything is clear the first time you see it, just like a blurry puddle, but if you wait to see it settle you can make more sense of what it contains. That is my exact plan with the Bourgeois pig, we have developed a conversation that has not yet been finished but unfortunately had to end due to my engagements in other spaces of Chicago. Next time I hope to find out the mystery that this place has created with its love for smooth jazz and inclusion of tiki beads in doorways. Next time the painting won’t be blurry and I will find out if that the guy next to me finished his project on time.

The Poetry Man: Life isn't about the words you write, it's how you say them

Crazy and charming the poetry man moves from el car to el car preaching his love for the art of performance and poetry, trying to bring the arts of Chicago to the passive existence which the daily commuters take a place as momentarily after moving through the sliding doors. Tonight was a classic lesson of how sometimes just the right words can rejuvenate yourself to become inspired and hopeful of what tomorrow has to bring or what the past can reveal of sudden reason. My story begins at the Wilson stop off of the Red Line on a school supply trip to Target with floor friends. 

With the snow falling lightly at the el stop we listened to the hum of the heat lamps as we shared stories of our childhood winters and any other topic to keep the conversation moving. Close off was another Loyola student who happened to know one of my friends and with quick introduction he seamed right into the conversation we were having before. Silencing our laughter the el came clumsily into the station and we all boarded the luxuriantly empty car with enough seats for all. 

The train began to move and conversation progressed through the entire car. Every walk of life was there: college students (us), working people from the loop, and families. Making a mental note while scanning around I had noticed that there was not one visible crazy person, very odd. Suddenly, the car door behind us slid open and a large burly man came stumbling in talking to himself  under his breath. Guess I spoke too soon. Unlike most of his "el kind" he had a whole introduction of what he was doing. The rest of the el decided to toon him out as he began to sing his toon, my friends and I were intrigued the moment he said he was the poetry man in his first line. He gave so many promises to us el riders, he took us on a journey of past, present and future through our minds most delicate spot for memory. He talked about love. 

This was not the cute sappy way, but love and what it really means . With pause and reflection through his choice of words to create the picture in our minds of what our past and present was and what we want for the future in any of the relationships we have, to be. Unfortunately I could not recite the poem for you, that memory is fade like a wave... it comes inside crashing when strong tides bring it back but out within the same time like an undercurrent tide pulling it to secure hiding. However we passed him some change and he gave us a poem to read on our way off, a starving artist has guts that not many people have continuing their dream no matter what the push is. It's an inspiration within itself.

Smiles lit up all of our faces as his words effected us to see life in a different perspective just in that serendipitous moment. Most of all he taught us the power of words and how its not what you say, its how you say it. I'm not saying that I'm going to sing every statement I make, but like him I'm to use poise in thought to create food  for thought. Much more than a microwaveable lean cuisine, like a three course meal which has the complexity to keep ideas stronger as the bond of conversation ignites around this deep thought.   Thank you to the Poetry Man for teaching with his talents, some people are too scared to show those talents in thought of failure; instead of thinking he just does it.