Peak Pique

HELL'S YEAH! THAT was my response to Gerry, my neighbor, who texted me on Tuesday afternoon to see if I would be interested in going to a "From L.A. to Chicago: Ice Out!" protest at the Federal Plaza that evening. I was in the middle of making this sign when she texted.

The message seemed to me perfect if long.

At 4:45 I met Gerry and her husband, Gabi, at their house and we walked together to the Green Line to take the train downtown. By the time we got off there were at least three other people on the train who were also going to the protest; one couple was scribbling something in sharpie on a piece of cardboard minutes before we came to our stop. I worried that it would be unpleasantly hot, but when we emerged above ground the temperature was already dropping and it was turning into a lovely midsummer evening. We admired the muscly architecture of the Loop.

The initial turnout at Federal Plaza was not, let's say, overwhelmingly huge. People looked like they were at a loss, like they wanted to do something, but nobody knew what. It reminded me of the "Hands Off" Protest that Chad and I went to back in April, which to me felt inert. I know a lot of people came to that protest, and that turnout matters, but I wasn't sure if it mattered enough. I felt a bit more energy at an anti-Tesla protest in March, although that one also put me on edge, since the counterprotestors were not shy about making their presence felt. Still, when the cars driving past—even a semi-truck—honked in support of our anti-DOGE protest signs, it felt like we were getting our message out into the world, rather than just preaching to the choir.

Now I followed Gerry into the crowd at Federal Plaza to find her friend. I could see people reading my sign. I hoped they had time to read the whole thing. We lifted our signs and strained to hear whatever it was the person using a loudspeaker was saying to us. There was a sign-language interpreter, so at least Gabi was able to follow what was being said. I held my sign up high so the people standing behind me could read Thoreau's message from 171 years ago.

Something shifted in the air. Loud noises were coming from Jackson. People started turning their heads. Even the person holding the loudspeaker seemed to pause. What was this? Something we should join, or something we should try to avoid? Everyone looked blankly at everyone else.

Gerry, along with many other people, began striding toward the street, and signaled for me to follow. We were on the move. I was relieved. Perhaps this would be a little more impactful than "Hands Off." As we stepped off the sidewalk curb onto Dearborn it seemed as though our numbers swelled immediately. Where had these other people come from? I didn't care. I had no idea who was leading us. I had the sense that a significant number of people were falling in behind us. The momentum was powerful. It was dizzying to walk through the Loop, shouting "Fuck Ice!" over and over, and then to turn onto Wacker, and see the shining river, and to shout "Stop Trump; Stop the KKK; Keep fascism out of the USA" or to respond "Our Streets" whenever someone called out "Whose streets?" while people sat in posh restaurants and gaped at or took pictures of us. I was glad I'd worn a bandanna mask. I held my sign up high with the message facing backwards so that the people marching behind me could read the whole thing.

By the time we reached Michigan Avenue it did feel like the streets were ours. I angled my body so that I could get between a car and a bus. Some cars honked, but it wasn't always clear if they were honking out of anger or support. I chose to believe it was the latter, and anyway everyone cheered whenever a car honked its horn. We kept marching, cutting through a grassy lawn in Grant Park and pushing onto DuSable Lake Shore Drive. Cops sprinted to block access to the ramp where the drive lifts over the river, and we swung back onto Monroe, but by then it was too late, the traffic would be snarled for a good long while.

We watched a masked person dart from corner to corner, busily spray painting "FUCK ICE" onto all available surfaces, and some other people proudly holding a Mexican flag in front of a cop car while photographers snapped away. I held my sign very still so a man speaking in Spanish into a microphone could film it on his phone. Hopefully, I thought, someone, somewhere, will be able to pause the video, wherever it ends up, and be able to read the whole thing.

Ha, so much for keeping politics out of Mushroom Head! Oh well, what can you do. These are the times we live in. I'd planned a whole post about how it feels to disagree with a dear friend about Zionism, which is also not exactly apolitical, but in the end, I don't think I can write about that very well right now. It's still too raw.

In other news, we went to New York last weekend to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday. It was very nice. There's never a time when I go back to New York that I don't have these crazy olfactory memories. This time it brought back summers from long ago. Michaela excels at describing smells, and she described the smell, I think accurately, as a combination of tobacco, hundred-year-old dust, water from a hose, perfume, and urine.

While in NY we saw the Jack Whitten exhibition at MoMA. I was riveted by his blisteringly angry early work, such as Birmingham 1964, a piece made from blackened and torn aluminum foil and a newspaper photograph of a police dog attacking a teenager, and Chad pointed me to the incredible abstract drawings he made in the 70s while he was in residency at the Xerox Corporation. But his later work tends to look like it was made specifically to fill ginormous white gallery walls, and was kind of a letdown.

We also went to Milwaukee for a quick overnight trip. Milwaukee is such a cool city. I look forward to a longer visit. We were there for the opening of artist Erin Shirreff (a friend of Mushroom Head) at the Milwaukee Museum of Art. Her photographs and sculptures are gorgeous, but also sneakily brilliant. Long after we saw her show I kept thinking about how her work is about looking. Her photographs and sculptures and videos make me aware of the ways I take in art, from seeing it reproduced in photographs to doing drive-by views in galleries. Walking through the show is like hanging out with a friend who realizes something before you do and, instead of evangelizing, gently nudges you in the right direction to see the world in a new way.

Three Things That Kept Me Going These Past Few Weeks

1. My headspace right now is such that I seem able only to handle slim novels or thick biographies. I tore through Susie Boyt's 150-page book Loved and Missed after it was recommended by Mason Currey in his newsletter, "Subtle Maneuvers." There is nothing more compelling than a lost baby, though the baby in Boyt's book is not exactly lost. A grandmother assumes the care of (kidnaps? rescues?) her infant granddaughter from her daughter, who is an addict. I know that sounds like a lot of terribleness, but if you love reading about flawed people who heroically try to make the best of the lot they've been dealt, than you will love this book. Also it made me laugh.
2. I love Sarah Miller's writing and I think this essay may be her best yet. There are so many funny lines, like: "Finally, Denise. My vow to ignore her because she worked in the defense industry had been derailed by the inconvenient fact that the two of us were soulmates."
3. RIP courtroom sketch artist Andy Austin, who got her job during the trial for the Chicago 7 because she just walked up to a reporter and told him to hire her.

This month in Mushroom News

This article about the benefits of shrooms for mental health is far longer than necessary and blithely quotes people eager to exploit fungal psychedelics for wellness purposes. The reporter interviews a clinician who is trying to set up a "healing center" that will offer people "psychedelic journeys" at $3,500 a pop. "I asked if she worried about pricing out workaday people—if her business model was set up to benefit the wealthy. Cooke frowned. 'That’s very classist, in my opinion,' she said. Just because someone is rich, she added, 'doesn’t mean they’re not in need of psychedelic treatment.'” Ah, yes, poor rich people. God forbid they don't get their psychedelic treatment. I skipped over huge chunks of this to find out what I wanted to know, which is that yes, shrooms do help with mental health issues.

Thank you for reading, my dear Mushroom Heads! I know you have a lot of choices in your newsletter journey and I appreciate that you choose to fly with me. You are always welcome to leave a tip.

Love,

Claire

PSA: Mushroom Head will be published on a biweekly (or semi-monthly) basis during the summer.