Althouse: "Chicago has come up with a really big idea to boost tourism: giant puppets roaming the city's streets for days..."

April 18, 2014

"Chicago has come up with a really big idea to boost tourism: giant puppets roaming the city's streets for days..."

"... in an elaborate theatrical presentation... including a giant elephant that sprays water on spectators, and a 30-foot little girl. The characters act out a play over the course of days, incorporating locales throughout the city as backdrops."

33 comments:

Craig Howard said...: This is what passes for economic growth according to most liberals.

Money passing from pocket to pocket.

No wealth is created, of course.

Nothing tangible is created. Just the whim of spending on something cute and entertaining.

An experience!; 4/18/14, 7:03 PM
Sorun said...: I also like the related article: "Obama library can generate hope and change" and "reshape the South Side."

Chicagoans are chock full of great ideas.; 4/18/14, 7:08 PM
Anonymous said...: If you asked directions in a no go zone, generous Chicagoans may give you a bullet in your head as a souvenir.; 4/18/14, 7:19 PM
Lost My Cookies said...: How about reducing the crazy high sales and lodging taxes. Every time I consider going up there with the wife, boom! We see the same stores in Indy.; 4/18/14, 7:38 PM
PB said...: bring back the cows.; 4/18/14, 7:39 PM
Sam L. said...: It may be big (BIG), but it doesn't sound GOOD.; 4/18/14, 7:49 PM
Ron said...: That elephant sprays me and I go all Scipio Africanus and Zama his butt!; 4/18/14, 7:52 PM
Lost My Cookies said...: How about reducing the crazy high sales and lodging taxes. Every time I consider going up there with the wife, boom! We see the same stores in Indy.; 4/18/14, 7:52 PM
Anonymous said...: Is this what you do with all those puppetry students?; 4/18/14, 7:57 PM
Bob R said...: if those don't work, they'll try clowns or mimes. Enjoy the decline.; 4/18/14, 8:01 PM
Insufficiently Sensitive said...: They need giant puppets of Al Capone, both Mayors Daley, Obama, Valerie Jarrett and all the other powerful crooks in the history of Chicago. They could have inflatable speakeasies and booze trucks and boxes of 'extra' ballots and shootouts! What's not to like?; 4/18/14, 8:03 PM
Fen said...: Free bracelets designating your blood type would be better for the tourists.; 4/18/14, 8:07 PM
Joe said...: Like lipstick on a pig; 4/18/14, 8:21 PM
gadfly said...: Its the Chicago Way!; 4/18/14, 8:39 PM
Michael K said...: I'm going to be there in August. My kids and I will be renting a house in Grand Beach for a week. I used to spend summers there when I was a child. It is still a pretty summer resort.

I was happy to see that the giant puppets don't start until 2016 so I guess it will be safe to go to north MIchigan avenue for a day. No way will I go there with giant puppets. That's an invitation for gangbangers to show up.; 4/18/14, 8:42 PM
CWJ said...: No snark. I love Chicago. But it used to be that you didn't need to rely on gimmicks to get people to visit. The city sold itself.

Soren embedded a link (Althouse I hope
I used that term correctly this time) that I attempted to access. Instead I kept being redirected to a Tribune article saying a restaurant owner was claiming that his business was temporarily closed down due to racial bias. Really?

It will take a while to finally ruin Chicago for visitors, but the day may come. Paraphrasing Adam Smith, there's a great deal of ruin in a great city.; 4/18/14, 9:28 PM
Heyooyeh said...: They did it in Berlin in 2009 and it was awesome.

Stop hating everything, Jesus.; 4/18/14, 9:39 PM
David said...: A 30 foot little girl. On Michigan Avenue, of course, with her 53 foot mother, who just has to go to Chicago to find a bra that will fit properly.; 4/18/14, 9:58 PM
Chuck said...: What about the Cubs? Too clown-y?; 4/18/14, 10:17 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: OMG! They're gonna need a bigger airport!; 4/19/14, 1:05 AM
Dick Stanley said...: I bet folks dressed for success are going to be really pleased to be sprayed with water.; 4/19/14, 1:31 AM
Anonymous said...: This is not about giant puppets. Initially I was going to riff as "Comedy Stage Open Mic Night Comic says" on working part-time minimum wage as a giant puppet, but Althouse America might have to live without. Maybe sad, because I think I could do great things with it, might see if four in the morning brings its voices.

Speaking of four in the morning: cafe posts. They have faded away in the evenings, no doubt to the needs of moderation: Althouse and Meade need too sleep sometime. Note: I do not know this as fact, just assuming. As such, I understand, and I sincerely hope that the current format provides some relief to the work involved with keeping the Althouse house upright. An Althouse House, divided by itself, plus four, divided by Pi: is that the world we want to visit? How far do we expect Althouse to carry the decimal?

Anyway. I still miss the late night black box ping of writing something and finding out someone out there was tuned to the same distant radio station. The radio station is clearer now, but like old network-era television it ends at a certain time, with Indian profiles in black-and-white and flowing flags and the warm reassuring cuddle of static.

To write something in the middle of the night is now to have written something to be read in the morning. Perhaps this explains in part the Althouse "written strangely early in the morning" tag: some thoughts are better explained in the context of the specific of time, when most of the shared time zone is asleep and there is ice on the windows and it may be too early for coffee, maybe not, and there is a squiggle in your brain's ear that needs to be put into words, like why is 'squiggle' such an odd yet perfect word, its oddness further enhancing its squiggleosity?

And 'squiggle': squiggle so easily becomes 'Squiggy -- Sclemeel, schlemazel, hasenfeffer incorporated --, but Lenny: does anyone write in the middle of the night about Lenny? What about the rabbits, Lenny, what about the rabbits?

Does "Of Mice and Men" interrupting your sleep lead to a day of inchoate sadness? He really couldn't have lived on somewhere on a Special Farm, with Special Rabbits, really? Lenny, did he really have to die? Do I need to be thinking relentlessly about this now? Do I need to remember the baby rabbit snagged and snaggled by the eagle out of the field outside of work's parking lot where the cottonwood trees begin?

While I am writing this a drunk is urinating in the street and somewhere a baby rabbit has undoubtedly been snagged and snaggled by a magnificent eagle: which image do I want to fall asleep to?

Good night, urinating Prince.; 4/19/14, 2:22 AM
Anonymous said...: Ping.; 4/19/14, 2:27 AM
sinz52 said...: They must have gotten that idea from the 1989 Tim Burton Batman movie.

Remember when the Joker starts parading around Gotham City with his giant balloons?; 4/19/14, 7:41 AM
peacelovewoodstock said...: This is not a new idea, these giant puppets have been popular in Europe for some time. See here, including the girl, the elephant: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/05/the-giant-marionettes-of-royal-de-luxe/100293/; 4/19/14, 7:45 AM
peacelovewoodstock said...: p.s. whatever you think about Chicago politics, the giant puppets really are a huge draw for tourists in Europe.; 4/19/14, 7:46 AM
Guildofcannonballs said...: Here is Chicago:

Park legally.

Get towed.

Towing company lies claiming they don't have your vehicle.

Same company calls you three weeks later saying "pay me." Thousands of dollars because of daily fees.

Lose car or pay more than it's worth and you can afford.

Oh, and you die if you complain because it* is mob operated.

*Chicago.; 4/19/14, 8:04 AM
Guildofcannonballs said...: See,

The rat bastards at the Trib in true Chicago fashion give themselves credit for coming up with the idea, even though we have, just in these a here comments, Batman and Europe as counter-evidence.

How could Iowahawk stay there?; 4/19/14, 8:21 AM
Poppop said...: The elephant has been spraying all of America for years. No need to travel to Illinois just to see that. (Then again, I guess the Land of Lincoln does have a senior claim on the elephant's intellectual property...)

But of course the donkey has been spraying us too.; 4/19/14, 9:05 AM
Rusty said...: They only propose this because some relative of an alderman stands to make a lot of money at the taxpayers expense. For those of you not from around here.... Nothing and I mean nothing goes on in the city of Chicago without some politician, and oft times several, gets paid.
It's the Chicago way!; 4/19/14, 9:16 AM
Rusty said...: "Oh, and you die if you complain because it* is mob operated."

If by "mob" you mean city hall, then yes.; 4/19/14, 9:17 AM
gk1 said...: One party domination of any city is bad. Chicago will follow Detroit unless they luck into a Giuliani type that can attack the dry rot of runaway liberalism.; 4/19/14, 9:59 AM
Strelnikov said...: KMN.; 4/19/14, 4:30 PM