Althouse: At the Big Face Fountain...

July 4, 2018

At the Big Face Fountain...

... cool off!

It's the 4th of July!

49 comments:

Ann Althouse said...: The photo shows Crown Fountain. From Wikipedia:

"Crown Fountain is an interactive work of public art and video sculpture featured in Chicago's Millennium Park, which is located in the Loop community area. Designed by Catalan artist Jaume Plensa and executed by Krueck and Sexton Architects, it opened in July 2004. The fountain is composed of a black granite reflecting pool placed between a pair of glass brick towers. The towers are 50 feet (15.2 m) tall, and they use light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to display digital videos on their inward faces. Construction and design of the Crown Fountain cost $17 million. The water operates from May to October, intermittently cascading down the two towers and spouting through a nozzle on each tower's front face. Residents and critics have praised the fountain for its artistic and entertainment features.... Crown Fountain has been one of the most controversial of all the Millennium Park features. Before it was even built, some were concerned that the sculpture's height violated the aesthetic tradition of the park. After construction, surveillance cameras were installed atop the fountain, which led to a public outcry (and their quick removal). However, the fountain has survived its contentious beginnings to find its way into Chicago pop culture....."; 7/4/18, 6:58 PM
Ann Althouse said...: This is an open thread, in case that’s not obvious.; 7/4/18, 7:03 PM
Ralph L said...: Is that the TV tower in Chicago?
Shouldn't there be an exclusion zone around it?; 7/4/18, 7:09 PM
Big Mike said...: We had a heck of a thunderstorm roll through here this afternoon. (Should I write "role through" to show solidarity with Donald Trump?) but it's cleared out and I guess we'll have the local rireworks display after all.; 7/4/18, 7:09 PM
Big Mike said...: BTW, I'm an old-fashioned guy and I much prefer Buckingham fountain, which I hope you had a chance to see while you were in Chicago.; 7/4/18, 7:13 PM
HT said...: Hek of thunder-storm roled threw hear ths aftn! Melania fine!); 7/4/18, 7:18 PM
Sebastian said...: Progs getting ready to celebrate the 4th:

"Someone threw bricks through the Nebraska Republican Party’s office windows in Lincoln and spray-painted “ABOLISH ICE” on a sidewalk in front of the building, party officials said Tuesday.

Executive Director Kenny Zoeller said the vandalism happened between midnight and 3 a.m. at the party’s downtown office, three blocks from the state Capitol.

The vandals caused approximately $1,200 in damage, according to a Lincoln police report. One brick smashed all the way through a front window, and another shattered one pane of a second window’s double-paned glass. A newspaper carrier discovered the damage shortly after 3 a.m. and called authorities, police said."; 7/4/18, 7:18 PM
Ralph L said...: My city has fireworks on July 3 every year, so people can do their own thing on the 4th, including most city/police workers. NC doesn't allow citizens to have fireworks that leave the ground. SC is practically anything goes.

We're getting thunder now, but we really need rain. Tough shit, picnickers.; 7/4/18, 7:20 PM
MayBee said...: I was wondering when you'd get around to posting pictures of this fountain! I love it-- people have so much fun with it in the warm weather.; 7/4/18, 7:22 PM
MayBee said...: Just drove past a couple of dads and kids, sitting on the sidewalk near a creek. The little boys were wearing Uncle Sam hats, and it looked like they were doing those snake things. It made me so happy!!!; 7/4/18, 7:24 PM
Francisco D said...: The Crown family has been good to Chicago.

Lester made billions as a DoD contractor (General Dynamics) and his offspring are spending it on various civic projects, especially the arts. They are nice people, despite being rich liberals.; 7/4/18, 7:27 PM
Rabel said...: "Designed by Catalan artist Jaume Plensa and executed by Krueck and Sexton Architects, it opened in July 2004."

So that's the mofo who got vertical video started. I hope he's ashamed of himself.; 7/4/18, 7:30 PM
traditionalguy said...: Big Sister is watching you. She's the nice one.; 7/4/18, 7:37 PM
HT said...: Cool female drummers on the mall.

John Stamos holding up well, without seemingly, plastic surgery.; 7/4/18, 7:45 PM
HT said...: Yankee Doodle on the violin! Then the big show, then tons of little ones all over the neighborhood, annoying everyone.

Happy Fourth!; 7/4/18, 7:46 PM
Humperdink said...: "Hek of thunder-storm roled threw hear ths aftn! Melania fine!)"

Former President Obama, speaking Austrian, honored all corpsemen on this 4th of July.; 7/4/18, 8:31 PM
actual items said...: What's everyone's favorite American-themed song?

Mine is "America" by Simon & Garfunkle.

It reminds me of the summer of 1993. I was 14 and it was my last year playing baseball. My dad was one of the coaches, and he would drive me and 2 of my teammates from my neighborhood to practice. He drove a maroon 1987 Oldsmobile Delta '88 and would only listen to the oldies station on the radio or one of like 4 tapes he had in there, one of which was S&G's *Bookends*, "America" was song 3. My friends and I started listening to it ironically, but then we all fell in love with it, and listened to it on the ride to EVERY practice and game.

It was 4 short years later that I left for college and my dad died unexpectedly from a heart attack. Every time I hear that song I remember my dad in his coach's ballcap and that car and that white cassette tape and those drives to baseball practice and singing those songs at the top of our lungs.; 7/4/18, 8:39 PM
Big Mike said...: Great fireworks display at the local regional park.; 7/4/18, 8:48 PM
Bob R said...: “He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden there. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Sister”; 7/4/18, 8:50 PM
pacwest said...: "What's everyone's favorite American-themed song?"

America the Beautiful by Ray Charles. Hands down. Chokes me up every time I hear it.; 7/4/18, 8:51 PM
n.n said...: America was conceived with a declaration.

Her guardians, turned enemies, elected to abort her in a most cruel way.

She was born with a revolution, and all the pains that accompany a natural birth.

Happy Birthday, America! You're 242 years old... and still viable.; 7/4/18, 9:14 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @HT,7:18PM

Hek of thunder-storm roled threw hear ths aftn! Melania fine!)

It did? On the Mall in DC? I'm 10 miles north, & not a drop nor a thunderclap the whole day.

Amazingly localized summer thunderstorm.; 7/4/18, 9:29 PM
Big Mike said...: You're 242 years old... and still viable.

Tom Streyer is trying to fix that — hoping out loud for a nuclear attack. That’ll show them deplorables by golly!; 7/4/18, 9:31 PM
Big Mike said...: @YoungHegelian, it hit the Winchester area mid-afternoon pretty hard, moving west to east.; 7/4/18, 9:33 PM
Roughcoat said...: 242 years, so young. Still.

Just think: at the time that Moses and the Hebrews were thought to have left Egypt, the Great Pyramid of Khufu was about 1,300 years old. And that pyramid was built by an already-mature civilization.; 7/4/18, 9:35 PM
HT said...: It did not rain in Washington, DC today.; 7/4/18, 9:39 PM
YoungHegelian said...: I just checked FB & saw, for the bazillionith time, some liberal posting that references that Trump didn't win the majority vote.

Here's my question: is it really a good idea to advertise that you're so ignorant of American politics that the fact that there's an Electoral College took you by surprise? 'Cause, it really doesn't strike me that that's a good idea.

I'm so old that I can remember when Democrats thought that having a solid lock on the electoral votes of California, New York, Massachusetts, & Illinois gave them one hell of an advantage.; 7/4/18, 9:40 PM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: Hek of thunder-storm roled threw hear ths aftn! Melania fine!)

Shouldn't that be "Melanie fine!"?; 7/4/18, 9:41 PM
Gahrie said...: Human history only goes back 5,000 years and human civilization around 6,000.; 7/4/18, 9:46 PM
WK said...: Columbus OH always has their fireworks on the 3rd so they don’t have to pay holiday wage rates to the city employees working the festival.; 7/4/18, 9:59 PM
Ken B said...: Here is my favorite Independence Day related song

http://kenblogic.blogspot.com/2018/07/knickerbocker-holiday.html; 7/4/18, 10:17 PM
stephen cooper said...: actual items - great post.

I sort of like most of the patriotic songs, but I have friends who died while serving their country (God I hate that expression, what I want to say is I have friends who are now dead who would be alive if they were the typical sort of person who is afraid to fight for his country)
and there is not a single patriotic song that can make me forget those friends, sure they would want me to like the songs but that is not what we are talking about. So it is complicated.

leaving all that aside, Sousa is great, the Star Spangled Banner (martial valor, fight for your family and friends) is better than America the beautiful (a selfish anthem, in comparison), but the bottom line is that the better the music is, the more I like it.

In case you care, I have known people who died young because they were subjected to the Bataan Death March, people who died young because they were shot at one too many times in Vietnam, rendering them sort of alcoholic, when they would not have been nearly alcoholic otherwise, and I know a bunch of people who landed somewhere besides a runway in a KC-135 (all dead), and I know people who lost dozens of their fellow soldiers to hostile fire, and I myself lost a couple million dollars of income by choosing to be an officer in the military instead of pursuing a more lucrative vocation (one of these things is not like the other, but the way!!).

Gottschalk (nuit des tropiques) is good, I also like the Grateful Dead (the vitamin C song, before I die I will see reparations for those arrested for mere possession of yerba buena) and when I am feeling really patriotic I like Barber (Knoxville 1914), the Music Man, and anything by Scott Joplin or Bix Beiderbecke, and other musicians like that.; 7/4/18, 10:54 PM
Mr. Majestyk said...: Althouse, all your pictures of Chicago are making me homesick!; 7/4/18, 10:56 PM
Big Mike said...: But if you go back to Chi-Raq, Mr. Majestyk, stay in the touristy areas of the Loop as Althouse did, or wear Kevlar.; 7/4/18, 11:03 PM
eddie willers said...: Since Simon and Garfunkel are taken:

Jay And The Americans.....Only In America; 7/4/18, 11:06 PM
Mr. Majestyk said...: Thanks for the tip, Big Mike. Although my brother and friends who still live in the neighborhoods seem to get by without Kevlar. At least for now.; 7/4/18, 11:09 PM
Yancey Ward said...: traditionalguy said...

"Big Sister is watching you. She's the nice one."

I was thinking the exact same thing!; 7/4/18, 11:12 PM
Yancey Ward said...: We had the hottest day of the Summer so far on the 4th here in Oak Ridge, TN at 95- we hit that two times in June as well, but those days were a lot less humid than today. What I have found amusing the last week is all the news stories about the country baking in a heat wave, but this heat wave is really nothing at all compared to the past- even the recent past. What I see reported, though, are not the temperatures, but the heat indexes. Thirty years ago, no one talked about heat indexes, then at some point in the early 90s you started seeing the indexes reported in the news as a side item, but this year it is just heat indexes with no reference to the damned temperature reading at all. Just my pet peeve for the evening.; 7/4/18, 11:21 PM
Mr. Groovington said...: Ralph L said... The snooty English-English pronounce Marlborough as Mawl’brah

Yes, that’s correct, we’ll done. Good to see the plebs can pronounce it. Now: from me, Siegfried Sassoon and Kate, fuck off.; 7/5/18, 1:23 AM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: How could you beat Lee Greenwood & Mermaids?; 7/5/18, 1:49 AM
Etienne said...: Ken Kaplan has dropped James Woods from the Gersh Talent Agency.

He said he was feeling patriotic, so on the 4th of July he dropped Woods.

Woods took the high road, thanked him for all his hard work over the years.

Woods has said that it doesn't really matter, as he has been blacklisted in Hollywood for his non-progressive political views.

He couldn't get a movie role even if Elizabeth Warren was going to fuck him in the ass with a cast copy of the Washington monument.; 7/5/18, 5:01 AM
rehajm said...: Nothing says Happy Independence Day like being an asshole for the sake of liberal politics.

From the leftie point of view where it is so vitally important to control other people's lives they must feel quite helpless without the backing of the strong arm of government. They must find comfort in these tiny acts of assholeiness.; 7/5/18, 6:13 AM
Jaq said...: Nothing says Happy Independence Day like being an asshole for the sake of liberal politics.

Can you imagine spending your holiday working to get out the other side’s vote? It’s almost like coming here and riling up the other side’s voters with transparently partisan and laughable commentary spiced with blind hatred, for good measure. Bless their hearts is all I can say.

It does bother me that they are so over the top in their criticism of Trump that It may be that I am missing genuine and valid criticisms of him because of the way they trigger such an emotional response.; 7/5/18, 6:32 AM
Jaq said...: I spent the day swimming in the lake, taking a couple of small boys digging for worms and catching bluegills off of the dock, setting off fireworks, etc. It was a pretty good day. It reached 100 briefly in Vermont on Fourth of July Eve, but watching some fireworks from a boat was a nice cooling end to the day.; 7/5/18, 6:49 AM
Whatever you say said...: @Tim in Vermont
How many bluegill did you catch? It takes a mess of them for a meal.; 7/5/18, 7:26 AM
Robert Cook said...: "What's everyone's favorite American-themed song?

"Mine is 'America' by Simon & Garfunkle."

I can agree with that. It's in a draw with Chuck Berry's "Back In The USA," (especially as performed by the MC5).; 7/5/18, 7:40 AM
Big Mike said...: Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue”; 7/5/18, 8:53 AM
Andrew said...: I went to Red, White, and Boom on Tuesday night (Columbus's big downtown fireworks show). It was great fun, as always. The musical mix accompanying the fireworks was more traditional than usual. They played the entirety of The Stars and Stripes Forever. The biggest surprise was that the fireworks grand finale was accompanied by the Firebird Suite finale from Stravinsky. It worked perfectly.

My favorite video of a fireworks show is San Diego, the Big Bay Boom, in 2012, where they launched every firework all at once.; 7/5/18, 9:42 AM
Yancey Ward said...: "Woods has said that it doesn't really matter, as he has been blacklisted in Hollywood for his non-progressive political views."

I was sitting at a nearby table when Woods won the bad beat jackpot at Foxwoods a few years back.; 7/5/18, 9:54 AM