Manifest 2010
I had planned my day around going to and meeting Gertrude at Manifest and so left Evanston on Thursday evening. My primary concern was getting in contact with Gertrude to get the details of when and where we would meet at the festival. She had originally contacted me via Facebook several weeks in advance, but now that the date was fast approaching I was beginning to become worried because I had not heard back from her.
A lot of my apprehension stemmed from the fact that while in Evanston I have no access to the internet and therefore no way of seeing if there was any message for me on Facebook about our impending meeting. She had my phone number but rarely chooses to use it, instead relying on internet communication. My fears ended up being unfounded as in my time away she made no attempt to contact me.
With the day upon me I elected to make a call to verify our meeting. I didn’t get an answer. Originally I had planned on being downtown some time before eleven, but as time wore on and I received no response from Gertrude, it became more and more apparent that this would not happen. I wasn’t sure what I would be missing but I suspected it might be the graduate poetry reading, as this was held near that time last year.
When by 1:30 pm I had gotten no answer I decided to go anyway and hopefully reach her by phone either on the train or as I wandered around the South Loop. I tried calling again while waiting for the train to depart at Forest Park. Again I left a message.
It was a strange thing to come out of the subway at LaSalle. Despite the fact that I had not done it in almost exactly a year it still felt perfectly natural and I found myself moving and doing as I slipped back into old habit. This ended up being directly in contrast to my situation when I arrived at the corner of State and Congress. The situation was much the same: pedestrians, cars and buses quickly went past, full of their own business and the University Center loomed ahead surrounded by college students and those partaking in the commercial establishments and their outdoor settings built into the first floor of the building. Yet, on the inside I felt much removed. These people to me all felt as though they were connected through business, or pleasure, or school. I, on the other hand, had been a student at Columbia College, had been a part of that body, but I had graduated and I was no longer a part of the whole. I felt as though, in graduating, I had been cast on and was no longer connected. This feeling persisted as I walked down Wabash and passed places that I once had been familiar with and had once been a part of, but now were excluding me. (The bright banners, open doors, and activity inside suggested otherwise.) My sense of separation became isolation and then abject loneliness.
I was awash amidst a group of people comprised of smaller groups or groups of groups or would-be-groups while I was alone. I felt very much a solitary entity amongst a great ocean of plurality and suddenly I realized that here, amongst all these people, I felt more alone and more isolated than I had in a very long time.
I continued south not knowing where I was going or what I was looking for. I didn’t have a map or a schedule of events (I did see a sign labeled “trolley stop” on a pole and was disgusted by it. Yet another instance of a bus playing at being a streetcar) and I walked to see what there was to see from the street. I passed two large tents on two separate corners but both of them were playing music too loud for my tastes at that moment. At 11th and Wabash I found a group singing on stage in the little pocket park. A small crowd had gathered before them, those up front sitting, those in the back standing. I cautiously wandered into the park (convinced the whole time I stood out like a sore thumb) and ended up standing beneath a tree which two others in front of me were leaning on. They were singing gospel. Or at least the first sound sounded like a gospel song, and was acted out with the energetic excitement of a Columbia production. The second sounded like it was Jesus-music as well but was far more somber and reserved.
I recognized my first face of the day at this event. It was the railfan I had urban geography with. He was working the sound system. At several points I thought about going over and saying hi, but every time I decided to go over to him, he seemed to become busy again and I stayed in place. I suppose it was just as well. I couldn’t remember his name anyway and that might have ended up being awkward.
After they finished the second song I left. 1104 S Wabash was kitty-corner from the park. Last year the graduate photo exhibit was held there and I figured it might be again. A throng of people were lining up to see some exhibit or performance just inside on the right. I brushed past them turning immediately to the left. Either due to some bureaucratic use of space, the foresight of planning from year to year, or a complete lack of originality, the graduate photo exhibit was in the same place it was the previous year.
Two tables were lined up end to end in the center of the space. A paper sign indicated food and beverages (mainly coffee and hot tea) were available but of course, the only things currently on the tables (besides the sign) were packets of sugar, Equal, Sweet ‘N’ Low, small paper plates, and a short stack of Styrofoam cups.
The order of the gallery was somewhat confusing. Some collections were set up so that a viewer came from the right, read the blurb about the photographs and what the photographer was displaying, and then came to a line of pictures. Next to these was a completely different set of photographs arranged in the opposite direction so that the switch from one set and photographer to the next was abrupt and unexpected. Sometimes the order would remain this way for two sets until there was another abrupt direction change, with the next set beginning on a completely different wall. If one attempted to follow each set in a given order, he would have to bounce back and forth, changing direction chaotically and seemingly randomly, possibly to the great disruption of the flow of traffic.
The subject matter of the sets varied. One chronicled the gradual transformation of two people born women but were becoming men. Another depicted estate sales from various houses from the 1950s in the city and some of the close in suburbs. A third were a collection of photographs of suburban neighborhoods, while the last focused on a secluded-yet infamous-spot in the woods where men secretly gathered to have sex with each other. (Many scenes in this last seemed staged.)
None of these struck me as particularly profound or altogether interesting, but they did rekindle a sleeping urge within me to make photographs. (I have a bad habit of taking photographs, not making them.) On a conscious level I would occasionally remind myself that I would go back and do some more photography, but the need to wasn’t there. Being in the presence of Photography restored me.
The logical next stop was to head to the undergrad exhibit. This too was in the same location as the previous year and one again the photographs were well done, but not altogether striking. One set showed various locations around Chicago. The first image was a straight on shot of the new, architecturally bland, railings at one of the rebuilt Ravenswood ‘L’ stations. Featuring prominently in the photograph was one of the station’s symbol signs, but all of the text had been removed. Based on this I assumed that the main premise of the project was the withholding of text from image, but curiously, not a single character of text had been removed from any of the other images.
I kept a close watch on the time as I wandered around the gallery. According to the message Evelyn had posted on Facebook, the ASL interpretation of Chicago that she was appearing in was scheduled to start at 4:00 and I was increasingly concerned that, for whatever reason, I was going to be late. According to the map and schedule I picked up on my way out of the Grad exhibit, the presentation was going to be at the Sherwood Conservatory, which was just south of 13th Street. I had been there once before (to observe a poetry reading of some woman whose name I can’t recall at the moment) and even though I was armed with a map in addition to my memory of finding the place, I was still concerned I was somehow going to get lost on the way.
At 3:40 I made a beeline for the door.
All of my worrying, of course, proved unfounded. The total distance between the two points was a hair over two blocks and took me about three minutes.
I saw Evelyn on the way in, half ready for the production. At first I didn’t recognize her; she seemed different in the face from when I had last seen her. She smiled and waved weakly in my general direction as I approached. I smiled and waved in return, completely unsure if she was waving at me or an unknown someone she recognized behind me. I resisted the urge to turn around and check.
I got a program and took a seat and at once began to wonder what the hell I was doing there. I barely remembered any ASL: certainly not enough to get me through a whole movie. On top of this, I didn’t even like Chicago! In fact, I hated the movie. I noticed one of my former instructors walking around conversing with several people and tried to sit still and not make eye contact. I could only imagine how embarrassing it would be to have it brought out face to face just how much sign language I had forgotten.
In time it became apparent that the room was exceedingly cold, a fact that was quietly remarked upon by several people sitting around me. This was made a little worse (although it was not unexpected) by the opening remarks which thanked those who needed to be thanked and explained some of the mechanics of how American Sign Language works for those who were just being introduced to it. The lights dimmed, several actors took to the stage, and the movie began to be projected onto a screen at the back of the stage.
On the whole, the experience was not as bad as my overactive imagination led me to believe. For one, the problem of understanding was nonexistent. They played the movie with sound (and subtitles) so if there was ever any question as to what was being signed, I could hear (and read) it for myself. And as far as the story itself, having the actors on the stage playing it out before me somehow made the whole thing more fun. (I still wanted the two main characters to get hanged, but that is beside the point.)
I found it highly ironic that I came to this event specifically to see Evelyn perform but, in the two instances where she was on stage with other people she was almost entirely blocked from view be her fellows. And in her big performance, where she took to the stage alone to provide signed narration, the lighting crew wasn’t paying attention and she went through half of her material in the dark before they noticed.
I hung around in the lobby after it was over, waiting to congratulate her and offer the other standard pleasantries given on such occasions. Waiting and looking around, it suddenly became clear that I didn’t know a soul who was present and I found myself feeling as though my presence and my obvious lack of knowledge of how to properly wait for someone in such an instance made me stand out of the crowd like a sore thumb. I became convinced that no matter how or where I stood it appeared very awkward and that people were wondering in unfriendly terms who I was and why I was perpetually in the way.
She wasn’t coming out, of course. She had finished changing back into her street clothes, said her farewells to her friends behind the scenes, and left without having been seen, perhaps from a back door.
Naturally, this was not true. In time she came out, hugged me, and thanked me for showing up. She was a little ticked off: none of her friends had showed up. She followed this statement with the most appropriate question possible: “Who did you come to see?”
“You!” I said, resisting both the urge to throw the word “silly” on the end and to break out in gales of laughter.
“You didn’t say anything!” It was true enough. I hadn’t said anything about coming or responded to her posting on Facebook. I had no response to this, but fortunately she continued on and we talk briefly before she explained that she had to go change. She left and I returned to the undergrad photo exhibit where I continued my viewing as close to where I left off as possible.
Some photographs were somewhat interesting-one, a self portrait, mimicked Picasso’s blue guitarist and was particularly so-but none of the names were familiar until I reached the back of the exhibit. I had moved slowly, trying to determine what the artist had in mind when creating each or to see what each image provoked in me, so I hadn’t reached the back when I got another text message. It was from Evelyn; she wanted to know where the hell I’d vanished off to. I quickly apologized and made a beeline for the Sherwood Conservatory once again.
As I pulled the front door of the Conservatory open, two people inside were heading out. Both were seemed cheerful, wore virtually identical clothes (I remember the brown vests particularly) and carried colorful flags. I held the door for them and let them pass as much out of politeness as in the fact that the flags made it seem as if they were on some important errand. The young man thanked me as he passed.
“Will you converge with us?” he asked, full of genuine enthusiasm.
Not asking what he meant, I smiled weakly, gestured ahead, and said, “I have to meet someone inside.”
The game was now turned; she was waiting for me. (Not that either of us were playing at anything or keeping score.) We then left with a friend of hers from the production. A brief and cursory introduction was given before we left. There was some light conversation but this friend of hers had the majority of his focus in his phone. She seemed to have decided to go to “Convergence” and was going to meet some friends there. Neither of the two of them had any idea what Convergence was, but my brain was already in motion. This sounded like a new name for the Spectacle Fortuna (“the parade,” as it was sometimes called, which featured unbridled wackiness). I tried to give a en explanation of what it most likely was, but the young man did not seem to hear and Evelyn shrugged it off explaining-with some embarrassment-that she had never been to Manifest before.
Just as we passed the undergrad photo exhibit, he got the message apparently he had been waiting for, gave the briefest of farewells and disappeared across a parking lot. We did not see him again.
As I expected, Convergence was the Spectacle Fortuna from past years, only now, instead of being a parade down Wabash Avenue, it was to be held in a parking lot with a circus-sized canopy overhead. (Obviously they weren’t going for a repeat of the previous year’s rain-out.) Evelyn was a bit concerned on finding the place at first, but as we approached all we had to do was follow the music and the crowd.
We sat outside on a cement planter waiting for her comrades to show up until a cop (or someone dressed in a manner to suggest authority-like a security guard) came by and told everyone to clear the sidewalk. We ventured inside the parking lot and got separated amongst the crowd. I had to use my cell phone to locate her and when I did we ended up leaving promptly. A friend of hers (also in the ASL production) was working for Manifest. His job was to stand on a street corner and incite people to “Converge.” (The pay was apparently $100.) The limit of his creativity in this regard was to shout “Converge!” as people passed by, although it wasn’t very loud shouting. My role in this situation was primarily that of a silent observer. I didn’t know him (we were quickly introduced by first name and general position-i.e. “friend”) and Evelyn spent most of the time here conversing with him on random topics. I was, for the most part, forgotten for the moment.
Standing politely silent-I had no idea what I could interject with to make me part of the conversation-caused me to become rather bored in a short amount of time so I started shouting “Converge!” myself. At one point I made a comment that we sounded like insane proselytizers to which they both agreed and laughed. I then began working with this, changing my comments to things like “Converge now, sinners, before it’s too late!”
I managed to find out several things about him between shoutings. He was black, a friend of Evelyn’s, an ASL student, and gay. (At several points early on he made several joking attempts to grab for her breasts.)
When it became clear that Convergence was actually starting (not the act of converging, but the spectacle itself) I took my leave of them and ventured in to see what would happen. There were musicians and dancers on stage (the stage was shaped like a T with the long part jutting out toward and in the middle of the crowd) and in the back were people in tan overcoats holding oversized books. When the appointed time came they opened their books (somewhat simultaneously) and held them up to form a picture. They would then wave the books as a crowd to give the image the impression of rolling like the sea and then (again, more or less simultaneously) flip to the next page and image. (North Koreans are the best at this type of display, followed by the Chinese.)
Now was the time for the raising and lighting of the Manifest Star. (A special note was made in the Chronicle excitingly reporting that this was a first for Manifest. Of course it was! There hadn’t ever been a damn “Manifest Star” before.) A recorded countdown began and opposite the bottom of the T a young man in a rather decent space suit costume was lifted up into the air on a contraption bearing a strong resemblance to a fire truck ladder. He hovered above the crowd for a few moments (simulating being in space admirably by moving his arms with apparent weightlessness) and when the countdown reached zero, the star (essentially a lighted star-shaped box) lit up a dim purple. It was all rather anti-climactic and was followed by more music and vigorous dancing on stage.
After watching the dancing for a moment I returned to Evelyn and company on the street corner. Her friend was barred from attending since he was employed by Manifest. The two of them tried to get a good a view as possible from across the street but didn’t have much luck in the matter.
It was about this time that several of her compatriots from the production and the ASL Department began showing up and they immediately fell into conversing with one another in sign language. Again, I fell into the polite, silent (in this case more than just being without sound) onlooker. After more hasty, half-hearted introductions and standing around I decided it was time for me to move on and continue viewing the photos.
My timing really couldn’t have been better. It was just at that moment that those still around had decided to go off to Dairy Queen. By association I was invited but I turned it down explaining my situation. Evelyn then suggested that we should “hang out this summer,” saying that we should go to the Adler Planetarium on a free day. I haven’t been in many years but think the planetarium is a truly fantastic place entirely on its own merit whether one has to pay admission or not. We hugged farewell and I left.
The crowds had thinned out considerably at the photo exhibit and I was able to make my way through the remainder fairly quickly. I noted the photographs of two of my former Photo II classmates: Suzie Ross and Becky Wasmuth. Suzie’s photographs were yet more advertisements (she had discovered that commercial photography was what she did best). These were for fictional products of Ikea and continued on a theme she had started much earlier. Becky’s came as somewhat of a surprise (I had been under the impression that she had already graduated). Her photographs were of various shapes or words made out of bicycle parts. The method struck me as I wouldn’t have suspected her to go in that particular direction and pointed out just how little I knew her.
After finishing the photo exhibit I aimlessly wandered the South Loop and came back to the Convergence tent, suddenly drawn by the sound of real jazz. I arrived just in time to catch the tail end of their set and watch them get off the stage. I mulled around under the big top, listening to the next band’s performance. It was all very contemporary and completely unimpressive. I stayed mostly because I felt as though I was coasting on the very edges of the moment-of any moment-and that leaving would feel like a large steel door slamming behind me.
Eventually I had had enough of such music and its volume, and I wandered back to the LaSalle Street subway station with manifest and all my life at Columbia receding behind me.
A lot of my apprehension stemmed from the fact that while in Evanston I have no access to the internet and therefore no way of seeing if there was any message for me on Facebook about our impending meeting. She had my phone number but rarely chooses to use it, instead relying on internet communication. My fears ended up being unfounded as in my time away she made no attempt to contact me.
With the day upon me I elected to make a call to verify our meeting. I didn’t get an answer. Originally I had planned on being downtown some time before eleven, but as time wore on and I received no response from Gertrude, it became more and more apparent that this would not happen. I wasn’t sure what I would be missing but I suspected it might be the graduate poetry reading, as this was held near that time last year.
When by 1:30 pm I had gotten no answer I decided to go anyway and hopefully reach her by phone either on the train or as I wandered around the South Loop. I tried calling again while waiting for the train to depart at Forest Park. Again I left a message.
It was a strange thing to come out of the subway at LaSalle. Despite the fact that I had not done it in almost exactly a year it still felt perfectly natural and I found myself moving and doing as I slipped back into old habit. This ended up being directly in contrast to my situation when I arrived at the corner of State and Congress. The situation was much the same: pedestrians, cars and buses quickly went past, full of their own business and the University Center loomed ahead surrounded by college students and those partaking in the commercial establishments and their outdoor settings built into the first floor of the building. Yet, on the inside I felt much removed. These people to me all felt as though they were connected through business, or pleasure, or school. I, on the other hand, had been a student at Columbia College, had been a part of that body, but I had graduated and I was no longer a part of the whole. I felt as though, in graduating, I had been cast on and was no longer connected. This feeling persisted as I walked down Wabash and passed places that I once had been familiar with and had once been a part of, but now were excluding me. (The bright banners, open doors, and activity inside suggested otherwise.) My sense of separation became isolation and then abject loneliness.
I was awash amidst a group of people comprised of smaller groups or groups of groups or would-be-groups while I was alone. I felt very much a solitary entity amongst a great ocean of plurality and suddenly I realized that here, amongst all these people, I felt more alone and more isolated than I had in a very long time.
I continued south not knowing where I was going or what I was looking for. I didn’t have a map or a schedule of events (I did see a sign labeled “trolley stop” on a pole and was disgusted by it. Yet another instance of a bus playing at being a streetcar) and I walked to see what there was to see from the street. I passed two large tents on two separate corners but both of them were playing music too loud for my tastes at that moment. At 11th and Wabash I found a group singing on stage in the little pocket park. A small crowd had gathered before them, those up front sitting, those in the back standing. I cautiously wandered into the park (convinced the whole time I stood out like a sore thumb) and ended up standing beneath a tree which two others in front of me were leaning on. They were singing gospel. Or at least the first sound sounded like a gospel song, and was acted out with the energetic excitement of a Columbia production. The second sounded like it was Jesus-music as well but was far more somber and reserved.
I recognized my first face of the day at this event. It was the railfan I had urban geography with. He was working the sound system. At several points I thought about going over and saying hi, but every time I decided to go over to him, he seemed to become busy again and I stayed in place. I suppose it was just as well. I couldn’t remember his name anyway and that might have ended up being awkward.
After they finished the second song I left. 1104 S Wabash was kitty-corner from the park. Last year the graduate photo exhibit was held there and I figured it might be again. A throng of people were lining up to see some exhibit or performance just inside on the right. I brushed past them turning immediately to the left. Either due to some bureaucratic use of space, the foresight of planning from year to year, or a complete lack of originality, the graduate photo exhibit was in the same place it was the previous year.
Two tables were lined up end to end in the center of the space. A paper sign indicated food and beverages (mainly coffee and hot tea) were available but of course, the only things currently on the tables (besides the sign) were packets of sugar, Equal, Sweet ‘N’ Low, small paper plates, and a short stack of Styrofoam cups.
The order of the gallery was somewhat confusing. Some collections were set up so that a viewer came from the right, read the blurb about the photographs and what the photographer was displaying, and then came to a line of pictures. Next to these was a completely different set of photographs arranged in the opposite direction so that the switch from one set and photographer to the next was abrupt and unexpected. Sometimes the order would remain this way for two sets until there was another abrupt direction change, with the next set beginning on a completely different wall. If one attempted to follow each set in a given order, he would have to bounce back and forth, changing direction chaotically and seemingly randomly, possibly to the great disruption of the flow of traffic.
The subject matter of the sets varied. One chronicled the gradual transformation of two people born women but were becoming men. Another depicted estate sales from various houses from the 1950s in the city and some of the close in suburbs. A third were a collection of photographs of suburban neighborhoods, while the last focused on a secluded-yet infamous-spot in the woods where men secretly gathered to have sex with each other. (Many scenes in this last seemed staged.)
None of these struck me as particularly profound or altogether interesting, but they did rekindle a sleeping urge within me to make photographs. (I have a bad habit of taking photographs, not making them.) On a conscious level I would occasionally remind myself that I would go back and do some more photography, but the need to wasn’t there. Being in the presence of Photography restored me.
The logical next stop was to head to the undergrad exhibit. This too was in the same location as the previous year and one again the photographs were well done, but not altogether striking. One set showed various locations around Chicago. The first image was a straight on shot of the new, architecturally bland, railings at one of the rebuilt Ravenswood ‘L’ stations. Featuring prominently in the photograph was one of the station’s symbol signs, but all of the text had been removed. Based on this I assumed that the main premise of the project was the withholding of text from image, but curiously, not a single character of text had been removed from any of the other images.
I kept a close watch on the time as I wandered around the gallery. According to the message Evelyn had posted on Facebook, the ASL interpretation of Chicago that she was appearing in was scheduled to start at 4:00 and I was increasingly concerned that, for whatever reason, I was going to be late. According to the map and schedule I picked up on my way out of the Grad exhibit, the presentation was going to be at the Sherwood Conservatory, which was just south of 13th Street. I had been there once before (to observe a poetry reading of some woman whose name I can’t recall at the moment) and even though I was armed with a map in addition to my memory of finding the place, I was still concerned I was somehow going to get lost on the way.
At 3:40 I made a beeline for the door.
All of my worrying, of course, proved unfounded. The total distance between the two points was a hair over two blocks and took me about three minutes.
I saw Evelyn on the way in, half ready for the production. At first I didn’t recognize her; she seemed different in the face from when I had last seen her. She smiled and waved weakly in my general direction as I approached. I smiled and waved in return, completely unsure if she was waving at me or an unknown someone she recognized behind me. I resisted the urge to turn around and check.
I got a program and took a seat and at once began to wonder what the hell I was doing there. I barely remembered any ASL: certainly not enough to get me through a whole movie. On top of this, I didn’t even like Chicago! In fact, I hated the movie. I noticed one of my former instructors walking around conversing with several people and tried to sit still and not make eye contact. I could only imagine how embarrassing it would be to have it brought out face to face just how much sign language I had forgotten.
In time it became apparent that the room was exceedingly cold, a fact that was quietly remarked upon by several people sitting around me. This was made a little worse (although it was not unexpected) by the opening remarks which thanked those who needed to be thanked and explained some of the mechanics of how American Sign Language works for those who were just being introduced to it. The lights dimmed, several actors took to the stage, and the movie began to be projected onto a screen at the back of the stage.
On the whole, the experience was not as bad as my overactive imagination led me to believe. For one, the problem of understanding was nonexistent. They played the movie with sound (and subtitles) so if there was ever any question as to what was being signed, I could hear (and read) it for myself. And as far as the story itself, having the actors on the stage playing it out before me somehow made the whole thing more fun. (I still wanted the two main characters to get hanged, but that is beside the point.)
I found it highly ironic that I came to this event specifically to see Evelyn perform but, in the two instances where she was on stage with other people she was almost entirely blocked from view be her fellows. And in her big performance, where she took to the stage alone to provide signed narration, the lighting crew wasn’t paying attention and she went through half of her material in the dark before they noticed.
I hung around in the lobby after it was over, waiting to congratulate her and offer the other standard pleasantries given on such occasions. Waiting and looking around, it suddenly became clear that I didn’t know a soul who was present and I found myself feeling as though my presence and my obvious lack of knowledge of how to properly wait for someone in such an instance made me stand out of the crowd like a sore thumb. I became convinced that no matter how or where I stood it appeared very awkward and that people were wondering in unfriendly terms who I was and why I was perpetually in the way.
She wasn’t coming out, of course. She had finished changing back into her street clothes, said her farewells to her friends behind the scenes, and left without having been seen, perhaps from a back door.
Naturally, this was not true. In time she came out, hugged me, and thanked me for showing up. She was a little ticked off: none of her friends had showed up. She followed this statement with the most appropriate question possible: “Who did you come to see?”
“You!” I said, resisting both the urge to throw the word “silly” on the end and to break out in gales of laughter.
“You didn’t say anything!” It was true enough. I hadn’t said anything about coming or responded to her posting on Facebook. I had no response to this, but fortunately she continued on and we talk briefly before she explained that she had to go change. She left and I returned to the undergrad photo exhibit where I continued my viewing as close to where I left off as possible.
Some photographs were somewhat interesting-one, a self portrait, mimicked Picasso’s blue guitarist and was particularly so-but none of the names were familiar until I reached the back of the exhibit. I had moved slowly, trying to determine what the artist had in mind when creating each or to see what each image provoked in me, so I hadn’t reached the back when I got another text message. It was from Evelyn; she wanted to know where the hell I’d vanished off to. I quickly apologized and made a beeline for the Sherwood Conservatory once again.
As I pulled the front door of the Conservatory open, two people inside were heading out. Both were seemed cheerful, wore virtually identical clothes (I remember the brown vests particularly) and carried colorful flags. I held the door for them and let them pass as much out of politeness as in the fact that the flags made it seem as if they were on some important errand. The young man thanked me as he passed.
“Will you converge with us?” he asked, full of genuine enthusiasm.
Not asking what he meant, I smiled weakly, gestured ahead, and said, “I have to meet someone inside.”
The game was now turned; she was waiting for me. (Not that either of us were playing at anything or keeping score.) We then left with a friend of hers from the production. A brief and cursory introduction was given before we left. There was some light conversation but this friend of hers had the majority of his focus in his phone. She seemed to have decided to go to “Convergence” and was going to meet some friends there. Neither of the two of them had any idea what Convergence was, but my brain was already in motion. This sounded like a new name for the Spectacle Fortuna (“the parade,” as it was sometimes called, which featured unbridled wackiness). I tried to give a en explanation of what it most likely was, but the young man did not seem to hear and Evelyn shrugged it off explaining-with some embarrassment-that she had never been to Manifest before.
Just as we passed the undergrad photo exhibit, he got the message apparently he had been waiting for, gave the briefest of farewells and disappeared across a parking lot. We did not see him again.
As I expected, Convergence was the Spectacle Fortuna from past years, only now, instead of being a parade down Wabash Avenue, it was to be held in a parking lot with a circus-sized canopy overhead. (Obviously they weren’t going for a repeat of the previous year’s rain-out.) Evelyn was a bit concerned on finding the place at first, but as we approached all we had to do was follow the music and the crowd.
We sat outside on a cement planter waiting for her comrades to show up until a cop (or someone dressed in a manner to suggest authority-like a security guard) came by and told everyone to clear the sidewalk. We ventured inside the parking lot and got separated amongst the crowd. I had to use my cell phone to locate her and when I did we ended up leaving promptly. A friend of hers (also in the ASL production) was working for Manifest. His job was to stand on a street corner and incite people to “Converge.” (The pay was apparently $100.) The limit of his creativity in this regard was to shout “Converge!” as people passed by, although it wasn’t very loud shouting. My role in this situation was primarily that of a silent observer. I didn’t know him (we were quickly introduced by first name and general position-i.e. “friend”) and Evelyn spent most of the time here conversing with him on random topics. I was, for the most part, forgotten for the moment.
Standing politely silent-I had no idea what I could interject with to make me part of the conversation-caused me to become rather bored in a short amount of time so I started shouting “Converge!” myself. At one point I made a comment that we sounded like insane proselytizers to which they both agreed and laughed. I then began working with this, changing my comments to things like “Converge now, sinners, before it’s too late!”
I managed to find out several things about him between shoutings. He was black, a friend of Evelyn’s, an ASL student, and gay. (At several points early on he made several joking attempts to grab for her breasts.)
When it became clear that Convergence was actually starting (not the act of converging, but the spectacle itself) I took my leave of them and ventured in to see what would happen. There were musicians and dancers on stage (the stage was shaped like a T with the long part jutting out toward and in the middle of the crowd) and in the back were people in tan overcoats holding oversized books. When the appointed time came they opened their books (somewhat simultaneously) and held them up to form a picture. They would then wave the books as a crowd to give the image the impression of rolling like the sea and then (again, more or less simultaneously) flip to the next page and image. (North Koreans are the best at this type of display, followed by the Chinese.)
Now was the time for the raising and lighting of the Manifest Star. (A special note was made in the Chronicle excitingly reporting that this was a first for Manifest. Of course it was! There hadn’t ever been a damn “Manifest Star” before.) A recorded countdown began and opposite the bottom of the T a young man in a rather decent space suit costume was lifted up into the air on a contraption bearing a strong resemblance to a fire truck ladder. He hovered above the crowd for a few moments (simulating being in space admirably by moving his arms with apparent weightlessness) and when the countdown reached zero, the star (essentially a lighted star-shaped box) lit up a dim purple. It was all rather anti-climactic and was followed by more music and vigorous dancing on stage.
After watching the dancing for a moment I returned to Evelyn and company on the street corner. Her friend was barred from attending since he was employed by Manifest. The two of them tried to get a good a view as possible from across the street but didn’t have much luck in the matter.
It was about this time that several of her compatriots from the production and the ASL Department began showing up and they immediately fell into conversing with one another in sign language. Again, I fell into the polite, silent (in this case more than just being without sound) onlooker. After more hasty, half-hearted introductions and standing around I decided it was time for me to move on and continue viewing the photos.
My timing really couldn’t have been better. It was just at that moment that those still around had decided to go off to Dairy Queen. By association I was invited but I turned it down explaining my situation. Evelyn then suggested that we should “hang out this summer,” saying that we should go to the Adler Planetarium on a free day. I haven’t been in many years but think the planetarium is a truly fantastic place entirely on its own merit whether one has to pay admission or not. We hugged farewell and I left.
The crowds had thinned out considerably at the photo exhibit and I was able to make my way through the remainder fairly quickly. I noted the photographs of two of my former Photo II classmates: Suzie Ross and Becky Wasmuth. Suzie’s photographs were yet more advertisements (she had discovered that commercial photography was what she did best). These were for fictional products of Ikea and continued on a theme she had started much earlier. Becky’s came as somewhat of a surprise (I had been under the impression that she had already graduated). Her photographs were of various shapes or words made out of bicycle parts. The method struck me as I wouldn’t have suspected her to go in that particular direction and pointed out just how little I knew her.
After finishing the photo exhibit I aimlessly wandered the South Loop and came back to the Convergence tent, suddenly drawn by the sound of real jazz. I arrived just in time to catch the tail end of their set and watch them get off the stage. I mulled around under the big top, listening to the next band’s performance. It was all very contemporary and completely unimpressive. I stayed mostly because I felt as though I was coasting on the very edges of the moment-of any moment-and that leaving would feel like a large steel door slamming behind me.
Eventually I had had enough of such music and its volume, and I wandered back to the LaSalle Street subway station with manifest and all my life at Columbia receding behind me.