Watching that very strange, surreal, LSD trip of an opening ceremony in London the other night, the natural thought was, “what would Chicago have done?”
Now, the Cultural Center is lovely, we certainly pulled it together for both Worlds Fairs, Millennium Park is astounding….
But, could we put on a show?
A LIVE show? With 10,000 Chicagoans stomping around?
I just can’t envision it, I just can’t. But oh my lord it’s so fun to try.
Picture it: A Burnham-esque host, taking us down the river of dreams, we build a fort and it gets ripped down by the Indians we helped kill.
A half-breed settler, a black man takes his lonely place at the bottom of the stage, a small cabin appears.
He fights, maybe dances to a fiddle and leaves. I guess that part is done.
A canal gets built, land gets moved and then I figure a lot like the Chicago fire show at Lookingglass, it’d be sweet if the fire was a character, a young girl with fiery red hair who swings to and fro through the massive arena, waiting…
I’m sure skyscrapers come shooting through the ground like the Fortress of Solitude in Superman.
Our Burnham-esque host tells us to “make no small plans.”
Somehow, somehow they’ll have to show Capone, maybe a kickline?
And then at some point there’s got to be a Bean, a Picasso and a Flamingo dancing around.
And then maybe tiny Rahm comes out and does a Singin’ in the Rain type dance around the parking meters.
So, what do you think the Chicago opening ceremonies would have looked like?
That last bit about Rahm and parking meters – hilarious!!
Yay! Thanks Laura!