Nico
Muhly,

I can no longer think about the word “Chicago” without hearing the opening of Steve Reich’s Different Trains. Anyway, I’m here, and it is so gorgeous out you could die. I just had a lovely run via what appeared to be Chicago’s Edutainment District, featuring the Natural History Museum (which has a cartography exhibit advertised that I am 250% going to see the minute I can), something called the “Shedd Aquarium,” which is more enticing for the double-d spelling than the fact that it might contain dolphins. Running around is a great way to see a new place, too, because you make quick navigational decisions that normally you would fret about, and usually end up somewhere unexpected. And, most importantly, if you messed up, you’re moving quickly enough that it doesn’t really matter.

– Rehearsals for Step Team are going excellently. I, of course, neurotically had this fear that a team of people dressed up like Janet Jackson from the Rhythm Nation video were going to pop out of trap-doors in the floor and threaten my life on account of my regressive harmonic agenda, but, no foot-soldiers arrived and instead everybody has been incredibly kind, warm, and generous. Plus I saw Ara Guzelimian now DEAN Ara Guzelimian!

– Today, during the Step Team rehearsal, a performance of From Here On Out happened in New York. I like this idea that if I were hit by a bus during my run, the music could go on without me. Satisfying.

– I haven’t done this in AGES, but what would happen if I got room service breakfast tomorrow?

– I had breakfast today at a café with Steffani, and when I ordered my omelet, I was asked by our waitster, “Would you like organic eggs or not?” I struggled with how to answer it; usually if somebody asks you if you want bottled water or tap, you answer, “tap is fine” implying that while you understand that bottled water is naturally preferable, you’re going to “stick with” tap. In the case of the eggs, I wasn’t sure if I said, “conventional is fine,” if the Janet-Jackson-Boulez-PETA squad was going to arrive in their hybrid black helicopters, throw red paint over me and my breakfast date, tattoo me with a Babbitt square as a reminder, and hand me a copy of “Your Mommy Kills Animals” or if it would be fine for me to spend $2 less on an already vaguely expensive omelet. (I ordered the organic eggs and thanked him for giving me the choice).

Don’t forget to set your clocks back. I received a friendly note under the door of the hotel room advising me a such. The note concludes with the vaguely Book of Common Prayer-sounding “It is, and will continue to be, our pleasure to be of service.”