My opera The Day the Dogs Began to Talk premiered in October by The Thompson Street Opera Company in Chicago and so I went to hear it. I rented an Airbnb in the Andersonville neighborhood close to the theater. It reminded me a lot of the neighborhood in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, call it Residential Gothic, there was even a street named Lincoln nearby.
When I travel it always seems that the people living in the place I’m visiting are completely free of doubt. Everyone’s living their lives with no self-questioning, like characters in a play. I’m in a sort of movie, but have no role, only they are the ones who are real, that they believe in the unchangeable solidity of their reality.
Andersonville’s known as a diversified neighborhood. The first thing I noticed was that it held the largest number of transgender people that I’ve ever seen. Everywhere I looked there were men and older boys with various-sized breasts, often built like NFL linebackers, sometimes with beards, sometimes in dresses. It was so overwhelming that one night in a bar I couldn’t tell if the serving person was a man or a woman. It didn’t make much difference; the gin and tonic tasted the same.
This was my first professional trip as a composer to America, and because of the various emotions associated with the production—a mix of excitement, apprehension and curiosity, I wasn’t much in a tourist mood. I did go to the Chicago Art Institute where I particularly enjoyed the collection of American paintings: Ivan Albright, Edward Hopper, Grant Wood.
One day, I visited Lake Michigan. I started to walk in what I thought was the right direction. After a while I suspected I’d goofed, so I asked a well-dressed man if I was heading in the right direction. With incredulity, he said “You’re walking to Lake Michigan?” I said yes and he pointed in the opposite direction. I started out for what I imagined to be a two-three hour trek. I was there in 20 minutes; I was back in car culture.
The next thing that struck me was the local supermarket; in Chicago these are called Jewel-Osco Markets. I’d forgotten how large American markets are, like airport hangers. But what really knocked me out was the layout of the items. The number of competing brands has reached peak levels. A hundred-foot aisle of sodas, ditto for salty snacks, chips, crackers, 50 feet of candies, three aisles of alcohol, a selection of breakfast cereals. I saw a bag of Fruity Pebbles as large as an overstuffed pillow. On and on, every kind of processed food and meat one could imagine. I walked through the place with the same feeling of discovery associated with museum displays of anthropological artifacts.
I liked seeing the stuff; as a child I’d eaten a lot of it. I loved the shelf of Campbell’s Soup, the Band-Aid selection sent me into raptures as did the double-aisled selection of over-the-counter drugs and health products. How does one choose a shampoo out of 150 choices? Hidden here and there were things I normally eat, food that’s cheap and (I assume) healthy, but I had to search. For instance, oatmeal. I recall from my American days, only two types, whole and instant. Now, I couldn’t even start to name them all. Quaker Oats alone has 13 varieties. Happily, fruits and vegetables can’t have artificial sweeteners injected into them, so these seemed normal. Or were they? Could they have been genetically altered?
I stumbled upon the pharmacy counter, my enthusiasm ended, and it all came home to me. Here was the destination where all that sugar, salt and processed food ends, in the land of prescription drugs. This was further confirmed by the health care ads blaring out from the supermarket PA system (“Are you over 18 and suffer from…”), the panels on the bus, or the Chicago subway.
In the desire to connect with my past, and participate in the local customs, I bought a pound bag of Twizzlers’ black licorice, a childhood favorite, and ate it within an hour.