"Peace out to Pilsen"

As mentioned before, I spent last weekend in the Chi visiting my girl Kathleen and her lovely friends Krista and Ife. It goes without saying that I had a great time, Chicago is no stranger teh dope, but the highlight of my trip came from my experience in Pilsen, as time didn't really permit me to be downtown for too long. Shout out to my good friend Mica, who hyped up her hometown enough for me to want to do some investigating and spend a good third of my trip out there, and, trust, Pilsen did not disappoint. For those wanting a longer wiki description of Pilsen, there ya go. I'll just say briefly that Pilsen is a neighborhood in Chicago that houses the National Museum of Mexican Art and a community with a strong Mexican identity that's had a unique way of influencing the urban landscape.

To give the photos a little context, I went to Pilsen mostly to visit the Museum and take some photos for a series assignment, so when I was presented with the idea of Mexicanidad (Mexicaness) in the first exhibit, I thought it'd be interesting to see how that idea manifested itself outside and interacted with the surrounding area.

(Mural Mica worked on this summer.)

I wasn't going to do a Chi post, but I might as well big up my favorite rapper from Chicago with this great video of him performing "I Used to Love H.E.R." live, with a sweet surprise hip hop medley in the middle.

La Linea

What's old is new. Even though this Common "Announcement" video may be considered old news since he just came out with another one, the idea behind it apparently won't get old. As my photographer professor once told our class, "everything's been done." The goal is to add your perspective to it. So along the lines of Harold and his purple crayon, I give you this:



This video is an Italian animated series called "La Linea" (The Line) created by Osvaldo Cavandoli in the 1960s and 70s. But even before that, Daffy Duck and his animator, Chuck Jones, were going at it in the 1950s...(Even Jamiroquai had to get in on this.)