Revolving Parts and Stationary Rods

There exists on film two great comic time capsules of Chicago's white suburban youth culture, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Wayne's World. What separates the heroes of these two movies is financial status. Ferris Bueller has all the gadgets money can buy but he is still bored. Wayne Campbell can't afford any gadgets (particularly a certain Fender Stratocaster) and that's why he is bored. What they have in common is message: you are not defined by your material surroundings. You define you.

No better example of the difference and similarity of these movies can be made than to describe our heroes' rides and what eventually they symbolize. Ferris coerces his buddy Cameron Frye into taking his father's Ferrari on a joy ride. The Ferrari becomes their cruising mobile and (excuse the pun) drives a large part of the movie scene to scene. Wayne Campbell's cruising mobile is his buddy Garth Algar's rusty Pinto (the Mirth Mobile). It figures heavily in the movie's most famous scene and it too is a cinematic vehicle. Both movies end with a little moral lesson about cars, materialism and life. Cameron pushes his dad's Ferrari into a ravine, a rejection of the materialistic paternal demands that weigh him down. The moral lesson in Wayne's World is just a bit more tongue in cheek and on the nose. One of a series of closing epiphanies, Rob Lowe's character (a sleazy network executive) says "...and I've learned something, too. I've learned that a flawless profile, a perfect body, the right clothes, and a great car can get you far in America - almost to the top - but it can't get you everything."

Soon a memorable relic of that life, that movie and that anti-materialistic message may be relegated to the scrap pile whence it came. Hopefully some wealthy art lover or wily PT Barnum type will spend the bucks and stop that from happening but at the very least, the Spindle will live in Cermak Plaza no more.

I've never fully understood our Western suburb's lack of love for the Spindle, which is one of Chicagoland's most iconic sculptures. Since I moved here from a city of car art, its dismissal might be beyond my comprehension. But no one could otherwise love the strip of Cermak Road where the Spindle lives - blocks of worn down strip malls and drab shops, cracked parking lots and gigantic laundromats. The Spindle is the only thing of interest for several blocks and the Walgreens for which it will make room holds little promise of improving that spot's aesthetic value.

But maybe a little history of questionable art, the mall owner and the neighborhood of Berwyn gives us better perspective. I don't know. I'm fond of the Spindle and not much else on that stretch of Cermak.

In Honor of the wonder of the Spindle please join me in a drive down memory lane; a Saturday evening cruise through Chicago's Western burbs, featuring The Spindle...




Related Links:

The Spindle

• Found some "research" material at the Leisure Arts blog, including this fantastic slideshow of art in the Cermak Plaza - you must see the photos from the religious ceremony with the "flying" angels.
  



• A driving tour around the Spindle.
  



• Save The Spindle YouTube Video with a most excellent Spindle Tattoo.
  

The Artist and the Art

• NPR Story interview with artist Dustin Shuler - with Critical Mass rally noise in the back ground.
  


• Some other works of Dustin Shuler - The Pinto Pelt (also at Cermak Plaza) and The Pinned Butterfly (my favorite but can't find a good photo online)
  
  
• Cartopia: the Houston connection.

The Neighborhood

• A short Berwyn Feature - with Svengoolie, the World's Largest Laundromat, a haunted bar and the Rock and Roll Ambassadors of Berwyn.

Unrelated Links:

The C*nts - Live and Thirty. I'm proud to play with these effing punks this Saturday at the Viaduct Theater, part of VersionFest 08. Check out their MYSPACE page for more info (new songs from the Sing-Along-With-Mike song book up in there).