the greatest show on urf

Show: the John Cage Musicircus
Location: the Museum of Contemporary Art
Cost: free
Things I missed to see it: The Rats at the South Side Punk Haus, Black Bear Combo and Quasaar Wut-Wut at the Darkroom (which happened much later but I was still fucking exhausted)

Dan Flavin's work explores color and space. Living space. In his current exhibit, he arranges colored fluorescents in different ways to completely transform rooms of the MCA. One room is entirely red, with a small prism behind the tube lights. Another is the same green you get from gas station bathrooms. It puts your head in a weird place. In the green room, there's a guy, an older gothindustrial cat licking a small plane of glass and rearranging the saliva with his tongue. On the floor, a grad student is making tick-marks in his sketch pad each time the guy flicks his tongue across the plane. This is the kinda shit that makes steam come outta Republican's ears. There was a little boy, a two-foot, blonde apple-cheeked thing standing at the top of the stairs. He was licking the air, mimicking the old man's movements. There's no way his parents are gonna be able to get him to stop for weeks. The sheer fact that a single American tax-dollar might be going towards something like this gives the GOP nightmares.

Today is the greatest fucking day of the year. Over a hundred musicians and performance artists converging on the MCA for the John Cage Musicircus. A free day of all things art, following a tradition started nearly forty years ago by composer John Cage. All of the Chicago stalwarts were there. At the start of the event, Environmental Encroachment was doing their funk-clown-marching band act on a ledge above the stairs. If you haven't seen them, you should. For the past six years they have been bar-none my favorite band to see live in the city. The original concept was that their concerts would be full stories, incorporating rhythm, music, tribal dance and theater into shows with a moral. "Tofishy vs. Squidbot" was about the perils genetically engineering food and was just about the greatest thing I've ever seen.

Inside, Terry Plumming zine and Princess were providing the noise. The Columbia College Vocal Ensemble were performing alongside some fierce djembe players; cheerleaders enticed you into a side room to chant along with men in alien jumpsuits; a woman dressed as Salvador Dali stuck handlebar moustaches to your face and drew your portrait on a post-it; a theorist wrote page after page on donated concepts, homemade instruments abounded: something that looked like a harp but wasn't, a man played a metal goblet with a bow, mic-ed through a host of effects; at least two theremin players courted spaceships and made me smile ear-to-ear; the big bad wolf gave Rorshack tests on a seesaw, and Insect Deli, in Ace bandages and underwear drew all the flashbulbs in the room her way. I couldn't even find some of the acts I was looking for, like Radiant Darling or a jazz group doing a full set of Zappa freakout.

When I ran into Rotten Milk in the mens room, he told me that this was the first time in years the MCA acted like it actually cared about the Chicago community. The last time was probably back when they did the all night jam on the solstice. Every facet of art in Chicago was covered and it spanned generations. Back in the day the place was packed. My friends' parents would dance to Brazilian music on the terrace out back, and come back the next morning for tai chi. Motherfuckers would get high in corners and stairwells and crash out watching the Video Ape and the TV Cowboy play short films in the theater. Redmoon turned the entire facade of the building into a two-story shadow puppet show. It was one of those magical evenings where nothing could go wrong.

Then it all got fucked up. Originally, they had only asked for a donation of two canned goods. Then, a few years ago, they changed it without realy warning people. They set up tables to collect the bags of cans people brought in for admission, and charged them anyway. I remember at one point, everyone I'd ever met was gathered in the park across the street trading forties and blunts. Gen Schock was drawing hand stamps on everyone with a Sharpie and the place filled up fast. There was a lull around 3 and I left to get some food. This is the conversation I heard on the redline.

Gangbanger: Hey, where's that party, where's that party at?
CTA Person: Excuse me?
Gangbanger: That party, that party at... the motherfuckin Art Institute and shit

So things got fucked up. A lot of the walls got tagged on and a fight broke out. I forget which photographer showed up that night (an older European guy who took aerial shots of raves and stock exchanges and made kaleidescopic mural prints of them) took a picture of blood dripping down one of his photos after this cat threw a bottle. That was the last one, it was the same year that Redmoon had top stop doing their Logan Square Halloween spectacle for similar reasons. It would be nice to think that the MCA may be able to pick up that torch again. And hopefully they could keep their shit together next time.