One of common and most feared dispatcher calls is “shots fired.” About 10 CPD officers answered a call just two blocks away from Loyola on Sheridan. There were no injuries as far as anyone could tell. No blood. Just a dozen or so spent shells in the snow. For police another day at the office, but for residents, an increase in fear as two rival gangs are clashing more in a neighborhood neither had claimed before.
Chicago has been receiving far more snow than in winter’s past. I really love it, but most people see it as a pain in the rear. At any rate just a little fast action movie of people speeding up in the snow.
This is one of those lighted bus stop advertisement boxes at the corner of Chicago and State. This image cannot be seen when there is a lighted advertisement in the box which is why it took me off guard. I thought it was a piece from the Museum of Contemporary Art because it would not be out of place. After looking for a few minutes I realized it was graffiti which I generally detest. However, this — whatever this is — looked better than anything I’ve seen in the MCA because it’s not concocted. 
Mies van der Rohe influenced the world with his architecture. The establishment was caught off guard and began to criticize what vab der Rohe said they didn’t yet understand. Over time, he was considered a living legend by many of his colleagues. However, to this day his work is controversial. For Mies, simple elegant form and function eliminated ornamentation which he considered useless. He inspired a generation of architects and along with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, is considered a Chicago master. He won every possible major award in the field and in 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson presented Mies van der Rohe with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Among other brilliant design changes, Mies lifted buildings up a few floor exposing the living and working space on the ground level of buildings. It made viewing buildings more appealing from the outside in and the inside out. Mies’ work defines the campus design of the Illinois Institute of Technology where he taught. His buildings dot Chicago, the United States and the rest of the world. Even today, many Chicago architects find a way in their design to give a tip of the hat to the master
who helped make Chicago arguably the most important architecture city of its time.
The past two week’s cold weather dotted with sub-zero temperatures left the shoreline of lake Michigan a mysterious landscape. Seawalls morphed into walls of stelagtites and two foot bouies into icebergs.
Only 80 days until the official opening day of baseball. Baseball is that classic American sport where a mediocre play does NOT result in the taunting of an opposing player, some kind of dance and a beating of one’s chest. I can’t wait. 
A 45-minute commute is commonplace, a two hour commute is insane, but not shocking to anyone. The fact is people who ride public transportation live a significant part of their lives publicly. A one hour commute to and from work each day represents 12.5 percent of a person’s waking hours. I’m looking for the times when people forget they are next to other people or don’t care. Instead of posing, avoiding all glances, lost in earbuds or reading furiously from an electronic slate, I like fingernail painting, radios, manners or no manners, blowing one’s nose and looking, pulling out a mirror and primping, eating and whatever else seems real. All the world’s a stage and never have I seen more acting than on public transportation. I want non-acting and so I’m going to see if I can get it.
Ralph Braseth Dot Calm 