BYE, BYE EYEBALL
Music, Rebellion and Ageing




Every Wednesday on my way to teach, I walk by the giant eyeball near the Harold Washington Public Library.

Whenever I see it, I smile and think of The Residents, the avant-garde American masked band that makes liberal use of giant eyeballs in their iconology (and are often seen sporting eyeball helmets and top hats). And I think of playfulness and rebellion.






Seeing the eyeball, and thinking of The Residents, also reminds me of the olden days - when music was exciting and came on vinyl and you had to look long and hard to find the good stuff.

I got another reminder of this again yesterday, when I drove by the Rivera and saw that Nick Cave's new-ish band Grinderman is playing there on 11/22, and realized that exciting music is still being made - by and for adults, no less. And I remembered the debauchery of Lollapalooza '94.




But today was another story.

Today, they dismantled the eyeball.







It was fun while it lasted.

Just like youth....

which, as we all know, is wasted on the young.