ONLY ELEVEN DAYS left until the last day of school! At the coffee cart yesterday morning I bumped into one of the teaching assistants in Michaela's class and bought her a coffee. As we chatted she told me that she won't know which school she will be at next year until later this summer. I was dumbfounded to learn that she might not come back to Longfellow. What a loss!*

I feel attached to Michaela's teachers and teaching assistants. Maybe it's because we just moved here, or maybe it's because they're so young, and I feel a bit maternal towards them. So I wasn't thrilled to find out I may never see them again. I know the only constant is change, yadda yadda yadda, but despite my countless moves I actually have a real resistance to changes. And endings. Or maybe that is the reason I have moved so much in my life? I am searching for perpetual newness? If a thing is always new, then I won't be around when it changes. By the time change happens I am already on to the next thing. Man, I need to think about this.

Change is on my mind because, as you may have heard, they are changing the name of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. It is now GRIFFIN Museum of Science and Industry. Will that be as effective as renaming the Sears Tower the Willis Tower? I hope so. I don't know anyone who calls the Sears Tower the Willis Tower.

Hearing about the MSI's name change made me think of another change at the museum, which is that they quietly dismantled and sold off one of my favorite exhibits, the circus. The circus exhibit was always hard to find, relegated to an out-of-the-way, dimly lit hallway, which only enhanced its bizarre creepiness. It was assembled by a retired railroad worker who really strove to capture the feel of a turn-of-the-century traveling circus, and included backstage vignettes featuring a barbershop, an outhouse, and clowns putting on makeup. When Michaela and I visited the MSI with friends last summer we were both looking forward to seeing the circus exhibit again. I couldn't believe they got rid of it altogether. I could understand putting it into storage for a time, rethinking its purpose with regard to the MSI's mission, but to just toss it out felt reckless.

In any case, the news about MSI prompted me to revisit the first comic I ever published, which was about the museum. Huge shoutout to the amazing artist and writer Edith Zimmerman, who edited Spiralbound, the absence of which is also still deeply felt.**

One Thing That Kept Me Going This Week

1. Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe. I read this immediately after finishing Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead, and was struck by the similarities; both are about children living in poverty, and are narrated by an adult looking back on a childhood marred by challenges brought on by systemic callousness and neglect. Wolfe's book takes place in Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes as they were being demolished, leaving the residents, who were already under extreme duress, to fend for themselves. This is a quick, moving read, and, despite the heavy subject matter, full of hope.

My list is shorter than usual this week—May is mad busy! I hope to have more recs next week.

Til then, love to you all, and never change!

Claire

*Not to mention that this seems like poor policy. Shouldn't continuity be encouraged? Isn't stability a good thing, for the teachers and the schools?

**I also turned this comic into a little book, which had a cover designed by Chad and printed by Martha Schnee of side.body and was sold by Anthony Greaney at the Boston Art Book Fair in 2022.