Oh, Great White City!

"As Burnham talked with her, a relative also entered the room. She told them Root was dead. In his last moments, she said, he had run his fingers over his bedding as if playing the piano. 'Do you hear that?' he whispered. 'Isn't that wonderful? That's what I call music.'" -- Erik Larson, "The Devil in the White City"

There's almost nothing more "Chicagoey" to me than the ride from Midway to the Loop via the Orange Line on a sunny day. Today was one of those especially blue days, which lights the skyline in three dimensional clarity. I turned on Sufjan Stevens's Illinoise album as we pulled out of the Midway station into blinding sunlight. It's the perfect soundtrack for days like this.

I settled on The Devil in the White City for my spring break leisure reading. Intertwining the true stories of the Colombian Exposition's head architect Daniel H. Burnham and "doctor" and serial killer H. H. Holmes, The Devil in the White City is so enthralling.

Having recently started reading the book I'm attuned to the history and landscape of Chicago, but nothing prepared me for the third track of Illinoise: "Come on! Feel the Illinoise!" I never really pay attention to the words of songs unless something about them jumps out at me. So I've never really payed attention to the lyrics the hundreds of times I've heard it. This time was different. Suddenly the song came into focus:

Oh great white city
I've got the adequate committee
Where have your walls gone?
I think about it now

Chicago, in fashion, the soft drinks, expansion
Oh Columbia!
From Paris, incentive, like Cream of Wheat invented,
The Ferris Wheel!

Oh great intentions
Covenant with the imitation
Have you no conscience?
I think about it now

Sufjan wonders why such grandeur and innovation was not more permanent. Even the idea of progress has died, he claims. Gone like the buildings that once held the world's fair.

Checking the publication date on the back of the title page, The Devil in the White City was published in 2003, first printed in 2004. Part of me wonders if Sufjan read this book and if it was the inspiration for his 2005 album, which shares a name with this song. It certainly seems possible. He even follows this song with one about a more recent Illinois serial killer, John Wayne Gacy Jr.

Whether this is true or not, it was the perfect way to spend a two hour train ride and my first morning back in Chicago!