Iron & Wine v. the Dalai Lama

The Living Torrent, Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo (ARTINFO/The National Gallery)

Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, Chicago, Monday, June 6. Reports of a massive turnout for Sam Beam's Iron  & Wine texted their way to me so I expected to sit at the back of the lawn. Two weeks before, the crowd for Bonnie Prince Billie had been good-sized, healthy and full-feeling but with room for all--channels between camps wendable and open seats up front to take in His Bare-footed Magnificence. On our way to Monday night's free concert in the park, we ran into friends coming out of the train downtown, discussed the rumors, and I recalled the gathering that surrounded the Dalai Lama when he appeared at the park to speak in 2007. We'd all seen the Decembrists (backed by full orchestra!) there in 2007 as well--the audience was standing room only and I'd perched on fences and the uprising around the lawn proper to get views. But the number assembled for the Dalai Lama was in a different category. Reverents and come-alongs accumulated far beyond the confines of the lawn, milling about  and settling down wherever there was shade. It was a fitting quiet crowd--heads bowed to hear the talk, or snoozing, not much clatter or chatter.

Streaming up the steps toward the pavilion, I was surprised to find that Beam's fine folky-psychadelic rock had already drawn people into the park on a Dalai Lama-scale. People picnicked everywhere: every patch of grass, sidewalks, inside planters; those who chose to stand stood 10 and 20 deep around the peripheries. Kennedy and I chunnelled through the thickets blocking the way to Cloud Gate and Lurie Garden, and found an unlocked door into the garden via the parking garage entrance. The gates to the garden had been locked, patrolled by a guard on a Segway to turn back the kids who periodically hopped low fences to sneak in through a dense border of bushes and small trees. The garden paths were lined with fellows, and we found a spot where we could throw down our mat and pour a glass of wine; the sound in the garden was decent and the view of hillocks on hillocks of purply blooming native plants was downright lovely--smelled sweet too.

So, Iron & Wine v. Dalai Lama:
Sheer quantity of humans: my memory is sketchy, I will call it a draw
Hula hoops: definitely more "hoopers" around the Bean for Iron & Wine
Children: another draw
Benevolence: in my own experience, another draw, though, credible reports of flare-ups at the latter event, under consideration, I will give a slight edge to the Dalai Lama, evening the overall score, which jives with my feel for the two events, though, in frankness, I enjoyed the concert more.
Sorry to disappoint anyone who might have needed to see a clear winner here.

I've never been much of a crowd lover. Now, though I still have my suspicions, my reaction to large human gatherings is much fuzzier. After the irateness of the trundling and hurtling streets of the city, the elbowing and proprietary jostling in lines and places of purchasing, I marvel at the good-natured spirit that mushrooms and settles over us during certain civic pleasures. A few summers ago, I watched Hitchcock's Psycho in Grant Park along with many hundreds of other Chicagoans. I've seen most of Hitchcock's filmography, barring this flick, and I was a bit apprehensive about the setting. That a mouthy, fidgety audience might spoil my first interface with the classic. It was a gorgeous evening--the picture looked great; the film's soundscape is tremendous; the crowd's quiet and calm broken only in audible intakes of breath at a scare and a little squealing and shifting at the scariest points. We all watched the movie together and I found it moving--it feels like a perhaps momentous cooperative effort to quiet down together. I am working on a poem that tries to get at this experience; the congruence of my species to share enjoyment without bickering or bombardiering while we watch a cool film we made about a psychotic murderer and his obsession with his mother.