Obavio sam poslovni dio svog putovanja i sada se koncentriram na turistički dio. Chicago je sjajan grad i ima puno zanimljivosti. O millenium parku sam već pisao no to mjesto me iz nekog čudnog razloga fascinira i svakoga se dana tamo vraćam. Jutros sam prvo posjetio akvarij koji je ogroman i u kojem se nalaze zbirke riba, rakova i ostalih mekušaca iz cijelog svijeta. Pogledao sam i zanimljivi show sa beluga kitovima (ili bijelim kitovima) te delfinima. Odmah nakon toga prošetao sam se do planetarija za kojega kažu da je najveći na svijetu, no u jednome času sam prije petnaestak godina bio posjetio jednoga u poljskoj koji mi se činio većim. Volim planetarije iako je sadržaj u njima manje više uvijek identičan (u onome zagrebačkom sam bio posljednji puta u siječnju ove godine i preporučam svima da ga posjete).
Sutra imam na redu muzej nauke i industrije kojeg sam u stvari htio posjetiti danas ali sam stigao dvadesetak minuta prije zatvaranja tako da su me upozorili da se radi o muzeju kojem posjet traje cijeli dan i da u dvadeset minuta ne mogu stići daleko od ulaza. Ako kojim čudom budem tamo brzo gotov, posjetiti ću i antropološki muzej u kojem se čuva skelet najvećeg do sada pronađenog t-rex-a.
U petak ne znam što ću raditi no na rubu sam da potegnem putovanje od 210 milja sve do House on the rock. Kuća na stijeni je jedno vrlo čudno mjesto samo po sebi i između ostaloga tamo se nalazi i najveći vrtuljak na svijetu; no razlog zbog kojeg bih ja htio otići i to vidjeti je knjiga Neil Gaimana koja se zove American Gods. Neil Gaiman je jedan zanimljivi pisac koji nema baš previše toga iza sebe, a kojeg sam prvi puta čitao kada je pisao u kolaboraciji sa Terry Prattechetom na knjizi “Good Omens” (također knjiga koju toplo preporučujem). American Gods je jedna vrlo mračna knjiga u kojoj nema niti previše mrtvih niti nekih osobitih horror elemenata, no bez obzira na to je mračna i depresivna. Na mojoj polici kod kuće, a na kojoj se trenutno nalazi cca. 500-600 knjiga postoji posebno mjesto za “važne” knjige i American Gods je jedna od njih – a teško mi je točno objasniti zašto.
Misao dana (ovaj puta dugačka):
“`I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen–I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.’ She stopped, out of breath.”
~ American Gods by Neil Gaiman