In light of the story I’d posted yesterday, I’m tempted to wonder if this is one of the famous Black Doors of Magór’ö. The heavy, red-stone architecture certainly looks like the sort of thing I’d expect to see in one of the larger cities of that strange, complicated country. I don’t know much about Magór’ö, yet; but I do know that doors are the obsessive focus of their cosmology and that black doors represent actual people. I know that a particular character is from the city of Edír, and that there is a wall in Edír with doors embedded in its face. But alas, that’s all I really know…for now. This is not a door in the country of Magór’ö, or in the City of Edír; it’s simply a door in Chicago, in the ritzy core of the city. It’s a newer door leading into an old building. Someone’s home, undoubtedly, though it’s far more expensive than any home I’d willingly live in. Eh…I could live in some pretty expensive places, but not in Chicago. If I had money to burn, I’d burn it…elsewhere. Most likely back home in the Czech Lands, in Russia (despite current political shenanegans) or anywhere with more bumps and contours and surface excitement than the Midwestern USA. I was drawn to the stone in this image, the implied weight of that portico, nestled within its substantial archway. I liked the strange assertion of moss in so complimentary a shade of green. It’s the details, however, that drew me. As I’d also just read Alexandar Hemon’s novel, The Lazarus Project, I careful to take this photograph quickly and get the heck out of the area, lest I suffer the fate of poor Lazarus Averbuch: a fate all-too-common in this odd, little city by the lake. It’s a rule here, you know, you stay on your own side of the tracks/river/street, and in taking this photo, I’d clearly transgressed by crossing into that rarefied area of botox salons and poodles in strollers, but it was only the withered dowagers that informed me of that (apparently one must never lay eyes upon the botox salons and the skin-peel advertisements tucked into really swanky display windows, unless one is in need of such advertisements. I was benevolent and merciful, however, I didn’t photograph those. Nor did I commit the heresy of telling those dowagers that their wrinkles were the only interesting things about them.) This is not an image centered on wrinkles, however, not even the interesting ones. It’s simply an image of a portico with moss, a piece of distinct Chicago architecture…a wrinkle etched in the skin of the city, with a black door marking the way into it. I like this photo, because of the colors, and because of the stone, and I’m amazed that I haven’t layered other things into it. Ah…there will be more layered images. But not today. As always: thank you for viewing and reading and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great week.