The White City, my ass

Read The Devil in the White City recently [how 2003 of me, I know, I know], and it was great right up to the point where I stopped caring about it. Was particularly impressed by the descriptions sheer scale of the undertaking of the building of the fair, as opposed to the murder parts, which surprised me. Why would this be? I mean, building some crap is not as inherently sexy/gory as some maniac building a special house where he can do away with and skin his victims and such...

Then I realized why it fascinated: the building of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, with all its attendant snafus and massive amounts of manhours and labor, was, in some small negligible way, a sort of crude, immature forerunner to the construction of our raised garden bed! How well I understood the anguish of these architects and builders, even though their struggles with weather and time and manpower to craft their insignificant bauble on the Lake was nothing compared to what I continue to face every day. Not to mention our Banvard's Folly* of a community garden, where altruism intersects with a labor comparable to the erecting of the Pyramids, albeit with slackjawed passersby saying "Whatcha doin?"

Anyway: progress pic of backyard, with another four inches o' organic matter added! Yummy!

Proud farmer, off some Bizarro-world collective farm:

* look it up