Purple People Eater & Granada Theater

 I could write a year end reflective post about all my accomplishments for 2010, all my goals and expectations for 2011.  Or I could post pictures of my newly painted kick ass purple dining room.

 

Jonny finally wore me down on the purple and it turns out I like it.  This was the last room that had the previous owner's paint colors, it only took us 12 years to rid ourselves of them.  But we're finally free of the hideous sea foam green wallpaper border and 1980's salmon pink walls in our dining room.  Jonny had some vacation days so he did all the work while I worked on my contract work and you can imagine how that worked out.

It was a bit stressful for a few days because of all the crap from the dining room lying all over the living room.  Disturbing tableaus lurked everywhere.

I have no idea how the bear in the hideous green snowman sweater and matching hat made it through my purge of Stuff last year but believe me, this year he goes to a new, hopefully more appreciative home.  Ditto for the tacky reindeer made of fake evergreens.  Joey Ramone stays of course as does the plastic praying mantis.  I like leaving it around the house in unexpected places to scare the crap out of Jonny.

There's something disturbing about all your crap laying around in unrelated piles and out of context.  Bill Clinton riding on the rat is my favorite.  Not that our stuff is ever in context even when it's back in place.  I'd like to think it's eclectic but really it's leaning more towards disturbing.

I should probably toss it all.  Except for this.

It came out of the old Granada Theater in Chicago.  I knew they were tearing down the Granada (do not even get me going on what a tragedy that was) so I went to take pictures of it and I spotted a workman leaving the theater with this little gem.  At first I was just admiring it and when he said there were loads more inside I offered to buy it from him (I couldn't go in myself because they were doing asbestos removal plus the part about not having a saw).  $15 later this little piece of architectural history was mine.

Granada Theater in 1989 (I believe it was demolished in 1990)

A man from the neighborhood saw me taking pictures and came over to chat.  It turned out he knew a lot about the theater.  He said the 'alcoves' (located at the top center of the photo below) used to house elaborate statutes but they'd been pilfered. 

Such amazing detail

 

I have photos from inside but I didn't have a flash with me so they aren't very good.  I did find some photos of the interior on the internets.  I couldn't go too far in because of the asbestos removal but I got to see enough of it to see what a tragedy it was to let it go.  In its stead they built ugly yuppie condos which were eventually turned into dorms for Loyola University.  Ah well, at least I have my little piece of it.

We're having a few friends over for a low key New Year's Eve (and of course to show off our purple dining room).  We were invited to a real party up in the mountains but we finally got our first real snow of the winter along with some nice arctic temperatures and nobody wants to drive all the way up the skating rink of Boulder Canyon and then up more scary steep twisty icy mountain roads to the party's locale so we're having a little flat-lander's gathering.  Hope you all enjoy whatever festivities you're up to tonight and a Happy New Year to all.