Maude Standish

"They call me the Cubs parking fairy," says Susanne Harris, although today the reason for this is not apparent to any of the numerous sports enthusiasts anxiously strolling down Clark Street avoiding getting wet and eye contact. The rain has caused her pink and teal fairy wings to be covered with a plastic raincoat and her crinoline petticoat to be left indoors. Still she wears sparkling chains of Mardi Gras beads, a Cub’s jersey, a fake flower pinned to her bodice. Her grey hair spills out of her baseball cap and two thick smears of stage makeup are streaked across both of her cheeks. Every day she is outside her store hawking water bottles at the reasonable rate of seventy-five cents, calling strangers "darling," enticing out-of-towners with pink baseball caps and advertising the three parking spots she has in back. Her store can be seen through the large front windows, a cluttered mess of ancient Greek masks, evil queen gowns, shimmering relics of daydreams, scrapped statues and scribbled deals written in chalk on the rose red walls. Her slanted scrawl creeps out of the store, escaping onto the outdoor brick walls infiltrating the otherwise dull routine of sports bars that is Wrigleyville.

"This area is not for this," says Harris waving her arm at her store. "This area has two things: drinking and restaurants. I create fantasies for people. You know, imbed life with fantasy? To understand my store you have to understand fantasy. When people have this humdrum life it makes them escape a little bit. I worked with Playboy. I even sold to Anna Nicole Smith. I never met her but, you know, through the photo stylist. I try to create fantasy to give people an uplifting in their life. Like with these Cubs fans, very few people talk to them, they just sell and I animate myself with the fans. They think I am an ultimate Cub fan, but I am not. I more like the fans."

As a tan man decked out in official Cubs gear with large sunglasses and a balding head walks by, Harris shouts, "He is an ultimate Cubs fan." The man does not seem to know Harris and speeds up his step a bit. Harris takes me inside, escaping for a moment into her cluttered den. My untamed elbow knocks something hard and it falls lost to the ground. "Don’t worry about it darling," Harris says as she draws me further back into the tall rows of weathered costumes. She pulls one of them down and says, "This is actually from the Metropolitan Opera." Further inspection of the garment reveals that indeed there was a moment when the purple-laced skirt permanently dotted with flowers graced the Metropolitan Opera’s stage. Despite the slight drizzle, Harris brings the skirt outside so that I might have a better look at it. "Most people wouldn't normally wear something like this. But look at this," Harris says, looking away for a moment to offer a suburban family bottles of water. They nod and keep on their way. "See? They wouldn’t understand it. Most people wouldn’t."

The twitchy magic of Harris also adorns an outside infant tree with glittering gems of holiday kitsch—crepe hearts and soggy foam letters. "Last year I decorated a huge mannequin with angel wings and beer cans, and they took her, so this year I decided to not be as elaborate. And I will just have to take her in every night. One time I forgot to take her in and someone took her!" Not only did they take her mannequin but concerned neighbors called the police saying that her tree decorations were gaudy and therefore illegal.

Harris is closing her store soon. She has been having "a liquidation" sale in the basement where there are, she says, over 1,500 items all priced at a dollar. "I mean I am practicality giving it away. I have even sold minks for only a dollar." Whatever she doesn’t sell she plans to donate to public-school theater groups.

A blonde woman walks by and Harris asks her how her beautiful dog is doing. A young girl sneaks up on a scooter and buys a cold YooHoo, and a man in his thirties says "Just a water for me today and oh by the way you’re looking great." "My type of store is kind of finished," Harris says. "It is an end to an era, which I am very happy about. Because I just wanted to do it in Lincoln Park because they wouldn’t understand it here. They only understand sports stuff. See the way people are dressed here!" (Maude Standish)

(2007-08-21)

Also by Maude Standish

The Indie Files
As you descend the stairs to the basement of MoJoe’s HotHouse, to a clean yet cluttered space that houses the Chicago Underground Library (CUL), you hear Nell Taylor’s instructional voice telling someone just exactly what it is he is holding—this hastily bound pink book, with its enlarged font and minimalist writings by middle-schoolers is an "orphan work," she’s saying, which is a publication whose authors have been lost to obscurity, or was published under auspices no longer discernable to the naked eye
(2007-07-31)

Poparazzi
"Claaaayton, will you take a good picture of me for once?" asks a pouty-lipped girl in a sparkly vest as we walk down the stairs into Smart Bar. Three other girls join her, alternatively winking, licking their lips and blowing posed kisses. Clayton Hauck hasn't even taken his camera out of the bag
(2007-05-08)

The Perfect Game
From the outside, Southport Lanes might look like any other yuppie bar on a street dotted with striped-wood designs in an effort to age new buildings quickly and give this young burgeoning community a sense of history. But Southport Lanes isn't just another new-old Irish bar attempting through green shellac to make claims of a connection to the Fatherland. It is the last handset bowling alley in Chicago, if not the Midwest
(2007-04-10)

Silent Shout
Intermingled among random storefronts on Milwaukee Avenue rests the last operating silent-film theater in Chicago
(2007-04-10)

The Vintage Type
(2007-04-10)

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