A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago Part 19

"This one here," said Ginkel, "is me in Vladivostok. It was taken on the corner there."

The photograph showed Ginkel dressed just as he was in the hotel room, standing near a lamp post on a street corner. There was visible a part of a store window.

"This one is interesting," said Ginkel, warming up. "It was taken in the archipelago. You know where. I forget the name of the town. But it was in the south seas."

We both studied it for a s.p.a.ce. It showed Ginkel standing underneath something that looked like a palm tree. But the tree was slightly out of focus. So were Ginkel's feet.

"It is interesting," said Ginkel, "But it ain't such a good picture. The lower part is kind of blurred, you notice."

We looked through the alb.u.m in silence for a while. Then Ginkel suddenly remembered something.

"Oh, I almost forgot," he said. "There's one I think you'll like. It was taken in Calcutta. You know where. Here it is."

He pointed proudly toward the end of the book. We studied it through the tobacco smoke. It was a photograph of Ginkel dressed in the same clothes as before and standing under a store awning.

"There was a good light on this," said Ginkel, "and you see how plain it comes out."

Then we continued without comment to study other photographs. There were at least several hundred. They were all of Ginkel. Most of them were blurred and showed odds and ends of backgrounds out of focus, such as trees, street cars, buildings, telephone poles. There was one that finally aroused Ginkel to comment:

"This would have been a good one, but it got light struck," he said. "It was taken in Bagdad."

When we had exhausted the alb.u.m Ginkel felt more at ease. He offered me some tobacco from his pouch. I resumed the original line of questioning.

"Did you have any unusual adventures during your travels or did you get any ideas that we could fix up for a story," I asked.

"Well," said Ginkel, "I was always a camera bug, you know. I guess that's what gave me the bug for travelling. To take pictures, you know. I got a lot more than these, but I ain't mounted them yet."

"Are they like the ones in the book."

"Not quite so good, most of them," Ginkel answered. "They were taken when I hadn't had much experience."

"You must have been in Russia while the revolution was going on, weren't you?"

"Oh, yes. I got one there." He opened the book again. "Here," he said.

"This was in Moscow. I was in Moscow when this was taken."

It was another picture of Ginkel slightly out of focus and standing against a store front. I asked him suddenly who had taken all the pictures.

"Oh, that was easy," he said. "I can always find somebody to do that. I take a picture of them first and then they take one of me. I always give them the one I take of them and keep the one they take of me."

"Did you see any of the revolution, Ginkel?"

"A lot of monkey business," said Ginkel. "I seen some of it. Not much."

The last thing I said was, "You must have come in for a lot of sights. We might fix up a story about that if you could give me a line on them." And the last thing Ginkel said was:

"Oh, yes, I've been around the world."

THUMBS UP AND DOWN

Later the art jury will sit on them. The art jury will discuss tone and modelling, rhythm and chiaroscuro and perspective. And in the light of these discussions and decisions the art jury will sort out the masterpieces that are to be hung in the Chicago artists' exhibition and the masterpieces that are not to be hung.

Right now, however, Louis and Mike are unwrapping them. Every day between nine and five Louis and Mike a.s.semble in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Art Inst.i.tute. The masterpieces arrive by the bushel, the truckload, the basketful. Louis unwraps them. Mike stacks them up. Louis then calls off their names and the names of geniuses responsible for them. Mike writes this vital information down in a book.

Art is a contagious business. Perfectly normal and marvelously wholesome-minded people are as likely to succ.u.mb to it as anybody else. It is significant that the Purity League meeting in the city a few weeks ago discussed the dangers which lay in exposing even decent, law-abiding people to art, any kind of art.

The insidious influence of art cannot, as a matter of fact, be exaggerated. I personally know of a number of very fine and highly respected citizens who have been lured away from their very business by art.

However, this is no place to sound the alarm. I will some day talk on the subject before the Rotary Club. To return to Louis and Mike. After Mike writes the vital information down in a book Louis carts the canvas over to a truck and it is ready for the jury room.

When they started on the job Louis and Mike were frankly indifferent. They might just as well have been unwrapping herring cases. And they were exceedingly efficient. They unwrapped them and catalogued them as fast as they came.

In three days, however, the workmanlike morale with which Louis and Mike started on the job has been undermined. They have grown more leisurely.

They no longer bundle the pictures around like herring cases. Instead they look at them, try them this way and that way until they find out which way is right side up. Then they pa.s.s judgment.

Louis unwraps them. I was standing by in the bas.e.m.e.nt with Bert Elliott, who has submitted a modernistic picture of Michigan Avenue, the Wrigley Building and the sky, called "Up, Straight and Across."

"'The Home of the Muskrat,'" Louis called. Mike wrote it down. "Wanna look at it, Mike?"

"Yeah, let's see." Time out for critical inspection. "Say, this guy never saw a muskrat house. That ain't the way."

"'Isle of Dreams,'" called Louis. "Hm! You can't tell which is right side up. I guess it goes like this."

"No. The other," said Mike. "Try it on its side. There, I told you so.

'Isle of Dreams.' I don't see no isle."

"Here's a cuckoo," called Louis, suddenly. "'Mist.'"

"What?"

"'Mist,' it says, only 'Mist,' Mike. I'll say he missed. It ain't no picture at all. That's a swell idee. Draw a picture in a fog and have the fog so heavy you can't see nothing, then you don't have to put any picture in. Can you beat it?"

"Go on. Try another."

"All right. Here's one. 'The Faithful Friend.' Now there's what I call a picture. I knowed a guy who owned a dog that looked just like this. A setter or something."

"Go on. That ain't a setter. It's a spaniel."

"You're cuckoo, Mike. Tell me it's a spaniel! Let's put it up ahead. It's probably one of the prize winners. Here's a daffy one. 'At Play.' What's at play? I don't see nothin' at play. Take a look, Mike."

"It's a sea picture. There's the sea, the gray part."