Been to The Bean?
No?
Do you live on Planet Earth? You know, the third one from the sun?
Yes?!?
You do?!?
Alrighty then, why haven’t you been to The Bean in Chicago’s marvelous Millennium Park?
God only knows how many people have posed in and around Cloud Gate, which is fondly referred to by locals as The Bean, because, well, because it looks like a big bean. Or a giant drop of liquid mercury, but “bean” rolls off the tongue easier than “giant drop of liquid mercury.”
Anyway, Cloud Gate, aka: The Bean, is a public sculpture by British artist Anish Kapoor, and it weighs in at over 110-tons, and is 66 feet long and 33 feet high. And people truly get a contact high from interacting with The Bean.
Bean there, Bean that.
Case in point:
I posed that very point-God only knows how many people have posed in and around The Bean-to my 90-year-old mother the other day when she happily posed for a picture by Kapoor’s gleaming Cloud Gate.
“Mom,” I said, “Do you think that would be a fair question for God when we get to the Pearly Gates?”
“You mean how many people have had their pictures taken by, or in, The Bean?”
“Yes. God knows everything, so that should be a no-brainer for the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And, if and when I get to heaven, I’m going to ask God how many people have had their pictures taken with The Bean.”
Mom thought that was a fair question, and then, having exhausted all our free time in Chicago, we rolled off to a most pleasant luncheon appointment with my sister.
Followed, of course, by some productive time attending to the tuneful tenderings of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.