Saturday, 20 April 2002

No writing for several days. We bought a DVD player and had to test it to make sure it works.

Today was the Gallery Walk in Champaign and Urbana. Jackie and I had lunch out, then visited a dozen or so galleries.

A couple years ago, at the first gallery walk, I had been impressed with the success of the event. For that one day, downtown Champaign bustled like a city should. People were on the sidewalks, moving with purpose through the city, going from shop to shop. Last year we didn't see the same effect, but assumed it was because we had gone on Friday night rather than Saturday. But this year was also disappointing. Only a few people were in most of the participating shops and galleries.

The art was mixed, as it always is. Much of it was interesting, but only a small fraction spoke to me. None of it was anything I wanted to own.

On Wednesday I came home to take Jackie out for lunch. As we walked over to El Torero, one of the women who cleans the public areas in the buildings noticed that Jackie and I were holding hands. "If you keep that up," she said, "people will start suspecting you're not really married."