http://www.fantagraphics.com/artist/clowes/ghostfilm.html
One thing that struck me was the different routes Enid and her friend Rebecca end up going. (Also, I didn't get the ending with the bus) And I was reminded of this in an article in the Chicago Reader about protesters hassling MTV's Real World folks who are shooting here in Chicago, just a couple blocks from where I reside. [The Real World is a so-called reality show which stars the young and the restless]
from Ted Kleine's cover story: ... The door still bore the slogan "EMPTV," scrawled by a graffiti artist who was arrested. The frame was splattered with red paint.
The cast has found the protests upsetting, says Cecil Baldwin, a server at the Local Grind, the Milwaukee Avenue coffeehouse that's become *The Real World's* hangout.
"The day after the first riot, two girls came in," Baldwin says. "All they could say is 'Everybody hates us.' They were virtually in tears. Because they were scared, they got the day off without cameras."
Baldwin is sympathetic to the cast. [sort of Rebecca's worldview - pk] He's seen them followed by MTV cameras ("they attract a human zoo"), but mostly they come into the Local Grind alone, so he's gotten to know them as regular customers. He understands, though, why the show has aroused resistance in the neighborhood. It's similar to the conflict between the romantic rivals in *Reality Bites*, he says.
"This neighborhood is Ethan Hawke. It's the poetry writing, trying to get his band off the ground. MTV is Ben Stiller. There's a natural tention between them."
Local Grind has embraced *The Real World.* A sign on a tip cup says, "If you give us money, we'll get you on the Real World." But farther down Milwaukee Avenue, Myopic Books has banned the show's cameras. Clerk Jon Cwiok ordered the crew out when they tried to film inside the modest used-book store. [Maybe an Enid move? - pk]
"They set up their cameras on the sidewalk, and they tried to sneak a sound person in, and we had to kick them out," Cwiok says. "They were kind of clingy and indignant."
Myopic Books has the same objection as the protesters: it doesn't like the way MTV is glamorizing the neighborhood. The store even posted a sign that read "NO REAL WORLD FILMING HERE. GO BACK TO THE SUBURBS." The sign came down because it started too many arguments.
Cwiok is probably right, though, when he sums up the "ovewhelming sentiment" toward *The Real World* as "between apathy and not giving a shit."
Most people passing the compound on Sunday evening regarded *The Real World* as a summer curiosity that won't change Wicker Park any more than it's already changed. There's $8 valet parking half a block away. *The Real World* is a sympton of gentrification, not a cause.
But those who resent it won't stop fighting MTV. Already a new flyer is going around the neighborhood: "It's time for our reality television. Another reclamation of the Real World. Next Friday 8/3 @ 11:00 p.m., 1900 North, bring drums, radio boomboxes, other niosemakers [sic] and chalk. Station announcement upon arrival." --------- misspelling in flyer not article. Peter