Sparkle, Sparkle, Sparkle

by Split Scimitar

The City in a Garden by The Lake

After we get onto the interstate, AJ asks, “Hey Max, what exactly did you mean by ‘see you in San Francisco?’”

“The meaning of the phrase is twofold. 1. San Francisco is where you can usually find me if I’m not at home or in Chicago. 2. ‘I’m going to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.’”

“Max!!” Applejack shouts back indignantly as both Twilights gasp simultaneously.

“Are you okay?” Twi asks as she grabs my arm. “What’s going on?”

“It’s just a joke. Sorry Twily, I should’ve warned you. I have a very… demented sense of humor.”

“Well, it’s… dark.” She responds nervously.

Quickly changing gears, I jump off Dan Ryan at MSI, I traffic check to find the least congested way to do the tour, and contrary to the first time, it actually is more favorable to start north at Wrigley and work our way down, the best place to end looking like… MSI.

“Okay, looks like we’re all nice and settled in. This should take no more than an hour or two, traffic pending. Of course, I have quite a bit to say about most of our stops, but I’ll try and make it quick. As we make our way to our starting point, let me get you acquainted with a little history lesson: Chicago is the third most populous city in the United States, behind New York and Los Angeles, but it wasn’t always this big. The city’s relatively humble beginnings date back to the 1830’s. Somewhere in the city limits, I forget the exact place, is the saddle point for what was a water gap that today links the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan, one of the 5 Great Lakes in North America. The area had been settled by Natives known as the Potawatomi, who replaced the original Miami and Sauk/Fox inhabitants when the latter two groups were forcibly removed and relocated to Oklahoma. The name Chicago is a Miami–Illinois word which means “wild onion” or “wild garlic,” but onion tends to be the preferred translation. After some years of war between the United States and natives, eventually Chicago became a settlement town of about 200 people after the Potawatomi were themselves forcibly removed and sent to Oklahoma. Within a few years, the town grew exponentially. The water gap I referred to earlier played a big part in it. The Chicago Portage as it was called was able to link the eastern and western halves of the United States by connecting the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes by allowing Steam Ships and eventually railroads to traverse the country, forming a massive fortress hub that became a bit of a melting pot, as the city was one of the biggest stops for transcontinental journeys that back then would take a much longer time than today. Even so, Chicago is still a very popular spot for all modes of long-distance transportation. By the way, Twily, how much do you know about this world?”

“I’ve done a fair amount of research, but I haven’t dug too deeply into anything specific.”

“Okay, well, let me explain the sport of baseball to you. My personal favorite of all the American sports. The object of the game is to score more runs than your opponents over the course of 9 innings. One inning is divided into top and bottom. In each half, one team plays the field, on defense, and the other team bats, on offense. To score a run, a batter must cross 1st, 2nd, and 3rd base safely, in order before he can cross home plate. A run is counted when the runner safely crosses home plate. In order for a runner to be safe, he must be on the base, or he can be tagged out with the player that has the ball. Each team consists of 9 players, all of whom play positions and bat, except if you’re in the American League, where you have a designated hitter who bats instead of the pitcher, but that’s another story. 3 outs and the teams switch sides. Very simple game, relatively simple rules. The game has been around since at least the 1800’s, with no clear origin story, and the origins of baseball have in fact been the subject for much debate in American history. Again, another story. If we had the time, I could teach you the game, but you have more important duties. Nevertheless, as we approach our first stop, allow me to introduce you to Wrigley Field. This is the home of the Chicago Cubs, and has been since 1916. The stadium is famous for a number of reasons including the ivy-clad outfield brick wall, bleacher seats that are actually located on rooftops of buildings across the street, the red marquee that we’ll pass by shortly, and for the history buff, the second-oldest ballpark in Major League Baseball, famous for its refusal to install lights for night games until 1988, and home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League from 1921 to 1970. Football by the way is up there with baseball as the most American sport there is, and we’ll get to American Football at the present home of the Bears later on. Chicago is a city built on history, even more so than others I would argue, as the city has played host to a number of significant historical events, four of which are depicted on the city flag.”

After I pause to pull up an image of the flag, Applejack, sitting in the front seat, holds my iPad up while I explain each feature.

“The flag consists of two blue stripes dividing the white background into thirds. Each white portion represents a side of the town, North Side on top, West Side in the middle, and South Side on the bottom. Each blue stripe represents a body of water connected to the city: on top we have Lake Michigan and the North Branch of the Chicago River, which is the main body of water through the heart of downtown; and underneath that is the South Branch of the Chicago River and the Great Canal, the Portage/Watershed/Drainage Basin that the city was founded on. Lastly, we have the four stars.”

Before I can speak on the stars, the light turns green, so I stop talking to navigate.

I continue when we get settled nicely. “The first star represents the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. I’ll talk about that in a bit. The second star represents the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. Consider it a World’s Fair, where the world was invited to the city to celebrate culture, technology, and other things. This expo was actually where the Ferris Wheel was born, or rather, debuted, and the design was originally known as the Chicago wheel. The Ferris Wheel was named after the inventor, George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. It included thirty-six cars capable of holding forty people, a considerable difference from most Ferris Wheel designs today. As the expo was a celebration of culture, so would it shape the image of the city, becoming a city built on human unity, diversity, and universality. The third star represents the Century of Progress Exhibition, held forty years after the World’s Columbian Expo, in 1933. Also known as the Chicago World’s Fair, this expo celebrated the city’s centennial and the fighting spirit of not only Chicago, but of the country, fresh off the recovery from the Great Depression. The expo was also intended to promote the idea that man and machine could work together in harmony to create a utopia, as seen in the expo’s motto: “science finds, industry applies, man adapts.” Of course, even today, the idea of man and machine working together seems like a concept of the distant future, but even so, humans have made it leaps and bounds beyond what could even be considered at the time. The World’s Columbian Exposition took place in an area around the south side of the city, and the Century of Progress took place at Northerly Island park. The fourth star represents Fort Dearborn, one of the original U.S. forts that marked the official settlement of what would become Chicago. There are two structures that were called Fort Dearborn; the first was destroyed during the War of 1812, and the second one was lost to the ravages of time and the Great Chicago Fire.”

Before I can start talking about the fire, we hit another red light. Checking the map, I expect to need to floor it to make a lane change ahead of an upcoming left turn.

When the light does turn green, I bump the gear lever into manual mode and put my foot down. The engine reaches 5000 rpm when I flick the paddle and jump into the far left lane so I can catch LSD.

“The Great Chicago Fire,” I begin while waiting in the left turn lane, “is one of the most significant events in the history of the city, and is in fact the namesake of the city’s soccer franchise. On October 8, 1871, a small fire broke out in an alleyway. That in of itself was not a problem. However, there are three major contributing factors to the fire’s disastrous spread. So disastrous in fact that the fire burned for two straight days. Firefighters couldn’t keep up with it, because thanks to an error by the watchman, they were sent to the wrong place, in full force. This caused the fire to grow rapidly without any defenses against it, which brings us to our second major contributing factor, the construction of the city. Back in the day, the primary building material of choice was wood. Even in Equestria I imagine, wood is a poplar popular choice in building homes and offices and such. But what happens when you combine a city built on wood with a rapidly growing fire?”

Before I can continue, the light turns green so we can merge onto LSD.

“Sorry to change gears, but I must break for one of the more famous parts of the city today, Lake Shore Drive, or LSD. Famous for running 3 stories of traffic in the financial district of the city, Lake Shore Drive is one of the best roads in Chicago to cruise with the top and/or windows down, with the freshwater lake air in your hair, or mane as the case may be. This is consequently one of the most crowded roads in the city. Nevertheless, it is still one of my favorite places to drive, as the name would imply, all of Chicago’s beaches are accessible and visible from this very road. If you ever have time in our summer, I’m sure it would be fun.”

“Thank you for doing this, Max.” Twily says. “Can you slow down just a little bit? It’s a lot to take in.”

“Oh. Of course, I’m sorry. Is there anything you have questions about while we’re stopped?”

“These expositions on the flag: do they still take place?”

“Actually yes, they do. There are various types of expositions, most of which don’t even carry the ‘World’s Fair’ name anymore, but it is still very much alive. Most of those expositions take place all around our world, but even so, Chicago gets credit for hosting one of the earliest ones.”

“And the Great Depression? I’ve done some reading into it, but what caused it?”

“There are many schools of thought as to what caused the Great Depression, and I actually am not well-versed in economics. That being said, I know that a major coincidence I jokingly accept as the root cause is that the concept of credit became mainstream. The public was so enthused by the concept of being able to buy something without needing to pay much if at all upfront that a lot of them splurged and *conveniently forgot* about paying what they actually owed. That theory has no grounds, but it makes for a nice joke. The point I make with that statement is that people in this world are stupid, but you learn to hate the people and love the place.”

“And the last question for now: what is meant by natives? The pota… potawa…”

“Potawatomi?”

“Yes.”

“Natives in this case would refer to native Americans. The original settlers of the land, or the settlers that inhabited the land before the arrival of European settlers. That whole discussion of history I will not lie is sad and brutal, but in light of recent political events, I’d rather not talk about it. It’s a very sensitive issue.”

“Okay…” Twily responds with unease.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s okay. I just realized how bad this world truly is. I mean, Equestria is not without its faults, but this world is a different kind of bad.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, as a princess myself, I don’t get this as much as I did before becoming a princess. In our capital city of Canterlot, there are a lot of ponies who think they’re better than everypony else, and refuse to even look at anyone less than them.”

“Ooh. Classism. We have that too, but that’s not as much of an issue. For some, it’s still a problem, but not really social class. Mostly today, thanks to certain people getting behind someone in power who can give them a voice, we get racism. Hatred of one person by another on the basis of their race, or rather, where they’re from. Twi tells me you have some semblance of that in Equestria too.”

“Yes…” she responds disappointedly. “Usually an issue with high society in Canterlot. The most discriminated against race is the earth ponies, who are considered by some to quite literally be the scum of Equestria. As for the Pegasi, most of the time they get dirty looks from others for making weather that was detrimental to them. For example, if you were a Pegasus, I would confront you in the street and say something like “hey, you ruined my family picnic by sending rain when it was supposed to be sunny! What gives?!” I don’t know why the unicorns adopted that philosophy, but it’s disheartening nonetheless.”

“I would be too if I was a unicorn. But the whole concept of differing views is not a bad thing, you know. Political variance can be beneficial.”

“You think infighting is a bad thing?!”

“No. I mean that such variation in political views, and in fact some degree of political discord, is actually a sign of a healthy democracy.”

“Hmm…”

“Think about it like this: if there was no disagreement between citizens, then by definition, all citizens would be in agreement. If everyone is in agreement, then everyone has the same train of thought. Doesn’t that sound antithetical to what a democracy is? The word democracy came from Ancient Greek, δημοκρατία (demokratia), which literally means ‘rule of the people.’ Granted, your ruling system is not a democracy, but even for a monarchy, you seem to hold yourself or selves to a very high moral standard and believe it should be standard across your realm. I don’t think your standing ruler or rulers would be in support of tyrannical rule, since it sounds like there are a few monarchs in Equestria anyway.”

“Yeah, I don’t think Princess Celestia would be a fan of making all the political decisions by herself. She made drastic changes when her sister rejoined her on the throne. She became a whole new pony when the two of them assumed the throne.”

“Well then, sounds like a very well-functioning diarchy of sorts.”

“It really is. When Princess Luna was still in the moon, Celestia alone just wasn’t enough. Equestria was in a very interesting time period. I moved to Ponyville the day that Princess Luna, as Nightmare Moon, broke free from her lunar prison. After we defeated Nightmare Moon and rescued Princess Luna, the two of them assuming the throne as co-rulers was the best thing to happen to Equestria. Now that Luna was back, she could govern the night and the dream realm again. Imagine having to raise the moon and the sun, govern the dream realm and rule an entire kingdom. She’d literally have no time to sleep. I have no idea how she did it for a thousand years.”

“Hmm.” I respond. “I hate to add somber to somber, but let’s talk about the Fire.“

When both Twilights sit back, I go with the flow of traffic and continue. “The fire grew from a small alleyway fire to a catastrophic two-day blaze quickly due to the city built on wood, poor response from the fire department, and the third one: the prevailing conditions. The summer of 1871 was very dry. Embers from the blaze then got picked up by the wind by which the city earns its nickname and would start new fires. One fire didn’t grow out. Multiple small fires borne from the original fire converged. It took many years, but the city rebuilt itself and the image of the city endures, despite the modern almost undoing of it with prolific issues that have plagued the city since before even I was born. But again, that’s another story.”

“Wow, Max. You know a lot about the city.”

“Thank you Twily. That being said, I’ve been kind of rehearsing that speech. Some of it I know by heart, but the flag, I don’t have in memory. I always forget what the stars stand for.”

“What about the rest of the flag? Why does it have two blue stripes?”

“Each blue stripe represents the two bodies of water that are an integral part of the city. The top stripe represents Lake Michigan and the bottom stripe represents the Chicago River.”

“Oh, okay!”

“There are a few buildings I need/want to show you before we head for food.”

“Okay.”

“Are any of you hungry right now? Our reservation isn’t for another hour and a half. If you want something small to tie us over, I’ll see what I can do.”

“You still want meat, Twily?” Twi asks her.

“Sure?”

“You’re okay with meat?” I butt in. “I’m a huge meat eater, so if you want to get some, we can.”

“You like eating meat?”

“Admittedly yes. I imagine that’s not exactly a welcome thing in Equestria, but I have to govern myself very closely. I have high blood pressure, so I just have to do my due diligence in my diet.”

“I’ve had meat before, but not since the first time I visited this world.”

“How many times have you been since without having meat then?”

“Uhh, I actually don’t know. I’ve lost count.”

“That’s okay. It sounds to me that when you’re in this world, you don’t mind eating meat. Do your friends know?”

“Are you kidding?! They would go crazy if they found out.”

“Well then,” I retract in embarrassment. “I’d’ve been surprised if you said yes anyway.”

“Max,” Twi then says filling in for her, “I had said that deep dish pizza would be a real treat for her. If I may, we ought to include at least one pizza with a meat.”

“Absolutely. When I would go to Lou’s with my family, we’d always order one with meat. However, now that you mention it, I think we should show you, Twily, some of the best meat available, for comparison purposes.”

“Sure.” She responds with some excitement. “I know that I could never make this known in Equestria, but as long as I’m a human, I’m sure I can enjoy it. I don’t mind the taste. My only concern with eating meat is if I find it so delicious, I’ll either get my images of animals ruined or I get hooked on it. That’s why I have to watch the meat I eat.”

“I understand completely. I hope that your impression of the animals in this world does not match that of animals in Equestria. Animals here are not completely sentient like ponies.”

“Well, I would love to show you around Equestria sometime.”

“I’d love to go. I’m very curious as to what I would be, since I imagine that I wouldn’t be limited to just being a pony. Could I be a whole ‘nother species when I cross realms?”

“Maybe. And whatever species you are, you’ll be welcome. Not by all though, as we just discussed, but you’ll have the Princess of Friendship on your side.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that.” “Are we ready for the last few points of interest before we head for dinner?”

“I am!” Twi says.

The remaining two follow suit, so I resume docent mode when we leave LSD down by Grant Park.

“On your right, the large park right there is Grant Park. Also joined to it is Millennium Park. This area is where many of Chicago’s festivals take place, including Taste of Chicago, Lollapalooza, and the Chicago Air & Water show. The area is also home to Buckingham Fountain and Cloud Gate, otherwise known as the Bean. I imagine you have similar art in Equestria, only based on my shallowly anchored assumptions. Even so, as a proud Chicagoan I cannot do a tour without at least mentioning them.”

I pause as we leave most of Chicago behind, and in the process, I decide to abandon MSI and save it for a later visit.

When we stop at another light, I continue. “On your left is Soldier Field and Museum Campus. Soldier Field is the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League, an equally American but arguably polar opposite sport in terms of gameplay. Unlike baseball, the offense initiates play. The objective is to travel from end zone to end zone, the goal line distance is 100 yards. How much do you know about football, Twily?”

“A bit. I’ve dipped into a little bit of everything, so I’m familiar with the concept. Seems like a scary game to play, even with all that padding.”

“Not really. I mean, I guess that’s why many Americans enjoy it. It’s kind of a demolition derby of sorts, but I personally don’t get too involved in, well, sports as a whole. At least, when I do, I would much rather be playing.”

“Sure.”

Just as the light turns green, I start talking about Museum Campus. “Chicago has four major museums in its metropolitan area; 3 of them are located in Museum Campus. The Field Museum of Natural History is a popular hit for many. Home to Maximiliáno and formerly Sue, both of whom were famously dug up as fully intact, or more accurately, complete, Tyrannosaurus Rex skeletons. If you like earth and earthy stuff, that would be your favorite place. If underwater life is your cup of tea, I would suggest Shedd Aquarium. Home to Spot, a killer whale I actually helped rescue from poachers, very much a fan favorite, especially for me, because my daughter is his trainer. When I took this world’s crew here back in our holiday season, I had discovered my daughter Melody had been training Spot. You can imagine I was beyond proud. Anyway, that aside, um, Shedd is the best place to visit if Your Heart Is In Two Places, that being Under The Sea.”

Before I can say anything else, all three passengers laugh.

“Wow, Max!” Twi says. “Was that intentional?”

“No, but yes in retrospect.”

“Yer’ quick, sugar cube!” Applejack adds. “Nice one!”

Twily though clearly enjoying herself remains reserved.

“Lastly, and I know Twi can vouch for me on this, is Adler Planetarium. Famous for its sculpture Man Enters The Cosmos, which is actually a sundial, Adler is very much the place for the person with eyes pointed skyward. Life beyond our planet and pretty much the rest of the known universe is always the center. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time to visit any of these places, but if you’re ever on this side, I’m sure you’d enjoy it. Someone Like You I Can Only Imagine has a considerable thirst for knowledge, so take advantage if and when you can. You into architecture?”

“Eh, not really?”

“Okay. I don’t know how bad traffic really is, since we’re still about an hour from rush, so if you’re not into the buildings, we can just make our way to the restaurant for dinner. Although, let me make a call. I wanna see if on the off chance it’s available.”

Quickly pulling up CarPlay and launching my contacts book, I call the Steakhouse. As it rings, I wait with bated breath to see if someone will pick up.