1,001 Chicago Afternoons

The Chicago Tribune’s weekday comic section has 21 cartoons. Every single one is by a white person. » Read the rest of this entry «

Ah, writing. The noble art. The scribbly science.

It was recently announced that the American Writers Museum and its freakishly Caucasian planning team* will make their home on North Michigan Avenue in the Loop. To this organization and its, like, seriously super-white planners, a plea.

Don’t forget the hacks. » Read the rest of this entry «

In October 1871, a little girl named Bessie Bradwell stumbled through a flame-choked city, clutching photographs of two dead siblings and a book.

This is the story of the only newspaper to make deadline after the Great Chicago Fire. » Read the rest of this entry «

You don’t often see stained glass with airplanes.

You don’t see carved Jesuses (Jesi?) overviewing Wacker Drive on altarpieces or city and state logos etched in the windows of a “Sky Chapel.”

But of all the sights in the thin stone tower of the Methodist Church parked across the way from the fountain, flame and Picasso of Daley Plaza, the one that will stay with me the most is the pastor’s grill. » Read the rest of this entry «

The captain was doubled over.

He stood on the deck, bent like a question mark. His knees were almost to his chest. His rear was sticking out. His hands were gripping the side of his head, fingers wrapped around his hair in a way the crew knew would amount to ripping if this third out didn’t happen but quick.

The captain had been screaming all night. » Read the rest of this entry «

It was falling apart in my hands, the creases and seams where the thick paper had been folded simply coming away from each other in the 50-ish years since the plans had been printed.

They show layouts, floor plans, hand-rendered pre-construction imaginings of what would become Lake Point Tower, the modern architecture castle jutting beautifully from the land just west of Navy Pier.

And there, on the front cover of the package sent to prospective tenants back in the mid-1960s, words that made me burn: “Tower in a Park.”

Not only did they know they were turning our public parks into millionaires’ backyards, they made it part of the ad campaign. » Read the rest of this entry «

“That’s got to be her parents,” I said.

“I don’t know,” my date responded, pronouncing the “know” to imply skepticism over uncertainty.

“It’s got to be,” I said.

We were sitting along the Riverwalk, enjoying a glass of wine before a play. The cold hadn’t snapped yet, and amid the orange-pink sunset, we decided the lapping of the river on Rahm’s manmade shore would be the perfect start to the evening.

Orange-pink sky. A glass of red for me, white for her. Lapping green water. And lavender.

The lavender hair of the waitress getting her head scratched by the male half of an exceptionally drunk middle-aged couple. » Read the rest of this entry «

I think this project makes more sense if you know it’s coming from a depressive who refuses to take medication.

Yes, maybe my life would be better if I had followed the experts who have told me that even my relatively mild flights of fancy and lows are mistakes of personality that should be drugged and ℞-ed away.

But I wouldn’t be me, would I? And I like me. I’m nice. » Read the rest of this entry «

The water lapped a few feet away. It felt strange.

It was the same river I had walked over and around a thousand times. The same river snaking underfoot, the one that acts as a marker for the beggars who work the bridges and that once claimed a cellphone that fell out of my jacket pocket.

But here it was, two feet away, glinting reflections in the dark of the neon and fluorescent from the nearby office buildings, the soundtrack the lapping of water and the laughing of people drinking Belgian beer at the tables behind. » Read the rest of this entry «

It’s going to be hot later, for a bit. A few hours’ furnace will heat-blast the town before melting into a blissfully perfect night.

But the Sunday morning fog was cool and sharp as the first tourists trickled from hotel to street along Michigan Avenue.

It’s going to be crowded later, for a while. The few to make their way from hotel breakfasts at the ungodly vacation hour of 10 a.m. would be joined in their wander by scores of their compatriots.

Selfies on the Michigan Avenue Bridge. Bits of laughter as they reach to touch the bits of the Pyramids, the Great Wall, Taj Mahal and Monticello ripped from buildings around the world to dapple the side of Trib Tower. A few canoeists slide through the river below, the water still a peaceful, enticing calm. » Read the rest of this entry «