1,001 Chicago Afternoons

It was a bust. You’ve probably read that by now.

It didn’t ignite. It fizzled. The city and a performance artsy theater place brought tens of thousands of people downtown on a cold October night for a fire festival that forgot the fire. » Read the rest of this entry «

I’m up well into the a.m., I smell like stale sweat and I blame amateur urban planner Edward Paul Brennan (1866-1942). » Read the rest of this entry «

“I believe that I have made an absolutely startling discovery in painting – a new potential inherent in things, their ability to gradually become something else.”

– René Magritte, 1927 » Read the rest of this entry «

She sits alone, leaning against a streetlight. She’s covered in balloons. » Read the rest of this entry «

“I was thinking we would put you in here,” she said as we walked to a conference room on the 55th floor. “We’ve got this view, and-”

“Wow,” I said, stopping for a moment to gawk at the view. Lake, sky, clouds, boats, a few workers on top of the nearby Marina City. Through floor-to-ceiling windows, it was bright and vivid. Stunning.

The woman smiled kindly at me and started naming beverages. » Read the rest of this entry «

By one of the corners where the Loop train curves, wedged between the “ENTER” and “DO NOT ENTER” of a self-park, across the street from a crêpe bar, a Taco Fresco and a pornography store that is the grandfather of the neighborhood, there is Pierogi Heaven. » Read the rest of this entry «

The voice curls out from downtown Chicago. It licks out on the airwaves, online. It spreads through homes and churches and through the Jamaican man’s cab where I’m gently dozing in the back (although the story’s not about that) and it joins with voices arising across the nation and spreading, licking, moving to homes, churches and computers around the world to raise one joyous refrain:

Give the Christians $3 million. » Read the rest of this entry «

I kept looking on Saturday. » Read the rest of this entry «

Gently, gently, they dabbed the paint as the posh cafeteria rattled around them.

A young woman who would someday be described as striking sat at one table in a blue dress with a copy of Hobbes’ “Leviathan” and a notebook. At another, a parent reached over to inspect his kids’ collar for stains or spills. A couple sat on one side of one table to share a dish and hold hands.

Others moved. Others ate. Others chatted and talked about all the art they had seen that day.

But taking up three tables in the back of the Art Institute of Chicago cafeteria, gently, gently, four architects painted. » Read the rest of this entry «

Peace to the old man sipping drinks at the VFW bar.

And the bagpiper on the condo roof.

Peace to the newsman, chasing stories for cartoons.

Peace to the lady who jammed in Tunisia.

And peace to the one who makes really sexy ladies’ underthings. » Read the rest of this entry «