1,001 Chicago Afternoons

The Newberry Library’s collections include the personal effects and papers of Ben Hecht, whose 1920s newspaper column “1001 Afternoons in Chicago” inspired this project.

They’ll let you go through them if you get a Newberry Reader’s Card.

So I got one.

Part 1 ran on Monday » Read the rest of this entry «

A gray-haired man who looks like Tom Waits took up clean livin’ sat at a table, methodically reviewing what looked to me like original colonial broadsheets.

In the corner, a stereotypical librarian-type from a 1940s comedy – thick glasses, heavy wool skirt and sweater and a tightly braided ponytail down to her ass – stood by her own table. She hovered between three rostra, a wood one for her laptop, a clear one for a heavy index book and a rolled pad-turned-bookstand for a magnificent browned tome.

When she turned around two hours later, I saw she couldn’t be more than 25. » Read the rest of this entry «

The art display was a room put in a room, a white space made to be like a cartoon villain executive’s office, complete with a spray painted Scrooge McDuck in case no one got the “capitalism bad” theme they got going there. » Read the rest of this entry «

There’s liking books and then there’s hiding under a table to read them.

The small woman with the graying black hair opted for the latter. » Read the rest of this entry «

I remember him because I put him in a short work of fiction, back when I was into that sort of thing. » 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 «

It wasn’t the corkboard feet high and feet wide full of inch by inch Polaroids that made me realize how many people volunteer at Open Books.

It was the coatrack. » Read the rest of this entry «

“Minnesota’s winning!” he said, wrapping small hands around an egg and bacon sandwich. “Is that good?”

I glanced at the TV screen.

“They’re playing Nebraska, so it’s good,” I said. » Read the rest of this entry «

The newspaper man finds an old lady to share the gossip when he parachutes into a low-income neighborhood after a killing. » Read the rest of this entry «

We weren’t close.

We didn’t have a special mentoring relationship.

I taught a 101-level public speaking class you put off taking for four years. You would ask if we could go home early for the day. You did that a lot. » Read the rest of this entry «