1,001 Chicago Afternoons

500. Half a thou. D, to the ancient Romans. As close to the halfway point of the project as an odd-numbered goal allows.

So what should I write this milestone story about?

I decided to toss that question to the folks who made up the first 499, asking the people who got me this far how I should kick off the second half. » Read the rest of this entry «

He was tired. Tired and premature old, with gray hairs nestling about his temples and a few scars on the right side of his face showing battles against time. » Read the rest of this entry «

She had a bewitching smile, an origami bird paperclipped to her head and a red stripe painted across her nose to look more like the protagonist of the video game Dragon Age II.

She didn’t know where they got the pig’s blood.

“I never asked and now I’m suspicious,” she joked. “We did just fire someone.”

With that and a smile, she turned away to put in my order for the pig’s blood drink at Geek Bar Beta. » Read the rest of this entry «

Eric did flips at 47th and Michigan.

Kae broke her back in Ohio.

Jim got slapped at a Bruce Wayne fundraiser.

And Julie had too much to drink one night.

That’s how they joined the circus.

Last month, we met Acrobatica Infiniti, the nerd circus. The acrobat collective has Jedi who juggle, Aquaman aerialists, bipedal B-Boy bactrosaurs and other acts, alliterative or not, that combine circus and nerd cultures. » Read the rest of this entry «

Mister Terrific hoists the Green Arrow into the sky. Captain Hammer patrols the crowd, a groupie perched on the nape of his neck. A Jedi and Joker juggle as the 11th Doctor balances his sonic on the tip of his nose.

This is Acrobatica Infiniti. This is the nerd circus. » Read the rest of this entry «

A whitened bird skull operated by antique spoons. She and her sister glide on ball casters made for desk chairs, hidden by rag dresses tea-stained to match the seaweed and algae that washes up on Monterey.

“They eat out of clam shells and drink out of barnacles,” Stephanie Díaz said, making one of the Las Solteronas puppets take a massive swig, picking up the glass using the magnet system Díaz installed in a bent wire hand. “I wanted these to look like things that assembled themselves autonomously from a shipwreck.” » Read the rest of this entry «

A sunny Sunday pre-election. A walk down Damen with a cup of coffee in hand. And dozens of “Re-Elect Jesse White Secretary of State” yard signs popping up along a fence like partisan wildflowers.

A bit of background: » Read the rest of this entry «

The chalkboard drawing of pumpkins and sexy witches, the bartendress said, was done by a DJ who doesn’t work there anymore.

“She say she went to a high school for drawing and painting,” the bartendress said in a thick Eastern European accent of some stripe.

The bartendress mimed scribbling in the air as she said “drawing and painting.” » Read the rest of this entry «

The following is the story originally intended for last week, but postponed due to that sleep-killing jerkface Edward Paul Brennan (1866-1942).

Enjoy, and may all your historical street references be correctly numbered. » Read the rest of this entry «

I was a bit too stunned to ask the men why they were carrying crates of live pigeons.

I don’t even know if “crates” is the right word. Trays of pigeons? Pallets of pigeons? Port-o-coops?

Whatever the contraptions were called, the men piled out of the mid-sized car carrying two of them just packed to the brim with pigeons. » Read the rest of this entry «