April 18th, 2016 § permalink
With a hiss and a little bit of a puff, the beest lurched backward.
Its handler, a young artist type in a bright yellow T-shirt and a sideways-cropped hairdo with a yellow-dyed tuft on the right side of his head, jumped to attention. He grabbed a tube dangling from the animal’s side and kinked it.
The beest stopped. » Read the rest of this entry «
April 15th, 2016 § permalink
I didn’t think she thought I was cute or, like, wanted my phone number or anything, but the next thing she said cemented my suspicions.
“You’re cute,” she said. “I want your phone number.” » Read the rest of this entry «
April 13th, 2016 § permalink
The sun was bright and his face was happy as he stepped out of his luxury SUV.
He took a few moments to just stand between car and sidewalk, relaxing and feeling the city’s pulse before a night of culture and glitz at the Goodman Theatre.
It would have been inspiring had he not been taking his moment of joy in the middle of a protected bike lane. » Read the rest of this entry «
April 11th, 2016 § permalink
It’s a parking lot now, a fenced-in expanse with a dropping gate arm. East of Three Happiness Restaurant and north of the Nine Dragon Wall and a pagoda, the lot nestles cars under and around the Red Line Chinatown stop.
But in the 1920s, this stretch was another block of shops, grocers, drug stores and the like, with a hidden network of underground tunnels connecting them all.
Maybe. Well, actually probably not. » Read the rest of this entry «
April 8th, 2016 § permalink
The promised wine was a single bottle of grocery store white for the whole room.
The lights were overly bright and killed all mood, all illusion we were anywhere other than a well-lit storefront during regular shopping hours.
It didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter the promised wine evaporated between a roomful, it didn’t matter the bookstore was as bright and moodful as a 1990s Toys ‘R’ Us. It didn’t matter that the door gave a loud electronic ding whenever real shoppers came in, making a meerkat moment of a dozen heads swiveling at once to scout the new intruder.
None of that mattered because we were there to rule the world. » Read the rest of this entry «
April 6th, 2016 § permalink
My mother has been posting photos of what the privy diggers found.
I grew up in an old house which, apparently, used to have an outhouse right below the maple I used to climb. *
Outhouses in the 1800s were apparently trash dumps too, so my parents let some privy diggers — professional excavators — dig down to see what was there. They pulled out crystal wine stoppers, old bottles, cracked porcelain plates with blue-dyed townscapes, all right under my old maple.
It got me thinking about what’s beneath our feet in Chicago.
April 4th, 2016 § permalink
There were three PhDs in the crowd in front of me and, I would later be told, a homeless man touching himself inappropriately behind me.
I continued.
“… announcing a massive expedition to South America in a ship called ‘The Big Bill’ to capture footage of a fish that could climb trees, but then he just hung around in New Orleans for a month, I thought ‘That’s it! We’ve got it! That is the greatest fact ever.’”
Operation Scalded Armadillo, the top-secret writing project that I’ve alluded to over the last few weeks, is in reality The Chicago Corruption Walking Tour, which I researched, wrote and plan to debut this summer. » Read the rest of this entry «
April 1st, 2016 § permalink
There was a sweeping view from the waiting room.
It was one of those glassy towers downtown, entire outer walls just one massive view of the tips of skyscrapers, orange-vested workers skittering among the Wrigley Building roof columns, bits of sky that reminded you there are other colors to downtown than Beaux-Arts ecru and Miesian steel black.
She had her back firmly against all that. She was sitting staring forward. I thought she might be the photographer there to meet me for the freelance gig.
“Being a photographer sounds like an interesting career,” she said absently, staring off into space. » Read the rest of this entry «
March 30th, 2016 § permalink
As mentioned on Monday, all my writing time as of late has gone to a top-secret project I’ve code-named “Operation Scalded Armadillo.”
I’ll be able to speak more freely after April 3, but here are a few actual lines I’ve written for OSA.
It’s non-fiction.
1. “… announcing a massive expedition to South America in a ship called ‘The Big Bill’ to capture footage of a fish that could climb trees…” » Read the rest of this entry «
March 28th, 2016 § permalink
I’m in crunch time on a top-secret writing project that, for purposes of anonymity and to sound cool, I’m referring to only as “Operation Scalded Armadillo.”
It’ll knock your socks off when complete, but OSA (aka “The Armadills”) hasn’t left me much time for the usual running around, doing stuff and writing about it. To keep your Chicago-based edutainment rolling here on the site, I now give you a small taste of my masterwork in progress. » Read the rest of this entry «
