Goodnight moon. Goodnight stars.
Goodnight overpriced, ridiculous bars. » Read the rest of this entry «
#551: A Quiet Block
November 4th, 2015 § permalink
It’s quiet on the block.
Other blocks are loud and brutal, but not this one. This one’s quiet and pretty. » Read the rest of this entry «
#550: Blood Red
November 2nd, 2015 § permalink
On the day before Halloween 2015, I learned what blood looked like.
I had seen blood before, of course. Scrapes, cuts, bleeds from shaving nicks on my chin to crimsoned hair matted with clots after a woman got into a chain fight at a DMV when I was 16.
But until the old woman lying in a heap a few steps north of my doorway, I had thought of it as a slightly brown-tinged oxidized mess.
Until the old woman dripping pinot onto the sidewalk, I hadn’t realized blood was so red. » Read the rest of this entry «
#549: Miss Sweetfeet Breaks
October 30th, 2015 § permalink
She sat at a bench in the park, reading a book about samurai. Her lips were crimsoned to perfection, her hair in perfect Andrews Sister style in prep for swing dancing a few hours later.
But when the hip-hop pumps, the banker’s on the floor. She flips, she turns, she toprocks and down. She 6-steps and Indian steps and freezes, flares, swipes.
This is Miss Sweetfeet, B-Girl of Chicago. » Read the rest of this entry «
#548: Weak Force: Why the Lucas Museum Should Fail
October 28th, 2015 § permalink
The design for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art by architect Ma Yansong is a futuristic beauty, hearkening to a chalk-colored volcano along the shore.
The landscaping will be done by SCAPE and Studio Gang, and after the triumph of Aqua a building short of the river’s edge, anything within a mile of Jeanne Gang is OK in my book.
It will be lovely.
Fuck lovely. » Read the rest of this entry «
#547: Game Over
October 26th, 2015 § permalink
Every 105 minutes, I saw the Navy Pier Ferris wheel dissolve. » Read the rest of this entry «
#546: Light-Up Copter
October 23rd, 2015 § permalink
A little rubber and plastic slingshot. The white man with the satchel and ball cap raised it.
With a turn of his fingers, he slid and slipped a white plastic bit into the thick rubber band. As natural as snapping fingers, he pulled the band back and shot the little twisty, twirly, bendy bit with the light-up end into the sky.
It shot 50, 60 feet into the dark air, its blue light flickering down through by the white terra cotta of the downtown Wrigley Building, a plastic helicopter seed available for tourist purchase.
He picked it up off the ground and shot it into the sky again. » Read the rest of this entry «
#545: Gutterpunk Hustle
October 21st, 2015 § permalink
It took me a second.
We had already passed each other going down the little side street in Lakeview, so, flanked by his two friends, he had turned around to ask me his question.
He was tall and built, white with a blonde ponytail. I doubt he would have tried that if he weren’t white — privilege even among the homeless. » Read the rest of this entry «
#544: The Pastor’s Grill
October 19th, 2015 § permalink
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 «
#543: Coronado’s Cross
October 16th, 2015 § permalink
It didn’t start in July.
It didn’t start then, but I don’t know when it did start.
I don’t know when the first notion for the exhibit appeared to people. I don’t know when, according to the Tribune, they started the crowdsourced process of having online folks determine whether the new Chicago History Museum exhibit would be on local lit, local women or another Capone-apalooza.
I don’t know when click poll voters chose an exhibit about Chicago writers.
I don’t know who nominated something I wrote.
I don’t know who picked it.
But I’m glad they did. » Read the rest of this entry «
