October 14th, 2015 § permalink
The captain was doubled over.
He stood on the deck, bent like a question mark. His knees were almost to his chest. His rear was sticking out. His hands were gripping the side of his head, fingers wrapped around his hair in a way the crew knew would amount to ripping if this third out didn’t happen but quick.
The captain had been screaming all night. » Read the rest of this entry «
October 12th, 2015 § permalink
On Oct. 8, 2015, photographer AJ Kane and I hopped a median under Trump Tower to explore Carroll Street, a long-forgotten subterranean road running 30 feet and a world beneath Chicago’s downtown.
Via an interactive StoryMapJS from Northwestern University’s Knight Lab, this is what we found. » Read the rest of this entry «
October 9th, 2015 § permalink
I’m starting this at what my laptop tells me is 1:24 a.m. I’m at the Grand Blue Line stop with a laptop pulled out in front of me and a slender young white man vomiting into a CTA garbage bag maybe 15 yards behind me.
I’ve had a night.
Maybe it wasn’t as much a night as the young white man’s night, but it was a night. » Read the rest of this entry «
October 7th, 2015 § permalink
It was falling apart in my hands, the creases and seams where the thick paper had been folded simply coming away from each other in the 50-ish years since the plans had been printed.
They show layouts, floor plans, hand-rendered pre-construction imaginings of what would become Lake Point Tower, the modern architecture castle jutting beautifully from the land just west of Navy Pier.
And there, on the front cover of the package sent to prospective tenants back in the mid-1960s, words that made me burn: “Tower in a Park.”
Not only did they know they were turning our public parks into millionaires’ backyards, they made it part of the ad campaign. » Read the rest of this entry «
October 5th, 2015 § permalink
“That’s got to be her parents,” I said.
“I don’t know,” my date responded, pronouncing the “know” to imply skepticism over uncertainty.
“It’s got to be,” I said.
We were sitting along the Riverwalk, enjoying a glass of wine before a play. The cold hadn’t snapped yet, and amid the orange-pink sunset, we decided the lapping of the river on Rahm’s manmade shore would be the perfect start to the evening.
Orange-pink sky. A glass of red for me, white for her. Lapping green water. And lavender.
The lavender hair of the waitress getting her head scratched by the male half of an exceptionally drunk middle-aged couple. » Read the rest of this entry «
October 2nd, 2015 § permalink
I think this project makes more sense if you know it’s coming from a depressive who refuses to take medication.
Yes, maybe my life would be better if I had followed the experts who have told me that even my relatively mild flights of fancy and lows are mistakes of personality that should be drugged and ℞-ed away.
But I wouldn’t be me, would I? And I like me. I’m nice. » Read the rest of this entry «
September 30th, 2015 § permalink
The Frisbee haunts me. » Read the rest of this entry «
September 28th, 2015 § permalink
He stood on a rock in the little trickling creek, can of spray paint in hand.
He cocked his head slightly, looking at the work before him. It was a half-filled, gothic-style, yellow, lower-case b, the latest level of glitzy glam glowy graffiti beneath a railroad bridge turned trail in the woods of Gompers Park.
He leaned forward past the point where he could stand on his own. Planting his paint-smeared Chuck Taylors firmly on the rock jutting out from the little creek, he fell forward. This was the plan. He hit the wall, holding himself hypotenuse to the right triangle of underpass and water with his left hand.
Holding himself against the wall, he gently gently gently shaded back and forth, back and forth with the spray can, yellowing the innards of the half-filled b. » Read the rest of this entry «
September 25th, 2015 § permalink
Ring ring.
“Hi!”
“Hi… We’re still friends, right?”
“Yeeeeees?”
“The tickets were for last night’s game.”
Loud laughter. » Read the rest of this entry «
September 23rd, 2015 § permalink
Every month, a parking garage in Uptown is turned into a cavalcade of old.
It’s called Vintage Garage and it’s wonderful. Amazing clothes, books, vinyl, dishware, photos, machinery, furniture — everything the lover of the old can want. The Sept. 20 market was themed “Retro Chicago.”
I’m gushing over the flea market now because I’m going to make fun of it. » Read the rest of this entry «
