#532: Where’s the One-Armed Gibbon?

September 21st, 2015 § permalink

In the Lincoln Park Zoo’s Helen Brach Primate House, he used to fling himself from artificial branch to artificial branch with one long, lone arm.

Covered in black fur with white tufts springing from his happy, alert face, the gibbon would hurl himself through the air with the same arm he would catch himself with split-moments later. Fling, catch, fling, catch, fling, catch, stop, eat something using his foot, fling, fling, catch, catch.

His name was Kien Nhan, and in 2005, one of his arms had to be amputated. » Read the rest of this entry «

#531: Paul Dailing’s “City on the Make”

September 18th, 2015 § permalink

The song of summer 2015 was the theme from “The Munsters.”

I mean, not literally of course. It was actually Chicago-area band Fall Out Boy’s hit “Uma Thurman,” which has been following me around in stores, over radios, online, in the Logan Square arcade where a friend and I played video games as retro and backward-looking as the pop track itself.

Thirteen seconds of Pete Wentz yelling and then, there you go, the theme to “The Munsters”

The 1960s monster sitcom’s inclusion in this 2015 pop song is called sampling. That’s when musicians include pieces of other people’s works in their works, or as I once wrote, “Call me Ishmael.” » Read the rest of this entry «

#530: The Little Red Wagon

September 16th, 2015 § permalink

She was a middle-aged woman with gray-blonde hair pulled back in a functional ponytail. She gave off an aura of likability from behind her yellow safety vest.

Her smile was weary — I got the sense it had been one of many long days in a row — but it was genuine as well. I recalled a line from Roald Dahl about only trusting people whose smiles went all the way to the eyes.

And she towed a little red Radio Flyer wagon behind her. I liked that too. » Read the rest of this entry «

#529: Jolanda, The Slowest Fucking Turtle in the World

September 14th, 2015 § permalink

He looked out on the crowd, the howling, screaming, hooting wonder pounding beers and clustering with pitchers and mugs around the shallow, topless plywood box covering the pool table for a night.

Someone handed him a ping-pong ball. He read off it.

“Number 5! Jolanda!” the man shouted into the mic. “And we all know what Jolanda is!”

“The slowest! Fucking! Turtle! In the world!” the crowd screamed back as one. » Read the rest of this entry «

#528: The Quaint Device of Tom and Teller

September 11th, 2015 § permalink

She asked if I wanted to see a production of my favorite Shakespeare play staged by my favorite magician with a score by my third-favorite 20th-century songwriter.

Of course I said yes. » Read the rest of this entry «

#527: Frozen Horse Hair

September 9th, 2015 § permalink

She ruined everything by asking where they got the horsehair. » Read the rest of this entry «

#526: One Chicago Afternoon

September 7th, 2015 § permalink

The little bar had almost no light, just small hexagon windows letting in what little of the sun they cared for. » Read the rest of this entry «

#525: Burger Time

September 4th, 2015 § permalink

Two weeks ago, I wrote about my intent to grab America’s best burger, only to find out I was at the wrong restaurant.

On Thursday night, amid the hip and trendy of the West Loop crowd, among a sea of identical men in business casual and women so beautiful and bland they could have been cranked out of a Beautiful Bland Barbie factory, I finally got the Au Cheval cheeseburger, which both Bon Appetit and the Food Network recently crowned best burger in the nation. » Read the rest of this entry «

#524: Rage Against the Dying of the Light (aka, Screw Your Pumpkin Spice Latte)

September 2nd, 2015 § permalink

The sun beat down with a sickening thud. Thick patinas of sweat lubed each passerby’s forehead, with a few sporting perspiration-darkened underarms on their shirts.

The soundtrack was the constant whine and chime of cicadas.

Online, my friends celebrate the start of September, pledging allegiance to and posting stati longing for summer’s dark mistress, the killer of leaves and creator of approximately 50,008 new artisanal pumpkin-spiced brews, each one promising to taste more like pie than the last.

They want to “break out” the autumn wardrobe. They long for boots, sweaters, crunchy leaves and the chilling of this delightful thick thud of heat.

These traitors to summer long for autumn. And I say thee no.

No, I do not accept the end of summer. » Read the rest of this entry «

#523: Prehistory

August 31st, 2015 § permalink

It’s the smell that gets you. Melting, burning plastic searing the air like the reek of an ‘80s perm.

The machine whirs and shakes, not enough to cause concern, but just enough to get the excitement going. It’s a giant, familiar console topped with a clear plastic bubble so you can see the gears and valves shift and move and shake. » Read the rest of this entry «

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