1,001 Chicago Afternoons

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• 1,001 — So long, Chicago.

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• The Ride Home — Winding down with a few last words from Ben Hecht and the Chicago Transit Authority.
• The Ride – Bridgeport to University Village — I was pleased to discover college students are still awful.
• The Ride – South Deering to Greater Grand Crossing — The Tour de Chicago continues with an abandoned elementary school.
• The Ride – Hegewisch to South Deering — The site sendoff kicks off with truckloads of Santa at the city’s southernmost point.
• The Farm — A West Englewood jobs program grows hope.
• Whatever Happened to the High Priestess of the Flappers? — In 2016, I wrote about the head of a 1920s clique of teen glamour girls. In 2018, her granddaughter reached out.
• Death on Display (Or what’s the difference between a pickled punk and a pharaoh?) — The 4,000 human beings whose final resting place is the Field Museum of Natural History.
• Morning at the Huddle House — Albany Park rises as pop songs narrate eggs.
• Nothing But Trouble — “Nothing but trouble comes through those doors,” and I wanted to be trouble.
• Xanthippe (Or, “Tomorrow’s Song,” but it’s 990 stories in and I only have one story that starts with X so far) — As my song winds down, a look over the shoulder of a woman writing hers.
• Thoughts on a Cop — The city eyes its protectors as it waits for an important verdict.
• The Rabbi, Harry Potter and Too Many Corpses — A rabbi has to tell a little boy some bad news.
• The Americans — A homeless community under a bridge.
• Janna’s Light — An actress invented a treasure hunt to hold off the darkness. It works.
• Packy & Cracky’s Super Funtastic Go-Go-Wow Illinois Political Gamesmanship Kids Activity Book — Every gubernatorial corruption scandal as god intended: IN LIMERICK!
• Life and Death for $15 — Probably one of the six most passion-filled odes to waiting in line at the Cook County Clerk’s Office you’ll read all week.
• Last Afternoon — A scene from the last afternoon of summer.
• Recipe for the Perfect Hamburger — The perfect hamburger is not necessarily grilled, charbroiled, parboiled, batter-dipped, smashed, skillet-fried, sautéed, shwenkered, spatchcocked or even a hamburger.
• Yakko’s Race — And now, the mayoral candidates of Chicago, brought to you by Yakko Warner! (If you watched a lot of kids’ cartoons in the ’90s, that joke is hilarious.)
• This Is — This is, ideally, the site’s last story about politics.
• Brian. Little Girl. — On being innocent enough to say hello.
• Stained Walls, Stained Glass — The stained glass museum hidden in a sub-downtown tunnel.
• Under the Bridge — A man fishes in the rain.
• Fez Sez — The hidden clown-and-fez art of a downtown shopping haven.
• Will Tomorrow Smell Like Chocolate? — What’s next for a neighborhood where you can grab a sack of chocolate from the factory or buy a glass-box condo?
• Coco’s Famous Deep Fried Lobster — Reviewing the lobster at the soul food joint where Chicago was sold.
• The Vanishing Chicago Sewer Clown — It’s not what It looks like.
• The Barber Battle Book — “I despise these human parasites as I do a reptile,” wrote the haircut lobbyist.
• The End of Bubbly Creek — What does the future hold for the creek that defined Chicago?
• Fed Shreds — Alien invaders vs. the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank.
• The Original — 92 years at 92nd.
• White Babies — Which of my neighbors hung the hate sign?
• The Legend of Boots Merullo — Part sports trivia, part personal announcement.
• The Indoor Border — Where, why and how the suburban border splits a building.
• Candyland — A treasure trove of candy in a warehouse on a frontage road by the highway.
• The Blip — Why there’s one Chicago subdivision carved out of suburban Niles.
• Nobody Gets Around Johnny Twist — This Woodlawn bluesman is a legend. He said so himself.
• In Praise of Alleys — An ode to the back alley.
• Halsted — In one spot, trendy bars and bistros. In others, crosses for the dead.
• The King of Quiet Moments — Enjoy what makes your neighborhood your neighborhood while you can.
• I Am Chicago’s Newest TIF District — How easy is it to reap property taxes for mayoral pet projects? I take (and pass) the test.
• Chess Dogs — Pomeranian to queen’s bishop 4.
• Kinder Bueno on the Edge of the World — Dining on obscure Polish goodies just feet from the suburbs.
• Who Was Who? — A 1941 guide to the forgotten famous.
• Churches on the Little Calumet — Chicago’s southern border of dirt and God.
• The Long Ride of the Pullman Porter — A museum dedicated to black labor history.
• The City Under — Chicago’s underground neighborhood.
• Her Eyes — Sharing a ride usually taken alone.
• Glitz, Glam and Theater Kids — They look on the stage and see themselves.

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• Knowing a Lot — Tracking down corrupt 1930′s Ald. Paddy Bauler’s saloon.
• Yawn of Man — There’s getting old, and there’s falling asleep at a punk show.
• Lurch — When burning, noodle-y legs and a hatred of doughnuts mean you’re getting better.
• Just Keep Walking — What I wanted to say to the woman crying on the train.
• To the Breakfast-Eaters — An ode to dining alone with electric-blue hair.
• The ‘Donate to These Guys’ List — Care about journalism? Prove it.
• Night at the Museum — You’ll never love your job as much as the historian does his.
• Morning at the Field — The sleepy hours as dinosaurs rise.
• M-I-Z- — On meeting a man I thought was a fellow alum.
• How We Live Now — Because Chicago summers last forever, right? Right?
• In the Newsroom — Loving a room of clicks, clacks and agony.
• Cram — Trying to remember that tour guide thing I did all summer before. Blagovajich? Blingojaivish?
• Native Water — In troubled politics, finding a river that feels like home.
• A Movie House — The arthouse theater nestled among the chain stores.
• Authenticity VaVOOM — The real of fake, with luchadors.
• Dip — Finding a place to dive away from your problems.
• The Chicago Way — How a Sean Connery misquote became the slogan of a city’s apathy.
• The Five-Year Plan (or I Hate You So Much Right Now, Google Maps) — I had something really special planned for the site’s fifth birthday. Until Google Maps.
• Cassini — Watching a satellite dive into a planet’s rings 200,000 miles away.
• River in Strings — Listening to a concerto written to sound like the Chicago River.
• It Started Here — The exact spot Chicago saw its first newspaper.
• Bughouse — Where the soapbox orators of Bughouse Square held court.
• Perfectly 22 — The living embodiment of an age steps on board a train.
• A Tupperware of Kugel — The magic of a Seder.
• Everything-But-The-Face-Lift — When your historical preservation is just slapping a new body on some old skin.
• That Day — That one day each spring when you remember why you live here.
• Bertrand Goldberg vs. The Nazis — The weird, true story of how a prank call about the Reich gave Chicago modern architecture.
• It’s Time We Admit “Land of Lincoln” is a Terrible Slogan — “Illinois: Coastin’ on Abe Since ‘Our American Cousin.’”
• The Antelope Takes Flight — A new magazine asks what makes a document.
• The Harold Washington Robot — At a South Side museum, a man of servos, wire and rubber tells the city’s saddest story.
• Quack Cures and How Bad They’d Kill You — From electrical scrotum holsters to magnetic foot batteries, rating five 1800s cures sold in Chicago on their deadliness.
• God’s Edmontosaurus — The world gets worse when science doesn’t speak.
• Rules for Not Being a Jackass Tourist (and Why Ferris Bueller is Crap) — Do not Ferris this town.
• On Rooftops — History and technology splayed along the rooftops of Chicago.
• What I’m Looking For — Looking for and not finding the perfect story.
• Graves of Michigan Avenue — New uses for the old buildings of the South Loop.
• Atom Orbitals and the Charm of Being Lost — In a universe of instant specificity, it’s sometimes nice to get what you don’t want.
• Silence in the Library — A beautiful club incorporated an ugly, wonderful room.
• A Wonderful Thing on International Women’s Day — It was glorious to watch his protest get ignored.
• A Sentence — I tried to write about a street musician, but could only get a sentence in.
• On This Day in History — Moments past, both big and small.
• Soup and Bread — A wintertime fundraiser creates community a bowl at a time.
• The Story of the Story — How time shows grace to a man who doesn’t deserve it.
• Once More, With Science! — If you’re a scientist, we want your stories for a fundraiser.
• Blades — A homeless man’s machete and Klingon weaponry on the sidewalks of Chicago.
• A Cask of Amontillado — In which the promise of a rare sherry walls me up in a confined space. In a good way.
• Presidential Quotes, Corrected — JFK, FDR, Lincoln, Nixon and Reagan get the treatment we pledge Trump.
• Whispering City — It whispers that you’ll never know.
• The Reporter, the Professor and Me — Three stories of Obamacare.
• Zoe — She’s a good girl, yes she is.

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• Two and Four — An 1884 ballot con contains the entirety of American political history.
• Pennies on the Dollar — A drunk learns of Chicago’s new bag tax.
• Rise and Fall of the American Stuff Store — In Albany Park, one of the last of the corner shops that sells everything.
• The Chicago Journalism Quiz – Answers — Find out how you did.
• The Chicago Journalism Quiz — How well do you know old news?
• A Ramble — In the first days of the Muslim ban.
• Unnoticed — The Beatles were wrong and love in the age of Trump.
• Life, the Universe and Everything — Meeting two guys about to find a favorite book.
• We Marched, What’s Next? — Next steps after the Women’s March (spoiler: It’s gonna get dull).
• Isaac and Ishmael — A Muslim woman reads on the train the last night before a madman president.
• Hush and Hustle — For a little boy staring at sewage workers, magic is everywhere.
• A Pause by the Church Door — An atheist’s thoughts as the music trickles out.
• Your Plans for Wednesday — A preview for a fundraiser helping groups the soon-to-be president wants to hurt.
• Bhopal — Chicago memories from an African man in Thailand.
• The Year 2022 — Asked by a podcast, I give my predictions for five years hence.
• He Vapes at Midnight — Can noir exist in 2017?
• A Small Thing — A granola bar ruined his life.
• An Idea I Want You to Steal — Anyone up to save Chicago journalism?
• Putney’s Prophecies – Did 1899 Come True? — In the last 15 minutes of the 1800s, a man climbed the roof of a Loop office building and predicted the future. A fact check on his dreams.
• Whirled History — When the microfilm room at the library dies, what will happen to our past?
• The Metaphoric Parable of the Pies That Actually Represent Other Concepts Than Pies – An Allegory — Something of unknown origin showed up for free? Better consume this immediately!
• Empty World — City-alone before Christmas, when solitude means hundred, not thousands.
• January 24, 1975 10:55 am — How many millions have sped by this graffiti deep in a subway tunnel?
• The Heart of the Book — Tooling leather and hand-binding books helps a Logan Square craftsman with the pain.
• Lullaby on Blue — She sleeps on the train.
• Help Nonprofits Survive Trump – Venue and Date — More info on the Jan. 18 fundraiser.
• The Only Story — A tale about the snow.
• It’s Time We Talk About the Cubs and Trump, Part 2 of 2 — When blue money goes to orange, decision day on the Chicago Cubs.
• It’s Time We Talk About the Cubs and Trump, Part 1 of 2 — Can I root for the home team given the owners’ ties to a dangerous man?
• The Guide — How one woman started a black history tour of Chicago.
• Street Poets — He hawks his words on a sidewalk like a beggar bums change.
• Help Nonprofits Survive Trump – Call for Submissions — It’s going to be a very bad four years for local groups doing vital work. Let’s help them out.
• Barbara’s Bike Ride — A little girl’s bike ride through Auburn Gresham in the ’60s.
• Five Images from Chicago Collections Consortium to Haunt Your Turkey Comas — Including “The Hell-Clown Waits” and a woman who came down with a bad case of monkeys.
• Clocks, Stars and Getting Over Chicago-Style Names — A walk by Marshall Field’s on Hubbard’s Trace to Smokey Hollow.
• Historic Aldermen Who Would Hurt You Very, Very Badly — Remember that time a Chicago alderman bit off another alderman’s ear and then a third alderman beat the first up with a sheep’s head?
• Did They Know? — Have two teens figured out yet that they’re in love?
• In Praise of the Tamale Guy — The young and cool meet something they don’t understand.
• Two Mayors of Chicago and the Oncoming Fight — Learn from history, but never normalize our next president.
• Heaven ‘tween Grand and Washington — Sleepy-eyed mourning in Trump’s America.
• Eight Thousand Fucks from Spider Jerusalem and My Own Thoughts on Donald Trump’s Election — An earlier version of this story actually did include the word “fuck” 8,000 times.
• Vote Like a Champ in Just Six Steps — Know your rights before someone takes them from you.
• Joy in Mudville — The Chicago Cubs win the World Series.
• The Daily News — This PAC-funded publication looks like a local newspaper, but really, really isn’t.
• The Voting Dead — Dead voters is not the scary part of this pre-election tale.
• Haunting Houses — A social justice haunted house brings together ghoulies and foreclosures.
• Where I Was — It doesn’t matter where Cubs memories are set, as long as they exist.
• Stunt Priest — Stop me if you’ve heard this one.
• Don Juan of the Western Sharpshooters — This personal ad from a Civil War soldier is pretty damn adorable.
• Away — Waiting, waiting, waiting on a train out of town.

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• If You See Something — When did we as a society become afraid of stray tote bags?
• Open 24 Hours —Late at night, a diner waitress looks at the clock and at the lanky boy waiting for her.
• The Cubs vs. the Fighting TBDs — I look forward to a good, clean series between the Cubs and 1940s Sri Lankan jurist Tikiri Banda Dissanayake.
• The Woman in the Dick Tracy Hat — A kind act captured in the wild.
• Objects in Space — In a lonely crowd, he yelled that I was the only one to speak to him.
• Out of Time — He worked in market research, the street person said.
• Dear Tribune Editorial Board, Here are Four Candidates Just as Qualified as Gary Johnson — In the wake of the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board giving 10 points to Hufflepuff, let’s talk other principled, incompetent candidates.
• News of the World — A reel of paper threads through machines, making magic and the day’s events.
• The Beautiful Catastrophe — I can’t laugh at Trump. Not anymore.
• Walking Man and the State Street Preacher — Two street characters cross paths.
• Shameless Self-Promotion Theatre, Part 3 — Let’s steal an election!
• “Dhoom 3″ vs. “City That Never Sleeps” – What’s the Daffiest Chicago Movie? — Two films, 60 years apart, same city, different magician gangster.
• Anise and the Morning Commute — What? You don’t drink ouzo from a metal goblet on the 8 a.m. train?
• The Yegg and The Berries – Two Prohibition-Era Craft Cocktails That Taste Like Sadness — A reminder of how the Roaring ’20s really drank.
• Willful Wills at the American Indian Center — Archery and finding the calm.
• The Winnow — Professional football is watching men dressed like the Hamburglar review video because an angry man in a polo said they did it wrong.
• Bright and Burning, Dark and Empty — Breaking dawn in a bright sort of darkness.
• A Bit of Hope by Where the River Caught Fire — Messy promises from a put-upon scrapyard.
• Unknown — Mysteries can be OK, depending on the people you’re solving them with.
• Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road — What the sale of the Chicago Tribune building is telling young journalists.
• Crooked Streets — The stories I’ve been told while leading politics-themed walking tours.
• The Stony Island Arts Bank — A South Shore bank was recommissioned to hold something more precious than money.
• Told — The greatest storytelling event I’ve ever been to.
• My Immortal Morning — The plastic I touch every morning will outlive nations.
• Boink — A homeless guy boinks me on the cheek.
• Notes from the Commute — Three things I learned after a summer of commuting.
• The Greatest Speech Never Given, Kane County Cougars Edition — Covering all the bases (eh? eh? get it?) as I prepare to throw out the first pitch at a ball game.
• A Book at Sunset on the 606 — Thoughts on fascination.
• A Rowdy Punk Club and the Unstoppable March — How a ’70s punk club became a hub of River North ritz.
• The Bolshoi Ballet — I was too young to be a father, and she was too much of a large sea mammal.
• A Sadness of Cicadas — They scream to tell you this will end.
• The Tour Guide — Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, as described by someone who has no idea what he’s talking about.
• Four Methods to See the Problem — Gerrymandering is drab, mathy and depriving you of your most basic right as a citizen. Here’s how to get properly angry about the topic.
• A Room Where Bozo Went Pantsless — No, you read that correctly.
• The Wizards Altar — For story #666, an occult bookstore.
• Cuties and the Englewood Cartoonist — How an Englewood High School graduate became the nation’s first black syndicated cartoonist.
• To Read This Story — You’ll have to put on music.
• Brown Girls and the Act of Existing — For an upcoming web series, putting women of color on camera is resistance in itself.
• Rise of the Tangerine Goblin – A Blogger’s Apology — I laughed and wrote. Five years later, the GOP nominates a demon.
• Zubat and the Theys — Who would have thought a little fad game I don’t even play could give me what I want?
• A Corruption Tour Mission Statement — Why I tour.
• Downtown Bingo — Suit Guy? A midday drunk? A filthy, diseased plague pigeon? How many of these things have YOU seen downtown?
• The Five Greatest Sentences the Chicago Tribune Has Ever Written — Combat wombats, the safety-pin brigade and this new art of “grooming.”
• Bit-O-Honey — 12 people and a puppy gather at the park district to learn about bees.
• The Royal Order of Flappers — What makes a 1920s flapper? Ask the women of the short-lived The Flapper magazine.
• Learning Piggy — A 16-inch Chicago-style softball tradition.
• The Cubless Cubs Game — All’s the same in Wrigleyville, except for Jackson Browne.
• The Patron Saint of the Belly-Itchers — As I prep for a potentially humiliating baseball debut, thoughts on the immortal Lennie Merullo.
• M — Something beautiful in line for classic cinema.
• My Concession Speech for My Unsuccessful Run for the Chicago Reader’s Best Bahn Mi Sandwich of 2016 — Chicago did not #feelthebahn

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• Thoughts on the Chicago Troncune — The oldest written record of the Chicago Tribune is someone wishing them luck.
• Ticketmasterblaster — If I don’t like live music, why am I waiting for my Ticketmaster settlement?
• My Life in Paper — Memories moldering in a storage space.
• Shoelaces — Love, hate and suicide in LGBT youth.
• Little-Known Facts — A few of the ghosts that follow me around the city.
• The Language of Smell — Like 50 ways to say “yellow” but not one word for “the smell of a downtown morning after a late-night thunderstorm.”
• Can You Master the Chicago L? A Text-Based Role-Playing Game — All the fun of a weekday commute, only some of the drunk guy urine.
• Who I Want to Be — When loud, angry and willfully ignorant seem to be the norm, three random people quietly show their character.
• The Brainstorming Meeting for tronc Inc. — Inside the futurarium thinkregion that is the only way Tribune Publishing could have gotten its new name.
• The First Murder in Chicago — It started with a stabbing in 1812.
• Treasure Hunt — Making garbage picking a family event.
• When You Were Older, You Used to be a Giraffe — Is your organization optimized for this bleeding edge nonsense business jargon?
• Don’t Save Ferris — The nostalgic take to the streets for a mediocre movie.
• Older Than Nations — A 600-year-old copy of the Summa Theologica has been a Chicagoan longer than you, and will be long after.
• Local Boy Makes Good — Getting in the hometown paper is a special treat.
• Just Like You — A beggar begs from a beggar.
• Streetlight Manifesto — After the show, swarms of teen punks invade the Walgreens.
• American Lyric — Sparrows, black squirrels and human beings: the three species that greeted me one spring morning.
• I Am the Best Bahn Mi in Chicago — Why my campaign to declare myself the finest Vietnamese sandwich in town makes perfect sense.
• Uncle Bathhouse — The great-great niece of a corrupt 1900s alderman shares what the family has been up to.
• The Partial Partial Guide Guide — An incomplete list of docents I have an affinity for. Get it?
• In Brightest Day — A man slathered in Green Lantern gear talks about his superhero.
• Ink and Blood — This secret society dedicated to writing duels totally does not exist so don’t read this story.
• Snap — A look from afar at Austin and Oak Park, glory and squalor on different sides of the street.
• Chicag8 and My Delicious Ramps — How the letter 8 and a foodie delight gave the city its name.
• The Chimes of Logan Square — Gentrification, Logan Square and wind chimes in the darkness.
• LRC — The Old Town School of Folk Music does an impromptu tribute to the Purple One.
• Big Bill — He threatened kings, hunted tree-fish and was a three-term mayor of Chicago.
• Strange Creatures — Moving sculptures of plastic and air are just some of the creations skittering the Loop.
• Thumbnail Lotharios 2016 — She flirts and coos to make a sale.
• The Sneer — If you hate cyclists, you probably shouldn’t read this.
• The Burrowing Chinese — Myths of a Chinatown tunnel hit a common and racist thread.
• A Reading in Logan — A poetic look at a poetry reading.
• Trains, Corpses and a $400 Million Hole – Three Things Underneath Chicago — Learn a few things under the city streets.
• Limpin’ Ain’t Easy – Everything That Went Wrong in Operation Scalded Armadillo — Green-clad joggers, Jennifer Aniston and an enthusiastic homeless man all happen to my new walking tour.
• Drumbeats — Strange moment, strange person in a downtown law office.
• 10 Tidbits from My Top-Secret Project — A fish that can climb a tree, Hüsker Dü and “craters on the goddamn moon” combine to make… something.
• The Magnificent Seven (Illinois Governors who Faced Criminal Charges) — You might know four Illinois governors went to prison, but meet three more who beat the rap.
• The Sounds of Dawn — The touches and tastes of a quiet morning.
• Jimmy Marshall’s Children — Meet one of the men who, through top hats, dances and lies, created Chicago.
• Leaves on the Water — A Russian bathhouse lets men be men.
• The Entrepreneur of You — She quit her job to sell her boyfriend’s poetry by the train station.
• Political Action Committee — Election Day day laborers.
• Amoeba or Gerrymandered Chicago Ward? Take the Quiz — Crooked politics or crooking pseudopods? You decide.
• A Most Difficult Chicago Trivia Quiz – The Answers — Learn the answers you got wrong in our super-hard quiz.
• A Most Difficult Chicago Trivia Quiz — Who doesn’t know the name of the Iroquois Theater’s assistant chief usher in 1903?
• Haunted — “Do you want to see a ghost?” he said, leaning forward in his wheelchair to me, his new friend.
• In the Snow — Why I actually like Chicago in the snow.
• Chicago, the Home of the Pie in the Face — That’s a first we can be proud of.
• The Bare Minimum Voting Guide — How not to be an idiot this primary season.

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• The Why — Asking people what they love and hate about Chicago.
• Days of Doctor Morbulus — On finding a trove of terrible genre fiction from my 20s.
• Green and Gray — I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately. I came back because of late-night tacos.
• Australia, Perfect Sandwiches and the Semi-Simpson Bar — An expat goes to a bar where everybody knows his name and nobody likes him.
• The Human Web — A homeless enclave of blankets, tarps, mattresses and fire plastered in a highway underpass.
• Media’s Rest — The less your journalism matters, the nicer they treat you.
• Voting Does Matter – An Open Letter to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye — The Chicago Tribune’s RedEye asked two 24-year-old reporters what they thought of voting. Voting doesn’t work like that.
• It Rhymes in Polish – A Poem on Injustice, Pączki Day and Stomach Bugs — For this of the Chicago Afternoons, we talk of injustice and pączki.
• Sweet Lies with the Bucktown Mystic — “Let me give you something,” the mystic said.
• Wabonsia, Illinois — A sliver of riverfront that was once its own town.
• Office Space – The Final Frontier — Becoming one of the tucked away.
• Beating the Path — Get to a corner and say, “Left, right or straight?” Pick one. Go.
• Rat of Astor — Vermin finds a home among Chicago’s fancy and proper.
• Business Ribbons — You want to look professional? Dangle this pretty ribbon around your neck, adult male.
• The Big Guy’s Palace — Since 1938, a grill has been sizzling treats for hungry hockey fans.
• The Jefferson Davis Coloring Book — “The Jefferson Davis Coloring Book” is a thing that exists. Don’t get too cocky about it.
• Tuck-In Everlasting — Nostalgia for a sausage plate.
• The Dojo, Part 3 – How BRAVEMONK Got His Name — B-Boy BRAVEMONK on the importance of names in hip-hop dance.
• History in the Dumpster — A trove of history in a North Center garbage bin.
• The Podcast Cometh — Listen to this sampler of the patron-only podcast.
• The Ashes of Gapers Block — The new face of Chicago’s blogging scene is a Springsteen-loving retiree.
• The Political Implications of Rahm Emanuel’s Missing Finger — What this “defining moment” defines about the mayor.
• The Nation of Celestial Space — In 1948, a man in Chicago made all of outer space a nation.
• In the Time it Takes to Carve a Frog — An ice sculptor, sleeping chimpanzees and the end of the holidays.
• Past Midnight — Not talking about new beginnings on New Years would be like not talking about love or vomit on Valentine’s or St. Paddy’s.
• The Transitive Property of Buying Cinnamon at a Fancy Place — Another look at the fanciest grocery store in town.
• Fashion Knees — It is currently fashionable to cut the knees out of trousers, said a man with the knees cut out of his trousers.
• In Praise of Generality (or Happy Christmas 2015) — “To be a great writer, one must truck in impotent generalities.”
• Speed Dater X — In which a 1,001 Chicago Afternoons agent infiltrates the world of speed dating.
• Nine Star Wars Spoilers — On the event of the “Force Awakens” debut, a look at the saga’s darkest chapter, the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special.
• The Ghost of Christmas — On just not feeling Christmassy, neither the joy nor the anger.
• The 1,001 Chicago Afternoons Holiday Gift Guide — Go beyond shopping local by supporting these people and places you read about on this site in 2015.
• The Chicago Guy — The increasing rarity of a Chicago guy in Chicago.
• Geocaching Four Chicago Firsts — Grab your GPS and these coordinates to find the spots where Chicago debuted the brownie, the movie theater, the skyscraper and the cartoon character.
• The Gray of the Lions — One of the world’s most beautiful museums only exists because women didn’t have legal rights.
• White and White and Read All Over – The Troublesome Tribune Comics — The Chicago Tribune’s weekday comic section has 21 cartoons. Every single one is by a white person.
• The Dojo, Part 2 – Release — B-Boy and popper Release came to Chicago to revive his love of hip-hop dance.
• The Only Possible Explanation — A story of dark magicks, Santa and really the only reasonable excuse.
• Shared to Death — Working poor in the “sharing economy.”
• Things My Family Said During the Bears-Packers Game Following Thanksgiving Dinner 2015 — “Six points? That means they’re winning, not the Chicago Cubs.” My mom, Nov. 26, 2015.
• The Dojo, Part 1 – ManOfGod — A fused spine led B-Boy ManOfGod to breakdancing. Part 1 in a series about an apartment for breakdancers.
• Homeward Bound — Migration, invasion, collaboration and the trip back home.
• Overinvolved Explanations to Four Chicago Jokes I’ve Heard — The background behind some jokes that inspire or numb.
• The Hechties — Meeting a stranger who changed my life 13 years ago.
• The Professional Writer Simulator — Live a day as a professional writer on deadline in this interactive simulation.
• Myra Bradwell and the Fireproof Newspaper — Meet the women behind the only newspaper to make deadline after the Great Chicago Fire.
• The Smell of Magic — A young woman tries to make parlor magic the art form it once was. Illustrated by Marine Tempels.
• A Pumpkin Spice Update and the Failure of Communism — Workers of the world, unspice!
• Goodnight Wicker Park — “Goodnight moon. Goodnight stars. Goodnight overpriced, ridiculous bars.”
• A Quiet Block — Shhh…

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• Blood Red — Injured in America, an old woman is afraid of the ambulance.
• Miss Sweetfeet Breaks — A breakdancer talks about the need for more B-Girls.
• Weak Force: Why the Lucas Museum Should Fail — An ill-defined museum with a disturbingly small collection gets public land because of movie nostalgia.
• Game Over — Watching the Navy Pier Ferris wheel dissolve.
• Light-Up Copter — He works the night with a flittering, flickering toy.
• Gutterpunk Hustle — It did take some chutzpah to approach a mark this way.
• The Pastor’s Grill — The yearly Chicago Open House opens the closed doors of buildings across the city.
• Coronado’s Cross — This belongs in a museum?
• The Captain and the Cubs — A boat captain screams and twists as the Cubs face off against the Cards.
• Carroll Street — An interactive map of Carroll Street, a hidden, mostly forgotten underground street beneath the city. Photos by AJ Kane.
• As Above, So Below — Thoughts from a night spent between tunnel and tower.
• Tower in a Park — The sad and angering story of Lake Point Tower, where the people’s land became millionaires’ backyards.
• Lavender and a Side of Mistreatment — A lavender-haired server gets felt up on the job, but not in the way you’re thinking.
• They All the Way Around — Monarch butterfly chrysalides line Wacker Drive.
• 7 Days a Week — A Frisbee haunts.
• The Daylight Artists — Graffiti artists don’t hide.
• Error on the Play — A goof-up over Cubs tickets inspires a look at historic baseball gaffes.
• Five Things Seen at Retro Chicago Vintage Garage and Their Purpose — From 1970s corruption-themed board games to nightmare dummies, the potential whys behind a few items at a monthly flea market.
• Where’s the One-Armed Gibbon? — The fate of Kien Nhan, the Lincoln Park Zoo’s one-armed gibbon.
• Paul Dailing’s “City on the Make” — Taking a cue from the music industry, a sampled article.
• The Little Red Wagon — A charming woman hauls Navy Pier’s Radio Flyer.
• Jolanda, The Slowest Fucking Turtle in the World — Turtle races in Bowmanville.
• The Quaint Device of Tom and Teller — Shakespeare, Teller and Tom Waits put on a show.
• Frozen Horse Hair — Finally fact-checking a story I’ve told a thousand times.
• One Chicago Afternoon — A moment so special, it made Malört taste good.
• Burger Time — The scene around the nation’s supposedly greatest cheeseburger.
• Rage Against the Dying of the Light (aka, Screw Your Pumpkin Spice Latte) — A rallying cry against pumpkin spice and autumn.
• Prehistory — Mold-A-Rama memories and a bit of background.
• Reflections on the Water — Is the Riverwalk good or a bit of political evil?
• Share Something… Here — A little notebook at the back of a coffee shop tells a story of loss and cancer.
• Morning Shift — Sunday starts slow along the Chicago River.
• Chizbooger 2015 — How would Royko have rated the newest haute cuisine burger?
• A Disaster Editorial — A Trib editorial envying Hurricane Katrina angers a New Orleanian transplant.
• Zouaves — Would we cheer as loudly if the military show of force was troops instead of the Blue Angels?
• Leaving Wrigley — The chaos after a Cubs win.
• Nicknames — Forget cities Second, Windy and On The Make, here are some new suggestions for Chi-Town’s nickname.
• The Pier — Among the stores, tours and chain restaurants of Navy Pier.
• White People Are Ugly and Other Revelations of a No-Longer-Colorblind Man — The title makes it sound like a provocative think piece on race, but it’s really about being red-green colorblind.
• An Economy of Teeth — On the uninsured and under-insured.
• Yellow and Blue — A little old lady makes it her business to meet all the new neighbors.
• Chocolate and the Class War — Rich children and poor gather around the picnic table.
• Crisp and Cold — Water from a hydrant in a gentrifying neighborhood washes everything away.
• The Evidence of Leather — A kink and fetish museum preserves a voice some wanted silenced.
• The Foreknowledge of U.S. Steel — A South Chicago native knew the steel mills would close 20 years in advance, but no one believed him.
• God’s Gabbers — Chatty Christian teenagers on the bus.
• Drum Mountain — Chinatown holds a celebration of summer.
• Shameless Self-Promotion Theatre, Part 2 — Using a podcast to promote my crowdfunding Patreon campaign, just like Ben Hecht.
• Three and 84 Years On — The lost nightclubs of “the Rialto of the Blackbelt.”
• The Weight — Score of Old Town School musicians play a departed friend’s closing number.
• Chicken Sam and the Birth of the Ray Gun — Chicago produced a version of the Nintendo Duck Hunt gun in the 1930s.

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• Return of the 499 — The 500th story catches up with people from the first 499.
• Mr. Sam’s Early Edition — Chicago as seen from Bangkok.
• How I Learned to Love the Bahn — Dining on Vietnamese headcheese.
• How They Joined the Circus – Mister Terrific — From flips off tables in Bronzeville to a career as an acrobat.
• A Whole New Deal — A North Center bungalow owner dishes on the mega-mansions taking over her neighborhood.
• Mama Olaf — An immigrant tale of love and tripe soup.
• Rebranding: An American Love Story — The mental gymnastics to avoid tricky talks.
• Hunter of Magic, 2 of 2 — More tales of Cambodian sorcery.
• Hunter of Magic, 1 of 2 — A Chicago man hunts Cambodian sorcerers.
• City That Never Sleeps, Or the Saga of Little Stubby — A daffy 1950s film about gangsters, molls, magicians and fake storefront robots.
• Business Models in Cinema — Fall in love again with film at a Milwaukee Avenue shop.
• Wicker Park Jones and the Search for Meaning — Trading stories on a Wicker Park crawl.
• Certified Watchmaker of the 21st Century — Tradesmen and craftsmen still wait in an overlooked building.
• TP8 — A patron-paid wire symbolizes responsibility.
• Shantytown on the 606 — A day before a potentially gentrifying bike path opens, the poverty that had been.
• Fire Jams and Circles — Light, fire and hula hoops combine at a monthly moon howl.
• The Man in the Dinosaur Hat — Hunting fossils in downtown stonework.
• I Drink Pig’s Blood — Nerd culture and pig’s blood at a Wicker Park theme bar.
• Little Narnias — Finding a secret place at “Roe’s Hill” cemetery.
• Ghost Runners — The joys of kids’ pickup baseball.
• The First First 1,001 Chicago — Was Ben Hecht’s “1001 Afternoons in Chicago” a knockoff?
• The Lost Bar — An ex-captain’s pride at a downtown tourist bar.
• Nouns of Assemblage — A pride of lions, a parliament of owls and a _____ of old Polish women riding the bus to church on a gray and misty Sunday morning.
• The Corner, 1836-1971 — More on Randolph and Dearborn, tracking it from prairie to sin row to Picasso-toting government complex.
• The Corner, 1909-1931 — A 1909 photographer, 1919 vaudeville booking agent and 1931 restaurant reviewer look at the corner of Randolph and Dearborn.
• How They Joined the Circus – Captain Hammer and the Groupie — How a stunt man and an art student joined a cosplay nerd circus.
• Level Up — Thoughts at a graduation from a part-time prof.
• Autophagy, or Why Progressives Lose — Political cannibals in a bar in an industrial park.
• Show of Hands — Truth or lie? You vote.
• The Fan — There’s always someone who loves baseball more than you do.
• The French Mistake — A last-minute investigation into where the hell all those French people came from.
• The Question — A journalism student asks if I feel guilty for teaching journalism.
• Elsewhen — He sings songs of space and time keeping him from dreams.
• The Blue Lie — The lies we tell to stand being in public.
• “I’m Glad I’m Not That Guy,” by That Guy — An embarrassing moment brought by credit card hackers and curry.
• Chocolate and Wind — Bike season has begun.
• Kim Jong Alex — Thoughts on parenting by a non-parent. This might not go so well.
• The Greatest Show on Infinite Earths — An acrobat circus of Catwomen, Spider-Men, Captains Hammer and Doctors Who.
• Hogwarts has WiFi: A Visit to the University of Chicago — Spelunking a university’s book-free library.
• The Elopement of Lucy Bruise — We all have that friend.
• The Mystery Half-Wit Sure Has the Girls All Agog — The crude, rubber-masked history of a Norwood Park dentist’s office.
• Enrique Was High as Hell — “I noticed him slip a ball-peen hammer up his sleeve.”
• Cabbages and Kings — The liquor stores and factories the Emanuel administration calls grocery stores in the official food desert map.
• A Scene from a Table — She just wanted a nap in one of the fanciest malls in town.
• A Love Story (With Slapping) — Beer and physical assault: the face of male friendship.
• Ode to a Young Guy With My Same Sunglasses — “He looked like he was in a band. I looked like I was in a stock photo advertising dynamic business solutions.”
• The Expert — A surprising pro advises a fashionista on working the passerby crowd.
• The 1,001 TIF Guide, Part 2 of 2 — Probably the only guide to tax increment financing to use the word “craptacular.”
• The 1,001 TIF Guide, Part 1 of 2 — Pundits yell but no one explains these controversial funds. Until now.
• 1143 Said — Ghost stories from a Chicago cab.

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• Micro Views — The fanciest of drunks flock to a craft beer bar the first nice day of the year.
• The Itch of the Tree-Mice — Scenes from an almost sorta kinda maybe spring day.
• Pompon Circumstance — Life lessons from a day in a dress.
• The Astounding Chicago Man — Faster than a red light camera, more powerful than a patronage hire…
• Unattended Packages — A spilled man and his spilled booze on the CTA.
• The Working Man — A Korean cabbie’s tale of persistence and ping pong.
• Didn’t Kick the Bucket Day — She celebrates the anniversary of the day she didn’t die.
• The Wit and Whimsy of the Chicago Jagoff — A magazine celebrates the worst people in Chicago.
• Across Pulaski, Across Cicero — Two and a half miles along Lawrence Avenue.
• Never Trust the Angels — Manipulation, stats and why the best people are the biggest liars.
• Wookiee Mistake — Stalked through Chicago by Chewbacca the Wookiee.
• The Ringmaster — A man in the train station wants to run the city. (Hint: He already does.)
• The Unfortunate Mystery of the Artists Colony Where You Can Buy Integrated Business Solutions — From 1890s artists to a TIF-funded bank.
• The Lucky Seat — The indignity of knowing how you smell.
• The Mayoral Candidates’ Campaign Finance Paperwork in the Style of Great Poets of History — Because who hasn’t wanted to read Bob Fioretti’s quarterly contribution filing in haiku?
• The Egg Stares — A trip to Chinatown and a suspicious egg.
• My Cousin’s Cousin: A Goodbye to Andrew Patner — A goodbye to a journalist and a not-relative.
• For Future Reference — South Side jazz clubs, Lincoln Park Czech diners, downtown newspapers and other places now only in books.
• This Side of Freezing — The cusp of freezing at the cusp of gentrification.
• What’s Left in the Snow — Candles, books, buried lights and other things found on a snowy Ukrainian Village night.
• The Widowed Building — Wrigley Field mourns “Mr. Cub” Ernie Banks.
• Metronomes — The tempo and nausea of the Loop just before Rush Hour.
• Welcome to the Neighborhood — Bringing Englewood and Wicker Park to the MCA for a night of readings and art.
• The Vein — On sharing stories that hurt.
• Our Lady of the Underpass — The Virgin Mary of the Fullerton Accident Investigation Site, 10 years later.
• Building Ben Hecht — The makers of a “1001 Afternoons in Chicago” film bring Ben Hecht to life.
• Paper, Wood and Wire — Puppeteers turn barnacles, bird skulls and plastic bags into art.
• Death and the Banana — Can silly beat tragic?
• Rex, a Lion — My grandmother’s memories of the old rag men.
• Keys That Work — A locksmith out of time cuts keys to Beethoven.
• Land of Sky-Blue Waters — The old street person and the college kid were friends at the party, but now what?
• Accommodating Passengers — A goodbye to the Metra.
• The Calling Birds — On the fourth day of Christmas, a street musician winds down “Rudolph.”
• The Obligatory Christmas Poem Column: Hermit Edition — Channeling an inner Mary Schmich, a poem about the joys of ditching Christmas.
• Selfies in the Great Hall — Union Station’s Great Hall before Christmas is a scene of joy, cheer and isolation.
• Quiet — The simple joys of an adventure-free night.
• The Baby Pigeon Conspiracy — Why do you never see baby pigeons? Science (and, if we get the funding, Morgan Freeman) has the answer.
• The Firebird Suite, Part 2: City of Lights, Fields of Corn — The trapeze artist’s story continues, with callouses, Paris and a cosplay circus. With video.
• The Firebird Suite, Part 1: Feminism and the Trapeze — A trapeze artist reclaims her body in the air. Illustrated by Emily Torem.
• The Podcast — A freed comedian shares a moment that will live forever.
• The Ride Up — Willis Tower poetry.
• The Words — Poets, journalists, essayists and writers share tales of their Chicago.
• The Stories I Cannot Tell — Advice to F.W. Parker School students on what not to write.
• Vengeance of the Friendly Algorithms — In a temple to history, two men discuss the future of news.
• The Comedy Machine — Second City: Standardizing wackiness for more than 50 years.
• A Few Stray Ones — Snippets from the 1,001 Chicago Afternoons cutting room floor.
• Disco Bingo — The Illinois Lottery is a lie.
• The Keyboard Player — A man finds happiness behind a Mexican restaurant’s electric keyboard.
• The Job Hunt — Metra employees meditate on death in the City That Works.
• The Worst Commute Olympics — Somehow, walking down the street covered in blood wasn’t the worst commute one office saw.

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• Lady Ginger Tells You What It’s Like, Part 2 — A burlesque dancer takes you behind the scenes. Illustrated by Emily Torem.
• The Wind — Shh. Listen.
• The Steelworker’s Mermaid — How four sculptors hid a seven-foot mermaid for 14 years.
• The Steelworker’s Art — Art saved one former South Side steelworker from becoming a statistic.
• A Splash of History — Hope, history and urine at the Chicago Tribune.
• JesseWhite.com — An election season — and sign — where nothing changes but the year.
• Lily Be’s Coming for You — How storytelling saved Queen Lily Be, and how she’s going to bring that to the hoods. Illustrated by Emily Torem.
• A Halloween Story — From pumpkin babies to costumed boozers, a city goes through the ritual of Halloween.
• Sports Fans are Nerds — The cosplay and statistics that make a sports aficionado.
• Lady Ginger Tells You What It’s Like, Part 1 — How one burlesque performer emotionally prepares to take off her clothes for strangers.
• Sweet Home — A trip to a once-familiar hometown.
• Voodoo Governance — A radio station’s live show explores the dark arts of politics.
• Zero Plus Three — He tells riddles to strangers.
• Öl the Young Dudes: The Swedish Beer Scene Hits Chicago — Swedish drinking culture in Andersonville, from Heiðrún the mead-titted goat to tasty craft brews.
• The White Monster — Staring down an empty page.
• The Cocktail Writer — Cocktail journalist Lauren Viera talks superstar bartenders, farm-to-table booze and her 250-bottle liquor cabinet.
• The Elevator Demon — Diving into the 1,200-year history of one of the Art Institute’s lesser pieces.
• The Unsung — Who will remember a quiet karaoke bar?
• The House that Would Not Burn — A first-person account of the embarrassing Great Chicago Fire Festival.
• What the Rain Did and Did Not Kill — A rainy night in West Town and the people caught in it.
• The Story of T-Shirt, Solved — Story #38 posed a mystery about a man named T-Shirt. Story #380 solved it.
• The Columbia Wheelmen — Chicago’s 1890s cycling craze, from the Pandemonium Club to Wooden Shoe Willie.
• “You Are the Worst”: A Soul-Crushing Beige Cube Story — A victim leaves a note for the bike seat thief.
• Unpacking the Boxes — A Euro hipster on the No. 66 sits with two strange crates.
• The Brennan Plan of 1908 vs. Me — How a 1908 street renumbering plan killed my sleep on a 2014 work night.
• La Llorona — A ghost story about the Crying Lady.
• The Bitch Nun — Sometimes you cannot help.
• Five People Living in the Same World — A little boy who sings, a young woman who touches strangers and three men with crates of pigeons.
• The Descendents — Pre-Riot Fest, an unsung punk band gets sung.
• Catch and Release — The ineffable oneness of moments and, like, a car wash and stuff.
• Trunnion Bascule — A homeless man uses the Michigan Avenue Bridge steel as a hidey-hole.
• The Dill Pickle Club, 2014 — The hottest ticket of the 1920s is now a parking garage. Meet the Dill Pickles.
• The Birthday Present — Thoughts on birthdays past.
• The Startling Discovery of René Magritte — This is not a blog post.
• Little John’s Unsolved Problem — Goldbach’s Conjecture, Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem and a woman who might have been saying Lil’ Jon.
• Why Write? A Letter to my Nephew — A letter to a 9 year old on why writing matters.
• The Dinner Table — A birthday party in Chinatown dissects a madwoman’s motives.
• Dinner in Blonk — A flash mob for the fancy takes to the streets.
• Uncle Go Paul — Adventures with two small boys.
• The Ghost on the Dust Jacket — What would you do if your boyfriend’s ex got famous?
• Grover — The man on the train hates it when they kill themselves.
• The Hecht Papers, Part 2 of 2 — The filthy tale that got Ben Hecht fired.
• The Hecht Papers, Part 1 of 2 — Going through the personal effects of this project’s inspiration.
• Three Cases from the Mystery Book — Solving small mysteries and murders.
• Czechsieland at the Triangle — A Czech teen Dixieland band plays a Chicago bus stop.
• The Sideshow — The scene outside Lollapalooza is just as entertaining as the one in.
• 20 Brats and 10 Steak Burgers — At Paulina Market, a slice of the 1940s serves you meat.
• The Guard and the Astronaut Suits — A museum guard explains a confusing art installation.
• The Lady Under the Table — There’s liking books and then there’s hiding under a table in public to read them.
• Revealing Words — I used to approach bookstores like married men approach strip clubs.

• Pilsen at Night — Children play in the stream of a cracked-open fire hydrant.
• Dallas and the Banjo — A man strums a banjo, waiting for festival-goers to wander by.
• Green — A garden helps the volunteers as much as the neighborhood.
• The Man Without a Neighborhood — Not knowing where you fall can be scary.
• Pillars — Looking backwards through Avondale.
• Why I Was the Real Winner of the 2014 Superman-Hulk Debates Against the Chicago Teachers Union President — CTU President Karen Lewis, the Incredible Hulk and I make the news.
• The Most Sarcastic Child in Chicago Watches a Clown Show — Clowns from Theater Oobleck and El Circo Nacional de Puerto Rico win over a very sarcastic child.
• The Peace Accord — Their argument spills out of the car up Halsted.
• High Hops — There is in no way a secret message in this story about home brew.
• Pride and Prejudice — An old man thinks about the past while watching the Pride Parade.
• Cockroach on the Factory Floor — A story of justice and love at Cook County Bond Court.
• The Victim of a Senseless Street Crime and How He Recovered Both Physically and Emotionally: A Handsome Man’s Story — They even took the bolts.
• Yelling on Damen — Vagrants fight near children trying to be children in Wicker Park.
• The Cigar Box Ukulele — Walking down the street with a handmade instrument.
• The Typical American vs. Soccer — An Irish pub bartender during the World Cup secretly can’t stand football.
• A View With a Room — What do people lose only seeing the city from above?
• The Homecoming Game — Points and demerits returning from abroad. Plus, fuck the TSA.
• Godzilla vs. A Sense of Time — One monster, many memories.
• If the Cosmologist Ain’t Drinking, It’s No Party — A tale of dark porter and dark matter.
• Dumpster Tapes — Alex and Ed want to spread new music with old tech. Illustrated by Emily Torem.
• And Now, the Gays — A night out in Boystown.
• The Latest Installment of “What the Fuck, North Side?” — A grocery store becomes an all-purpose hot spot.
• The Unsigned — An old public bath shows more pride than today’s towers.
• All Bike Rides Should be Naked — A flashback tale from the 2008 World Naked Bike Ride.
• The Lost Gallery — Someone tried to bring beauty to an industrial zone. It did not go well.
• My Place — In a city, the most precious spot you can find has no one in it.
• Gucci — Gucci the python’s owner keeps him away from dogs.
• An Unripped Sky — Waiting for a storm.
• Nope, Nope, Nope — Not having it at a Lincoln Park bar.
• Mother’s Day — A moment of family from a woman in a field.
• A Response from Industry of the Ordinary — Two artists respond to a previous story.
• The Mothers — A sweet moment behind the scenes at a public radio station.
• Downtown Brown — Meet Downtown Brown, a cabbie with a story.
• Copies — One left a story of wealth by the copy machine. The other, a story of poverty.
• Bard in a Bar — The Back Room Shakespeare Project does the Bard like it was meant to be. In front of a crowd of drunks.
• In the Wild — Punks and almonds.
• Mayday — The forgotten celebration of the labor movement.
• Fear and Storage — A tale of paranoia, storage spaces and the music of Prince.
• Polish Day or Something — Coming across a mass for a pope made saint.
• Cloud’s Italian Beef — The sandwich man with the cartoon T-shirt wanted the beggar dead.
• Midnight Golf — At 1:30 a.m., walking with anger in his bearing, he raised his golf club like a bat and…
• I Passed — The sights and sites along a spring walk through Bucktown and ilk.
• The Entrepreneurs — The common news past of a cabbie, a marketer and me.
• 11:49 — A story for all taxpayers and people who hate Kinko’s employees. So, everyone.
• The Tiger-Headed Woman — Befriending a woman with a tiger’s head.
• Interruption — A toothless rambler charms.
• Shameless Self-Promotion Theatre — A promo for an outstanding event to honor Studs Terkel.
• Signs of Spring — Fat joggers, hipster plumage and more real signs spring has returned.
• Joining the Boop Boops — How a slice of pizza killed my transit card.
• Pierogi Heaven — Polish food wedged in a Loop self-park.
• The Rockers — This polka band is more punk than you’ll ever be.

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• The Thousand-Foot View — A view of Chicago from a thousand feet in the air.
• On a Night — One night in Rogers Park, with top hats, shootings, hula hoops and student votes on Israel.
• The Cabbie’s Tale — The definitely totally true story of a man who kept breaking a cabbie’s nose.
• Pledge Drive — Christian radio wants your love, faith and money.
• The Election Judge and the Chin-Up Bar — Decidedly bored judges during an unpopular election.
• Ravenswood Used Books and the Fortune Cookies — The empty storefront is the symbol of the 21st century economy. There’s about to be another one of them.
• 5 Things I Forgot About Riding a Bike Over the Long, Cold Winter but Remembered After Getting on a Divvy Bike Thursday (An SEO-Friendly Clickbait Listicle) — SEO what?
• A Prayer for Bacardi Neck — Neck tattoos. Why? Neck tattoos of the Bacardi Rum logo. Whyyyyyyy?
• A School of Fish — An old-school parish fish fry with the Chicago Lenten Fish Fry Club.
• Ordinary — “Industry of the Ordinary” provides conceptual art because they’re special.
• On Paczki and Tradition — Thoughts on Chicago’s sedentary, Polish and lard-laden version of Mardi Gras.
• Welcome to Wal-Cart — Chiditarod 2014 fights hunger and dresses as Sharknado.
• Swallowed by Black — A dark night waiting for light.
• In — Down a quizhole.
• Ulan, Dentists and a Convention of Dogs — Meet Ulan, the happy Krygyz cabbie.
• The Biggest Lie in Chicago — The lie that didn’t win a spot in the liar’s competition.
• The Murderess Down the Block, 2 of 2 — Wanda Stopa’s story ends in death, scandal and a pretty face.
• The Murderess Down the Block, 1 of 2 — I find out a 1920s lady gunner lived a few houses over from me.
• The Biggest Liar in Chicago — A tale of Moo & Oink and Batman fails to win a spot in the 25th annual Chicago’s Biggest Liar Contest.
• Trainmen vs. Conductors — The men who take your Metra money fall in two camps.
• The Beauty — A moment of beauty in the snow.
• The Bunny — Signs of life during the winter from hell.
• Your Options Include — On mediocre graffiti.
• Drag Race — Two city buses race up a neon-lit street.
• Patchy — Thoughts on the demise of a former employer.
• The Previous Administration — When the Chicago Police Department couldn’t find terrorists, they made some.
• The Painting Architects — They gather at a museum cafeteria to make their own art.
• A Very Efficient Use of a Target Plastic Bag — You wouldn’t think that would be the grossest thing I’ve seen on the ‘L’.
• The Wait — You know what’s better than social media? Being social.
• The Door at the End of the Hall — News and mystery up four flights of stairs and past a corridor of therapists.
• It Looks Like an Air Freshener — A chain sex toy shop displays the goods.
• Through a Window — The sights along a former writers’ stomping ground.
• Clear Nail Polish — Searching for nail polish to paint some jewelry.
• Party at Uncle Fun, 2 of 2 — Uncle Fun talks about why he’s leaving Chicago.
• Party at Uncle Fun, 1 of 2 — Customers, staff and Uncle Fun himself say goodbye to the well-loved Belmont gag shop.
• Whiteout — A man in a bus shelter hides from the 2014 blizzard.
• Escape from Casey Moe — Trapped in O’Hare after fleeing Kansas City.
• The Cubs Story — A new book brings back old memories of Wrigley Field.
• Peace to 2013 — It’s like “Goodnight Moon” without the funereal sense of impending dread.
• The Gold Coast Bagpipes — No, he hasn’t seen a bagpiper, he swears. Illustrated.
• C is for Christmas — The most joyous of days by the atheist A in Daley Plaza.
• Radical Departure — In this flashback from 2009, activists try — and fail at — capturing post-Olympic bid inertia.
• Yo-Yo Man — Replacing cell phones with something just as repetitive.
• The Drunk — A drunk in the snow.
• Mrs. Boyer — Grading student work while thinking about a favorite high school teacher.
• Open Open Books — A packed coatrack inspires a bit of hope for print.
• Imaginary Stories — Waiting for the train with Froggy Bikecap and KU Hat Guy.
• A Murder of Biblical Proportions with my Out-of-Town Parents — Gruesome art means family time.
• The Seventh Night — A young Hasid distributes menorahs during the glut of Christmas shopping.
• Karen’s Stone Soup — A woman who helped build a community found herself the one in need.

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• 1,001 Miami Afternoons — Showing the Windy City to a cousin from the Magic City.
• Thanks — Giving thanks instead of bitching about shoppers.
• Find the Queen — A woman with a cross debunks a shell game.
• Doctor Who’s On First — Watching British sci-fi at a packed sports bar.
• The Tender Destroyer — A kind-eyed veteran at a VFW bar shows a different heroism.
• Night Drive — A cold drive through the West Side makes gawkers of us all.
• You, Me, Dancing — Increasingly blurry scenes from a wedding at a Logan Square brewery.
• Entering the Pantheon — A group gathers in 1920s style to honor Ben Hecht.
• Cold Red — Commies in the snow.
• Your First Divvy Ride in Five Easy Similes — How Chicago’s bike-sharing program is like the sea cow, Jimmy Kimmel and dystopian short fiction.
• The Drake’s Real Chicago — Eagles do not catch flies in one of the ritziest hotels in town.
• An $1,800 Unicycle — A unicycle salesman doesn’t know the territory.
• Totally a Chicago Story and Not Something I Wrote About Cavemen — A reading at Uptown’s Paper Machete. Warning: Might actually be about cavemen.
• On Dining with Children Where I Used to Get Shitfaced — The Billy Goat doesn’t change; you do.
• From ‘L’ — A nauseating ride on a nauseous train.
• Sitting Behind Chad the Bird — Chicago’s most incisive commentary comes from a puppet bird.
• Reservations at Stanley’s — Dinner at the best grocery store in town.
• A Question Mark — Was he a patriot or a con man?
• Greene V. Black — Why there’s a statue of a dentist in Lincoln Park.
• The Lady in the Locker — Was she living in the storage space or not?
• This One’s Dance — The dance of a waitress at a Polish buffet.
• Dolly Parton Kicked My Ass — A speakeasy video arcade.
• Down in the Tube Station at Midnight — Wandering the streets of Jefferson Park at night.
• Survival of the Fitness — A line of women in pastel tank tops and Lycra tights means North Side exercise.
• The Goose of Just Win — A young Eastern European girl makes art in a surprising place.
• “Where Do You Go When it Rains?” — Talking to the beggars of Michigan Avenue.
• George — Here’s one for the nice, kind and completely oblivious mass transit riders.
• Daisy Cutter at the Game — Watching the Bears at a bar is a rite of passage. Boozy, boozy passage.
• The Bubbles — A little girl laughs from a balcony.
• Hover — Early morning helicopters over the city.
• The Ghost of Herbert Hinchliffe — A 1920 real estate scam, a woman felled by horses and a mystery man named Moran in the secret history of a name on a wall.
• The Wait — A crowd waits for the Metra out of town.
• The Flutes of Aïn Draham — A classical musician from Chicago makes music with Tunisians.
• Softly — The rain drizzles outside.
• Hello, Young Lovers — Remember when you were that perfect.
• Parachuting Lessons — “The problem was and always had been, each journalist declared, someone else.”
• The Auctioneer — A strange encounter after the Von Steuben Parade.
• The Cornetto Trilogy — A pre-movie talk with an old friend.
• Labor’s Love Lost — Keeping the labor in Labor Day at the Haymarket Memorial.
• Writing About a City — Urban life is not SEO-friendly.
• Free Show — Band on a roof! Band on a roof!
• Gong Show is Full of Shitheads — Beer, blues and the nascent class war during a college kid pub crawl.
• Trapped in Fake Chicago — Taking the Black Line to Banacaville when a film crew takes over the “L”.
• Zebra’s of Bridgeport — A quiet moment of hot dogs and thinking about Godzilla.
• The Open Road — Nothing says freedom like being strapped in a chair in a box.
• The Spirit We Have Here — A drum circle has taken to South Shore beaches on warm nights since the 1960s.
• In Which I Think It Went Pretty Well — A play-by-play on the first Chi Lit: Tales of the Neighborhoods reading.
• Penile Servitude — A madman or victim stands in protest for nine years.
• Dan MacDonald Needs a Scot — eieio
• Table Turned — Interviewing the interviewers of the Your Chicago podcast.

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• Granny Panties — Stephanie Kuhr of Dottie’s Delights looks to the past for sexy underthings.
• The Nut Hut, Part 3 — The fake prostitute’s story ends.
• A Roundabout Apology — Corruption and shame in and around the city.
• The Hypothetical Zulu Test — A group of modern sculptors balances beauty with not braining drunk guys.
• The Nut Hut, Part 2 — More soup and saucy tales with a former professional fake prostitute.
• Dance Break — A coincidental encounter with a South Side dance troupe.
• A Page of Shoeless Joe and Other Little Mysteries — Yellowed paper flutters by as old men throw metal.
• The Nut Hut, Part 1 — Over soup, a woman recalls her role as a professional tease in a prostitution scam.
• Breathe — After a hot summer day, Chicagoans breathe in the night.
• The Afterlife — The last Chicago Sun-Times photographers say goodbye.
• Harold Faces the Future — Striated octopi and messy pawns from the library’s 3D print lab will change everything.
• 251 Layers of My 3D Head — Machines scan, digitize and print up passersby.
• The Fighter — A mixed martial arts fighter tells his story to strangers.
• The Five-Foot Garden at Avers — A group of elderly volunteers plant tiny gardens to help change gangs’ minds.
• Dependence Day — She works two jobs on July 4.
• Then Came the Din of the Crowd — Convention-goers take over the Marriott hotel bar.
• Getting to the Train Station After the Blackhawks Parade — Verdict: Douche.
• A Lonely Place — A taped-up Eastern European centerfold watches over a warehouse office.
• Sweep — An old man sweeps a store.
• Seoul Video Fishing — A mystery in Korea Town. Also, there’s a Korea Town.
• Red Allowed — It’s OK to step away for lunch.
• Bianchi Green — Fancy metal bikes and fancier metal legs.
• The Comic Book Beat — A reporter and an illustrator take journalism to the funnies.
• The 7-Eleven Bookshop — A South Side convenience store hides a treasure of literature.
• Drink of Water — He asked for a drink and I had a hose.
• A Waltz on the Roof — Dancing on rooftops with the Wake Up! Waltz?
• On Proximity, or “Fuck You, Danielle” — The things we say when we forget people can hear.
• Nelly Sleeps — Death, patriotism and the laughter of children as Civil War re-enactors take over a cemetery on Memorial Day.
• The Reporter’s Story — A tale of crime and mayhem from a South Side shooting.
• Return of the Boobs — It happens every spring.
• The Sound of Rain on Concrete — A wet story from a crabby man, and vice versa.
• Dining with Strangers — Heading to a Meal Share to eat at a stranger’s house.
• Hunting Ben Hecht, Part 4 — After months of preparation, the 1001 Afternoons in Chicago radio play comes together.
• The Man Who Laughs — He lies shirtless on the sidewalk and laughs at the crowds.
• Hunting Ben Hecht, Part 3 — A radio rehearsal from Nowhere.
• Three True Moments in North Side Chicago — Tales from one night in Wrigleyville, Old Town and Noble Square.
• Ethnic Hair — A barber from the South Side wants to know about white and Asian hair.
• The Pigeon — Two lost souls bob through the Loop on a Sunday.
• The Graphic Recorders — A Bucktown start-up wants to draw your stories.
• A Day Off — High adventure with a mop.
• Caving the Union League Club — Sneaking through the artwork, hidden rooms and secret areas of the posh downtown club.
• Humboldt Horror — Bashing a friend’s head in with a croquet mallet.
• Hunting Ben Hecht, Part 2 — The creators of Picklebot provide the script for the Hecht revival.
• The Honeybee — A shot girl’s just gotta dance, even when she’s not at the bar.
• To a Graduating Loyola Senior on the Eve of My 10th Chicagoversary — A note to a student on starting a new life.
• The Good, the Bad and the Doorman — A downtown bouncer gets a little racist.
• What Do You Want? — With purple hair and cat’s eye glasses, she tells strangers she’s going to win the lottery.
• The Future of 1871 — A look at the future, with all the bean bag chairs, ill-defined tech start-ups and Razor scooters that implies.
• All the Good in the World — A weird, kind stranger on a bridge reminds there’s good in the world after the Boston Marathon bombing.
• Casual Racism at the Bus Stop — Flipping from hate to love to hate while waiting for the bus.

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• The School Bus — High school students from a busted party take to the CTA.
• Ebert’s Funeral — Watching the news watch Chicago writer Roger Ebert’s memorial.
• Equinoxen — Spring is coming to Humboldt Park.
• Because There Seems to Be Some Confusion — On bikes, cars and the jerks who ride both.
• An Unfamiliar Place — Turning a strange corner to find a place you know well.
• The Best-Policed Chinese Restaurant on Ashland — They could have our respect. They could have our trust. But these Chicago police officers would rather have the free parking.
• The French Roast Coffee — Memories of a tour guide.
• Stanley the Centipede and Ernie Worm — A brief interlude from a community garden in early spring.
• Psychopaths Have No Shame — A backwards story of war and commitment.
• Green Beings — The day after St. Pat’s, the river is still green and the 20-somethings still drunk.
• Evil Twins — Parallel lives in the Windy City.
• The Quantum Jew Loses Faith — A hipster Kiddush in Bucktown exhibits properties of suburban newspaper layoffs.
• Old St. Pat’s — The most Irish church on the most Irish day. First illustrated story.
• The Danish Invasion — Confusion and modern design at the John Hancock Center.
• In Praise of Loonies — She saves our souls from Sun-Times reporters.
• Hunting Ben Hecht, Part 1 — Access Contemporary Music’s Seth Boustead wants to capture Ben Hecht’s 1001 Afternoons in Chicago stories in music.
• Fiesta Time — “He was handsome once, you could tell. He was handsome now. But he wanted me out of Fiesta Time.”
• Chiditarod, Eh? — Working a shopping cart race/food drive while dressed as a hockey player.
• The Sketch Artist — He draws a young woman on the train.
• Fear — A young boy walks alone at night down a darkened street.
• Steaming the Homburg — One of the world’s top hatmakers works out of a storefront in Beverly.
• Your Attention Please — Your morning routine is standing momentarily.
• Social Smoke — Memories of an old friend who almost lit a Blockbuster on fire.
• Whale Hunting on Clybourn — Searching for something beneath the waves on a stretch between Lincoln Park and industrial park.
• When the Moon Hits Your Eye — Several dozen heart-shaped pies in, a pizza guy bemoans Valentine’s Day.
• Attraction — Street romance.
• The Smell of Naphthalene — Family strife and beetle corpses in the Field Museum’s back hallways.
• A Killer’s Ex Rides the Bus — A story of a story of murder.
• Dudes’ Night — Probably the only Super Bowl story to reference Mr. Mxyzptlk.
• The Vitamin Vault — A drug store becomes the hottest ticket in a corporately hip neighborhood.
• King George’s Black Belt — An 80-year-old restaurant review is the only memento of a Bronzeville barbecue shack.
• Why I Bought Her a Croissant — A heap of clothes from a previous story turns out to be a woman.
• Chicago by Poster — A professional recaptures his inner artist by drawing the neighborhoods.
• A Letter from September — A reminder in the middle of a Chicago January of warm times and sidewalk cafés in Hyde Park.
• “Is It Because I’m Black?” — No, I’m pretty sure it’s because you’re a crazy, screaming homeless man on the train.
• The Last Canoe — The friends of late canoeist Ralph Frese work on the birch bark box for his remains. With audio.
• The DIY Orchestra, 3 of 3: The Composers — Sitting down for beer and punk rock with two modern orchestral composers.
• The DIY Orchestra, 2 of 3: Kathleen — More from the Chicago Composers Orchestra.
• The DIY Orchestra, 1 of 3: Afternoon Towers Awaken — A volunteer symphony orchestra performs among plant life.
• National Socks and Underwear Day — Pretty much the best conversation ever had in a Kmart.
• 23 Fingers —Tales from a packed ‘L’ car.
• The Void — Union Station at night is a lonely place.
• Strange Visitors — Comic bookin’ in Logan Square.
• A Pro Shop That Looks Like a Castle — New Year’s thoughts at a golf course by the lake.
• The Government Touched My Penis — To get to Kansas, you must let the TSA backhand your junk.
• Haircut Journalism — Because murders, lolcats and blogs on blogging aren’t the only ways to write about the world.
• Frango and Cash — Candy and commerce at the former Marshall Field’s.
• A Blue (Line) Christmas — A special audio Christmas wish from 1,001 Chicago Afternoons and a group of amazing CTA street musicians.
• Christmas Tree-nity — A man asks his minister for permission to duck out on a holiday party.
• The Fallen — Some people honor the fallen dead. Others pick up the living when they stumble.

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• The Hundredth Story — Hunting tales throughout Chicago.
• Death and the Warehouse — Death, garbage chutes and cartoon voice actors at a silent Humboldt Park warehouse.
• “Do You Feel Safe?” — Why is a cop from the far South Side patrolling the Magnificent Mile?
• Forms of Man — On a cold winter’s night on Milwaukee Avenue, two figures sit inches and worlds apart.
• Sole Dressing — A 37-year veteran shoeshine guy talks about his dying trade.
• Banjo Battles and the Uke-clear Explosion — First the ukulele, then the banjo. What will be the twee stringed instrument of 2013?
• The Show, Live! — The MP3 audio track from an August 2012 live 1,001 Chicago Afternoons reading.
• The Agony and the Ecstasy of Gene and Georgetti — It’s just a steak at this 70-year-old downtown landmark.
• Unacceptable Behavior at O’Lanagan’s — For 23 years, Carol has dispensed shots and advice at one neighborhood bar.
• A $24 Comb on Michigan Avenue — The rich shoppers of the Mag Mile like to show what they spend.
• Greasy Spoons — A sub shop on Ashland is not intended for the health nuts.
• The Madhouse That Wasn’t — O’Hare the day before Thanksgiving is… calm?
• The Elves of Christkindlmarket — A Christmas tradition starts before Thanksgiving.
• A Thousand Whiskey Bottles — What would you do with thousands of empty Irish whiskey bottles?
• The Cave of the Blob Monster — A trip to Chicago’s secret graffiti cavern.
• Julia — The Beatles versus the sounds of a Chicago night.
• Rain Dancers — The young and immortal do acrobatics in a downpour.
• Pancakes and Politics with WBEZ — Post-election, a live radio taping at a breakfast joint cures both political and actual hangovers.
• In Which I Realize the Inherent Nihilism of ‘Occupy’ While Yelling at a Crowd About a Seminal 1988 Batman Story: An Election Tale — Um, don’t know what more info you might need here.
• 3743 — Hack license #3743 tells tales from the road.
• Chicago Ave. Halloween — Trick or treating among the liquor stores and discount places of Chicago and Western.
• Flip of a Coin — Two-Face rules on Grown-Up Halloween the only way he knows how.
• Only McLonely — A tale of fast food and lost love.
• Book Porn, Vol. 3: The Man in Blue — The hunt for The Shadow, Doc Savage and Secret Agent X continues.
• The Mourners’ Right Cuffs — Bikers and family hold a memorial for a cyclist killed in traffic.
• Nuns in a Cash Register Store — Another bit of Chicago is lost.
• It Was a Dark and Stormy Night — Ghosts, goblins and Ringo Starr terrorize Chicago on an actual dark and stormy night.
• Sealed — A last day of hooky at the zoo before winter comes.
• Apple Picking — A religious pilgrimage for techies.
• The Fall of Roam — In autumn, Chicagoans must wander. Plus, the greatest opening line ever.
• Passing the Bar — Where the sort-of-elite meet in the law district.
• Spider-Man Saves the Day — Two little superheroes save Halloween at Chicago’s most famous costume shop.
• The Friar — A gum-chewing, Teva-wearing, backpack-hoisting friar rides the L.
• Battle of Avondale — A northwest side neighborhood is the latest battlefield in the gentrification war.
• The Garden — What vandals tear up, the neighborhood puts back together.
• The Kitties Dance to Country — Meet two of the hands behind the Puppet Bike.
• Book Porn, Vol. 2: The Monk — In Hyde Park’s book porn red light district, a young man and a wax monk sit alike.
• The Car — “That is a lot of fishing poles.”
• Border Disputes — Tibetans protest Chinese protesting Japan.
• The Moon and Stars — The Logan Square International Film Festival runs every Wednesday by the Comfort Station.
• Tales of the Red Shirts — Talking to Chicago Public School teachers during the 2012 strike.
• Dinkel’s in the Rain — Coffee, a bear claw and a pleasing chill at one of Chicago’s oldest bakeries.
• The Thief of Moments — How to steal a little girl’s smile.
• Stripes and Solids and Barack Obama — Three years apart, Chicago bar crowds react differently to the president.
• Mightier — Somehow, a pen shop survives.
• A Mecca of Pants — Hip-hop gear that will scare off the clown monster.
• The Chessmen — All ages, races and classes play chess together along the lake.
• Powers of Ten and Neil Armstrong — What makes us look out from the lakefront to the stars?
• A Kindness on Route 66 — Two strangers share a moment on the bus.
• Before Hours — Everything goes wrong one night at a bar.
• Christ Must Dance — Two women talk about the role faith plays in their lives. As long as if doesn’t bore them, of course.

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• Old Joe of Canaryville — Joe sits in his barbershop waiting for customers, as he’s done for 68 years.
• On the Jets — No one is as cool as they think they are during the Chicago Air & Water Show.
• The Tightrope Walker of Union Park — He lights some incense and walks a tightrope three nights a week.
• Division Street vs. Art — The owner of a corner art shop talks about weird patrons and a forced move.
• Starry, Starry Night — Watching the Perseid meteor shower with strangers on the pier.
• Spiritual Hip-Hop, Porn and The Dark Knight Rises — A sales pitch from the man with CDs outside the Jewel.
• Life in a Stage Set — Chicago on film, from Charlie Chaplin to NBC’s fall lineup.
• Boris Yeltsin was a Big Drunk — The worst offenders of Chicago’s bar culture tell their tales at a monthly show.
• A Walk in the Park — Millennium Park is how people in the 1960s imagined the future.
• Parking on the Hustle — Even gentrified Wrigleyville keeps a little “City on the Make” hustle.
• Everything Must Go — On Devon, slow business claims an immigrant’s dream.
• Chicken Sandwiches — A story gets ignored as the news swarms on fast-food chicken.
• The Story of T. Shirt — Somewhere in Chicago, a fantastically dressed man carries window-cleaning supplies.
• Sunday Diners — From hangover brunches to elegant dinners, Chicago eats the hell out of Sundays.
• A Train Night — An evening commute from the suburbs in.
• Daring Young Moms on the Flying Trapeze — Some women jog or do yoga. Others… don’t.
• Naked with the Nerds — A burlesque dancer dreams of putting on the dorkiest strip show in town.
• City Kids — A man turns covering gang tags into a father-son project.
• The Cleverest Hobo — In which I get totally duped by a panhandler.
• Liza’s Ghost Bike — Painted bicycles commemorate the spots cyclists were killed.
• In Praise of Gloom — Section 8 housing, Cambodian pop stars and why a crappy spring day can be nice.
• Prematurely Graying-locks and the Three Coffee Shops — A fairy tale about the quest for WiFi.
• First Letter of Paul to the Chicagoans — Street preachers inspire reflection.
• Book Porn, Vol. 1: The Receipt — A bookshop and its ostrich stationary. (Originally “The Receipt”)
• The Painted Woman — A conversation with a human work of art.
• Juggling, No Life Lesson — Talking and juggling with the men who meet along the Lakefront Trail.
• James of Little Vietnam — A talk over Chinese/Vietnamese/C++ books.
• Rise of the Water Bottles — Heat-wave entrepreneurs hit Western.
• The PR Blitz — Puerto Rican pride in Humboldt Park.
• Scenes From Occupy Chicago: Steve and the Tattoo-Face Man — Winter whittles the mass movement down to two guys.
• Scenes From Occupy Chicago: The Lion and the Bike Cop — A young protester decides it wasn’t humiliation after all.
• Objections D’Art — Three and a half stories of reclaimed wonders from demolished buildings.
• The Human Addict — A begging addict talks about being treated like a person.
• Crowd Control — Division Street 2012, with hurled empties, Ray Bradbury and Spanish-language punk.
• Hats — When you see a man in a straw boater hat, darn right you ask.
• Skrkl-skrkl and the Hole in the Plot — Balloon art impresario “The Mom” rides the train.
• A Zydeco Solo with Mister Mojo — Sometimes you come across a Cajun band playing to no one.
• After Sunset — The back office of a Bronzeville hardware store holds a jazz-age secret.
• Nerds of Paradise — Lingerie football in Wrigleyville.
• The Old Ball Game — The Chicago Salmon play a very old ball game.
• Strip Club — An unforgettable dance.
• Dead Row — A trip to Chicago’s historical cemetery. No, not that one. The other one. No, the other other one.
• At Last — Etta James and bourbon among Greektown’s luxury vegans.
• A Room Full of Goulets — Dozens and dozens of Robert Goulets.
• A Serial Killer’s Post Office Grows in Englewood — A trip to Englewood with H.H. Holmes and one big spider.
• The Show — A jumper’s stand on the ledge coincides with a funny radio show.
• Used Magic — Impossible stories from a Western Avenue magic shop.
• The D Train — Suburbanites Metra to a Cubs game, say stupid, stupid things.
• The Rabbi’s Machine is Missing — Whatever happened to Chicago’s last typewriter repairman?
• Cycles — An old cabbie reflects on police abuse the day of a former commander’s conviction for lying about torture.

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