How do you capture a city like Chicago? How do you properly deconstruct a place that has given us Oprah AND Al Capone AND the Cubs, a land of boundless contradiction that seems dead-set on defying one’s expectations? You can’t, at least not easily. All you can do…the only option, really…is to write a bunch of random stuff and hope it makes some shred of logical and artistic sense. Fingers crossed!
Chicago is, so far as I can tell, the only city in the Midwest. This observation is based less on categorical evidence than the specific route I took to get there, but locals confirmed as much — it’s really all there is for hundreds of miles. With that title comes a great deal of responsibility, then, and an “all things for all people” quality that permeates every corner of the Windy City. I mean EVERY city has that — New York and its Variety Cafes first and foremost in America — but the relative smallness of Chicago makes it even more apparent.
I try and make up for that smallness with LOTS more words, here.