Dear Cinnamon is a monthly column based on the idea that all of life's questions can be answered by art, because, after all, art is the spice of life. To submit your own anonymous questions, fill out this form.
Dear Cinnamon,
I’m a freshman at college and feeling homesick being hundreds of miles away from everything I know. How do I keep hold of all that Chicago is to me yet feel brave enough to move forward somewhere new?
I have two books for you. One will make you feel like you can conquer anything, the other will offer a warm midwestern hug. First to feel brave and ready to conquer all, pick up a copy of Pamela D. Toler’s The Dragon from Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany (Beacon Press). After reading about the untold tale of Sigrid Schultz and how she courageously reported from Berlin on the rise of Nazi power, you’ll at once feel bolstered to take on sharing a dorm room with someone who doesn’t believe in boundaries, making new friends, and speaking up in a hundred-person lecture hall. Second, the first Friday evening that comes along with no plans and no one around to fill the gaps, read Josh Noel’s Malort: The Redemption of a Revered and Reviled Spirit (Chicago Review Press) and get a taste for home that may inspire you to let others in on this disgusting Chicago spirit that we all still very much drink all the time.
Dear Cinnamon,
I really love fall, but I’m not your typical I-love-fall kind of person. Is there a way to live the PSL life on the downlow?
Mark your calendar. Wear all black and invite a nonjudgmental friend to the Chicago Botanic Gardens Night of 1,000 Jack-o-lanterns, running October 16-20 and 23-27. It will be dark, no one will see how much pure joy you get from gutted squash and warm cider. Speaking of cider, apples are pumpkins' bestie come fall and the lesser hated flavor, so be sure not to be too cool to check out Lincoln Square’s Apple Fest October 5 and 6.
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