Dan Kelly has been a writer and editor for 30 years, contributing work to Chicago Magazine, the Chicago Reader, Chicago Journal, The Baffler, Harvard Magazine, The University of Chicago Magazine, and others.
Compliments of Chicagohoodz: Chicago Street Gang Art and Culture James “Jinx” O’Connor & Damen “Mr. C” Corrado Feral House Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit gets most of the attention, but the […]
Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson By Bruce Conforth and Gayle Dean Wardlow Chicago Review Press Robert Johnson is a definitive legend, though the dead-at-27 bluesman […]
Mike “McBeardo” McPadden is truth in human packaging. A beard is indeed present, bristly, with streaks of grey—suggesting wisdom in matters strange and arcane. I’ve seen McPadden in action as […]
Daniel X. O’Neil sees art everywhere, but not in that Bob Ross on ’shrooms sort of way. Mr. O’Neil is a connoisseur and curator of what he calls Arte Agora, […]
A few months back, there was a gross misunderstanding on the Internet. No, really. Noted tiny organizer lady Marie Kondo, filled with an unquenchable thirst for bibliocide, commanded everyone to […]
Chicago Treasure by Larry Broutman, Rich Green, and John Rabias Lake Claremont Press Is Chicago a fairy-tale city? Wait a minute. I’ve asked that before. But it’s a question worth […]
The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny of Truth By Ken Krimstein Bloomsbury Publishing Am I intelligent enough to critique the life’s work of philosopher and political theorist Hannah […]
Chicago: From Vision to Metropolis By Whet Moser Reaktion Books Ltd. Does full-disclosure apply to Twitter acquaintances? If so, I know Whet Moser from the internet. I don’t follow many […]
Plenty of writers have mastered their craft, but few have fostered a genre. Howard Phillips Lovecraft—purveyor of pulp fictional cosmic terror—did both. Dying at age 46 on March 15, 1937, […]
What’s the status of art in state of the art video games? Do pixelated citizens have a sense of aesthetics? Will we find a Van Gogh or Basquiat skin among […]
Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey by Mark Dery Little, Brown and Company If cartoonist Edward Gorey didn’t exist, we would have had […]
Temporary Monuments: Work by Rosemary Mayer, 1977–1982 Soberscove Press Edited by Marie Warsh and Max Warsh Introduction by Gillian Sneed I was never an art student, but I picked up […]