Author: Chad
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Life as a CTA rail operator
“In that motorcab was my serenity.” Another great Chicago story from WBEZ’s Curious City: what it’s like to operate the L trains.
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All hail the Royal Empress
My colleague texted me a picture of a curvaceous mid-century Royal standard with no model name and with unknown functionality. Her mother was looking to get rid of it. I told her I’d probably just clean it up and resell it. That was fine with her, and the price of free was fine with me.…
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Hamilton and what makes a healthy republic
The Show Ready for a hot take? Hamilton: An American Musical was really good. I assumed I wouldn’t see it for years, as tickets are prohibitively expensive in Chicago. But it was a surprise anniversary gift from my wife (musical theater tickets are the traditional Year 3 gift, right?) along with a special ticket she…
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Refer Madness: The Book Dropper strikes again
Refer Madness spotlights strange, intriguing, or otherwise noteworthy questions I encounter at the library reference desk. A few months ago, a coworker and I noticed that every Tuesday, two items appear on the library’s book sale shelves that shouldn’t be there. The library has a system for what gets placed in the book sale, so we know which items are…
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Browse eternal, shiny and not Chrome
Last month I got fed up with the constant whirring of my MacBook Pro’s fan, and its consistent slowness generally, so I tried a few things to try to improve it. One was quitting iTunes when I wasn’t using it, and the other was quitting Chrome and using Firefox instead. I don’t know if only…
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Today in audiobook opinions
“Is listening to an audiobook the same as reading?” Neurologically, no, but it still counts as reading a book, and is often better than merely reading one. “Portrait of the Voice in My Head” Great profile of “golden-throated” audiobook narrator Grover Gardner and the booming audiobook industry: Gardner’s advice to aspiring narrators is to take…
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My totally uninformed bandwagon World Cup 2018 teams
Despite having played soccer for 10 years, I’ve never got into watching the pros, except for the World Cup. Like the Olympics, once it arrives I watch whatever is on basic TV and hope for good sporting. Here are my totally uninformed bandwagon picks for the 2018 World Cup: Colombia, for my time there in…
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I’m with ‘Stupid With Love’
I have listened to the Original Broadway Cast Recording of the Mean Girls musical (on Hoopla—free with your library card) and have determined, without having seen the show, that the best song is “Stupid With Love”:
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Summer assignment: visit your local library
Despite their great intentions, those “required reading” lists of books make me cringe. Required reading usually feels like work, whether they’re from a friend, a professor, or a stranger on the internet. Pleasure reading should be based on freedom and empowerment and whim, not compulsion. Use those lists as a resource, sure, but don’t feel obliged…
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Atlas of a Lost World
We think of ourselves as different from other animals. We extol our own tool use, congratulate our sentience, but our needs are the same. We are creatures on a planet looking for a way ahead. Why do we like vistas? Why are pullouts drawn on the sides of highways, signs with arrows showing where to…
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The story of a star
This was a star that had left behind the fiery extravagances of its youth, had raced through the violets and blues and greens of the spectrum in a few fleeting billions of years, and now had settled down to a peaceful maturity of unimaginable length. All that had gone before was not a thousandth of…
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For the records
Dan Cohen ponders why some recent sci-fi films prominently feature libraries, archives, and museums: Ever since Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor extracted the Death Star plans from a digital repository on the planet Scarif in Rogue One, libraries, archives, and museums have played an important role in tentpole science fiction films. From Luke Skywalker’s library of…
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Just when I think
Just when I think you couldn’t possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this, and totally redeem yourself! — Dumb & Dumber I think about this line a lot in regards to the current administration, but in reverse. Just when things look like they might possibly improve—with North Korea or the economy…
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Cursing the Corsair: typewriter repair as character building
Awhile back a patron donated a grey Smith Corona Corsair Deluxe typewriter to my library. She didn’t know why it wasn’t working but didn’t want to spend the time and effort to figure it out. Little did she know she brought it to one of the few libraries in the area where someone actually cared…
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Recent Views
More photography here. A log in our building’s backyard bonfire was pushing out smoke from both ends: This wasn’t taken for Memorial Day but it might as well have been: I liked the color combination here, and not because I’m a Packers fan: This bookshelf and plant are no longer in this spot, so you’re…