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Category Archives: chicago

The Lack of the New

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

One of the drawbacks of this “blog a day” business is that I work at home. Subsequently, I lack my former pre-pandemic benefit of working downtown. The commute was a pain in the ass, but at least I was guaranteed to see something new and different every day. On my 25-minute stroll from the train […]

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Chicagoing Straight to Hell! The Unofficial Secret Insider Guide to Nonexistent Chicago Tours

Friday, July 14, 2017

                          By Dan Kelly Once a tool-making, wheat-stacking, hog-butchering powerhouse, Chicago ditched its filthy work gloves and bloody apron long ago to become a buttoned-down, tie-wearing purveyor of finance, publishing, and tourist delights. Regarding the latter—and despite being regularly stripped for parts by […]

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Peace Be Upon Them

Friday, September 11, 2015

Another piece from my stint as a church reviewer with the Chicago Journal. I visited the center and wrote this a week or so after the attacks. My Islam knowledge came from the Internet and a book about salat. Find this and other church reviews/religious essays in my book Hilaretic. Downtown Islamic Center 218 S. […]

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Right Up Dere

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Here’s a fun fact. if you want to get on my bad side very quickly, ask me to help you, and then criticize me while I’m doing it. I might very well leave you adrift among sharks if, when I try to throw you a life preserver, you make a crack about my hurling technique. […]

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Deco

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

I won’t say where, but I recently encountered one of the coolest security guards in the world. I was visiting a lovely Art Deco edifice a while back, and I wanted to take a few pix of the sedately ornate lobby, which featured the inevitable slim, half-naked figures that decorated the era’s most fashionable elevator […]

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Aaaaaaaba Dabba Dabba Doooooooo… Ladies and Gentlemen, The Coctails!

Friday, November 1, 2013

Originally appeared in 1993 in a zine called Pure. No, not that one. If you haven’t heard of the other one, don’t worry about it. Photos by my dear friend Kathy Moseley. Some of the best times I had in the 90s were spent at Coctails shows. Click to enlarge.           […]

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Mr. Dan Kelly Urban Etiquette Discussion #843765

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

I always wonder what the thought process is behind this. Machismo/male privilege? A lack of basic urban etiquette? An inflated sense of one’s size (the dude is big, but, at most, he “needs” two side-by-side seats)? Cultural differences (e.g., “Bah! Women are second-class humans!” or “In Gmöszk, where I am coming from, life is hard […]

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Thursday, May 10, 2012
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HAIL THE SIZE OF SMALL GOLFBALLS!

Thursday, May 3, 2012
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Hilaretic: Now Available at Quimby’s

Monday, April 30, 2012

Still available at Lulu.com!

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