Resolving to Read Chicago

It's one of those new year's resolutions I don't even make any more in case I don't
follow through—reading more of the Great Chicago Books. 2006 will be different though because Gapers Block is making it easy for me and other Chicagophiles and apprentices to digest and discuss (with wine!) these must-reads.

Gapers Block literary editor, Alice Maggio (a.k.a. That Rabbit Girl), hosts the Gapers Block Chicago-themed book club the second Monday of the month at Lincoln Square's The Book Cellar (7:30 p.m.). January kicks off on the 9th with Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March.

As you can see from the rest of the season, it's a nice mix of classic and contemporary, fiction and non-fiction.

February 13, 2006: Division Street: America by Studs Terkel
Bizarre sidenote: Amber Ladeira, who grew up on Division and appears in Division Street, was mistakenly listed on my sister's kindergarten paperwork as her mother, and this mysterious name long had a mythical hold on us until we discovered 15 years later that it was the name of a friend's mother, and 10 years after that in the pages of a book that Studs knew her first. Is this her origins as a character (a lovable one)? A paper posted on the web on twentieth-century Chicago literature even quotes Division Street's profile of Amber.

March: I Sailed With Magellan by Stuart Dybek
Our intern's cousin who headed to Western Michigan for grad study with Stuart Dybek says this one's the best. Read it!

April: Memory Mambo by Achy Obejas

May: Near West Side Stories: Struggles for Community in Chicago's Maxwell Street Neighborhood by Carolyn Eastwood
A Lake Claremont Press award-winning book. Read it!

June: Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krause Rosenthal
Whew. At first I thought this was the Encyclopedia of Chicago.

July: Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren
Note to self: Add to Netflix queue immediately.

August: Coffee Will Make You Black by April Sinclair

September: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Note to self: Stop buying Chicago books you only lend out. Start reading them!
Note to others: Larson used LCP's Graveyards of Chicago in the writing of this book (see back matter).

Need more recommendations for Chicago lit? See Greg Holden's Literary Chicago: A Book Lover's Tour of the Windy City.

Hawaii Daydreamin'

If island links aren't part of your holiday vacation, don't despair, the Chicago area offers plenty of opportunities to fight the rust on your swing and your clubs. Golf Chicago maintains a list of Indoor Golf Facilities, but all of the domes they have listed are in the suburbs. For urban dwellers, the Diversey Driving Range in Lincoln Park has covered and heated stalls during the winter months. Go hit some balls and then crank up the heat at home, don shorts, mix up some mai tais, and put on the Buffett.

Catalog's In!

LCP's first catalog ever is here, so if you'd like a copy, drop us a line (elizabeth@lakeclaremont.com) and we'll send you one. Many thanks to our designer, Mike Wykowski, and to Felicia and Sharon at the printer, Des Plaines Publishing Company, for their great work and for making it so easy for us to complete this long-in-the-works project.

A Christmas Story in Northwest Indiana

Urban diversions and recreational activities are abundant in Northwest Indiana—in the crook between Chicagoland and southwestern Michigan, at the southern tip of Lake Michigan—despite what most of you may think. Northwest Indiana is 30 minutes from the Loop. It's not all steel mills. Scut Farkas does not lurk in its alleys. It's not a cultural wasteland. And it's not just the dunes in the summer.

With tips from Mark Skertic's A Native's Guide to Northwest Indiana, prepare for a weekend of Christmas fun in NWI.

Visit Ralphie's Stomping Grounds
A self-guided tour of Jean Shepherd's hometown is a must for his devotees and a great addition to a day in Northwest Indiana for casual fans of A Christmas Story, Shepherd's now-classic tale of "the Original, Traditional, One-Hundred-Percent, Red-Blooded, Two-Fisted, All-American Christmas," set in a fictional town identical to Hammond. Check out Shep's childhood home on Cleveland Street and warm up at the legendary Flick's Tap.

Grab Your Toboggan
Both Rogers-Lakewood Park and Forest Park in Valparaiso kick off their sledding and tubing season this Saturday, December 17th. Call the Valparaiso Park District at 219/462-5144 for more information.

Strap the Tree on the Car

Choose and harvest your own Christmas tree or buy fresh wreaths, garlands, and centerpieces at one of the following tree farms:
Egolf Chrstmas Trees (219/733-2143) in Wanatah,
Guse Christmas Trees (219/733-9346) in Wanatah, and
Luers Christmas Tree Farm 219/663-2832 in Crown Point.
Addresses and directions to these farms and more, excerpted from A Native's Guide to Northwest Indiana, can be found on our Web site.

Jolly Good Fun for the Little Ones
If candy cane challenges and cupcake walks are synonymous with holiday in your family, call the City of Portage (219/762-1675) for information about this weekend's family-friendly festivities at Woodland Park.

A Midway History Lesson

Read author Chris Lynch's (Chicago's Midway Airport: The First Seventy-Five Years) letter to the editor in today's Chicago Sun-Times.

The Other Christmas

Red or green? Or Christmas?

Zia Cafe in Lincoln Park is the only restaurant in this area serving up Christmas New Mexico-style—and they offer it year-round. In New Mexico, chile is not only the state vegetable, it is a statewide obsession. Christmas is the common parlance for serving both red and green chile on whatever it is you're eating (why choose if you don't have to?).

Along with chile, you are sure to find owner Peter Torres at Zia. He's a friendly, engaging guy who's quick with a smile and just happens to do a little bit of everything to keep this cozy spot running smoothly. On any given night, you'll find Peter leading you to your table, waiting tables, or tending bar. And if you order food for delivery, you may even find him knocking on your door.

The food is comparable to that found in the Land of Enchantment, so feel free to experiment (though Zia did not have a meatless green chile on my last visit). Like most New Mexico restaurants, Zia serves sopapillas with every meal. The accepted practice when greeted with one of these airy, delicious, fried squares of dough is to drizzle it with honey and savor it before reaching for the next one. As if that weren't enough, Zia's collection of paintings is equally appealing. So next time you're in Lincoln Park and you find yourself longing for enchiladas from Tomasita's in Santa Fe (and, really, who among us hasn't been longing for those recently?), indulge in a little Christmas at Zia.

Kissy, Kissy

Head to State & Washington midday Fridays before Christmas, kiss your sweetie under the mistletoe, and see your smooch later on the Web. Pecks, cuddles, and grimaces are okay, too, but try not to be too Grinchy. Sponsored by the Chicago Loop Alliance, an organization that promotes the Loop as a dynamic, mixed-use district comprised of theater, retail, new residences, the largest college population in the state of Illinois (who knew?), and some of the world's most recognizable architecture and renowned cultural institutions. Fridays, December 9, 16, and 23, 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Chicago Bloggers

Ok. Elizabeth found them, and I love them already: Chicago Bloggers, a directory of the city's weblogs, easily organized by . . . L station. It's really perfect. They've been around for awhile, so you may know about them already, but we didn't. We don't know what we're doing yet with our blog, but we're going to slap it up with other Rockwell/Brown Line bloggers.

Today I'm going to wonder all day as people walk by our office (less than 12 inches from the Ravenswood tracks) en route to the platform: Are they one of the 22 Rockwell bloggers? Only one Rockwell blogger I can identify so far, Daniel X. O'Neil, but his GoogObits blog listed there is outdated. His new augmented obits blog has been relocated. Poet, entrepreneur, Renaissance man, and fellow neighborhood kid, Dan was in a group of self-publishers (for his many poetry books and new-then necklace poems) organized by Mary Edsey (The Best Christmas Decorations in Chicagoland) in 1995 that I was part of when first starting up LCP. It looks like DXO has moved on to even more cool peformance, poetry, and technology things.