i like to watch the man mix

I like bars just after they open for the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny and the barkeep is giving himself that last look in the mirror to see if his tie is straight and his hair is smooth. I like the neat bottles on the bar back and the lovely shining glasses and the anticipation. I like to watch the man mix the first one of the evening and put it down on a crisp mat and put the little folded napkin beside it. I like to taste it slowly. The first quiet drink of the evening in a quiet bar—that's wonderful.

"The Long Goodbye," Raymond Chandler

[Damen Avenue below Division Street]

dispelling the sordid gloom

dispelling the sordid gloom of our subway decor

"Chicago: City on the Make," Nelson Algren

[Chicago Avenue Red Line]

fade like the darkness itself

"Alcohol is barren. The words a man speaks in the night of drunkenness fade like the darkness itself at the coming of day.Alcohol doesn't console, it doesn't fill up anyone's psychological gaps, all it replaces is the lack of God. It doesn't comfort man. On the contrary, it encourages him in his folly, it transports him to the supreme regions where he is master of his own destiny. No other human being, no woman, no poem or music, book or painting can replace alcohol in its power to give man the illusion of real creation. Alcohol's job is to replace creation. I've spent whole summers at Neauphle alone except for drink. People used to come at weekends. but during the week I was alone in that huge house, and that was how alcohol took on its full significance. It lends resonance to loneliness, and ends up making you prefer it to everything else."

~ Marguerite Duras

[California Avenue below Chicago Avenue]

understand it all

Someday, we will fall down and weep, and understand it all, all things.

"Crime and Punishment," Fyodor Dostoevsky, as translated by Terrence Malick

[Damen Avenue above Haddon Street]

just get wet

Some people feel the rain, others just get wet.

~ Bob Dylan

[Wacker Drive between Michigan Avenue and Wabash Avenue]

un éclair

Un éclair... puis la nuit! — Fugitive beauté
Dont le regard m'a fait soudainement renaître,
Ne te verrai-je plus que dans l'éternité?
Ailleurs, bien loin d'ici! trop tard! jamais peut-être!
Car j'ignore où tu fuis, tu ne sais où je vais,
Ô toi que j'eusse aimée, ô toi qui le savais!

"À une passante," Baudelaire

[Framed photograph: Chicago Avenue west of Winchester Street; image: Chicago Avenue just east of Damen Avenue]