Lonely Lion

I’ve been working on a podcast for the past few months. It’s called “Same Title Different Story” and is available at http://sametitledifferentstory.com. This Sunday it’s going to be on “Hello Beautiful,” the Chicago Public Radio arts show. The show is on at 10am, on 91.5 FM. As if that’s not exciting enough, Justin Kaufmann (of Chicago’s Schadenfruede) is the host, and Art Shay is a guest. The Art Shay bit is my favorite part, as his photographs of Nelson Algren, one of my favorite writers, have always defined to me who Algren was outside of his writing. One picture in particular, of Algren playing poker in a smoky back room, is on my mental list of greatest pictures of all time. It was gigantic in my mind when I moved to Chicago in 2000. Seven years later, having a project of mine on Chicago Public Radio, alongside one of my Chicago heroes, it’s pretty overwhelming.

For those of you outside of WBEZ’s radio range, the show will be posted in podcast form sometime today. The “Hello Beautiful” website is at http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Program_HB.aspx

And here’s the picture I’m talking about, sadly I can only find it as the cover of “Chicago: City on the Make”,