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114 years ago someone made a short film called “How They Rob Men in Chicago”.

Any comment would be both obvious and superfluous.

Here’s a very nice video of 30 time-lapsed Chicago sunrises. (From Gizmodo.com)

A young Chicago real estate agent unearths a box of 30,000 photographic negatives. He finds himself intrigued by the images, but when he sells a few on eBay for $80, he begins to think he might have found something special.

It turns out they were taken by a Chicago nanny, who had emigrated to the US with her mother, worked in a sweatshop in NYC as a girl, and eventually landed in Chicago. During her lifetime, (1926 to 2009), she took thousands of pictures, mostly on the streets of Chicago and New York. The story is even more intriguing, and you can read the rest at VivianMaier.Blogspot.com, the site created by the young man who discovered her works.

Around about the same time, another man tracked down another cache of her works, and he’s posted them up at VivianMaierPhotography.com.

Since then, this story has gone viral on the interwebs, and all sorts of people are interested in Vivian Maier’s pictures. A book of her photos will be published in 2011, and a documentary about her life is in the works.

Gridskipper, an e-zine/blog about urban travel, posts a list of the best book stores in Chicago.

(And, if you’re ever passing through the Milwaukee airport, there’s an excellent used bookstore in the main terminal. I can’t speak about the bookstores of Chicago, but if you’re a book lover and you have travel plans that take you through Milwaukee, leave room in your luggage; the bookstore is that good.)

This is the ChicagoScaper’s unofficial motto: we know a guy.  Because we always do.  We always know someone who can take care of whatever needs taking care of.  Need some pastries for a party? We know a guy.  Need an A/V studio to record a commercial spot? We know a guy.  Need your furniture moved? We know a guy. And so on. 

We try not to think about how far this can be taken.  (Need a body buried? We know a guy.  Need a politician?  We know a guy.)  But this is Chicago, the city that works, and this is how things work in Chicago.  I’m not even a native Chicagoan, and yet I know this.

Here’s another Chicagoan’s take on this.

This is Chicago, after all. In Chicago, we don’t make referrals, we don’t suggest that someone may be helpful — instead, we “got a guy.” As in, “I got a guy who can take care of that for you.”
Guys are doled out sparingly. I mean, when you give someone your guy, he or she (“guy” in this sense is gender neutral) might then became that person’s guy. Of course, if things work out, that person is in your debt.

If you ever find yourself in Chicago, you’re going to have to cultivate this knowingness. And to keep a very long memory to tally up the favors owed and owing. THAT’S how things work in Chicago.

The city goes wild after the Blackhawks win their first Stanley Cup since 1961.

I’m about as far from being cool as a person can be.  On chilly days I wear socks with my sandals.  I pack a sack lunch in plastic bags from the Piggly Wiggly, wear old lady underpants, and I drive an old Buick hulk.  I even like POLKA music, for pete’s sake.  (Although, to be fair, a lot of this is done to torment the nieces and nephews, driving them into eye-rolling frenzy.  It’s fun.  You ought to try it sometime.) 

But, if I were the antithesis of me, which is young, svelte, and terminally hip, I might loiter a lot at Transistor, where they sell books, vinyl records, arty photographs, reel-to-reel tape decks, and an honest-to-god theremin (which itself is the antithesis of the accordian). 

Here’s a couple of cool theremin videos. 

Marimba Theremin Duet

Gnarls Barkley “Crazy” theremin jam session

Not that I would know from cool, really.

The Ebert Club

A mere $4.99 is all it cost annually to participate in one of the best on-going movie discussions on earth.  Sure, anyone can talk about movies, but not that many can talk INTELLIGENTLY about them.  And still fewer of those actually like their readers.

Not to worry, you can still read his stuff (including his blog) at the Sun Times for free.  But for a five-spot, you’ll get some exclusive things, including a special twitter feed, a special RSS feed, and first crack at Ebert Fest tickets.

Need a little something that brings Chicago to your friends?  Try The Boring Store.

The Lakeshore Theater will be showing Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and afterwards will feature a Q&A session with the co-director, Terry Jones.  YES, THAT Terry Jones who’s one of the members of the Pythons.  It’s scheduled for Saturday evening, May 9th.

In other Python news, it looks like the Independant Film Channel will be airing a six part documentary on Monty Python this coming October.  (Cool!  That’s one of the cable channels I get!!)