I used to think the drearier the weather in a place, the more colorful the doors (think Dublin), but Crete kind of throws that theory out the window…or should I say kicks it out the door (insert collective groan here).

While I can see where Wilson is coming from on all quotes, I mostly agree with him on the quote about drinking. Today (more than ever) women do live very stressful lifestyles, drink way too much and sleep way too little! Cannot believe he caught on to that so long ago!!

I suspect there’s a long tradition of anathemas of the Windy City. In “Notes on Democracy,” H. L. Mencken writes that sensational exposes like ‘Night Life in Chicago’” did more to cultivate stodgy, agrarian populism (and anti-city sentiments) than any speech by William Jennings Bryan.

Marion Elizabeth Rodgers in her annotations to Dissident Books’ new edition of “Notes,” writes that Mencken might be referring to “Life in Chicago, or Day and Night in the World’s Wickedest City, Containing Many Graphic Sketches,” written “by an ex-detective” and released in 1876. “It was advertised as an expose of the highest crust of Chicago society and of ‘female innocence, take from life, etc. etc.”

For Chi-town literature that’s tawdry and retro, “Ladies In The Parlor” (http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/ladies-in-the-parlor/2207680) by Jim Tully and published by Underworld Amusements (http://www.underworldamusements.net/books/) looks like a sure bet. According to the publisher, it’s:

The “saga of Madame Rosenbloom’s fashionable establishment in Chicago and of the ladies in her domain. And here is the Jim Tully of ‘Circus Parade’—the forthright Tully whose language is as frank as life itself. Tully does not pull his punches. The big men and the little ladies for whom Madame Rosenbloom’s house is a social center are portrayed with vigor and hon­esty. The novel is crammed with incident and penetrating word pictures. It is not a story for the squeamish. But if life itself, —that robust, lusty segment of life that is here so honestly and brilliantly depicted—does not frighten or shock you, this novel will hold your deepest interest. Upon initial printing of this book in 1935, copies were seized from the publisher and destroyed by police based on allegations that the material was obscene and blasphemous. It is unknown how many copies survived. This is the first printing since that time.”

(Incidentally, Underground Amusements also has a two-in-one-edition of two early 20th century portraits of the Chicago: Jack London’s “The Iron Heel” and Ben Hecht’s “A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago.” http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/1001-afternoons-in-chicago-the-iron-heel/7165462)

For more on fallen girls in Chicago a century or so ago, I can’t imagine you’d go wrong with “Sin the Second City” by Karen Abbott. The website alone is great fun: http://www.sininthesecondcity.com/ I love the ghostly piano.

Dissident Books’ other title, “Don’t Call Me a Crook! A Scotsman’s Tale of World Travel, Whisky, and Crime” also depicts many fun and sordid antics in the Paris of the Prairies. The author, Bob Moore, a Glaswegian, stayed in Chicago for a spell in the 1920s. I’m particularly fond of this vivid, almost surreal passage; Moore has just been thrown out of Woodlawn nightclub (where he witnesses Rudolph Valentino dance the tango; he’s not impressed) and is about to go to another place:

“[B]ut when I got there I found a whole crowd collected outside, and the cops were pitching tear-gas bombs in the windows, because it was being raided for being a disorderly house, so I stayed in the crowd and watched and did not go inside.

“All the windows and the doors had been barricaded through the cops trying to get in, but at the top you could see some girls looking out, and they looked terribly scared, because they knew the police were going to get them.”

Chicago, I truly, truly love you.

Great post!

Anyway, love your subject matter.