The intersection of Damen, North and Milwaukee Starbucks people have their Starbucks. The nightlife is deadly loud and supertanked with clueless suckaholic new-to-town transplants. Tacos and hotdogs and soul food and vegan stews all simmer in this grand locus of liquor and libidinousness and misdirected attitude. Witness the static of real estate, commerce, youth and beauty, with the occasional non-piercing tossed in. Day or night, traffic swims, viewers of “Real World Chicago” point at the series’ abandoned home, artists pretend Bucktown does not exist to the north, musicians wander in that do-I-really-need-a-job haze. It is a walk through the pages of dozens of never-to-be-written novels, a narrative of the city in postmodern mutation.
On Vacation: Guns and Butter in the Land Up North Driving back from Green Bay, on a brilliantly sunny morning, I was in a mist of nostalgia for Wisconsin, with its green fields coming alive in early summer, roadside fruit stands and small little towns…
