Colin Dickey's Chicago Recs!

Weekend Passport 02.29

Passport 02.29

This week, in celebration of our Chicago guide, author and SG contributor Colin Dickey shares his favorite activities to connect with the city. In his essay for Stranger’s Guide: Chicago, Colin examines the tortured legacy around the Haymarket Affair and the ways this explosive moment in the history of the labor movement is and isn’t remembered. Colin has written five books, including Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places and, most recently, Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy.

Colin always knows where to find the interesting and offbeat so enjoy—I know I’ll be trying a shot of Malört!

Wishing everyone a safe and enjoyable weekend,

Ambia from Stranger’s Guide

Weekend Passport is Stranger's Guide's weekly subscribers-only newsletter curated by Associate Publisher, Ambia Elias. Each week we bring you globally-inspired recommendations for your weekend activities.

Listen: Eddie Blazonczyk and the Versatones, “Polka Lounges in Chicago”

Polka king Blazonczyk’s song opens with a wistful refrain, “Try to remember where you used to go, / To the polka lounges throughout Chicago, / Close your eyes a while, Daydream with a smile, / We’re going back to days gone by, to stop and just say hi,” and then proceeds to list of a litany of long gone bars, social halls, and night clubs (“Club Irene and Dot & Dude’s, / Carousel, the Polish Village, / Joe & Jean’s and Brother’s, too….”) The lyrics are literally nothing other than this chorus and seemingly endless list of names, but the song nonetheless manages to evoke a whole history and mood, somehow elegiac despite its maniacal, bouncy tempo and Blazonczyk’s “goofy uncle” vibes.

Buy: Herbert Asbury, Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld (also published as Gangs of Chicago)