If there is a single, unifying constant that applies to the entire history of the United States\u2014other than \u201ccapitalism sure is evil but we sure do love it,\u201d our greatest animating truth\u2014it is that the United States of America cannot be normal about sex. Sex is both fascinating and tedious. Nearly everyone agrees that sex is great, but after that, everyone starts talking about caveats. I\u2019m frankly bored by everyone\u2019s caveats. I\u2019ve been on the internet since I was 13, and I went to church regularly before that, so I know about everyone\u2019s caveats. <\/p>
As such, a history book about the vice district in Chicago isn\u2019t going to get me reading for details like \u201cthere was a sex worker named Suzy Poon Tang and she had a bouquet of roses tattooed quote-unquote \u2018under her navel\u2019\u201d or \u201cthere was a john called the Gold Coin Kid and he brought in a bag of $5 gold coins and told the woman he was with that his favorite game as a kid was \u2018pitching pennies\u2019 and if she spread her legs she could keep any coins that \u2018hit the bull\u2019s-eye\u2019\u201d as much as said book is going to hold my interest by telling me how Chicago got from housing a vice district downtown to, y\u2019know, today, where we\u2019ve all seen the Admiral ad with the redhead on taxicabs, but that\u2019s about it. All this is to say, I might not be the audience for a narrative history book, but I enjoyed Sin In The Second City <\/em>by Karen Abbot (now publishing as Abbot Kahler<\/a>).<\/p> Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m not so bored by sordid songs of sin that I don\u2019t giggle at things like \u201cit was called the Everleigh Club and men would say they were going to get \u2018Ever-laid\u2019 tonight.\u201d I\u2019m also not such a sexless dork that I\u2019m cheering for the preachers and reformers as I\u2019m reading. Mostly, I was pretty sold on the Everleigh Sisters\u2019 model of a dignified brothel run by women. The dichotomy set up is sort of like \u201cstarting your OnlyFans\u201d vs. \u201cbeing human trafficked.\u201d Unfortunately, making connections to issues today is where I start to feel tired. Sex workers exist, have always existed, and always will exist. I wish we could all stop being weird about it. <\/p> One thing: wish this book was a tad more intersectional. In creating narrative nonfiction, there\u2019s this sort of uncritical presentation of the Everleigh Sisters \u201cnot considering themselves prejudiced\u201d when they try to refuse Jack Johnson entry into the club. There\u2019s liberal use of \u201cNegro\u201d and \u201cJew\u201d in settings other than direct quotations\u2014period accurate, but maybe something I personally would\u2019ve re-thought. When the Chicago Daily Socialist<\/em> runs an erroneous article about the Everleigh Club having a girl under 17 working there, the third-person omniscient narrator, purporting to speak for Minna\u2019s thoughts, says \u201cObviously, the Socialist\u2019s <\/em>editors resented the club because neither they nor their audience could afford to step through its doors.\u201d There\u2019s a lot of talk of \u201cwhite slavery\u201d\u2014a term that does<\/em> describe what some of the lesser brothels were doing, but feels monstrously lacking in perspective when the author ends a whole section with this: <\/p> \u201cThere is undoubtedly more actual physical restraint imposed on these modern slaves of our cities,\u201d opined the Chicago Record Herald<\/em>, \u201cthan was ordinarily imposed on the black slaves of the old plantations.\u201d (130)<\/p><\/blockquote> That is, uh, demonstrably <\/em>untrue, Chicago Record Herald<\/em>. Does Abbot Kahler know that<\/a>? <\/p> LINKS!<\/strong><\/p> Wooooo went long on the sex book, my bad! Here we go: <\/p> A great companion piece to Sin In The Second City <\/em>is Chapter 15 of Robert Loerzel\u2019s <\/a>The Coolest Spot in Chicago: A History of Green Mill Gardens and the Beginnings of Uptown<\/a>. <\/em>You know how I know Chicago is my kinda town? \u201cPersonal liberty\u201d meant, in those days, \u201cto many people, it meant being able to drink whenever they wanted.\u201d It\u2019s like a pre-Prohibition \u201cWe Get The Food And Then We Eat The Food Until All The Food Is Gone.<\/a>\u201d<\/p><\/li> The Nib<\/em> is ending this week, which is a huge bummer. I realized recently that I kind of am<\/em> trying to recreate the newspaper experience with my internet usage, and The Nib<\/em> was a great way to get comics. Here\u2019s \u201cDeforestation\u201d by Eleri Harris<\/a>, an excellent comic on a subject near and dear to my heart. <\/p><\/li> Blistering CBP prison story from Christian H. Morales over at <\/a>Latine Lit<\/a><\/em>, \u201cFour Oreos in the Icebox.\u201d<\/a> You will leave this story thinking we should abolish ICE, but that\u2019s not the point of the story. It\u2019s a love story. <\/p><\/li> I have thought of Sylvia Plath without meaning to multiple times this week, which is never a bad thing. Then, I stumbled onto Nazifa Islam\u2019s poem in <\/a>Vagabond City<\/a><\/em>, \u201cApart,\u201d a found poem from <\/a>The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath<\/a><\/em>. Maybe a Sylvia Plath re-read is in my weekend plans. <\/p><\/li> The homie Adrian Sobol is starting a poetry journal, <\/a>Kicking Your Ass<\/a><\/em>, and it\u2019s thrilling for reasons beyond \u201cAdrian is starting a poetry journal.\u201d Check out this, from the about page: \u201cThink of us as your literary complaint department. Upset about a too cold breeze? A long line at the store? A haircut that\u2019s pretty good, but not great? Whatever is kicking your ass, there\u2019s poetry to be made from that.\u201d Hell yeah. We love it. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got about poetry was when my undergrad prof, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, told us to \u201cgo out and write some Chicago poems\u201d and then was profoundly disappointed that no one wrote about Patio Beef<\/a>. <\/p><\/li><\/ul> That\u2019s all this week, should we go out with the champ? <\/p>![](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/fdd22dc9-d544-440c-940b-eb46315fa806.heic\"\/)
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