Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Smack!
Today the Literary Editor (LE) was walking to McDonalds for lunch when he came to a crosswalk with a red light. It's a cold and blustry day in the Windy City and the LE turned his face to his right to avoid the stream of cold wind that was abraiding his face. There he saw a middle aged couple, embracing each other through their winter coats, kissing their goodbye. "Smack!" he heard as the two bobbed their heads towards each other, their lips meeting and pulling apart. "Smack!" he heard as they did it again. The LE turned his head back to the wind so as to give these lovers their moment, and a seemingly never-ending string of "Smack!"'s ensued, making the LE uncomfortable. The light switched to "Walk," the LE enterred the crosswalk, hearing the fading sound of the lovers muttering words that sounded like a sweet-sorrowed parting.
As he ate his Chicken McGrill, the LE thought this was quite the Stuart Dybek moment. For those new to the blog or not part of the literarti, Dybek is a local writer who gained fame through "photograph of life"-like short stories of Chicago. He was all the rage during, if the LE recalls correctly, late 70's through mid 80's, then he dropped off the radar until the turn of the millenium. Or at least it seemed like he did. Monz keenly observed something to the contrary, reflected by his oft-quoted remark "Hey, it's me, Stuart Dybek, oh yes I'm here, again, surprise!"
And with this we recall that Monz sometimes describes characters such as this as a "smack." And we suspect there were many "smacks" caused by his lunch, so yummy it's a carbon copy of yesterday.
Today the Literary Editor (LE) was walking to McDonalds for lunch when he came to a crosswalk with a red light. It's a cold and blustry day in the Windy City and the LE turned his face to his right to avoid the stream of cold wind that was abraiding his face. There he saw a middle aged couple, embracing each other through their winter coats, kissing their goodbye. "Smack!" he heard as the two bobbed their heads towards each other, their lips meeting and pulling apart. "Smack!" he heard as they did it again. The LE turned his head back to the wind so as to give these lovers their moment, and a seemingly never-ending string of "Smack!"'s ensued, making the LE uncomfortable. The light switched to "Walk," the LE enterred the crosswalk, hearing the fading sound of the lovers muttering words that sounded like a sweet-sorrowed parting.
As he ate his Chicken McGrill, the LE thought this was quite the Stuart Dybek moment. For those new to the blog or not part of the literarti, Dybek is a local writer who gained fame through "photograph of life"-like short stories of Chicago. He was all the rage during, if the LE recalls correctly, late 70's through mid 80's, then he dropped off the radar until the turn of the millenium. Or at least it seemed like he did. Monz keenly observed something to the contrary, reflected by his oft-quoted remark "Hey, it's me, Stuart Dybek, oh yes I'm here, again, surprise!"
And with this we recall that Monz sometimes describes characters such as this as a "smack." And we suspect there were many "smacks" caused by his lunch, so yummy it's a carbon copy of yesterday.
Comments:
3 comments
why where the old ppl smacking goodbye? its not like one of them was leaving for work? ...maybe they're secret lovers having an affair!
Chicago once had a decent AM top-40 station (WLS) and the EIC, having only an AM radio in his then-vehicle, used to listen to it. But then it made a change to much lighter AC fare (before changing again into a Rush/Hannity-ish talk radio station). During that middle period they used to play Atlantic Starr's "Secret Lovers" all the time. After years of therapy I had forgotten that song, until it was recently used in a cell phone ad. And this post!
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