#printer's row

[copperbadge]

"My" fountain has been switched on! And yours too -- a few years ago a bunch of readers donated to its restoration, and I also bought one of the name bricks in the base. So if you're ever in downtown Chicago, you can come south to Printer's Row Park and see "Sam, Deebs, and Dot" carved on the fountain. I'm pretty sure the engravers thought Deebs and Dot were my wife and child.

I wanted it to say "For the love of God, Montresor!" but they told me it was policy to only do names. (This is absolutely true. It was a whole conversation we had to have.)

[ID: a ten second film of the art deco fountain in Printer's Row Park, burbling away merrily, surrounded by plants. The base of the fountain is lined in large bricks with names engraved on them. The only sound is ambient noise and gentle water flowing.]

[whilereadingandwalking]

Signed Saturday

I met Samantha Irby half-by-accident at Printer’s Row literary festival in Chicago in 2017. I was on my way to a panel and discovered it was cancelled, and found myself at the end of a signing line for a number of incredible women essayists. I jumped in line, and ended up commiserating with Irby about how grossly hot outside it was. She has an essay in We Are Never Meeting in Real Life that I’d scanned about how awful being sweaty was and not understanding people who like the heat, and I told her how much I liked and agreed with it, which is how my book was signed with the semi-menacing, “Leah! Never go outside ever.” 

Signed Saturdays is a weekly series at While Reading and Walking. I’m an avid book collector, and have been lucky enough to meet many of my favorite authors over the years. Each Saturday, I’ll celebrate and tell the story of one of my signed books. Feel free to join in at #Signed Saturdays.

[ipgbook]

Chicagoans! Stop by Printer’s Row Lit Fest this Saturday & Sunday to see IPG’s literary swag, books, cookbooks, children’s books, poetry and more! We will be sharing Tent J with Albert Whitman & Company, Chicago Review Press, Pavilion Books Group, and Bernie’s Books Bank so you have no excuse!

[copperbadge]

I texted this to like half the people I know in brickspace simply captioned "I think we're gentrifying."

They are planning to offer a class where you do trivia while waiting for your freshly-poured candles to set. They're calling it "Flames and Games" which is a great title for like, a gay D&D guide.

Between this, the indy coffee shop next door to it, and the craft cocktail bar going in across the street, summer 2024 should be a downright festival of amazing peoplewatching.

[ID: A sign hanging in a storefront window near my home; it reads "Opening Spring 2024: Embers + Apothecary, Chicago Candle Bar. Join daily candle making classes or host a private party." The text is laid over an image of someone pouring a cup of wax into a candle mold.]

[copperbadge]

Well, I'm in superhell and Roma lost the cup match in penalty shots, but I walked past the Printer's Row fountain and the fence was down. My cryptid daughters are now preserved in stone!

[ID: A photograph of a brick laid in the foundation of the Printer's Row Fountain; it has been engraved "Sam, Deebs, & Dot". I can't believe someone else submitted a brick "In memory of Eliot Ness" but they wouldn't let me put "For the love of god, Montresor!"]

[copperbadge]

I've always liked this fountain but after the fundraiser and repair it really just delights me every time I go past it.

[ID: The Printer's Row Park fountain, an art-deco inspired two-basin fountain with water emerging from the edges of the top basin and both the edges and base of the lower one; it is in a large planter surrounded by plants, and large stones set into the sides of the planter credit donors to the fountain's restoration.]

[copperbadge]

Now every time I walk through Printer's Row Park, I have to walk a certain way around the fountain so that I see "my" brick. I derive a surprising amount of pleasure from seeing it, every single time.

[ID: A photograph of the restored Printer's Row Fountain, a two-basin art-deco style fountain in a hexagonal concrete planter in a small park; it is ringed by plants, and water flows from spouts in the top basin and spouts under the lower basin. Bricks engraved with names ring the outside of the planter.]

[copperbadge]

btw, for those who gave to the Fountain fundraiser in spring of 2021, the fountain has been restored and reinstalled! It's not up and running yet but it's looking fine. There's a rededication ceremony in late June when it'll be activated.

(I'm not sure when they're putting in the "sponsorship" bricks but as soon as my brick gets installed I'll definitely share that!)

[ID: A photograph visibly taken through chain construction fencing of the Printer's Row Park fountain, a vaguely art-deco style two-basin fountain, about the height of a person, in shades of gold, blue, and red. Its cement base is drained of water and surrounded with soil, which is usually planted with flowers in summer.]