I write and teach in Chicago. E-mail me about writing opportunities at [email protected] or follow me on Twitter at @johnwilmeswords. My book JAD'S DAD MILO is now available from Mouse House Books.
In May 2020, Elon Musk tweeted "Take the red pill." It was unclear precisely what he meant, but those with enough cultural context had a decent idea of what he was trying to say.
Narrator Bert Britwell, his boss Milo, and Milo's son Jad star in a dark and funny tale of corporate plotting and daddy issues that hinges on an office sub-kitchen scheme and the re-creation of a deceased father's magical, weightless tap dancing.
"To this day I'm not sure how I created such chaos and wound up in that headspace," Charlie Sheen said in an interview this past April, reflecting on his infamous 2011 meltdown. "It's as though there were some alien or demonic possession going on," he continued, evoking a kind of eldritch, body-invading nemesis in remembrance of his old months-long televised bender.
If you've bought a hot dog and a beer at a major sporting event in North America lately, there's a good chance you were perplexed at what it cost. Maybe you did actual math in the bleachers, running a sort of cost-benefit analysis to help you decide whether you ever want to do that again, or just calculating the going rate per ounce of utility-grade meat.
Right before 2018's The Grinch starts, its viewers must reckon with a Minion. Before you can get to Dr. Seuss's famous character, several byzantine degrees removed from his source material, the little pill-shaped yellow creature turns on the Illumination Studios lights as part of a studio intro, and laughs maniacally.
Between the seams of Euphoria's ragged deconstruction of tragically misunderstood young people are Levinson's efforts to make his own adult showrunner self one of these touchstones of empathy. "Some people need to get their feelings hurt sometimes," soft-hearted drug dealer Fez tells good-girl Lexi, defending her savage dramatic representations of friends in the play.
SHORT FICTION // In my thirty-first year, what I looked forward to more than anything were my walks. My wife did not know about them. On these walks, I would get McDonald's-often a shameful amount, double-digit McNuggets and multiple sandwiches. I would take laps around the neighborhood and, while walki
Everyone is delightfully lost in a softly Lovecraftian Osmosis Jones labyrinth with climate change overtones and lovely faceless critters everywhere, trying to pantomime meaning to these stumbling humans.
In 2019, the City of Chicago gifted the real estate development firm Sterling Bay $1.3 billion to build infrastructure for future residents in a postindustrial region about two miles north of its business hub downtown. The giveaway was standard fare for the city, offering up huge amounts of money to an already wealthy and powerful developer.
When else has a city said both "this defines us" and "this is terrible" about the same drink?