Archive for July 2020

The West Wing is an ideal binge watch now

Fourteen years after The West Wing ended its seven-season run on NBC-TV, the hit series looks especially inviting now as we endure its antithesis in real life. I recently watched all 156 episodes on Netflix. I’m not sure why I didn’t catch The West Wing the first time around but was glad to be watching... Read more »
By Marianne Goss,
July 27, 2020 at 8:33 am
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Chicago’s “most common” contribution to architecture deserves a tour

In the dozen or so years I’ve been a Chicago Greeter, my tours have stayed near the lakefront — the Loop, the South Loop, Prairie Avenue, Andersonville, Argyle Street, Graceland Cemetery, Lincoln Park Zoo. It’s familiar territory, since I’ve lived within walking distance of the lake for nearly 30 years and rarely venture west of... Read more »
By Marianne Goss,
July 20, 2020 at 9:58 am
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Surprising parallels to today in novels about the plague

Judging from the number of reading lists returned by googling “pandemic books,” many readers aren’t looking for escapism during COVID. A pandemic read was not my object on my first trip into the Harold Washington Library Center after it reopened a few weeks ago. Browsing in the Popular Library on the first floor, I noticed... Read more »
By Marianne Goss,
July 13, 2020 at 10:44 am
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Every conversation gets into assessing the risk

When I volunteered to give my first Chicago Greeter tour in four months, I didn’t know that I’d be taking out a Washington Post travel writer. After we met, she let me know that she was writing a story about the new normal of travel. In between seeing Chicago’s first residential loft district and the... Read more »
By Marianne Goss,
July 6, 2020 at 4:14 pm
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