Experience is the delusion that not just any jerk can do your job. Several years ago, my friend Dan was leaving Chicago to go live in Belgium for a couple years. Although his education was philosophy and law, Dan mucked about in the visual arts, and his apartment was filled with his random creations. He thought it would be interesting while living in Belgium to write a column for the Chicago Tribune about a Chicago lawyer writing about the arts in europe. The column was to be largely tongue in cheek and could have been hilarious. Now, although Dan was extraordinarily well educated and a phenomenally gifted writer, the Tribune scoffed (and I mean "scoffed") at his proposal. How could somebody without a journalism degree, who'd never written for a paper, possibly hope to write a weekly column for the Chicago Tribune?! It is in the spirit of Dan's rejection that I present this outstanding piece of reporting by the Tribune.
Posted by Dick at March 4, 2004 01:52 PM | TrackBack