Admin Post: New Challenge: Chicago Slang, Traditions and/or Lore

[seleneheart]

Chicago has many iconic traditions such as deep dish pizza, Italian beef, or dyeing the Chicago River green for St. Patrick's Day (or when the Cubs win the World Series (speaking of the Cubs, there's a whole realm of legends and traditions around that team)). Not to mention Mrs. O'Leary's cow. The Chicago accent is pretty distinctive and I could go on a rant about how David Marciano (unknowingly) wrongly steered the rest of the cast into New York/New Jersey accents while CKR (the Canadian) has the closest to a true Chicago accent. I've spent a lot of time in Chicago, can you tell?

One of my favorite pieces of lore is the Chicago Tribune Tower. The editor of the Tribune at the time the tower was built, Colonel McCormick, ordered his journalists to bring back rock samples from wherever in the world they traveled. The rocks are embedded in the facade of the building and are from every imaginable place including the moon

Resources:
Chicago Accent, Slang, and Traditions Born and bred Chicagoan ride_4ever notes that the "Chicago accent and slang article" was not only not written by a Chicagoan, it was not even written by an Illinoisan. What the article describes as a "Chicago accent" is only a South Side Chicago accent. Of the words and phrases listed in "Chicago Slang," a few are all-Chicago, a few are South Side only, and a few are ones that ride has never heard even once in six decades of living in Chicago.
Chicago Folklore
Place names and short cuts
the Hamilton cast singing "Go Cubs Go", the Chicago Cubs theme song that was definitely in existence in the 1990s
Chelsea Dagger, the Blackhawks theme song, speaking of teams that didn't win anything for decades (until 2010)
Chicago is arranged by neighborhoods
their pizza place has a blog
more Cubs stuff

I mean, the White Sox exist and they've won the World Series, but the Cubs have the whole mythology thing going for them.

This challenge will run for two weeks until midnight Chicago time (CDT) on April 7, 2019. Please tag your entries with 'chicago lore challenge'. Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Comments

[ride_4ever]

I'm currently in Houston, Texas for the RevelCon fancon. Once again I am hoping to write fic for this comm, and once again my writing may be impeded by my travels. In the meantime, in honor of this particular challenge, here's my Fraser-arriving-in-Chicago icon.

[seleneheart]

Hey, traveling is important! Have fun!

[mrs_d]

so, I accidentally started a story that I now realize can be classified as being inspired by Chicago lore, but I don't know if I can have it done in the next 5 days. what's your policy on late submissions?

[seleneheart]

I'm feeling pretty relaxed about it in the interest of keeping this comm active.

[mrs_d]

fair enough! I hope to be finished this story before too long, but it will probably be past the deadline.

any restrictions on min/max length?

[seleneheart]

Minimum is drabble length, so 100 words, but somehow I doubt that's where you are1 Maximum is whatever DW allows for a post length.

[mrs_d]

brilliant! tyk

[ride_4ever]

If we are going to allow up to 16,000 characters (DW's maximum allowed post length, which would tend to go over 2,000 words) we should be noting that although this is basically a flashfiction comm it's actually also accepting some slightly longer works.

[verushka70]

omg, I thought I (and Ride_4ever) was/were the only one/s to think CKR's Chicago accent was nearly perfect! (there was the occasional slip-up, like saying "holiday" for vacation and "mum" for mom, but I blame the writers for that).

Back in the days of the original Kowalski broadcasts, there was an interview (long lost, sadly) where CKR said he came down to Chicago for 2 days to prepare, and he did a ride-along with 2 Chicago cops. I think he got it from them. And tho the interview didn't say which 2 Chicago cops they were, I always thought it was those same 2 CPD film-office liaison cops who cameo-ed in a lot Chicago filmed movies. Because that flat, nasally, d for th CPD voice was exactly what they sounded like -- all the cops did, back in the day, back when they were all from Chicago neighborhoods.

[ride_4ever]

I wish I could have heard or read that interview. Glad for you knowing about it and sharing that CKR detail with fandom.

Are you writing fic for this challenge? I'm hoping to have ficcing time on Friday.

[verushka70]

I originally intended to... but it doesn't look likely. I've been running around a lot of this week to my physical, get all my vaccine records/blood titers/paperwork ready for the new job... then tomorrow I'll be at orientation all day, and Friday I work all day at what used to be my main job. I do have some plans over the weekend, too. Doesn't look like I'll have much time to write.
:(
I'll probably just try for spring snippets instead.

[seleneheart]

That's amazing - that he put in the work to get the accent right! Thanks for that bit of lore1

[ride_4ever]

Chicago Challenge fic written and beta'ed by just before midnight, so obviously it won't post until Monday. (Remains to be seen if I get it posted before I fall asleep or after I sleep and wake up on Monday.)