In This Issue

  • Ancient Greece, Present-Day Iraq, the Fruits of Empire, and a Really Loud Movie

    The Roman Empire was based on military conquest, armed garrisons, and provincial governors. America hasn’t felt the need for that since we decided we just had to have Hawaii. Since then, it’s been the threat of American power, more than the use of it, that’s been our primary empire-building tool. By Steve Spaulding

  • Three Poems

    But we are mammalian, not built but heaved into / hair and milk. Mixing mustard gas with blood / we happenstance, plan, and think perhaps from / air to a concrete slab — there is no going back.
    Poetry by Sandra Simonds

  • Aldermaniacs Part Deux

    Don’t believe the hype that the Machine is invincible. Residents who have a stake in their community will always have more heart and will work harder than Machine schmoes who are in it only to get (or keep) a city job. By Carter O’Brien

  • A Fistful of Baby Alligators

    When an hour had passed, I was sure he was in the money pit across the way, having fallen through the floor, and was now lying in the basement with a broken leg. In my head the broken leg looked like this: L. By Denise Pace

  • Cleaning Out, Starting Over

    What I like best about my new job is that I know nothing. I don’t know which people don’t do their jobs. I don’t know what the system problems are … I don’t have any ideas about “how things should be.” I am new, I am fresh, I am a sponge, and I love it. By Christine Chase

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  • Worked to Death

    I feel like I’ve aged 10 years in the last six months. I’ve even started to tilt my head back to read things, peering through the imaginary bifocals I didn’t think I would need for another decade or two. Like most of my classmates, I feel jaded and exhausted all the time. By Sarah Petersen

  • Everyday Heroes

    A distant voice in his head whispered, “You’re breaking the bones in your hand.” Again he struck. Again. Now holding the man up with his left hand, his right continued to jackhammer the stranger’s nearly unrecognizable face. FICTION by Steve Weindorf and J.D. DeReu

  • Chocolate Éclair Night

    He seeks tryptophan — how it inhibits serotonin overproduction, diminishing stress, modulating panic. This beats the Ramen noodles and thawed catfish he eats regularly. Life isn’t all poetry.
    By George Sparling

  • Excerpts from Baron’s Chronicle, a Novel in Progress

    “Think?” I said. “Think?! No, no. It’s time to do.” And with that, I removed my shoes and jacket, emptied my pockets, grabbed a pickax from Wallace’s toolbox and positioned myself to chop away at the ceiling. FICTION by Michael Moreci

Departments

  • Activism

    Why I Decided to Go into Organic Farming

    There is a certain state of mind one gets working in a cubicle all day. It sure is hard to sleep at night sometimes. Over-caffeinated and over-stimulated is no way to find God. By Michael Birch

  • LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

    As a resident who lives a few short blocks from the Kimball-Dawson fiasco, I walk by that empty lot with a sense of pride. It represents a victory for the community, which stood up against outside forces who didn’t care about our long-term health and vitality and tried to force “sub-standard housing” down our throats. We can — and will — do better.

  • SPOTLIGHT SITE

    How to Really Support Our Troops

    Anyone with the littlest smidge of human kindness and sense enough to see what our soldiers have to go through should want to find a way to say “thank you.” And nothing says “thanks” like a nice, cold beer. By Steve Spaulding

  • Sounds

    The Singing of the Sun

    Ghost Pilot

    Performed live, January 24th, 2007 at Quencher’s Saloon, Chicago, Illinois


    Download     (MP3, 8.09 MB, 128kbps)

    Eric Ahlgren, keyboards
    Ryan Norsworthy, drums
    Carter O’Brien, guitar
    Mike Overmier, guitar
    Geary Yonker, bass

© 2007, keepgoing.org and Identified Authors

Cover: © 2007, Art direction and design by Josh Honn.
Photography by Andrea Bauer.

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