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Roger Ebert’s bankruptcy-induced memory (or so it seems) of life at the Sun-Times when he was young and it was healthy stopped me in my tracks. I read it, and then I immediately set my college roommate (who happened to be visiting) down at the computer screen and told him to read it. Ebert had done a much better job of making a life spent in the Chicago newspaper world sound marvelous than I could hope to.
The thing is, when you’re done blogging you look up and look around and wonder whatever happened to the long rows of clattering typewriters, the hovering copyboys, the glowering editors. You’re staring at a bedroom wall, and out the window is the street you live on and it is absolutely silent. Cocking an ear, you hope to pick up the wail of sirens in the distance. But you don’t, so you trudge downstairs and make a sandwich.
