W O R D S 1

The cover story for this week's Reader was pretty chilling. It was entitled "Death of an Invisible Man." It was about this old man, Sterling Coleman, who lived on the south side of Chicago. He died recently from exposure. He had been living for the past for almost 12 years without heat, according to Tori Marlan, the author of the article. He was only 57 when he died, which I glossed over the first time I read it. That seems young. The description of his life was so surreal. He had almost no friends and the one interviewed for the story didn't really know him at all, it seems. The only time they spent together was going to an OTB place and even there, they'd split up. He lived of recycling cans (barely). He dressed like a bum while collecting cans to remain inconspicuous and under the radar of anyone wanting to give him trouble. It was all a very scary scene. It is amazing the way people can just sort of descend into this lonely sort of madness. His brother had died and his mother put into a home and when he lost his job at a steel mill, he pretty much immediately cancelled his heat service. It seems to me like he was a pretty selfless person who felt like he could get along without. Claude had mentioned that if the guy worked at the Steel Mill he should have gotten a pension, but I guess he might have been layed off too early or something.

There was an article about the guy who records live shows. I've seen him out for as long as I've been going to shows. It was pretty cool to read about him, even if I only found out that he records merely because he's a collector, which I guess isn't a bad thing, but he has no intention of every sharing his thousands of recordings. Kinda interesting.

Brian posted at 10:51 AM.