Guntur Address

At first it seemed like just another senseless shooting in an already violent summer. A little after 4 AM on Monday, August 18, 2008, two men were fired on as they sat in a Mercedes outside the Rock 'n' Roll McDonald's. By the time police arrived four minutes later, the Mercedes was on its way to Stroger Hospital. The 29-year-old driver had been shot five times; the passenger, his younger brother, was declared dead on arrival at Stroger. From the little information police were able to piece together at the time, the slaying seemed to have stemmed from an altercation at Excalibur, the popular nightclub a couple blocks away. Area residents and bar patrons expressed alarm, noting that shootings don't usually happen in low-crime River North, and certainly not at heavily trafficked tourist stops like the landmark McDonald's. To some, it was the latest sign that bloodshed seemed to be spreading everywhere that summer—even the Taste of Chicago had been marred by a dead...

The land, the very atmosphere out there, is alien, malignant, the executioner of countless wagon trains. I am afraid to crack the window. Huge dervishes of alkaline dust reel and teeter past. The sun, a brittle parchment white, glowers as though we personally have done something to piss it off. An hour out here and already I could light an Ohio Blue Tip off the inside of my nostril. One would think we were pulling into this planet's nearest simulation of hell, but if this were hell, we would not be driving this very comfortable recreational vehicle. Nor would there be a trio of young and merry nudists capering at our front bumper, demanding that we step out of the vehicle and join them. These people are checkpoint officials, and it is their duty to press their nakedness to us in the traditional gesture of welcome to the Burning Man festival, here in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. The checkpoint nudists are comely and embraceable, in the way that everyone ten years younger than...