Robert Loerzel
robertloerzel.bsky.social
Robert Loerzel
@robertloerzel.bsky.social
Chicagoan, journalist, photographer, author, copy editor, flâneur. https://www.robertloerzel.com/
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
vance is a genuine lunatic
JD VANCE THINKS BRITAIN & FRANCE ARE AMERICAS LIKELY ENEMIES.
The world is getting bizarrely screwed with this kind of bull being spewed out.
December 26, 2025 at 9:39 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
Installation of the first of the 39 concrete panels containing the words from Obama's 2015 Selma speech has begun. Each panel weighs between 5.5 and 10 tons. The letters are a foot thick.
An Obama quote gets installed atop presidential center
The first of the 5-foot-tall concrete letters, quoting the former president's 2015 "You Are America" speech, are being placed on the 225-foot granite-clad museum tower at the Obama Presidential Center...
chicago.suntimes.com
December 26, 2025 at 8:57 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
Meade Lux Lewis, the uncredited piano player soundtracking Pottersville's meanness in 'It's a Wonderful Life' (1946), was a boogie-woogie pioneer. He died in Minneapolis, in 1964, killed by a speeding driver after a residency at the White House in Golden Valley.
MEADE LUX LEWIS, PIANIST, IS KILLED; ‘Boogie‐Woogie’ Pioneer, 58, Is Dead in Minnesota (Published 1964)
www.nytimes.com
December 25, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
one thing i post every christmas is my piece about charles dickens’s washout brother www.chicagomag.com/city-life/de...
How Charles Dickens's Screw-Up Chicago Brother Turned the Second City Against Boz
When Charles Dickens toured America for the last time, he gave Chicago the cold shoulder, as well as his widowed Chicago sister-and-law. The local press attacked him as a Scrooge and a hypocrite, but ...
www.chicagomag.com
December 25, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
Please pretend that I saw this when it was posted yesterday & my "You there, boy, what day is it?" joke is timely
December 26, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
Fascinating new book about how urban planning and speculation vaporized a poor neighborhood in Baltimore.

www.thebanner.com/economy/high...
How a ‘ghost highway’ destroyed a prosperous Black neighborhood
“Road to Nowhere,” a new book by historian Emily Lieb, sheds light on what happened to Rosemont, a neighborhood in West Baltimore that was set to be demolished for a highway.
www.thebanner.com
December 26, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
Am absolutely thrilled that Goff got a huge exhibit at AIC. Cannot wait to see it.
December 26, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
The Velvet Underground • Café Bizarre, Greenwich Village, New York, New York, December 1965

The Velvet Underground were discovered 60 years ago by Andy Warhol at Café Bizarre

📷 Adam Ritchie
December 26, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
To stay or not to stay for a movie's end credits

Much to my surprise, some audiences ascribe a moral component to watching the closing credits

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To stay or not to stay for a movie's end credits
To my surprise, some audiences ascribe a moral component to watching the closing credits
buttondown.com
December 26, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
You have no idea how historians work, do you? You can just say, "I have no idea how things work." You don't have to do this.
twenty years from now 'AI enthusiast' won't really be a thing, because everyone -- even archival historians, can you imagine? -- will be using (so-called) AI tools all day all over their lives. worlds will have been lost in reaching that point. worlds will have been gained.
December 26, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
It's a good museum already but this will give them a lot more space for exhibits than they've had. www.metalmuseum.org
Metal Museum | Art Museum in Memphis, TN
Located in Memphis, Tennessee, the Metal Museum welcomes all to experience the beauty of fine metal artwork through rotating exhibitions, educational programming, and a fully functioning metals studio...
www.metalmuseum.org
December 26, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
Cat Clinging To Side Of Christmas Tree Admits That Was Extent Of Plan https://theonion.com/cat-clinging-to-side-of-christmas-tree-admits-that-was-1849899567/
December 26, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
Chicago Athletic Association.
December 26, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
Excited to see one of the best modernist buildings in Memphis, the 1956 Rust Hall by Roy Harrover, under renovation to reopen in 2026 as the home of the National Ornamental Metal Museum!
December 26, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
thinking about the fancy lads who were like “you might not like elon but doge has some good ideas”
DOGE was A LOT less likely to cancel contracts from companies that donated money to Republicans than companies that donated to Democrats.
December 26, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
"Snowfall in December"
a typewriter poem
from Chicago Artisan Market
by yours truly!
poemswhileyouwait.tumblr.com/post/8040055...
poemswhileyouwait
"Snowfall in December" by Kathleen Rooney -- Chicago Artisan Market, 12.14.25
poemswhileyouwait.tumblr.com
December 26, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
This is why it’s so important to trace things back to the beginning whenever possible.

I believe @rauchway.bsky.social calls these “historical urban legends”
looking up the source of quotes, whether for a book or a video script, is great for figuring out when a quote everyone "knows" and has repeated for ages is actually just weird bullshit someone else made up
December 26, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
Then we used the wonderful @sabrlandmarks.bsky.social map to find a few other notable baseball grave sites on the far south side of Chicago, including Negro Leagues greats Rube Foster and Bruce Petway.
December 26, 2025 at 5:03 AM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
The Christmas Day baseball tour tradition continues with @shoelesspodcast.bsky.social and @pulhitzherprize.bsky.social! Today we paid our respects to my Internet namesake for the past quarter-century with a visit to Buck Weaver’s grave.
December 26, 2025 at 4:53 AM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
Lonely and berserk.
December 26, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
Letter to Santa from “first floor, back of a big yellow house” in Chicago, 1912.
December 25, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
Letter to Santa from Chicago, 1912
December 25, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Reposted by Robert Loerzel
Bison return to Kane County after 200 years, a crucial step for conservation and Indigenous connection. Come for @adrianaperez.bsky.social great story, stay for Jason Wambsgans' great photos www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/25/b...
Bison return to Kane County after 200 years, a crucial step for conservation and Indigenous connection
Citizens can help monitor the prairie and bison, and Native Americans can reconnect to their roots under a community science program.
www.chicagotribune.com
December 25, 2025 at 9:14 PM
French media call beavers "an ally in the fight against climate change."
Longtemps chassé, le castor est aujourd'hui un allié dans la lutte pour le climat. A la force de ses dents et 365 jours par an, il protège les écosystèmes face à l’intensification des inondations, sécheresses et canicules.
«En inondant les terres, il recrée des zones humides» : en Isère, le castor fait barrage au réchauffement
Longtemps chassé, le rongeur est aujourd’hui reconnu comme un allié qui, à la force de ses dents, protège les écosystèmes face à l’intensification des inondations, sécheresses et canicules.
www.liberation.fr
December 25, 2025 at 8:25 PM