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Hecht, Ben, 1894-1964

"A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago"

Amputations.
The night shapes increase. There are buildings. They drift along the river
docks. Dark windows and faded brick lines. Their rooftops are like the
steps of a giant stairway that has broken down. Where is the moon? Here
are windows to mirror its distant silver. Instead, the windows sleep. The
nervous electric signs that wink and do tricks throw an intermittent glare
over the windows.
Do you know the dark windows of the city, you gentlemen who write
continually of temples and art? Come, forget your love for things you
never saw, cathedrals and parthenons that exist in the yesterdays you
never knew. Come, look at the fire escapes that are stamped like letter
Z's against the mysterious rectangles; at the rhythmic flight of windows
whose black and silver wings are tipped with the yellow winkings of the
corset and ice cream signs. The windows over the dark river are like an
alphabet, like the keyboard of a typewriter. They are like anything you
want them to be. You have only to wish and the dark windows take new
patterns.
Wall shapes arise. Warehouses that have no windows. Huge lines loom in the
shadows. A vast panel of brick without windows rises, vanishes. Buildings
that stand like playing blocks.


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