Jack of All Trades

By Margaret Hicks in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 30, 2006 4:30PM

We here at Chicagoist like to think we’re always learning, moving forward, and expanding who we are. For example, we’re getting pretty good at building a viable city on Sim City 4, we’re learning to actually run on the treadmill instead of falling, and we seem to have this internets thing pretty well figured out.

And we felt alright about that until we checked out the website of Chicago-native, Adam Langer. As far as we can tell, Langer is a: journalist, actor, playwright, film maker, film producer, screenwriter, theater critic, novelist, stand-up comedian, radio news writer, and radio producer.

Did we mention we can run for a solid ten minutes, as long as we look straight ahead?

Langer is obviously a tour de force and stays true to his Chicago roots. His two novels “Crossing California” and “The Washington Story” are both set in West Rogers Park and complement each other in timelines. “Crossing California” is set in the 1970’s and tells the story of three intertwining families, and “The Washington Story” is set in the same neighborhood in the 1980’s. Langer had this to say about "The Washington Story" on his website, “To me, the 1980’s were about dreams unfulfilled, about failed potential, about finding your way when you realized that the future wasn’t quite what you thought it might be.”

Huh…did you know that big, hot thing in the kitchen cooks raw food?

You can see Adam Langer on Thurs., March 30; 6:00 p.m. in the Simpson Living Learning Center, 6333 N Winthrop, admission is free.