- Warren William in The Mind Reader, which was cowritten by Mizner
Once every week or two I attend a preview screening for work at the Showplace ICON in the South Loop. To make myself feel better about having to go there, I try to stop at the Harold Washington Library on my way. The DVD collection at the Harold Washington stirs my enthusiasm for movies as effectively as the ICON suppresses it. Every time I browse the Harold Washington shelves I find at least one film I’ve wanted to see for ages but didn’t know was on DVD, as well as several I haven’t heard of at all. Whoever selects the CPL’s movies has got to be one of the best programmers in town.
I get the impression that people didn’t go to the Brown Derby for the food, but for the novelty of eating in a building that resembled a giant hat. In a sense, the restaurant was a giant advertisement for itself, an exercise in showmanship for its own sake. The young narrator-hero of The Neddiad describes it with even greater enthusiasm than he describes meeting movie stars. That’s a typical Pinkwater masterstroke, showing how the most ridiculous products of pop culture can elicit the same wonder in children as the most sophisticated. And why not? They’re all part of the same industry, after all—show business, spectacle, scamming, or whatever you choose to call it.
- Chalmers Butterfield/Wikimedia Commons
- The original Brown Derby Restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California
