I just received my very first grant to create a piece of art. At $700, it is one of the tiniest grants that the land ever birthed, but it was given to me by the City of Chicago, and so I shall look upon it as a stroke of fortune from the city that usually gives me nothing more than parking tickets and pollution-induced allergic reactions.  (The backstory: I applied for a CityArts grant to produce a longer version of Inside Fighter, the 20-minute play I created about the late, great, Phil Muscato, boxing legend.) And shockingly, several months past the supposed notification deadline, I received a fat packet in the mail with a ton of acceptance paperwork.

Wouldn’t be the city without paperwork.