🦅 "Winslow, Arizona; it's such a fine sight to see"

Squished pennies, The Eagles, and other musings [READER]( The Daily Reader I don't care much for the Eagles. I don't hate them; that suggests actively thinking about the band, which I rarely do. I find their music pleasant enough, though they've never been enough to satiate my listening needs and desires. Electing to listen to the Eagles feels like settling for saltines when you could have nachos. The Eagles muscled their way into my head last Friday, when I arrived in Winslow, Arizona. In the band's debut 1972 single, "Take It Easy," guitarist Glenn Frey sings, "Well, I'm a standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona / It's such a fine sight to see." Frey's lyrics (which he co-wrote with Jackson Browne) focus more on a woman eyeing him rather than the town itself, which I found rather anonymous and small. A two-lane road bisects its tiny downtown, which boasts a tourist attraction that debuted 27 years after "Take It Easy" dropped: Standin' on the Corner Park. And yes, a statue of Frey rests upright close to the intersection. I'm not immune to the draw of musical landmarks. Some of my favorite Reader stories are anchored by specific locations, be it Martin Sorrondeguy talking about the informal spaces where Los Crudos played in the 1990s or the gay bars that incubated the first wave of Chicago punk. Standin' on the Corner Park is a curious case: a polished replica of a reference designed to attract people to an intersection I might otherwise find unremarkable. It's a clean, innocuous patch of sidewalk that feels devoid of the kind of history that would attract me in the first place. Then again, I didn't stop in that section of Winslow for that monument to classic rock. I came looking for a tourist tchotchke: a squished penny. Or rather, I went to find a machine that can press a penny into a flat oval and emboss one side of it with a simple design. The squished penny concept made its debut here in Chicago at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and they became routine fixtures at roadside attractions around the country in the 1980s. I started collecting squished pennies when I was a kid. For one thing, I could afford them. Squished pennies usually cost 51 cents, and the most trouble I've had obtaining one is gathering the right change for the machines. As a kid, I enjoyed that I had a small role in creating my own souvenir. Most of the machines I've encountered require people to operate a crank that drops a penny between two large steel dies, an activity that's still pretty fun to partake in as an adult. They're small souvenirs too, which makes them easy to transport when the luggage I travel with doesn't have much extra room. I stopped collecting squished pennies sometime in middle school. But I got the itch to collect them again during a Memorial Day camping trip in Door County, when I found a machine in a coffee shop on Washington Island. I've since taken any opportunity I can to find the machines when there's one near where I'm traveling. Fortunately, there's a machine locator that takes the guessing out of the equation. At the end of my weeklong trip to Arizona, I wound up with 14 squished pennies. I like the designs, I like looking at these odd little pressed coins. I also like that they remind me of where I've been, and get me excited to see someplace new. Sincerely, "[The Woman Who Fell to E]( by Sasha Geffen (NPR) "[The Ephemeral Life of Blog Rap,]( by Nadine Smith (Bandcamp Daily) Cori, [Cori]( Children Maybe Later, [What a Flash Kick!]( More Eaze, [The Joker]( 🎚 [Leor's Turkey Day 2022 playlist]( [Bad Animal captures Chicago’s glimmering indie music scene]( The dreamy romantic drama is the first feature-length movie from local production company Emulsion Lab. by [Cam Cieszki]( [Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio]( by [Jonah Nink]( [Erica Mei Gamble releases a set of minimalist beats and electronics four years in the making]( Plus: John Walt Day returns to Metro with Pivot Gang and the DCG Brothers, and Matt Muse’s fourth Love & Nappyness Hair Care Drive wraps up with a Thalia Hall show. by [J.R. Nelson]( and [Leor Galil]( [Philadelphia band They Are Gutting a Body of Water keep shoegaze weird on Lucky Styles]( by [Luca Cimarusti]( ✨ THE UNGALA IS SEVEN DAYS AWAY! ✨ It's a [50-ish]( birthday bash you don't want to miss. [Issue of Nov. 10 – Nov. 23, 2022 Vol. 52, No.]( [Download Issue]( [View this e-mail as a web page]( [@chicago_reader]( [/chicagoreader]( [@chicago_reader]( [Chicago Reader on LinkedIn]( [/chicagoreader]( [chicagoreader.com]( [Forward this e-mail to a friend](. Want to change how you receive these e-mails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](. Copyright © 2022 Chicago Reader, All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: Chicago Reader, 2930 S. Michigan Ave., Suite 102, Chicago, IL 60616