In December 2020 Pocket Guide to Hell became a radio show on WLPN. In each episode hosts Paul Durica and Elliot Heilman explore the intersections of art, politics, and culture as illuminated by Chicago’s past. Along the way, they talk with people doing interesting history projects in the city or working with archives and collections accessible to the public.
Pocket Guide to Hell airs on the first and third Thursday of every month on Lumpen Radio 105.5 FM, WLPN.
Listen to conversations from the first two seasons of the show below.
Season 1:
Episode 1: A Great Drama
Elliot and Paul discuss the centennial of women’s suffrage and its legacy with the Chicago League of Women Voters’ Anne Jamieson and learn about the Parkway Community House and the Vivian G. Harsh Collection with Chicago Public Library’s Beverly Cook.
Episode 2: The Lost City
Graffiti artist Gloria Talamantes and historian Carl Smith help Elliot and Paul understand what Chicago’s built environment reveals about our shared past.
Episode 3: This City’s Not Ready for Reform
Elliot and Paul explore corruption on the ballfield and in the city council with author Bill Savage and journalist Paul Dailing.
Episode 4: Building, Breaking, Rebuilding
Preservation Chicago’s Ward Miller talks with Elliot and Paul about the challenges facing architectural preservation in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, and 25th Ward Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez shares his thoughts on a proposed landmark district in the Pilsen neighborhood.
Episode 5: The Day Will Come
The Illinois Labor History Society’s Larry Spivack and Alma Washington talk with Elliot and Paul about the legacy of activist Lucy Parsons and the significance of the 1886 bombing in Haymarket Square, while journalist Aimee Levitt lays out the history of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #7 and how its past is impacting our present.
Episode 6: Small Pieces of the Past
Button Power authors Christen Carter and Ted Hake talk with Paul and Elliot about the history of button-making in Chicago and the role these small objects play in preserving our past, while Nance Klem gets our hosts thinking about the past beneath our feet and how close study of the soil itself helps us understand our city and communities.
Season 2:
Episode 1: The Sound of Heaven and Hell
Journalist Sam Cholke joins Elliot and Paul to talk about the first synthesizer, created here in Chicago, while Cultural Historian Emeritus Tim Samuelson suggests that the city’s most significant musical contribution isn’t what you might think.
Episode 2: Ever Evolving Bastion of Freakdom
Elliot and Paul talk about Chicago zine history and culture with zinesters Eric Bartholomew of Junk Drawer, Joe Mason of Chicago Gets 4 Stars, and Liz Mason of caboose and Quimby’s bookstore.
Episode 3: Get Caponi!
Paul talks with Elliot about efforts the find the earliest references to Al Capone and then with John Corbett and Julia Klein about a “lost” encyclopedia of the Chicago underworld, Bullets for Dead Hoods.
Episode 4: Chicago’s 7 Most Endangered
Paul talks with Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago, about the nonprofit’s annual list of the seven most endangered structures and spaces in Chicago.
Episode 5: All Politics is Local
Paul and Elliot look at the 150th anniversary of William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech, given in Chicago, and the 50th anniversary of the publication of Mike Royko’s Boss with musician Justin Amolsch and scholar Bill Savage.
Episode 6: We’re All In This Together
Artist Nicole Marroquin talks about her project around the student-led protests in 1968 at Harrison High School and 1973 at Froebel High School while Dr. Allen Helm discusses the 1955 polio vaccination effort in Chicago.