When I ask my friend Amy Callahan why she became a fire dancer, her amused look seems to say, “Duh, Cara it’s fi-re!” Aloud she says, “I saw some people doing it in a nightclub and I thought it was way cool. At the time, I was into fitness competitions and bodybuilding. I’m not terribly competitive, but I figured out I really like putting on a show in tiny costumes.” Add fire, and she finds the combo irresistible. “I get a kick out of making the crowd go, ‘Oooh! Ahhh!’”

Amy twirled batons as a girl, and she’s been a performer and athlete most of her life, including: a cheerleader, belly dancer, clown, yoga instructor, and swing dancer. So when she apprenticed with a fire performer she learned fast. Within a few weeks she was spinning flaming torches.

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“…the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn…” Jack Kerouac.

My girlfriend and I came to Chicago because we plan to drive Route 66, and it would seem wrong to hit that storied road without slipping into Chicago’s notorious past. That means jazz. If you’re going to jazz it up right, late night’s the ticket. It’s almost 10:00 when we grab a cab to take us to the oldest continuously operating jazz club in Chicago, an old speakeasy called the Green Mill.

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’Tis the season of special effects glasses. This time it’s not 3-D, but HoloSpex, whatever that means. I don’t want to spend the extra dollar. A young guy leans over to me and says, “They’re totally worth it,” in the conspiratorial whisper of a pot dealer. Not that I’d know from direct experience.

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