Today's Tribune column: "Open Air conditioning mechanisms."

Alongside the remainder of the annual Harvest Homecoming, Fringe Fest at Bank Street Brewhouse opens today at 2:00 p.m. I decided to leave HH and FF out of the weekly column, instead focusing on aftermath of Monday's council meeting, as modified by the experiences of a life spent drinking, and reading about drinking.

BAYLOR: Open Air conditioning mechanisms.

Modern literature in the West has produced numerous examples of the seasoned drinker as heroic protagonist, both compelling and doomed. These fictional creations reflect an existential aspect of the human condition. To be succinct, what is to be said or done when life’s fundamentally surreal futility seems better assayed through the bottom of a lifted glass, one quickly draining?