Matt Carmichael

Chicago via Woodstock // Illinois // Managing Editor J Am Coll Surg

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

are you of the chippewa falls masons?

no, the, uh, montclare masons, actually

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

the mothership

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

the sixpenny bit

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

little libraries of chicago 🤘

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

i❤️mt pleasant

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

there are 4 spots left in my class https://t.co/YnkCgZIBUf

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

dr wilhelm loeser (aka ralph robiend) had it all. a prussian immigrant who came to chicago as a boy, he earned his medical degree in 1905 and built a practice as a licensed pharmacist and high-profile plastic surgeon to the stars of the gold coast.

but the honeymoon wouldn't last, and before long the intoxicating allure of the city paired with an ease of access put him on the wrong side of the law.

in 1913, loeser was sentenced to three years for dealing narcotics.

but he would only serve 18 of those 36 months, thanks to one fast-talking acquaintance named louis piquett, a former train-hopping stanford track star who went on to box professionally up and down the west coast, pursing enough money to open a cigar shop in san francisco that would later go up in smoke during the earthquake of 1906, and who was now a bartender and naturally corrupt democrat with connections to city hall. as such, he used his influence to grease the time loeser would serve.

loeser was paroled and fled the country, swearing never to return to chicago ever, ever again...

unless, the plastic surgeon thought to himself on the train south, as the skyline receded proportionately into the facial cavity of night...unless some handsome, robin-hood type rabble-rouser were to ever offer me thousands of dollars to come back and perform radical, law-evading facial alterations.

as luck would have it, some twenty or so years later, a yung thug called "jimmy lawrence" was offering thousands of dollars to smooth out some scars, clean up a few moles, and hammer out a chin dimple so he could do things like go to the biograph theater with colorfully dressed women and watch clark gable films without being identified and shot by federal agents.

when loeser (who was by then down in mexico, by the sea, working on his boat) received word of the potential commission, he chuckled at the absurdity of the loophole having actually presented itself, and then he hailed a cab back home.

take me to 2509 n crawford ave in chicago, safehouse of the mobster james jimmy probasco! he told the driver.

over the next 48 hours, loeser and another surgeon named harold cassidy went to work on jimmy lawrence. they used kangaroo tendon to lookmaxx his cheekbones and a solution of caustic acid was employed to erase the patient's fingerprints. at one point during the operation, jimmy lawrence was overdosed on ether, swallowed his tongue, and stopped breathing.

the whole ordeal was a botched disaster. the kangaroo tendon dissolved into painful and agonizing facial infections, the acid barely burnt the outer layer of skin, leaving the loops and whorls of his fingerprints completely visible, and fellow outlaw homer van meter, who was operated on next door, hated his own mangled face so much he pulled a gun on loeser and demanded a full refund. louis piquett, who had brokered the surgery, called the procedures a total failure and refused to pay the surgeons their fee.

by the time the bill coding was settled, jimmy lawrence was a fresh new man, but not new enough for the unblinking gaze of law enforcement. despite the new appearance, a tenacious young fbi agent named melvin purvis still recognized jimmy lawrence standing outside the movie theater later that summer. purvis lit a cigar, and the rest is history.

and that clerk, jimmy lawrence? his real name was john herbert dillinger... america's first public enemy no. 1.

it was a good job the surgeon did, purvis later remarked, but i knew him the minute i saw him.

and now you know... the rest of the sto--

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

sv ivan rilski in portage park; cool church with neat details

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

the mothership

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

division and mason, home of the ancient & accepted

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

babe’s bar

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

homes of logan circle

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

@other_st_nick

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

@BalrogJohnson gale street inn

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

back in the banger. happy hour w/ my favorite double fister

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

@Michael57411407 hell yeah

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

columbia heights

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

meridian hill park in dc is a fine place to spend some time...here i learned about the great american concretist, john joseph earley, inventor of 'the earley process,' a mixing technique that freed concrete from the bondages of clean, orderly utilitarian construction and transformed it into a wild and vibrant artistic medium.

probably unrelated: on sundays now people gather here for legendary drum circles and certain corners of the park operate more or less like open-air drug markets

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

‘the jeff’; since 1970

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

data vis tool feat. illinois snapshot https://t.co/L0FJP4c00R

[Matt Carmichael @MttCarmichael]

this week during clinical congress in dc we published a paper in jacs on access to surgical care in the us. @TIME has nice write up about it.
there is also a neat data visualization tool you can use to look at surgical access by area in any state (link in next tweet); it's good for researchers and policymakers and house hunters and great american road-trippers who are generally unhealthy or prone to accident/plagued by chronic episodes of misfortune that might necessitate operative care
https://t.co/JKQm92HsXT