Joe Skonie : Indexer, Musician & On-again-Off-again Pedicabber : Chicago, IL

April 4-6, 2020 & October 19-20, 2020

Someone once said, “Being a hero is largely a matter of knowing one’s cues”…I’ll take this as my cue.

Joe Skonie is a human of many talents, interests and mysteries. He is just-right combinations of mischievous and sincere. I met him when he was visiting from Austin where he was pedicabbing and finishing up his degree in writing. From our first meeting we were able to have endlessly amusing conversation, the type where it actually stays engaging and you move from location to location, topic to topic. Since then, I have had the privilege of getting to know Joe more and witness his move from Austin back to Chicago, starting a new chapter in his life. Joe is an incredible songwriter with the most delicate touch of whimsy in his lyrics and tone and one of my favorite virtual events over this past year has been tuning into his live shows.

Recently, Joe has done the coolest career move ever and has decided to get into professional indexing. Yes! Like, the indexes in the backs of books. That’s a separate job for someone! I am endlessly fascinated by this process and line of work and I just think it is the coolest. He is also equally talented as a wordsmith and wrote a piece for a series I was doing a couple of years on the topic of nostalgia that I still think about. You can check it out on his website and see some more of his work.

So scroll down to read some of Joe’s pages from both April and October of last year of shelter in place, and following (real and imagined) trains of thought, learn some Star Wars facts, and try your hand at besting Joe at a game of chess:

 October 2020