The Loop is a novel by Joe Coomer about a thirty-year-old orphan who becomes fixated on the cryptic sayings of a ninety-year-old parrot. Lyman (the main character) tries to find meaning in various meaningless situations in the hopes that this will somehow help him to reconstruct his own past.

Eventually, Lyman names the parrot Luke; throughout the novel Luke-the-parrot says many strange things.

The loop is something you in which you can be 'in' or 'out'. If you're in the loop, you're privy to the gossip or activities of your peer group. If you're out of the loop, you probably don't even know it yet - you'd better ask someone who is in the loop.

An area of downtown Chicago, Illinois, of approximately 36 square blocks bounded by Lake Street to the north, Van Buren Street to the south, Wells Street to the west, and Wabash Avenue to the east. The elevated train, or "el" tracks, run above these streets to form a large circle around the enclosed blocks.

In less strict terms, the broader Loop area is generally considered to run from Wacker Drive on the north to Congress Drive on the south, and from Wacker Drive on the west to Michigan Avenue on the east.

As in Nelly's "I'm from the Loop and I'm proud" is a reference to the Delmar Loop in University City (U City), in Saint Louis County, MO. The Loop (and much of U City) is an area that mixes college students with low income housing and edgy shops/restaurants/etc. Several (formerly) main thoroughfares in the St. Louis area run in a rough semicircle around the city, hence the Loop.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.