Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Can a 'normal person' become governor?


      J.B. Pritzker gave another $7 million to his own gubernatorial campaign Friday.
     Which, doing the math, is roughly the equivalent of me spending $700 on a plumber.
     Except it isn’t, my finances being a lot more close to the bone than his. I miss $700 more than he misses $7 million.
     We both get value for our money. I get a new boiler pump. And Pritzker airs TV commercials like the one I saw Monday night, a poignant spot with melancholy piano music and J.B. talking about his mother, who died of alcoholism. A medley of emotion, trying to humanize the billionaire.
     It works. He comes off as very lifelike.
     Which is more than what could be done for Gov. Bruce Rauner, who couldn’t be rendered human if Leo Burnett and J. Walter Thompson rose up from the grave and gave him the head-to-toe buffing makeover that Dorothy Gale gets upon arrival at the Emerald City.


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Tuesday, November 14, 2017

Books on the nightstand



     When an opponent's king is under attack in chess and cannot escape to safety, the victorious player announces "checkmate!" 
      Now that's an odd word, "checkmate." What is being checked? Who is mating?
      Nobody. "Checkmate" is a transliteration—a foreign phrase spelled out in English letters—of the Arabic shah-mat, or "the king is dead," a relic of the game's ancient Persian origins, hidden in plain sight.
      If you find that interesting, I have a book for you: It's All a Game: The History of Board Games from Monopoly to Settlers of Catan by British writer Tristan Donovan (St. Martin's: $26.99).  I noticed its attractive cover in the New Books section at the Northbrook Public Library a few weeks ago and took it home, where it came in handy after I was laid low with a bad cold over the past few days. There's nothing quite so comforting as an engaging book to distract yourself from your ailments.
     I've always loved games, from when I was cutting my teeth on Candyland—that lovely block of Neapolitan ice cream!—all the way through the usual suspects: Trouble, Mousetrap, Monopoly, Risk, Clue, chess, checkers—to more esoteric games, like 3M bookshelf games Breakthru and Twixt. One of my best friends gave me a wooden game as a wedding present—Cathedral—and its been on our coffee table for 27 years. I play Scrabble daily on Facebook, and have six or seven games going at a time. When my wife and I were discussing what we wanted to do when the boys were home from college over Thanksgiving, I said, "I wouldn't mind getting in a game of Settlers of Catan."
     Games are little frames to live in; they add significance, companionship, fun and satisfaction to life, an activity that I might not be able to win at, generally, but I sure can win at Scrabble. So I'm a soft target for this book, and Donovan delivers.
     He takes his time, starting with the games discovered in Egyptian tombs before diving into chess, a Siberia that some writers get lost in, but giving us just enough and no more, making all sorts of connections I'd never seen suggested, such as the queen becoming a powerful piece around the time that queens in England and Spain were exerting unprecedented power.  
Original Staunton knight
Elgin Marbles
     He answers questions I never thought to ask, like where the designs for the classic Staunton chess set came from: "The knight continued the neoclassical theme by echoing the straining horse that pulls the chariot of the moon goddess Selene in the Elgin Marbles, which had been removed from the Parthenon in Greece and placed in the British Museum in 1816."
     The book doesn't neglect recent history, as with the almost-too-detailed description of how Prince Alexis Obolensky revived backgammon as a game of the jet set in the 1960s and 1970s. I remember we all trotted off to college with slim backgammon briefcases in the last 1970s; but I never realized we did so because we had been indoctrinated by a Russian nobleman.
     Not that It's All a Game merely digs up entertaining minutia about games. Donovan uses each particular game to shed light on the historical contexts surrounding it.  Before we're allowed to play Risk, we get a history of war games, from the German Kriegsspiel to the unexpected role that Japanese war-gaming played in the success of their attack on Pearl Harbor. 
    The Game of Life becomes a disquisition on middle class ambition. Those who can't attain Millionaire Acres end up in a tiny house, "destitute and disgraced" and "reduced to living on Social Security." Monopoly began as The Landlord's Game,  Illinois-born activist Elizabeth Magie's effort to publicize the dangers of monopoly capitalism and promote a land value tax. Players were supposed to be horrified that only one player got all the money while the rest went broke.
    They weren't. The game morphed as players made homemade sets, many in the economics departments of schools, until the early 1930s when Charles Darrow—who contrary to received wisdom did not invent the game at all—copied a set from a friend, got an artist to improve the graphics, and sold it to Parker Brothers (I was pleased that Donovan's research agrees with mine, for my Chicago book, that Dowst Manufacturing, makers of charm bracelet figures and Cracker Jack prizes, was tapped for the original game tokens. He doesn't mention it, but the tokens were originally freebies given away to children by laundries; the flat iron in Monopoly came from a token designed for the Flat Iron Laundry on Halsted Street). 
    There's quite a bit of Chicago in the book, such as the sad tale of Marvin Glass and Associates, the toy company created by Glass, a brilliant but troubled man. 
    Donovan doesn't quite come out and say it, but The Landlord's Game languished while Monopoly became wildly popular for the same reason regular folk today shrug off programs that would help them while coddling the rich whose ranks they dream of joining.
     "If Monopoly seemed like a celebration of dog-eat-dog capitalism, that's because that is really what people wanted it to be," writes Donovan. 
     The book isn't perfect. He winds up the story of each game with their experiments in brand extension—Star Wars Risk and such—which strike traditionalists as money-grubbing and wrong, but doesn't get into the emotional heft that each game carries, the cool, wood-tiled purity of Scrabble, the time-frittering, someting-to-do-while-you-drink-beer quality to backgammon. Games are tactile, or should be. My Clue set has an actual lead pipe: real lead, soft, you could bend it. 
     Lost in all the history is something of the joy of games, the memory of being with your pals and waking up with a Risk army pressed into your cheek (I became acquainted with the game in the early 1970s and looked long and hard for an old set: I didn't want the new plastic pieces; I wanted the old, wooden pieces. It mattered). 
     The history of Scrabble is outlined, and the compiling of Scrabble dictionaries, but its strange, almost compulsive allure is hardly hinted at.  People love this stuff; Donovan seems to only find it fascinating.
     Not to complain. It's All a Game is engaging and worthwhile. I'm still racing toward the end, so can't give the book a full summation. To me, games are like breakfast cereals, one of those products interwoven with childhood, melding nostalgia and delight. Donovan gives the world of games the serious historical treatment it deserves, while offering up whimsical tidbits, like how Marvin Glass and Associates gave the world both wind-up chattering teeth and fake vomit. Or how, in 1949, when Parker Brothers brought out Clue, it refused to advertise the product in magazines because they were worried about being publicly associated with a game based on murder. 


     

Monday, November 13, 2017

Today's sins against women rooted in religion


"Oedipus at Colonos" by Jean-Baptist Hugues (Musee d'Orsay) 
                             

     Religion fancies itself as manifesting the word of God.
     And with frequent evocation of morality, much soaring architecture and oft-inspiring music, it regularly does exactly that.
     However, a skeptical person — me for instance — gathering together all doctrines, could be forgiven for viewing orthodox religion as something else: an elaborate system to dominate women.
     Women get the short end of the stick in every major faith. The Judeo-Christian tradition certainly stumbles out of the blocks. No sooner is Eve crafted from Adam's rib — to give him a lackey, remember — than she gets mankind booted from the Garden of Eden, earning her painful childbirth and divinely ordained second-class citizenship forever ("And he shall rule over thee"). The starting gun to an endless series of indignities commencing with Genesis and rolling right up to Louis C.K.
     I won't take the time to outline the degradations served up by Islam, except to note that when Saudi Arabia allowed women to drive — in 2017 — it was considered a breakthrough. For all its spirituality, in Buddhism enlightenment is seen as something that doesn't happen to women.
     Thus, indignity over good Alabama Christians rushing to support Senate candidate Roy Moore after he was accused of molesting teenage girls seems naive, and makes me wonder: You are paying attention, right? Most Southern Republicans no doubt draw the line at exploiting teenage girls. But it also fits into the overall right-wing policy of scorning what real women actually want: equal pay, reproductive rights, health care, to not be treated as sexual playthings by any man who crosses their path. In their place is put what religion-addled men imagine women want, a second-class citizenship halfway to victimization. Sexual intimidation in this context isn't a lapse; it's baked into the system. Not a flaw, as the techies say, but a feature. Much of religion resembles the old-fashioned "virginity check" — an assault disguised as insistence on purity. It's no accident that one of Moore's defenders cited the story of Mary and Joseph as if it offered exoneration.

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Sunday, November 12, 2017

Coincidence happens



     "Do you realize," my wife said, "that the flowers you bought match the flowers on the pitcher exactly?"
      I stared dumbly in the direction of the bouquet.
     "Pink roses and yellow tulips," she prompted.
     "Of course," I said, improvising. "I thought that matching the pitcher would ... umm ... enhance the overall aesthetic effect."
      We gazed at one another. 
     "No, that's a lie," I confessed. "A complete coincidence. I picked out the pink roses because they looked best, and then added the tulips because the yellow and pink seemed to go together."
     At Mariano's, by the way, which has good prices on flowers—the roses were $10 for a dozen, the tulips a couple bucks more. The pitcher was nowhere in mind—in fact, I initially put them in our Dior vase, then only moved them into the pitcher because the cleaning ladies were coming and I didn't want them shattering our good vase. Sometimes they break stuff.
     The coincidence lingered with me though. I don't think we give random pairings—the flowers perfectly matching the vase—enough attention, which is why there is so much magical thinking in the world. You dream most nights, the days and weeks and months pass by, and odds are that, eventually, one of those dreams will correspond with something that happens later in the day. It doesn't make you a seer. It's just a coincidence.
     If I had to teach a high school class, I think I would call it "Accidents and Fabrications," and focus on the important, undervalued role of chance and deceit in our lives. We see too much imaginary order and supposed truth, and too little actual randomness and mendacity.
     That sort of thing happens a lot. I'm writing this on my new iMac, which I brought home last Sunday afternoon. An hour before I set it up, my old iMac, which had worked faithfully for eight years, bricked. Just died. Couldn't turn it on. All my files and photos, thank goodness, was backed up on a 1 terabyte Seagate hard drive—always, dear reader, have a back-up. But still, of all the times for the old machine to give up the ghost.
     "Maybe it was jealous of the new arrival," a colleague speculated.
     Yeah, that has to be it. Hell hath no fury like a computer scorned.

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Saturday fun activity: Where IS this?



     The moment I set eyes on this dim and cluttered place I thought, "Mmmm, could it...?" I know I'm batting zero when it comes to stumping readers on the Saturday fun activity—you just nail it every time. 
    But this is off-the-beaten track, almost the definition of off-the-beaten-trackiness, this private space in a public place, and I thought it might possibly provide a little challenge. At least it provided an excuse to bring back the Fun Activity for a special, one-day-only appearance to test my hypothesis.
     Where is this shabby room? Since I imagine someone will nail it at 7:01 a.m., I'll need a prize ... how about a volume from the official Kennedy assassination report? Sure to distinguish any coffee table. I'm cleaning out my office for the big move next week and just can't take it all with me. Someone will cherish the thing. Or not. Hard to tell.
    Anyway, place your guesses below. Good luck. Have fun. 


The Vital Role of Snacks in Recovery From Addiction


     The Saturday Fun Activity is back for a surprise visit—I found myself in a location that I thought might stump you. And since that, traditionally, the Fun Activity doesn't post until 7, I thought I would let you know, and give you something to consider until then: I'm speaking about recovery at Harper College a week from Tuesday, and, well, to be honest, I'll feel silly if it's just me. Please do consider coming. Not only is it free to attend, but there are snacks and, really, who doesn't like snacks? In fact, that is the theme of my talk: "The Vital Role of Snacks in Recovery from Addiction."

     Kidding, the talk is titled, "Recovery is the True Path of the Hero," a theme which I'm looking forward to discussing, ideally with you, Nov. 21. And yes, there really will be snacks.


Friday, November 10, 2017

Being alive is heroism aplenty


     In truth, we are but sentient gnats, crawling around an enormous, churning, steamy globe which, in turn, is itself a mere warm speck hurtling through the black and frozen void of  a generally empty cosmos utterly indifferent to us, we moist splats of life that ooze and wheeze and shudder for a single instant and then vanish forever.
     So of course we try to puff ourselves up, concocting awaiting heavens filled with ornate glory. Of course we conjure golden deities lavishing their divine attention on our endlessly significant selves. Four score years of messy life is not enough, we are not satisfied just to exist, that highest of honors and rarest of privileges. No, we need to also be brave, strong, peerless, both the apex of nature and the pinnacle of humanity, standing on the heads of our lessers, basking in their praise. 

     Saturday is Veterans Day. Patriotic soul that I am, enamored with tales of action and courage, I was excited to stumble upon one of those amazing tales so apt on such holidays: an aged vet, his heroic deed unsung, the story told now, just in time, before the waves of time and memory roll over the champion. I made my phone calls, then visits, conducted my interviews, took my notes, transcribed my recordings, scoured the internet, read dozens of pages of material.  I began to write. I had tears in my eyes. Thrilling stuff. Heroism.
     It was 4 a.m. Thursday when my eyes, now dry, blinked open and I thought: "What if this isn't true?"
     Because really, as much as I dug, it came down to an amazing story that one man was saying, richly detailed, filled with verisimilitude, facts and dates and places, official-looking documents that, on closer inspection, did not quite prove what had been claimed. It was an incredible tale, which was the problem. Incredible is very close to "not credible," or should be.
     I'm not going into the exact details, not to be coy, but because the story isn't in the paper, in part, because we don't want to out the guy. A major metro daily is a big bazooka to turn on an individual whose crime is, in essence, losing touch with reality, concocting a self-flattering fantasy and taking it to market to see if anyone will buy it. We're not the sheriff of old men basking in unearned glory. A few hours of frantic extra digging showed that not only wasn't it true, but other people already knew it wasn't true. "The entire story is fiction" said one historian I found at the last minute. "His claim is preposterous."   
     I can't remember ever yanking a story in this fashion, and as much as it represents a fuck-up on my part—I was rushing to make Veterans Day, and should have done this work last week, should have pressed harder, sooner. But I was mesmerized by the narrative, incredulous at the idea that someone could construct it all out of whole cloth, and certain that as I beavered away through his story that the verification I needed would present itself on the next page, just around the next corner.

   It didn't. 
     My bosses saved me, because I was happy to serve up the entire complicated mess as it was, a steaming bowl of contradiction, as a story that might be true, might not—you decide! You got a tale of heroism plus, as a bonus, a nagging mystery to unpack. I convinced myself it was even better this way. Complicated and enigmatic, like life itself. 
     That just won't fly, the editors chorused. Keep digging. I did, and on Thursday afternoon found one, two, three smoking guns. A damning archival document dredged out of a military web site and my two concurring historians.
     I felt so good, almost proud, standing at the edge of that cliff, pinwheeling my arms. Let me tell you why. We judge the media by what they publish, but we should also judge them by what they do not publish when a story falls below our standards. The rampant speculation, fabrication and distortion that geysers online, particularly from the Right Wing press, is anathema to those of us in what they glibly slur as "fake news." We sweat this stuff, or try to. 
     Up until yesterday, I was worried that any doubt I cast on his story would be seen as insulting a hero, and I had an answer ready. Challenged, I would say this:
     The soldiers who we honor today were not fighting for the flag, not to venerate a piece of colorful cloth affixed to a stick. Rather they fought—and fight—for the freedom of thought that the flag represents, and what can be freer than to look at a thrilling tale and ask, "Is this true? Is the hero really a hero? Are the facts as they are being presented really facts?"
     Some leaders demand loyalty, blind obedience even. They tilt their heads back and puff out their lower lips as if they were Il Duce. That isn't America. America is a lean Yankee, stepping back and squinting his eye and examining the goods. Is this real? Is it quality? Or are you pulling the wool over my eyes, mister? We are a dubious country—at least those of us who haven't become eager dupes—and should always be proud of that. Skepticism is American. Credulity is not, or shouldn't be, though it too often is.
     So no column in the paper today. By the time the story was spiked it was after 3 p.m., and I was tapped. I put on my jacket and my cap and walked out into the gathering Chicago evening. The city was glittery in the twilight, the people rushing home, dark forms under twinkling lights. I felt oddly happy, the relief of a guy who almost stepped in front of a bus but then didn't, who pulled back or, rather, was pulled back by the steady hand of a heroic passerby. 
    It is a buoyant thing to be in the truth business, working with people I respect, who had my back, and in general a boon to be alive and to not feel the frantic need to be glorious or a hero or live forever. They suffer from a curse—born of deep insecurity and feelings of unworth, no doubt—a kind of addiction, as we see in people who have achieved wealth and fame yet find it never enough. Who need nine houses, or would scorch the planet and kneecap democracy so they can get an extra $10 billion in the next fiscal year. Breaking their teeth, King Midas style, on their golden fruit. 
     Give me real fruit. I hope I can continue mushing my face into a dripping melon, unseen and unremarked upon, grinning with simple satisfaction, blissfully ordinary, unheralded, mundane. That I can amble into my own decrepitude and, unlike this guy I got to know over the past few weeks, not find myself clawing at life as it recedes, trying to dig up a false distinction that I don't deserve, claiming to have secretly written "Infinite Jest" or beaten Barack Obama at pick-up basketball or won two Pulitzer Prizes. 
     This is not to pooh-pooh soldiers who do heroic things. That is definitely important, and something they should be proud of, assumed they did what they are supposed to have done, and something they should be honored for doing, especially today. Though a word to the wise: let others do the honoring. It's already suspect and half curdled when the praise comes from the hero himself. That said, to point out that we who never got the chance to rescue our crew mates and defeat the Germans single-handedly should not despair, nor be tempted to conjure up imaginary greatness for ourselves. There is a heroism in facing quotidian life, and we all do it, earning our medals the hard way, in anonymous solitude and silent struggle, every goddamn day.