Works in progress: Michael Cooke

Michael Cooke, 2019, Magallanes, Chilean Antarctic region.

     Michael Cooke introduced himself over the phone. Exactly 25 years ago. Hollinger had just bought the Sun-Times; their editorial team hadn't even arrived in Chicago. But I had written a column about Leanna Dorsett, a 13-year-old who collapsed and died in front of her class, a girl I had held as a premature infant born with cocaine in her system. Michael liked the column, wanted to know if I was on staff. I told him I was.
     We formed a sort of mutual admiration society. He respected my work. I admired his editorial brio and joie de vivre. After the Sept. 11, 2001 attack, I wanted to run a necessary illustration with my column without securing expensive permission. "Fuck 'em," he said. "We're a newspaper. Let 'em sue us."
     Not an attitude I encounter much lately.
     I could fill 10 pages with my relationship with Michael. When he moved to the New York Daily News, he brought me with him. For a crazy half year, I wrote columns in both papers. The most astounding thing is that, while most friendships tend to fade with time and distance, ours has survived. Six years ago he invited me to accompany him on a scientific cruise up the Antarctic Chilean coast, and we spent a delightful two weeks inspecting glaciers from Zodiac boats and hanging out in tango clubs. I don't have many friends who'd do that. In fact, only one, the sui generis Michael Cooke. He mentioned that, at 73, he's heading back to school, and I asked him to write a Works in Progress post. His report:

     As a boy, I loved the drama of the Bible. The parting of the Red Sea. Or when the slaves unfurl that big red carpet and out pops Elizabeth Taylor.

     I love it still, and am moved by its power and occasional relevance. The phrase “threescore and ten” stands tall in the King James Version — my old school Bible — with the glory of a royal decree: “The days of our years are threescore years and ten.”
     And then that’s it. Curtain drop. Maybe a sad encore if you’re lucky.
     What terrifies me isn’t the precise number — I’m 73 — it’s the nightmare fear of squeezing out a few more encore years and then one random Friday morning in the “residence”getting strapped naked into a mechanical hoist and being slowly lowered to death in a tub of scalding water by a caregiver busy texting a boyfriend.
     So every day is bonus time. There are still things I want to see:

     • a baby being born.
     • the opening of a big archeological find
     • a woman bursting out of a cake. Don’t ask why. It’s a classic. Doable. Let me have this.
     OK maybe those are a bit cliche-y so here’s another: the older I get the more I realize I have so much to learn. That’s why I’m going back to school this fall. Online but serious. Call it a work in progress.
     I was a poor high school student. At least according to five years’ of term reports from a variety of teachers at Lancaster Royal Grammar School in the northwest of England, where I struggled from 1963 to 1969 … the teachers were called "masters" and nothing says pedagogical gravitas like a medieval job title.

      The school was founded in 1256 when beer was safer to drink than water and carrots were in their original color – purple. My school held on to as many traditions as possible over the centuries, including using blackboards not whiteboards and discipline was delivered with a cane rather than a conversation. (Thank you for asking: several times actually, mostly for “impertinence.”) The masters swept about in black gowns and the buildings today still look like the ones you see at Hogwarts.
     I loved that school. That school didn’t love me. To them I was the Band-Aid on the bottom of the pool. The headmaster pulled the plug and tossed me out at 16, never to sit in a classroom again.
     Here are some of the zingers the masters wrote about me in the reports sent to my mother and father:

Age 11:
     English class: “He is always ready with an answer in class but it is rarely the right one. He never seems to grasp the essential point of any piece of work because he has already decided what the lesson is about before it begins.”
Age 12:
     Geography: “Loquacious but illegible. He is very knowledgeable on agrarian matters but his written work has not shown the same keenness.”    
      Form Master: “He has an impudent manner which gets him into trouble.”
Age 13:
     Latin: “He is very reluctant to work. Progress is therefore slight.”
     Form Master: “He is a pleasant boy. He is always lively in class.”
Age 14:
     Chemistry class: “He has made little effort to learn anything and so has had little success.”"
     Form Master" “He remains a cheerful character and has done well as Class Captain.”
Age 15:
     Form Master: “He can produce sound work when he tries.”
Age 16:
     Form Master: “Interest is shown in some subjects and a lack of it in others.”  

     When I was 50 — a full score shy of my King James–allotted threescore and ten — and Editor-in-Chief of the Chicago Sun-Times, the old school summoned me back to England to deliver the annual Speech Day address.
     To tell you the truth, I got off a few zingers myself as I grinned from the podium, the ancient hall filled with teenage versions of myself — all fidget, ambition, and barely concealed boredom.
     But I swear a few boys grinned back.
     Now I’m going back to class, going deep on the King James Bible where so many of today’s phrases come from such as ….
     Bite the dust
     To put words in someone’s mouth
     A wolf in sheep’s clothing
     Dozens and dozens first in English in that Bible: A law unto themselves/ A stumbling block /A thief in the night / A thorn in the side / Den of thieves / Eat, drink and be merry / Fell flat on his face / Fight the good fight / In the twinkling of an eye / Land of Nod / Money is the root of all evil / Out of the mouths of babes / The blind leading the blind / The signs of the times / The skin of my teeth and, well, etc. etc.
     King James’ language and cadence has shaped literature, music, political speeches, and idioms since 1611. Lincoln was a serious student so I’ll be in good company. His Gettysburg address is drenched with the King’s style and themes, starting with “fourscore and seven years ago.”
     Shakespeare was deeply influenced too. Check it out.

     I missed Shakespeare completely at school but I plan to get to him. Threescore and ten is stretchable.

Going up river with Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey, plus another guy

     "Even if it's just you and me and Lee, we'll have fun," I told my wife, of the architectural river tour I'm hosting Aug. 21. An indication of my mindset when writing this — tickets were expensive, and we needed to sell a bunch of them. So I crafted the best sales pitch I could. 

     Completely unnecessarily, as it turned out. What I never contemplated, not for a second, was that all the tickets would sell out in a couple hours on Thursday, when they opened sales for supporters of Chicago Public Media. I was shocked, and unsure if the column should even run. But I played with the ending, and we decided to go ahead. The response was very gratifying, and I appreciate everyone who signed up.

     So. July melts into August. Summer about half over. Are you having fun? What is fun, anyway? There’s small fun: drinking coffee on your porch fun. Tossing cards into a hat fun.
     And big fun. Big Chicago fun. Enjoying the unique activities that only a city like Chicago can provide.
     Such as? What are peak Chicago summer experiences? A Cubs game at Wrigley Field. A hot dog and fries at Gene & Jude’s. To me, it isn’t summer unless I stop by MingHin, grab some dim sum and then meet my wife at the Gehry bandshell in Millennium Park to listen to ... well, honestly, I don’t really care what we listen to. Music. Blues, jazz, opera. Whatever.
     A Chicago River cruise fits perfectly into the mix. Frankly, the Water Taxi works for me. But the ideal, full, peak cruise experience is the Chicago Architecture Center cruise. Because the buildings along the Chicago River, well, they’re Chicago's glory, aren’t they? I can’t tell how many times I’ve taken that cruise. Filling my pockets with informational coin that I can dole out for years to come.
     Although, the last time — I had trouble. The docent, she was very nice, and, ah, informed, in a gentle, volunteer, small town librarian sort of way. And it isn’t as if the information she was telling us was wrong, per se. But I found myself almost biting my hand, struggling not to interject the sharper facts she was overlooking.
     How can you point out the Tribune Tower and not use the phrase “Gothic horror show of a building”? (Okay, neo-Gothic horror show ...) How can you mention the 1922 architecture contest that selected this mess of flying buttresses — the best the Middle Ages have to offer — and not observe that the truly innovative design, Eliel Saarinen‘s far superior and influential, though never built, tower, came in second?
     Or that Tribune publisher Robert McCormick — a world class xenophobe and Hitler bootlicker — sent his correspondents to beg, borrow or steal chunks of the great landmarks of the world, the Parthenon and Taj Mahal and such, to embed in the outside wall at ground level in his monument to American exceptionalism. A staggeringly misguided display of architectural homeopathy that would revolt us if we weren’t so familiar with it.
     See how fun this is? Musing on how I could both enjoy the summer and raise some money for my financially struggling newspaper, I cooked up what we’re calling the Sun-Times Roast of the Chicago Skyline. A gloves-off, no-holds-barred, sharp, adult architectural river cruise. Not for the faint of mind.
     Although. Since I do like to have an adult in the room — someone who really knows the topic, and can backstop me if I go blank, plus share the inevitable blame — I invited Sun-Times architecture critic Lee Bey to join me. And in a very uncharacteristic bit of recklessness, he agreed.
     Lee, who worked for both Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and the city, brings a granular knowledge of the buildings we'll be drifting past, and will keep things from getting too negative. I’m with him there. I mean, I got married at the Intercontinental Hotel. It isn’t that I don’t like it. But the former Medinah Athletic Club, well, it’s also very strange, with those big Assyrian bas reliefs of bulls and kings and whatnot. What were they thinking? We'll tell you. For 90 minutes.
     In a city like Chicago, there's a lot to keep track of. I was talking Saturday to a young lady of my acquaintance, who conflated the Willis Tower and the John Hancock Building, now 875 N. Michigan.
     When I pointed this out, she said, “Aren’t they the same building?”

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