Getting hung up on art

"Lyra" by Jessica Joslin

     Context is important.

     I went to the West Town Chamber of Commerce in Ukrainian Village on Friday night. Some of Tony Fitzpatrick's artist friends had gotten together to put on a show, "Black Swan Elegies," in his honor, and invited me. The Metra schedule gave me the choice of being a little early or a little late, and I chose early, so I could leisurely walk a cigar up Western and then east along Chicago Avenue. 

     I was the first guest there, so had time to  admire the various artworks, such as Jessica Joslin's dramatic bird above. 

     After I'd looked at the pieces, I went into the hallway, toward the front room, where there was a bar, and a spread of cookies. The choice was wine, but the bartender kindly dug up a bottle of chilled water for me. 

     Passing back through the hall, I noticed this line of little birds — Tony did like his birds —and appreciated their crisp uniformity, so snapped a photo.

    I looked for the placard, for the artist's name, the piece's title. But didn't notice one, and didn't think much of that. An oversight perhaps.

     More people arrived. I talked to friends in the front room. Then decided to go back into the gallery, now filling up with people. 

     Only then did I realize my mistake. For a bright guy, I can be extraordinarily dense. Do you see it coming? I certainly didn't. I had a good laugh at myself. Those unfortunates who have to always insist that they're right, even when they're wrong, never know the pleasure — nearly a joy — of having a good laugh at your own expense. Not art. A coatrack.

 

Stray photo

 

     This is weird. So my wife and I have dinner on Wednesday. We light candles for Hanukah. We watch a little TV, endure the president's pathetic rant. About 10 p.m., I walk the dog.
     Back at home, I go to post my photo of the four candles on the blog — I figure, this is a year to be Jewish a little more prominently. Show we're not afraid. I'm not afraid, anyway. Not yet.
     I look at my photos, and there's the black and white photo above, the most recent photo. I didn't take it, didn't download it, don't know the person in the photo or how it got there.
     I asked Prof. Google to explain. The possibilities ranged across the board. Shared by somebody with access. Hacked somehow. I had a hard time believing it was something done intentionally. What would be the point? A test? Next time it'll be something vile. The cops will bust in, and the incriminating evidence will be spattered across my phone. 

     Nah. That can't be. Maybe the photo was transmitted years ago and somehow, through some alignment of the planets, congealed on my phone. Strange stuff happens.
      Several times in recent months, a random Facebook video was sent by me to my son. Only I didn't send it. This seems something like that. An artifact, a glitch. When you consider how pervasive these networks are, how omnipresent the phones, in our hands for hours, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. I am using an iPhone 12, and have been poised to get a new phone —the 16 or the 17, anybody notice a difference? They cost about the same.

     My wife urged me not to post the photo — it's not a kid we know, but someone's kid, unless it's an AI composite, and children should be kept offline as much as possible, lest their images be seized and put to unspeakable purposes. I made a pouty face, and she then suggested I do an image search, which I did. Turns out the photo was posted to X the day before I saw it, by the Paris Review, along with a quote from the poet Alice Oswald. A blip from a network I signed up for years ago but now seldom visit. 

     Oswald is an English poet of considerable renown. Of course I looked at her oeuvre, starting with "Severed head floating downriver," which seemed apt for this occasion. It begins:

It is said that after losing his wife, Orpheus was torn to
pieces by Maenads, who threw his head into the River
Hebron. The head went on singing and forgetting,
filling up with water and floating way.

And ends: 

    this is how the wind works hard at thinking
    this is what speaks when no one speaks

   I deleted the photo from my phone. But the unease lingers. These devices, they're cracks in our lives. Our light shines out, wanly and is largely ignored. Meanwhile, all sorts of stuff seeps in. 

600 percent more bullshit

     Yeah, I watched the speech Wednesday night. Switched away from a very satisfying "American Masters" program about Dick Van Dyke on PBS to do so. I had no idea Van Dyke's road to success was so rocky — the number of blind alleys he went down, the failed shows, the misfires, and then "The Dick Van Dyke Show" was cancelled at the end of its first season, and only an extraordinary effort by its producer saved the program at the last moment. Life is struggle.
     But I was curious. Of course I hoped for some kind of Captain Queeg quality gibbering breakdown. Icing on the cake of a generally lousy few weeks for the Orange Enormity, not that his base is paying attention or cares at this point. Maybe a few are feeling a flash of unease that something might not be perfect. But that ain't no revolution. Once you get in the habit of ignoring reality, as I always say, the precise nature of the reality being ignored hardly matters.
     I distracted myself by sending out quips on Bluesky. He launched into his diatribe, and I thought of a train. "All aboard …. for Crazytown!"
     Though it wasn't even that terrible, not by our sub-gutter standards. Just the usual lies. His greatest hits. I'll grant him this — his skin tone looked almost normal. That's something new.
     My wife couldn't stand it, and fled the room. Me, I marveled that he was reading — had someone written down a rambling rant, and he was repeating it? There wasn't an artful sentence in the whole spiel. It was like watching a baby cry from a script.
     What struck me was how expected, unsurprising, and dull it all was, more of the same, in the standard spirit that everything he says is a confession.
     “One year ago our country was dead, absolutely dead,” said the animate corpse, his soul a suppurating slab of putrefaction.
     “We are respected again,” said the international laughingstock.
     Prescription prices were falling “400, 500, even 600 percent,” said the innumerate moron. Math doesn’t work like that.
     I think I'll end here. But we shouldn't hurry past that math gaffe. He's done it before. A 10-year-old can grasp the reality: If an apple costs a dollar, and I give you a 90 percent discount, then the apple costs you a dime. If I give you a 100 percent discount, then it's free. I'm not sure a 500 percent discount even makes sense, in this context, but it could mean that I'm paying you $4 to take it.
     The pharmaceutical companies aren't paying you to take their drugs. And I'm not going to bother flagging all the other lies in the speech, except to note the media still does not call the lies. "Untruths" or "fabrications" or whatever. Which itself is idiotic. We descend to his level, or toward it anyway. 
     The whole thing left me sad — this is the man who is destroying America? This? This? Who might yet upend democracy? This thing? We shouldn't skate by the $1,776 payment to each soldier. Of course it might never be delivered — he said the checks were on the way, which means nothing. And it seems that the payments might be real, but have nothing to do with him. He's just taking credit for them, which is par for the course.

     Maybe he's trying to spin the payments into a bribe of some kind, to buy the soldiers' loyalty. Cheap, to sell out our country. But then Trump sold the entire United State government to Elon Musk for $274 million. Trump probably thought it was a lot, but it was selling us out for very little. I've seen a lot of corrupt officials in my day at the paper, and it's always shocking how little they get for their betrayals. America sold its soul for nothing.

Flashback 2013: Is Sandy Hook a shrine or a school?

9/11  Memorial, New York City.

    The slaughter in Australia and the murders at Brown meant that the faces of the first graders slain at Sandy Hook were popping up on social media again. I suppose that passes for reflection. This column ran a dozen years ago, an artifact when such killings sparked national conversation. With our democracy imperiled, musing on the uses of memory seems almost antique.

    "Cursed shall be the ground because of you.”
     Strong words, particularly coming from God, who utters them when he condemns Adam and Eve for eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
     The idea that the ground itself can be poisoned by the acts committed upon it is very old, and slumbers in a dark antechamber of the human heart, waiting for atrocities like the Newtown shootings to re-awaken.
     More than a month after 20 first-graders and six staffers were killed at Sandy Hook school, the question is: should the school be made into a memorial or returned to its intended use? The community has had several meetings, with more debate to come.
     You would think that the answer would break down along lines of impact — that the most affected, the devastated parents and loved ones, would push for a memorial, while the lesser-impacted town folk would pause over the cost of replacing an entire school.
     But it is more complicated. Some parents want their kids to go back, while outsiders insist they never be asked to return.
     In a way, they’re playing out, on a large scale, what individuals who suffer tragedies go through. They are torn between focusing on the bad thing and forgetting about it, or trying to. To forget too quickly feels wrong. As does lingering too long.
     Sadly, we have had enough atrocities that we can look to the past for guidance, although they offer a mixed bag. The scope of the bloodletting isn’t the issue — Columbine went back to being a high school, its name unchanged, after a dozen students were killed, while Brown’s Chicken pulled down the restaurant in Palatine where seven died. Gacy’s house was bulldozed but the apartment where Richard Speck killed eight student nurses in 1966 was later rented out.
     Cinemark reopened the Aurora, Colo., movie theater where 12 died, renaming and reconfiguring it. If you go to the Oriental Theater* on Randolph Street, you are at the exact site of the Iroquois Theater, where the worst theater fire in American history occurred, killing 600 people, many children.
     To me, the Iroquois offers up the key to the what-to-do puzzle, one people overlook during these discussions. Newtown gives every thinking person a visceral shudder, while the Iroquois Theater doesn’t, because the fire happened a long time ago — 100 years exactly, later this year. Time heals. Pearl Harbor still means something jarring to us but the Argonne doesn’t, even though 2,000 Americans died at the former and 26,000 died at the latter, a battle in World War I.
     All this talk of remembering the Newtown massacre forever shows that people don’t realize what forever means. Ford’s Theatre was seized by the United States government after Lincoln’s assassination, announcing that no public amusements would be held there, forever. But in the late 1960s, Ford’s was restored and returned to a theater — “Our Town” is playing there now.
     What do I think? Every time I hear someone say, “No child should be asked to go back to Sandy Hook Elementary School,” I reply, “Because you wouldn’t want to ask anyone to confront something terrible?”
     Our nation fails that way. From the symbolic fiddling we’re considering, briefly, regarding gun control, to our habit of kicking the economic can down the road, we are a people too hot to build memorials for tragedies and too timid to address their causes.
     Is the ground cursed because of the killings or sanctified because of the deaths? If it’s cursed, tear the school down and put up a granite monolith; if it’s sanctified, what better memorial to slain students than a school?
     I don’t believe in curses. The whole debate has a tinge of the irrational. How does the impulse to raze the school square with the common sentiment that mass killers’ names shouldn’t even be put in the papers, in the flimsy theory that doing so rewards their desire for fame? (People always assume these murders are done for notoriety, based on nothing but their own desire for glory).
     I will admit my bias. Londoners kept going about their routine during the Blitz, to shake their fists at the Nazi bombers. The Israelis, at the height of the Intifada, when suicide bombs were going off in coffee shops and at falafel stands, would quickly hose away the gore, replace the windows, right the overturned chairs and reopen for business.
     That seems the path of the hero. To say that kids will be traumatized re-entering the school both insults the kids and implies that people should simply avoid their fears — that is a bad lesson. If one of my children were killed at that school, I’d vastly prefer his tribute to be a ban on high-capacity clips over any marble megalith. The best honor for the kids who died is to do whatever we can to keep the kids we still have alive. But that won’t happen, because it’s easier to light an eternal flame than to take daring action.

          —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Jan. 25, 2013

* The name of the theater was changed to Nederlander in 2019.

Two tales of the federal government

    An example is not proof. At best, a hint, an indication. One example does not settle the argument, though bigots —and always remember that prejudice is a form of ignorance —offer up their instance or two. Or make them up, when they can't be bothered to find a fact. And pretend that the matter is settled. 

     When it is certainly not settled. An episode may illustrate a greater truth. Or might be deceptive, an outlier. 

    Last week, two stories related to the federal government caught my attention, and though neither represents a vastly complex situation, they do neatly bookend the range of possibility.       

     The first is from me:      

   Wow. Give it up for the United States government. It takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin.'

    I'm serious, or semi-serious anyway. Given that Cheetolini and his henchman Elon and whoever else is in a position to grab a fistful of wires and pull have been tearing at the federal bureaucracy for almost a year now, well, you'd expect the whole thing to grind to a sheering halt. 

     And yet.

     So we're planning an overseas trip for the spring. Airplane tickets. Hotel rooms. Tickets to the palace. And I noticed that my passport will expire six months, minus a few days, after the trip is set to end. Which is technically fine, and would probably get shrugged off, most likely. Although: if your passport isn't valid for six months, in some places it isn't accepted. There are stories.

     I am what they call "a worrier." You probably already figured that out. And I knew as the cab pulled away from my house, heading off to our big trip, in addition to my worrying about the toaster coming to life and setting fire to the drapes which we don't have, and the refrigerator door hanging open, and everything else I conjure up to mock the idea that I am Conradian wanderer out of Lord Jim, I'll also worry until we get back that every checkpoint we pass would snag me on my passport. "Oh sorry Mr., ah, Steinberg, your whole trip is ruined because your passport expires five months and 27 days after this trip is scheduled to end..."

     So I did something uncharacteristic. I took action, took care of it. I went online, filled out the form. My wife took my photo against a white wall —the first one was rejected, so we took another, and that was fine, except for the aging. I filled out the forms, checked the boxes, plugged in the credit card number, and was done at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 10.

     The passport arrived — mirabile dictu —  in the mail Saturday. Three days and change later. About 76 hour after we applied. Yes, I paid an extra $22 for quick delivery —in the money bonfire that is a vacation, it seemed a minor expense.  

    So the government works, right. Not necessarily. Consider this second tale, from reader Elaine Sniegowski:

      After a reunion of old nurser friends at a local restaurant today, I headed home with only one stop along the way — the post office in Tinley Park. Who would ever believe what happened next? Waiting in a short line in front of the service counter in the post office I noticed a small handwritten sign. “No stamps. Sorry!”
     Unbelievable ! How could a post office not have stamps?
     Raising my voice a little, I called to the lone worker at the counter and asked “When will you have stamps?” Not until Monday he replied. Two whole days from now.
     My Tinley Park Post office had failed me. And at Christmas time. Another lady in line called to me, “Try Jewel” I didn’t want to try Jewel. I wanted my stamps from the post office . So, I headed home stampless. Cards lingering on my desk, impossible to mail. Maybe on Monday….maybe.

    And the truth lies ... no doubt somewhere in between. If it helps, Tuesday I was at the Northbrook post office substation on Church Street, sending a couple packages. They had plenty of stamps, and I bought a booklet, just in case. 

Why does Israel keep defending itself?

Street protest, 2014

   

     There was a lot of reaction to Monday's column. Most of it positive, from people glad to see that attitude in the newspaper. But there was one puzzled response. I'm sharing it because it reflects a common attitude:

     Yes, another comment on today's column regarding the murders on Bondi Beach.
     No one deserves to die this way. Or, to die because some other doesn't agree with them.
     Not being Jewish, I perhaps will never understand why the debacle in Gaza as a response to October 7th was necessary. I also most likely will never understand why Israel insists on treating Palestinians living there and in the West Bank the way they do. I will never understand why Israel feels a constant need to defend itself, and, in the process, create an excess of hate among those outside who see that said "defense" as genocide, It's almost as if constant war and fighting is the lifeblood of Israel. And cruelty to people with impunity is somehow fair. Why is it that a Jewish life is worth more than a Palestinian one?
     You wrote, "once you view them not as individuals, but as faceless members of groups, you're capable of anything." And so, it is. Deaths due to genocide are not worse because of the ethnicity of the victims. Or even the number.
     I read the book "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza", by Peter Bienart. You are probably familiar with it. It outlines the historical sins of the Jewish people, who are hardly a non-violent population. I ended up with more understanding of the history, but I still do not have a good answer to why it can't stop itself from continuing its' poor treatment of others. Is there no forgiveness to be had ever? Will the Palestinians ever be allowed to live in the small area of land that is supposed to be theirs without constant illegal encroachment by Israel?
     I'm an outsider to all this. Make it make sense. Make it stop.
     I wish you could explain to people like me. Just a person trying to live my life.
     Barb O.
     Cedar Lake, IN

     A lot to unpack. But anything in particular stand out for you? It did for me. I replied:

     I doubt I could explain it to you. "I will never understand why Israel feels a constant need to defend itself" seems to suggest that you can't even perceive that Israel is constantly being attacked. Or maybe just don't care. Maybe you should ask yourself why Palestinian suffering so moves you, while you can't even see Jewish suffering. I have an idea, but I'd rather you think about it. There might be some insight to be found there. Maybe not.
     NS

     I didn't expect a response, but I got one — criticizing me for being "to close to the issue" to share her indifference to Jewish life and shifting the topic. A reminder why response is fairly pointless.

     I appreciate your taking the time to respond.
     I was hoping perhaps to gain some insight into this issue from someone who surely has spent more than his share of time on it.
     I can see from your response that you are too close to the issue. That is understandable.
     You are incorrect that only Palestinian suffering moves me. I see it all over the world. Every day.

     What I do not see is a capacity for forgiveness. I was hoping you could tell me forgiveness is possible. I believe that unless one can forgive one's transgressor, the wound will never heal. Without forgiveness, without justice, there will be no peace.
     So, I guess there will be no peace there. The killing will continue.
     I'm sorry.

     I didn't quite know what to make of that, and decided it was time to move on. I replied:

     I actually agree with you about the forgiveness part. I think we saw that in the solution to the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
     NS

You can party on a beach in Australia, but you're still a Jew

                     "A people still, whose common ties are gone;
                      Who, mix'd with every race, are lost in none."

                                                          — George Crabbe

     You can shave your beard, move to Australia — or your grandparents could, permitting you to party on a New South Wales beach in cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.
     Even with an Australian accent, putting shrimp on the barbie by the Tasman Sea, you're still a Jew.
     Not held personally responsible for the death of Christ so much anymore. Generally, that particular deathless sin, one horror used to justify a million others, now plays second fiddle to a more recent wrong that can be laid at the feet of any random Jew, anywhere in the world.
     Now, all Jews carry the stain of recent Israeli policy in Gaza, and no joyous gathering anywhere on earth can be free from the risk of blame showing up, uninvited. Punishment delivered by those whose hearts are so big they agonize over the sufferings of a people they may have never met. And so small they can vent the resultant fury on the most marginally-connected victims. 

     No matter that Jews tend to take up the cause of their adversaries with a zeal seldom found elsewhere. They still count as Jews, and die just the same. Also par for the course. In the 1940s, you could convert to Catholicism, but if your grandmother was Jewish, into the pit you go. They call it "blind hatred" for a reason — it neither sees, nor assesses, nor stands on ceremony.
     A thousand people on a beach in Sydney, celebrating the first night of Hanukkah, which arrived in Australia 15 hours ahead of Chicago. Two shooters. At least 15 dead and 42 wounded, including two police officers.
     About 117,000 Jews live in Australia, out of a population of 28 million, most in the cities. The shooting was on Bondi Beach, on the east side of Sydney.
     If that number seems vanishingly small, it is 0.35%, or nearly double the percentage Jews make up of the world population. Our numbers dwindle through assimilation and intermarriage in a way that murder could never contemplate.
     That doesn't mean people don't still try.
     Like most groups, Jews feel a kinship with each other. I've never been to Australia, but if I did, I might slide by a synagogue, the way I did from Bridgetown to London to Taipei. Check out the locals, catch a bagel and a whiff of home.
     So their deaths still hurt. The odd thing about such attacks is, they're really an eloquent argument for the importance of a secure Jewish state. Because if you're Jewish, and feel you're safe where you are and let your vigilance ebb, you might be caught in an enfilade from two gunmen on a pedestrian bridge.
     You either empathize with other people or you don't. And once you view them not as individuals but as faceless members of groups, you're capable of anything.
     We have a president damning Americans for the crime of coming from Somalia. A federal government sweeping people off the street for being brown-skinned. And as if the war in Gaza hasn't been blood-soaked enough over the past two years, we have no shortage of self-appointed avengers keen to mow down a few more innocents. In Australia.
     One horror begets the next, and the rising tide of nationalism reaps the bounty. Along with funeral directors and granite monument salespeople.

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Pay to the Order of ...

 

     You can look at something all your life and never quite see it. Then suddenly, one fine day, it snaps into focus and makes you wonder.
     I was updating my wife's checkbook — we pay bills online like the rest of the modern world, but still send checks sometimes, plus balancing a check book ensures we actually look at where the money is going — and noticed the standard phrase beside where the recipient's name goes: "Pay to the Order of." 

     We know what "pay" means —give 'em the money . But why "order"? What does order mean in this context? What is a person's order that we can pay it?

    AI is a little helpful, tending to consider the whole phrase and not wanting to pull "order" out. Though it does contrast "order" with "bearer," which is helpful. A financial instrument paid to the order has to be cashed by a specific person, as opposed to pay to the bearer, which is good for whoever has it in hand.

    Still, an old school investigation seemed in, ah, order.

    A reminder that "order" is like "set," one of those words with oodles of definitions. Off the top of my head: a sequence of events. A state free from disturbance. A request for goods, in a restaurant or a business. A military command.  

    Samuel Johnson offers 14 meanings in his 1755 dictionary, quite succinctly stated, starting with, "1. Method, regular disposition. 2. Established process. 3. Proper state" and including a few I hadn't considered, such as "8. A society of dignified persons, distinguished by marks of honour" and "12. Means to an end," which fits with my "seems in order" usage above.

    None quite fit the bill for our check, however.
    Noah Webster serves up 15 definitions in his 1828 dictionary, some clearly lifted, such as "15. In architecture, a system of several members, ornaments and proportions of columns and pilasters" which is Johnson, word for word.
     The Oxford English Dictionary has more than two full pages of definitions, and a semi-careful reading didn't find anything that would explain my check. 

     It struck me that this was a situation where you needed the right tool for the job. We are a household that is nothing if not rich in dictionaries, and I borrowed my wife's old Black's Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition. There the second definition is what we're looking for: "A designation of the person to whom a bill of exchange or negotiable promissory note is to be paid. An 'order' is a direction to pay and must be more than an authorization or request. It must identify the person to pay with reasonable certainty."
      So why is it still on checks? Why not just say, "Pay..." and the person's name? 
     Black's explains that too, in its definition of "Check, n. A draft drawn upon a bank and payable on demand." It continues later with the Federal Reserve Board's definition of a check, ending: "It must contain the phrase 'pay to the order of.'"
    And so they do. "Order" is on checks, part of a phrase that is an obligatory legalism. As to why we're still using checks ... it aids record keeping, and is useful under certain circumstances: handing some money to someone without resorting to Zelle or Venmo or whatever the e-banker of the moment happens to be. 

Guest voice: Jack Clark

     Regular EGD readers are familiar with Jack Clark, the former Chicago cabbie turned mystery writer who checks in occasionally, most recently in 2023. Today he comments on a pervasive problem in our social media age: fraud.

     I opened my first bank account in 1957 with my First Communion money and closed it ten years later when I was 17. The bank officer was amused. He told me that, according to current rules, I was too young to open an account on my own.
     I’ve had plenty of banks and bank accounts since then, and I could bore you silly with some of my bank stories. But I’m going to skip that. Something exciting has finally happened. After 60-some years of banking, I’ve been the victim of check fraud. Twice, with a single transaction.
     It all started when I got a direct mail solicitation from Block Club Chicago. Now, I’m a nice enough guy, but I never donate to anyone but panhandlers. I’m the classic struggling writer (except about 50 years too old). People should be sending me money. But Block Club is really pretty cool and Jenny Sabella who is one of the founders and the executive editor is even cooler.
     We first met when she got hired as a waitress/bartender at the Grafton Pub in Lincoln Square. This was just around the corner from my apartment. I liked to stop in on the way home. “Hey Jack, you should meet Jenny,” the bartender said one night. “She’s a writer too.”
     “Oh cool,” I said. “What do you write about?”
     “Sex,” she said, and we’ve been friends ever since.
     For obvious reasons, I don’t get many solicitations. But when I do it’s usually for the Lyric Opera or the Art Institute, places like that. Somehow I’ve gotten myself on some arty mailing list. So I was impressed that Block Club had dropped a few dollars and given the list a try. Should I actually send them some money?
     Jenny, who knew a thing or two about being a struggling writer (and did it at the appropriate age and then moved on), had promised me that I’d never have to pay for Block Club. Maybe now was the time to pony up.
      And there was a bonus. If I donated $60 or more they’d send me six Chicago postcards. That may not be exciting to you but I’m a newlywed and my bride is a postcard freak. There’s no other way to put it. She likes to send them but, even more than that, she likes to buy them. I’d say for every postcard she sends, she buys 10 or 20. I’ve spent hours waiting outside cute little shops while she’s inside spinning the postcard racks.
     Well, this would impress the lovely Helene, I decided. I filled out the form and included a check for $100 and dropped the envelope in the mailbox before I could have second thoughts. The extra $40 was so Jenny wouldn’t think I was a cheapsteak. [I know. I think it’s funnier this way.]
     And then I waited for the postcards to arrive. Nothing. I checked my bank account. The check had not cleared. What was taking so long? It finally cleared nearly a month after I’d sent it. I was about to write Jenny: You’ve got to get those checks in the bank before people change their minds!
     The wonders of online banking. You don’t have to wait for your cancelled checks to arrive a month later. You can view them online. Before writing Jenny, I thought I’d take a look. The front of the check looked fine. It was to the order of Block Club and my signature was artistically scrawled along the bottom. On the back of the check the fraud finally arrived (I know you’ve been waiting). The check was not endorsed by Block Club; it was endorsed with my name, which makes no sense. Now if you were going to forge the name of the person who wrote the check wouldn’t you try to imitate his handwriting. Not this guy. You can actually read every letter of my name. What kind of signature is that? He’d obviously never been to art school. The check was deposited into an account at a credit union in Virginia.
     I wrote Jenny and sent her copies of the check. She wrote back: “This is SO weird. That was definitely not cashed by us.”
      Next I called my bank, Wintrust, who I’ve had very good luck with in the past. I figured the call would take about five minutes. Instead it took a half hour or more. Most of that time I was on hold. I talked to three different bankers. They all agreed that the check had almost certainly been stolen. They kept failing as they tried to connect me to the manager at my local branch. “Why do we have to talk to him?” I finally asked.
      “You’re going to have to close your account and open a new one.” (Note: all dialogue is reconstructed from memory.)
      “Why?”
      “Well, your account has been compromised. They have your account number and the routing number. They could. . .”
      “That’s ridiculous. You can find the routing number of any bank in about eight seconds.” Banks want you to send them money. “And both numbers are on the checks. Anybody I send a check to sees them.” And the world is full of scoundrels who often disguise themselves by working for legitimate businesses, even banks now and then.
      “I’m sorry, sir,” she said in a tone that let me know the discussion was over.
      I asked to speak to a supervisor and soon a manager was on the line. We went through the same song and dance. She said that the bank would recommend that I get a new account.
      “So I don’t have to?”
     “No. But you know we have recorded this entire conversation. So if you have another problem later on, you might not recover your money.”
     “Are you threatening me?” Is what I wish I’d said.
      When the call finally ended, I called right back. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to make sure I got the wording of their message exactly. “Please note: Your call may be recorded for quality and training purposes.” Not one word about legal purposes or retribution for not following bank recommendations.
      So that’s the second clear case of fraud. Consider yourself forewarned: You may be sitting in a courtroom some day or at a deposition, and somebody on the other side will play that recording supposedly made for quality and training purposes.

      Should we tell the person who picks up that recorded call, “I agree to have this conversation recorded for quality and training purposes only. Nothing beyond that?”

      One final question: Should I follow the bank’s advice and close my account and open another? Let me know what you think. I’m honestly confused.

In snowy weather, CTA bus riders must become mountaineers

Wynne Delacoma takes the bus (photo for the Sun-Times by Anthony Vazquez)

     On Monday, Wynne Delacoma went to ship Christmas presents — early, yes, but that's the sort of person she is. Organized. After dropping her parcels at the FedEx at Barry and Clark, she went to call a cab for her next errand.
     But the Curb taxi-hailing app was down. So she walked to the nearest bus stop, finding it icy and clogged with snow.
     Delacoma, 80, boarded as best she could, taking the bus to Gethsemane Garden Center.
     There she planned to deliver a length of red ribbon for her Christmas wreath. Pretty velvet ribbon; saved from last year's wreath. Good ribbon is hard to find. And she got a discount on the new wreath by providing her own ribbon. Practical and aesthetic.
     Again she had to survive a common challenge facing bus riders this very snowy winter: getting past the obstacle course at the bus stop.
     "It was terrible. Just awful. I was afraid I'd have to walk along the side of the bus in the street," said Delacoma. "That's where they'd plowed. I just couldn't do it. Luckily, some young women there were able to help me off."
     Walking close to a bus, and you take your life in your hands. Just the week before, a woman in South Shore was killed by a bus after appearing to slip as the vehicle began to move forward. 
     Yet snowbound stops are common.

     "Probably half of the stops I get on and off at are clogged with snow and ice," said Peter Nee, a Chicago resident. "Sometimes I have to climb over a little mountain of snow."
     When Delacoma got home, being civic-minded in addition to the aforementioned good qualities, she fired off a letter to the CTA, and cc'd a copy to me.
     "I'm writing to ask you why CTA bus stops have not been cleared of snow," she began. "I used the No. 22 and No. 77 buses today ... only one of the stops — the Belmont/Red/Brown/Purple Line station at 945 W. Belmont — was clear of snow. All the others were packed with snow, making it extremely treacherous to board or leave the buses."
     If that seems a particularly lucid account, it's worth mentioning that Delacoma was the classical music critic at the Chicago Sun-Times for many years. She raises an interesting question:
     "Who is responsible for cleaning the stops? The CTA or the city?"
     I told her I would try to find out.
     This must be a common enough public concern that the CTA has a webpage, "Snow Removal" dedicated to sidestepping responsibility.
     "One of the biggest challenges during the winter is navigating areas that are not cleared of snow and ice," it says, with apparent sympathy. "We're responsible for snow removal on our property, while most bus stops and areas adjacent/leading up to CTA property are the responsibility of others."
     There are nearly 11,000 bus stops in Chicago. If the CTA is not responsible for clearing the vast majority, who is?
     "We work closely with the Chicago Department of Transportation to ensure bus shelters are shoveled as quickly as possible," the CTA continued.
     Anyone who takes buses knows this is deceptive, since buses do not actually stop at shelters, which seem to exist primarily for the benefit of the homeless.
     CDOT also ID'ed other suspects:

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Bessie Coleman, in the news

     Former president Barack Obama was in Chicago this week, doing what celebrities do to light up social media: springing himself unexpected on ordinary people, in this case young kids at the Bessie Coleman branch of the Chicago Public Library in Woodlawn. There he read "Flying Free: How Bessie Coleman's Dreams Took Flight" by Karyn Parsons. 

     Which is all good -- Coleman is one of those Chicagoans who doesn't get enough attention. I learned about her so I could include a story in my 2022 book, "Every Goddamn Day" (which, now that I think about it, is being stocked again at the Book Bin in Northbrook. If you are looking for a Christmas gift for that Chicago history lover in your life, the book contains this and 365 other Chicago stories, will be gift-wrapped for free, inscribed however you like by me, and mailed to the lucky recipient for only an additional $5 shipping fee. You can reach the Book Bin at 847-498-4999). I can assume my version of Coleman's story has a bit more, ah, spice than the one Obama read to first graders.

June 15, 1921: Lots of jawboning goes on in a barbershop. Lots of idle talk, waiting for a shave, or a haircut. Chatting up the pretty manicurist in the window. Teasing her. 

     “You Chicago girls don't know shit,” one former doughboy says, or words to that effect. “Now those French girls, they know where it's at. There are French girls who know how to fly.”

     Usually this kind of thing leads nowhere. Not this time. Right then, Bessie Coleman makes a decision. “That’s it!” she says. “You just called it for me.” 

     She has always wanted to make something of herself. That's why she's in Chicago, doing nails, and not back home washing clothes in Waxahachie, Texas. If French girls can fly, so can she. There are airfields in Chicago and flying instructors, but nobody who is going to teach a Black manicurist how to pilot a plane. Coleman studies French. She saves her money. She gets some help — a manicurist holds the hands of many rich men. Maybe from Jessie Binga, the banker. Maybe from Robert S. Abbott, the publisher. 

     Today a French official fills out her license from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale. She is the first Black woman to hold a pilot's license, and returns to this country a star, performing acrobatic stunts. It will be 17 years before a Black woman earns a pilot's license in the United States.

Steiff, when you care enough to give a teddy bear not intended for children

 

     Hanukkah begins Sunday evening. With Christmas close behind, and all the buying of presents that both holidays demand.
     Let's not mince words: giving gifts is hard. Part mind-reading, part scavenger hunt, part potlatch. Even when you know exactly what to get, and have time to prepare.
     Maybe I should just tell the story.
     Last year, when I found out that I would be a grandfather, my very first thought was about a present. I hung up the phone and went directly onto the Steiff website.
     Steiff is a German toy company, founded in 1880, offering all the soft cute animals you'd expect. But Steiff also has a tradition of hard mohair animals that, in an astounding mercy of time's grindstone, are still made in Germany. Needless to say, they cost a lot.
     My connection to Steiff came about because of a scientific conference in Germany in 1962. My father, a nuclear physicist with NASA, went to present a paper. He saw these gorgeous Steiff animals in a shop. The dollar must have been very strong. He bought a turtle and an elephant, a lobster and a giraffe ... plus a lion, squirrel, various birds — so many toys he also bought a case to carry them back.
     But that isn't the lovely part. The lovely part, according to family lore, is when he gets home from his overseas trip, he opens the case, displaying its contents, and tells my sister, then 4, to take what she wants, and her toddling brother can have the rest. My sister surveys the menagerie and bursts into tears.
     "Didn't they have any dollies?" she wails. She wanted a Chatty Cathy, or whatever.
     Maybe that story isn't much, as far as family traditions go. But it is what I have, and I clung to it. The day my oldest boy was born, when my wife beeped me to tell me to get home now and whisk her to the hospital, I was in FAO Schwarz on Michigan Avenue, examining a little Steiff dog that ended up in his crib. Both boys got Steiff teddy bears when young.
     That brings us to 2025, and the new generation. Should be easy, right? Jump on the Steiff website, find a suitable bear, deploy the credit card, trying not to wince. I began browsing, and encountered a rude surprise:
     "CAUTION! This product is not a toy and is intended for adult collectors only."
     What? When did THAT happen? I appealed to Steiff, telling them I was "surprised to learn that [their mohair bears] are not considered toys, and should not be given to children. This is news to me, and not good news. ... Are the bears dangerous?"
     Their lengthy answer boiled down to two concerns.
     First: "Design & Safety — Certainly, wool-based mohair is still considered a safe material. But many of the mohair designs in our present assortment include elaborate accessories or features which were chosen to appeal to adult fans of the Steiff brand. These items sometimes include small, detachable parts (such as beads, crystals, glass eyes, cords, ribbons, etc.) which might not be considered safe for small children as they could be potential choking hazards."
     Second: "Convenience & Aesthetics — Though a lush and beautiful material, mohair, like other wool products, is not typically machine washable. This is a major concern for today’s parents. Mohair shrinks, and can lose its luster, texture, and color after washing. In this sense, mohair does not meet our own, internally defined standards for aesthetic quality and practical convenience."
     Giving me a choice: I could devolve to their washable, polyester bears that have the additional advantage of costing a sixth as much. Still Steiffs. Or stick with the mohair tradition, one of the few I've got.

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'Reconsider whether cars and trucks are the best way to deliver items in dense neighborhoods'

 

      On Monday, my column looked at the issues raised by Ald. Daniel La Spata's ordinance facilitating Chicagoans who want to turn in people who park in bike lanes. I thought I'd raised both sides of question, and did not expect my first email to be someone cancelling their subscription in protest.

Dear Mr. Steinberg:

     I paused my Sun Times membership just now after reading your latest column while on a bus on South Michigan that was delayed because we kept having to weave in and out of columns of double parkers in our travel lane.
     The sense of entitlement that you seem to share with so many drivers who think that they have some God-given right to block arterial streets is a major part of what makes this city more challenging and dangerous to get around in, whatever mode you might choose.
     Maybe if companies suffered a financial penalty for breaking parking laws, they would reconsider whether cars and trucks are the best way to deliver items in dense neighborhoods. If the price was passed onto the consumer, maybe they'd think twice about ordering something for delivery instead of getting off their butt and walking to the store.
     Nobody thinks every double parked delivery truck on a side street should be ticketed, but blocking main thoroughfares makes travel harder for all of us trying to get around the city. But then again, as you say, you live in Northbrook, so you're not really in the best position to opine on the subject, are you?
     I look forward to resubscribing to the Sun Times when my money doesn't support tired old baby boomers who belong in the Journal and Topics or yelling during public comment at Northfield Township board meetings.
     Sincerely,
     John A.

    The thing to do would have been to ignore it. But I'm not that sort. I replied:

Dear Mr. A.:

     I like to think of bike riders as a bit more hardy than that. But if you want to punish yourself by avoiding the best newspaper in Chicago because I expressed an opinion not your own, that is your right. I thought I presented both sides of the issue before coming down against a silly law which will not stop packages being delivered by truck, as seems your goal.
     I do plan to retire in two years, and would suggest it might be safe for you to return then, except it is quite possible that someone else might express another opinion that you don't like, and then you'd be right back where you are today. I've been on staff for 38 years, and dealt with all sorts of ruffled bigots. Typically, they have no idea they are expressing hatred toward a group, and I would imagine that ageists such as yourself are no different, even though [you] fancy yourself liberal-minded because you probably would not castigate a Muslim who flies a lot on airplanes or a Black person who likes the coal industry as holding those views because of their ethnicity or race the way you mock me for being 65. But trust me, it's just as unattractive, and indefensible, and if you are capable of reflection as well as outrage — an open question, judging from your note — I would encourage you to reflect on that.
     That said, thanks for writing, and I hope you bike more carefully than you write. Still, as a kindness, when I post your email Tuesday, for the education of my blog readers, I will withhold your identity, to shield you from the contempt you rightly deserve.

Neil Steinberg

     Not that all the emails were from loons. Most were sensible, and I'll include one, just as a reminder to what such reaction is like. It was one of many that took issue with Amazon; I thought that ship had sailed long ago:

     Here is one vote for "enforce the law" let the snitching begin. Amazon and others are taking over public property, the streets, to make additional billions for Jeff Bezos. Of course we will offer them an "out" let them take a 50% discount on the tickets they wrack up when the total exceeds one million!
     Following up on your interest in traffic: Why don't we have speed camera enforcement on Lake Shore Drive? I have asked several Alderman and there is no response. It seems like a no brainer. It would raise money for a city that needs it and undoubtedly have some impact on the rampant speeding that currently leads to all too often accidents, some of them deadly.
Someone has "put a brick" on this common sense idea. Who? 
     Your fan and reader,
     Andrew Davis

    A colleague was intrigued with your question, and found — through an AI search, always dubious, but this answer has the tang of veracity — that the Chicago speed camera program is limited to "Child Safety Zones," aka, areas by schools and parks. Thus LSD (whoops, JBPDSLSD —his joke, but I'm going with it) is excluded. For now. There is legislation pending that would extend those cameras to expressways. Something to look forward to.   

To snitch or not to snitch? Is proposed parking scofflaw law a good idea?

Bike park at the central train station in Copenhagen.

     This is a tough one.
     As a rule, I'm not a on-this-hand, on-the-other kind of columnist. That's chicken ... umm ... bleep. My job is to not equivocate but make a stand. If you're going to take Vienna, as Napoleon said, take Vienna. No half measures.
     But regarding the ordinance Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st) outlined in Fran Spielman's article Thursday, allowing Chicagoans to take photos and turn in commercial vehicles violating parking ordinances, leaving their big blue electric Prime vans in bike lanes and crosswalks, well, I'm torn here.
     It's good that it's being delayed, so the issues can be weighed.
      On the one hand, as a former avid city cyclist, in my younger days — for years after the Divvy system rolled out, I wrote a periodic "Divvy Diary" recounting the joys of blasting those big blue bombers down Chicago streets —I know you take your life in your hands every time you have to veer around some double-parked doofus.
     Why should innocent cyclists energetically going about their business be forced to risk getting themselves creamed by a bus so that housebound shopping addicts sprawled on their sofas can receive their daily, if not hourly, infusion of superfluous junk?
     On the other: I too order from Amazon. I too marvel when something bought a few hours ago shows up, Johnny-on-the-spot. I don't have a dog in this race, living as I do in the sprawling, low-density leafy suburban paradise that is Northbrook. A half dozen Prime vans could simultaneously pull up in front of our house, day or night, and easily find a place to park. Some days, it seems they do.
      In the city, most blocks are wall-to-wall parked cars. So where else are delivery trucks supposed to stop, if not in bike lanes and crosswalks? They only stop briefly, and if you happen to come hammering along and, checking your heart rate on your Apple watch, rear end one, well, tough luck. Maybe you should concentrate on where you're going, and you won't get doored while fiddling with your bike computer.
      Then there is the risk of dragooning the population into traffic enforcement. Is that respect for law? Or trying create a population of snitches?
      La Spata isn't only doing this out of concern for law, generally, but to scratch his own private itch. He's a cyclist, posting Instagram videos of himself leading critical mass bike rides to meetings of the City Council Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety, which he chairs.
      All good, right? Onward toward a Scandinavian-style cyclist's paradise? Or another example of leaders putting their own priorities first? Maybe La Spata should sponsor an ordinance encouraging police officers to snitch on each other. Because right now the code of silence requires them to cough into into their fists twice upon detecting thin blue line crime, provided no one is around to hear the coughs.
      There is risk involved. As someone who walks around a lot, and often takes photos of what I see, I'd hate to be minding my own business, trying to capture an evocative arrangement of snow on a bare tree branch, only to have some burly delivery guy run over, knock my phone out of my hands and jump on it because he thinks I'm taking a photo of his license plate.
      OK, Steinberg, choose. Ordinance = bad. Is not a culture of snitching another milestone in the road to totalitarianism? Stukach they called it in Soviet Union. Squealing. We start by encouraging people to report someone parking in a crosswalk, then before we know it, schoolchildren are turning in their parents for working on Trump's birthday.
       We're closer than you think. In case you missed it, the National Park Service just scratched Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth from its free entry holiday list, replacing it with the 47th president's birthday. Thank God we're all so numb, or we'd have to scan the headlines with our phones in one hand and air sickness bags in the other.

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Flashback 1991: Pearl Harbor terror recalled at rites here

The 50th anniversary was front page news

  
     Today is Pearl Harbor Day — a Sunday, as it was in 1941. I will fly the flag. Can't say whether the newspaper will run anything — memories fade, passions cool, and 84 years after the event, only about a dozen survivors of the Japanese attack remain alive. Time was, if the Sun-Times didn't mark the anniversary, prominently, readers would complain bitterly. This isn't a column — I was a general assignment reporter at the time, reporting on the Dec. 7 anniversary commemoration — other stories had run the day before. Starting on the front page.

     How bad was it at Pearl Harbor? Enough for Arlandres Dixon to suddenly feel homesick for the Southern city he joined the Navy to escape
     "It was one of the few times in my life I missed Jackson, Miss.," said Dixon of the moment he stood on the deck of the U.S.S. Dale and watched Japanese bombers rip into the harbor. "I was scared as a fox with a pack of hounds behind him."

     The 72-year-old former gunner was one of hundreds of veterans who gathered at Daley Plaza on Saturday for a solemn ceremony to mark the 50th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 

     Maj. Gen. James H. Mukoyama Jr., a third generation Japanese American, said honoring the Pearl Harbor dead should not mean rekindling bigotry against Japanese Americans, many of whom fought bravely in World War II and almost all of whom were loyal citizens despite official government outrages committed against them.

     "During World War II, tens of thousands of Japanese Americans were taken from their homes," he said. "In Hawaii, (they) were forced to wear black badges on their clothes, reminiscent of the cloth badges Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany. The only crime committed by these American citizens were their parents were born in Japan."

     Despite somber speeches, the moment of silence, and the Marine bugler playing taps, it was still a gathering of veterans, complete with hearty handshakes, slaps on the back, more than one dirty joke, and a lot of reminiscing.

     Dixon, whose destroyer was the first ship to make it out of the harbor, recalled using blowtorches and bolt cutters to break into the ship's magazine to get at shells because the officer with the keys was on shore.

     Another attack survivor who was present was Clyde Leland Ernst, 85, who 50 years ago was chief warrant carpenter on Ford Island. He was warming up the engines of the ferryboat he operated when he saw waves of Japanese torpedo planes — at eye level, it seemed — pass by.

     "I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe it," said Ernst, who would spend the next three days ferrying wounded to the mainland hospital. He said that despite his memories of burned sailors, he holds no animosity toward the Japanese today.

     "I've outgrown that," he said. "Time heals the deepest wounds."

       — Originally published in the Sun-Times, Dec. 8, 1991

Flashback 1998: Galoshes mark big milestone

     The aging brain retains many odd bits, the mental equivalent of drawers jammed with junk and jars brimming with buttons and pennies. Friday morning, contemplating the weekend, I thought, "Dec. 6 is James Thurber's birthday."  As to which one, I squinted and guessed: "...128." Close: Dec. 8, not 6th. And 131 years ago — 1894 . 

     I haven't read his stuff lately — haven't read much at all, now that I can scroll mindlessly through Instagram and TikTok like everybody else. But at one time was he was a point of ready reference.  

     This is briefer than columns lately, because it ran, at the time, in the Features section on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It evokes a time when most days I dutifully headed downtown to work, wearing a suit and Oxford shoes, ready for whatever came. Typically I don't like to repeat a word too often, but here I use "galoshes" nine times — I obviously shied away from the double entendre "rubbers." I was 38 when I wrote this. Imagine how I feel now.

     One of the advantages of growing up fat and kinda unattractive is that, as you enter middle age, you're prepared for it. You've been there.
     I weighed the same this morning as when I was 16. How many guys can say that? True, I was 198 pounds when I was 16. But hey, the logic still holds. At least I don't weigh 300 pounds. Some guys do.
     That said, there are still surprises, still milestones that catch your attention and cause you to pause, sighing, in the doorway that leads away from youth.
     The milestones I'm thinking about are more subtle than the typical markers of time's passage: the graduations, marriages, births. I'm referring to the buying life insurance milestone, the gray hair milestone, the making-the-same-groaning-noise-your-father-made-when-he-got-out-of-a-chair milestone.
     Or, as I discovered recently, the galoshes milestone.
     It was raining hard. As I plucked the umbrella out of the front closet I glimpsed my galoshes, turned inside out, where I had flung them last spring, the previous occasion, when, at my wife's urging, I wore them out of the house.
     Normally, I never wear them unless forced to. There is something terribly sad about galoshes, something dreary and middle-aged. Put on galoshes and you're halfway to wearing woolen underwear and walking about with a hot water bottle tied around your neck with a string.
     Men are supposed to be stronger than that. We must be nagged to wear our galoshes. In James Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," galoshes are one of the mundane items that, along with puppy biscuits, Mitty's overbearing wife nags him to purchase.
     "Remember to get those overshoes while I'm having my hair done," she says. He argues, "I don't need overshoes."
     "We've been through that," she snaps, then adding the coup de grace, a blow at the heart: "You're not a young man any longer."
     Heading out the door, seeing the galoshes on the floor of the closet, I actually looked over my shoulder, to see if my wife was around to order me to put them on. She wasn't. I hesitated. It was raining hard. I was wearing my Church's oxfords, lovely hunks of hand-made leather bought at great expense, shoes that I nurse through the years (they've had more new soles than a tent revival). It wouldn't do to wreck them while saluting some faded echo of youthful bravado.
     I put on my galoshes.
     The heavens did not crack. People on the street didn't point and stare. The oxfords were protected.
     But I felt a little more stooped, a little more tired. I got to work, peeled off the galoshes, and flung them on my desk, where they have sat since, turned inside out, awaiting the next downpour to be worn home.
     I don't know where being cautious became associated with age and decline. Teenagers leave their coats to flap open, defiantly, when they are forced to wear coats at all. Older people button up and wear those stupid hats with the flaps sticking out. It's smarter, and safer, but I miss the old way.
     At least I don't use the shoe trees. I have all these wooden shoe trees that I inherited from my father. They're in the bottom of the closet. The idea is that you put the trees in your shoes at night to, I don't know, keep them from collapsing in on themselves.
     I have never used the shoe trees, and my shoes seem fine. But maybe I'm just too immature to understand the benefit of a shoe tree. Maybe, in a few years, I'll come home one fine day and those wooden trees will make perfect sense.
     And kids think aging is without its thrills.
     — Originally published in the Sun-Times, Oct. 20, 1998

A few of the comments refer to this photo, which was atop the blog the day this post ran.

Can't sleep? Don't count sheep — use this guided meditation for healthful snoozing

     Hey there, and welcome to the Chicago Sun-Times guided meditation for sleep. I'm your host, Neil Steinberg, and I'd like to invite you to get comfortable in a secure location. If you are driving your car, reading this on your phone at a stoplight, as people actually do, you are invited to ease your car over to the side of the road, angle your seat back, and hold the phone a comfortable four inches from your face.
     Or better yet, set this to MurmurMode, where one of 12 artificial voices will narrate this for you: Unemployed Hunky Actor, Older Lady Librarian, Whispering Mermaid, and such. Then you may place your hand over a flat surface, gently open your fingers, and execute a maneuver known as "setting your phone down." If you are experiencing the residual frozen claw that comes from holding an iPhone for 110 minutes straight, try wiggling your fingers until the numbness and tingling dissipate. Do not be alarmed by your hand being empty — your phone is still nearby and available. Give it a gentle pat to reassure yourself that it's still right there.
     Now sit back and close your eyes. Draw in a deep breath, filling your lungs with air. Hold that, savoring the quality of fullness. Then exhale the air out, preventing yourself from wondering how you've come to such a degraded state that you need to be told to breathe, an activity heretofore done automatically and without guidance, by you and most living creatures. Worms breathe unaided — through their skin, a process called cutaneous respiration.
     Now set an intentionality — what sort of sleep would you like to experience? The serene snuggling sleep of an infant nestled in a completely empty crib, devoid of bumpers, blankets or stuffed animals, because apparently those are considered lethal nowadays? The bivalve bliss of the ocean oyster, resting in the warm sand of an antediluvian sea? The restorative slumber of someone who didn't spend the past 40 years madly dashing like a gerbil on a wheel in a profession that was steadily dying all around him? The choice is yours.
     Identify something that happened today and be grateful about it. Is your skin pale enough that you could go to the Home Depot for a box of nails without worrying that ICE would grab you out of the parking lot and send you to a nameless prison in El Salvador? Do you live in a city where the mayor is not a bumbling buffoon trying to balance the budget on the backs of those businesses that stay despite his constant death-of-a-thousand-cuts harassment? Focus on this good thing while crossing your hands over your chest, executing the butterfly hug while repeating, "I am grateful. I am snug. I am protected."
     While we are utilizing the my-wishes-become-reality linkage between flitting intangible thoughts within and the generally harsh and unresponsive reality without, a charmed notion that Oprah years ago somehow convinced us was real, feel free to add: "I live in a functional democracy, where laws apply equally to smirking billionaires and nugatory losers such as me." Reach for the stars.

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