Memories of 9/11 horror still fresh after a quarter-century

     On Sept. 11, 2001, my older son was 5, and some mornings played video games on my computer. So I wasn't plugged into the world that morning. I didn't know that American Airlines Flight 11 had struck the North Tower at 7:46 a.m. Chicago time. I did not own a cell phone.
     At the Northbrook Metra station, stepping onto the 8:17 Downtown, I heard a woman down the platform say something about the World Trade Center being hit by a plane.
     At Union Station, knots of people stood around, talking. I asked one: what kind of plane hit the twin towers?
     "A 767," he said. That startled me. I had assumed it would be a Cessna.
     "That's a big plane," I said, thickly.
     At Wacker Drive, people were pouring out of the Sears Tower, fanning out in all directions. I noticed that, as they hurried along, they looked up, scanning the sky. As if they expected to see a plane go into the building at any moment.
     There was a Billy Goat Tavern on Washington, open for breakfast. I stepped inside. Everyone was just standing there in silence, watching the North Tower collapse on TV. I joined them. You could hear the eggs sizzling on the grill.
     The paper was still at 401 N. Wabash. I was on the editorial board and walked into editorial page editor Steve Huntley's office.
     "How do you spell 'Osama bin Laden?'" he asked. I'd never heard the name but went to my office to find out.
     I used to say there were two shocks about Sept. 11 — the first was that it happened, that four planes were hijacked by 19 men wielding box cutters. Two crashed into New York's World Trade Center, toppling the towers. A third hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers stormed the cockpit; 2,973 men, women and children died that day.
     There was a time when I wouldn't feel obligated to spell out the details. But more than a third of Americans have no living memory of Sept. 11, 2001, and it would not be surprising if 9/11 is news to some — just another crumb of dusty history they didn't learn in school.
     Leading to the second shock of 9/11: that it went away, or at least ebbed. Because for days and weeks and months, it seemed that 9/11 was a permanent condition, a radiating, bottomless shock, sorrow and stupefaction. But ebb it did, slowly receding, like a tide going out. And now 25 years have gone by, and attention must be paid again.
     We put out "Extras" in those days — special editions to update breaking news stories, hawked at newsstands downtown. Our first was headlined "UNSPEAKABLE HORROR" — I remember looking at "Unspeakable" and thinking, "Really? 'Cause we're trying to flippin' speak it." The second was better: "TERROR!"

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'Jesus won't you fuckin' whistle?' — Songs about recovery

     Facebook gets a lot of crap, and rightly so. What used to be a chance to keep up with your friends has degraded into a sewer of cheap ads and AI slop. I deleted the app off my phone yesterday — not worth the bother.

     But Facebook is great as a mnemonic device. Every morning I check it on the Imac, to see what was going on in years past. Eighteen years and counting; 18 years, flushed down the Facebook toilet.
     For instance, exactly 10 years ago my literary guide to recovery, "Out of the Wreck I Rise," written with Phaidon editor Sara Bader, was published. I've been seeing the various stabs at publicity I took, trying to market the book, and Wednesday saw this post, written for a web site called "Largehearted Boy," which asked me to join the likes of T.C. Boyle, Brett Easton Ellis and Amy Bloom in offering up a playlist that "relates in some way" to my newly published book.

    I didn't have to be asked twice. Music is not only a key to recovery — well, my recovery anyway  — but a number of songs are quoted in the book. I would have quoted more, if we could have secured the permissions.
     While my blog page has been grinding along since 2013, I was pleased to see that Largehearted Boy, written by Brooklyn author David Gutowski, is still at it, having begun practically in the antediluvian, 2002.
     I would have sworn I'd posted this list on EGD at some point — I did a post on my diabetes playlist — but never have. So this is a good moment to correct that oversight. It is, by necessity, a decade out of date. New additions would include "Sober," by Tool, which is playing Riotfest Sept. 19. Not that it is a new song, mind you — it was recorded in 1993. But I only recently heard it for the first time. I'm a fan of its sinuous bass line and, for some reason I can't explain, the line, "Jesus, won't you fuckin' whistle?"

     Though if you look at the video — a creepy piece of claymation — linked in the title, they change the obscenity, timidly, in my book, to "Jesus, won't you try and whistle?" I've linked to YouTube videos in all the titles. If you want me to triage the best, I'd say the top three would be Pink's — an eyeful, and I don't mean the establishing shots of gloomy Stockholm; "Some People Change," which is slickly done; and "Lust for Life," with the manic energy of the film.

"Liquor Slave" by Lucky Dube

One of the keys in understanding addiction is that it is not a bad choice, but an obsession. You don't destroy your life through substances because you're stupid, but because you're compelled, enslaved, or as the late South African reggae star sings, "a slave, a slave, a liquor slave."

"S.O.B." by Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats

Part tent revival, part 1950s demon rum scare movie, this hand-clapping surprise 2015 hit puts to music the give-it-to-me-now imperative and intensity of addiction, both the shrugging plunge, complete with shaking hands, crawling bugs and breaking hearts at the realization, even through the fog of intoxication: "This can't be me."

"Cold Turkey" by John Lennon

The former Beatle's agonized trek through heroin withdrawal, complete with desperate, groaning screams. "I promise you anything, get me out of this hell." In our book, which creates a mosaic connecting one thought to another to convey a narrative, it leads directly to Christopher Marlowe's: "Why this is hell, nor am I out of it."

"Detox Mansion" by Warren Zevon

In perhaps the most famous song about recovery, "Rehab," Amy Winehouse never gets there, with tragic results in her real life. For all the hard-partying rock stars, there are very few songs about actually going to rehab. "Detox Mansion," is among the best, conveying the weary cynicism mingled with hope that so often greets recovery. "I'm gone to Detox Mansion, way down on Last Breath Farm," sings Zevon, who struggled with alcoholism for decades, and was sober for 17 years before relapsing hard at the end of his life after he was diagnosed with cancer.

"Sober" by Pink

The pop pride of Philadelphia asks what is an essential question in recovery: "how do I feel this good sober?" Addicts must not only stop using, but construct a life they feel good about, where they find the kind of joy they used to find in substances. In the song, Pink sees herself clearly, a party girl running out of time, determined that this is not the way she wants her story to end.

"Some People Change" by Montgomery Gentry

This country duo is known for its smart, contemporary songs, blending faith and courage. "Some People Change" offers something that can be in short supply with the frequent reversals of recovery: hope. It limns the grimness of alcoholism in a few concise lines, the simultaneous submitting and hating that you're submitting, then celebrates those who can re-write the story of their lives: "Here's to the strong. Thanks to the brave. Don't give up hope. Some people change."

"Fallen" by Sarah McLachlan

A song that manages to be despairing and triumphant at the same time. "Better I should know"—in four words, the Lilith-fair founder deflates the regret that those who have "sunk so low." feel at being forced to give up their addictions and confront their broken lives even though "there doesn't seem a way to be redeemed." But there is, for many, as the Canadian balladeer reminds us.

"New South Wales" by Jason Isbell

Sometimes you just get sick of being sick. Isbell takes the details of recovery, the coffee and the posters, the slogans and the meetings, and find them good. Giving up his old life "holds no trace of sorrow," while the program ferrying him to his new life offers salvation. "God bless the busted boat that brings us back."

"Mariner's Song" by Cowboy Junkies

A beautiful song about loss and yearning, with that trademark fluttering mandolin. It might have nothing to do with recovery, but I chose to hear it that way. "I look for you in every crest I ride, with every trough I travel through" conveys the way the thing stays with you. But one line in particular sums up the best reason to keep on the straight path. "The last of man's great untamed beasts"—what could that be?—"lies lapping at my door. And I would be happy to give it what it wants, but I do know it would just ask for more."

That's it. As tempting as going back might be, there's no end to it. The beast would just ask for more.

"Lust for Life" — Iggy Pop

Trainspotting, Danny Boyle's movie about the Edinburgh drug scene might ask "Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?" but if you listen to the song playing over the opening credits, Iggy Pop's bass-drum driven "Lust for Life," you get a quick course in the pleasure of breaking with all those Johnnies and their enticements. "No more beating my brains, with liquor and drugs," Iggy sings, and makes us want to bounce along with him.

Rejecting cruelty of a nation bent on squashing trans Americans

Moon over Alabama, by Richard Linder

     The war on trans Americans continues unabated. The government cashiers loyal and effective soldiers from the military while trying to quash health care for young people nationwide. Apparently, parents know what's best for their own children only when denying them vaccines. A scary time, and if you don't think it's your problem, then you're ignoring how quickly a cruel and arbitrary government can shift from one target to another. Hate is fickle.
     Civility shouldn't be. I've been defending trans people in print for 34 years. First, because I'm a Jew, and given our history of being on the receiving end of hatred, it's our responsibility not to limit the compass of our sympathy entirely to ourselves.
     But there's another reason, one I've never explained, So today I'll tell the story.
     As a young reporter, I quickly discovered there are two ways to do the job. You can wait for someone to assign you something, and end up covering fires and zoning board hearings.
     Or you can find your own subjects, ones that you are guaranteed to be interested in because you picked them yourself.
     I preferred the second path.
     So I'm combing the classified ads at the back of the Chicago Reader, fishing for leads, when I notice an ad for a boutique on Elston Avenue selling women's clothing in large sizes to men.
     "Now there's an interesting business," I thought, and headed over. Talking to the owner, I realized this is more than one shop. This is a world, a community. I saw an announcement for a dance, and decided to go.
     At the dance I met "Jenny," who I described in the opening paragraphs of my story this way:

     Jenny has sparkling blue eyes, a small, upturned nose and a cascade of curly blond hair tumbling over her right shoulder.
     With a rhinestone nail charm centered on each red fingernail, a dab of blush at her decolletage, and deftly applied make-up, it's easy to believe her when she says she spent three hours getting ready to go out.
     The shimmery blue and silver dress is custom-made, she says, and it's easy to believe that, too, since with the spike heels, Jenny tops out at perhaps 6-foot-7.
     "I'm a bigger girl, I know," she says, smiling radiantly. "I can't go out to a mall — hey, I've got a football player's shoulders."

     What I did not put in the story was my thought processes, standing there in the dim, loud dance, with my narrow pad and pen, as she spoke. Picture me, brow furrowed, gears slowly turning, as I looked up at this young woman, nearly a foot taller than myself.
     "Hmmmm...." I thought. "Three hours. That's a long time. She must really want to do this. You know ... most people do what they really want to do. And in that sense, I'm lucky that what I really want to do is go home and kiss the wife. Because if I wanted to do ... what she wants to do ... I'd be completely screwed. Because I could either do what I want to do, and be this loathed pariah skulking around the shadows. Or I could spend my life not doing what I want to do, and isn't that a sad way to live?"

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Score one for artificial intelligence

     The clematis have been on our front porch as long as I can remember. I don't recall planting them — either they were always there, or just showed up. Or, I suppose I could have planted them years ago and just forgot.

     Whatever the case, Monday, when I put out the flag to honor Labor Day, as I said the pledge, I noticed they had begun to bloom, in earnest, throwing open their white four blade propeller pedals to the world, and had a thought I've never had before:
     Why do they bloom in the fall? When most flowers bloom in the spring? Is there a reason?
     This must be well known — they are, after all, Sweet Autumn Clematis, and, somewhat incredibly, I did a deep dive into them three years ago, name checking Victor Hugo and Shakespeare, ranging from ancient Greece to Scottish poetry without raising the question that puzzled me now.     

     Not wanting to cheat and consult AI, I cracked open the Encyclopedia Britannica, and found them under the buttercup family, and read: "Clematis (clematis, or traveler's joy) with about 230 species in temperate regions especially in the Northern Hemisphere and in tropical mountains of Africa."

     And read. And read.

     Much discussion of leaves, tendrils, stems. "They are climbing plants..." No kidding. Then this surprise: "The flowers are principally bisexual." I guess they can't serve in the U.S. military then, or hold driver's licenses in Kansas. (Okay, that's trans citizens; work with me). The Britannica veered near the topic, "Perennial herbaceous species usually persist over the winter by means of a rhinzome or condensed rootstock, so that, with the death of the aerial shoots after flowering, a bud emerges from the rhizome or rootstock to give rise to the following years' shoots."

    Right. But why in the fall? I pushed on.

    Pedals. Ovules. Pollen sacs that generally open by valves. Some interesting stuff. But not to the point. 

    I gave up, sighed, and typed "Why do clematis bloom in the autumn?" into Google.

    "Certain clematis varieties, such as the Sweet Autumn Clematis, bloom in the autumn because they grow and flower exclusively on new wood produced during the current growing season." Along with a photo of my clematis. As if the AI knew.

     Following were three bullet points:

     — New wood growth: Unlike spring-blooming varieties that form buds on old stems from the previous year, autumn-blooming types start fresh each year. 

      — Time to mature: The plant needs the entire spring and summer to grow long vines and reach the size required to support heavy clusters of buds. 

     — Seasonal triggers: Shorter days and cooler late-summer temperatures signal the plant to finally open its fragrant white flowers, which last until the first frost. 

     Okay, I know my default has been that AI is balky and flawed and ridiculous. But it wins this round over the august Encyclopedia Britannica. I expect there will be a lot of that in the years to come. As I've said before: technology wins. 

''Work is play for mortal stakes'

     Robert Frost is like Norman Rockwell — an American icon who many wrongly assume to be a purveyor of mere kitsch — since his popular work obscures his more challenging material. Just as Rockwell's depictions of heart-tugging small town tableaus for The Saturday Evening Post — which, to be clear, are both technically brilliant and, to me, emotionally satisfying — are far better known than his unblinking looks at American racism for Look magazine, so Frost's two roads diverging in a yellow wood and wagon ride on a snowy evening eclipse more demanding poems like "Out, Out—" where a boy cuts his hand off on a buzz saw and dies.
     Frost plumbs the thorny questions of work and class, in poems like "The Death of the Hired Man," where farm couple Mary and Warren sit on the front steps musing on the return of Silas, the near tramp who has come by intending to help them hay their field, a poem containing the immortal lines, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there,/They have to take you in."
     On Friday, I looked at work through a different poet, Philip Larkin, author of one of my favorite poems, "This be the verse," one that I was lucky enough to deliver at the the Uptown Poetry Slam at the Green Mill, looking directly into the eyes of my older son, who deigned to attend:

      They fuck you up, your mum and dad

      They may not mean to, but they do. 

      They fill you with the faults they had

      And add some extra, just for you...

     The Larkin column drew some nice emails from that, but the best was from Joseph Harrison, who sent a link to Frost's poem "Two Tramps in Mud Time," which begins:

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"

     Which echoes with "Out, Out—" where the doomed boy is also distracted, by his sister calling him to supper:                     

                                    At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap—

     In "Two Tramps," nothing more dire comes from the interruption than one of the wanderers wanting to split the wood for pay that Frost is splitting, for free. Making it an apt poem for Labor Day.
     The appearance of the pair leads directly into to two dozen lines about the mercurial weather in April, which can read as a parable about how economic success can evaporate and hard times come on fast:

Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

     Frost, like many a liberal, feels guilty to be doing for pleasure what others do to stay alive.

With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right—agreed.

     "The final stanza of Two Tramps is worth memorizing for times when young people ask for career advice," said Harrison. While I cannot imagine that any young person would ever ask me for career advice, nor grasp these lines, even if I could serve them up, which I couldn't, here they are anyway:

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

     Although now that I re-read that, it seems awfully grand. And while I can't speak for Heaven, Frost certainly caught the future's eye, as this post is proof. For the rest of us, the considerable pleasure of doing the work, for love or money, and pleasing ourselves, if few else, will have to do. 

Flashback 1992: Wisconsin Shakespeare Just Plain Delightful

     The blog comments were disabled Friday, for reasons mysterious, but returned Saturday morning. The lacuna, annoying while it was going on, proved valuable, in that it reminded me how important comments are. To be blunt, I missed you guys. Saturday, after my field report on Little Louie's hot dog stand, regular reader Tony Galati mentioned Wisconsin's Mustard Museum, which sparked an "I've been there!" reaction. Thirty-four years ago. I'd have sworn I gave it more than the final paragraph of a story, but that is not the case. I was something of a trendsetter — I really like mustard — as its owner wouldn't be on David Letterman for another three years. This is also notable because it is not a column, but a travel story, though you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference. I did downplay my disgust at House on the Rock — I hated it so much I even hated my family, a little, for liking it, and only got through to the end by imagining calling in an air strike, the F-15s peeling out of the sky, in formation, firing their rampage missiles, me, from a safe distance, watching the whole thing go up with a satisfying "flumph!"

     The problem with getaway weekends is that everybody else in town seems to be always getting away to the same spot you are, so instead of escaping the city, you are only relocating a chunk of it.
     So it was with a certain amount of pleasure that I found myself in the decidedly unhip, genuinely off-the-beaten-trail town of Plain, Wis., with no noticeable points of interest other than being seven miles from Spring Green, where every vacant room was booked with urbanites flocking to the opening of the American Players Theatre's 13th season and to the pouting-puppy-in-stained glass, Emmett-Kelly-in-oils spectacle they call an art fair.
     All the Gothic mansion bed-and-breakfasts we would have normally booked ourselves into were filled, so we had to settle for the Kraemer House in Plain, which in its advertisements looks exactly like the regular, aluminum-sided, any-block-in-suburbia split level it is.
     I had my doubts, but the Kraemer House was a blessing in disguise. Since it was removed from the tourist-trap attractions of Spring Green, I instead had to explore the area around the house, which just so happens to be the sort of unspoiled farmland that makes us people who have at least four deadbolt locks on our doors feel we're really somewhere different.
     Early the first morning, while my wife slept, I took a stroll down Old Highway 23 and found myself walking through a landscape I had only previously seen in Marx farm playsets — mooing cows, flocking sheep, spindly windmills, old silos, growing corn.
     Equally uplifting is the American Players Theatre and its lovely outdoor venue, which also serves great, nearly homemade food and the always-welcome beer (try the Sprecher) and wine.
     I'll admit that, in my heart, I was torn between wanting to watch good theater and wanting my smug Chicago superiority confirmed by witnessing a lame Wisconsin stab at the Bard — a production that I dubbed "Cheesehead Othello."
     Thankfully, except for the costuming mistake of putting ridiculously huge musketeer hats on some of the principals, the production was first-rate: well-spoken, good swordplay, none of that standing-around-waiting-to-say-your-line body language that some regional productions feature.
     (The APT season runs through Oct. 4, alternating "Othello," "Much Ado About Nothing," "Our Town" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Performances are Tuesday through Sunday.)
     And, toward the end, when Desdemona says something about the heavens, there is the pleasure of angling your head up and taking in the stars, twinkling wildly, freed at last from the orange haze in Chicago.
     In addition to the theater we felt the need to take in the tourist sites of Spring Green. Having lived in Oak Park, we passed on Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin, one of the 100 or so examples of his brilliance within spitting distance of Chicago.
     Instead we subjected ourselves to a two-hour forced march through the Jacobian nightmare of the House on the Rock, Route 3 in Spring Green (608 935-3639), an everlasting monument to the idea that if you collect enough mouldering junk, 600,000 people will plunk down $13.72 a head to see it.
      There is no way to adequately describe the House other than to say it is a condensation of the dark, horrific underbelly of American culture, an historical atrocity of unrelenting creepiness offering up unrelated garbage - doll houses, odd figurines, doll-head vases, costume armor, old carriages, ship models, carousel horses, pipe organs and strange plants.
      We fled to the infinitely more-attractive Mustard Museum, 109 E. Main St., in nearby Mt. Horeb. A cheery, small, bright yellow store that offers, in addition to hundreds of mustards, a nose-tingling assortment of sauces, spices, condiments, chutneys, dips and toppings, a dozen or two of which are set out for liberal tasting by the owner and founder, Barry Levenson, a former Wisconsin assistant attorney general. Admission is free. (608-437-3986)

Restaurant field notes: Little Louie's

 

    So what was my most read post this past week? My take on artificial intelligence? My thoughtful dissection of the abortion issue? No. The visit to Culver's, top post of the week, third this past month. Apparently politics is out, eateries are in. 
    Okay, I can work with that. It happens that Tuesday I met a neighbor at the Bean Bar for coffee at 11 a.m. (ordered a flat white; the place was well-populated, sad that Northbrook, in its general mismanagement, will wipe it away to build apartments). We finished about a quarter to 12, and I ambled over to Sunset to pick up some pumpkin puree for the dog (we add it to her meals; aids the digestion). I love being in a suburb where I can walk places, though I'll be down a few important destinations — a coffee shop, a bookstore, a hardware store — after that building goes up. Dumb.
     So I thought I would treat myself by sliding by Little Louie's, Northbrook's beloved hot dog stand since 1967. I wasn't planning to write about it — didn't even snap a shot of the interior. But when my jumbo kosher hot dog arrived, it was such a thing of beauty, I had to take its portrait. I ordered it with mustard and grilled onions. While those onions are more ... substantial than I expected, they added a whole new dimension to the dining experience, and I did not mind them. You'll notice that I didn't order it with ketchup — while I hate the "you're not a Chicagoan if you put ketchup on hot dogs" idiocy, that doesn't mean it's my go-to move (though I did add a dollop from the red container on the table, for just a taste. Mmmm.)

     Little Louie's has a deep menu, for a hot dog stand — I sometimes pair a hot dog with a strawberry salad — and a wide array of Mexican items I have yet to try. 
     The owner since 1999, Pete Weiss was behind the counter, and we exchanged greetings. Through an act of will, I skipped fries. The Little Louie's fries are epic. They're also probably 800 calories for a weighty brown paper bag's worth. I did upscale my dog order — usually I get a regular char dog, but, perhaps because I was going fryless, I went for the jumbo kosher dog, even though it clocks in at a surprising $11.75. It was worth it: the dog, almost needless to say, was hot and delicious. The bun, fresh and fantastic. 

     Honestly, knowing how jarred the place was by COVID, I considered the steep fee a donation toward the continuing dynamism of my leafy suburban paradise. I can struggle forward without the Bean Bar — it only opened a few years back. But Little Louie's is essential.

     So much so that, Friday, I ambled over to grab a shot of the interior. I was going to ask Pete to pose, but he wasn't there. Maybe next time.