Party with the devil without selling your soul; win tickets to "Faust"

The Lyric's new Faust uses a dramatic set design by renowned sculptor John Frame (Photo courtesy of Cory Weaver)

     Given our national tendency to embrace the incredible, and entertain the possibility of almost any conceivable scenario, no matter how fantastic, it is perhaps surprising there is not widespread speculation that Donald Trump has sold his soul to the devil. That would solve the mystery of how a third-rate Manhattan con artist, laughingstock and poster boy for glittery 1980s venality could become, in short order, a best-selling author, television star and president of the United States.
     Plus, it would explain his notable lack of a soul.
     Perhaps the entire idea of signing away your immortal spirit to Satan has lost popular culture currency, a regrettable development I am happy to try to correct, in my own modest way, on Tuesday, March 6, by bringing 100 readers to the Civic Opera House see one of my favorite operas, “Faust,” by Charles Gounod, performed by Lyric Opera of Chicago.
     The story, in case you are unfamiliar, is a legendary tale told most famously by Goethe.
     Goethe’s original version begins with shades of Job: Satan makes a bet with God that he can corrupt his favorite human. The curtain goes up on Gonound’s opera with the philosopher in despair. The Devil offers him youth and love and — spoiler alert — Faust signs the bargain.
     The plot, however, the duels and dances, is not the main reason I like “Faust.” Rather it is what is always my first consideration in opera: the music, which in”Faust” whirls in sinister menace and races with hell-bound drive.

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J.B. Pritzker is (not) a racist

     For a number of years I wrote for the Chicago Reader, both the BobWatch and the True Books columns, and occasional columns and features. Then for a number of years I didn't, for the simple reason they weren't interested in my writing for them. Now my old pal, Mark Konkol, is editor. He asked me if I would write on this topic, and I said, "Sure." It's good to be back in the Reader. 

     Do you remember the word Bobby Rush used to describe anyone who might question the selection of toothless political hack Roland Burris to fill Barack Obama's vacant senatorial seat?
     Think back. Almost a decade ago. December 2008.
     Rod Blagojevich was out on parole, having already so badly mangled the deliberation process that he was muscled out of his Ravenswood home in handcuffs by the FBI. Still, he insisted on appointing a senator, as his final obscene gesture to the state he'd betrayed.
     Anyone with an ounce of personal integrity cringed away from the poisoned chalice Blago was proffering with both hands.
     But the septuagenarian Burris, who had space on his pharaonic tomb to list another accomplishment, grabbed it eagerly.
     No? Don't remember? It was a long time ago.
     Rush, after thanking God that a black man had been made senator, urged anyone in the U.S. Senate who might oppose the former attorney general's appointment not to "lynch" the man.
     He went there. Easily. From long practice. Because really, the only reason a person would not want a 71-year-old undistinguished political functionary dropped into a seat in the United States Senate had to be racial hate.

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Americans have always agonized over tipping

     Tipping is back in the news. The Sun-Times ran a full page analysis on Monday.
     “Fourteen years ago,” Ohio journalist Connie Schultz began, in a column syndicated across the country, “I wrote a column about a tip jar in Cleveland and how the managers took all the money….”
     She goes on to discuss the Labor Department’s latest efforts to make it easier for tips to flow into the pockets of management and not, necessarily, to the workers for whom they are supposedly intended.
     There’s no reason why our view of the topic should stop in 2004. Tipping has been an issue of heated debate in this country for over a century, with the discovery of who really benefits from tipping being a reliable scandal that, though periodically revealed, somehow never quite sinks into general public
knowledge.
     “The bestower of this always reluctant largess is a notably unsophisticated person if he thinks that it goes to the young man or woman who collects the coin,” the New York Times noted on Aug. 31, 1917. “Neither one or the other receives more than a minute weekly salary, paid by the corporation that employs him or her. All the rest, and by far the larger amount … is divided between that corporation and the proprietors of the hotels and restaurants.”

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Auto Show Spectacular #3: Blowing about town in a new Nissan Leaf

 


     The Auto Show is at McCormick Place this week. To celebrate, I'm revisiting some of my favorite car columns. Such as this, from 2011, where I become the first civilian in the Chicago area to drive a Nissan Leaf. Or at least tried to be.

      "Here's your key," said the man from Nissan, my first adjustment to the brave new world of electric cars, since what he handed me wasn't a key at all, in the sense of something metal that slides into an ignition and turns, but an oval fob.
     The fob had buttons to lock and unlock a 2011 Nissan Leaf, the all-electric car debuting in Chicago this weekend. But to start it, all that was necessary was for the fob to be near the ignition, an orange push button.
     Which led to the second adjustment. Starting the car caused the dashboard to spring to life, chirping a brief electronic fanfare, but nothing so industrial as engine noise. It drives silently — a slight electric whine if you mash on the accelerator. There are no pistons to rattle, no tailpipe to roar.
     I dropped the Nissan guy at the train — the plan was for me to drive it for a few days. I came home, parked in the driveway, and the Leaf passed its first big test: the neighbors.
     "What's with the car?" said the boy from next door, who stopped playing basketball and sauntered over to admire the sky blue vehicle. I explained that this is the new Nissan Leaf. No gas tank! No emissions!
     "Cool," he pronounced. By then the silent alarm that new cars emit — like a dog whistle — drew a crowd. The boy's mom. Then Bill from across the street. I popped the little nose hatch to show off the charging outlet.
     "Very cool," Bill said, adding the headlights remind him of a French Citroen.
     My oldest boy burst out of the house, barefooted, demanding a test drive, and we blew around the leafy suburban paradise in my Leaf. The car accelerates briskly.
     If I had to predict challenges the Leaf will face, I'd say first, the 100-mile range on a charge. Americans like to pretend they live in a world of infinite possibility. We don't like limits. That's why speedometers go to 160.
     Second, the $34,000 price tag; a lot for a small car, though that will no doubt come down while the single-charge range goes up. 
     Shortly after we returned, my wife needed to go to the grocery. The Leaf was blocking the driveway. I might as well take her. The boys wanted to come along for the ride.
     So now my family is sitting in the car. I push the button, the dashboard leaps to life. All the windows are open — to savor the engine silence — and I notice the air conditioner pumping out chilled air. Frugal soul that I am, I press the AC "ON/OFF" button and then try to put the car into reverse. Nothing.
     I try again. I could put the Leaf into neutral, but not reverse or drive. Sweating, I work the stumpy shifter. Warning lights glow across the dashboard. An enigmatic "PS." I turn the thing off and on. That normally works. Nothing. Dad killed the electric car.
     I jog inside and plug "Nissan Leaf" and "won't start" and "PS" into Google. The first page is a "Leaf Wiki" saying that this spring several hundred Leafs had a problem where, if you turn the AC off, the car goes dead.
     "What to do?" offered this advice:
     "Your best bet is to call Nissan road-side service to have the car towed/transported to a Nissan dealer."
     I phoned my Nissan guy, who said, more or less "whoops," and sent a flatbed truck. This is where not laying out 34 grand helps.
     My wife still needed to go to the supermarket, and since the car would go into neutral, she, my younger son and I pushed it off to the side so she could slide by in our gas-guzzling yet functional Honda. I appreciated the Leaf's agile maneuverability as I steered it through the open driver's door.
     A few thoughts: No new technology ever arrives without setback. Ford Model Ts could break your arm when you cranked them. In the pantheon of car design flaws, with exploding gas tanks and unstable SUVs, the Nissan AC Button of Electric Death is but a footnote.
     I still think this car is the future. Republicans can rage against global warming all they like. But the animals are moving north, away from rising temperatures. The science is there, and while that might not affect someone who believes the Earth was created 6,000 years ago, for the rest of us, change is coming.
     An hour later, the Leaf was gone. My gut tells me I'll never hear from Nissan again,* which is a shame, because I did like the car, and wish I could have driven it more. Nissan told me they pushed up unveiling the Leaf in Chicago because the city has been so progressive about electric car charging stations — I was excited to see what charging it up is like.
     The Leaf is a sporty little vehicle, when operational, and I hope its debut here this weekend is a big success. But a practical tip: if you are tooling your Leaf around town, and the air conditioning is on, well, just leave it. 

             —Published in the Sun-Times, Aug. 22, 2011

* I underestimated the daring of the Nissan Corporation. Even after this ran, they followed up with a second Leaf. I didn't touch the AC.

Fox News shares the blame for our national fiasco

Natasha, foreground, and Gizmo, in a characteristic pose.

     We have two cats, Natasha and Gizmo. Old cats, given to lazing on our bed all day. But occasionally one will, in a burst of industry, drag a freshly killed mouse out of the inner recesses of our 110-year-old farmhouse and leave it in a conspicuous spot. A present.
     Social media is kinda like that. There is always some eager soul who finds a hurtful comment about me in the enormity of the internet and leaves it on my doorstep.“Gosh, isn’t this awful?” they say. “I thought you’d want to see it.” Why yes, yes it is awful. Thank you for sharing.
     No human birddog is even necessary anymore. It’s now done automatically.
     “Neil Steinberg’s tweet was featured in Fox News” info@twitter.com happily informed me.
     Oh goody. Thanks info@twitter.com! I never look at Fox News. I haven’t the stomach to see reality so deformed. It’s like looking at photographs of spoiled food. Something that should be appealing — the news — rendered noxious by corrosive agents.

     Sighing, I turned my attention to “Mainstream media attacking Trump’s ‘dumb’ idea for military parade” by Brian Flood.
     True enough. As if spurred by an accidentally accurate headline, Flood begins his analysis this way: “The mainstream media have suddenly taken a drastic stance against parades.”

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Auto Show Spectacular #2: A week in the fastest production car on the road

     The Chicago Auto Show opened this weekend. To celebrate, I'm re-visiting some of my favorite car-related columns from years past. There are a few things that make me wince—those six dashes in a single sentence in the second paragraph. But generally I'm surprised and pleased at how much, at 24, my narrative voice was the same as it is now, and there are a few novel metaphors that I am proud to have coined.

     "Would you like a 1985 Corvette?" the Chevy man said, flashing a smile that was friendly and kind.
     "Yes, please," I answered, sensing my journalistic integrity melt away like a snowman in the spring thaw. I knew the scenario: they give me a new 1985 Chevrolet Corvette—fastest production car made—and I drive it around for a week —350 cubic inch V8 under the hood—and write an article—top speed of 155 mph—drooling with praise about this car, using phrases like "ultimate expression of man's love affair with the automobile" and "sleek styling that dropped jaws like a gallon of Novocain."
      Would I take the bait? Hell yes. Some cyborg might be able to pass the opportunity or, worse, drive the thing and then produce a dry essay on the perils of excess. Not this cowboy. Pleasures in life are to be taken and enjoyed, and driving a Corvette is about as pleasurable as something can be.
     WELL here goes:
     On Tuesday, I parked my little Citation—also a Chevy, but related to the Corvette in the same way Morris the Cat is related to a cheetah—in back of the office. Then I climbed int the cockpit of this metallic blue low slung beauty. I fired up the engine and gingerly, very gingerly, applied my foot to the gas pedal, my head smacking against the driver's window as the car bucked and surged around a corner.
     Driving in traffic was like trying to ice a cake with a shovel. I quickly discovered a thing or two about the Corvette. Hitting the gas pedal with any conviction caused the rear end to do a little jig, until the fat Goodyear tires managed to dig in and catch. Then zing. It was as if God grabbed the car by the belt and the scruff of the neck and heaved it forward into space. Almost as if you could project the car ahead by thought alone. One moment I would be idling at a stoplight, sneaking glimpses to the side to see if anyone was ogling the car. The next: hurtling forward, the digital dash ticking upward, my heart pounding as traffic became a bunch of specks in the rear-view mirror.
    The week I drove the car strange things started happening to my mind. Having been content to plunk along at a sane four-cylinder speed for years, I realized that incredible rates of acceleration were not at my fingertips.
     Then there was the thrill of being nestled in the middle of a command center of $27,000 worth of electronic goodies, from the all-LED digital dashboard that glowed a gentle gold and green, to the Delco Bose stereo system that had the friendly quality of extending the radio antenna whenever it was turned on.
     It was frustrating to lurch and crawl through downtown traffic. As soon as I got it out in the open and began roaring down the dark back roads of the northwest suburbs, I knew what was in store for me, sometime during the week. it would happen. The Total Speed Lust Experience. I saw the blank third digit of the speedometer, and knew what I had to do.
    But not the first day. I parked in my garage, and stood, waiting for the interior lights to click off. The lights stayed on for a few moments, to help the driver out of the car. Marvelous.
     The next morning, the day seemed unusually fresh. I dressed, grabbed a few cassette tapes, and vowed to push the car to its upper limits. I stood before the garage door a moment, musing on what was inside. Somehow, on that day, even the garage seemed like something out of an Andrew Wyeth watercolor. I pulled the door open, the ball bearings rattling an overture, and there is was. One new Corvette, all mine, temporarily, through the glittering generosity of public relations. The car's control panel gleamed through the back window, which popped up with a pleasing pneumatic "whoosh."
     The moment came that evening.
     I was traveling along North Avenue. It was dark, and I had finished a long day at work. Some plodder was creeping along, and I swung around and hit the gas to pas. Before I knew what was happening, the car had reached the range of unprintable speeds. Something urged me on, as if primal forces, or the car itself, had taken control. I rammed the accelerator down, and the engine emitted a joyful, fearsome noise. It sounded like the very soul of capitalistic techno-frenzy, screaming out a battle cry, as the lights along the side of the road blurred and fell past.
     Suddenly I was alone. For one glorious moment, nothing existed. Only silence. Top of the world.
     The the image of being dragged, in leg-irons, before a West Chicago judge filtered into my mind. Class X Felony Speeding. I shook myself, like a man fighting to wake up from a dream. I pressed the brakes, and watched the numbers slowly tumble down. Back to the world of normal speeds, like a diver rising up from the murkiest depths, leaving behind the wonder, back up to the dry, normal world.
    I checked my rear view mirror. No Mars lights. A sigh of relief. Can't let that happen again, I thought, picturing my lame explanation, "Well, you see, officer, ummm, I'm a reporter and, ah, I just thought I'd see just how, umm, fast..."
     I noticed that the people who I let drive the car always laughed. The raw power would make them giddy and, weaving their way around traffic, they would laugh and reflect back to the muscle cars they drove as teenagers—the Barracudas, Boss 429 Mustangs, GTOs and Z28 Camaros.
     The Corvette is out of the range of most people. Which is probably a good thing; if Corvettes became widely-owned, the roads would quickly become a chaos of rocket sleds explosively smashing together and flying off the road into drainage ditches. (Or, as a Journal photographer put it, shouting above the sound of screaming rubber. "If I had this thing I'd either be in prison or dead!")
      At the end of the week, it came time to give the Corvette back. This seemed so unfair. I had gotten used to complete luxury—the range indicator, telling me how many miles I had to go until the next fill-up. The variable-speed wipers, demurely pulling themselves out of sight when not in use. The electric windows, flip-up headlights, lighted vanity mirror, and a dozen other perks and fripperies. I would miss feeling like a god, snaking my way through traffic at will, blowing lesser beings off the road with a single undiluted blast of power.
     The Citation had sat for a week, in the cold, neglected and alone. I meant to start it up occasionally, to keep the battery charged, but with Corvette keys jangling in my pocket, who could think of a little front-wheel drive econobox?
     I parked the Corvette, ran my hand over the fiberglass fender, and climbed into the cold vinyl interior of the Citation. It felt odd to so suddenly move from the Corvette to this Spartan environment. No tilt-a-wheel, no tinted windows. Just an AM radio and the same linear speedometer found on every car since the Model T.
     At least it started right up, and I muttered a prayer of thanks to the Chevy Corporation as I took the Citation out into the night. I required a moment to get used to it again, riding way up in the air on this little four-cylinder toy, something like being perched on a concrete slab pulled by a donkey.
     I suppose there are people who can sit back, haughtily, and scorn something as common as a machine, as juvenile and artless as the love of a car. But is just that — a love — at the core of America's affection for automobiles, a fascination that causes monuments to excess, like the Corvette, to be adored by many and purchased by a few. And, like all loves, it is not really a good or bad thing. It just is.
     As time went by, the thrill of my week with the Corvette has faded into memory. And yet, sometimes, while I'm poking along through slow traffic in my Citation, I'll get a far-away look in my eyes, and suddenly Corvette thoughts will come racing back into my mind, like the remembrance of a brief, wonderful love affair, now long past.
          —Originally published in the Wheaton Daily Journal, Feb. 24, 1985

Chicago Auto Show Spectacular: #1. All revved up, nowhere to go

1948 Tucker Torpedo (Smithsonian Museum of American History)

     The Chicago Auto Show opens at McCormick Place today—assuming you are reading this Saturday, Feb. 10.   
      While I make a point of going to the housewares show, the auto show is such a mob scene that I studiously avoid it. Though occasionally the paper dispatches me, and I manfully try to do my best, such as this report—I'm proud for noticing the aspirations to elegance of any car can be gauged by the grandeur its makers lunge for when describing "white."
     But skirting the show doesn't mean I don't get excited about cars. I do, and have fun when the opportunity arises to write about them. The show is open until Feb. 19, and during its run I'm going to share some fun, auto-related columns from years past. 

     Some sort of cosmic malevolence has always kept me from appreciating automobiles.
     I want to. I try. But the effort inevitably falls flat.
     I just came from five hours of wandering around the Chicago Auto Show. There was only one car that I knew ahead of time I rather liked, just for its styling — the new Audi TT Roadster. Sort of like a Volkswagen Beetle for guys. When I realized that you could sit inside the cars, I opened the door of a very promising silver TT and got inside.
     Or tried to.
     The same cut-down roof that gives the car its low-slung line makes the car nearly impossible to get into. I had to fold myself in half and shove my body in, dragging my head against the frame. And I'm not quite 5 feet 9.
     In general, actually seeing the vehicles took the sheen off the idea of owning them. As rugged as the Hummers look, a peek inside shows that the driver and passenger seats are about a yard apart, separated by a chest-high central console. Your passenger might as well be in the next lane.
     As I strolled, I became more interested, not in the vehicles themselves, but in the ballyhoo used to push them. For instance: They seem to be running out of car names. The contender for the "Impact" award for a bad car name goes to the Chevy Avalanche, which denotes not just mountains, but mountains sliding down on top of you.
     The Echo Reverb — an economy model from Toyota—was runner-up, though I also appreciated the name of the sound system in the signature Sony vehicle from Ford: Xplod, pronounced "explode."
     I administered what I called the "white test." You could tell how pretentious a car is by what term the company applies to the color white.
     For instance, while Saturn calls white "white," Ford calls it "Oxford white." Moving up the scale, Cadillac has "white diamond" and Porsche, "Biarritz white." Rolls-Royce can't even utter the prosaic syllable "white." For them, it's simply "Artica." (And yes, it's true, the Silver Seraph does come with one of those little doughnut spare tires, as opposed to a full-sized spare).
     The color of the future seems to be yellow. Most every concept car is that hue. Saturn's concept car is the horrible gold of a 1959 refrigerator. Daewoo's Sporty concept is the same greenish yellow found on the reflective strips on firefighter turnout coats.
     The most arresting color I saw was a Ford Taurus painted "chestnut clearcoat metallic." It looks like radioactive chocolate pudding. Ford also has a jarring "autumn orange" that's hard to describe. Not quite a burnt orange. Maybe a little toasted.
     There is a good deal of inadvertent humor at the show. The centerpiece of Secretary of State Jesse White's display is a sort of shrine to White — his portrait, 2 feet tall, flanked by flags and mounted on a white wooden tableau.
     The highlight, for me, was noticing Trooper C.T. Pfotenhauer at the State Police display pushing sober and safe driving. The booth is located directly across from the 208 mph Lamborghini Diablo VT Coupe at Shell's exotic car display.
     "They do it to us every year," sighed Pfotenhauer, who was nonplussed by the speed of the Lamborghini, particularly compared with the range of a police radio. "The bottom line," she said, "is can they outrun Motorola?"
          —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Feb. 15, 2000