Or if you have to play the lottery, don't play Mega Millions

The Lottery, Sèvres Manufactory, circ. 1757 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

      When I finished yesterday's column on the Mega Millions lottery, it was 1408 words—twice as long as could fit into the newspaper. A few things I thought worth saying ended up on the cutting room floor (and a good thing too; I'd hate to think it was all superfluous tap-dancing and thumb-twidding).
     The part I want to take an extra day to pass along regards the Mega Millions game, and its 302-million-to-one chance of success. There are other lotteries, lots of them, most with far, far, far better odds. If you really just have to throw your money away so you can hope for things, and the idea is you want to win, you should throw your money away on those. You still won't win, but at least you'll have a better chance.
     Since mere argument is ineffective, I tried backing it up with this:

     Think of it this way: If I offered you one of two games, a chance to pick a number between 1 and 1000 with a prize of $1,000, or to roll a die and win $10 if a six comes up, it would be foolish to pick the former game, based on the bigger prize you won't be getting, and not the latter, with its far, far better 1 in 6 odds. You're still probably going to lose either game, so go for the one you have the best chance of winning.
     But people don't think that way, in part because the media doesn't challenge them to. We ignore that not only does the vast, vast, vast vast vast majority lose, but that winning is also overrated. We see the lucky souls clutching the giant check, and then they disappear into the blasted lives.

     Lots of conversation about this—people love the lottery, and I don't want them to think I'm some anti-lottery fanatic. I just think the lottery is stupid and, though as a rule I don't like to meddle in another person's fantasy, with the vast engine of the media banging garbage cans over its head and huzzahing for the lottery, I feel morally obligated to cough the truth into my fist a few times, just for appearance's sake.
     A common argument is that the lottery offers hope that money worries would be at an end. That's a particularly pernicious fantasy, and I replied to a person on Facebook with this metaphor: it's as if you have one cow, and are insisting that if only you had another thousand cows, well then your concerns over cattle would be at an end. Just the opposite. They would only be beginning.
     To this line of thinking, I was accused of being an elitist. Blessed with a good job (though not a particularly secure one) I can't relate to those who struggle to pay rent and buy food. Though those are the very people least in a position to spend money on the lottery. If your plans for dinner involves hitting the Mega Millions on your way to the supermarket well, buddy, plan on being hungry.
     The truth of the matter, I think, the the final word, was offered up by this reader, who observed the following, which I will leave with you. Thanks to everybody for the interesting conversations:

     Neil, you are not a gambler are you? Any degenerate gambler will tell you that the end game is not the win or loss, it’s the action and anticipation. The most exciting moment to any gambler is the moment before the card turns over, the dice stop, the ball falls on a number or the wheels stop spinning. That is the thrill and the reason people keep coming back and the reason some get addicted. Same with the lottery, that $2 or $20 is not about actually winning, but the action of the winning numbers coming up and the fantasy about what you could do if by some miracle you did win. It’s a much needed distraction from every day life and is harmless as long as you don’t start betting the rent or grocery money.

Be happy you didn't win the Mega Millions lottery

   

"The Lottery," by William Hogarth (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

  
     Friday, 4:30 p.m., stand up, coat on, hat too, quick glance at the desk before I flick off the lights and head for the train.
     There, something I hadn't noticed: a folded piece of paper: "I (HEART) MY AWESOME COLLEAGUES," A red heart. My own heart sank, I open the paper. A note of thanks from a coworker. And a lottery ticket to the Mega Millions $1 billion drawing that night.
     My first instinct was to give it back. The lottery is stupid.
     But I hesitated. What if the ticket I handed back won? Just my luck. Besides, what would I say to her: "Don't drag me down into your fantasy world?"
     What if I won? The first of an army of concerns waved its hand: my responsibility toward this co-worker. Well, I'd of course do the decent thing. I'll give her, umm, a million dollars.   
     That seems fair.
     No, actually, it's not fair. Not if you do the math. A million dollars is 1/10 of 1 percent of $1 billion. Giving her $1 million in gratitude for my $1 billion windfall would be the same as rewarding somebody who returns a dropped $20 bill with a tip of two pennies. The ratio is the same.
     See, you enter the lottery world and, "I'll give my coworker a million dollars" becomes ill-considered cheapness.
     I tried not to think about it. That night, at dinner, recounting the day, I mentioned the burden of this lottery ticket dropping into my lap.
     "Oh good!" my wife bubbled. "I meant to buy a ticket!"
     My mouth opened closed a few times, goldfish-like.
     Ah heck, why not? We fell to fantasizing about the money, or trying to.  The boys would be ruined, I observed. Why study hard, forge a career, with hundreds of millions of dollars waiting? If we gave them a share, they'd squander it. But if we held it back, they'd hate us.      My colleague would hate me if I didn't give her enough, and my relatives would hate me if I did.
     See? You're supposedly paying for the chance to dream, but it's more like paying for new worries.
     Coverage of the lottery is the media at its worst. I didn't win Friday's drawing. Nobody did, though good luck finding stories that pause from panting "Rollover!" to note that it means had you bought every single ticket sold you'd have still lost. We ignore that not only does the vast majority lose, but that winning is vastly also overrated.

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Give me a lever and a place to stand

Bronze steelyard, Roman (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

    "Give me a lever," Archimedes said, "and a place to stand, and I will move the world."
     Only he didn't say that. That is the final version, the gradual improvement, cleaned-up over the centuries, as everyone from Lord Byron to Thomas Jefferson to John F. Kennedy grabbed the thought and started polishing.
      So I don't feel bad, faced with one of those lingering household tasks, left undone due to its difficulty, I thought of Archimedes' supposed line (compounding the error by ascribing it to Aristotle—they both begin with A!—until I drew upon my journalistic training, and checked).
     So what did Archimedes say? Nothing. His writings are lost. The sentiment comes to us from Plutarch, in his Life of Marcellus (14:7):

    And yet even Archimedes, who was a kinsman and friend of King Hiero, wrote to him that with any given force it was possible to move any given weight; and emboldened, as we are told, by the strength of his demonstration, he declared that, if there were another world, and he could go to it, he could move this. Hiero was astonished, and begged him to put his proposition into execution, and show him some great weight moved by a slight force

    Which he proceeded to do, Plutarch says, by moving a ship with little effort, using a system of pulleys. 

Cigarette card, 1888 (Met)

      I myself resorted to a species of lever, a hand truck—a vastly useful tool to have around the house.  And it worked.
     Maybe I should outline the situation:
     My younger son wanted to be a writer. I, in that automatic error that parents make, used my life as the lens through which to see his, and though this ambition meant he needed a roll top desk to write upon. Because that's what writers have, roll top desks. I still have the one I bought with my paper route money in the early 1970s, for all the good it did.
     Thanks to the wonder of Craigslist, a sufficiently massive oaken roll top desk was stuck into his room, where it sat neglected for five or 10 years, until he made it known we could get rid of that thing at any time.
     Oh that it were that easy.
     My wife automatically assumed that her husband, with his balky back and bad hip, could never move the thing. Perhaps neighbor boys could. Perhaps a lawn care crew could be waylaid at their work and lured inside our home. She spoke, several times, made several calls. But burly men or boys were not available. I pondered what to do, even phoned 1-800-GOT-JUNK. No wonder they're so cheery on those radio ads; they're expensive.
    "Give me a lever," I thought, "and a place to stand, and I will move the world."
     Monday after my writing was done, I dragged the hand truck upstairs and tipped the desk onto it. Then bumped the chunk of oak slowly but controlled down the stairs, out the front door, and into the van. I was afraid they wouldn't take it, but the folks at Goodwill were happy to have it. "We have a lot of people who want these things," the guy at Goodwill said.
     "I hope it finds a good home," I said, driving off with relief. And people think the classics are without practical use.

Tab addiction grips nation

     Tab, the diet soft drink made by Coca Cola, is having a cultural moment. Another cultural moment, rising like a carbonated bubble to the foaming surface of American life. According to the New York Times, its die-hard fans are in a "panic" over the prospect of shortages, whether real or imagined. I was alerted to this crisis thanks to that carnival of the trivial, Facebook, by an NU classmate who sent me a link to the story, and reminded me of a parody ad I had wrote for our college humor magazine, "Rubber Teeth."
     It's flattering to have something you did remembered after ... gee ... 38 years, and I promised I would dig it up. Though now, I can't imagine what prompted me to write it; living in a co-ed dorm, the Northwestern Apartments on Orrington Avenue, I suppose. The beautiful, good-humored model, Laurel Campbell, was my next door neighbor on the second floor, and I vaguely recall posing her in some remote dorm basement. I remember being inordinately proud that we found a machine whose little light is on for the Tab button, showing they are out. I also seem to remember concerns being raised by my colleagues at the magazine—Rubber Teeth, for "biting satire that doesn't hurt," the brainchild of my pal, Robert Leighton—about lawsuits from an offended Coca Cola, the kind of grandiosity that launches magazines in the first place. "Let 'em sue us," I said, reflecting complete ignorance both of the agonies of litigation and the protection offered by parody.
     The ad's rudimentary production values I'll generously hope can be ascribed to trying to imitate those grim fear-inducing Ad Council warnings about drunk driving and child abuse and such, popular at the time. Though they more likely were mere amateurism. I was 20, which I hope excuses me from any stench of sexism that lingers around the copy. The year was 1980.
    None of which would be worth sharing, if reading the Times piece didn't raise a question that it didn't bother to answer: Tab and Diet Coke: what's the difference, if any? "The Straight Dope" addressed the question in 1983, concluding that "For practical purposes the difference between Tab and Diet Coke is that they come in different-colored cans." The Tab can being pink, speaking of sexism, the idea being, I guess, to make the product a siren call to dieting girls, who love pink. Even more noteworthy, the Coca Cola company seems to think that it should be spelled "TaB," as evidenced by this bit of corporate puffery celebrating the beverage's 50th anniversary in 2013. Not happening.


   
   
 

Spooky

     Halloween used to be a kid thing. Children wore costumes, ran around the neighborhood, collected candy. Their parents didn't even hover in the distance, monitoring, the way they do now. Unless their kids were toddlers. At least mine didn't. They assumed their youngsters could navigate their own neighborhoods and find their way home, sometimes lending them flashlights for that purpose.
    By the time you were a teen, the party was over. You were too old for Halloween, though you tried to get one last candy sweep of the neighborhood in before exiled to the responsibilities of semi-adulthood.
    Now that's changed. Halloween has also become a grown-up thing, spurred by big beer companies. The adults don't go door-to-door demanding candy. Not yet anyway. But otherwise, it's official party time, like New Year's Eve or the Super Bowl or the Fourth of July.
    Pets are included in on the fun too, as we celebrate ... what is it exactly? Our temporary reprieve from the universality of death, I suppose. The flavor "Pumpkin spice." Something like that.
    I'm game for a little Halloween fun. On Saturday, I went to help judge the Spooky Pooch contest at the Chicago Botanic Garden, as I did last year. There were three other judges, and each of us got a different category: one judged dogs who looked like their owners, another judged puppies. My area was "Botanical Bowsers" — dog costumes on themes related to gardens.
     Not a popular category. Most dogs were dressed up as sharks or spiders, pirates or, as in above, a UPS driver. Of the 325 or so entries, 11 entered the aspect I was judging. Not many. The space in front of me where eager contestants were supposed to be was usually empty, while the lines grew in front of the other judges. I felt shunned by fate and costumed dogs.
     "Avoid altruism," I muttered to myself, slumping on my folding chair, looking around, feeling mooted, ignored. What our weatherman MC kept calling a "wintry mix" started pelting down, the grey skies raced by, wet, cold, windy and foreboding. That didn't help. The guy from WBEZ next to me smiled widely at his crowd of contestants, busily judging entry after entry. In front of me, nothing, nobody. Typical.
    Okay Neil, I told myself, suck it up. Can the self-pity. So you get to spend a couple hours at the Botanic Garden, looking at excited people — families often—and their cute pets wearing creative costumes. Two dogs came before me dressed as autumn leaves: not quite the theme, but pretty enough. A French bulldog named Uncle Bill was dressed as a bird of paradise, which is definitely botanical. He could have won. But for the trio of very enthusiastic folks, their costumed called "In a garden." Two were dressed as gardeners, one as a bee and their two dogs were dressed as a flower and a bee — essential for pollination. I have a lot of sympathy for bees; they're embattled. "Life brings our misfortunes to the bees," as Virgil wrote. And these people were really, really excited just to be there. Of course I picked them — as opposed to, say, the contestant who confessed she decided to enter into the garden category because she figured few would and thus had the best chance at winning.
     Picking worthy winners helped. They seemed surprised, overjoyed. So not such a bad idea to do this after all. Certainly meant something to them. And maybe to me too.  Being a writer often is incredibly humbling, and while it can sting while fate is administering her lashes, the lesson is a valuable one, and keeps hubris tamped down.  If you're self-important, you shouldn't be — the significance is passing at best — and if you forget that, reminders will be administered.

The Saturday Snapshot #11

Khermariah McClinton, at Atlas Stationers, 227 W. Lake.

     It was raining, lightly, on Friday afternoon when I finished lunch. Leaving Petterino's, I meant to head south, to grab the Madison Street bus back to the newspaper. But I was slightly awhirl from my conversation, to be honest, and found myself quite turned around, walking west down Lake Street when I finally got my bearings.
     I decided to keep going. Atlas Stationers was only a few blocks away, and I braved the sprinkles to pick up my new 2019 Brownline datebook before they ran out, as they sometimes do if I wait until too close to New Year's. I could have easily bought it online, of course. But I hadn't been to Atlas in months, and stopping by was like visiting old friends, literally, from walking past the timeworn iron columns, to catching owner Terese Schmidt between deliveries, and being introduced to her younger son, fresh from college and now working at the store.
     She expressed relief that I had come for my Brownline—they had worried—and proudly showed off Atlas' new pen section, explaining how young professional types are hot for fancy pens, for Waterman fountain pens and high tech Lamy pens from Germany, displayed in a case that the company custom made for the store. I observed that with the Gilbertson pen store finally closing on Chicago Avenue must have left those desirous of high end pens underserved, and she was wise to stop into the void. She said that guidebooks are now lauding Atlas for its pen selection, and that the splendid office supply shop had now become a "destination" sought out by pen-savvy tourists.

     Owners of fancy pens, Terese explained,  like to use colorful inks, not just in the traditional blue or black or red, but an entire rainbow of possibilities with names like Rose Tendresse and Violet Pensie. As it happened, an Atlas employee, Khermariah McClinton, was penning a colorful card, to let customers know their ink options. When I asked her to write her name in my Moleskine notebook, she did so in a bright Hunter Green hue.
     I explained, rather sheepishly, that I write too much to be able to indulge a fancy pen, certainly not a fountain pen, and that I was sure to lose any pricy pen I was so bold as to buy, and keeping track of the treasure until that inevitability would be a continual burden and source of strain, its certain disappearance a source of grief. I thought of suggesting a compromise—a trainer fancy pen, once only mildly pricey whose disappearance would be a manageable woe. Instead I showed off the cheap yellow Sun-Times promotional give-away pen I glommed from the newspaper, as proof that what I said was true. Still, that attitude, once articulated, seemed a species of cowardice, and I promised that I would keep track of the pen trend, and perhaps reconsider my refusal to acquire a fancy pen of my own at some point in the indeterminate future.
   

New York Stories #5: Miznon

New York City

    So how does the Miznon in New York City measure up to the one in Paris? Not quite as well, I'm afraid to report.  At least not cauliflower-wise.
    Last year, visiting our older son at the Sorbonne, we ended up in La Marais, "The Swamp," the old Jewish quarter, (birds of a feather...) where we jammed ourselves into Israeli chef Eyal Shani's outpost of "Mediterranean street food." (The original, not the second one opened earlier this year).  It was wall-to-wall—commotion and aroma and a mild roar of French and Hebrew. But we claimed a spot at the bar, and ordered the speciality of the house, despite its unpromising premise: roasted cauliflower.

Miznon, Paris

     You wouldn't order it, would you? I sure wouldn't. But it was, I was firmly told, what people order. You have to. It's obligatory. Always surprising what you'll do when told you're supposed to. "Get the bucket of raw cow brains—Buzzfeed said it was exquisite..."
    Maybe that's because people know. The wisdom of crowds. The roasted cauliflower was an epiphany.  If you can't imagine eating and entire cauliflower with a knife and a fork, well, trust me, it's that good. The broccoli I had insisted on also ordering—I like broccoli—was an anti-climax, superfluous and sad. My wife viewed the vegetable as if it were a personal flaw of mine, after that superlative cauliflower, which we not only ate, in transport, but then cherished the memory of eating, and tried reproducing the wonder ourselves at home but couldn't come close. We suspect it's somehow treated—steamed, soaked, something—beforehand.
     When I saw that a Miznon opened earlier this year in Chelsea Market, not far from my older son's law school ("It's following him!" I said) giving it a try was my primary mission during our trip to New York.  See the boy, then get that cauliflower and, oh I suppose, go to a museum or a play or something. I couldn't tell if I wanted the jet-setting joy of going to both locations (there's also an outpost in Tel Aviv) or just wanted the pleasure of tasting that roasted miracle. 

New York

Paris

   You can't go home again. Maybe the surprise of that first perfectly prepared cauliflower can never be recaptured. Maybe the vegetable itself wasn't as good (although it should have been; cauliflower are in peak season in the fall). My wife pointed out that this didn't have the delectably-charred leaves. We still gobbled up the thing (well, I did, as she pointed out, without a smile, later). We also ordered the "bag of beets"—roasted beets, which weren't that bad. Or at least I wasn't blamed for them.
    The restaurant was very loud—some kind of DJ blaring some kind of sounds, music apparently—and we quickly moved on try out a nearby taco place that had received high marks. Having been to Tel Aviv once, that's plenty for a lifetime, and I have never been tempted to go back for any reason. Not until I realized that if I go, I could complete the hat trick, Miznon-wise. Suddenly, the Promised Land beckons. I can be strange that way.