‘People come into focus’ — New Yorker sophistication crafted at Chicago landmark

  

     Tom Bachtell could work at home.
     “I could,” he agrees. “But I’d hate it. I’d feel so alone.”
     So despite his boss being 800 miles away in New York City, to do his job Bachtell leaves his home in Lincoln Square and travels to the South Loop, to his studio on the 14th floor of the Monadnock Building. 

   “I love going into the 7-11,” he said. “I love seeing all the crazy people there. It’s sort of a latter-day-form vaudeville.”
     Bachtell has a singular profession. He is an artist for The New Yorker. For 30 years, he has drawn the elegant caricatures that grace the magazine.
   I met him through his late spouse, Andrew Patner, immediately inviting myself to his studio. After about five years of pestering, he agreed. We talked about his growing up in Ohio, coming here, becoming a couple with Patner, the Sun-Times music critic and beloved WFMT host who died in 2015.
     “I thought about the world we came from in Cleveland, what we made of it, and then coming to Chicago and gradually becoming a part of the world here,” Bachtell said, as soft classical music burbled in the background. “And how fortuitous it was I met Andrew, and  how we were doing similar things. Andrew integrated me into Chicago and taught me how to love Chicago. When I met Andrew, I fell in love with him like that.”      
     He snapped his fingers.
     “He was an engaged person, constantly trying to engage with the world. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
     I pointed out that outsiders have a way of coming to Chicago and finding fascination.

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Oak Park native Robert T. Fanning Jr., friend of elk, foe of wolves, dead at 69

Bob Fanning

  
    Among the many benefits of being friends with Rick Telander has been getting to know some of his friends. One of the more distinctive is Rory Fanning, whom Rick met when the former Army Ranger was walking across the United States to benefit the foundation of his late buddy, Pat Tillman. 
     When Rory's father passed away last week, he contacted me, looking for someone at the paper to write the obit. Of course I volunteered. It was interesting to learn about his father's complicated life. Not everything can be worked into an obit, and there was one aspect that never made it onto the page, but is worth mentioning here. Rory and his dad had some rocky times in their relationship—I don't think I'm speaking out of school saying that; a lot of fathers and sons do, I certainly did. But when his dad passed, Rory stepped up and tried to present him in his best possible light, and to make sure people knew about him the way he wanted to be known. Not every child writing an obit does that. Holding a grudge is so easy many people do without considering there is another path, but Rory stood up for his dad at the end, even though his dad wasn't always standing behind him, and I admire that.  I've learned a lot from knowing Rory—he's a marketing executive at Haymarket Books, and doesn't accept the truisms of American life that I do, or did. But I think this moment gave me something that I'm going to value and try to apply in my own life.

     Bob Fanning not only ran with the wolves, he liked to kill them.
     “He was a man’s man, a bear hunter, a horseback rider, there was no one like Bob,” said his lifelong friend, Frank Murnane, owner of the Murnane Cos. “They broke the mold with Bob Fanning; one of a kind, in all respects.”
     Fanning’s lifelong animosity toward wolves came from a desire to protect elk, as founder of Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd. In one of those epic battles that roil the great expanse of the West, between federal power and state authority, between environmentalists and ranchers, you knew exactly where Bob Fanning stood.
     “Lock and load and saddle up while there is still snow on the ground,” Fanning declared, after the governor of Montana encouraged local ranchers to shoot troublesome wolves on their property in 2011, the year Fanning ran for Montana governor, part of a pack of Republican hopefuls, though he did not win.
     As to how an Oak Park native, graduate of Holy Cross High School in River Forest, ended up in Big Sky Country, well therein lies the tale of Robert T. Fanning Jr., 69, who died on Christmas Eve, in Billings, Montana.
     He was born in 1949, one of six brothers — Danny, Kevin, Brian, Quinn and Tim, and a sister, Mary. Their father, Robert T. Fanning Sr, was a stockbroker who owned Fanning Shoes in Oak Park, and mother Ann was a homemaker.To continue reading, click here.

A New Year’s political lexicon to help decipher 2019

     Anyone sorry to see 2018 go? A show of hands. Anybody? Didn’t think so. While the year was fine for me, personally — anyone who climbs to the top of a Mayan pyramid in Central America, hikes the Appalachian Trail in Virginia and sees both sons graduate from college in a single year isn’t in any position to complain — it does hurt to see our once great nation rolling in the mud of humiliation day after day.
     The biggest recommendation that can be made for 2018 is the lead-pipe certainty that 2019 will be worse, as the dogs of justice close in on an ever-more isolated Donald Trump while his adult minders flee and his defrauded base, lost in their own private dreamworld, howl outrage.
     They yell in a language all their own, one that often needs translation. This month dictionary companies have been trotting out their “Word of the Year,” but those really are not helpful, divided between faddish terms that will never gain popularity — Cambridge Dictionary chose “nomophobia,” the fear of losing your phone — or endorsements of the obvious. Oxford Dictionaries chose “toxic” as its 2018 word of the year.
     Gee, ya think? Why focus on a single word? I believe it would be more useful in our struggle to get through 2019 to understand changes in common words. Words whose definitions have become deformed, by those whose entire lives are an ongoing assault on factuality and meaning.
     So here I present my 2019 political lexicon, a highly abbreviated but I hope still comprehensive list. All usage examples are taken from actual emails or tweets sent to me:
     agenda: n. An imaginary coordinated directive that dictates the otherwise ordinary, independent actions of members of a despised group, often used to characterize gay people attempting to lives their lives. “The Democrats are committed to advancing the LGBT agenda and forcing the rest of America to accept, support and pay for it.” (National Organization for Marriage).

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The one word from Trump that reduced Mueller to blubbering jelly: The State of Blog V

      Even someone viscerally against the Orwellian abuse of language has to be careful the practice doesn't rub off. Troubled times tend to be absorbed by osmosis, resist though you may. 
      So as I contemplated today's analysis of the fifth full calendar year of the blog, my first thought was "Bad is good."
      Can that be right? 
      The bad part certainly is. 
      After four years of steady, double-digit growth, everygoddamnday.com hit a wall in 2018. Things were clicking along, June, July and August all above 70,000 hits a month. Then the numbers stallled, and began to slide. By November and December, we were back in the 50s, and the average for the year was 65,893 a month, a couple thousand less than last year.
     What happened? It's possible that, having run out of things to say, I became repetitious and readers turned away. I certainly get tired of myself some days. Maybe the practice of reading for meaning has fallen from favor, and the time once spent here is now spent on Facebook watching videos of people in foreign countries being narrowly missed by careening trucks.
     Or ... speaking of Facebook ... someone working there, and at Twitter, might have turned a dial. The readership numbers are sluggish, they can't get airborne. Some days I can feel the weight, sitting on my back, as I vigorously flap. Mother Jones, in its state-of-the-publication report earlier this month (see, it isn't just me) blamed Facebook for fighting so-called "fake news" by muffling all news:

     And then Facebook delivered the sucker punch. This past January, Zuckerberg announced what amounted to the end of the “perfect personalized newspaper”: Facebook was pivoting back to baby photos. The algorithm would ramp up the number of posts from friends and family and dial way back on news. Not just the fake kind. Any kind.
     Today, you are far less likely to see posts from Mother Jones or any other publisher than you were two years ago, even when you’ve specifically followed that page. Facebook reach for most serious publishers has plummeted—so much so that some are even breaking their rule against disclosing internal analytics. Slate recently revealed that it sees 87 percent fewer Facebook referrals than it did in early 2017. Many other news organizations have taken a hit in the same range.

     In that light, EGD's stumble is not only explained, but perhaps even a sign of strength for not being far worse. Hence my bad news being good. So it isn't quite in the same league as "War is peace."

     And besides, I've always insisted that this endeavor is not metric driven. Here is my chance to prove it. The blog as an outgrowth of my newspaper column, and an outlet for creativity. Not to mention a chance to do something routinely. I used to feel guilty of periodically filling a day by reposting old columns that are germane to this or that topic. But the Tribune reprints old John Kass columns in its actual newspaper, and they were shit the first time around. So nothing to feel guilty about. I certainly like reading them again, and I wrote them.

     So how was the content in 2018, to use a word I dislike ("content," though "2018" isn't high on my list either)? Three of my top ten all time best-read posts are from this year, led by this plea to help the Guildhaus, which got almost 10,000 hits (and, I should blushingly point out, raised $20,000 for the sober living facility in Blue Island).
     I believe it's been a varied, interesting year. In January, we gazed out this window in Paris and visited Belize to learn about the Mennonite community unexpectedly found there.  In February EGD ran a series of columns marking the auto show, including getting behind the wheel of a Bentley. In March we visited Mayan ruins one day, and talked tomato soup with the folks at Campbell's the next. In April, the Apollo 8 astronauts discussed circling the Moon, and by May we took in the Ivan Albright show at The Art Institute.  

     In July, I drove down to Granite City to hear Donald Trump speak, and I'm proud that, rather than regurgitate the preconceived notions I had brought with me, I talked to people and reported on what unfolded in front of me.
     We had dinner at Alinea, coffee at Caffe Regio in New York City, and hiked Stony Man Trail in the Shenandoah National Forest in Virginia. 
     Again and again, I kept up what I hope was a steady directed fire at the Trump abomination, brass rhetorical shell cases flipping over my shoulder as I tried to keep a bead on the slipperiest politician ever, jinking back and forth, emitting obscuring clouds of prevarication. Nobody is going to care about this blog 100 years from now—they barely care about it now, as I write the thing—but if anybody does, I hope it's because of the rhetorical ack-ack fire I marshaled in support of cherished American values, against the assault of the president backed by wave after wave of the defrauded dupes who'll back him to the end. 

     That's grandiose, and I apologize for it. Wherever the beating heart of significance might be, we are far from it. However. There is an EGD community, of sorts. Tate birddogging my mistakes every day, Grizz and Shari and Thomas and Tony and Paul and Sandy and Coey and Bitter Scribe and all the rest. Thank you reading this thing, and taking it seriously, and adding your own spin on the conversation. Thank you for course to Marc Schulman, at Eli's Cheesecake, who has supported the blog since its inception. Thank you to my bosses at the Sun-Times, whose complete indifference to this blog has been their greatest gift. Thank you to my wife for no longer suggesting that I just chuck the thing and go back to knitting.
     So in 2018, the blog, like the country, did not thrive, but it did, again like the nation, endure. And that is certainly an accomplishment. My plans for 2019 are to hold my position until relieved. Or, in the immortal words of Dr. Johnson: "I will be conquered; I will not capitulate." I suggest you do the same.

     

     

The Saturday Snapshot #21

     Friday I bought a ticket to fly to Raleigh, North Carolina next month, to report on a story. A beautiful part of the country, one I'm looking forward to visiting again—readers might recall our family trip to Marshall, North Carolina four years ago.  So it seems a perfect time to run this photo of Gabriela and Sofia, submitted by faithful reader Sandy Klemp, who writes: 

     The photo shows Gabi and Sofi looking out onto Grandfather Mountain in Linville, North Carolina in the Blue Ridge Mountains.... Linville is about 18 miles SW of Boone, North Carolina. Boone is one hour from the edge of the Smoky Mountain National Park. It’s quite brilliant in Spring and Fall and is home to Appalachian State University.

    The nickname for ASU students, by the way, is "The Mountaineers," and the school has its own climbing wall and a "Base Camp" in its student center where kids can sign up for all sorts of excursions—rock climbing in the Linville Gorge, mountain biking, white-water rafting on the French Broad River—which, now that I think of it, I've done. I recommend it. Thanks Sandy for sharing the photograph.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, in business 250 years, hoping for 250 more

     December certainly snapped by, nearly. Did you celebrate the Illinois Bicentennial earlier this month? Me neither. The event left me cold, and I sense I’m not alone. Residents of Illinois aren’t like those of places such as Colorado or Maine—no strong collective identity. Instead, we’re Chicagoans or Downstaters, proud Illini alumni or denizens of Kane County. A guy on my block has an “Ohio is my home” bumpersticker. I’ve never seen anything similar for Illinois and don’t expect to.
     The state bicentennial wasn’t even the only big Illinois anniversary this month. There was the 250th of the oldest business based in the state … anybody? … Encyclopaedia Britannica, founded in Scotland in 1768, transplanted to the United States in 1901, falling under the control of Sears Roebuck in 1920, then donated to the University of Chicago in 1943, its continuing corporate contortions since then based in Chicago.
     As a reference geek, I am the proud owner of not one but two sets — the beige-bound 1964 edition, in boxes in the attic, which my parents bought to prove we were educated people and I couldn’t bear to part with, and a 1998 edition within arm’s reach of my desk. I like it because it gives me clear, concise information often obscured by the muck on the Internet. When I went to Carbondale last year for the big eclipse, I boned up on solar eclipses and the sun with my Britannica. The way-cool fact that helium was discovered in a spectroscopic analysis of the sun — helios is Greek for “sun” — was cribbed out of the Britannica.
     Sears is a tottering ruin. But Britannica is still going strong, according to CEO Karthik Krishnan, who marked the anniversary by chatting up the media.
     “Britannica is doing great,” he said. “We had an outstanding year this year. Instead of waiting for people to come to us, we’re focusing on how to get where people are and providing them information in a meaningful way.”
     Isn’t that what the internet does?

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"As imposing as an alp"—RIP Mary Cameron Frey

Mary Cameron Frey, left, with former Sun-Times
managing editor Joycelyn Winnecke

     I was sad to hear that my former Sun-Times colleague Mary Cameron Frey died Wednesday. She was a doyen from another era, the intersection of upper crust society and daily newspaper journalism. I once proposed a story to Chicago Magazine to be called "Great Dames" that would feature Mary and Eppie Lederer and Margie Korshak and other assorted majestic women, all gowned and collected for a group photo. I can't imagine who'd be in that photo today.
     You can read her obituary in the Sun-Times here.
     Mary had a memorable cameo in my recovery memoir, "Drunkard," which I will reprint here to give those who didn't have the pleasure of knowing her a sense of what she was like.

     "Neil!" calls Mary Cameron Frey, the society columnist in the office next door. She is a grande dame, wealthy, in her sixties.
     "Yes, Mary?" I answer, stripping off my coat and tossing it on a chair.
     "I need to have a serious talk with you."
     "I'll come over seriously," I say, bustling around the corner. 
     "Sit down," she orders. I quickly sit, regarding the colorful stack of large gardening books on her desk.
     "Peter Baker is coming back."
     "I know. I'm excited."
     "He's a drunk."
     "I'm a drunk." 
     "He is what they call in the Catholic Church 'an occasion for sin' and he is going to lead you astray."
     Mary is wearing her standard office uniform, which I think of as "Hyannis Port Casual"—khaki pants and a light blue Polo man's shirt, her steel-gray hair made up as if for a cotillion, every strand sprayed into place, so she can slip away after work, throw on a dragonfly green ball gown, and be all set for the Women's Auxiliary Board of Northwestern Memorial Hospital's Annual Glitter Gala and Silent Auction.
     "I can sin on my own," I say, thinking about my recent relapse. "Look, Peter is the only boss I've ever worked for in my whole career who cared for me and helped me."
     She makes a sour face.

     "I've cared for you," she says, which is true. For years, I thought of Mary as the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, for her habit of ordering about photographers at charity events and brusquely banishing nonentities from pictures as if not being famous and rich were embarrassing personal flaws. But Mary showered me with e-mails while I was at rehab. At first I suspected she was fishing for dirt. But after a while—reading the genuine concern, the way she signed them "love"—it dawned on me that she might actually be sincere, and that while Mary may have imperiously treated me as the help before, my fall has touched some chord within her and she truly cares.
     "You're not my boss."
     "That's true, but I'm watching out for you, and Baker is no good. I don't know why we're bringing him in here. I've been at black tie dinners where he shows up in an open-necked orange shirt."
     I should have laughed at that, but one doesn't laugh at Mary Cameron Frey. She's as imposing as an alp.
     "His father was a coal miner," I say.
     "My father was a simple man and I'm sure yours was too," she says. "That's no excuse."
     "My father was a nuclear physicist," I mutter.
     She says she has a dear friend who never stopped thinking of alcohol, never. He goes to two meetings a day.
    "That'll pass," I say.
     "It's been thirty years."
     "I'm lucky then, because it's not an issue for me," I say, mustering bravado. "We'll play racquetball."
     "He's coming here to play racquetball?"
     "He brings a vibrancy to the paper. Ten marines get killed and we put it back on page 42. The Tribune had it as their line. Baker won't make that kind of mistake."
    "Well, we'll see what he does here. But you"—and she aims a lacquered fingernail at me—"watch yourself."
    "I will," I promise, backing out.
     "You know I love you and I don't want anything to go wrong," she calls after me.