Whistling while the world crumbles

   The Dow plunges 2,000 points. The scary new plague spreads. The president is still an idiot.
   So why do I feel like grabbing a bamboo cane, leaping up so quick the office chair shoots out from under me, holding the cane horizontal in both hands, smiling broadly and breaking into a little soft-shoe, whistling?
    Doo, tah-doo, tah-doodily-doo, tah-doo....
    Maybe it is the nature of the comedian. What else am I supposed to do? Issue stock advice? Buy low sell high. List sensible health precautions? Wash your hands for two minutes in hot lye. Identify and condemn specific presidential lies? There's one and there's one and there's one. Bad! Bad! Bad!
     No, this is a time for pratfalls and pies in the puss. Which can be hard to achieve on the written page. One seltzer bottle is worth a thousand words. But serious times call for unserious measures. Always have. Inmates did joke in Auschwitz, you know (not that they were particularly funny jokes; I've tracked them down. At least not funny today. Much dark political humor that's hard to scan, what with translation and the passage of time. Then again, comedy is always situation specific).
     And I say that, knowing that people are suffering. Which is okay, because I'm not making fun of them—those losing big bucks on the stock swoon (and even if I were, heck, I'm among them, so I get the victim's Get-Out-Jail Free card). And while I am not dying of coronavirus, it could yet happen. That could  be me in a few months, and I hope if that is the case, I have the presence of mind to pull the oxygen mask slightly away from my face, and rasp at my wife, "You know ... if you'd let me drink myself to death ... I could have been spared this agony."
     As for Trump, ridicule is pointless: it bounces off him, and merely puzzles his followers. If you are so lost to reason as to think "Donald Trump" is the answer to, well, anything at all, then what good is satire, high or low, going to do? Not much. It's like shouting Latin insults at plants.
     Yes, there is privilege floating around somewhere here. I am not poor, or sick, or directly harmed by Donald Trump, beyond the harm of seeing a nation that I love laid low and shamed, and my fellow citizens, whom I really do try to understand and respect, establish themselves as credulous dupes and groveling lackeys who'll let themselves be defrauded, eyes open, and betray their country if some demagogue throws their particular fixation a biscuit? Or even if he promises to do so then doesn't.
    So sure, I can smile at the world falling apart in big pieces, since none of those chunks have hit me yet. One glancing blow and all amusement will drain away. Grim-jawed, I'll join the candlelight vigil in Daley Plaza, wearing a sandwich sign declaring whatever particular wrong lodged itself under my fingernail. I guess that's human nature. 
   
   

Goodbye to the Standard Club, and all that

View from the terrace of the Cliff Dwellers Club. 

 

     Ho, for the club life! The green leather wing chairs, the well-stocked bars, the well-heeled members, all those Buckys and Binkys and Bills. In another life, I might have been quite clubbable, in my bowtie and fez.
     But alas, in this life I lack certain necessities: connections, for starters, and wealth, or an employer willing to pony up steep membership fees. I am indeed a proud member of one club, Cliff Dwellers, but as a charity case, as will be explained if you somehow make it to the end of this column.
     But first I can’t let The Standard Club vanish — the 150-year-old institution is closing May 1 — without eulogizing it and that whole private club world teetering on the brink of extinction.
     The Standard Club was the Jewish club, formed in 1869 by Jews blackballed from Chicago’s gentile clubs. To prove that Jews could be as snobbish as anybody, it performed the neat trick of being the rare Jewish organization that discriminated against Jews. Founded by German Jews, so proud of that apex of refinement and civilization, Germany, The Standard Club initially barred their embarrassing, unwashed Eastern Europe brethren. Snickering fate would eventually punish them for that.
     To me, clubs mean lunches — dining at The Standard Club with federal judge Abraham Lincoln Marovitz, with Jeff Zaslow. I believe I’ve eaten in every club in the city, including the ultra-exclusive Casino club, twice. A lapse on somebody’s part, I’m sure. The Casino sits on what was to be the footprint of the John Hancock Building. But when developers tried to buy the land, Casino president Mrs. John Winterbotham gave them the frosty rebuff such impertinence deserves.
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Plums on plinths

     When a joke goes flat, or a story is met with a shrug, the struggling comic, or flailing storyteller, will sometimes try to bring the effort to a close while preserving a shred of dignity with, "Maybe you had to be there."
     Some experiences need to be, well, experienced. Photos and words just don't convey the thing.
     Which is quite the admission from someone in the word business.
     I wondered if this was the case when I first thought to share Darren Bader's art installation "fruit, vegetables; fruit and vegetable salad." Just writing the title, the whole thing seems impossibly arch and conceptual and twee and stupid.
     But that wasn't how it felt. Stepping off the elevator on the eighth floor at the Whitney Museum of American Art last month, confronted by these 40 austere wooden pedestals displaying produce, was cool. For all the conceptual art depredations that go on in contemporary museums, there is still a default expectation of gravitas, of significance, of vale, one that is punctured by the literal elevation of grapefruits and asparagus and leeks.
     What's he saying? Hell if I know. Maybe something about the worth of what too often we let go bad in the refrigerator. The artist nods at “nature’s impeccable sculpture,” which sounds about right, but then the artist's statement, besides offering general guidelines to presenting the exhibit (the number of pedestals, for example, being "any even number between twelve and infinity") emphasizes that the citrus and melons and carrots and such on display are to be rendered into salad every day, as if the whole point were reducing the burden on landfills. 

     “Before over-ripening, the produce is removed from the pedestals by museum staff," we are told. "It is then chopped, sliced, shaved, and diced into a salad, which is served to visitors.”

     Of course it is. The result has already—the show closed Feb. 17—been thoroughly mocked. "I ate the worst salad of my life in the name of art."

    Perhaps it helped that, the day we visited, salad preparation times were not convenient, and we skipped standing around 40 empty plinths, waiting for cup of fruit and vegetable slaw. 

     Instead, what I took away from it was that you could walk among the pedestals. That was dynamic and engaging, to be inside the display, since I was taking photographs, which became an exercise in parallax, as I alternated between trying to frame people out, so I got an empty shot of just produce on plinths, to then including the visitors, as dark figures off in a corner of the frame.

Publishing news

University of Chicago Press warehouse

     I have an interest in the publishing industry and like to keep current, the way a denizen of the old Maywood Park with $2 on Whirligig in the 3rd would study the Thoroughbred Gazette he's found on a seat, to see how next season's crop of Kentucky 2-year-olds is coming up.
     So my eyes fell with interest upon the March 4 New York Times story, "Simon & Schuster, A Top 5 Publisher, Is Offered for Sale." The opening sentence caught me up short: "Simon & Schuster, the publishing powerhouse behind best-selling authors like Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin and Judy Blume, is up for sale."
     Now let's play, "See if you can guess what puzzled Neil."
    Read that opening sentence again.
     Any ideas? I read three newspapers a day, The New Yorker, The Economist, paw through the New York Times Sunday Book Review.  I know that Beowulf's dad is Ecgtheow.  I like to think I'm aware of stuff.
    But Ursula K. Le Guin? That was an entirely new one for me. If I had to guess, I would assume she's a more recent version of Barbara Cartland, one of those mega-selling authors of bodice-ripping romances that a certain stratum of American society seem to have an endless hunger for. No shame in being unaware of that.
     Wrong. Let's end the suspense with a quick check of Le Guin's Wikipedia page.
     Well, she's dead, for starters, in 2018, at age 88, having written 20 novels—science fiction. A realm I'm not entirely unfamiliar with, having gobbled Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov novels as a lad (and once, believe it or not, having gotten a phone call from Harlan Ellison; he liked one of my books. I should have thought to get a blurb).  Michael Chabon called Le Guin the "greatest American writer of her generation." All told, quite the career.
     Well that's a comfort. A reminder that all success is relative, and someday Mick Jagger will find himself on the phone, trying and failing to get a reservation at a hot new restaurant. ("Mick ... Jagger... The singer...From the Rolling Stones...It was a band. Very big in our day...Oh. Yes. I see. Maybe something at 4:30 then?")
    The story relates how ViacomCBS is selling off S&S because it can't be bothered with a shriveling segment of the entertainment world.
    "It hasn't been a strong growth industry in a long time and what little growth there has been recently seems to be arrested," Thad McIlroy, a publishing industry analyst, tells the Times.
    And here I thought it was just me.
    Actually—and talk about burying the lede, but I'm trying to find a gentler pace as I shamble into the vale—I seem to be back in the game, book-wise. Think of it as a $2 trifecta ticket on three longshots in a race taking place in 2022. Or 2023. 2024 at the very latest. The University of Chicago Press on Friday asked me to write a book—another book, my third for them, ninth overall, if you're keeping score at home. They suggested this new book be called "Every goddamn day." Good title. I said yes.

YWCA and StreetWise to join forces

World War I poster (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

    Businesses gobble up each other every day.
     But only rarely do charities, and then usually because one is in crisis. Which is why my curiosity was piqued hearing that YWCA Metropolitan Chicago is absorbing StreetWise.
     Every Chicagoan who strolls downtown knows the latter—the weekly magazine that homeless folks buy for 90 cents then hawk on street corners for two bucks a copy, as pedestrians drop their heads and hurry by or occasionally—as I sometimes do, out of solidarity for fellow journalists—buy a copy. It’s a surprisingly lively publication.
     I’d always assumed the YWCA is the distaff version of YMCA, maybe with special lady gyms I’ve never had reason to encounter or imagine. Wrong.
     ”Our mission we’re focused on is eliminating racism and empowering women,” said Dorri McWhorter, CEO of YWCA Metro Chicago. “And promoting peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all.”
     I bit back the question, “And how is that eliminating racism thing going?” and instead asked what they do, specifically, to advance those ends. The YWCA has dozens of programs, promoting child care, fighting child abuse, encouraging more inclusive, less biased workplaces, and working with CHA residents.
     ”Providing high quality support for training and education,” she said. “As well as sexual violence support services.”
     Such as the Chicago Area Rape Crisis Hotline—1-888-293-2080.

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Parrots, bonfires and snacks: Going natural in Northbrook

Richard Weiner, left, and wife Karen run a bird sanctuary in Northbrook. They also board birds.

     Humility can itself be a kind of vanity. Let me explain what I mean. I am proud to have written for a major metropolitan newspaper such as the Sun-Times for more than 35 years. I also take satisfaction in having written for many other excellent publications: Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Forbes, Granta, Sports Illustrated, and on and on. Implies a certain standard of quality...
     But I'm also proud to have written for far more obscure outlets. Advertising agencies and PR firms. I can bat out a commencement address for a buddy, come up with a list of ideas for marketing a product. Write captions for cartoons that carry somebody else's name. Not too long ago I wrote the copy for a memorial plaque.  It shows, I believe, a healthful lack of pride. It's the work, not me.
     And I'm proud to share this piece that came out this week in Northbrook Voice, a new publication of the Village of Northbrook. I was quite surprised that they contacted me, as I've said some things about the place that are not exactly kind. But they were looking for a critical eye, and this first essay permitted me to do what I like to do best: get my ass out of the office and into real life, meeting real people and doing real things. It's publicity rather than journalism, but I like to think it still merits reading.
    I'll let you be the judge of that. This June, I've lived in Northbrook for 20 years. It was a wonderful place to raise a family; my boys are trotting around the bases of life, tipping their caps to the cheering crowd, in part because of the education they got at the Northbrook schools. I'm glad to have the chance to give a little something back to a community that has given me so much. 

    A Chicago friend with a parrot tipped me off: did I know that Northbrook has a bird sanctuary?

     No, I did not.

Kaita, an Eastern Screech Owl

     But then, there are so many ways to interact with the environment living in Northbrook, it’s hard to keep track. My wife and I often walk on the Trail through Time, the Park District’s revival of farm field into Illinois prairie. But I’ve stepped into Somme Woods exactly twice in the 20 years we’ve lived here, and did not realize that almost every weekend, dozens of Northbrook residents gather to help transform what had been neglected forest preserve  overgrown with invasive species into a pristine trio of distinct Illinois ecosystems. 

    "You can get to all three in a short walk," said Lew Brashares, a volunteer. "There are only a few places in the country this way. Prairie coming up to oak savanna coming up close to woodland. It's all right here."

      Returning Somme’s woods and prairie to their original state isn't easy—residents have been working on it since 1978.

      "There are so many opportunities to volunteer, usually two or three a weekend," said Eriko Kojima. You can find a calendar at sommepreserve.org.

   And if restoring natural habitat doesn't sound enticing, think of it as cutting down trees and building big bonfires, then meeting neighbors to share homemade snacks and conversation. 

    “It’s better than the gym,” said Ying Hensel, who volunteers in Northbrook, she says, because her hometown of Wilmette has nothing like it. We were both volunteering on a recent Saturday morning—my second visit—and I plan on many more.

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Cutting and burning invasive, non-native trees in the Somme Woods. 

Arnold Loeb: more than a meat maven, a nice man

     In 30 years of writing obits, I have never phoned a bereaved family and been asked to come over the house to talk as they sit shiva, or observe the weeklong mourning period.
     Yet when the daughters of the deceased made the request Monday, I immediately agreed. This was no ordinary man, after all, but Mr. Arnold Loeb, owner of the Romanian Kosher Sausage Co. at Touhy and Clark.
     Yes, I had already eaten lunch, I thought ruefully, driving over. A mistake. Still, I couldn’t help but imagine the spread: The corned beef. The pastrami. The salami. The tubs of chopped liver. Romanian chopped liver. Shivas are normally awash in food. But this. Perhaps, our business complete, I could assemble a heaping plate to take home. Would that be bad form?
     Daughters Katharine Loeb and Karen Levin met me and took seats on mourning chairs, with the widow, Lynne Loeb. Orthodox Jews in mourning cover mirrors in the house — you aren’t supposed to think of yourself. They sit shiva on special low chairs, a symbolic returning to earth. (Job 2:13: “And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights ... for they saw that his suffering was very great.”)
     For all the shivas I’ve attended, I’d never noticed the chairs. Nor picked up on another tradition. I looked at the bare table and made a remark about cold cuts. Chutzpa.
     “The tradition is, people are supposed to bring us food and serve us,” Katharine explained, good-naturedly. “It’s their turn to feed us.”
     Ah, I thought.
     Arnold Loeb’s father, Eugene Loeb started the business in Bucharest, Romania, making sausages in his mother’s kitchen.
     “Much to her dismay at times,” Karen said.
     The Loeb family survived World War II intact — Romanian Jews fared far better than Jews in, say, Poland. In 1946 the family moved, first to the Dominican Republic, sending their only child ahead to Chicago, where he had uncles.
     Arnold Loeb, 83, who died Feb. 27 of pancreatic cancer, went to the Illinois Institute of Technology and became an electrical engineer. 

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