Online magic scratches live theater itch

Scott Silven

     After I turned this in I learned that the Sun-Times reviewed "The Journey" last Wednesday. I asked my boss if we should just scrap the column and I'd whip together something else. But he felt the two pieces are different enough to slip this through. So after you read my take, if you want a detailed, spot on review of the performance by freelancer Catey Sullivan, you can find it here.

     The initials in the title “R.U.R” — a science fiction play by Czech writer Karel Čapek — stand for “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” which introduced the word “robot” into the English language. The production I saw at Cleveland’s Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival ended with the robot lovers, Primus and Helena, freezing on stage as the lights came up, a neat bit of stage business. I kept turning as I filed out with the rest of the audience, to see if they were still standing there, motionless, holding hands. They were. 

     That was also 50 years ago, a reminder of the power of theater to move us, shape us, take a moment, or an image, and make it part of our consciousness, forever.
     Something we’ve been missing sorely for the past 11 months — those who go to shows, anyway — and it might give a sense of how small a crew that is if you consider the verbiage spent mourning the inability to eat in restaurants versus the scant attention given the near complete loss of Chicago’s vibrant live theater. Not to forget the hole kicked in the livelihoods of thousands of actors, stagehands, wardrobe chiefs, lighting technicians and ticket salespeople.
     On-screen live performance just isn’t the same. Since the pandemic struck, I’ve seen three theatrical productions online. 
     There was a TV version of Jane Austen my wife was watching that seemed tinny and abrasive. I bailed out after 10 minutes. And I tried to introduce “Hamilton” to the boys, but we weren’t in a theater, hadn’t paid $180 a ticket, and the show never grabbed them. After a polite half hour they begged off.
     And “The Journey” Thursday night, a one-man show by Scottish illusionist Scott Silven, presented by Chicago Shakespeare Theater, which cracked the secret of getting me to try live online performance. They asked. It’s a magic act, not a play, but I don’t mind magic. The last show I saw in Chicago before the world shut down was Penn & Teller at the Chicago Theater in November 2019. A century ago. They were good.
     “The Journey” takes place in a single room, and close-in magic works well on a small screen. The audience, limited to 30, is at times projected in the room, and the basic conjurer’s routine of asking questions of volunteers draws viewers in, underscoring the live quality. We’d been asked to bring an object of personal significance, and I brought a fossil trilobite, which meshed nicely — or should that be inexplicably? — with Silven’s theme of home and time and stones, small cairns which were part of the act.

To continue reading, click here.

"Whose Karen Is It?"

  

     National Public Radio is proud of its engaging stories, dubbed "Driveway Moments," those compelling programs whose blend of narrative, humor, pathos and suspense keeps a driver glued to the car radio, even when the destination is reached and he would snap off less captivating fare, but is forced to sit in the car in the driveway, listening.

     But after this morning, I'm wondering if lingering in the driveway is any measure of highbrow creative merit.
     The boys were home, and the car radio had, perhaps through their handiwork, shifted from the usual WXRT 93.1 FM to the unfamiliar 101.1 FM WKQX. Saturday morning, returning from dropping our dog off at the groomer, I found myself listening for the first time to the Brian, Ali and Justin show, one of their "Whose Karen Is It?" segments, where the hosts try to match a "Karen"—an unhinged, complaining woman—to her home neighborhood in Chicago.
     Before we launch into the topic, I couldn't spotlight the imaginative, thoughtful, and not-at-all entitled or in any way testy musings of Caren Jeskey without pointing out that the whole "Karen" trope is mean, unfair, sexist and past its pull date, not to forget being the slasher-movie morality of identifying someone as vile so you can unleash all the cruelty upon them that supposedly so bothered you in the first place. 

     But that realization only came later, with a bit of guidance from my wife, as illumination all too often does. Complaining men don't get the same treatment. Nor do we know whose bad moment is being captured. Maybe they're having an awful day. Maybe they're mentally ill. Maybe they're right.
     The host read a note found taped to the windshield of a car, basically extending dibs, presumptive enough after a snowfall, to a general claim on a parking space, 365 days a year.
     "I am so pissed off that these fucking transplants don't know the rules around here," it begins. "I've been calling dibs on 2 parking spots in front of my house for 5 years now without any issues. Everyone on the block knows these our [sic] my parking spots..."
     The game is to guess where in the city this woman lives. It has its own page on the WKQX web site and you can see the full social media post there. 

     The first caller  guessed that the author of the note is from Bridgeport—he himself is from Bridgeport—while allowing that the note being typed and not scrawled in a nearly illegible hand did, indicated it might be from somewhere more advanced than the neighborhood that spawned the Daleys. 
     Wrong! Complete with canned sound effect and host hilarity.

     What kept my interest was how the game was that it served as a quick survey of how residents of various parts of the city are viewed by others. Callers guessed Lincoln Park, Edison Park, Marionette Park. There seemed to be a lot of callers, impressive for a Saturday, and they greeted the hosts with "ahoy!" which had a certain Jimmy Buffett appeal.
     It went on and, eventually, I went inside and, in checking the station's web site to see who I was listening to, I realized I was able to keep listening. They must have dragged the bit out over a half hour.
     While listening, I did my due diligence. It turns out that this very segment caused controversy last fall when someone guessed Skokie. Robert Feder of course had the full story:

"It might be time for Brian Haddad to consider dropping “Whose Karen Is It?” from his morning show on Cumulus Media alternative rock WKQX 101.1-FM. Wednesday’s installment of the weekly bit (purportedly based on a woman charging her friends and family $80 per person for Thanksgiving dinner) took a bizarre turn when a caller unleashed some unmistakably anti-Semitic tropes about 'those people' in Skokie. "

     Obviously the station isn't taking Robert's wise counsel, always a mistake. Though Haddad did immediately apologize. That's good enough for me. As I've said before, if I refused to partake in the creative efforts of anti-Semites, I'd be sitting alone in a bare white-walled room listening to klezmer music while tossing cards into a hat.
      I was still listening when the mystery was solved.
     "Mark, ahoy, whose Karen is it?" said one host.
     "Everyone who lives in Bucktown only shops in Bucktown, they never leave Bucktown, I gotta think it's Bucktown, I know them," the caller said.
    "You got it, Mark, it's Bucktown!" More sound effects, etc.

     The most noteworthy thing is the callers seem to think "dibs" is a gentrified phenomenon, while I think of it as an entrenched, I've-lived-in-Mayfair-30-years kind of thing. Maybe it's both. 
     They call Saturday's show a "Throwback"—meaning, I assume, that it was a re-broadcast of a show earlier in the week.
     I kept listening, and they played "Do I Wanna Know?" by the Arctic Monkeys, which seems less crappy than I would expect on contemporary glad talk music fare.
     The topic shifted to pedicures and cutting your toenails and I was able to easily bail out.
     I don't want to overstate the case. But in my business, no wonder should go unremarked upon. Maybe I'm biased, and assume such shows are more brain dead than they actually are. I still set the station back to WXRT—you gotta dance with who brung ya—but I was encouraged by the episode. Maybe I'm looking for encouragement lately. Maybe we all are.

Texas notes: Snow

     Now when I need to describe Caren Jeskey briefly, I'll be able to say, "She is a woman who..." Well, I shouldn't give it away. Her Saturday report:

     It snowed in Texas. At first I thought it would be nothing but a sad smattering. Yet as the day wore on it started sticking. Yes, a respectable snowfall after all. Part of me wanted to hunker down in bed for the day. After all, it was a Sunday and I finally had an excuse to stay in. Nearly every day in Austin, year round, is too nice to justify staying inside; but today I was allowed to eat some raw cookie dough, maybe bake a few cookies, drink coffee and stay under blankets in bed.
     But wait; this just can’t be. I am a Chicagoan. 30s and snowy means heading out for the day, not succumbing to wimp-dom.

    To get motivated, I got onto Facebook and posted on Buy Nothing, a local gift exchange group. “Who would like me to walk a package of Trader Joe’s cookie dough over to your porch?” Within moments a mother of a young child commented “we’d love it!” I bundled up, grateful for the snow boots I’d worn only once before in the past seven years of living in Austin. I set out with the cookie dough and also an unopened jar of Nutella. My neighbor saved me from lying around eating hazelnut chocolate spread out of the jar all day while listening to children frolic in the white powder in the park just behind my house.
     I set out the mile or so to my neighbor’s place, and dropped the goodies off on her stoop.
     I’d forgotten the magic of being outdoors on a snowy day. The white stuff nestled in cactus limbs and confused the fronds of palm trees. The juxtaposition of cacti and snow was stark and somehow cleansing to the soul.  

     I spent the rest of the day wandering around and marveling at the joy this day was bringing to me and everyone else smart enough to immerse ourselves into nature’s gift. Countless snow creatures sprung up all around, peppering a big field and perching on fenceposts and car hoods. Some were muddy and covered with leaves. Still, they all became my friends for the day. Each snow person had a personality of its own. I rested my head on one of their shoulders and felt like a content child.
     Back home in Rogers Park, Chicago, five inches or more of white, fluffy snow invited us out to romp and play on many winter days. Heck, sometimes on Fall or Spring days too. We’d toss snowballs around, and then we’d make snow friends with coal eyes, carrot noses, top hats, and scarves, until our fingers were numb. When our clothes got wet and our sweat started to freeze, we’d spill into the foyer of our house, shed soggy boots and frozen gloves, and gather around the kitchen table for hot cocoa with marshmallows floating on top.         

     Snow play was exhausting. We’d make our way to couches in the sunken den, cover up with blankets, and mom and dad would turn the TV to Frosty The Snowman or The Sound of Music. Dad would pop popcorn and drench it with butter and we’d half watch, half doze to the sounds of the television.
     Eventually we’d groggily watch the closing credits and slowly make our way up to our bedrooms, or maybe Dad would carry us, one at a time— or sometimes two!
     The next morning the ground would be a smooth glistening blanket, and everything was quiet. Red cardinals and black ravens perched on branches. We’d put our almost-dry boots and mittens back on, and venture out for another day of fun. What a wonderful thing, snow.
     

           Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
            —Robert Frost

Thank you for your expression of contempt

The Casualty, by Josiah Eidmann (Northbrook Public Library)

     Happy about Donald Trump being impeached a second time?
     Me neither.
     Don’t get me wrong. It was richly earned and necessary. But it also had an almost obligatory quality. The way a news report about a drunk driver plowing into a group of schoolchildren might end by saying the suspect is charged with six counts of vehicular homicide, plus driving while intoxicated on a suspended license and failure to yield to pedestrians.
     You almost smile, ruefully, at that last bit and think, “Yeah, that ‘failure to yield’ rap is really going to haunt him.”
     People were going on about the historic second impeachment. Oh boy, Trump sure is marinating in shame now! Two impeachments.
     The first one barely registered; hard to see what doubling will do.
     The problem is, once you start ignoring reality, the scope of the specific reality being ignored hardly matters. If you’re encased in your own willful darkness and can’t see an acoustical tile ceiling, you also won’t see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
     That’s why I try to never argue with readers. First, for that very reason: they’re readers, and I truly appreciate their being here, reading, despite occasional geysers of toxicity. It isn’t that I coddle them, per se. But if they write in saying they subscribe and the moon is made of blue cheese, I might respond by observing that I like blue cheese on a steak salad.

To continue reading, click here. 

Mailbag

Metropolitan Museum of Art

     COVID was strange and scary and terrible enough. But now. It's almost like some malign deity said to himself, "Hey, I wonder if I could turn up the knob on political chaos so much that people actually FORGET the pandemic, even though it's WORSE than ever? THAT would be fun."

     Which is where we are now, more or less. One thing in favor of the storming of the Capitol: I bet you weren't thinking about hand sanitizer. The whole next week was like that. I spent most of yesterday answering email, which is stupid. My wife tells me just to delete them, unread, but how can I be plugged into the zeitgeist, savvy to the vox populi—not that a person who is either would use words like "zeitgeist" or "vox populi," but work with me here—unless I take their pulse, etc etc. etc. 

     Or maybe that isn't the real reason. Maybe reading the mail is, as Luna Lovegood says, "Like having friends." Or maybe I'm just kneejerk polite. Someone writes to you, you write back.

     Whatever reason, I plowed through them, which is like being swallowed by a whale and shat out the back. 
     I think I'll share a few of the more noteworthy ones Friday in the paper, there'll only be room for a few, and there are plenty to add here.
      The question in Wednesday's column, Why wasn't the Capitol mob carrying guns? to be honest, threw a few people. A lot of people read that as "Why wasn't ANYONE carrying a gun?" which was not the point. Especially on Facebook, diving into the weeds and becoming lost because a few protesters did, apparently, flash guns. Then there was this:

Dear Neil,You article today in the Suntimes was very disappointing. Condemn the insurrectionists. Taunting the DC rioters for NOT using guns was disturbing. It was as if you want them it use their guns next time or they are weak.
     I wish your article was not printed. You do great work but this is wrong.
     Very sad to send this,
     Claudia 

     How to reply? I could have highlighted how I had said, in the column, that I was glad and grateful they weren't armed. But since she missed it the first time, and probably wouldn't get it a second time, I threw up my hands:

Dear Claudia:
With all due respect, I would suggest that you misunderstood my point completely. Since I was fairly clear the first time, my trying to explain further now would only cause more confusion. Still, thanks for writing.
NS 

     That isn't a bad thing to say, right? I try to never be insulting in my replies, since the sender, more often than not, is insulting enough for the both of us.
     Speaking of which. This one is long, but worth reading, because it reflects the view held by about 70 million Americans. He uses his full name but I've deleted his last one to save him the embarrassment of being associated in public with his sincere opinions. Notice the tone. That's the entire Trump movement in a nutshell: angry, aggrieved, the cry of the wronged victim:

Mr Steinberg,
     My name is Patrick M. and I am a recently retired 37 year Captain on the Chicago Fire Department. I was assigned downtown area on May 30, 2020 during the riots and insurrection. I saw looting, arson, vandalism and more shootings than you can imagine. My fire engine was purposely rammed by a van full of rioters who attempted to flee, leaving two toddlers in car seats behind. Luckily they were apprehended by the CPD immediately. I saw looters steal everything that wasn’t nailed down. When they were done, they would either set the store on fire or set the sprinkler system off, to flood the building. The whole purpose was to destroy or steal everything they touched. The damage from spray paint alone had to be well over a million dollars.
     In the months of rioting in this country that followed in Seattle, Portland, New York, Kenosha and yes Chicago, I never once recall you refer to “the mostly peaceful protesters” as rioters or insurgents. I remind you of these events because I just read your article on January 13th and have found some misconceptions and downright lies.
     You stated that guns were not used at the Capitol demonstration. That is a lie. An Air Force veteran protester was shot down in cold blood my Capitol security guardswho fired into the crowd. No one is calling for an investigation into her murder, unlike other deaths at the hands of Police in this country. Why aren’t there calls to “Say Her Name”like other victims of police violence?
     You also claim protesters were there to hang Nancy Pelosi, another lie. There is absolutely no proof that that is what the protesters were planning to do.
     Another clueless statement you made is “the protesters did not have guns”. That is also a lie. Many of the protestors, if not all of them, had guns. Concealed Carry laws prevent them from showing their weapons.
     I really don’t know what happened in your life to make you despise the police and law enforcement, but it really is sad that is how you feel. You should do a ride-a-long with the police on a Saturday night in July in Englewood. I think your perspective would change.

     Again, the best thing would not to respond at all. But I like to say ... something, so I said this:

     Did the president of the United States encourage that looting? If not, you're kinda off point here. What I call a "look-a-squirrel" response. Interesting, if you a) like squirrels or b) want to distract from the situation at hand. I didn't say guns weren't used. I said the mob wasn't armed. Which it wasn't, largely. As for the rest of your email, I lost interest. When a man is responding, not to what I wrote, but what he imagines or wishes I wrote, in order to knock it down more easily and not have to think, we part ways. Thanks for writing.
NS

     Exhausted yet? I sure am. And that is just two of dozens. Okay, my work is done here. Have a good day. Stay safe. Wear your goddamn mask.

Why wasn’t the Capitol mob carrying guns?

 

Cheyenne drawing (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     So here’s my question.
     And by “question,” I don’t mean rhetorical device designed to draw you into this column so I can take you by the hand and lead you toward some pat conclusion I’ve already formulated.
     No, by “question,” I mean a puzzlement that I’m genuinely curious about and don’t know the answer to. Something we can work out together and perhaps gain insight into this baffling world.
     Here goes:
     Why weren’t the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol last week armed?
     Isn’t that what all these guns are for? Shedding the blood of tyrants? Wresting freedom from a repressive state? And isn’t that, supposedly, exactly why the invaders were there? Because a free and fair election, the reelection of President Donald Trump, was being subverted?
     They could have carried guns. They certainly were prepared, with body armor and helmets and backpacks that no doubt contained water bottles and snacks. Zip ties. Rope to hang Nancy Pelosi.
     But nobody seems to have brought assault rifles. Something to give thanks for. As harsh as the images were, we didn’t see anybody brandishing weapons or firing shots.
     Why?

To continue reading, click here.

Flashback 2012: Museum’s trains are no small deal

William Davidson Jr., 2012 (Photo for the Sun-Times by Brian Jackson)

     The Museum of Science and Industry welcomed a new president Monday, the first in 23 years. I'm hoping to get the chance to watch Chevy Humphrey in action, grappling with a singularly difficult museum environment. While I wait, I thought about the last MSI employee I visited with, train wrangler William Davidson Jr.

     William Davidson Jr. did not see the train derail. He heard it.
     “An emergency!” he said, with complete earnestness, snapping into action, hurrying to where a John Deere tractor had tumbled off a flatbed car, onto an adjacent track, where it knocked aside an oncoming train.
     Usually such an accident would be more than a one-man clean-up job. But these were not actual trains in the full-size living world, but miniature HO-gauge trains endlessly plying the tracks at the Great Train Story, a well-loved display that the Museum of Science and Industry has operated for 71 years in its Hall of Transportation.
     As for Davidson, well, there are two crucial things you need to know about him.
     First, making sure the MSI’s trains run on time — well, at least making sure they run — is his job, one he begins four days a week at 6:30 a.m. when he dons black rubber gloves and wipes the 1,400 feet of track with lint-free rags and denatured alcohol, to remove the dust that would foul the trains’ delicate electrical contacts.
     “It is important to do it every day,” he said. “When tracks get dust on them you start losing the conductivity and get a lot of arcing.”
     When he’s finished with that, and fired up the electrical system, the 16 iPods providing ambient train noise and ringing bells and twittering birds, after the 26 trains running at any given time — freights, passenger trains, 'L' trains, Metra commuter trains — start to roll, he retires to his cluttered workshop to fiddle with the various worn-down, burned-out, busted engines and cars that demand constant repair because toy trains are not designed to run 40 hours a week.
      “No manufacturer had that in mind when they made these trains,” Davidson said. For instance, inside each motor is a worm gear. Once they were brass. Now they’re plastic, and last about a month.
     All this is a lot of grueling work, or would be, for someone else. Which brings up the second key point to realize about William Davidson: He loves trains.
     “I’ve always loved trains,” he said. “I find them magical.”
     If ever there was a man in his dream job, Davidson is it. A member of the Windy City Model Railroad Club, he got his first toy train at age 2 and yes, he still has the engine and tender. Nor is that all he has. To put Davidson’s passion for model trains in perspective: the 79-year-old museum has 200 to 300 toy train cars in its collection. Davidson, 49, has 437 train cars at home. The museum has perhaps 70 engines. Davidson has 77.
     The $3.5 million, 3,400-square-foot diorama has 1,400 feet of track divided into three mains lines, tracing the route that containers take after being off-loaded from a ship in the port of Seattle, across the United States, to a detailed rendition of Chicago’s Loop.
     HO scale trains are built on 1/87, meaning that one inch on the model equals 87 inches in a real train. But the buildings were built on 1/100th scale so the Willis Tower could fit under the wing of the Boeing 727 suspended above it. Few visitors notice the discrepancy, though Davidson once heard a schoolteacher informing students that the iconic Chicago skyscraper is the World Trade Center.
     And yes, he corrected the teacher, a devotion to verisimilitude that you would expect in a man who takes a razor blade and scrapes off the tiny plastic hand grips molded on his boxcars so he can install little metal hand grips. At home. In his spare time.
     According to the Chicago Office of Tourism, the MSI is the sixth most popular attraction in Chicago, with 1.5 million visitors a year. Given that flow, and the open expanse of the train display, naturally there are issues. Davidson keeps three large amber prescription bottles filled with coins tossed at the trains. People lean over the railing to take pictures and drop their cell phones, cameras and purses.
     He digs into a pile of stuff in his workshop and comes up with Ariel — a bendable figure of the Disney mermaid. She’s surprisingly heavy. “Feel that, it’s like it has lead in it,” Davidson said before displaying the pieces of the building she shattered.
     People who love trains understand the appeal. But those who don’t might find them a mystery. What is it about toy trains?
     “In the modeling world, you’re imitating real life,” he said. “You have different types of rail modelers — some try to run them as realistically as possible, keeping track of where they’re going, the loads they’re carrying. Some just have fun of watching the trains run, I’ve always liked the miniaturization, the details, the little towns, the signaling, the grade crossings. I love modeling,”

                                —Originally published in the Sun-Times, May 6, 2012