Ravenswood Notes: Blessings

 

     There is something decidedly Jewish about Caren Jeskey. I mean that as a compliment. I shouldn't be surprised that she gets that a lot. Her Saturday report:

    Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech haolam. Funny earworm for an atheistic goy. Although I have almost no idea what those words mean, they have rolled off of my tongue since I was young. Growing up in West Rogers Park meant more menorahs in the picture windows of our Georgian homes in late November and early December, than Christmas trees later in the season. There was also the ranch style home on Birchwood near Sacramento with two picture windows, eight candles in one and a bedecked Fraser fir in the other.
     When my Grandma Marie came to visit us in Rogers Park, I’d drive her to St. Margaret Mary church on Jarvis near Western. If she was lucky, and I was being a good granddaughter, I’d attend a Saturday early evening service with her. More likely than not, though, I’d drop her off at the side door and leave her to kneel and genuflect, and I’d head back to whatever party was happening at my folks’ house down the street.
     There I’d stuff myself with delicious Polish sausages and other delicacies my foodie folks had laid out, and basked in the mutual admiration of family and friends. No piety for us. When it was time to get Grandma from church I was never late. I’d pull up along the side of the church, and she’d come out the side door like clockwork. Dependable, sturdy Marie. What I wouldn’t give to sit next to her at church again, inhaling her Emaurade perfume and hearing her sing the hymns loudly to demonstrate her fervor for the Lord.
     Rogers Park friends enveloped me into their culture growing up. I was the Hebrew school guest when a bestie and I could not pry our middle-school hips off of each other. I was a regular at seders, and hung on every word of the Haggadah even when my Jewish friends rolled their eyes and prayed for it to end. I even liked Gefilte fish, and I’d devour horseradish with wild abandon. These were my people.
     I have been called an “honorary Jew” more times than I can count. I realize that might offend some, so please read the sidebar of the blog. It happened. I’m simply reporting. Jewish families tried to “adopt” me, and told me that they were sure I had “Jewish blood” in me. Therefore, I was to propagate with a good Jewish man. They even had the Jewish husband picked out for me, and were sure we’d have many children. This never offended me. I was flattered.
     I remember once when I was working at the 2nd Street Bar & Grill in Santa Monica California— an Israeli couple at the bar became (albeit drunkenly) obsessed. They were SURE I was one of them (meaning Israeli, and Jewish), and they wanted to get me to Israel so I could see that I belonged there.
     My mother’s father Karol Krasnopolski was born in Budapest Hungary. With a name like that I’m pretty sure he was Polish. So why was he in Hungary? Did his family have to flee Poland for some reason? Were they Jewish? I don’t know, but it feels like a possibility. Just because my paternal grandfather may have been Jewish doesn’t mean I am, according to Jewish lineage rules; however, it might mean that the attraction I have to the Jewish world comes from an intuitive sense of belonging.
     Tonight, on this Friday, I am heading to a Shabbat dinner at a friend’s house. Or at least I thought I was. They invited me for “Shabbat dinner” but then today my friend sent a follow up email. Along with their address and the time I should arrive, they sent: “The only other thing is, I might have oversold the Sabbath. We don't actually do that.” I laughed. Perfect. Good thing.
     I am more than happy to gather around a loaf of challah, light candles, and listen to the incantations of my friends. Baruch atah adonai eloheinu melech haolam. I’ve done it so much I’ve committed it to memory. I love the ritual of it all. It feels so safe, simple, comforting, pure.
     But for tonight I’ll bring my Jewish friends a loaf of challah and some matzo ball soup that they can eat this weekend, and the three of us will break bread and have a grand old time. No one will be more or less holy than the person next to them.

 

Talk about a barnburner of a concert...

Theodore Thomas in 1898
 Alfred Cox photo/Rosenthal Archives of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association

     Here’s a joke that Chicago residents told immediately after the Great Fire:
     Question: Why is Theodore Thomas different than Nero? Answer: Because one fiddled away while Rome burned, and the the other roamed away while his fiddles burned.
     Not a thigh-slapper, to be sure. And for the joke to make any sense today, you need to know that Thomas was a famous orchestra conductor. When Thomas played a program of Johann Strauss in New York, critics said he wielded the baton better than the composer himself.
     Tickets going on sale for his October 1871 Chicago performance created a furor. The Tribune predicted the concert would be “one of the most notable events in the history of music in Chicago.”
     It wasn’t. The performance was set for Crosby’s Opera House on Oct. 9, 1871 — 150 years ago Saturday. By curtain time, Crosby’s, and much of the city around it, would be ash and ruin.
     The date of the Great Chicago Fire is remembered as Oct. 8, 1871 because that’s when it began, about 9:30 p.m. in the barn behind Mrs. O’Leary’s home on the near southwest side. But by midnight it was no historic fire; just another blaze on par with a big fire the day before.
     The next day — Monday, Oct. 9 — was when it earned the word “great,” leaping across the river, twice, first ravaging downtown, then jumping to the North Side.

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Is THIS the column you are looking for?

     I'm no fan of cinder blocks, not on an aesthetic level. They're big, crude, grey. Nor on a practical level. Rough and heavy, tough to pick up.
     I'm a much bigger fan of bricks—deep red, smooth, they fit easily in the palm of the hand. Dense, yet portable. An old brick, worn by time, can be a beautiful thing.
     So bricks over cinder blocks, every time.
     Unless.
     Were I in a house on fire, and the only way out was a big plate glass window that wouldn't open, and there was a cinder block right there, I would happily alter my view of cinder blocks to adjust current conditions, and regard the cinder block gratefully, happy that it is there to be thrown through the window so I could escape. It would suffice.
     That's my view of Joe Biden. I was no fan of his before the 2020 election, as I've written. But since he became the nation's last, best hope, the free safety standing between Donald Trump and spiking the ball in the end zone for a second term, Biden became Abraham Lincoln and Solon the Lawgiver and Clark Gable, all in one. I wrote a column about this before the election, "Hand the baby to Fireman Joe."
     At one level. Am I happy that he, oh, lies about what military brass told him to do in Afghanistan? Or about his unleashing security forces on horseback to whip Haitian refugees? Or his inability, so far, to herd all the Democratic cats into one spot long enough to get this big multi-trillion dollar bill done? No, I am not. That's bad. But so long as Biden is going to face Donald Trump again in 2024, and he will, then he's my man, and I will support him. If he goes on national television and kills a wicker basket full of puppies, one by one, with a crochet hook, I will feel disgust and disappointment. And still support him, because animal cruelty just doesn't compare to undermining our democratic system and selling the country to the Russians. 
     Trump supporters, sitting cross legged in patient rows, fingertips pressed together, eyes narrowed, heads tilted back, scanning the skies for the arrival of their god from above, just don't get this. They see Biden's mistakes and apply the critical thinking they never, ever directed toward Trump. Suddenly, the measuring tape of good government has fallen into their laps, and they hop up to use it. And they want us to applaud.
     Consider this email from Brian S. of Oswego, regarding Wednesday's Facebook column:

     Neil, unfortunately there are some people who live on or for Facebook. I believe they are lonely or in search of some self worth by constantly posting their daily lives or thoughts. I rarely post anything to FB (maybe two times a year) but if it helps people cope or grieve I vote to not take that away from them.
       P.S. Perhaps you can write an objective column about the effect of all President Biden's policies have had on American life over the past 8 months.

     I saw through that postscript in a heartbeat. He tried to play it all cool and neutral, but "objective" was the tell. Usually I just leave these people to be judged by God at Doomsday and sent to the fiery perdition they deserve. But he backed into it so disingenuously, I couldn't resist serving him the lunch he had ordered. I replied:

     Of course. Some people live for Beanie Babies. It's a big world. I can write that column for you now: Biden has been a tremendous relief from the liar, bully, fraud and traitor of Donald Trump, and it is only sad that those duped by him continue to deceive themselves, and scan the skies, a pathetic cargo cult of delusion that runs contrary to every principle of intelligence, patriotism or human decency. Thanks for writing.

     No answer, of course.

How can we miss Facebook if it won’t go away?

Barbara Kruger installation, Art Institute of Chicago

     Facebook went bye-bye Monday afternoon. The most surprising thing is what I felt when I realized it was gone: absolutely nothing. Not relief, not panic — certainly not the help-me-I-can’t-breathe panic when, say, your computer won’t boot up. Honestly, I didn’t notice, at first.
     But Twitter started ululating about Facebook disappearing. I wondered if anybody tried pounding the top of Facebook with the flat of their hand; that worked for my Kaypro. Mostly I was busy napping, having gotten my third COVID booster Sunday night. Running a 99.8 fever, the afternoon had already taken on that dreamy, home-from-school-with-Gumby quality.
     Then again, I’m one of those rare people paid to use Facebook, sort of. It’s part of my job, anyway. I still remember the meeting — remember meetings? — where we were informed that we would join Facebook and we would like it. Building our brands. In keeping with my habit of missing the significance of every single important technological shift of my entire life, Facebook struck me as ludicrous.
     “We’re a mass market publication,” I objected. “Why not make us go down to the street and strike up conversations with passersby while you’re at it?”
     I soon discovered how wrong I was. Facebook is a resource, a tool. Forbes asked me to write a story about Barbie mutilation (it’s a thing; academic papers are written about it) and I faced the challenge of how to go about researching the story. Hanging around schoolyards, trying to talk to actual girls about cutting up their Barbie dolls seemed a Bad Idea.
     Or ... I posted my interest on the subject line of Facebook, and was thrilled as potential subjects lined up. “Ooo, Facebook,” I thought. “It’s like having a legman.” Later, I was with the boys in Salt Lake City. We toured the Mormon Temple, exhausting my store of ideas of what to do there. Now what? I posted this query and someone on Facebook suggested we go to Ruth’s Diner. We did. Twice. Red trout and eggs and chocolate malt pudding. Yay, Facebook!

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Taiwan flashback 2002: Competing with mainland China

     So I went to get my COVID booster Sunday afternoon. All great, no problem at all; I didn't even feel the needle go in. Monday morning, also great, working on Wednesday's column, finishing the final draft of my book, marveling at my iron Eastern European constitution that can take double vaccines—I also got the flu shot—without a flicker. "Strong like ox!" I told my wife. 

     Then wham. Suddenly not-so-great. Face hot, 99.8 fever, and I crawled under the covers. Toward dinnertime, I had a thought, like a bubble rising in warm honey.

     "But my poor ... suffering ... blog readers."

      Thank God my interview with the Taiwanese representative to the United States kicked open to the door to the subject, at least in my own estimation. I went there nearly 20 years ago, and did a series, "Taiwan Ties," with variety of stories. One of my favorites was this, where I spent a morning in a cute little green Wrigley's gum van, making deliveries around Tapei. Not exactly ripped from the headlines, and I apologize for that. But "even noble Homer dozed," and today is such a day. Fresh stuff tomorrow. 

     TAPEI—Wan-Hwa is the oldest district in the city, and there are a lot of bars here. People drink, and then want to mask it from wives and bosses, so the tiny local convenience stores, like the 1,000-square-foot Mr. Bean outlet on Hsi-Yuan Road, sell a lot of Wrigley's gum.
     "Drunks love it," said Ying-Long Hju, the clerk at Mr. Bean, watching as his extensive display racks of Wrigley gum are re-filled. "It has a unique flavor."
     American businesses have traditionally lusted after Communist China's billion-plus customers. But profits in that nation have proved elusive until very recently. Meanwhile, Taiwan, at one-fiftieth the size of the People's Republic of China, is actually a more important market than the mainland, buying 50 percent more U.S. goods.
     "Taiwan is the United States' seventh-largest trade partner. It's the 14th-largest economy in the world, and for its size, that's impressive," said Richard Vuylsteke, executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, whose roster includes nearly 1,000 members from 610 companies.

    Taiwan is certainly a growth market for Schaumburg-based Motorola, which over the past year saw sales leap there despite the generally sluggish Taiwanese economy.
     "Taiwan in-country sales this year are greater than Japan for the first time in history—a 48 percent increase compared with the same period in 2001," said Tom Sun, Motorola's Taiwan country manager. "Taiwan is ranked as Motorola's third largest single country/region outside of the United States, after China and Germany."
     For more traditional goods—like gum—Taiwan is a more stable market. Wrigley has been there since 1974, and sales growth on the island trails the mainland.
     "It's a mature market, more like the States," said W.J. Du, director of Wrigley Taiwan Ltd. "Five, 6 percent growth a year. Not like China. China actually has double-digit growth."
     To keep from being overwhelmed by the burgeoning, immense Chinese economy, Taiwan hopes to position itself as a nimble manufacturer.
     "For us to compete against China, flexibility, speed, efficiency and quality are very critical," said Dr. Morris Chang, a semiconductor manufacturer in Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park, a vast center where hundreds of companies churn out high-tech products.
     Having a low-cost workforce also helps. A skilled worker assembling flatbed scanners at the science park can expect to start at about $6,000 a year—not much by U.S. standards, though five times what a similar worker on the mainland gets. Taiwanese business leaders argue the difference is made up by the efficiency of Taiwanese expertise.
     "Businesses found they couldn't source from Chinese companies," Vuylsteke said. "Quality control, on-time delivery, bribery—that kind of thing was too unpredictable. So you'll find Taiwan factories outsourcing in China with managers who were originally Taiwanese." 

     That is not to say that Taiwan, which embraced democracy only about 10 years ago, is without business problems. Motorola's Sun said that the legislative process is insufficiently transparent and the government's economic policy is "vague and still needs to be further defined." Corruption scandals are also frequent.
     The assumption always is that business thrives under democracy, and while that might be true in the long term, in the short term Taiwan is still experiencing problems that come with a freer system.
     In the end, while gigantic mainland resources and markets are expected to quickly push communist China past Taiwan as an economic player, the feisty Taiwanese are hoping to hold their own.
     "We feel the competition," Chang said. "We feel the chase."

           —Originally published in the Sun-Times, July 16, 2002

Cat warrior

 

Hsiao Bi-khim on the Chicago River.

    A wolf and a cat are born on the same day. The wolf pup is much bigger, maybe a pound at birth. The kitten, closer to four ounces. But they roll and tumble, playmates if not friends.
     Time passes. Both grow. The wolf becomes 150 pounds. The cat, 10. The wolf is sharp-eyed, fierce and hungry, looking for its next meal. The cat is anxious, constantly trying to keep from ending up in the wolf’s belly.
     Welcome to the China-Taiwan relationship, circa 2021. Both nations were founded at the same time, in the late 1940s. Taiwan was never part of Communist China. But China insists Taiwan is its possession anyway and wants it, eventually.
     Communist China is much, much bigger: 1.3 billion people over 3.705 million square miles. Taiwan has 23 million people on almost 14,000 square miles, or less than 1/2 of 1 percent of the area of China.
     Which leads to the question of why China is so keen to snap it up, even though doing so would plunge the global economy into chaos? And the answer is: because they’re China, growing in power and aggression, keen to claim everything it thinks is its due, Hong Kong was returned from Britain and is being brutally suppressed.
     Next on the agenda is Taiwan, which it describes as a “renegade province.” Trouble is brewing. On Friday, the Chinese sent 38 warplanes into Taiwanese air defense zone. The whole flap over the United States selling submarines to Australia is about keeping China from gobbling up its neighbors.
      Trying to keep a distracted world aware, if not exactly focused, on their delicate situation is a continuing task for Taiwan. That’s what brought Hsiao Bi-khim, the Taiwanese representative to the United States, to Chicago last week, and how we ended up sitting in the prow of Chicago’s First Lady, politely balancing paper plates of deep dish pizza that neither of us wanted on our knees, and talking international relations as the glittering riverfront skyscrapers slid by.

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Flashback 1990: The grant's tomb—MacArthur money `ruins lives'

"The Voyage of Life: Childhood," by Thomas Cole (Smithsonian Institution)

     The MacArthur Foundation Fellowships were given out last week—they'd rather not call them "genius grants" though everybody does. This year was unusual because, among the unfamiliar poets and filmmakers was somebody I actually had talked to, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, the Princeton professor whose insights lent my 2020 COVID Easter article what spine and acuity it displayed. 

     But that was merely foreshadowing. Now it turns out that the MacArthur Foundation is a possible benefactor for the Sun-Times. Which is very cool. Not just because they're Chicago-based, and support vital institutions (do the syllogism: A: The MacArthur Foundation supports worthy organizations; B: The MacArthur Foundation supports the Sun-Times and C: The Sun-Times, ergo, is an worthy organization).

     They also had a reaction that I've admired for decades, trotting out when speaking to public relations groups. I was the charities, foundations and private social services reporter for a couple years. After the first year, celebrating the genius grant winners as they were led blinking into the light, batik artists and interpretive dancers and such, I had this thought: "I bet those awards ruin people's lives" and set out to find them. After I had corralled a number, I approached MacArthur for their reaction. Nine organizations out of 10 would have curled into a defensive ball if a reporter shared that thesis. The MacArthur Foundation didn't. I don't want to ski ahead of my tips, but just the prospect of having them in our corner is thrilling.

     Andrew McGuire, an injury prevention expert who got a five-year MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in July, 1985, said having the $40,000 yearly payments stop this year was "like going off heroin."

     James McPherson, an acclaimed fiction writer, never published another story after he won a MacArthur grant in June, 1981. "It pretty much ruined his life," said a colleague.
     Despite hoopla surrounding the annual no-strings-attached "genius" grants, which can be worth as much as $375,000, the award can be risky for the ego. Artists, activists, writers or scientists who find themselves abruptly handed a huge bundle of cash and sudden fame sometimes show negative effects.
     "There are a number of reasons people might feel it ruined their lives," said William Cronon, an associate professor of history at Yale University, who won a MacArthur worth $164,000 in July, 1985. "Prestige is an issue. Many MacArthur fellows resent the press description of it as a `genius' grant."
     MacArthur fellows such as Cronon are usually quick to point out that, even considering the negatives, receiving a MacArthur fellowship is a positive experience ("besides the teasing," McGuire adds).
     Still, the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation is sensitive to the possibility of the awards having undesirable side effects.
     "There is some sort of curse: `May you be given everything you ask for,' " said Ken Hope, director of the MacArthur Fellowship program. He said that the sudden freedom to pursue long-delayed goals afforded by the MacArthur grant can sometimes be daunting.
     "There's a sense in which the gauntlet has been thrown down," he said, adding that the blaze of publicity accompanying the prize can cause problems.
     "Suddenly they become well-known," said Hope. "People get unwarranted calls from investment advisers, used car salesmen, proposals of marriage."
    Hope said that, from the beginning, the MacArthur Foundation has worried about how fellows will cope with the aftermath of the award.
     "There is a word `iatrogenesis' " said Hope. "It means `the harm caused by the doctor.' We have been aware of that word, and we try to be even more careful in the selection process."
     The most common problem expressed by MacArthur fellows is that the grant does not, in reality, give them extra time to pursue their dreams.
     "When I first got the fellowship, I assumed that it would would free me up from having to do my regular job—teaching—so I could do my writing," Cronon said. "But Yale has very strict rules about how much leave time a person can take. I received no leave time at all on the MacArthur. So, in one direct sense, it gave me nothing but extra money in the bank account."
     "Ours was a small department and I didn't feel I could leave," said J. Richard Steffy, about to retire as professor of nautical archeology at Texas A&M University.
     However, he said that if not for the $288,000 grant, "perhaps I wouldn't have retired this soon."
     Even though Cronon's free time did not increase, he said he was still expected to be more productive by his friends and co-workers.
     "There is this sense that colleagues have if you have a MacArthur felowship that you've been doing nothing but working on your projects for five years, so why haven't you produced more books?" he said. "That's a negative side."
     McPherson, now a teacher at the Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa, is off the scale as a unique worst-case scenario. He called the $192,000 grant "an extra dose of misery" and blamed the award for causing him to lose custody of his daughter.
     "I was going through a divorce when I got the award, and I was trying to get joint custody of (my daughter) Rachel," he said. "But the publicity surrounding the award caused all kinds of people to come out with extreme jealousy. The judge gave my ex-wife extraordinary alimony based on the award. I think I would have gotten my joint custody if I hadn't been chosen at that moment. . . . I have to fly every month to see her. That was what the award did to me."
     Far more common is the experience of composer Ralph Shapey, who called the $288,000 MacArthur fellowship he received in 1982 "definitely a good thing."
     Shapey said that the grant had almost no effect on his working life—perhaps the grant allowed him to buy an expensive musical score he otherwise would have passed up—and he ended up socking away the money in a bank.
     "You can write just as good music on a full stomach or a hungry stomach," he said. "I create because I have to create. It's something that I have to do, and something like money is not going to stop me."

            —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Sept. 23, 1990