A better picture of Willie Wilson

Willie Wilson

     “Willie Wilson wishes to speak to you ...” a colleague informed me, passing along his phone number.
     Geez, I thought. What’s this about? I pondered, and it came to me. Must be the column on predictions, where I say his becoming mayor would be “the worst possible outcome.”
     That didn’t bother him. Just the opposite.
     “I like that prediction,” he said. The trouble lay elsewhere.
     “That picture you did of me. ... That looked bad.”
     I apologized. While he was on the line, I felt obligated to pick his brain and started with a question perplexing many Chicagoans:
     What’s wrong with Lori Lightfoot?
     “She feels that being mayor gives her the authorization to do things on her own,” Wilson replied. “I think she’s got a complex. She’s a dictator, in my opinion. She’s getting all these kickbacks.”
     “Kickbacks”? That’s a serious accusation, I told Wilson. Could you elaborate? Kickbacks in the envelopes stuffed with cash sense? That doesn’t seem the mayor’s brand.
     No, he said, contributions to her political fund.
     “When I say ‘kickback,’ I mean people who do business with the city, that set up these PACs,” he said. “That’s a conflict. They set up a PAC so they can put more than the limit of $1,500. They’re putting $50,000 or more, and she’s taking it.”
     I ran this charge by the mayor’s people. Our conversations revolved around a recent Tim Novak expose pointing to the $68,500 Lightfoot accepted from companies belonging to a city lobbyist, Carmen Rossi. Lightfoot’s spokesperson’s reaction, in essence, was: Whoops. That isn’t like us. We gave the dubious money back.
     This is where being really rich helps. Wilson says he’ll accept small donations but not the big chunks of change the mayor accepts if nobody calls her on it.
     “I wouldn’t take that kind of money,” he said. “I’ve always been giving that kind of money away.”

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The other Lori

Lori Cannon

     Saturday afternoon was a cold, bleak, gray day. Outside, in the streets of Chicago, that is. But all was warm and bright and colorful inside GroceryLand, 5543 North Broadway, when I stopped by to visit an old friend and conduct an unusual transaction.

     GroceryLand, run by Lori Cannon, is an Edgewater food pantry for people living with HIV. (And, sometimes, though you didn't get it from me, for people who don't have HIV, such as mothers of hungry families, but who are needy nonetheless. Lori is good at many things, but turning away those who she could help is not one of them. Particularly during COVID).  Lori knows that her clientele spends a lot of their time in drab, institutional settings, and wants her operation to be as homelike and festive as possible. There are two other locations on the South and West sides of Chicago.
     It had been several years since I last visited, and the place was even more warm and inviting than I remembered.
     Lori, who helped found Open Hand Chicago in 1988, produced an article mounted on foamcore that I had written in 1994 when the forerunner of GroceryLand opened. (I posted the article on EGD in 2019 to mark GroceryLand's 25th anniversary). Also in 2019, I wrote about Lori, when she received a Legacy Advocate Award.

     We've both been at our respective professions for a long time. We must really like it.
     She took me on a tour of the place. In one corner, a pile of stacked banker boxes. "Jon-Henri Damski's literary estate," she said, suggesting it should stored somewhere more secure than against the wall of a food pantry, no matter how nice. I suggested the Gerber/Hart Library & Archives and she made a face — apparently they are not up to her standards, which can be very high. My second suggestion was the Newberry Library, and she found that a better idea. I promised I would reach out to them Monday and see what I could do.  Damski was a longtime gay columnist, supposedly the first to use his real name, and while I've seen him referred to as "the gay Studs Terkel," I always thought of him as "Chicago's gay Socrates," since he was always crouching at the gates of Lakeview, disheveled but piercingly intelligent, challenging passersby with his unconventional views. 

     GroceryLand's walls were festooned with work of Chicago artist and illustrator David Lee Csicsko. Years of posters for GroceryLand — how many food pantries have a strong graphic presence? — plus a whimsical oil painting of, I believe, Romulus and Remus and the she-wolf.   

     We talked a long time — Lori mentioned that Saturday was the birthday of our late mutual friend, Andrew Patner. She has an incredible memory for names and dates and places, for departed friends and clients, aldermen, mayors, governors, activists, a walking history of the past half century of Chicago gay life, and somebody should sit down with her and a tape recorder and get it all down. 

     Oh, the transaction, I almost forgot. Lori came to my book signing at Atlas Stationers with a big Ziploc bag of ruggaleh, because she's great. Baked herself, and perhaps the best I've ever eaten in my life. My wife, even more impressed, pleaded for the recipe so she could serve them at our Hanukkah party Sunday. Lori said there is no recipe — her mother Bluma taught her and the process just lives in her head — but she'd whip some up for us. We of course tried to dissuade her from going to the trouble; she has more important things to do. But as anyone who has ever tried to dissuade Lori Cannon from doing anything knows, that is not easily done. Impossible really. (A 1996 Reader profile referred to her as a "Demon of Mercy.") So we showed up with all the canned soup we could carry as a donation to GroceryLand, and she gifted us with a tremendous bounty of homemade ruggaleh. Kindred spirits helping, manus manum lavat, one hand washing the other, the Chicago way. Anyway, Hanukkah starts tonight, and I hope those who celebrate have a happy one. And those who don't celebrate it, well, you have the comfort of your own holiday coming in a week. And if you haven't done your holiday good deed yet, GroceryLand could use your cash and your high-quality packaged food items, particularly canned soups. 

Northshore Notes: Silurian Sea

 

Photo by Caren Jeskey

By Caren Jeskey

"Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end."
         — Shakespeare, Sonnet 60

     This Thursday, after an urgent dental procedure in Wilmette, I drove north down Sheridan Road through the ravines. A good way to unwind. I was also craving some beach time before starting my work day and knew I'd find a nice spot somewhere along the way. But first I was in need of soft food, which I found in the form of matzoh ball soup at a Once Upon A Bagel in Highland Park.  

     I called my friend Randy as I headed east from the deli. Randy’s folks live in Highland Park and whenever I’m there I think of him. He lives out West now, where the weather is warm. He also lived on Maui for many years. Smart guy. I had not seen him in ages until this past summer (though our phone and FaceTime hours have been copious for the past several years). We met at Froggy’s French Cafe in Highwood for a meal, the French doors wide open on that temperate night, and a man named Brian quietly strummed his guitar by the bar.
     As we chatted on the phone on Thursday I mentioned I was near Fort Sheridan with a free hour and a half. He heartily recommended that I drive to the lakefront at the end of the Fort, which I did. I snaked along a twisty road lined with condos and homes with big wraparound porches. Eventually, a meadow appeared on a hill over the lake. Tall prairie grasses lit up by the sun swayed in the breeze.
     I parked, then headed through a patch of woods, passed a cannon perched on an overlook, and found the little bit of lakefront I could get to. (Most of the beach is closed to public access). I found a tiny pebbly patch at the end of a drainage pipe that fed into the lake for runoff.
     Although I was wearing leather boots and a peacoat, I could not resist, and scrambled down a narrow patch of sand towards the water’s edge. Granite, lava rocks, fossils, man made concrete, lake glass and other treasures intermingled. There were giant boulders, one replete with fish skulls and crinoid stems from times of yore when Lake Michigan was a shallow Silurian sea over 400 million years ago.      

     I could have stayed there all day with the loud waves lapping and the deep blue expanse, a welcome respite from screens, cities, towns, and people.
     An olive colored stone really caught my eye. I lay on my belly on the fossil boulder and stretched as far as I could. I anchored myself and managed not to slide into the watery soup of pebbles upon which the olive rock gleamed. Once in my hands I got a closer look at the vibrant but matte green and noticed a circular nodule exposing green and red sparkles.
     I had the good fortune of becoming a rock hound the week I wrote this piece in late October. For what’s better than a new hobby that involves fresh air? There’s already a new rock tumbler going 24/7 on my front porch, tossing stones for a four-week grinding and polishing process. My current rock hound friends identified the green find as basalt, with what might be amygdales tucked inside. If it’s a rock full of them it will be an amygdaloidal. A real beauty. It might even have peridot or epidote inside. I plan to keep it intact for now.

     My round, jolly Grandma’s name was Olive. I visited her at Rosehill Cemetery recently and hung out with the bucks keeping her and my Grandpa Carl company. I feel even closer to her with my sturdy geological find nestled into my little cottage with me. A way to feel connected even though she’s gone. I’ll be gone one day too, and will be sure to pass special finds like this down to special people.
     Today I’ll open up the tumbler, rinse off what's left, and place them into the next level of grit. I say what’s left because I did not realize it’s prudent to check the hardness of rocks before tumbling, lest you end up with nothing but a bucketful of sand.

“Talk of mysteries! — Think of our life in nature, — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it, — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? where are we?”
       — Henry David Thoreau, Maine Woods

Extroverted? Here’s some tips on how to be quiet and reflective

 

     Going to many parties this year? Me either. None at all, in fact. Which is great. One of the guilty secrets of COVID is that the pandemic is a jubilee for us introverts. You mean we can’t go into crowded places? Or to the office? Or out of the house? Yessssss!
     Introversion always struck me as a personal flaw. We’re all supposed to be salesmen for our own personal brands, striding up to strangers with a gleaming grin and a firm handshake. I never thought of shyness as a valuable skill that could be shared, until I saw this tweet mocking O The Oprah Magazine for printing yet another article on how to be more outgoing:

     “Just once I’d like to see, “Extroverted? Here’s Some Tips on How to be More Quiet and Reflective,” observed Tom + Lorenzo, the brand for Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez, a Philadelphia-based lifestyle and fashion duo.
     The thought bubbled up: Hey ... wait a minute. I could write such an article.
     Perhaps now is the moment, during the holiday hubbub. A bit of introversion might make it easier for everybody involved; might mute, just a little, the chest drumming of the relentlessly gregarious. Especially those who get into arguments, blurt out hurtful opinions they later regret, and otherwise dig a deep hole with their mouths they then have to try to climb out of, somehow.
    It’s worth a try. Here are five tips on how to be more quiet and reflective in social settings:
     1. Shut up. Take your hand and put it against your lips. Are they moving? You might be one of the many who talk continuously, out of habit. Who take the old “Silence = Death” slogan far too literally. Take your fingers and firmly clamp your lips together. If your jaws are still working, and you’re making muffled, “Mmm mmmmm...” sounds, take in a long, deep, slow breath. It’s impossible to inhale and talk at the same time.

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Mayor Willie Wilson and other predictions

     Our managing editor asked for ideas to include in a special looking-ahead-to-the-coming year section, and I suggested remarking on the inexplicable popularity of looking ahead to the coming year, a mystery considering how off base they usually are. To his credit, he said, "Yeah, do that."

     Magazines pile up in my office, no matter how I try to glance at them. It was March before I got around to The Economist’s special year-end issue, “The World Ahead: 2022.” Given that the global order had just been rattled by Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, I couldn’t help but immediately flip to the section on Russia to see how clearly the London-based magazine’s expert had seen trouble coming.
     Short answer: not very.
     Yes, the article had the promising print title “Russia’s battlegrounds.” But neither of the two projected fights involved actual warfare.
     “One is elections,” wrote Arkady Ostrovsky, The Economist’s Russia editor. “The other is the freedom of the internet.” The story, which you can read online here, ended, “The war over the internet will define Russia’s near future.”
      If only. Then again, year-end predictions seldom come true, and it’s telling that a) the media keeps making them anyway, and b) people still read them and c) nobody seems to look back to see how poorly past prognostications worked out.
     Grab any list from last year and the misfires are so wrong, they’re almost funny.
     Forbes’ “Ten Predictions for 2022,” written by Adam Strauss, offered as a guide to help people invest money, at least began by admitting that augury is “tricky” and lowering the bar by adding “predictions can be fascinating and informative, even if many of them turn out not to occur.”
     Which many did not. Not No. 6, Congress legalizing pot. Nor No. 8, “Cryptocurrency and blockchain applications continue to grow,” claiming that, “Bitcoin exits the year with a price above $50,000.” Try about a third of that: $17,757 in mid-December. I bet Forbes’ face-plant wasn’t so fascinating and informative for anyone who made investments based on its tea leaf-gazing.
      Nor did No. 9 come true, Republicans taking control of the Senate. But most of the media botched that, the anticipated red tsunami turning out to be a pink splash. (At least I suggested, right before the midterm, there was hope the red wave wouldn’t come, since Brazil president and Trump manque Jair Bolsonaro got the boot in Brazil.)

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‘Something to fight for’

Dalia Stasevska conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (photo by Todd Rosenberg)

     Musicians bridge the chasm between our world of woe and the higher sphere of the sublime. Just look at Dalia Stasevska. Six weeks ago she was driving a van filled with supplies into war-torn Ukraine, her homeland. Last weekend, she made her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducting a trio of concerts.
     “It was fantastic,” she said. “This is a legendary orchestra. I grew up listening to their recordings.”
     Born in Kyiv, she grew up in Finland and trained as a violinist. She has conducted around the world, but this is her first visit to Chicago; she was grateful for the blue and yellow flags on display. 

     ”American support has meant so much for Ukraine,” she said. “I can’t underline it enough. The first day I walked in this city and saw Ukrainian flags. It meant so much.”
     When the Russians invaded earlier this year, Stasevska wasn’t sure she should continue wielding a baton.
     “The war has changed my life quite a lot,” she said. “When the war broke out in February ... I was just on my way to conduct the Seattle orchestra. I seriously thought of canceling all my concerts. The Seattle Symphony Orchestra was really kind to me. They called me and asked, ‘What can we do to help Ukraine?’ It made me think: I cannot change the world and stop this war with music. But I can use my mouth and speak out and use this platform as my own front line.”
     She has family in Ukraine and has been back twice since the war started, delivering medicine and supplies.
     ”It’s really heartbreaking to go there and see the country so crippled,” she said. “Indescribably heartbreaking. The city in sandbags. Bombed all the time. Inflation is terrible. People don’t have money. It’s difficult to describe the reality.”
   On her latest trip, once supplies were distributed, she knew what she had to do.

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The readers speak: War in Ukraine, all our fault

"La vida surgiendo de la muerte" (Life emerging from death) by Arturo Garcia Bustos (NMMA) 

     I don't think any comment by me is necessary regarding this letter from a reader, which arrived under the subject heading: "Puppet master Biden pulling puppet Zelensky’s negotiating strings in Ukraine." I answered only "Wow," which the author took as approval. It wasn't. The reader writes:

     President Biden’s proxy war against Russia, using US firepower to shed endless Ukraine blood, remains an unrelenting catastrophe for over 8 months.
     Tens of thousands of Ukrainians are dead or wounded. Millions have fled to safer climes. Ukraine has ceased to function as a viable state, totally dependent on US and NATO aid. We’ve poured tens of billions in weaponry into Ukraine to keep the carnage soaring with no chance of a Ukraine military victory. Upwards of a third of that weaponry never reaches the battlefield against Russia. But enough does to delay an inevitable Russian victory, ensuring a long, bloody war.  
     That, tragically, is the primary US goal, to weaken Russia so they will never achieve political and economic integration into Europe. That has been the foundation of the US proxy war against Russia since the Soviet Union disbanded in 1991. Five presidents before Biden, beginning with George H.W. Bush, maintained that relatively bloodless proxy war by expanding NATO from 14 to 30 members, including former Soviet states, right up to Russia’s borders.
     President Obama accelerated the march to this years’ hot war in Ukraine by greenlighting the US destruction of Ukraine democracy in 2014. Our encouragement and support of the February coup against Russian leaning Ukraine president Victor Yanukovych, set off a civil war in the Donbas, further encouraged and weaponized by America. Over 14,000 dead there when the 2015 Minsk II Accords, providing regional autonomy for the Donetsk and Luhansk, could have ended it early on. Obama, Trump and now Biden sabotaged Minsk II least it be viewed as a Russian victory in the proxy war.
     But it was President Biden, for inexplicable reasons, who made Russia’s illegal, criminal invasion of Ukraine February 24, virtually inevitable. He kept dangling possible NATO membership for Ukraine, a red line Russia proclaimed we dare not cross. He totally rebuffed Russian President Putin’s December, 2021 efforts to negotiate a sensible resolution to the approaching war. Worse yet, Biden stood back as Ukraine massed thousands of elite troops near the Donbas to finish off the Russian speaking Ukrainians rightly seeking independence from the murderous Ukraine regime
     As chief funder of the war, Biden is the only leader capable of negotiating a ceasefire and peace. Sadly, he’s so boxed himself and the US into total victory over Russia, the war is likely to proceed till Ukraine simply collapses regardless of America’s blank weapons check.
     In a cop out for the ages, Biden insists only Ukraine President Zelensky can negotiate its end. Yet when Zelensky got on board a possible 15 point Turkey brokered agreement in March, Biden sent top UK and US officials scurrying to Kyiv to disabuse Zelensky of any settlement that does not weaken Russia in America’s self-destructive proxy war.
     America’s puppet in Ukraine can’t make a move without the US pulling his strings to do as it says. We can only hope Zelensky, like Pinocchio, comes to life, throws off his US held strings and sits down at the Peace Table before reckless US string pulling destroys his country.

Walt Zlotow
West Suburban Peace Coalition
Glen Ellyn IL