"Fireballs of dissention"

     "Fireball" is one of those words that has a clear literal meaning — a ball of fire — but no obvious figurative uses. If I say someone is a "firecracker," it's obvious that I don't mean they're an exploding tube filled with gunpowder, but someone with a vivacious, sparkling personality.

     But who or what would a fireball be? The term does come up figuratively in baseball — pitchers with a very fast fastball as "fireballers." That's an exception, though.
     It isn't used very often. Myself, I only deploy the word in one setting, again very literally. We'll be on the highway, and a car will blow past us, weaving in and out. 

     "I'll drop back," I say to my wife, "and avoid the fireball."

     So it was odd on Sunday to encounter the word, not once, but twice, in independent situations. My Ohio friends and I were strolling on the beach at Put-in-Bay, and I noticed a pile of Sprite cans, along with a scattering of little single serving empties of Fireball, a gross cinnamon whiskey drunk by youngsters, the gustatorily challenged and emotionally immature.
     There are other products that use the term — Atomic Fireball candy, made by Chicago's own Ferrara, a reminder that the mushroom cloud rising up from an atomic bomb was called a fireball. Both share an unsubtle cinnamon connection, and I suppose giving it the "Fireball" moniker is an attempt to cover up its harshness with intentionality: it's supposed to taste this searingly bad.
     I wouldn't have given the word a second thought. But later in the day, my friend and I had to pop into his old wooden barn, and we looked in on his 1947 Buick convertible, which normally we ride around the island in, the cynosure of all. The old beauty been acting up, lately, and is in need of repairs.
     "Do you want to see the engine?" he asked — I didn't recall ever seeing the engine in the car before, and I've been riding in it since I was 17.
     "Sure!" I said. (Now that I think of it, I bought a new car in January, without ever popping the hood to look at the engine, and have not done so once since. I can't think of any kind of defense other than I assume it has one).

     He opened the massive hood as I thought of the relevant lines from Bruce Springsteen — "big old Buick" —and there, for the second time in an hour, was the word "Fireball" (which, upon reflection, is not the best name for a part of the car receiving gasoline).
     Seeking other uses, I consulted Wentworth and Flexner's Dictionary of American Slang and found "fireball" defined as, "An ambitious efficient, and fast worker; a very active person."
     Online, I noticed that the American Meteor Society defines "fireball" as "another term for a very bright meteor" and encourages readers to report any sightings back to the AMS, including as many details as possible, such as brightness, color and duration, for inclusion in their Fireball Sightings Log.

     In 1907, there was a "Fireball" racehorse, and "fireball" was used to describe an orb-shaped gas light, which were sometimes erected on a cement stand "to safeguard the boulevards and compel motorists to be careful." They were common enough on Chicago streets to be described as "familiar" — there were several on Michigan Avenue — and motorists complained about them.  

      My Oxford English Dictionary has mostly literal meanings: "A ball of fire or flame; applied esp. to certain large luminous meteors, and to lightning in a globular form." It traces "fireball" back to 1555, noting that it also describes balls of coal dust used to kindle fire, and includes a few figurative uses, such as this, from 1718: "At this Time there were Fire-Balls of Dissention flung all over the Kingdom."  

     That's certain evocative of the incendiary nature of dissent. Though doesn't it seem that, lately, dissent is not the exception, but the rule? We've become a society of complainers, objecters, arguing forcefully for whatever private individual phantasm holds us in thrall. It's been a while since anybody worried about our being a nation of sheep and, in all candor, a bit of conformity in any realm would be met with gratitude and relief.  

Zealotry is never satisfied.

Julius Gari Melchers, "Mother and Child" (Art Institute of Chicago)

     Religion is supposed to be voluntary, right?

     I mean, imagine that a particular sect — say the Jews — found a way to force one of their idiosyncratic ritual practices on the general public. Let's say Kosher food laws.

     That wouldn't work well, would it?
     What if cheeseburgers were suddenly illegal in half the country, due to judicial decisions? Pork chops, banned in 20 states. 
     Even though it wouldn't be all that inconvenient. Yes, plain old burgers are never quite as good. But nobody's life is going to be severely altered. 

     And they'd have reasons: it's healthier! Morally superior! No risk of boiling calves in their mother's milk. Billboards along the highway would go up, showing plaintive calves, begging not to be boiled.
     Still, it just wouldn't fly. People would rebel.
    Because Jews are an extreme minority. And their rituals are unfamiliar. And not many people care much about cattle.

    So why ... why why why ... when it comes to arcane Christian practices — Christian sexual practices — is somehow forcing a particular religion on others is okay? Maybe because they struck upon a really good metaphor — not calves, but babies. Warm cute cootchie cootchie coo babies. And convinced themselves, and others, that these entities — in reality unborn fetuses — were babies, and had to be protected. Car seats. Fuzzy blankies. And an abortion ban. A ban that went into effect in half the country a year ago, on June 24, 2022, the day Roe v. Wade was reversed. 

    You know the story. Yet it doesn't seem to enrage you. Or anybody else. Women haven't risen up. Because some buy the fiction, and others are cowed, or complacent. Though what has happened is that American attitudes have shifted. Abortion, which is supposedly murder, is now more popular than ever — about two-thirds of the country think it should be legal in the first trimester. Where it is illegal, no women or doctors are finding themselves in jail (because the zealots behind it don't really think it's murder, generally. That's just words they say when imposing their religious practices on others by law). Plus, having finally got their way, zealots move to the next step in their dance back into the imaginary past, going after contraception. And gays. Because zealotry is never satisfied. Repression of unbelievers is the end, not the means. 

      Which is another reason the democratic system of voting and elective representation is under attack. It isn't just about worshipping Trump. He's a symptom, remember, not a cause. A symptom of an extreme minority trying to impose its will on the majority of non-believers. Welcome to America, 2023.

What's Russian for "maybe next time"?

Assassination of Czar Alexander II

       Didn't see that one coming. 
        Well, we did. At least the possibility. As Vladimir Putin plunged his nation into a pointless, endless, bloody war against Ukraine, hand-wringing onlookers in the West optimistically speculated that maybe this would end by somebody moving against the Russian dictator for botching the situation so thoroughly. Maybe his people would rise up. Maybe somebody would stop him.
       Yet nobody really believed that possible. Russia's second revolution, in 1991, turned out to be more of a shift from Communist tyrants to non-denominational dictators, like Putin, who seems cemented to office like a barnacle. He won't simply go away. It can't be that easy. Previous Russian leaders whose policies were epic disasters — Stalin allying himself with Hitler, only to be betrayed by him — were allowed to continue their campaigns of terror and error. For years.
      Then for a few hours Saturday, Yevgeniy Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenaries were headed to Moscow. Maybe deus ex machina, the nightmare would just stop. Who knows what might happen?
     Turns out nothing, yet. Prigozhin fled to Belarus. Putin's misrule continues, the threat to his power banished. The meat-grinder in Ukraine grinds on. 

     Perhaps this is a necessary reminder that heroic action leading to actual change is the realm of the movies. In real life, the tectonic forces of history grind on. Greed, self-interest and pitiless inertia mean that missteps, once taken, turn into calamitous journeys into ruin. "The road to hell is smooth," Virgil writes. "Easy the path and simple the way. But to turn, and regain the upper air. There the work, there the labor lies."

     Although. The fact it began, that it seemed to almost happen, does remind us that anything is possible, and those that rise by raw power can fall by it too. With totalitarian successes being chalked up over the globe, and would-be fascists vying for position in this country, the pilot light of hope should be kept lit. We'll need it in the days ahead. And seeing Putin squirm to fend off enemies at home is just the fuel we need right now. Maybe next time it'll work. 

One sign, two people

     Forty years is a long time for two people to hang around each other. And while I’d never claim that their minds start to run on parallel, even identical tracks, well, maybe I should just describe what happened today.
     So my wife and I are driving to spend the weekend with friends. And we’re a little early, with time to kill. So we stop by Potawatomi State Park, to hike for an hour.
     At one point, we pass the sign above, and I turn to read it as we walk by: “Please carry out your trash.” And I instinctively consider making a joke about it. But I immediately shake off the idea — no man should suggest that his wife is trash — preferring to smile inwardly than to air the joke and risk causing offense. Shutting up is an art for that requires constant practice.
     But even as I am silently basking in my triumph over the weisenheimer impulse, my wife stops, turns, takes a step toward me, reaches out, grabs my elbows and lifts.
     “What are you doing?” I ask, knowing the answer.
     “Trying to pick you up,” she replies, with a wicked smile.

No more ridiculous than golf

Rey Kadon took this shot of the Miller High Life 400 in Brooklyn, New York, in 1989.
“Who wouldn’t have fun on a charter bus with a bunch of your coworkers and kegs of beer?” he recalled.

     An apology is in order.
     I’m so inured with the toxic free-fire zone that pops up around controversial issues, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that most people are decent and sensible. When I invited readers Wednesday to write in explaining the allure of NASCAR, I didn’t really expect that people would then actually, you know, write in explaining the allure of NASCAR.
     But that’s exactly what they did — wrote thoughtful, often heartfelt reflections and celebrations of the sport. So as much as I like to flit nimbly from topic to topic, it felt wrong to just ignore them. So here goes.
     Neal Elkind finds beauty in the races, writing:
     “NASCAR has more in common with watching baseball than maybe you may realize. It’s a wonderfully lazy spectator sport. It’s auto racing perfected (in its traditional oval) as a spectator sport. ... The strategy of cars maneuvering for position and the use of aerodynamics. F1 and Indy, you only see cars whooshing by for 1 second (like watching competitive downhill skiing in person). The noise, which is astounding, and motion, is hypnotic. Like baseball, it’s pastoral. Really. You can wander off to the concessions for 15 minutes (or, a whole inning) and not feel that you’ve missed anything. The crowds tend to be families that do not fight or swear in the stands. I could go on about how this race shows the beauty of our city’s lakefront to a whole new audience.”
     Doug Nichols traced the appeal of racing back to antiquity:
     “There are the funeral games held by Achilles to honor Patroclus. Among other sports, the games featured a chariot and a foot race. Centuries later, the chariot racing in Constantinople’s hippodrome was important to the social fabric.”

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Lost at sea

              "Ocean Life," by James M. Sommerville (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

     Has anyone credited the Titanic with five more victims? I can't be the first. Maybe they're waiting until the theoretical air supply runs out on the on the Titan, the deep diving submersible lost Sunday in a voyage to the bottom of the sea to ogle the famous wreck.

     Waiting a polite span of time.

     I'm taken by the respectful air of restrained solemnity with which the media greeted the disappearance of the 22-foot-long submersible craft that vanished at the start of its nearly two and a half mile plunge to get up close and personal with the wreckage of the Titanic.
     Five passengers spent nearly a million dollars, collectively, to gaze at the sunken vessel through a thick porthole (though perhaps not thick enough, according to a former employee, who complained five years ago that the craft, run by OceanGate Expeditions, was not safe).
     While it's sad when anyone died, the pointlessness of the endeavor should also be remarked upon. Yes, the Titanic continues to fascinate more than a century after famously sinking on its maiden voyage. I've written about the allure. 

     At least that trip was transportation, getting from Point A to Point B, albeit in style. This latest fatal jaunt was just a lark, without any practical, scientific or aesthetic justification. At least when you go into space, you see the curve of the earth, the blackness of the cosmos. I'm not sure why you'd go to the great expense and obvious danger of setting eyes upon the corroded ruin of the Titanic. To see the thing? To say you did it? What?
     The ocean is vast, and my hunch is the Titan will never be found. My friends were already talking about the movie that will be made from the disappearance, but I just can't envision it. Particularly because the most likely scenario — some part gave way, the intense pressure of the ocean crushed the submersible like an egg, and they were all dead within two seconds — does not lend itself to drama.

     And I'll make another prediction— interest in this kind of thing will soar, not suffer. People with more money than sense will learn about the possibilities and become intrigued, ignoring the "and then you might die" part.
     One of the victims — if that is the proper term for someone who willingly puts themselves in that much danger — was 19 years old. A true tragedy. If he really wanted an incredible adventure, he should have stayed on dry land and lived his ordinary life.

People pay for that?

     So NASCAR. The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, roaring around downtown Chicago in less than two weeks.
     A nightmare I’ve come to think of as “Lori’s Revenge.”
     We’ve all read about it. The course. The disruption. Taste of Chicago booted from its traditional perch. Not only this summer, but for two more to come. Nowhere near the epic proportions of Rich Daley’s flush-billions-down-the-toilet-for-the-next-75-years blunder. But quite a commitment to expensive folly nevertheless.
     And, pardon me for asking, is Lori Lightfoot even going? Or has the former mayor already decamped to Cambridge, where she sits at a window, tapping a pencil against a yellow legal pad. Puffing out her cheeks. Gathering her thoughts. About leadership ...
     Sorry. So Monday, with June suddenly two-thirds over, I began looking ahead, and had this thought: “Maybe I should go to see NASCAR.”

     Stock car racing is a bedrock American sport — 10th place, anyway, behind pro wrestling and tennis. I’ve gone downtown to witness what I imagined was a comparable event — the Chicago Marathon — to cheer my brother when he ran. Masses of onlookers craning for a glimpse. Not the most enjoyable time — I never did catch sight of him among the lank bundles of sinew loping past. But not a bad way to spend the day, either. It wasn’t as if it cost anything.
     I assumed going to see the NASCAR race would be something similar. Hop off at Union Station, stroll down Adams. Eyeball some stock cars roaring around a curve. Snap a few photos for social media. Watch for, oh, half an hour, until you get the point — vroom vroom. Then go find lunch.
     I plunged into the Internet and quickly found the City of Chicago’s Ticket Options page.

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