Art Institute hopes to broaden its scope

     This has been a good year for me and major museums.
     One glorious day at the Prado in Madrid, including half an hour gazing at Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights,” which I’d previously only seen as a square inch detail in textbooks. In reality, it’s 12 feet across and almost seven feet high. Then in September, a day at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Four, count ’em, four Vermeers.
     Despite inhaling all this high-octane artwork, it’s always good to come back to Chicago to the Art Institute, a world class institution by any measure. My wife and I are members, which means we can stroll in anytime we like and wander around. And I do, literally if I have an hour to kill and am in the vicinity.
     So I’m trucking into the American wing not long ago, and I notice this little niche, with room for five paintings. Something new.
     “Folk Art and Belonging” announces a sign. The text explains that folk art — also called “vernacular art” — is a wide range of creative endeavors, from handmade jugs to embroidered samplers to amateur portraiture.
     “Museums often present vernacular traditions as separate from the larger histories of art,” it says. “Embracing a more expansive vision of the arts, we are rethinking this approach. ... We likewise plan to reintegrate such artwork throughout the galleries downstairs as part of a major reinstallation in the coming years.”
     Golly. What does THAT mean? “Let’s put a potholder next to this Rembrandt”? Seeking clarity, I emailed the Art Institute and, since they can ... um, how to say this nicely? ... take a while to find their ass with both hands, I also reached out to the Cleveland Museum of Art, as a control.
     Cleveland leapt from the blocks.
     “In the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Strategic Plan, we prioritized diversifying the collection to include more important works by historically underrepresented artists including BIPOC and women artists,” said deputy director and chief curator Heather Lemonedes Brown. “By expanding the scope of our world-class collection, we help all audiences see themselves, as well as discover the culture of others in our galleries.”

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Plumbers at work

 

     Good design can stop me in my tracks. Like this cute little plumbing truck, spied on Illinois Street last Monday as I was walking from Union Station to Navy Pier — a hike, I know, but I had the time, the weather wasn't bad, and I take my exercise where I find it. 

    When I got home, I checked in with the owner.
     "We've been in business over 30 years," said John Baethke, whose company, founded by his father, is based at Cicero and Addison in Portage Park. "When we started, for 10 years we had a white van with a magnet on the side. Then a white truck with red, white and blue lettering. Probably three years ago, we wanted something a little more unique, a little more attractive and simpler."
      Just as you wouldn't do your own plumbing, so smart plumbers don't do their own graphic design, and Baethke brought in KickCharge Creative, a New Jersey company specializing in "truck wrap designs for home service companies."
    "Through a process of working together, we rebranded together," he said. Now they have 10 of those trucks.
     It was a lucky break for me to catch them downtown.
     "We try not to work in the downtown area," said Baethke. "Difficulty parking." Otherwise, they try to stick to the Northwest side.
     Because they were downtown, where parking is difficult, they sent two men. That's why there was a guy in the truck, Ron, to see they didn't get a ticket while a second plumber was inside. I notice him, but balked at rapping on the window and quizzing him.

       "That's an attractive truck you have there, my good man." Maybe not. 

       But fortune favors the bold, and when I got to the end of the block, I realized I should find out what kind of job they were on. So I doubled back, resolved to do just that. But the truck pulled away, turned left in front of Navy Pier, and was gone.
   Baethke filled me in. "They were looking at a unit being remodeled, checking the plumbing."
   Always smart. Easier to make sure the plumbing is right before the drywall goes in. Spend money to save money. Just as I'm sure getting those graphics on 10 trucks did not come cheap. But neither does good plumbing. Both are a sound investment.

Songs about soldiers

Marilyn Monroe entertains troops in Korea in 1954.

     Today is Veterans Day. Thank you to all the men and women who have worn a uniform in defense of our great country. Your service is greatly appreciated.
     This year, I found myself thinking of entertainers who thanked the troops — perhaps because my mother was a singer with the U.S.O., and went overseas to put on shows for soldiers in Europe in 1952, when she was 16. Flying aboard an Army Super Constellation.
     There are a lot of good songs about soldiers. I thought immediately of slightly before her era, the Andrews Sisters singing "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B" — "a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way." There is a good version on YouTube with Katie Perry, Keri Hilson and Jennifer Nettles, of all people. My wife loves Cher, so I have to mention the video for "Turn Back Time" shot aboard the U.S.S. Missouri at dock in San Diego. While not necessarily military, we can't forget Gang of Four's "I Love a Man in Uniform."
     Military families also make sacrifices, which often get overlooked. Though musicians take notice, such as the melancholy "Gun Shy" by 10,000 Maniacs, Natalie Merchant's half salute, half criticism to her little brother, who had enlisted in the U.S. Army. She recorded it on a cassette and sent it to him in Germany:

I always knew that you would take yourself far from home
As soon as, as far as you could go.
By the 1/4 inch cut of your hair and the Army issue green,
For the past eight weeks I can tell where you've been.

     A lot of people confuse Memorial Day — to honor the military dead— and Veterans Day, to honor the living; so "Billy Don't Be a Hero" wouldn't count, since young William never comes home. Of course some songs do both, like Big & Rich's "8th of November," is about soldiers lost in Vietnam, but focuses on a survivor. The Vietnam era was a confusing time, and some military-themed songs are just obscure, like Neil Young's "Soldier."

     Elton John's "Talking Old Soldiers" captures the struggle of vets growing old alone.  Reservists are sometimes seen as second tier, but Toby Keith's American Soldier gives them their due. Just as most soldiers don't see combat, so most songs involving soldiers skip that experience, though the trippy "Three-Five-Zero-Zero" in the musical Hair doesn't mince words (including the n-word, so be forewarned before you click). And Jacques Brel's queasy "Next" is a reminder that military awfulness isn't confined to battle. 

     That should do — I'm sure I've overlooked some, and feel free to mention them in the comments. I put my flag out yesterday, but if you have one, fly it, and if you know a vet, you might want to give them a call and see how they're doing. 

     

Bathing in the river of blood

Metropolitan Museum of Art

     Chicago murders spiked in August 1991, the deadliest month in city history: 120 killings. Almost four a day. The Sun-Times scrambled to cover this horrific story, crafting a wide-ranging series, “After the Shooting Stops,” trying to convey the expanding shock waves of tragedy and loss radiating outward from each death.
     Some reporters sat with grief-stricken families. Others rode ambulances or trailed police. My job was to go to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office on Harrison Street and watch a single day’s butchery being processed.
     To say it stayed with me is an understatement. I can still see the dura stripper peeling back skin to expose the yellow layer of fat underneath. Can hear the shriek of bone being cut by a Stryker saw. Smell the decay from the body that had lain undetected on a flophouse floor for two weeks.
     What I can’t still see is the autopsy of the blue-tinged baby. Because when her turn came, I tapped photographer Robert A. Davis on the shoulder and said, “union-mandated coffee break.” We hurried out.
     Cowardice? Prudence? It was defendable from a professional level — we were writing about murder, and this baby probably wasn’t murdered. At least not by street crime, which was our focus. A crib death, supposedly.
     Though the real reason was: my wife and I were trying to have kids, and I just didn’t want that baby being cut apart in my memory. Some things you can’t unsee. It is not a decision I’ve ever regretted.
     Though it came back Tuesday, when the Israeli consulate in Chicago called to say they were showing “exclusive footage” of the Oct. 7 slaughter, and I must be there.

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O. Henry rides again.

      Are we a community? I must admit, I don't think of the blog's readership as such. They're not a group, but a collection of individuals. But maybe I'm not giving credit where due. Wednesday's column, ostensibly about leaves, but with a subtext of uncertainty at work, sparked a lot of response, including no fewer than five readers who mentioned an O. Henry short story, "The Last Leaf."

     Like most people, I've read O. Henry's classic tale of ill-starred Christmas presents, "The Gift of the Magi." And from time to time I think of his "The Ransom of Red Chief," about bandits who kidnap a naughty little boy and then must contrive to somehow get his parents to take him back. I've contemplated writing a version of that story involving the harried management of a senior facility trying to get the children of a disorderly old couple to take them away.   

Jean Peters and Anne Baxter starred in a 1952
film adaptation of "The Last Leaf."

     I immediately read "The Last Leaf" and found much to recommend it. Published in 1905, it has some quite current aspects, starting with the heroes, a pair of cohabiting Greenwich Village artists named Sue and Johnsy — two ladies who live and work together, no more need be said. 
     There is almost Chekhovian yearning — Johnsy, sick with pneumonia, longs to go to Italy to paint the Bay of Naples. Their drunken downstairs neighbor is another artist, Old Behrman, ancient at "past 60," who has had no success, and never came near the masterpiece he suspected was within him. Not to mention the trademark O. Henry twist ending that I wouldn't dream of alluding to. A bit sentimental, sure, some stilted passages. But definitely worth the read.

     I read it about 3 p.m., when the sky was grey and the suddenly early dusk coming on fast. I realized it has been a long time since I read a short story — I used to do so all the time. It was gratifying to see all the places Wednesday's column took people —they shared songs ("The Last Leaf," by the Cascades) and other songs. Honestly, I worried the column was strange — something about leaves — and was heartened by how many people it touched. Thanks everybody for writing in.

     

Be the last leaf on the tree

   

The oak at left keeps its leaves through marcescence. The maple at right, not so much.

      Hasn’t it been a lovely fall? Weather-wise, at least. The news, not so much. Still, Monday was sultry and beautiful — I had a fire going in the backyard when my wife came home from work, and we enjoyed a rare November weenie roast. Hot dogs just taste better grilled over an open fire.
     Over the past few weeks, when the trees were aflame themselves, all orange and yellow and red, it was almost possible to forget what’s coming. The three months of bitterness and cold. Maybe four. Five, tops.
     The leaves are mostly fallen now, the branches quite bare. The bright colors once above us now turned to dun and lining the gutter, a sodden mass.
     Except of course for those oaks and beeches and other varieties of trees that are marcescent — not a word that gets in the paper much. Marcescence is the ability of certain trees to hold onto their leaves.
     Nobody is sure exactly why they do it. Though scientists have been studying this tree business for a long time, botanists aren’t sure what value marcescence has: perhaps something to do with tree growth, as younger trees tend to be more marcescent than older. Maybe the leaves shield the tender branches from the killing wind. Maybe they provide a second wave of mulch.
     Holding on is an undervalued quality. We’re so fixated on fame, we forget about tenacity. Neil Young was wrong: It’s better to fade away than to burn out.
     Once you notice them, it’s easy to feel solidarity with those lingering leaves. To cheer them on. There’s a poignant Tom Waits song, “Last Leaf,” where the plucky flat arboreal appendage speaks. “I’m the last leaf on the tree,” it sings. “The autumn took the rest/But they won’t take me.”
     Kinda like being among the last regular columnists for a daily newspaper in Chicago. Waits also has a song called “Hold On.” That sounds like a plan. Defy the wind. Sometimes the best you can do is squinch your eyes shut, cling to that branch with all your might, and wait for better days.

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Refuted by the morning sky

     Maybe the problem is I had just plowed through The Economist's cover story "Living to 120 is becoming an imaginable prospect," a big nothingburger whose takeaway is: keep alive, they're working on it.
     Then first thing Monday, the Washington Post weighed in with a similar article on cracked rich guys trying to never die: "'Aging is a disease’: Inside the drive to postpone death indefinitely."

     Good luck with that. These East Coast publications seem to think they're writing for the super-wealthy — the owners of Louis Vuitton and Cartier and other advertisers. Maybe they are. But trying to live forever just seems not only impossible, but another way to waste your life, like living to retire, using some future pipe dream as an excuse to postpone living a meaningful life right now. Most folks are just trying to pay the bills.

      Maybe these live-forever schemes are really about the illusion of control. You think you can guide your destiny, but you can't. Think about it. You can achieve the perfect health that these rich guys seem to think is within their grasp if they just follow the right charlatan, gobble the right supplements (the subject of the Post article takes 100 pills a day, which seems more likely to kill him — choking to death on an EternaLife capsule — than buy him more time). And still step carelessly in front of a bus, the peak of fitness.

     If the media only spent half the time trying to encourage people to live the lives they got, rather than grasp at years they'll never see, we'd all be a lot better off.

     It was depressing, honestly, and made me wonder: how important could living be, if these idiots are clawing so desperately at it? Prolong life? Shit, "take me now" makes more sense. I've already lived the good part. Who wants to live to 100? Long enough to ... what? Watch democracy die in the second Trump administration? Cower while anti-Semitism rises to its inevitable result? Watch the planet bake to a cinder while being scourged with storms? Physically wither and crumble along with everything I ever cared about?  Why stick around for that? 

     While having these dark early morning thoughts, chewing on the value of life, the time came to walk the dog. The beauty of walking the dog is ... anybody? ... you have to walk the dog. That is get up, grab a leash and some plastic bags for the crap that you know life will serve up, and go outside, face the day. 

     Which Monday dawned magnificent. We were confronted ... by this.

    Oh my. You never know what any day may hold. Message received.