Think before you send

    At times the email seems like those hordes in the "Resident Evil" movies, just an endless sea of snarling malice racing up at you.
     I used to answer it, or try to. But lately I've been dumping emails as soon as I read the first sneering word. No use letting that stuff behind the wall, into your brain. Block the writer and fling the odiferous thing, like a used diaper, into the trash.    
    Not all email of course. Response to the past few columns have been tightly grouped, like filings curling off the poles of a bar magnet. On one end are people aghast at Donald Trump actually doing what Donald Trump promised to do—lashing out at immigrants, minorities, the sick, science, the environment. They are polite, grateful to see reality as they understand it reflected in the newspaper. I thank them profusely.
    And then there are the "You lost, deal with it," crowd. For a while I'd reply, "You won, deal with it," and try to explain that, given the past eight years of bitter partisan blockade of literally everything Barack Obama tried to do, they don't have a leg to stand on. But the word "hypocrite" started waving its hand, and I started to picture myself in the publisher's office, explaining why I'm sending nasty notes to readers.
    Nobody wants that.
    Just before I stopped replying altogether, I found myself firing off a reply, pausing, deleting that—archiving it, as if it mattered—then writing a briefer, more temperate reply. That took even more time, and I quickly abandoned the practice. But I did save a pair, which give you a sense of the process.

The email:

Sir,

I am very upset over your column today in paragraph 4 you reference the Trump victory with the help of "neo-Nazis". I voted for Trump as did millions of other American citizens. I am far from being a "neo-Nazi. I think you owe an apology to millions of prople.

Jim K.
Orland Park IL

The first response I wrote:

Jim--

The fact that Trump was supported by neo-Nazis, and he welcomed that support, does not make everyone who voted for him a neo-Nazi. That said, you did vote for the guy who welcomed neo-Nazi support. I can't blame you for being very upset. You should also be ashamed. I would be. If it's an apology you're looking for, I'm very sorry that you and people like you voted for Donald Trump. I imagine soon you'll be sorry you voted that way too. Thanks for writing.

NS

The response I actually sent:

Jim--

I'm sorry to hear you're very upset. But I am not responsible for what upsets people. It's an upsetting world. Thanks for writing.

NS

The email:

Happy New Year.
Although most times I find your articles tough to read.  I don't know you personally, but they take on a condescending tone usually.  I read you anyway to get an alternative angle.
I took particular interest on 12.30.16. I rather enjoyed it, thoroughly in fact.! It was true and actually funny. 
"Drunk people are the best ambassadors for sobriety imaginable." That was my favorite. I intend on "borrowing" parts for one liners in the future. Especially the ending, hilarious.! 
Thank you.

The first response I wrote:

Hmmm. You don't like the stuff generally, because you find reading it difficult and feel condescended to. But now you've struck on something that, for some reason, you like, and you're squeezing out a half-ass compliment before seizing one line as your own so you can pretend to be wittier than you are. 

Is that the situation? Have I summarized your note accurately?

Let's see, rejecting the criticism as something that says a lot more about you than it does me, someone who doesn't take pointers from people who don't like me anyway, I unfortunately can't accept the praise either. The phrase, of course, is yours to grab. Thanks for reading.

NS

The response I actually sent: 

The line is all yours. Thanks for writing.

NS

"Pray for the grace of accuracy"

     "All's misalliance," writes poet Robert Lowell, "Yet why not say what happened?"
     Why not indeed? I can answer that. Because whatever hole in your soul is so large, nothing can fill it. So you have to keep shoveling stuff in. A certain kind of guy has to be, not just rich, but the richest. Not just high, but the top. Who has to shine at absolutely everything, outshine everyone, and when he doesn't —because nobody shines all the time—he has to frantically pancake a thick crust of fake sparkle over himself and hope nobody notices.
     The American public—the part that still cares about such things— noticed, and will long remember the first three days of the Trump administration. His sour inaugural address on Friday, Day One, which George W. Will, not exactly a liberal firebrand, dubbed "the most dreadful inaugural address in history." Saturday, Day Two, when press secretary Sean Spicer clung to ludicrous claims that the crowd on Inauguration Day was the biggest ever. Then Sunday, Day Three, Kellyanne Conway on "Meet the Press," coining an instant classic in the long history of mendacity: "Alternative Facts."   

     Let's be clear. It doesn't matter how many people attended Trump's inauguration. The true figure could be half what it actually was, or triple. The issue is that the real number was not enough for Trump, because Obama's drew more. So Trump had to claim the most ever. Because everything about Trump must be the biggest, greatest, most expensive, and if it isn't, well, he'll lie and shout down and bully whoever is rude enough to mention it.
   It can't rain on Trump's parade. He had to claim the rain "never came." When you could see the raindrops spotting his suit.
     A small matter. And pointing out the truth feels small. But necessary. Trump's paid hirelings claim the media "hates" Trump. That isn't so, at least not with me. What I hate...

     To continue reading, click here...

 

"See Sean lie. Lie Sean, lie."

 

    My wife made a lovely egg, mozzarella and veggie frittata Sunday morning, with fresh blueberries on the side. And as much as I wanted to dig in, I just had to read the opening sentence on the front page of the New York Times.
     "President Trump used his first full day in office on Saturday to unleash a remarkably bitter attack on the news media," I read, "falsely accusing journalists of both inventing a rift between him and intelligence agencies and deliberating understating the size of his inaugural crowd..."
     "Day One," I smiled. It really is incredible. As the principal at Greenbriar Elementary used to say, "Is this really the hill to die on?" It almost made me happy -- could somebody that ham-handed destroy our freedoms? 
    I wonder how long "FALSEHOODS" will be the word of choice for the Gray Lady, particularly in those narrow single column headlines? When "LIES" takes up so much less real estate. 
     Didn't have to wait long—by Sunday night the Times posted this headline:  
   Patience. Sunday joy returned, after taking a 48 hour vacation after Trump's angry, tone-deaf inaugural address, one that George Will, no liberal firebrand, called the worst ever. 
    The jokes almost write themselves. "It's not the size of the crowd, Donald, but what you do with it," I thought to myself. And this was before Trump press secretary Sean Spicer held Fibstock in the White House briefing room, testily insisting on the trivial-and-demonstrably-false, chiding the media for whatever stray inaccurate tweets he could find. Surely true evil would be better at it than this.
    I didn't watch that. Nor Kellyanne Conway's now legendary appearance on Sunday morning's "Meet the Press." Though of course I saw "alternative facts" echo and reverberate across social media. It was so jarringly awful it almost demanded instant mockery. Wisenheimers grabbed their wit like so many Minutemen lunging for the flintlock above the mantle. I flopped my fingers on the keyboard and tapped out the first Tweet I could think of:  "As winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, I see nothing wrong with Trump making up his own set of facts."
     Satisfied I had flown the flag, I browsed around Twitter, and the puniness of my effort (see Donald, there is strength in recognizing your own weakness) became manifest. A burp, compared to the genius that Brooklyn illustrator Tim O'Brien crafted at the same time:

By Tim O'Brien -- posted with permission

      Children's books don't to lie to you—oh, they can conjure magic and monsters. But they don't call a hawk a handsaw, or try to puff a void into a record-breaking crowd, the way the presidential press spokesman did Saturday, blowing smoke until he was red in the face and the howls grew.
     We all remember Golden Books. I still have mine. An innocence, a joy. O'Brien's repurposing has a gorgeous, cheery wrongness that indicts the Trumpian delusion better than a dozen pious editorials. Calling a chair a "Table," an egg "Soup" and, the masterstroke in the center, the little boy and girl "Pancakes." I'm not sure why that's the masterstroke -- pancakes are so friendly, I suppose. Who doesn't love pancakes?
     I immediately did my journalist thing, contacted O'Brien, established that it is his work, and prodded him for information.
     "I am an illustrator and this piece was the kind of post I do when procrastinating," he replied. "Often something occurs to me after hearing a contradiction, a lie or some other glaring thing done by politicians and their spokespeople. We all have common understandings about things and good ideas come from tweaking those common understandings. What is generally the most basic idea of what things are or reality is? A kids book about things and what they are. Change a few words and it’s hilarious."
      Indeed it is. I posted the graphic on Facebook and 1700 people shared it. A picture is worth 1,000 words, and were I Donald Trump I would fume and glare and insist that, being a writer, no, a word must be worth 1,000 pictures. No need for that.  
     "The Trump Administration is going to provide a ton of material for the next 1-4 years," O'Brien wrote.     
      The '1" in "next 1-4 years" might be overly optimistic. I'm still at the "4 or 8 years, or longer, if our democracy is overturned" phase. But seeing O'Brien's book cover replaced the sour pessimism in my heart with determination and joy. One stupid man leading the country doesn't make us all stupid. Not yet anyway. 
     I agreed with O'Brien that much humor will come from this, and humor is an important survival mechanism.  I couldn't help adding that we shouldn't laugh too much without recognizing the cloud—many, many people will be hurt by the time Donald Trump and his brothers-in-delusion and their hired goons are done dragging our country through the basement hall-of-mirrors of his brutal, brittle psyche. A great country humiliated and harmed. The joke is funny until it's not.
     "You're right, Neil," O'Brien replied. "I'd rather be painting earnest portraits of inspirational people leading our country rather than our current predicament."
    Wouldn't we all? Jeb Bush might have been a dullard, but I'd rather spend four years watching him scratch his head, trying to figure out what the heck he should do next, than see Trump foam and flail and fib. 
    Tim O'Brien does gorgeous work, by the way, beyond this bit of brilliance, spot-on illustrations of political and historic figures that have graced the covers of Time, Harper's and other publications. You can find his web site here. 



        

    

Lucas Museum: "Los Angeles lost by winning"

     I'm a museum geek. I'm not ashamed to say it. Maybe a little ashamed. We live in a society where you can, oh, make it your life's mission to see a game in every ballpark in America and nobody raises an eyebrow. Nobody mocks. Nobody points out that those ballgames, they're pretty much all the same, aren't they? That would be rude.
     But find meaning in museums and the public has the tendency to reach for its pistol.
     No matter. I'm a member of the Art Institute of Chicago and visit whenever I can. I go to the Field and the Museum of Science and Industry and the Museum of Contemporary Art, and as many of the lesser lights as I can. It's fun.
     And when I hit a different city, I make a beeline to the museums the way others check out restaurants. Yes, sometimes they're quite modest. I was in Hiroshima last March, on business, and visited its art museum. Not that I was impressed, mind you. Add a few brooms and a bucket and it could have been a forgotten closet at the Art Institute. But as I say about opera, not liking museums is part of liking them.
     In that light, we turn to the nascent Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Hooted from Chicago by the Friends of the Parks, a David vs. Goliath triumph more improbable than a bunch of teddy bears defeating the evil Empire, the showcase for the Star Wars creator's attic was briefly tussled over by San Francisco, which already rejected it once, and Los Angeles. Then, earlier this month, the museum landed with a thud in the City of Angels.

To continue reading, click here.

The puppet festival is in town

Kick the Klown Presents a Konkatention of Kafka

     What happened Friday? Well, I watched Donald Trump's inaugural address. Sixteen minutes of empty boasts and impossible promises, marinated in a soup of noxious bile, staining this country as a hellhole that only one man, he, The Donald, our savior, can deliver us from.
     I think that about sums it up. 
     That evening my wife and I, hoping for relief, went to Lincoln Avenue, for the opening of the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater. 
     We got there early, planning a quick snack. We hadn't wandered Lincoln Avenue for many years, and what we found  surprised us. Many empty storefronts, a sparsely populated street on a Friday evening. "The happening crowd must have moved to Wicker Park," I observed, grimly. We were happy to see Irish Eyes is still there. "Whitey O'Day," I said, remember a large singer who would belt out Irish ballads while I belted back shots of John Power and black and tans.
     We had our first real date on Lincoln Avenue, at the Jury Room—long gone, closed in 1994. I couldn't even find the old address in the sweep of the Internet, kept bumping into its later incarnation a mile up Lincoln. Though we saw an elaborate wooden storefront that made me think this had been it. We went inside and sat at the bar.  It was a place called de Quay, and just asking about the Jury Room — nobody had any idea, nobody even had been born when we went there — put a certain pall on the visit. The staff were attentive and courteous, but I still felt like we were suddenly an elderly couple who had wandered in to get out of the cold. We sat at the bar, ate a very good cheese fondue appetizer, and went to the puppet show. 
    Opening night was packed. The first performance was "Cendres," by Plexus Polaire, a French troupe. A sophisticated, atmospheric piece about a Norwegian arsonist, it was more tonality and beauty than plot or dialogue. The puppetwork was very good, the puppets eerie and human. The music was also brooding and powerful. The puppets were often life size, and three puppeteers managed to fill the stage — at one point I counted eight puppets at work.  There was some deft stagecraft involving downing beer after beer, and the part I liked best, because it was strange and unexplained, a full-sized puppet being extracted from an elk carcass, Edie disliked that moment—she singled it out—for the same reasons I liked it. I wouldn't urge you to run to see the performance, but didn't mind that we had.
     There was a reception—well-supplied by Wishbone—then we trooped upstairs to see Michael Montenegro perform his "Kick the Klown presents a Konkatention of Kafka." I'd seen his work before, in "The Puppetmaster of Lodz" at Writers Theater, years ago. Excellent. So my hopes were high.
     Alas — and here I have to tread gently because, really, what's the point of panning a performance in a bi-annual puppet festival — it was shambolic hour of dullness, loud and artless, a man in a putty nose shrieking "Kafka!" and shredding pages from his diaries. The puppets were ordinary. The highlight, conceptually, was a machine that delivered a kick to his backside, which should give you a sense of the thing. It reminded me of the sort of experimental theater that I've spent a lifetime vigorously avoiding because it's amateur and unpleasant. Given how experienced Montenegro is, and that his work was chosen to open the festival, I have to consider the possibility that it is supposed to be ad hoc and obscure and shallow, and I just missed the overarching poetry of the thing.  The audience seemed happy, so perhaps the appeal was entirely beyond me. But as someone who can pretty much enjoy anything from The Ring Cycle to a flea circus, I can't imagine what that appeal might be. 
    Anyway, there are 90 productions being performed all over Chicago during the festival, and I hope my experience doesn't keep you from investigating them. Many of them must be far better than what we saw because they could hardly ... well, don't make me say it.  In fact, the Tribune went to the pre-opening show Thursday at the Museum of Contemporary Art—lucky Tribune—and found it "a deeply moving experience."  "Klown" is being performed Sunday night, and I would encourage you to go and explain to me what I'm missing. You can find the rest of the performance schedule here.

Protest postcards

    Friends and readers are participating in protests across the country. I invited them to send updates, which I've been posting here. 



My co-author, Sara Bader, went to the Washington protest, and photographed some of the girls she saw there talking back to our Bully-in-Chief.

Washington:

Photo by Tanya Kesmodel

Chicago:

Photo by Barbara Leopold

Washington, D.C.

Photo by Tanya Kesmodel

     Chicago:

Photo by Edie Steinberg

    This photo captures a bit of the happy confusion of the protest in Chicago today. At the center, in the pink hat, is our friend Shelly Frame, and to her left is our neighbor Carla Slawsen.
    
Chicago:

Photo by Carla Slawsen

     Edie's back with the neighbors, all excited from their protest downtown. That grin on her face is because some guy in the march wasn't using his megaphone to good effect, so Edie liberated it from him and was making her opinion known. The march was supposedly canceled because the crowds were too dense but, as Edie said, how many speakers can you listen to? So a spontaneous march took place anyway.
  Some press love from the Traverse City, Michigan march. By the time Donald Trump is done beating up on the media, we're going to be somewhere between firefighters and astronauts in the public's affection. Among regular folks, that is. His supporters, well, it seems they'll believe anything. 

Edie's view from the Chicago protest

   While the major cities had protests, so did smaller communities, such as Traverse City, Michigan. R.A. Goodstein sent this photo, and estimated there were 1,500 people participating:






  
  My good friend Kelly O'Brien, the executive director of the Kennedy Forum in Illinois, not only went to Washington, but penned this essay, explaining to her nieces and nephews why.


Why I will march on Washington.

    Today am flying from Chicago to Washington DC to participate in the Women’s March on Washington. Why? Why does it matter that a bunch of people march together outside? What does it really change? One of my friends asked me this question recently, and it got me thinking that it was important that I answer this, not just for her, but for my nieces and my nephews. This letter is for them.

Dear Stephan, Howard, Gavin, Lily and Riley,

I have to go. I feel like this is one of those moments where history is being made, and what I do or do not do will determine the kind of world you will grow up in. One day in history class you and your children will read about this week. There are at least two ways this story could go:

To continue reading, click here.

    Edie reports 150,000 people downtown. Tanya got to the Mall in time to hear Michael Moore speak ("Is he making sense?" I asked). 






      Greta Kesmodel—second from left—and her mom Tanya, back row right, found themselves in a line of 3,000 people waiting to get on the Washington D.C. Metro. So, using characteristic adaptability, they phoned an Uber to continue their trek to the big march on the Mall. 

Bus driver Stacey wearing a "pussy hat," driving into Washington. 

     "...at last Plaza stop 50-60 buses of women from all over this country. women of all ages, couples gay and straight, families, younger teens. It reminded me of that opening sequence in the movie "Patton", where George C. Scott says, "I will be glad to lead you sons of bitches , anywhere, anytime. " I would be proud to follow these women, anywhere, anytime. they are the best this country has to offer."
                                                                 —Robert Beardsley

Women standing up for their American rights

     "You need to make a sash," I said. The kind of half-joking, half-sincere thing I often say. Spoken to my wife a couple days ago, leading up to Saturday's big women's march in Chicago—and Washington, and New York, and around the country, protesting the election of Donald Trump, a president dedicated to undermining the civil rights of women in our country.
     Sashes of course were what suffragettes wear. "Votes for Women." Just one hundred years ago. And the sexism is so baked into our society that, unlike those who marched and were beaten for Civil Rights in the 1950s and 1960s, the big-hatted suffragettes — who also marched and were also beaten — are remembered as somewhat ridiculous: Winifred Banks, ignoring her children for some cause. Her sash ends up the tail of a kite, when she returns to her family, where she belongs. 

Carla Slawson, with breakfast, hurries to the station.

     Just to say that they were not ridiculous: they were courageous, patriotic, they pried a basic democratic right — the right to vote — from the grasp of a male-dominated culture that abused and marginalized them, sounds faintly radical, still, a reminder that, hard as it is to see, we live in a world sunk in prehistoric sexism. We sneer at the Saudis, not letting their women drive, then our government goes hammer and tongs after Planned Parenthood and its life-saving health care. Led by a man married three times who bragged into a hot mike about groping women against their will.
   Not to focus on him. The key truth to always keep in mind is that Trump didn't make us like this, he just came along and exploited how we are. And in that sense, ultimately, he might have done this country a service, by so highlighting our deficiencies, assuming we are able to remedy them. But it will be a long uphill slog to get there, made harder by who is now in power across the federal government. 
   I would have gone along to protest, but didn't want to big foot into the women's march. Besides, a half dozen friends were meeting her. Instead, I hovered as she got ready, spewing Polonius advice. "The police use their bikes as a wall," I said, describing the "Seattle maneuver" I observed at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. "They create a perimeter and then expand it to move the crowd. Don't get up against the bikes because you'll end up getting pushed back."
    She said she'd be fine, and I'm sure she will be.
    I am proud of my wife for going, for making extra signs, for those without, for making several defending science, also under immediate assault.  Proud that our neighbors happily went, taking the 7:30 Metra Milwaukee North line. 
     As a rule, I narrow my eyes at protests. What's the point? Who are you protesting to? Donald Trump? He sure ain't listening. His followers? They don't even perceive reality. They've already cherry-picked a few acts of protest violence to wave smugly at each other and giddily denounce the lib-tards and their violence. And what do you hope to accomplish? Trump isn't going anywhere. Women's rights will be a pinata for the next four years.
     But seeing my wife off at the station, I realized why protesters protest. Not for the subject of their protest, but for themselves. Because they have to. They have to do something. To speak up. It isn't for Trump, or the Republicans, or their voters. It's for them, for their sense of duty, so as the next four bleak years of corruption, self-dealing, incompetence and hostility toward women unfolds, they can say, "We did what I could. We stood up. We spoke out." It's a beautiful, bold, feminine, American thing.