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.

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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.

All my beautiful friends.

Cynthia Lerner

    Every day beautiful women reach out to me. At least one. On Friday morning it was two, Cynthia Lerner and Marylou Wells. Usually I don't even glance at them before batting them aside. Such is my overabundance of friendly females.
     But for journalistic purposes I decided to accept their proffered friendship on Facebook.

Marylou Wells

      I'm not alone. Oh look, Cynthia's friend, an ... older gentleman employed at the Tribune. And a publicist of my acquaintance is also friends with Miss Lerner, and why not? She speaks Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and French. A polyglot. No wonder my communications associates find her intriguing.
    And Marylou, rocking the glasses. Joined a week ago and 148 friends already. She only speaks Portuguese, Russian and French.  Must be working on her Spanish.

Arlene Rodgers

    Not to forget Arlene Rogers, whose Facebook posts tend toward simple declarative sentences like "HALLO ALL" and "WORK" and "i like sex." Well who doesn't, Arlene? Not to get personal—though we ARE friends now—the whole giant coral pink bees-stung lips thing? It's a very Donald Trump look. Just sayin'.

Alice Melissa

    Alice Melissa just joined Facebook. It's amazing the number of pretty young women who sign up for Facebook and then immediately run to friend me. Quite the compliment. Though she looks an awful lot like Arlene Rodgers, does she not? Maybe they are sisters.

Barbie Ronnie Buffy

     Personal information about these young women tends to be scant. Modesty, I assume. All that Barbie Ronnie Buffy tells us is she lives in Macomb, Illinois.  She doesn't mention it, but Macomb is a town of about 21,000 souls, midway between Peoria and the Quad Cities, in western Illinois. I imagine Barbie Ronnie really stands out there.

Betty Otto Walker

    Okay, enough disingenuousness. All these photos are scams, of course, hooks baited with chunks of cheesecake plucked off the web and dangled before gullible men.
     The true purpose is indicated by Betty Otto Walker's first status line: "Hello single, I'm online right now, please sext me," is a hint what these are. Con games, designed to lure in the lonely and gullible, who then either are conned into sending money to their honeys or, if they are unwise enough to take Betty's hint and send compromising photos of themselves, then are promptly blackmailed.
     Or so I read. Luckily I've always checked to see who is friending me, and ignored those who had just joined, or whose profile photo seemed plucked from some cheap Bulgarian fashion magazine. I do glance at their friends, grids of older gentlemen, or lanky young men who haven't figured out this is an illusion, or have but don't care. To me, as much as I like having lots of Facebook friends, including these would suggest being either a hound or a dupe. I didn't even like friending them momentarily, for research purposes, and promptly unfriended my entire harem. 
     Be careful online. Things are not what they appear. The man who was inaugurated Friday reminds us of the human tendency to embrace an attractive fraud. 

   
 

Inauguration Day: A hard rain's gonna fall

     Harry Truman was an angry man, given to firing off unwise attacks. Richard Nixon was vindictive and paranoid. Andrew Jackson was a hater. Warren G. Harding, a featherhead who surrounded himself with crooks.
     We've had flawed presidents before. Though never have all these negative qualities and more been bound up in a single individual, such as the one who will put his hand on a Bible at noon Friday and swear to uphold the Constitution.
     The tendency is to point, horrified, at the latest offense. My God, he's slurring civil rights icon John Lewis! He's carping about Saturday Night Live, days before his inauguration!
     And I'm glad someone is keeping score Though, to me, there is a futility in professing shock when somebody behaves exactly as he always behaves. Given Donald Trump's well-established track record as a liar, a bully and a fraud, each new instance of lying, bullying and fraud can hardly come as a surprise. The hope that his getting elected would change anything vanished in the past months of serial pettiness. The presidency will not elevate Trump; he will degrade it, and us. I don't believe that slapping your forehead every time he says something grotesque will do anything but give you a bruised forehead. It sure didn't keep him from being elected.

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Taco Diablo

     Of the three things that make a good restaurant — food, service and atmosphere — the last quality is the one that often gets overlooked, if not botched. I can't tell you how many times I've walked into a new place, especially in the suburbs, and it was almost bare. It was all I could do not to pull the owner aside and say, "You want me to eat here? I don't even like to stand here. You're doomed, my friend."      
     But I'm not that guy, and I usually just scarf my chow—which tends not to stand out either—and get out. And soon they're gone, because there definitely is a connection between what's on the wall and what's on your plate. 
    You might not eat decor, it doesn't go in your mouth. But it's a bellwether, an indicator. Because if Mr. or Mrs. Would-be-Restaurateur cannot master the complexity of a nice sign, what's the odds that they'll be able to whip up a good sauce? Scant.
     Then there was the reaction I had Monday at Taco Diablo, 1026 Davis Street in Evanston. Somehow, just walking up and seeing this sign, I knew. This bas relief snaggletooth devil/bull fellow was the overture, setting the tone. This would be a good place. 
     Then the oval name on the door. Then the paintings inside. And the bar above. Tell me you don't want to hop on one of those stools and see what bartender Andrew can pour for you. 
    I got the lunch special: two tacos and a small salad for $12, and it was all superb, the tacos warm and fat, the salad with an intriguing orange dressing. The service was also first rate: attentive without cloying. If I were hunting for criticisms, I suppose that the standard three tacos for $15 is a bit pricey for lunch, but they are lovely little tacos, well stuffed with chicken or pork or duck or some other interesting combination.  I ate them greedily and with relish and, you know what? I don't even like tacos, as a rule. But I liked these tacos.
    My younger son, the Northwestern sophomore, had bird-dogged the place for us. Unexpected Benefit of Children #263: just when you reach the stage in life when you are out of the swim, and unable to locate good new restaurants on your own, your kids swoop in and have that direct line to hot, hip new places and sometimes will invite you along, if you pay.
    Taco Diablo isn't quite "new" -- it was founded in Evanston in 1992, burned down in 2013, and was rebuilt in 2015, paired with Lulu next door--they share a kitchen. And a bathroom, which is a little disorienting, since you have to wander into the kitchen, seemingly, to get there. But I managed. 
    "Einmal ist keinmal," as the old Mexican saying goes (okay, it's not Spanish, it's German, work with me here). "Once is never." So I can't vouch for the place on one visit and a pair of tacos. But I'm intent on going back, soon, for further investigation, and now that the base of affection is set, it's going to take some effort on their part to screw it up. Once going to Evanston meant seeing my son and eating at Lao Sze Chuan, not always in that order, and it took a few tepid, woebegone meals at the Laos downtown and in Skokie to begin the disenchantment process. Now Tony Hu has been banished to second place, and Taco Diablo is ascendant. Tienes que comer; así que come bien.

Wayne County is happy it voted 84 percent for Donald Trump

The Ferrington Farms subdivision has one house in it. 

     FAIRFIELD, Illinois — Drive 275 miles due south from Cook County to Wayne County. You'll notice differences right away.
     It is warmer here, literally — last Wednesday, when it was 42 degrees in Chicago, it was 67 degrees in Fairfield, the county seat, and with a population of 5,000, the largest town in Wayne County, population 15,000.
     Figuratively warmer too. Ask directions at a bakery and the owner will walk out into the street to point the way. Strangers volunteer to put you up for the night. Pop in on the bank president, unannounced, and he'll visit with you a good long spell. The Rotary meeting starts with a sing-along of "Clementine."

      This isn't the traditional South, true. But the three vehicles in the fleet of the Fairfield Police Department are pickup trucks.
     The occasional Confederate flag can be spied flying in the yards of modest homes that sell for $35,000. There is a free-standing video store.
     Like the South, this is Donald Trump Country. Though he is being sworn in Friday as the 45th president with historically low popularity ratings nationwide, you wouldn't know it in Wayne.
     Line up Illinois' 102 counties based on how they voted in the presidential election, with Cook County at one end with 74.4 percent voting for Hillary Clinton. Skip over the next 100 counties and you end here, at Wayne, a struggling coal, oil, farming and light manufacturing region that went 84.3 percent for Trump.....

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The circus leaves town

    Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced it is going out of business this week. The last shows will be in May. It was sad news, even though I haven't gone to the circus in years, and when I did it was always with free tickets through the paper. Still, the circus struck me as a glorious anachronism, a wonder, and I valued it, and marveled that it was still here. And this was 18 years ago.

    My parents never took me to the circus. I imagine it seemed to them something that gentiles do. Which makes it odd that I had such a nostalgic affection for it—or perhaps that explains it. Either way, I went a number of times—with my brother in the 1980s, researching a story, then with my kids. They were three and four when I took them and wrote this column. The photos are from activities before the start of the circus, which was trying to be more interactive. Families got to pet animals, and performers were handing out peacock feathers and showing kids how to balance them on their faces. 

     Every so often, on a busy street corner, I will squint and try to summon back the pedestrians of the past, try to see the street scene as it might have been 40, 60, 100 years ago.
     It's the same street, the same corner. They were here, once, men in snappy fedoras, women in those wide, sloping hats, pulling on their white gloves as they stepped off the bus.
     Who's to say that it isn't the faintest flash, the flicker of some spirit of their humanity, lingering over the decades. Or maybe I'm just imagining things.
     That same yearning toward people past strikes me whenever I take in an entertainment that has been around for a long while, savoring the thought that I am doing something that people have always done.
     When I do something -- what's the opposite of cutting edge? Trailing edge. Something outmoded yet still -- incredibly, wonderfully -- here.
     For instance: this past Fourth of July, we joined a contingent of my wife's family to watch the Skokie Park District set off fireworks. Thousands of people were there, neglecting their computers, their Gameboys, ignoring all that virtual reality, IMAX and other more modern entertainment. Instead, they traveled to this spot, to spread out blankets, lay back and stare up into the night sky to watch explosions, tinted with powdered chemicals into brilliant hues, a treat that a Renaissance weaver or a Victorian wheelwright would instantly recognize and appreciate.
 

At the circus, 1999

   Ditto for the circus, the most famous of which, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, opened last night at the Allstate Arena.
     The circus is one of those things that shouldn't be here. Think about it. Ringling Bros. began its circus five years after the Civil War ended. It is a big extravaganza of animals and entertainers, something that traveled from town to town in the years before television, before radio, before movies, heck, before the automobile.
     It should have petered out 10 years ago, if not 20 years ago, bid farewell in a blaze of nostalgia, the pundits rumbling about TV and video games and pervasive pre-adolescent cynicism killing off our beloved icon, the circus. Woolworth's is gone. Drive-in movies are virtually gone. Yet the circus endures. Complaints from animal rights activists and the rise of our pervasive entertainment culture have had no effect. The circus was big when it was the only show in town. And it's still big, muscling aside its younger progeny once or twice a year.
     Why? Who would bother heading to the Allstate Arena to watch a troupe of performing dogs when they can flip on the Nature Channel and go on safari? Who would want to see frolicking clowns when they could, far more easily and far more cheaply rent a video of Jim Carrey in "Liar Liar."  

Balancing peacock feathers.

     A lot of people, apparently.
     The circus is no marginal operation: It is camping in Chicago for nearly a month.
     I think it is because the circus satisfies something of the aforementioned kinship to the past. It is both real and unbelievable, alive and a link to our national heritage.
     The circus is a cliche, a cultural cliche -- the lions, the tigers, the clowns, the swaying elephants.
     Like most cliches — think of Elvis — it is encountered usually, not in its pure form, but through some reference to it. You see a picture of Elvis or hear his name evoked 100 times for every time you hear him sing a song on the radio. You see a kitschy clown painting or a hectic meeting described as "a three-ring circus" or a movie like Tod Browning's "Freaks" 500 times for every time you actually find yourself at a circus.
    It touches something youthful and enduring in us, a sense of wonder that modern life has yet to erase.
     Just to announce its arrival is to feel a certain thrill. Say the sentence: "The circus is in town." See what I mean?

                          —Originally published in the Sun-Times, Nov. 4, 1999

For some, Christmas just ended, with the Blessing of the Waters

Bless the waters (photo by Erasmia Smith)

     This could easily have been twice as long. The subject called for some background on the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Lt. Hostetler said some interesting things about being a military "chap" and having to keep up with service members 20 years his junior. But the column is limited to 700 words in the paper, and it's no good if it doesn't fit. I will point out that the two photos below were taken by his 16-year-old son. I'd say the boy had a bright future in journalism if only, you know, people had bright futures in journalism.

Lt. David Hostetler blessing the waters (photo by Isaac Hostetler)

     The sky was overcast and rainy. But before sundown, when David Hostetler, a Navy lieutenant and Greek Orthodox priest, began his service at a beach on an island in the East China Sea, the sun broke through the clouds.
     “Just as we started our prayers,” Hostetler said over the telephone last Monday from Okinawa, Japan, where he is stationed.
     Christmas is a fading memory for most by mid-January, its farewell marked by secular ceremonies: the Dragging of the Tree to the Curb, the Boxing of the Lights.
     Eastern Orthodox Christianity extends Christmas through Epiphany, which ended over the weekend, including a ceremony called the Outdoor Blessing of the Waters, commemorating Christ’s baptism in the Jordan River. One was held Sunday on the Cedar River in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with others earlier this month on the banks of the Illinois River in Peoria, the Rock River in Rockford and the Mississippi at St. Paul, Minnesota.
     Though the ceremony that caught my eye was performed by a former Chicagoan living with his family on a military base abroad. As befitting a former resident of the Windy City, Hostetler had to deal with a strong wind that battered his vestments....


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Racing for the cross (photo by Isaac Hostetler)