Spooky

     Halloween used to be a kid thing. Children wore costumes, ran around the neighborhood, collected candy. Their parents didn't even hover in the distance, monitoring, the way they do now. Unless their kids were toddlers. At least mine didn't. They assumed their youngsters could navigate their own neighborhoods and find their way home, sometimes lending them flashlights for that purpose.
    By the time you were a teen, the party was over. You were too old for Halloween, though you tried to get one last candy sweep of the neighborhood in before exiled to the responsibilities of semi-adulthood.
    Now that's changed. Halloween has also become a grown-up thing, spurred by big beer companies. The adults don't go door-to-door demanding candy. Not yet anyway. But otherwise, it's official party time, like New Year's Eve or the Super Bowl or the Fourth of July.
    Pets are included in on the fun too, as we celebrate ... what is it exactly? Our temporary reprieve from the universality of death, I suppose. The flavor "Pumpkin spice." Something like that.
    I'm game for a little Halloween fun. On Saturday, I went to help judge the Spooky Pooch contest at the Chicago Botanic Garden, as I did last year. There were three other judges, and each of us got a different category: one judged dogs who looked like their owners, another judged puppies. My area was "Botanical Bowsers" — dog costumes on themes related to gardens.
     Not a popular category. Most dogs were dressed up as sharks or spiders, pirates or, as in above, a UPS driver. Of the 325 or so entries, 11 entered the aspect I was judging. Not many. The space in front of me where eager contestants were supposed to be was usually empty, while the lines grew in front of the other judges. I felt shunned by fate and costumed dogs.
     "Avoid altruism," I muttered to myself, slumping on my folding chair, looking around, feeling mooted, ignored. What our weatherman MC kept calling a "wintry mix" started pelting down, the grey skies raced by, wet, cold, windy and foreboding. That didn't help. The guy from WBEZ next to me smiled widely at his crowd of contestants, busily judging entry after entry. In front of me, nothing, nobody. Typical.
    Okay Neil, I told myself, suck it up. Can the self-pity. So you get to spend a couple hours at the Botanic Garden, looking at excited people — families often—and their cute pets wearing creative costumes. Two dogs came before me dressed as autumn leaves: not quite the theme, but pretty enough. A French bulldog named Uncle Bill was dressed as a bird of paradise, which is definitely botanical. He could have won. But for the trio of very enthusiastic folks, their costumed called "In a garden." Two were dressed as gardeners, one as a bee and their two dogs were dressed as a flower and a bee — essential for pollination. I have a lot of sympathy for bees; they're embattled. "Life brings our misfortunes to the bees," as Virgil wrote. And these people were really, really excited just to be there. Of course I picked them — as opposed to, say, the contestant who confessed she decided to enter into the garden category because she figured few would and thus had the best chance at winning.
     Picking worthy winners helped. They seemed surprised, overjoyed. So not such a bad idea to do this after all. Certainly meant something to them. And maybe to me too.  Being a writer often is incredibly humbling, and while it can sting while fate is administering her lashes, the lesson is a valuable one, and keeps hubris tamped down.  If you're self-important, you shouldn't be — the significance is passing at best — and if you forget that, reminders will be administered.

The Saturday Snapshot #11

Khermariah McClinton, at Atlas Stationers, 227 W. Lake.

     It was raining, lightly, on Friday afternoon when I finished lunch. Leaving Petterino's, I meant to head south, to grab the Madison Street bus back to the newspaper. But I was slightly awhirl from my conversation, to be honest, and found myself quite turned around, walking west down Lake Street when I finally got my bearings.
     I decided to keep going. Atlas Stationers was only a few blocks away, and I braved the sprinkles to pick up my new 2019 Brownline datebook before they ran out, as they sometimes do if I wait until too close to New Year's. I could have easily bought it online, of course. But I hadn't been to Atlas in months, and stopping by was like visiting old friends, literally, from walking past the timeworn iron columns, to catching owner Terese Schmidt between deliveries, and being introduced to her younger son, fresh from college and now working at the store.
     She expressed relief that I had come for my Brownline—they had worried—and proudly showed off Atlas' new pen section, explaining how young professional types are hot for fancy pens, for Waterman fountain pens and high tech Lamy pens from Germany, displayed in a case that the company custom made for the store. I observed that with the Gilbertson pen store finally closing on Chicago Avenue must have left those desirous of high end pens underserved, and she was wise to stop into the void. She said that guidebooks are now lauding Atlas for its pen selection, and that the splendid office supply shop had now become a "destination" sought out by pen-savvy tourists.

     Owners of fancy pens, Terese explained,  like to use colorful inks, not just in the traditional blue or black or red, but an entire rainbow of possibilities with names like Rose Tendresse and Violet Pensie. As it happened, an Atlas employee, Khermariah McClinton, was penning a colorful card, to let customers know their ink options. When I asked her to write her name in my Moleskine notebook, she did so in a bright Hunter Green hue.
     I explained, rather sheepishly, that I write too much to be able to indulge a fancy pen, certainly not a fountain pen, and that I was sure to lose any pricy pen I was so bold as to buy, and keeping track of the treasure until that inevitability would be a continual burden and source of strain, its certain disappearance a source of grief. I thought of suggesting a compromise—a trainer fancy pen, once only mildly pricey whose disappearance would be a manageable woe. Instead I showed off the cheap yellow Sun-Times promotional give-away pen I glommed from the newspaper, as proof that what I said was true. Still, that attitude, once articulated, seemed a species of cowardice, and I promised that I would keep track of the pen trend, and perhaps reconsider my refusal to acquire a fancy pen of my own at some point in the indeterminate future.
   

New York Stories #5: Miznon

New York City

    So how does the Miznon in New York City measure up to the one in Paris? Not quite as well, I'm afraid to report.  At least not cauliflower-wise.
    Last year, visiting our older son at the Sorbonne, we ended up in La Marais, "The Swamp," the old Jewish quarter, (birds of a feather...) where we jammed ourselves into Israeli chef Eyal Shani's outpost of "Mediterranean street food." (The original, not the second one opened earlier this year).  It was wall-to-wall—commotion and aroma and a mild roar of French and Hebrew. But we claimed a spot at the bar, and ordered the speciality of the house, despite its unpromising premise: roasted cauliflower.

Miznon, Paris

     You wouldn't order it, would you? I sure wouldn't. But it was, I was firmly told, what people order. You have to. It's obligatory. Always surprising what you'll do when told you're supposed to. "Get the bucket of raw cow brains—Buzzfeed said it was exquisite..."
    Maybe that's because people know. The wisdom of crowds. The roasted cauliflower was an epiphany.  If you can't imagine eating and entire cauliflower with a knife and a fork, well, trust me, it's that good. The broccoli I had insisted on also ordering—I like broccoli—was an anti-climax, superfluous and sad. My wife viewed the vegetable as if it were a personal flaw of mine, after that superlative cauliflower, which we not only ate, in transport, but then cherished the memory of eating, and tried reproducing the wonder ourselves at home but couldn't come close. We suspect it's somehow treated—steamed, soaked, something—beforehand.
     When I saw that a Miznon opened earlier this year in Chelsea Market, not far from my older son's law school ("It's following him!" I said) giving it a try was my primary mission during our trip to New York.  See the boy, then get that cauliflower and, oh I suppose, go to a museum or a play or something. I couldn't tell if I wanted the jet-setting joy of going to both locations (there's also an outpost in Tel Aviv) or just wanted the pleasure of tasting that roasted miracle. 

New York

Paris

   You can't go home again. Maybe the surprise of that first perfectly prepared cauliflower can never be recaptured. Maybe the vegetable itself wasn't as good (although it should have been; cauliflower are in peak season in the fall). My wife pointed out that this didn't have the delectably-charred leaves. We still gobbled up the thing (well, I did, as she pointed out, without a smile, later). We also ordered the "bag of beets"—roasted beets, which weren't that bad. Or at least I wasn't blamed for them.
    The restaurant was very loud—some kind of DJ blaring some kind of sounds, music apparently—and we quickly moved on try out a nearby taco place that had received high marks. Having been to Tel Aviv once, that's plenty for a lifetime, and I have never been tempted to go back for any reason. Not until I realized that if I go, I could complete the hat trick, Miznon-wise. Suddenly, the Promised Land beckons. I can be strange that way.
   

New York Stories #4: Washington Square Park

     Every university has a quad, an open green space for students to relax in. New York University's just happens to be Washington Square Park. A public space for more than two centuries, originally as a cemetery—some 20,000 bodies are thought to rest somewhere beneath its hexagonal stones.
     Famed New York developer Robert Moses wanted to extend 5th Avenue right through the park—the sort of monstrous deference to the automobile that so hobbled cities in the middle of the last century. He failed, but even then cars could drive under the arch until 1971.
     Speaking of the 1970s, I have grim associations with the park—I remember pausing to watch someone shoot up in a car right outside it, the waxy white arm gleaming in the dim light from the street. It still has its expected cast of addicts and lunatics—one went berserk while we were walking past and ended up lying in West 4th Street, shirtless, screaming at the traffic, while we averted our eyes and hurried on.
     But generally Washington Square Park has a more sedate vibe, helped during our final stroll before heading to the airport by this gentleman and his piano. I never got a look at his face, so can't confirm my suspicion that this was Colin Huggins, "The Crazy Piano Guy" who sometimes shows up in the park with an 800-pound baby grand. It could be him. Or not. When I asked him if it was difficult to drag the piano around, he replied, "What's difficult is the years it took me to learn to play so I could do this," a very New York answer.
    Though honestly, as singular as Huggins is, I like the notion of there being multiple Washington Park piano players, all vying for the same real estate. That's New York for you.

   

New York Stories #3: Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge

     Two very different songs came to me in Brooklyn.
     The first was perhaps inevitably, given my generation, when I realized we were not only in Brooklyn, but Brooklyn Heights.
     "But Patty's only seen the sights a girl can see from Brooklyn Heights...." 
     The "Patty Duke Show" theme song. My wife was amazed I remembered it. But I have a mind for that kind of thing.
     The other came as we shopped around for bagels. That was the idea—take the subway to Brooklyn, sample bagel places, return walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. Edie had Googled "best bagels in Brooklyn" and had a list, and I was following along. As good a way as any to pass a Saturday morning, though we decided that none of the actual New York bagels were as good as the ones at New York Bagels on Dempster Street.  Too big and airy, not dense and chewy enough. 
     We ended up walking down Montague Street. I noticed a plaque—here was where Arthur Miller wrote his first Broadway play. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with the information, but it did drive home what street I was on, and evoked a line from Bob Dylan's "Tangled Up in Blue."
     "I lived with them on Montague Street, the basement down the stairs, there was music in the cafes at night, and revolution in the air."
     Must have been nice. But don't look for a plaque—while Dylan lived in Greenwich Village (on 4th Street, hence "Positively 4th Street") I couldn't find any evidence he lived with anybody on Montague Street, which dead-ends into the riverside promenade. It was just a story he made up.
    My wife and I took a right, then found our way to the Brooklyn Bridge and walked across.
    For some reason we were surprised to find it crowded, though of course it would be. How many sights in New York are famous, historic and, oh yes, free?
     Jammed, the pedestrian half anyway, with enough bikes blowing at top speed along the bike lane to keep walkers packed onto their side.  Someone is going to get killed there, one of these days, if they haven't already.
     We bought a bag of cucumbers and a bag of mangoes to munch. 
     Halfway across the bridge I noticed something truly extraordinary: a plaque to Emily Warren Roebling, who completed construction of the bridge after her husband, chief engineer Washington Roebling, became ill, a victim of the bends, it is believed, having taken over from his father, John Roebling, the bridge's designer, who died, of tetanus. after his foot was crushed while surveying the site, one of dozens of men who perished during its construction.
     The New York Times, in their series of belated obituaries celebrating overlooked women, included Emily Roebling, even though she was not overlooked, in her time. “How the Wife of the Brooklyn Bridge Engineer Has Assisted Her Husband,” read the headline of one article after the bridge opened—she was the first person to walk across the completed bridge, carrying a rooster—it is said—for good luck.
     I pointed out the plaque to my wife, worried she would take the epigram, “Back of every great work we can find the self-sacrificing devotion of a woman," in the wrong light. But she seemed unperturbed by it.


     


   

New York Stories #2: The Accessibility Project

    You can't go to New York and not see a sign that, well, just encapsulates its attitudinal, 24-hours-a-day, go-go-go sensibility.
    For years, there was that wonderful, "Don't even THINK of parking here."
   Or this update on the familiar handicapped access sign. I never considered just how static the neutral human figure in that chair really was until I saw this. Just as Chicago can seem like a hopping place until you hit New York.
     As with all good graphics, the second you see it, you know what it is intended to convey: that disability and dynamic action are not incompatible.
     Of course there is a story behind this symbol. It isn't exactly new.  Newish.

Showing its age

     The original "International Symbol of Access" was created in the 1968 by Danish design student Susan Koefoed.  Around 2010, the Accessible Icon Project began collecting more dynamic symbols, such as those at the MOMA and Marshalls, of all places, which showed a speeding wheelchair with little motion bars.
     Since then, they've been promoting the updated logo as a kind of guerrilla art project, slapping new versions over existing signs.
     Progress is slow. The status quo has its own weight and momentum. Despite eight years of promotion, the old symbol still predominates—I'd never seen the new one until I came to New York—New York state officially adopted the more active logo for its public buildings in 2014.
     Still, this seems like the future. Something you can't embrace if you don't know about.
   

New York Stories #1: Caffe Reggio

     I'm working on a project for the paper this week so, in lieu of the column, I'm presenting some observations from my recent visit to New York City.

     Once I visited an old Italian barber in Sandburg Village.  This was years ago. He surprised me by serving an espresso and a biscotti while I had my hair cut. It seemed very civilized, the tiny cup and saucer, the hot liquid, the sweet biscuit, the snip of the scissors.
     I didn't think of the nexus between barbering and espresso again until last week, in New York City.
     The cab from LaGuardia dropped off us at West Third and MacDougal, in front of the law school. We had time to kill—the boy was at class. 
     "Let's wait there," I said, pointing to a bright green storefront across MacDougal, "Caffe Reggio." My wife and I rolled our suitcases in that direction.
      Inside was a small, dark, space. Metal ice cream parlor chairs, white marble tables, black marble floors. Dark oil paintings. Busts. Pleasant classical music playing. My wife ordered a latte. I ordered a double espresso and a pair of the small round cookies I had noticed in the case. They serve a glass of water with your coffee—civilized. The orange-rimmed china cups and sugar bowls are emblazoned with the name of the cafe—also civilized.
     And so it began. Five, count 'em, five mornings in a row, begun at the Caffe Reggio, founded in 1927 by Domenico Parisi, the man—it is said—who introduced cappuccino into the United States.  Originally he ran a barber shop in the space, selling espresso to customers as they waited for their haircuts. Balancing the 20 minutes of work required to give a haircut, and the one minute to prepare an espresso, both costing 10 cents, Parisi prudently let the barber shop go by the wayside. The space was elegant yet casual, compact yet spacious. It felt like we had stepped out of the stream of time, into another dimension.
     "It's worth coming to New York just to sit here," I said, on the first day.
     A small door to the left of the counter, with a hand-painted plaque above it. The profile of a man—Dante, clearly. I went over to read the words printed there: "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate..."
     I don't speak Italian, but I recognized the phrase, and the Canto number above confirmed my suspicions. Among the most famous lines in literature: "Abandon all hope, you who enter here." The inscription above the gates of Hell. A bathroom joke.
    Our son arrived, all smiles—he had never been here before, why would he?—and we departed for his quickstep tour the campus.
     But the next day we were back. My wife had a plan—walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, sample Brooklyn bagels—but we needed caffeine to send us on our way. I opted for coffee, and it came in a huge cup. Biscotti this time. Branching out.
     "Do many customers notice the Dante joke?" I asked the waitress.
     "Every second person," she said, flatly. Ouch. Pedantry is punished.
    The third morning we had breakfast: sharing a "Crepe Reggio," filled with fluffy ricotta cheese. Delicious. The fourth day we met a friend there for breakfast and sat talking and catching up for almost two hours. Nobody rushed us. An omelet this time.
     Back in Chicago, I delved into its history. Bob Dylan was a patron.  So was Jack Kerouac. The room had cameos in movies such as "Godfather II," "Serpico" and "Shaft"—Isaac Hayes' famous soundtrack includes a song, "Cafe Regio," a reminder that musicians are not known for their proofreading skills. The place figures into Andre Aciman's "False Papers." The Egyptian author would return, sometimes several times a day, trying to master the ache caused by a girl he courted at Caffe Reggio, "Seeking to recover something I felt I lost there."
    To me, it was the opposite. I felt I found something there, a certain calm, a place of temporary belonging. Edie immediately understood. "Every day we have coffee there is a happy day," she said, on the last day, when we made a point of heading there before meeting our son for lunch and then to the airport and home.
    Four out of five days I sat in the same chair, facing the open green door. There was always a customer tucked next to the door, and I took to slyly snapping a photo of the patron. Chicago has much to recommend it, but there is no place like this, where time has stopped or, rather, is measured out in coffee spoons. Nothing remotely like it.