Ducks and geese.

     We saw a magnificent hawk soaring directly above our heads when we first entered the Chicago Botanic Garden Sunday. For a moment I thought it might be an eagle — it was that big, and seemed to have a white head. But then I saw the distinctive brown markings on its wings. A hawk.

     Soon we were debating whether certain birds far in the distance on the water were ducks, or geese.
     We walked. A thought grew.
     "Do you know..." I began, "that, in nature, there is a strict ratio for ducks and geese?"
     My wife chewed on that a moment.
     "Is this the set-up to a joke?" she asked.
     Damn. Busted. I used to be so good at this. I told her that, yes, it was. Then I told her what the joke would have been, had she not ruined it. She admired its primitive beauty.
     "I should have let you play it out," she said, regretfully.
     "Yeah."
     But my wife, like a skilled jazz musician, picked up the refrain of the thwarted joke and riffed upon it anyway.
     "Because then, you could have said, 'I learned about it in nursery school," she continued.
     I didn't immediately see where she was going with this.
     "And then I would be impressed that you still remember it, after all these years."
     I nodded, realization dawning.
     "And you would say, 'The ratio is very simple. It goes, 'Duck. Duck. Goose.' Then repeats."
      I know I'll be living to tell it to someone someday. Or you are free to use it as your own on some future occasion.
     Assuming there is anyone else in the world who might want to.
     Which there probably isn't. We are a particularly well-suited couple, having grown into each other like a pair of old oaks leaning against each other.

     On Monday, we were back in the garden — we go there a lot. We found ourselves standing before a mixed group of ducks and geese. Mostly the latter.

     "You're wrong," she observed.

     I knew exactly what she was talking about.

   

Cut your bitterness with cookies

     Elmhurst lures; it entices. Even on an ordinary day, just driving down 294, going somewhere else, it takes an act of will to pass by Elmhurst.
     I see that green “ELMHURST” exit sign and have to fight the urge to pull off and hurry over to Lezza Spumoni & Desserts on Spring Road and ... well, it’s embarrassing. Stock up on mind-blowing spumoni and little white boxes of powder-sugar-kissed cannoli and big white boxes of biscotti and lemon knots and wedding cookies.
     So when I heard that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is scheduled to speak in Elmhurst on Monday — talk about a fish out of water story — the urge to head to Elmhurst is strong.
     But head over where? Yes, Elmhurst, but it’s big, for a little place. The problem, of course, is not only are journalists not invited to the Floridian fascist’s jamboree, but the public isn’t invited either.
     DeSantis nudged Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 7 cappo John Catanzara, who discreetly invited his buddies to gather somewhere in Elmhurst to listen to the Sunshine State Savonarola. Who, if he stays true to form, will be heaping abuse on the far right’s designated villains of the moment: trans people, history teachers and whoever makes up the stuffed tackling dummy of their midnight fears.
     Hence the secrecy. I like to think they’re privately ashamed — it’s the optimist in me. But the more likely motivation is it just won’t do to have the very untermenschen you are trying to purge from both the present and the past show up at your lawn party to wave signs and express their disapproval of your brand of backwater demagoguery.
     Not that a protest is really necessary: The bare fact that DeSantis can safely expect the Chicago Police Department to show up en masse, to nod solemnly at the woes they are forced to endure by living in a society that tolerates those other than themselves, is condemnation aplenty. That Chicago police can be relied upon to cheer Trump 2.0 on is an indictment of the CPD culture more eloquent than 100 liberals could dream up.

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Email of the week

The reality doesn't change, so I try not to get hung up on terminology.

     Not every email is a criticism. Some readers bring up valid issues or ask legitimate questions, and I try to answer them honestly. On Friday, the paper ran a story I had contributed to, using my contacts among social service agencies to add remarks about homeless people living at O'Hare. Art G. sent an email whose subject line was "'unhoused' vs 'homeless'" and whose entire message was a succinct:"Why is one word okay and not the other?" I thought for a moment, then replied:

     My experience is that the words get randomly changed from time to time in a futile attempt to shake off the negative associations that gather around negative conditions. So "crippled" becomes "handicapped" becomes "disabled" becomes "special needs" becomes "otherly-abled," etc. Changing the terms, or trying to, also gives people facing difficult situations a way to create the illusion of power and progress. I try to stay ahead of the curve so as to avoid needless agita. Thanks for writing.

     It's a bigger issue than you would imagine. In talking to a social service, also Friday, for a future story, one that involves access being granted and scheduled visits and lots of time invested, I told them that while I am sensitive to the current style, I'm not a slave to it, and if you go too far in to the buzzword of the moment, readers don't know what you're talking about and, worse, laugh at you. I told her about the "Face Fear" story I did for Mosaic, the London medical website. They were reluctant to use the word "disfigured" preferring some euphemism, "different in appearance" or some such thing. My position was that nobody is tormented on the playground merely for looking "different," and that the danger is we minimize the lived experience of people. We ended up with a compromise: I used the word as little as possible. A few readers still complained. But the bottom line is I don't write for activists or fanatics, but for some imaginary average person, who benefits by describing what we're talking about in plain words. If you don't, you do things like take a perfectly good name like "Chicago Rehab Institute" and turning it into the "Shirley Ryan AbilityLab," which sounds like a room at the Kohler Children's Museum where kids put on plastic aprons and play with water and white PVC pipes. 

Works in progress: Cate Plys

     Caren Jeskey stepping up to pinch-write on Saturdays helped the EGD community to see many things. For me, it became clear that there is a benefit to a weekly breather, both to myself and to the readers: a different perspective, a palate cleanser after six days of Neil-Neil-Neil-Neil-NEIL-Neil. So when Caren decided to step away and start an audio blog (which you can find here) my first thought was that I should keep the tradition of Somebody Else Saturday going.

     But how? With whom? 

     Luckily, I know many creative folk, few longer and none better than my Northwestern classmate, Cate Plys. We were on the college humor magazine together, and have been close friends ever since. She's had a wide-ranging career — columnist at the Chicago Reader, the  Sun-Times and Tribune, and more. Since October, 2021, she's been exploring the complex world of "Roseland, Chicago: 1972." I invited her to tell you about it. In coming weeks, I'll turn Saturday over to other friends with interesting projects. If you'd like to nominate yourself, you know where to find me. Take it away, Cate:

     Thanks, Neil!
     Full disclosure, I can’t quit Neil, and vice versa, because he came to my Gramma’s house in Hegewisch for Thanksgiving in 1982. That, and we know where each other’s bodies are buried.

     “Roseland, Chicago: 1972” started as the serialized story of Steve Bertolucci, a 10-year-old Roselander in 1972, and what becomes of him. But Roseland, Chicago, and 1972 — they all demanded more. They got it. I’m just a girl who can’t say no.
     The thing is Steve and his friends live in a strange world called 1972, a place so far removed from 21st century Chicago that even those of us who once dwelt there may barely recognize it when we catch a brief glimpse of it now, whisking around a corner or disappearing into a crowd, always just out of reach.
     I was there. I saw it. But the more I wrote, the simplest things began to feel like science fiction in reverse. I had to ask myself: Would anyone who wasn’t there believe it?
     It was a brave old world:
     Every expressway into Chicago was guarded by a massive set of neon red lips, looming 80 feet in the air on black steel pylons, blinking electronic messages underneath like “Celebrate National Secretary’s Week!” and “Happy Birthday, Eddie Barrett!” The Dan Ryan lips, which Steve’s family passed on rare car trips downtown, kept vigil over the city at 85th Street.

     Chicagoans believed in God and the devil so viscerally that when “The Exorcist” played here to massive crowds in ’73, Tribune film critic Gene Siskel saw a teenage boy faint at one showing. Six more terrorized teens retreated to the lobby, one literally trembling for a full half hour.
     Knowledge was distributed to the people each morning and afternoon by young boys who threw onto their front porches folded wads of cellulose which had been boiled, mashed, and flattened into sheets later embedded with information. These were called “newspapers,” and everybody read them. Everybody. Even kids like Steve.
     Who’d believe kids used to read newspapers? Yesterday I saw two parents pushing a stroller. The approximately 18-month-old child seated inside was clutching an iPhone with both hands, focused on it to the exclusion of all else.
     I realized I’d have to persuade readers that the 1972 world had, in fact, existed. Marshal the evidence. So Steve’s story became an immersive project on Substack for anyone who’s game enough to take a dunk in 1972. To start, each chapter is followed by Chapter Notes explaining points of interest covered, ranging from MAD Magazine  to Jays potato chips.
     Optional Chicago History Chapters delve deeper into places, people and pop culture as they emerge in the story, so far including the Wrigley Building, Chicago before it was Chicago, and a look at Chicago newspapers circa 1972.

     For those brave enough to jump in the deep end without a lifeguard, there are two additional sections to explore: THIS CRAZY DAY IN 1972, and Mike Royko 50+ Years Ago Today. As I warn readers on the About page, however, enter at your own risk. No sensitivity reader has combed through any of it. 1972 isn’t a safe space--though frankly, neither is any other year with which I am familiar.
      TCD 1972 goes through the year week by week, pulling fascinating pieces out of all five of Chicago’s daily 1972 newspapers. This material is the news--and so to a great extent the reality--that Steve and everyone he knew swam in. If you dip a toe into the roiling 1972 waters regularly, the first cold shock of sexism, racism, and teenagers getting expelled for long hair begins to wear off. You get used to the water, you see beyond the splashing, and you start to feel what the world looked like to 1972 Chicagoans.
     And the letters are hilarious.

     Why Royko? 1972 newspapers are peanut butter, and Mike Royko is the chocolate that elevates the peanut butter into a delectable treat. You can have one without the other, but why would you? Royko dominated the Chicago newspaper landscape in a way that can’t be overstated, and uniquely in the city’s history.
     Also, 10-year-old Steve’s family subscribed to the Daily News. That meant they got an afternoon newspaper thrown on their front porch by a paperboy, and the first thing a Daily News reader did was open the paper to page three and read Royko in a long, thin column next to the fold.
     Each Royko 50+ covers a week of columns, pulling the best quotes and providing the sociopolitical context that Mike’s contemporaneous readers brought to his work--so you’ll even get the inside jokes. For instance, Mike’s column from September 19, 1972:  

     Mike proposed a new statue for the Civic Center Plaza—now Daley Plaza—which was already home to the Picasso. Mike’s statue idea was based on two recent news events he assumed his readers knew all about. First, the city and its newspapers were going nuts over the recent announcement that Marc Chagall would create a huge piece of public art for the First National Bank plaza, rivalling the nearby Picasso.
     Second, the Better Government Association (BGA) had just completed a hilarious investigation with the Daily News in which reporters followed CTA workers around and documented their busy work days. The pièce de résistance was a worker named Tad, photographed on the clock carrying five cases of beer from a liquor store to his CTA truck.
     Mike's readers had all seen the BGA's picture of Tad in the Daily News — it would have been like a viral Tik Tok video. Mike's column, then, only included Tad's statue, created by the paper's art department. For Royko 50+, I hunted down Tad's original infamous picture so readers today can see him in all his glory, compare with Tad's statue, and appreciate Mike's delicate wit:
     “Before all of our downtown plazas are covered with great works of art by Picasso, Chagall and other international artists, we should set one aside for a statue that would have meaning to Chicagoans,” wrote Mike. “Unlike our famous Picasso, there can be no confusion about who Tad is and what he is doing: He is a man carrying five cartons of beer….It is inspirational, because most of us would like to have a job in which carrying one armload of beer gives us our daily sweat. But the fact is, most of us don’t have the gumption to get out there and find a city job that allows us to flop down and rest.”     

     As I recall, Mike Royko threatened to break Neil’s legs once (editor's note: he did, and not in a joky, "ha-ha, I'll break your legs fashion" but in a "next time asshole I'll break your fucking legs" fashion), or something like that. I cover extra-column Royko doings in a Weekend Edition, and we’ll have to get Neil’s story in there soon.

     Lastly, sometimes an item in the news or Mike Royko sends us down an unexpected Chicago History Rabbit Hole, and then anything can happen. Take Mike’s February 25, 1972 column, in which Mike gets a tip that a has-been mobster named Louis Tornabene is scheduled for a small-time hearing at the Chicago Avenue police court. Mike shows up to mock Tornabene, because he used to be a tough guy running a mob strip joint called Eddie Foy’s, and now he’s a used car salesman.
     This rabbit hole leads us through FBI wire transcripts to the seedy strip joints that used to line the South Loop streets, on to one of the most famous entertainers of the late 19th century-early 20th century, and finally to the worst single-building fire in U.S. history, the Iroquois Theatre fire. That’s all thanks to Mike mentioning Eddie Foy’s, seen here in its 1950’s-60s heyday courtesy of John Chuckman’s Photos on Wordpress.

     Come over some time and take a stroll in 1972. It’s easier to appreciate when you can get out any time you want.

Amara Enyia is fighting all problems everywhere

Amara Enyia in Geneva.

     If you are unaware, as I was, that we are nearing the end of a 10-year global initiative to spotlight concerns of special importance to Black people, don’t feel bad. Some efforts get more attention than others.
     “The United Nations designated 2015 to 2024 as the International Decade for People of African Descent, all around the world,” said Amara Enyia. “This is a mechanism designed to deal with all of the issues: climate, inequality, education. Part of this is doing a lot of advocacy.”
     Regular readers might remember my spending a day on the campaign trail with Enyia when she faced Rahm Emanuel in 2014.
     “Unlike the typical marginal eccentric who feels compelled to run against a powerful if not popular Chicago mayor, she is neither a crank nor a fool, but a thoughtful, grounded community activist,” I wrote, “one of six children of Nigerian immigrants, whose only obvious sign of unbalance is the apparently sincere belief that she will defeat the mayor in February.”
     She didn’t win. Unlike most former mayoral candidates, she did not utterly vanish. She tried again in 2019 and recently popped up in Geneva serving as chairwoman for the international civil society working group at the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent.
     Most of us have enough trouble dealing with one problem in one place; Enyia is trying to address all problems everywhere.
     “You’re essentially dealing with all of the languages, all of the geographies, prioritizing issues, working to make it as impactful as possible,” she said. “It’s a pretty significant undertaking.”
     It is? It seems to me the woes of the world barrel onward, bursting through the paper barriers of working groups and multinational programs.
     Enyia disagrees. She thinks it is important that Black people in America understand that the problems disproportionately affecting them in this country are also afflicting their brothers and sisters around the globe.

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Flashback 1994: Ina Pinkney Offers True Partnership

Ina Pinkney

    On Tuesday I ran a profile of Bill Pinkney, the first Black sailor to circumnavigate the world alone. It seems fitting to follow up with the sidebar about his wife at the time, Ina, extraordinary in her own right. After today's profile, we'll catch up with what Ina's up to lately.

     Bill Pinkney might have never gone to sea, never lived his dream, never become a role model, if it weren't for the effervescent whirl of joyous energy also known as his wife, Ina Pinkney.
     "We have an obligation as a partner to encourage the people we love to be all they can possibly be," says Pinkney, explaining what must strike many married people as a riddle of intractable mystery: how their relationship not only permitted, but encouraged him to go to sea for two years. "When people say how could you let him go sailing, I said I didn't let him do anything. I helped him going sailing. I didn't let him go. So, we have had a very different philosophy about what it means to be partners in this life."
     In some circles, Ina is the more famous Pinkney. "I'm Ina Pinkney's husband," laughs Bill Pinkney, recognizing that, for fans of dense, well-made desserts and hearty breakfasts, her Ina's Kitchen, on West Webster, is a more notable achievement than any mere boat trip.
     She was Brooklyn-born Ina Brody, a 22-year-old shop clerk, when she met Pinkney in a Greenwich Village cafe in 1965. It was love at first sight.
     They married a few months later. No one from her family attended the wedding of the bi-racial couple. "Total rejection," she says.
     She never had an interest in sailing. "I packed him great lunches, said `Have a good day, honey.' But I never, never felt the pull," she says.
     She does not want anyone to mistake her openness about his trip for indifference. She missed him "desperately" while he was away and worried about his well being.
     She taped hundreds of hours of television and shipped the tapes to his next port of call. She made him pillows of varying fabrics so he could feel different tactile sensations on the long, dulling voyage. Each day, without fail, she made a tape of the events of the day and sent those to him as well.
    "I was concerned about sensory deprivation more than anything," she says.
     While Bill was pursuing his dream, Ina pursued hers. "I always wanted to have a breakfast restaurant," she says, of the restaurant she opened with partner Elaine Farrell, who had been a customer of her bakery. Ina's Kitchen just celebrated its third anniversary. In addition to supporting her husband's future plans, she has a Bill Pinkney project of her own in mind.
     "I want very much to have a street named after him," she says. "I think Monroe right down to the harbor, where the boat was, would be Captain Bill Pinkney Drive. I want to do that."
          –Originally published in the Sun-Times, October 30, 1994

     I reached out to Ina Pinkney for an update. She replied:

     The BREAKFAST AT INA’S documentary about my closing screened in 48 film festivals after the world premier at Chicago’s International Film Festival. I was invited to 31 of them.

     My cookbook tour was terrific especially through the Jewish Book Council.
     I spoke for clients at food conferences about breakfast.
     As a polio survivor, I travel and zoom to speak at Rotary Clubs nationally about the late effects of polio finally acknowledged as Post-Polio Syndrome. I now chair a global advocacy group for survivors.
     After breaking my polio leg in December 2018, and surgery, I’m a wheelchair/scooter user now.
     My world and life are different but not smaller.
     And on April 26th, about 50+ chefs will have an 80th Birthday Bash Fundraiser for me for my favorite charities…Pilot Light and Green City Market.

Dancing into a minefield

Suzanne Lopez, left, talks with two dancers at the Joffrey Ballet rehearsal space on Randolph.

     Plays have scripts that tell actors what words to say, plus occasional stage directions, indicating how to deliver a certain line or when to move in a particular direction — the most famous being Shakespeare’s notation in Act III of “A Winter’s Tale”: “Exit, pursued by a bear.”
     Music has chains of notes representing various pitches and durations, with extra instructions delineating whether they be played loud or soft, fast or slow.
     But how do ballet dancers know where to step?
     There are videos, of course, and a complex system known as Benesh Movement Notation, resembling notes on a scale. Neither works particularly well.
     “I can tell when someone learned off an audition video,” said Suzanne Lopez, one of two choreography directors from the Joffrey Ballet for “Anna Karenina,” opening at the Civic Opera House on Wednesday. As for the notation system, “It takes years of learning how to do that,” she said, “and I’m not qualified.”
     So how does a troupe learn a new ballet? Surprisingly, the way dancers are taught their steps in the 21st century has much in common with the way bards were taught to recite “The Iliad” in ancient Greece.
     “It needs to be person-to-person,” said Lopez. “It needs to be passed down. Copious notes. I have a giant binder for ‘Anna Karenina,’ constantly updating.”

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