Brain Cells on Parade

As you may have heard, my father passed away in March at the age of 80. That has been a major factor in my extended absence from this journal. You see, I’ve had this inescapable feeling that my next posting here had to be something about my father… but the words have been slow in coming.

I have little to say about the funeral, except for a couple of things that made me happy. First, I was happy that my dad’s brother, my uncle Maurice, got up to speak at the service. He is now the only surviving member of that group of siblings, and it was good and right that he got up to speak, even though he doesn’t get around too quickly and most of his hearing is gone.

The other thing that made me happy was that every one of the eight of us siblings went up to the podium and spoke at the service. This wasn’t planned; it just worked out that way. Some of us are accustomed to public speaking and some of us aren’t, so it was great to have that happen. The substance of any of our speeches doesn’t bear repeating here. Suffice it to say that some personal and appropriate remarks were made, but the symbolic value of all of us making the effort to go up there is the important and lasting fact.

I’ve puzzled for a long time over the question of what I might have inherited from my father in terms of personal traits. In the end, I cannot claim to know the answer, but I can look at my father and identify a few traits I might wish to possess. I might wish to possess his bullshit detector. Whether listening to politicians, businessmen, engineers, entertainers, or family members, he had a great instinct for B.S. Most of the time, he kept this knowledge to himself; he usually only voiced it if there were some constructive reason for doing so. In this way, he also demonstrated an admirable level of restraint; I, by comparison, am often unable to resist calling out a B.S.er even when doing so is counterproductive. But I suppose the words ego and restraint describe a large part of the difference between my father and me.

It is unfortunate, but perhaps unavoidable, that my father’s last weeks were unpleasant and painful in many ways. It’s true that he felt blessed to have survived for as long as he had; he often referred to the “bonus time” he found himself enjoying, far beyond anything he’d ever expected. It’s also true that his health problems of recent years had given him a clear view of his impending demise. But it’s equally true that he had no wish to die, so while one part of him accepted the inevitability of death, another part most certainly did not welcome it.

Just yesterday, I received news that my dad’s house in Roseville, Michigan has found a buyer. An investor actually bid over our asking price and the sale should be closed in June. I’ve been asked how I feel about that; saying goodbye to a place that’s been such a center of family activity. My answer is that I’m fine with it. When I stayed there in March to attend the funeral, I looked around and told myself I’d probably never set foot in the place again. And really, we didn’t move there until 1984, so it isn’t the house I grew up in.

But there is a larger issue that the divestment of the Roseville house brings up. It has to do with our identity as a family. There are eight of us. We cover a wide variety of lifestyles, tastes, political views and philosophical viewpoints. For many years, we’ve been kept in touch by the presence of our parents. With them gone, we no longer have that external factor keeping us together. It’s entirely up to us now.

Please understand, I’m not saying we have to stay in contact. Heck, I’m the guy who left Detroit for Chicago almost 20 years ago, so that would be an odd role for me to play. And frankly, it doesn’t matter what anyone says about that – it’s going to sort itself out. I just want everyone to know about it so they can be aware of it unfolding. Before you realize it, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself thinking, “Gee, I haven’t seen [Sibling X] in years!” This doesn’t have to be a good thing, or a bad thing, but with a family as large and spread out as ours, it may be inevitable.

So how would my dad feel about that? I suspect he’d shrug and say it’s up to us – and he’d be right. It reminds me of a conversation I had with him once about what his hopes and dreams for his children were. I wondered whether he’d hoped that one of his children might have followed in his footsteps in the automotive industry, or perhaps been a chiropractor like his friend Doctor John, or perhaps gone into a religious order. His answer went something like this:

“Every one of you had your own personality from the first day I laid eyes on you. I never wanted to tell any of you what to do with your lives. I wanted all of you to be individuals and make your own choices.”

When I look at the diversity in our family, I can see that he got his wish. And even if he never told us what to do with our lives, he left us countless examples of his own integrity and common sense as stars to steer by.

And now for the cultural portion of our program, we present a series of hockey-themed haikus:

The Sedin children
Were taught to drink from bottles
But never from Cups

* * *

I mentioned Crosby
Then perhaps I am to blame
For his ears ringing

* * *

Find the next John Scott
Scouts are doing what Jack did
Planting magic beans

* * *

Broadway came calling
Quenneville was born for the role:
The Color Purple

This is a true story of one of my prouder moments of ad-libbing during my five years with Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding. Let me set the scene:

During the wedding ceremony, I, as Father Mark, would wear a priest’s vestments. For the reception afterwards, I would change into a black or gray sport coat which I would wear along with my black pants and black shirt (with Roman collar).

One night, I came back to the dressing room for my quick change after the wedding ceremony to find that the costumer had given me a new sport coat. It fit, so I donned it and strolled out into the reception hall. Only then did I realize that the coat was covered with quite a bit of white lint. I brushed off what I could, but I guess there was still quite a bit sticking to my coat. It didn’t take long for the actor playing Tony to come up to me as I was talking to audience members and remark on my appearance.

“Hey Father Mark,” he snapped, “looks like you need a lint brush.”

I smiled at him and said, “Well, I used to have one… but I gave it up for lint.”

Tony had no snappy comeback for that one. I think that means I won!

It pains me to embrace such a monolithic cliché, but this is where the road has led me: You Can’t Go Home Again. The phrase was immortalized in Thomas Wolfe’s 1940 novel of that name, and it has since spread across the length, breadth, and depth of American culture, quoted in works from John Steinbeck to Stephen King to the friggin’ X-Men and everywhere in between.

But as I said, this is where the road has led me. Specifically, the road is Interstate 94, which was how I traveled from Chicago to Detroit in late November to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. From my present home on the north side of Chicago, I-94 is only a couple miles away. And if one travels eastbound on it for long enough, it will take you to within a few blocks of the house where I grew up on the east side of Detroit (exit at Conner Ave., take it north to Camden, turn right and go one block. It’s the corner house surrounded by trees).

This time around though, my route to the old neighborhood was slightly indirect. It came in the form of a simple domestic chore. My brother, who now resides with my father in the near suburb of Roseville, needed a lift to a body shop on Detroit’s east side so he could pick up his car. I was available and happy to help out.

Now understand, I find myself at the house in Roseville several times a year. But though it doesn’t take long at all to get from there to the old neighborhood, it had been some years since I’d made the trip, and time has only increased the psychic distance between the two locations.

As it turned out, I’d chosen the perfect day for such a journey. It was the day after Thanksgiving, late in the morning. In neighborhoods across America, this is a quiet time. People are rising late and moving slowly after the previous day’s festivities. Driving up and down those streets, it was obvious from the cars and other signs of life that a great many people still resided around there, yet I saw hardly anyone. This permitted me the indulgence of creeping down streets like Camden, Wade, and Corbett at a snail’s pace, the better to survey the landscape and embrace memories. Yet increasingly, I was feeling something else; something I hadn’t anticipated.

Long-time readers of this journal know that I usually bring my camera with me when I travel, and many of my travel posts have been lavishly adorned with photos. As you can see, there are no photos accompanying this post. Oh, I brought my camera along, but it never left my pocket while I was in the old neighborhood.

At first, I couldn’t understand why I didn’t feel moved to take any photos. After all, there were many evocative sights – houses, streets, intersections, and schools that brought back long-forgotten memories of my childhood. Then I realized: The personal, significant stories – the things worth remembering, memorializing, and celebrating – were all buried in the past, where my lens could not focus.

Then another realization came: I don’t think I need to ever physically go back there again. While it’s true that the neighborhood has deteriorated a great deal, that isn’t really the issue. Heck, even if those streets were now filled with million-dollar homes, there would still be one inescapable fact: the place isn’t mine anymore. The people I knew are all gone. Well, there are probably a few scattered holdouts, but they are surely few and far between. Speaking of which – the houses themselves are few and far between on many of those streets. Many of the ones that are still standing are burned-out or otherwise hollowed-out shells, awaiting only a bulldozer of a stiff breeze to take them down once and for all. At the same time, there are houses and lots that are as well kept as you could hope for. It’s a curious juxtaposition of… well, the Sacred and the Profane, I guess you could say. Which is all very interesting sociologically, but completely impersonal and detached from my own personal narrative.

The bottom line is this: There’s nothing there for me. I am Charles of Camden in name only. It’s someone else’s neighborhood now, to build, to rebuild, to destroy, to respect, to disrespect. I wish them well, but I am otherwise an outsider to the process. I suppose I will still make virtual visits from time to time via Google Maps, but my physical presence in that setting no longer makes any sense.

Postscript — I knew as I drove up and down those streets that I would have to write about the experience, but seldom have I found my thoughts more difficult to frame into words, which is why it’s February and I’m only now posting this.

Let’s start with a couple of simple, direct statements: I didn’t care for the new animated film, Puss in Boots. I disliked it quite a bit. And yet, the film deserves more than a two-sentence dismissal. There’s a lot going on there, and some elements of it are very good.

There are dozens of brief sequences in the film which, if viewed by themselves, might convince you that this is an enormously entertaining and imaginative creation. Exhibit A is the film’s title character as voiced by Antonio Banderas. I’ve always liked Banderas. The problem here is that he’s done exactly what the director has told him to do, which is to whisper just about every line. Now Antonio is a fine whisperer, and used selectively, this can be an effective tool. But when you’re the lead character and you say every line that way, it gets tiresome. I feel safe indicting the director for this, rather than Banderas, because another form of this problem pervades just about every line said by every character – they’re all delivered as if every line is The Most Important Line In The Movie. As we say in the graphic design world – If everything is emphasized, then nothing is emphasized.

This approach probably makes it pretty easy to put together an impressive trailer or TV commercial, and it might even work for a certain kind of audience member. By “certain kind” I mean someone who keeps nodding off, or someone who is totally wasted and doesn’t remember what happened 30 seconds ago. For the rest of us though, it’s pretty wearying.

There are also problems with the screenplay. The main villains of the piece, Jack & Jill, are drawn to look ferociously bad. As voiced by Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris, they sound pretty bad. And while they do a few pretty nasty things, their villainy is undercut by the device of having them engage in an ongoing discussion about having children together. I know it’s meant to be a humorous juxtaposition of elements – the big evil characters bogged down by common domestic issues – but it doesn’t work here. It doesn’t bounce; it clanks.

Compounding the Jack & Jill issue is the character of Humpty Dumpty. He is somewhere in between a good guy and a bad guy, and part of the plot’s machinery is to keep us wondering about his true character and motives. That might be fine if he had a clear villain to play against, but since he doesn’t, the result is a muddle that leaves the plot inappropriately out of focus.

One friend of mine has already offered the excuse of, “Well it’s a kids’ movie; what do you want?” This sort of attitude has pissed me off for a long time, the notion that our standards can be lowered because “it’s just for kids.” The late Mickey Miners, longtime producer of excellent children’s theater in Detroit, put it something like this: “There are two kinds of shows. The distinction isn’t between comedy and drama. It isn’t between classical and contemporary. It isn’t between adult shows and kids shows. The two kinds are good shows and bad shows.”

If this is a new notion to you, you might reasonably think that I’m talking nonsense. After all, isn’t it obvious that the typical child has no understanding of play writing, plot construction, and character development? In a way, that’s true. But here’s the crucial point: If you present a shoddy, badly written, badly acted, poorly plotted show, the theater majors and film buffs in the audience may be able to articulate why it isn’t working. The rest of the audience – including the children – may not have the words to tell you why it isn’t working, but the effect on them as an audience will be the same – boredom, uninvolvement, maybe even eye-rolling and leaving the room for a while. At the end of the evening, they may not review the film by saying, “Wow! That was awesome!” They may instead say something like, “Yeah, it was good…” or “Yeah, it was OK… some of the animation was cool…” – with their voices trailing off, not wishing to discuss the matter further; perhaps not secure enough to voice their own misgivings.

I look at it this way: If I’m going to journey out of my nice warm home and lay down the big bucks to see a movie, I want a lot more for my trouble than “Yeah, it was OK.”

In the case of Puss in Boots, the disappointment is even keener in light of all the quality names associated with the project, and in light of how good the excerpts looked in the ads. I was really hoping that this one was going to rise above the usual low level of achievement found in so many mass-marketed entertainments.

If, in spite of my sniping, you’re still planning to see Puss in Boots, I have one bit of advice: pay the extra couple bucks to see it in 3-D. It isn’t that it’s such an eye-popping experience; it’s just that so many moments in the film have been composed specifically for the 3-D effect that you may as well go all the way in – if you’re going in at all.

Postscript — It’s completely apparent that the producers of Puss in Boots would like to see it become a multi-sequeled cash cow for years to come. Unless I hear some extraordinary reports about these sequels (if they are produced), you will not read my reviews because I won’t be in attendance.

If you received my holiday crossword puzzle and you want to see the solution,
( JUST CLICK HERE! )

The above photo shows my Norelco electric shaver. I bought it at Target. It works very well, just as advertised. So far as I know, there are millions of others exactly like it. So what’s my point?

Well… Do you see that little tag next to the plug? Let’s zoom in on that:

Here we see that the main image is clearly Chicago’s own Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower), along with an advisory that scissors are not permitted inside the building. Hmmm…

While I admire Norelco’s bold anti-terrorism stance, I’m left with more questions than answers: Why has Norelco chosen to publicize this information on their shaver cords? Or is this the Willis Tower management’s idea? Or the Department of Homeland Security’s idea? And what about the folks who work there – what do they do when they want to cut paper? It’s a mystery.

(a tip of the cap to the late George Carlin for the title of this post)

The company I worked for when I first came to Chicago – where I worked for over 16 years – would occasionally bring in guest speakers and hold seminars for the staff. Sometimes, the topic was relatively serious and professional (e.g., Myers-Briggs Type Indicator testing). Other times, the topic was relatively frothy. On one of the latter occasions, we enjoyed a day-long seminar on Etiquette.

Yes, Etiquette. The woman who ran the show that day possessed an exhaustive knowledge of how one should conduct oneself in a wide variety of social settings. Given our identity as a company that dealt in high-end business with high-end people at high-end venues, the emphasis that day was on professional conduct at business-related functions, but we also touched upon general rules of conduct that might serve us well in any formal setting.

If you’ve dined with me any time recently, I’m sure you’ll agree that I’ve retained absolutely nothing I might have heard that day.

There was a particular moment I want to describe in more detail. At some transitional point in the day’s seminar, our guest speaker put out a question to the assembled group: “Who here likes small talk?” Well, my hand immediately shot up. Heck yeah, bring it on! Sounds like a party to me! I then looked around and realized that NO ONE else in the room had raised their hand. I had missed an important undertone in our speaker’s voice, which was that she’d meant her question rhetorically. She had, in retrospect, asked her question with a subtext of, “Ewww – small talk! EVERYBODY hates small talk!”

The people in the room who knew me well immediately cracked up because, well, because they knew I was being completely honest. The incident put our speaker in the tricky position of trying to explain to the group – and to me – that small talk was OF COURSE something to be avoided in any polite social context. I offered no argument then, but I’d like to offer one now.

Basically, I think the notion of some sort of universal disdain for small talk is the height of phoniness and hypocrisy, because from where I sit, just about everybody does it. In fact, I think the majority of human conversation fits comfortably within the definition of small talk. And that’s not a bad thing, not at all. It’s how we get to know each other. It’s how we let people know how we’re feeling that day, and it’s how we find out how others are feeling without prying.

I do feel, though, that a distinction needs to be made between Small Talk and Pointless, Wearying Talk. No one wants to be caught in the middle of the latter. It’s the stuff that nightmares and early party exits are made of.

So here’s to small talk. And if you need any additional proof of how much we universally value it, I have one suggestion: Log into Facebook and see what your friends are talking about today – and what you’re saying back to them. I come not to bury small talk but to praise it. I’ll stop now. Talk amongst yourselves.

Today, I want to share a story I recently wrote. If you want to assign a genre to it, call it Fantasy/Sci-Fi. This is far lengthier than my usual posts, so I hope you’re sitting comfortably.
( Click here for the story )

It’s no secret that the housing situation in Detroit is in an advanced state of ruin. Or to restate it slightly, the houses themselves in Detroit are in an advanced state of ruin. This is generally viewed as an enormous tragedy, an assessment I would agree with… for the most part. Today, it was a source of good news for me.

Longtime readers of this journal may recall this entry from 2006, in which I talked about the Detroit News paper route I had while in high school. The route was located in a somewhat isolated part of Detroit’s east side known as the Island. Today, I did some internet surfing on Google Maps and took a street level tour of the Island. I expected to find a lot of empty houses, a bunch of empty lots, and some houses that are still standing but are merely empty shells awaiting either a wrecking ball, a few more scavengers, or a stiff breeze to knock them over completely. And yes, that’s what I found.

There were some other interesting things to note, though. I thought that maybe the houses at the edge of the Island, on Norcross Avenue facing the Chandler Park Golf Course, might be in better shape, and I was gratified to see that this was indeed the case. There were hardly any empty lots on Norcross and almost every house was apparently occupied and reasonably well cared for.

Then I navigated over to the photos of Leidich Avenue in the dark heart of the Island. I had to keep clicking the screen until I reached the corner of Leidich and Hern. This was the location of the Crater house. If you click the link above, you can read all about my epic run-in with the Crater boys. They were (and I don’t use these words often or lightly) human scum.

So there on my computer screen, where once had stood the dark, ominously peaked Crater house, I now saw nothing but lush greenery. That house is gone, gone, gone. It made me smile.

I know – it’s been well over 30 years since I last dealt with that crew… and maybe they’re still lurking somewhere around Detroit, all now having grown from a mean youth to a meaner middle age… but there’s no sense denying that all that greenery was a sweet sight to behold. Whatever problems exist on the Island today, the absence of that nasty house has got to go on the Assets side of the ledger.

This is a dream I had a long time ago. I don’t remember exactly when; I may still have been a teenager, but I was probably in my twenties. It was brief and uneventful, yet it’s had a curious staying power.

I am in the living room of a house. The sense is that it is my home. The architectural style appears to be mid- to late twentieth century ranch. Visually, the scene is pretty simple. The room is still, quiet, neat, and clean. It looks as if it is little/never used. There is no TV or stereo to be seen; at least, not at the angle seen in my dream. An off-white couch rests upon an off-white carpet. The walls are painted yellow. I am facing the dark yellow nylon curtains that hang floor-to-ceiling, and which span across most of the front wall of the room. The curtains are closed, but a substantial amount of bright sunlight is coming through on the edges, making the room reasonably well illuminated.

There is no sound to speak of. I don’t mean that the ‘mute’ button is on; I mean that nothing there is making a sound, though perhaps there is a soft static pop coming from a rustling curtain, or maybe the sound of a far-off voice or vehicle is filtering through from the outside.

The preceding may sound like the set up to a forthcoming description of what happens in the dream, but no; that’s pretty much the whole dream, except for one other thing – the mood. I have the distinct impression that this is a typical day in the life of the person viewing the dream – who is presumably me. It’s a little reminiscent of the room the aliens have prepared for the aged earthling near the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, except that I don’t believe I’d yet seen that film when I had the dream.

Upon awakening, I was immediately depressed at having lived, even for a moment, even in a mere dream, in such a dead, solitary environment. My immediate resolution: I will not, I cannot see this dream become a reality. Like it or not, this scene has become a piece of yellow litmus paper against which my life is periodically tested.

At present, my walls are not yellow – or at least, they’re not painted yellow. My curtains do not run from floor to ceiling. My living room, God knows, is nowhere near neat & clean. My building is not quiet. And I’m not alone. Mind you, I treasure my alone time, but I also treasure my circle of friends, of whom I ask only one thing: Should you ever come by and find me sitting in the room from my dream, please drag me out into the street, dead or alive, and put me in touch with the living, breathing, dynamic earth.

I was very happy with this photo so I wanted to share. It’s Smoke, perched atop the scratching post for no apparent reason, other than making himself available for our admiration/adoration.

I spent the weekend in the Detroit area (specifically, my dad’s house in Roseville, Michigan). I was joined on Saturday by all seven of my siblings and many other members of my extended family. The occasion was my dad’s 80th birthday, made all the more special by the fact that he’s never turned 80 before. I have a bunch of photos to share, so if you’re interested in seeing more…
( click here to see the rest of the photos! )

For your edification, I offer this item from today’s news wire:

“September 5, 2011 (CHICAGO) (WLS) – In an unusual arrest, Indiana State Police say they picked up a shirtless man marching along the highway with a samurai sword. Troopers found the man just south of U.S. 30 on Interstate 65 in Merrillville, Ind., Sunday. The man was spotted near the area where a car was abandoned in the middle lane.

In a statement, police say the man was marching like a “drum major,” moving the sword up and down in rhythm with his marching cadence. When a trooper approached, the man reportedly swung the sword, then dropped it. Police say he also tried to get into an SUV that had stopped to avoid hitting the man and officers. Police say that after the man was taken into custody he gave troopers different names or addresses.

The man was taken to the Lake County jail on resisting arrest and other charges. He reportedly told police he was, “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” but would not give his identity.”

* * *
My theory — sounds to me like police have apprehended a potential cereal killer.

Last Saturday, I made my annual pilgrimage to the Bristol Renaissance Faire just across the Wisconsin border near Kenosha. It felt odd to be up there without my friend CL, who has always accompanied me (and has driven) in the past. This time around, I was behind the wheel of Emma, my Dodge Avenger that I’ve now owned for about a year. To complete the uniqueness of the occasion, I was accompanied by CC, who was visiting Bristol for the first time.

We chose a perfect day for the trip. Most of Bristol is covered with trees, so the sun is no impediment to spending hours outdoors for those of us who do not crave a dark tan. The high temperature never got much above 80°F, so heat wasn’t an issue either.

After attending plenty of such faires over the years, and having worked as the Assistant Entertainment Director for the Michigan Renaissance Festival, I’ve learned a thing or two about pacing myself for a long day at such an event. Anyone who walks into a Ren Faire and rushes about trying to cram fireworks into every moment is going to cheat themselves out of a lot of what makes these faires wonderful. First of all, they’re probably going to burn out after a few hours. Secondly, they may come to the conclusion that they just don’t care for such events, when the truth is they haven’t really experienced it. Most importantly, they will miss a vital factor about a place like Bristol – it isn’t merely a collection of acts and shops; it’s an environment. You need to spend a goodly part of your day walking slowly, smelling the air, listening to the foolishness, watching the people, letting the faire into your soul. For all the noise and occasional bombast of the place, it’s an essentially gentle environment that will not get into your face and demand acceptance. If you can let your feet sink into the dust of the place, though, you will be rewarded.

In past years, I’ve posted quite a few photos from Bristol, so I’m going to be restrained this time around. I have only four to post today, and they share a common theme – they all feature non-humans.

This is a lemur. Though they are native to the island of Madagascar, this one has somehow been carried across the waters to Bristol. He was being led around on a leash by a young woman who stopped long enough for this quick shot, though the lemur himself never stopped moving for more than a moment.


That’s CC on the back of a camel. She reports that this was her first time aboard one of these “ships of the desert.” She also reports that the camel, whose name was Eli, was amazingly hot and that sitting on him was akin to sitting on a running engine. But this was still a major thrill for her. And for Eli, I can only assume.


Several times a day, there is a wonderful exhibition of hawks and falcons. A team of highly trained bird handlers demonstrate the predatory techniques of these magnificent raptors. They fly above the audience’s heads and swoop down on their prey with delightful speed and agility. Afterward, the audience is allowed to see them up close. This is a Harris’s Hawk, native to a long swath of the Western Hemisphere from the southwestern U.S. down to South America. He is wearing a hood here, which deprives him of sight and causes him to become docile. One look at his beak and talons should convince you of the value of putting such a creature into a docile state.


Finally, this is one of the beautiful show horses that performed for us. I took this photo just to display the flashy eye makeup she wore that day. I’m sure it makes her feel very pretty (though just between you and me, she’s kind of a horse-face).

Next week, we’ll be hitting the two year anniversary of the death of my friend Jim W. He was a good and special friend. We had a lot of good times, a lot of good talk, and a LOT of good travel. Travel was his specialty, you see. Well… and hockey.

Eight years ago this summer, I lost another special friend who died young, Kathy P. She and Jim never met, but they shared something quite specific in common. They were not merely acquaintances of mine; they were on the short list of people who have been very close and important to me.

This is not a sad post. It isn’t about mourning over the passing of my two friends. Fact is, most of the mourning is long, long past. What’s left is something more subtle – loss. I didn’t know about loss until it happened to me.

The thing is, once someone dies, they’re gone. I’m not speaking in terms of the existence or non-existence of a soul, or whether the departed might still hear us, because regardless of one’s religious beliefs, dead is still gone. Life is for the living, and all that.

So in place of our friend, a loss, a negative space, has been put into our lives. I’ve learned this: that hole in our hearts will be filled by something. It’s the way we the living operate. For that reason, losing a friend can put us on the path to becoming a different person just as making a new friend can change us.

In the eight years since Kathy P. died, I think I can identify ways in which my path has shifted without her presence. In Jim’s case, I have my suspicions, but it’s still early. I won’t get into the specifics of how I might have changed – that might be too much navel-gazing for even my most indulgent readers. One important point here is that I don’t think this makes me a weak person. What I mean is that I don’t think being influenced by one’s friends is a sign of weakness. Rather, that’s the way it’s supposed to work for us. We humans are a social species. We evolved not merely as individuals, but as societies. It is right and proper for us to be connected to our friends, and for our friends to be connected to us.

So it’s true that there are times when I’ll think of Kathy or Jim and I’ll think, “I wish they could see me now.” Yet it’s also true that if they were still here, I wouldn’t be precisely who I am now. If there’s any moral to this story, I suppose it would be this: Treasure every moment with your loved ones, because every one of those moments is your unique possession. No do-overs and no reruns. And to me, that’s a happy thought. It makes every day a vital part of life’s journey.

OK, I’m fully aware that this is an absurd title for a post, being as we’re talking about A) a matter of highly subjective taste, and B) the obvious fact that I haven’t heard most of the songs ever written. So now that I’ve acknowledged those factors, I will proceed…

What I’m really talking about here is the worst popular song I’ve ever run across. There are some truly dreadful songs that may be in millions of music libraries but which are exempt from consideration. For example, Elton John’s “Solar Prestige a Gammon” is as bad a collection of stray lyrics as you’re likely to find, but it was never a hit single; the only reason there are so many copies of it is that it was on the “Caribou” album, which also contained such hits as “The Bitch is Back” and “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.”

Here’s my nominee: the song “Never Been to Spain” by Three Dog Night. I don’t suppose there’s anything so very wrong with the melody; it’s bland but inoffensive. No, it’s in the lyric department where this song earns its stripes:

Well I never been to Spain
But I kinda like the music
Say the ladies are insane there
And they sure know how to use it
The don’t abuse it
Never gonna lose it
I can’t refuse it

Well I never been to England
But I kinda like the Beatles
Well, I headed for Las Vegas
Only made it out to Needles
Can you feel it
It must be real it
Feels so good
Oh, feels so good

Well I never been to heaven
But I been to Oklahoma
Well they tell me I was born there
But I really don’t remember
In Oklahoma, not Arizona
What does it matter
What does it matter…

Wow… That is, to use a term favored by a dear friend of mine, shit mush. Grasping, desperate rhyming and no reason for being, other than producing a nice little hit for Three Dog Night.

But let’s give credit where credit is due. The song was actually written by folk singer/songwriter/actor Hoyt Axton. Hoyt’s biggest hit as a songwriter was another Three Dog Night monster, “Joy to the World,” a song which, while we’re on the subject, also doesn’t make a huge amount of sense “Jeremiah was a bullfrog…” …yeah, whatever.

Not all of Axton’s songs were so lyrically crappy. Early on, he wrote “Greenback Dollar” which was a hit for the Kingston Trio, and it was a solid, completely understandable folk song, so I’m not sure where Hoyt took this left turn into crappy lyricism, though it is worth noting that he had a long history of cocaine (and other drug) abuse.

Finally, for all of his success in the music business, there is a large segment of the population who will always think of something else when they hear the name Hoyt Axton – he played the role of the dad in the film Gremlins.

If you have any nominees of your own for the title of Worst Popular Song Ever, I’d love to hear them.

Just wanted to show you the latest on the household non-human mammalian population (I’m assuming that no mice, raccoons, or possums are hiding around here): These are the three cats enjoying the morning treat for which they plead so desperately. From left to right, we’re looking at Cy, Puck, & Smoke.

This picture is for anyone who enjoys the work of Gustav Klimt, but it’s particularly for CC, who has a Klimt reproduction prominently displayed in the hallway outside her bedroom.

Here’s the story on this particular work of art: You may recall that I spent a few days in Los Angeles in June. One of the places we visited was the Getty Museum. Unlike many museums, they permit (non-flash) photography of any artworks owned by the Getty (items on loan from elsewhere may not be photographed).

In one dimly lit gallery, I spotted and photographed this sketch by Klimt. A few technical notes – this is a slightly cropped version of the complete image, and I’ve had to do considerable massaging of the image to bring out details and increase the contrast due to the difficult lighting in the gallery.

The sketch’s title is Portrait of a Young Woman Reclining. It is thought to have been produced in 1897 or 1898. It is also thought that it was most likely modeled by the woman who was Klimt’s lover at that time.

This is apparently a relatively little-known work of Klimt’s, which I thought was all the more reason to pass it along. And, of course, it’s an interesting and lovely sketch.

Some people become parents early on, either through careful planning or a lack of careful planning. Some wait a few years. Some wait a bunch of years. Some remain childless for a long time through sheer dumb luck. And for some, it never happens at all. The reasons vary. Some have physical issues that preclude the possibility, and they choose not to adopt. Some don’t feel they’re in the right financial situation to raise children. Some don’t want to be single parents but never find the right partner. Still others decide that being a parent is simply not their calling, and they follow through on this conviction by making sure it never happens.

I’m just scratching the surface here. There are probably a bunch of other reasons for not becoming a parent that I haven’t mentioned. But whatever the reason, there is one result of this circumstance that is pretty much unavoidable: The comments, questions, and suggestions from family and friends.

If my friends’ experiences are typical, it’s a lot worse for women than it is for men. They seem to hear comments and questions far more than men do. It’s as if there’s a tacit assumption by some people that becoming a mother is a “normal” woman’s duty, while avoiding fatherhood is a “normal” man’s birthright.

It’s even worse if they’re childless while married or in a long-term committed relationship. Then the questions begin turning into accusations, either regarding the dereliction of one’s supposed duty or vague allegations as to one’s physical or spiritual health.

I was luckier than many in this regard. The only comment I can recall is one back in the mid-1990s from my late mother. She didn’t phrase it as a question, or even as an accusation, exactly. She simply sighed one day and said, as if to herself, “I don’t suppose you’re ever going to have children, are you?” We didn’t have a big discussion about it; she just wanted to air that one quiet disappointment.

I suppose if I were an only child being depended upon to propagate the family name, there might be a bit more pressure on me, but as it is, I’m one of eight siblings, three of whom have had multiple children. Frankly, I think my mom just thought I’d make a good father and she’d have loved to have a few more grandchildren to dote upon.

* * *

It’s also possible that I don’t entirely understand this business of making babies, in light of some comments from my friend E. She is the mother of three beautiful daughters, and she has passed along this discovery to me: According to E, babies are NOT made the way we’ve always been told; they are actually made through a combination of rainy nights and Long Island iced teas, and the man has almost nothing to do with the process. Fascinating research.

A few years ago, I wrote about my lifelong affection for the work of Rod Serling. It has recently been my pleasure to discover a book of his with which I was unfamiliar. It now becomes incumbent upon me to spread the word.

It’s called The Season to be Wary. Originally published in hardcover in 1967, it came out as a Bantam paperback a year later. I recently picked up an old copy for about $10 on Amazon.com, and it was $10 well spent (note: the original cover price was 75¢. Eep!).

Serling published several volumes of short stories, most of which he’d adapted from his own Twilight Zone teleplays. The Season to be Wary differs in several respects. First of all, rather than short stories, the book consists of 3 novellas. Second, all were initially written as novellas rather than being adapted from teleplays, though 2 of the 3 were later adapted for television. And that is the hook that pulled me into buying the yellowed copy that now reposes next to this keyboard.

Serling is best remembered for the TV series The Twilight Zone (aka TZ), which ran from 1959 to 1964 on CBS. But many of us also have fond memories of his series Night Gallery (aka NG), which ran from 1970 to 1973 on NBC. It’s true that NG was no TZ, but it still had its charms, and it was must-see TV at our house in its day. Before NG premiered as a series, there was a pilot that aired in the fall of 1969. And that is where we pick up our connection to The Season to be Wary.

The NG pilot included dramatizations of 2 of the 3 novellas from The Season to be Wary. One was Escape Route, which tells the story of a former Nazi death camp boss, living a desperate existence in South America, who finds a possible escape from his miseries by being transported into a painting in an art museum. The other was Eyes, the story of a rich old woman, blind from birth, who blackmails a doctor into stealing the eyes from another person and transplanting them into her. Eyes is also noteworthy because it represents one of the last screen appearances by Joan Crawford, as well as one of the first directing credits for a young man named Steven Spielberg!

[Sidebar: During filming of the pilot, Shirley Eder of the Detroit Free Press interviewed Joan Crawford on the set. Crawford pointed Eder toward Spielberg and said, “Go interview that kid, because he’s going to be the biggest director of all time!”]

The other novella in The Season to be Wary – the one not dramatized for television – is titled Color Scheme. Serling offers an intriguing paragraph of introduction:

“Color Scheme was Sammy Davis Jr.’s original idea. He told it to me one night over a beer. It stayed with me for five years… haunting, intrusive and preoccupying. Television wouldn’t touch it. I hope I’ve done it justice – giving birth to Sammy’s baby on the following printed pages.”

Color Scheme tells the story of a man who makes his living by giving rabble-rousing racist speeches to white southern audiences in the 1960s. One night, after inciting a crowd to an act of mob violence against a local black family, the rabble-rouser receives a supernatural comeuppance. Today – yes, you could put it on TV, but Serling was entirely correct about its commercial prospects in the 1960s.

Also, the mental image of Rod Serling and Sammy Davis Jr. having a beer together strikes me as the set-up to a surrealistic one-act play.

I want to talk about the overall style of The Season to be Wary, because this is to me the most interesting part of the story. It is largely forgotten nowadays that Rod Serling was a famous, celebrated TV dramatist BEFORE TZ went on the air. He was, for example, the author of the TV drama (and theatrical film) Requiem for a Heavyweight, which made Jack Palance a star. Serling’s work during that period was essentially devoid of supernatural or sci-fi elements. The entire reason Serling went to that style of writing was that he felt so constrained by network people rejecting or rewriting his scripts and insisting on watering down any political or philosophical concepts. Serling found, however, that if he put his ideas into a fantastical setting, he was given much more freedom to say the things he wanted to say.

I bring this up because one of the striking features of the stories in The Season to be Wary is how little Serling concerns himself with their fantastical elements. It’s true that 2 of the 3 stories depend upon supernatural moments for their resolutions. Eyes has no overt supernatural component at all, though it does utilize a type of transplant surgery that didn’t exist at the time Serling wrote it, and it depends upon one remarkable coincidence of timing that could be seen as providential, but it is otherwise grounded in a plausible, recognizable world.

The common thematic thread across all three stories has to do with evil people getting their just desserts. The common stylistic thread is that all three stories, more than anything else, are character studies. For long stretches of prose, nothing of great import actually happens, but we are taken on a journey through the minds of various characters, both good guys and bad guys, as they consider their past and present fortunes. In the hands of a lesser writer, one might become restless reading such explorations, but Serling is so good at it that we happily get on board and travel the course he has set for us.

In this way, The Season to be Wary seems a hybrid sort of work. Freed from the stylistic demands of TZ, Serling has gone back to his most basic impulses – the drawing of characters and the meditation of humanity and morality – but he has not forgotten the lessons of his early television writing, so he has included supernatural effects as well.

But in another sense, Serling hasn’t changed at all here. This book reminds us that the key element that always made TZ so compelling was that it wasn’t just another exercise in the macabre, and we sensed that even as children. It had a recognizable moral center to it that wasn’t consistently present in, say, The Outer Limits or One Step Beyond. Another element that aided TZ’s consistency was that the majority of its scripts were actually written by Serling, who enjoyed a level of freedom in that show’s production rarely enjoyed by a series writer. As a result, the experience of reading The Season to be Wary is one of reacquaintance with a familiar voice; re-engagement with a familiar mind; a new set of tales from an old storyteller.

Rod Serling did not write a huge number of short stories, but I have long considered him as a master of the form. He died in 1975 at the mere age of 50, from a heart attack suffered during open heart surgery. The loss to American culture was a substantial one – we were robbed of the decades that might have given birth to new stories and screenplays, no doubt reflecting the ongoing injustices on our evolving landscape, and reflecting the ongoing artistic evolution of one of our most distinctive voices.

Like many of you, I have read all seven of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. If the name Nicholas Flamel seems familiar to you, it’s because he plays a small but vital role in the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to you Brits). Flamel is the owner of the stone, which confers immortality to him. But here’s something I recently learned that I found fascinating: there really was (is?) a historical figure named Nicholas Flamel, and according to legend, he achieved immortality and is still out there somewhere! Here are the basics:

Flamel was born sometime in the 1330s in France and became a scribe and manuscript dealer. In 1378, so the legend goes, he acquired a 21-page booklet from a relic seller. Over the next several years, Flamel and his wife translated the book’s arcane language and found themselves in possession of the ancient secrets of alchemy. They began creating gold and soon became wealthy philanthropists, noted for their generosity to the poor. But that was hardly the most remarkable recipe divined by Flamel from the pages of that ancient booklet, for he ultimately learned how to craft a Philosopher’s Stone, causing both he and his wife to become immortal.

In 1418, when he was in his 80s, Flamel presciently ordered his own casket and died soon thereafter. But a year later, a local priest, suspecting Flamel of faking his own death, hired a known grave robber to unearth Flamel’s body. The tomb was indeed empty. Flamel is rumored to still be living a quiet, unobtrusive life as a philanthropist. His house in Paris is still standing, and it is thought to be one of the oldest houses still standing in that city.

Whew!

And there are those who believe that while someone named Nicholas Flamel may indeed have inhabited 14th century Paris, the whole story about his alchemical exploits was created from whole cloth by the editors of texts on alchemy in the 17th century.

I don’t know; I wasn’t there.

But I thought it was pretty cool of Rowling to work Flamel into her work of undisputed fiction.

[NOTE: The following post originally appeared in this blog on May 31, 2006. At the time, I’d been writing here for less than a year. Since then, I’ve been happy to attract quite a few new readers, and I wanted to share this, since it is one of my personal favorites. I hope you enjoy this blast from my own past.]

It was a long ride home tonight. There was a problem with the switching at the Clark Junction that resulted in trains being very slow for most of the evening. I actually got off pretty easy – I only had an extra half hour added to my commute; a friend who came home a few hours earlier had a full hour added on. The long ride did, however, afford me the opportunity to scrutinize my environment more closely than usual. I ultimately looked at the wall next to me to find the following bit of graffiti, which I carefully copied onto the front page of today’s Sun-Times. I am reproducing it here exactly as I saw it, including spelling, punctuation, and line breaks:

Marcell a lame ass
mufucker, and he
in luv wit
Laylonni.

It was good to have my question answered at last. The question was this: Where is the next generation of poets going to come from? Let’s scan this, shall we?

The form is apparently an adaptation of haiku. While it does not strictly follow the textbook definition of haiku, there is an unmistakable sense of liberation from those stodgy constraints, which leads me to speculate that it came from the pen of a younger author who is rebelling against the status quo and the poetic intelligentsia.

I suppose the word that jumps out upon first reading is the wonderfully quirky “mufucker.” It must first be allowed that this was, I think, a bit of a cheat on the poet’s part, done for the sake of preserving the symmetry of the poem’s structure (discussed below). The poet makes it work, though, because it is also brilliantly economical; we understand exactly what is being expressed without the clutter of redundant letters and words. In a verse of this brevity, economy is the coin of the realm, a fact obviously not lost on our poet.

The use of punctuation is restrained and purposeful. Note the single comma which neatly bisects the poem into two 8-syllable halves. The comma also signals a dramatic shift in tone. Note the apparently dismissive nature of the first half, and how it contrasts with the accepting, even embracing, of Marcell’s humanity in the second half. This shift is also signaled by the pun contained in the word “wit” which the poet partially masks by pairing it with the phonetically spelled “luv.” The reader naturally reads it initially as an informal sense of “with” but we are unavoidably forced to consider the literal nature of the word. Whose wit is being celebrated? Marcell’s? Laylonni’s? Our unnamed poet? He/she is coyly cryptic on that point, which leads me to suspect that the word is meant to apply more broadly to the maturing love that exists between Marcell and Laylonni. In any case, the poet clearly views this love as a transformative catalyst in Marcell’s life.

As a personal exercise, I have tried to imagine how this story might be told in more direct, less poetic terms. If our anonymous poet will forgive me, the following is my own humble attempt to translate his eloquence:
“My friend Marcell has been subject to the failings and trials that we all must endure. He wandered through this world rudderless, and as his friend, I cried bitter tears of concern and yes, despair, over how he would find his way through it all. Into his life came Laylonni, unexpected and unlooked for. In her warm gaze did I see my friend grow as a sapling becomes a tree. Over time, he has learned to view himself as she sees him, through the lens of her wisdom, and it gives them both great joy. I celebrate my friend’s life!”

I must hasten to add that I have no formal training or education in the analysis of poetry as sophisticated as this, and I would welcome any additional insights. Thank you!

I stood this morning half-awake on an L platform, a platform I’ve stood upon hundreds of times. The usual sights on the street below presented themselves: a drugstore, a diner, a tanning salon…

But unlike all those other times, it was the tanning salon that seized my thoughts this morning. I quickly flipped through mental scenes of various streets I frequent and found that I could name several tanning salon locations off the top of my head. A casual Google search made it immediately clear that there are dozens – dozens, I say – of such establishments in and around Chicago.

Well so what, you may well ask. What does this have to do with the price of congressmen? Well, perhaps nothing, but this was the thought that bowled me over this morning: WHY?

It’s no secret that bricks-and-mortar businesses are tough to keep going these days, so if there are dozens of these places around town, then there must be hundreds – no wait – thousands of people frequenting them. How can this be? Hasn’t this practice been reviled into obscurity, consigned to the Pop Culture trash bin alongside Pauly Shore and William Hung?

I guess not.

Still, I’ve seen a bit of evidence that some tanning salon devotees are at least a little embarrassed about it. I recently met up with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. She sported a tan several shades darker than when I’d last seen her. I commented that she must have been spending time in the sun. She smiled and said, “Yeah!” Then after a pause, she quietly said, “Well actually, I have L.A. Tan to thank for this.” I’m encouraged by the fact that she saw a least some reason to feel a bit sheepish about it.

I still don’t know the name of the place. There was none stated on the menu. The only words I recall seeing on the building read “Home Cooking” or some such. Oh, it probably has a big sign out front that I simply missed, but it doesn’t matter. If you really want to go there, it’s 2 doors west of the Chopin Theatre on West Division – you can see the precise address at the top of the menu pictured here. Incidentally, that isn’t the whole menu; it’s just a part of it hastily snapped with my iPhone.

Now, as for the phrase I just used – “If you really want to go there” – let’s talk about that. It’s not every day you can go to a real Polish restaurant and get real Polish food served by real Polish people. The lady at the table next to me even placed her order in Polish and chatted with the waitress in Polish – there’s some ethnic color for you!

So let’s talk about the food. If you know me, you might guess that I’d ordered the fried fish, and you’d be right. I ordered the full dinner. The soup was described as tomato rice. Well… it had rice in it, I’ll give them that. It also contained various vegetables, most notably several great slabs of potato. All of this floated in a yellowish liquid that seemed to contain equal parts chicken broth and dishwater. If I hadn’t been pressed to make a 7:30 curtain at the Chopin, I might have sent it back. Instead, I mostly eschewed the soup, reasoning that it was just as well I should leave room for the main course.

Next came the salad. It mostly consisted of iceberg lettuce. Do I need to keep going? Oh all right. It also contained slices of tomato and cucumber. And that completes the ingredient list. The salad was coated with a mysterious white, milky substance. I suppose they might have called it ranch dressing. The real mystery was that the white substance possessed no discernible flavor. I picked away at the tomato and cucumber and once again reasoned that I was saving room for my precious fried fish.

At last, the fish arrived, three sizable pieces. As the waitress went to set the plate in front of me, I pushed the soup and salad far away. “You don’t like my soup?” she queried accusingly through her accent. I smiled and passed off my aforementioned excuse of saving room for the main course. I don’t think she believed me (Note to Self: Work on lying skills). But you know what? The fried fish was pretty darned good. Even given my restrained intake of soup and salad, I barely had enough room left to get all the fish down.

So if you’re going to see a show at the Chopin and you want to have dinner before the show, you have a few options. There are a lot – and I mean a lot – of Mexican restaurants within a few blocks of there. But if you’re looking for something a little, uh, different, you now know about the No-Name Polish restaurant.

[THE PRECEDING POST IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. NO RECOMMENDATION OF THIS RESTAURANT IS EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED.]

An alphabet soup (just a cup, not a bowl) of social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, MySpace, Google+.

I speak as a daily user of Facebook and Twitter, and as a former user of MySpace, which I do not miss. I don’t think Foursquare matches up with my social habits. As for Google+… we’ll see. I’m not encouraged by what I’ve read about it, but who knows?

Here and there, one sees articles about some sort of social networking backlash – people who have unplugged and gone back to such quaint modes of communication as telephones, written letters, and even (I suppose) face-to-face meetings. It’s all very retro and experimental – and it remains to be seen just how many people constitute this supposed backlash.

For my purposes, Facebook has been pretty darn cool. It has brought various social features into my life that I appreciate quite a lot. It has enabled me to reconnect with various groups of people from different eras of my life, from grade school and high school classmates, to many of my Detroit actor friends, to people I’ve known more recently here in Chicago who I might otherwise have trouble keeping up with. Also, as someone who A) usually has something to say, and B) delights in sharing trivia/jokes/curiosities with anyone who will listen, Facebook has given me an endless supply of metaphoric bottles into which I may stuff my notes before tossing them into the ocean of the Internet. Only these bottles are not found by lone strangers; they are propagated across every port of call in my sea of friends.

There are certainly different ways of using social media sites. One may be an active contributor or one may be more of a reactor, posting comments to other people but rarely posting anything of one’s own. One may even be a lurker, reading friends’ posts regularly but moving on without comment, leaving no footprints. Those are all fine and acceptable options.

But to be fair, it is obvious that these social media websites don’t work for everybody. They just don’t. You’d be a fool to tell someone that they actually like something they don’t like. Those non-adopters are the people I’m reaching out to today. I want to tell you all about the website I want to launch; the website that takes us away from the bustle & nonsense of Social Media and into the rewarding realm of Antisocial Media.

* * *
For our model, we’re using the most successful Social Media site, Facebook, only we’re converting it to the higher plane of Antisocial Media. Many of Facebook’s features will have direct counterparts on our site:

— The “Like” button will become the “No One Cares What You Think” button.
— There is no Friends list, but there is an Unfriends list. That is, all content is open for all to read, except for your list of people who are specifically excluded.
— When you view your list of Unfriends, each name will be followed by the word “Sucks”.
— You are free to leave comments on other people’s posts, except no one but you will see them; comments will only be visible to the person who posts them.
— Our version of FarmVille will reward bonus points for infecting your neighbor’s livestock with Mad Cow Disease and his produce with e coli bacteria. Games will normally end in famine and near-Armageddon conditions, so the hoarding of crops and supplies will generally be an optimal strategy.
— Similar to the Unfriends list, event invitations will be limited to alerting the people who are not invited.
— This site is still in the preliminary planning stages, so additional suggestions are welcome (until the site launches, at which point, true to our mission, you will all be told to bleep yourselves and will receive no credit for your ideas – oh wait… now we’re sounding exactly like Facebook…)

I just want to show you all that Puck and Smoke are getting along just fine!

For over a century, this sprawling, turreted structure has sat on a hillside overlooking a valley. It began life as the family home of people who thought they would hit it big in the orchard and ranching business. An extended drought prevented that dream from ever bearing fruit, though the family continued to reside in the great house until the 1940s. The next few years saw the property go through a sad decline, from being used as a home for the elderly to being divided up into a morass of small apartments. The house’s prospects of lasting much longer seemed bleak.

Things took a turn for the better in 1961, when a man named Larson bought the place with the aim of turning it into a private club for magicians. Two years later, after extensive renovations, the Magic Castle opened its doors, and it has thrived ever since.

The Magic Castle is indeed on a hillside overlooking a valley; specifically, in Hollywood, California. I cannot display any photographs of the building’s interior, since photography there is forbidden – not even the Magic Castle’s website has interior photos, but I can tell you that most of it is furnished in a dark, lush, late Victorian style. If this sounds like your cup of Earl Grey (I assure you it is mine!), then you should find a way in if you’re ever in the neighborhood.

I’ve used that phrase – “find a way in” – quite purposefully. While the Magic Castle offers an extensive roster of magic shows, accompanied by sumptuous dinners and brunches, one may only purchase tickets if one is either a member or is invited to do so by a member. Luckily for me, my friend Amy knows such people, so on an overcast Saturday in June, we found ourselves at the front door of the mansion.

The Magic Castle has a strict dress code for visitors. For evening shows, men must wear a proper jacket and tie. Sneakers and sandals are not allowed. Women must “…be in a dress, cocktail dress, elegant skirt & blouse combination, pant suit with a matching jacket … or evening pant suit ensemble…” We were there for brunch, which meant the dress code was slightly more relaxed, but only slightly.

The brunch buffet was truly the best I’ve ever encountered. I won’t go into great detail, except to say that if a brunch buffet could ever be called fine dining, this would be the time.

After eating, we pretty much had the run of the place. There are several performing spaces of various sizes within the Castle, from small rooms for private parties to a couple of decent sized theaters with legitimate stages and permanent seats. Shows are scheduled intermittently throughout the day. As luck would have it, the first theater show we attempted to enter was already full. There were about a dozen of us who couldn’t get in. An enterprising manager of some sort did not want us to be disappointed, so she asked us to wait while she went in search of any idle magicians. Within a few minutes, she’d found one and we were all ushered to one of the small private rooms. It was heavily curtained and had a green felt table at the front. We all pulled chairs up near the table. The magician entered and did card tricks for us for about 20 minutes. He was very good, and was completely unafraid of having an audience close enough to practically grab cards out of his hand (which we did not do, of course).

Over the next few hours, we saw shows in both of the larger theaters that featured the work of various seasoned professional magicians. When we weren’t doing that, there was plenty of magic memorabilia hanging on the walls for us to look at, particularly old magician posters.

Our final stop at the Magic Castle was a piano lounge adjoining the bar area. The piano is played by the Castle’s resident ghost, Irma. She is completely invisible, as is her ghost pet bird, who resides in a seemingly empty cage next to the piano. Irma never speaks; she does all of her communicating through the piano. Her knowledge of music both old and new is impressive. Even in death, Irma has kept up on popular music. One small boy requested that she play “Spiderman.” Within a few seconds, she broke into a rousing rendition of the old cartoon series theme song. At one point, I thought I should see how far back her musical knowledge went so I requested “Greensleeves.” Sure enough, she began playing a delicate arrangement of it almost instantly.

If Irma doesn’t know a requested song, or if she wishes to respond negatively to a comment or question, she will usually bang on the low keys of the piano. When complimented, she will usually play a quick trill on the high keys. And if you express your approval for Irma’s work by slipping a little cash through the bars of her pet bird’s cage, she will play a quick eight bars of “We’re In the Money.” Cheesy but charming.

I’ve been fascinated by magic all my life, so visiting the Magic Castle was an enormous treat for me. It’s a classy joint run by professionals who put on a great show in an incredible, atmospheric setting. Like I said earlier – find a way in!

Postscript— In the present era, so much of our entertainment and communication is delivered through video screens. The content may come from television, the internet, or a disc or game cartridge, but it is in a form that allows us to interact from within the familiar environment of our homes. Part of the attraction of a place like the Magic Castle is that it is NOT a virtual entertainment; it is actually occurring in our physical space. And that physical space is an environment completely apart from our living rooms. Real people are doing real things in a real space, and these elements are all integrated with one another. I think that sort of experience has a value. It also has a preciousness, made so by the fact that so many people no longer value such experiences. Oh, I still carry my smart phone everywhere I go, and I still spend much of my waking hours staring at a monitor of one sort or other. But if those should ever become my sole interfaces with the world, then put me in a box, take me to the Magic Castle, and ask them to saw me in half.

I took this photo last weekend. The palm trees are the clue that I wasn’t merely across town at the zoo. If you’ve guessed that I was in southern California, then you’re almost as cool as I am! For four days and three nights, I stayed with my wonderful friends Amy & Casey at their digs in fashionable Santa Ana, only three traffic jams away from downtown L.A. I’m not going to discuss the entire trip in one post. Today, I’m just going to talk about the wonderful wild animal park near San Diego that we visited.

There are several options for how a patron may view the park. There’s a lot to be seen simply walking around, except that one’s exposure to certain animals will be necessarily limited. Another option is to take a balloon ride high above the park. There are also a couple of motorized options. We chose the most expensive of these options – $130 per person to spend two hours riding around the 900 acres on which roam a wide variety of African and Asian animals. Yes, that’s pretty steep where I come from – but friends & neighbors let me tell you – it’s totally worth it! There’s only a handful of places in the world where you can do something like this, and the San Diego Wild Animal Park is one of them.

Amy and I, along with about ten other people plus a knowledgeable guide, boarded what was essentially the back of a pickup truck. It had a canopy above and wooden sides going up about three feet, but we were very much in the open air. This enabled us to meet creatures like the one shown above on a very personal basis. We were even able to feed some of them. In the photo below, Amy has just had a large leaf taken from her hand by the 14 inch tongue of that giraffe.

Our close encounters while on the truck were not limited to giraffes. The white rhino shown below was directly ahead of us at one point. Our driver tactfully deferred to his 5,000 pound frame and waited for him to pass.

A little further down the road, we came across Bhopu. Bhopu is the name of the park’s largest black rhino. The only animals there bigger than Bhopu are the elephants. Now if you were riding in the wilds of Africa, you would never – repeat, NEVER – approach a wild rhino in such a manner. But Bhopu understands that these trucks represent treats. Below you can see your delighted author feeding apple slices directly into Bhopu’s mouth. I even felt his horn, touched his face, and got a little slimed by him. It was my great pleasure to do so.

The two hour truck ride also introduced us to various other animals from the other side of the globe, including types of oxen, sheep, and the like, but some of them were actually too dangerous for us to approach too closely, though we rolled near them and got a good look at them. On our walking tour of the park, we saw some other fascinating and beautiful animals, a few of which are shown below.

This is a golden eagle, perched on the protected arm of its trainer. We could get to within a few feet of this magnificent bird, but we were warned to get no closer, nor to provoke her in any way.

This is an okapi, whom we came across in a quiet corner of the park as it serenely contemplated its place in the circle of life. It does look as if it were pieced together from parts of several different animals.

In summary, this was cooler than any zoo I’ve ever visited or imagined. If you’re ever heading down San Diego way, save up your money and take in the Wild Animal Park. You won’t regret it.

For most of human history, Bruno has been sitting in the bar down the street, going on night after night about all kinds of stupid stuff (I’m using the name “Bruno” simply because I’ve never known anyone named Bruno, though we could just as well call him “Chuck”).

Bruno isn’t really a bad guy, I guess, as long as you’re on his good side. You don’t really seek out his company, but he lives in the neighborhood, so a certain amount of contact is unavoidable. And you know that sooner or later, probably after a few beers, he’s going to start going on about something. Maybe he’ll take on one of those big public targets like the President or Bill Gates, or maybe he’ll go on about something real specific that’s bugging him, like who makes the best pizza or whether to leave the toilet seat up.

In any case, you know you’re going to hear a lot of shallow garbage. In fact, it’s worse than that – before long, racist smears will begin to drip from his tongue like drool from a rabid Rottweiler. Along with it, you’ll get homophobic rants, misogynistic tirades, and extreme judgments rooted in an incredible ignorance of the subject in question.

Everyone who knows Bruno knows that you can’t argue with him. If you do, you’ll find yourself quickly labeled as a “[Whatever] lover” – the “Whatever” being the person, group, or concept that Bruno is railing against. Oh, he’ll also use much more colorful language than that, and if you press your point too far or try to trick him with tactics like logic and facts, he may even threaten you with physical violence.

But it rarely comes to that, because we all know Bruno and we won’t waste our time on such a Sisyphean undertaking as trying to change his mind. So when Bruno gets going, we keep our outward reactions to a minimum. If he puts us on the spot with a piercing stare, we may simply grunt and nod, which will usually satisfy him. And besides, various members of our social group agree with some of what Bruno has to say, so he may occasionally find himself speaking for a group of people whose nodding and grunting is completely genuine.

So Bruno isn’t really a problem, because he’s a known quantity and an unavoidable part of our local social group that we have long since learned how to deal with. In spite of all his well known foibles and prejudices, we have no big problem being his neighbor and coworker.
* * *
It’s 2011, and Bruno has been handed a new outlet for his views. He now has a smart phone. The irony that he would own a smart phone is of course lost on him, so I will let it pass. Bruno is on Twitter and Facebook, and he’s also fond of posting comments on news sites and blogs. And while his spelling and grammar leave a lot to be desired, his points are simple enough that he is able to get them across.

My point is that this is something new and different in human society. Bruno is now able to be Bruno across a spectrum of social groups that would never have come close to him in former times. 99%+ of the people reading his words have never had to come to terms with incorporating Bruno’s foibles into their social considerations. Making matters worse, many of them think no more deeply than Bruno does, only they’ve come to different conclusions. They then proceed to either argue online with Bruno or, more often, simply hurl insults his way.

To the outside surfer with a brain who happens across such an exchange, the specific lines of reasoning on display can be dismaying or even depressing. You may be tempted to add comments of your own in an effort to add balance and depth to the discussion. Such efforts are not rewarded. The mere fact that you have expressed an opinion – any opinion – in such a forum makes you a target, either for Bruno and his ilk, or simply for online mischief makers who enjoy the burst of adrenaline that they get from being obstinate contrarians.

[Sidebar — Early on in my blogging career, I foolishly engaged in an extended online argument over something I’d posted. The other party clung tenaciously to a viewpoint that I’d thoroughly discredited, and I got far more worked up than I should have. I finally did a little digging on the identity of my fellow arguer and found that she was a 15 year-old who was literally being stubborn for the fun of it. In her final message, she thanked me for a GREAT argument and expressed the hope that we’d be able to do it again soon… OK. My bad. Lesson learned. And by the way, she was far more articulate and thoughtful than most of the trolls one encounters online]

Back to Bruno – He’s out there, and if you want to post your thoughts online, you’d best be ready to deal with him. You have a few options:

— If you’re going to post comments on popular or general news sites, you’re going to run into Bruno. It’s unavoidable. If you want to argue with him… well, you’ve been warned.
— You can restrict your more well-considered thoughts to your own personal blog – which is precisely what I’m doing right now. The upside of this approach is that strangers rarely (though occasionally) wander by, so if someone disagrees with me here, it’s usually someone I know, which means we understand how to communicate with one another and can have a civil discussion of the matter in question. The downside, if it’s important to you, is that you won’t have thousands of people reading your words of wisdom (unless you’re way more into self-promotion than I am).
— You can be selective about what you post and where. Even then, there are no guarantees. It never ceases to amaze and amuse me how people can twist literally any topic around to whatever’s bugging them. I might read a news item about a new species of rodent found in the Gobi Desert, yet the comments section will include a long thread of arguments about evil politicians and the coming Apocalypse, replete with back-alley insults hurled at any dissenters. Meanwhile, our poor elusive rodent has retreated beneath the sands of the Gobi, wishing everyone would forget about him.
— You can eschew online commentary completely. No really, you can. There are a lot of folks out there who may surf the internet every day, but who never leave their words online in anything other than a personal email.

So that’s how posting public messages to websites works here in 2011. It’s important to remember, though, that we are surrounded by dynamic, evolving technologies. The internet in ten years will almost certainly be something very different from what it is today. A wide variety of forces will determine where it goes; everything from economics to demographics to regulation to technological breakthroughs to warfare will make the internet of 2021 something we would scarcely recognize today. These might even be the Good Old Days of the Internet, so I don’t want to complain too much.

I think of this every June, then I forget about it until the following June. Maybe setting it down in print will break the spell.

It’s because when you’re a child, June represents two intertwined events: the end of the school year and the beginning of summer weather. Each event signals the other’s arrival. So when the first sustained stretch of summer warmth comes along, I always remember what it made me think about when I was a teenager.

Maybe you’d guess that I was thinking about spending time at the beach. Nope – never liked being on a crowded beach in the heat; still don’t. Maybe you’d guess that I was just glad to be away from school. Nope – I mean, that was kind of nice, but I didn’t particularly hate school.

No, in my teenage years, summer brought with it the recognition of my coming adulthood. I treasured the fact that I had carefree days in sunlight and good weather that I didn’t have to spend sitting in an office or working on a production line. For it seemed to me at the time that this was what happened when you got out of school – you got a regular, necessary job that was probably some degree of yucky. Maybe you got married and had kids in addition to the job. And those relaxing days in the sun? Those games of catch with your brother? Those long bike rides to no place in particular? They were over, and there was no guarantee that you were going to prefer having a job and a family of your own.

As things turned out, my teenage view was an oversimplification of the available options. To this day, I have neither a wife nor children. Not that I’ve ever formally sworn off either one, but well… let’s just say I got busy doing other things. And that’s okay. I’ve never based my hopes and dreams on any supposed white picket fence and family – which is probably a big reason why it hasn’t happened.

As for the work situation – it’s certainly true that I’ve had a regular office job for the past two decades. And while my work isn’t something I’d choose to do free of charge, I have to say that the field I’ve gotten into is a good deal more interesting and stimulating than the images from my worst teenage fears. As for my personal life, I have a short list of truly wonderful Friends and a long list of delightful friends (note the use of upper and lower case). And as it turns out, I still have an active creative life that is at least as big a part of my life as my regular job. To sum up, I would feel like quite a spoiled little idiot if I were to complain about my life’s fortunes.

Still, that old thought pattern from years ago has worn a sort of groove into my brain. So June has arrived and I find my thoughts once again drifting to that wistful view of summertime. It’s almost as if my teenage self had been feeling a pre-emptive nostalgia for the days of summer I imagined I was losing. Yet here I am, in what can fairly be called middle age, and guess what? I still enjoy my summer days. It’s the season when I can fully indulge in my favorite form of exercise – walking. It’s the season when the plant world is alive and thriving, even if in seeming defiance of the scorching sun. I still smile when a warm breeze comes off the lake and tousles the hairs that yet bravely cling to my scalp. I can truly say that I enjoy summers more now than I ever did in my youth. I have one simple message to pass along: Summer is there, yes it’s there… if you want it. Today, I will not make room for cynicism. I will not speak of personal heartaches and misfortunes, either in the lives of those close to me or myself. Let those comments flit past my door today and roost on someone else’s website. Maybe tomorrow we’ll be open for business again. But today, it’s June. The summer is here and it won’t be leaving anytime soon. I commend it to your attention.

I want to offer this photograph as evidence of something I’ve said for years – that sometimes, modern art is just nuts.

In case you’ve lost count, I’m 52 years old. Not “old” by modern definition, but certainly “oldER” (second syllable intentionally stressed). Older – in the sense that my life is very probably in its second half. Older – in the sense that my physical (and probably mental) potentials are past their peak.

The first question, it seems to me, is – So what? That is followed quickly by a few more specific questions, such as – Does this mean I’m on the downward slide now? Can I honestly hope to accomplish both deeds and thoughts that I haven’t figured out how to accomplish up till now?

The really good question is that last one, and I’m here to tell you something – there’s a lot left for me to do, a lot of unrealized ideas that are entirely achievable. This isn’t just me imposing false optimism – it’s something I see in action right now. A few gentle examples —

I’ve always craved travel. My greatest journey to date has been my month in Greece in 2000. Since then, not much. But that is changing. In the near future, I will be spending several days visiting friends in California. Oh yes, it’s happening – my flights have been booked. A couple separate trips to cities in Canada are in the early conceptual stages, but these will be realized, sooner than later. A more ambitious trip to England is similarly in the early stages, but believe me, it’s going to happen.

A skeptic in the crowd might well sniff that one could send one’s pet gerbil all over the world and it wouldn’t result in the acquisition of much more than an impressive array of passport stamps. All I can say is, I’m not here to judge anyone’s gerbil. I’m also not here to talk about the value of travel to anyone else – just to me. And for me, it is a wonderful thing. It fills my head with new ideas and possibilities and makes me feel liberated. In short, it’s a growth experience for me.

An example from my past: In 1989-90, I went on a national tour with a production of The Wizard of Oz. Before then, I’d never been further west than Chicago nor further south than Pittsburgh. The tour took us from Vermont to Florida to Texas to Colorado to California, and cities big and small in between. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, it is clear when I look back now that this touring experience was directly linked to my pursuit, two years later, of a job in Chicago – a pursuit that was successful, as you may know, and which put me on my own far from family and most of my friends; a pursuit that led me (forced me really) to forge a new world for myself and expanded my horizons in ways I never could have predicted.

There is another very good example in my life of the potential for growth I still harbor. It’s this journal you’re reading. I began writing it almost six years ago, just a few months after my mother died. Deciding to do this is one of the best choices I’ve ever made in terms of stoking my own personal growth and gaining personal insights.

There’s an old saying that if you want to become a good writer, you have to write. I’d always wanted to believe that saying, but I’d never found a way to get myself to write on a consistent basis. This blog has done that for me, and I’ve actually been able to observe the difference in my own brain. When I’m writing regularly, the words flow. Paragraphs seem to assemble themselves. The process becomes easy and fun.

A dark truth behind this observation is that I haven’t been writing so consistently in recent months, and I can feel the creak in my mental joints when I write that tells me my brain has gotten out of shape. If you look back at the dates of my entries in the past year, you’ll see that I’ve been commonly going weeks between entries, though I’ve been on a bit of a tear the past month or so.

But back to the theme that got me talking about the craft of writing – I’m now able to feel myself capable of doing things in the art and craft of writing that I wasn’t able to do when I was younger because I hadn’t found a way to discipline myself.

I’ve learned through direct experience that the choices I make ultimately reshape the brain that makes those choices. The person I am today has been shaped by the people I’ve chosen to spend my time with, the work environments I’ve put myself into, and the diversions I’ve chosen to dwell upon in my leisure time. I’m not speaking metaphorically or poetically here; when I say that these choices have shaped who I am today, I’m being literal and factual. And this knowledge is a source of hope for a personal future that will yet contain more new choices, more growth and more surprises.

There’s a fellow out in California, an 89-year-old white dude named Harold Egbert Camping. I guess that’s kind of redundant; I mean, if your name is Harold Egbert Camping, you pretty much have to be an 89-year-old white dude. Anyway, Mr. Camping has announced that the world will basically end on Saturday, May 21 (there’s more to it after that day, but the 21st is when the heavy stuff starts hitting the fan). That’s tomorrow as I write this, so I sure hope you’re reading this today.

The news of our impending demise has me seriously bummed out. Here’s why: It’s not so much that the world is ending – as a general concept anyway. I mean, I’ve always figured the world would end sometime. It’s just that the world is ending now – when we’re so close to solving so many great historic problems. Man, if we just had a few more months… Consider all the seemingly intractable problems we’re on the verge of banishing right now:

— After decades – no, make that centuries – no, make that millennia of hatred and warfare, I’m told that the Arab and Jewish worlds are finally on the path to peaceful coexistence.

— The city of Chicago has a new mayor, which means that all traces of corruption have been rooted out of our city government and we’re ready to start anew.

— The Hollywood movie industry, after nearly a decade in the doldrums, is poised to resume making quality films with the impending return of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

— There’s a rumor that on an upcoming episode of “Iron Chef”, the theme ingredient was going to be 5-Hour Energy Drink.

— It looked like the Cleveland Indians were for real this year.

— Jennifer Love Hewitt is single and finally ready for a mature relationship with someone who will treat her with the respect she deserves.

— Muscular dystrophy. No, we’re nowhere near curing the disease, but a related ill is nearing a cure – Jerry Lewis has announced that this year will mark his final appearance hosting the Telethon. So any of you who thought you might enjoy leisurely Labor Days in your golden years without the late summer breeze being sullied by the sound of Jerry croaking out “You’ll Never Walk Alone” – well, you’ve just been cheated out of that sweet dream by the Powers That Be.

— This was the year I was finally going to get all of that junk cleared out from the one side of my dining room.

I’m just scratching the surface here. You may have a few additions to the list of your own. All in all, it’s just terrible timing by the Supreme Being. Though if by some chance we are shown mercy, and the End of the World is cancelled at the last minute… well, as you can see, we’re in for a joyous turn in the fortunes of humanity.

I feel sorry for Derrick Rose. No, really I do.

“What!” you may well snort, “You feel sorry for a guy with his money, his talent, his apparent future? How about sparing a little sympathy for the truly needy, huh?”

OK fine, I see your point. But I’m not talking about those other folks right now. I’m just talking about Mr. Rose of the Chicago Bulls. And speaking of his apparent future, there is a set of scenarios I foresee, and they explain why I feel sorry for the man.

It has to do with his inescapable link, as a Bull, to Michael Jordan. I’m already hearing it. “Yeah, he’s good,” one Bulls fan told me recently, “but he’s no Michael.”

There’s the first clue – that so common a name as “Michael” is in regular use hereabouts with no surname attached, and everybody knows who you mean.

The logic is airtight. Rose is indeed no Michael. And Barry Bonds was no Babe Ruth. And Wayne Gretzky was no Gordie Howe. All unassailable statements. But it’s going to be worse for Derrick Rose.

Say the Bulls DON’T win the NBA title this year. Many a Bulls fan will mutter, “There you go – he’s no Michael.” Say the Bulls DO win the title this year: “Call me when you’re wearing SIX rings, Derrick!”

Then say Derrick Rose does in fact lead the Bulls to six – no wait – SEVEN championships. Heck, let’s say they win it seven years in a row. We will then have several potential responses, all of which will be voiced by someone or other. One person will say, “Well they broke up the team… Michael retired a champion. He was still at the top of his game and would’ve won several more.” Another will say, “Derrick never had to beat Magic or Bird. Michael did, year after year.” And another will say, “Michael did it without the supporting cast Rose had.” And so on.

The most impressive thing about it all, to me, is that these folks have been granted a vision of the future… They see very clearly that there will never be a player better than Michael Jordan. Understand, I’m not here to bash Mr. Jordan. This isn’t about him. I’m simply here to present my own vision of the future. I wish Derrick Rose all the best, but I hope he realizes that even if he becomes the best basketball player the world has ever seen… he’s no Michael.

Yes, it’s mid-May. And it’s going down into the 30s tonight. A perfect time to talk about Christmas presents!

At my old job in the Loop – the one I moved to Chicago for; the one I did for 16 years – we often picked Secret Santas within the Graphics Department at Christmastime. To give the Santas a little guidance, we posted a file on the department server on which everyone listed the kind of things they might like to receive.

Some people would be excruciatingly exact in their requests, e.g., “I want the CD ‘Speakerboxxx/The Love Below’ by OutKast.” So you could either get them exactly what they’d asked for, or you were back at Square One. Some would at least give you a lengthy list of specific items, so that you could still surprise them. Others would request gift certificates. I guess there’s nothing wrong with gift certificates – I like receiving them myself – but they’re sure not much fun at a group gift grab unless you want to get creative with the gift wrapping.

One year, I had a brilliant idea. I wrote the following on my gift request form: “I want something that tells me about YOU – your favorite book, your favorite movie, your favorite CD, etc.” I’m happy to report that my Secret Santa took those words to heart and on party day, she presented me with her favorite CD – a compilation of blues recordings by Nina Simone.

OK, time for a little confession – I knew NOTHING about Nina Simone prior to receiving this. It was a vaguely familiar name, but I don’t honestly know whether I'd ever heard her voice before receiving this gift. So I played it one night. And then played it again. And then it became part of the regular rotation. It’s been over a decade since I received Nina Simone’s “The Blues” and it’s still a mainstay of my collection. It’s great music – smooth and rough, sacred and profane, loving and… well, something not so loving. But always imbued with Ms. Simone’s distinctive persona and an emotional investment you don’t often hear on the radio. I commend it to your attention. And every time I play it, I think of my old coworker, who left the company soon thereafter and moved out of Chicago to parts unknown.

Look at it this way – how many office Christmas gifts have you received in your life? And how many of them do you still have and USE? Most of the time, these gifts are either generic and disposable, or they’re completely wrong-headed and are disposed of (or re-gifted) at the first discreet opportunity. This CD was a gift that has kept on giving, far beyond the simple moment that brought it into my possession. So I’m proud of that brilliant idea of mine. There’s a good lesson in there somewhere; one that needn’t be articulated explicitly.

This happened last Sunday, the same day as my trip to the Bahá’í Temple that I discussed in the preceding post.

I exited the train at the Linden stop, the northernmost stop; end of the line. As I began walking, I suddenly realized that I was starving. But it seemed that alleviating my hunger would not be a simple matter. Let me fully set the scene for you:

Though it was late morning, the streets were deserted. It seemed unlikely, at first blush, that I was going to find anyplace nearby that was open and serving food. The sun was high, steady and bright in the cloudless sky. The air was soundless except for the wind. I rounded a corner and was greeted by the sight shown below.

I was instantly struck by the resemblance between this view and many of the paintings of Edward Hopper – seemingly realistic, yet still, devoid of people, and lacking the details that ought to be included in such a scene.

But then – I don’t think it’s visible in this shot – I saw a glint of pink neon at the end of the block. I moved towards it and found that it was a diner. I opened the front door, stepped in, and everything changed.

The place was a classic American diner – padded rotating stools lining the counter on two sides and ten or so booths against the walls. The place was also jam-packed, and I was at the end of a line of about eight people waiting to be seated. The air was thick with the aroma of every traditional breakfast food and drink you could wish for.

I was actually seated very quickly, ahead of most of the other folks in line, by virtue of the fact that I was by myself and a seat had opened at the counter. A friendly, efficient waitress immediately wiped down the surface in front of me, handed me a menu, and turned away to wait on others. I then looked up at the various wall hangings behind the counter – and found myself directly facing a reproduction of Edward Hopper’s famous painting, “Nighthawks.”

I must say I lingered over breakfast that morning, not wanting this delicious scene to end any sooner than it needed to. But I also knew that I’d set out that day to do some serious walking. So after sopping up the last bit of syrup with my last bit of French toast, I paid my bill, tipped well, and continued on.

I took this photo today, but in both subject and composition, it hearkens back to my first weeks living in Chicago.

It was October, 1992. I’d moved to Chicago only a few weeks before. On a brisk fall Sunday, I decided to go exploring. I took the Red Line L train as far north as I could, then transferred to the Purple Line L and likewise took it as far north as I could. That put me at the northern limit of the L’s reach, so I continued walking northward on foot, just to see what was up there.

Very soon, I was walking up Sheridan Road in Wilmette, Illinois. As I rounded a bend, this startling sight came into view. What was this enormous white temple? What was it doing out here in the wilds of suburban Chicago overlooking Lake Michigan? To give you a sense of the scale of this photograph, the peak of the dome is 191 feet above its base. I was stunned. It seemed that it had to be a house of worship of some sort, but I’d never seen anything remotely like it. Even in photographs, the only structures I could recall that seemed anything like it were halfway around the world from Illinois. As I neared it, a sign came into view: “Bahá’í House of Worship – All are Welcome.”

Well fine. Nice of y’all to welcome me, but I’d never heard of Bahá’í. But I took them at their word and approached the building. It was surrounded on all sides by acres of beautifully landscaped gardens. On the south side of the building, I saw a sign reading “Visitor Center” with an arrow pointing to the lower level. Once again, I took them at their word.

Yes, there was quite a nice visitor center down there. One rack contained pamphlets about the Bahá’í faith printed in dozens of different languages. A small viewing room ran a continuously repeating film about a half hour long that offered a succinct account of the history of the faith. Another room continuously ran a short film about the history of the temple’s construction. Being in no great hurry – and being genuinely intrigued – I sat and watched. It was truly fascinating stuff.

I want to be clear on this point, in case you’re feeling the urge to jump to conclusions – I did not become a convert to Bahá’í. I am no expert on the tenets of the faith, though I have a general outline of it. So I’m not going to try to sell you on it, though as religions go, there’s a lot to like about it. I would encourage the curious to look it up online and learn more.

I think that for most people, if they know anything at all about Bahá’í, they know that Bahá’í are hugely persecuted in the Middle East, particularly by Muslims. The reasons for this persecution are interesting and two-fold. First of all, pretty much any new religion is going to have to deal with brutal suppression if it starts threatening to become popular. This was true in ancient Rome and it’s still true today. The second reason has to do with Islam’s view towards other faiths. They tend to be more tolerant of faiths that predate the founding of Islam, since aspects of Judeo-Christian beliefs and traditions are part of Islam’s past as well. But any new religion that comes after Islam is, obviously, a heresy and a departure from the True Path as revealed to God’s prophet Muhammad. Bahá’í was founded in 1844 in what is now Iran, so in both timing and geography, it has been a natural enemy of Islam from the very start. Bahá’í, it should be noted, includes among its roster of Divine Messengers such folks as Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus Christ and, by the way, Muhammad.

So if you’re ever in Chicago looking for something a thousand miles away from the capitalistic bustle of Navy Pier and the Mag Mile, head northward on Sheridan Road – that’s the same Sheridan Road that passes through Wrigleyville. Beyond the campus in Evanston, beyond a couple miles of dazzling mansions, you’ll find the Bahá’í Temple. Even if you don’t want to deal with the visitor center, just walking around the surrounding gardens and regarding the grand and singular architecture makes for a serene and rewarding experience.

It’s been a while since I gave you a look at the cats, so here’s a shot taken in March. Smoke and Fire were in town for a visit and they quickly insinuated themselves onto Cy’s turf. Here, Cy sulks below while Fire tries to “accidentally” bother him.

How I Employed Questionable Ethics to Land a Role
I was 20 years old. I didn’t yet have a lengthy acting resumé, and my training was spotty at best, though I’d made my professional acting debut earlier that year. I say all of this not to excuse my behavior, but merely to give you a context for what was to transpire.

The University of Detroit Theater Department was holding auditions for its big musical of the year, Once Upon a Mattress. While I knew the show was a musical adaptation of the fairy tale, “The Princess and the Pea,” I didn’t know any details about the show itself. I didn’t even know whether there were any roles in the show that might suit me. I just showed up and figured I’d take my chances.

As is typical at such auditions, there were sheets being handed out that described the main characters. The lead role, Princess Winifred, was clearly not a practical choice for me; this was to be a conventional interpretation of the show. Neither was the role of her beau, Prince Dauntless. I quickly set my sights on the role of The Wizard. It seemed like a nice character part, and even at that young age, I had correctly identified myself as more the character type than the leading man type.

While we were waiting for our names to be called to enter the theater, various groups of us came together and read through the scenes aloud, each of us reading our part of choice. As it happened, I fell in with a fellow I didn’t know at the time, a man who, as it turned out, was one of the leading actors in the U of D company. The first time through, I read the part of The Wizard. Frankly, I had nothin’. I had no idea what to do with the character, and my choices were pretty flat and boring. Then we did the scene again, with this other actor reading The Wizard.

Whoa! The part came to life! He had some really good instincts, some really good ideas about who this character was and how to put him across. He also read the part with a wonderful old man voice that transformed and enhanced every line he spoke. I was stunned. I could see that he was totally on the right track, and that I’d completely missed the boat. Before we could read it through again, our group was called into the theater.

You can probably see what’s coming here. I went up on the stage and completely embraced (by which I mean stole) his interpretation of the character, doing the part utterly differently than the way I’d done it in the lobby. At the time, I felt I had no choice in the matter – it was the interpretation that felt right to me, even if I hadn’t come up with it on my own.

Well… I was cast as The Wizard. That other actor was relegated to the chorus. I was told that he was pretty bummed out at not getting a better role in the big musical of his senior year at U of D. Funny thing – he and I ended up hitting it off quite well. If he hadn’t left Michigan for grad school, we might well have had a long friendship. It pleases me no end that we are now Facebook friends, as I’ve always had an enormous respect for his talents. I don’t think I’ve ever brought up the Mattress audition to him, mostly because I wouldn’t have known quite what to say. Part of me felt like I’d done something of a highly questionable ethical nature, though another part of me reasoned that I’d gotten the role because I’d taken his bit and done it better than he had. In any case, we did work together on another show several years later, only that time, he was playing the title role and I was playing the tiny role.

I can’t offer any definitive pronouncement on the ethical implications of this tale, but I can offer a bit of advice: Should you ever find yourself in a comparable situation, do as your conscience dictates, but don’t expect any kind words of congratulation from the person you’ve borrowed from.