Chicago – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Sunday Morning Reading

Football, opera, dying newspapers and politics are on the menu

Somehow amidst all we’re living through in the dual state of America it’s the Sunday of the Super Bowl. A dual state that will feature dueling half time spectacles. Apparently we have nothing better to fight over. Go figure. Even so, there’s Sunday Morning Reading to share on a variety of topics amidst it all. I’m avoiding links on Artificial Intelligence this Sunday, because I shared a few in a post on that topic earlier. If you’re interested you can find that here. So, onward.

Kicking off, Jason Snell penned a post on Apple’s Long History With The Super Bowl. Call me old fashioned but when a sports contest becomes as much about the commercials and half-time shows, I don’t think anybody wins regardless of how many points anyone scores.

If football or sports aren’t your cup of tea, perhaps the arts are. Ronald Blum tells us about ‘Monster’s Paradise,’ Lampooning US President Donald Trump, Has World Premiere At Hamburg Opera. It’s inspired by Alfred Jarry’s play “Ubu Roi.” I imagine it will be quite some time, if ever, we see this on an American opera stage. Although I can dream of seeing it at the Kennedy Center, restored from Trump’s desecrations long after he’s gone. (This week’s image above is a publicity still from the Hamburg State Opera.)

Media attention on ICE atrocities may be fading at the moment, but ProPublica continues to do excellent investigative work on the subject even after the headlines fade. Check out The Real Story Behind The Midnight Immigration Raid On A Chicago Apartment Building by Melissa Sanchez and Jodi S. Cohen.

It’s tough to keep up with the avalanche of things rolling our way. That’s certainly been true with the torrent of news surrounding the partial release of the Epstein files. There’s so much information that I can’t imagine anyone trying to sum it all up, and yet, Elizabeth Lopatto might have come damn near close in her piece, How The Men In The Epstein Files Defeated #MeToo. It’s a bigger article with an even more powerful scope than the #MeToo in the headline suggests.

Also addressing the scope of that mess, Anand Giridharadas says It’s So Much Bigger Than Epstein. I agree.

JA Westenberg tackles The Coherence Premium. No real hints here beyond this quote: “When I say coherence, I mean something specific: the degree to which every part of an operation derives from the same understanding, the same model of reality and set of priorities and tradeoffs.”

Ashley Parker writes about The Murder of The Washington Post.

Meanwhile, David Todd McCarty suggests that The Return of The Local Newspaper may be the path to reclaiming power over information and securing democracy. It certainly might beat the ways we seem to be trying now

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Looking Forward To Seeing David Byrne’s ‘Theater of The Mind’

Gonna take the trip

The previous immersive theatre experiences I’ve participated in have each been very much worth the trip. I’m very much looking forward to this one. Mike Davis of WBEZChicago got a pre-debut tour of David Byrne’s upcoming Theatre of The Mind and wrote about it.

2526_TOTM_Hero 1500x1000 2. In addition to being ever curious about immersive theatre experiences I’m a long time David Byrne fan, so this will be an exciting double dip.

I won’t begin to try and explain immersive theatre as a concept here, except to say it’s always a journey. Sometimes extremely satisfying, sometimes not so much. But then so is life.

I thoroughly enjoyed and was quite moved by the Albany Park Theater Project’s Port of Entry that Davis mentions in the piece. As an old theatre veteran, whenever the form lifts me out of my viewing habits I’m always intrigued.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

Small Pieces Loosely Joined

Connecting the dots can be one helluva hard game when you have so many dots. The volume of dots and the plots might seem overwhelming, but, if you care to look, it’s easy to find the connective threads, thin though they may be. String them together and the picture becomes clearer. Take a look at the links shared in this Sunday Morning Reading column. If you can’t find the connections, I suggest you’re not even trying to look.

Different colored strands of yarn woven together into a strong strand. Shutterstock 504091696.

Dave Winer writes of Small Pieces Loosely Joined, what he considers the best description of the web. It fits for the web. It fits for most things.

JA Westenberg discusses Why Intelligence Is A Terrible Proxy For Wisdom. Smart.

Backseat Software. That’s how Mike Swanson sees the state of things with software that is constantly interrupting us. As he puts it, “the slow shift from software you operate as a tool to software as a channel that operates you.” Excellent read.

John Gruber thinks we should shift from calling the bad guys Nazis and facists, instead use The Names They Call Themselves. Come to think of it, not sure why it’s so hard to do so given the dictates of the brander-in-chief.

Good dots among the bad are easy to spot. Ava Berger tells the story of how A Red Hat, Inspired By A Symbol Of Resistance To Nazi Occupation, Gains Traction In Minnesota.

In the boiling battle that is Canada and the U.S., Cory Doctorow is elbows up with another of his speeches on enshittifcation. (I’m glad he publishes these.) Check out Disenshittification Nation.

If you’re looking for an antidote to all that’s flying around and at us, it’s tough. Gal Beckham says we can connect those dots through what we’re seeing in Minneapolis. She finds the right word to describe the activism, protests, political opposition, neighborism, and resistance. I won’t spoil it, but she threads them all together in There Is A Word For What Is Happening In Minneapolis.

David Todd McCarty suggests America is a dual state in Then They Came For Me.

Steven Levy says After Minneapolis, Tech CEOs Are Struggling To Stay Silent. Silence speaks volumes. So do actions. So too do “tepid free-floating empathy” memos that mean nothing. Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.

Joshua Panduro Preston tells the story of John Carter Of Minnesota: The “Convict Poet” Who Won His Freedom.

Pro football fans, especially those in Chicago know Charles ‘Peanut’ Tillman and the “peanut punch” well. Most don’t know that after his gridiron career he became a FBI agent. Even more don’t know that he walked away from that second career after the immigration raids started. Dan Pompeo connects the dots in After Charles Tillman Transformed Football, He Joined The FBI. Then The Immigration Raids Started.

(image from RA2016 on Shutterstock)

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Sunday Morning Reading

Thoughts tumble down on a chilling weekend

I’m going to avoid the horrific news that continues out of Minneapolis (and the rest of the U.S.) for this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. But, then I guess I didn’t avoid it by saying that. Think of it as a wound too sore to touch rather than avoiding. Anyway, onto this week’s sharing.

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I’m going to kick this off with a blog post from Mathew Ingram called Why Blogging Is Better Than Social Media. Title says a lot of what I believe. I wish more believed it also.

I love watching those younger than I live the same lives, fears, and joys I did. Nothing ever changes. But it’s always entertaining and worth reflection. Check out Alex Baia’s I Thought I Would Have Accomplished A Lot More Today And Also By The Time I was Thirty-Five.

Gray Miller suggests You Should Put A Codex In Your Pocket Instead Of Your Phone. If you don’t know what a Codex is, read the piece.

Cory Doctorow in The Guardian says AI Companies Will Fail. We Can Salvage Something From the Wreckage. Salvaging things from wreckage is what we do. Avoid wrecking things not so much.

Speaking of wreckage, AI-Powered Disinformation Swarms Are Coming For Democracy says David Gilbert.

Follow that up with Brynn Tannehill’s piece ‘Trump Has Already Rigged The 2028 Presidential Election’: Us Defense Insider. You didn’t need AI to tell you that. Or insiders. All you had to do was pay attention.

We do seem to like and be drawn to adversity like so many moths. Funny how we know what happens to moths that fly too close, yet can’t predict own fate when we do the same. But if we break that cycle, there wouldn’t be anything to salvage. David Toddy McCarty says We Like It Hard.

Aaron Vegh blogs A Canadian’s Call To Arms, Being Totally Pissed Off At The State Of Computing In The 21st Century. I don’t think the Canadians are alone in their feelings. I know a number of Americans are as well.

I said I would stay away from this weekend’s events. I lied. Sota. Kinda. I admire those like Dan Sinker who are finding ways to do what they feel can in the face of this adversity. Check out his piece We Are All We Have.

(Image from Aga Putra on Unsplash

Sunday Morning Reading

Inquire and think for yourself

Whew. Regular readers here will know that since the middle of December we’ve been spending time helping my daughter and her family move into a new house, with an interim stop to an Airbnb over the holidays until the new place was ready. It’s been as chaotic as any move could be, multiplied by the antics of our two grandchildren who had their small worlds turned upside down. The chaos didn’t allow for much Sunday Morning Reading, but here we are again, playing a little catch up as well as looking ahead. As much as anybody can look ahead these days.

What Just Happened? That title for Andrea Pitzer’s piece sort of explains the look I see on most people’s faces during the events of this January. If it seems like too much to think about. That’s because it is. Think on it.

Brian Merchant’s Abolish The Senses plays on the same themes and the dismay we’re all feeling.

“Do math. Check your facts.” That’s the message from Neil Steinberg in Wrapping Our Heads Around A Trillion, Now That The Alphabet is Worth $4,000,000,000,000. Don’t let others think for you.

Dealing with much smaller numbers, NatashaMH’s Five Dollars For Catastrophe explains how a $5 book about genocide can offer much more value, should you actually inquire and think for yourself. Words have meaning folks.

And while I’m linking to posts on the numbers, let’s talk gambling. Apparently it’s reaching epidemic proportions and you can bet on when the USA is going to invade other countries, among other catastrophic outcomes these days. Especially if you’re in the know. Saahil Desai says America Is Slow-Walking Into A Polymarket Disaster. I’m not so sure about the slow-walking part.

If gambling is betting on predictions, Artificial Intelligence, with its ability to predict the next word ought to be able to figure out most outcomes ahead of time. It’s all math, right? Remember that earlier admonition to think for yourself? While doing so, check out Steven Adler’s AI Isn’t “Just Predicting The Next Word” Anymore.

Are Tech Companies Allies Or A Threat To Press Freedom? I’m not spoiling Emily Bell’s conclusions with the obvious answer, because the piece is about more than that.

Jill Lepore explores How Originalism Killed The Constitution. It’s an earlier piece that contains context that most have no idea about. I’d suggest finding out.

Speaking of killing things, Russel Berman and Elaine Godfrey ask the simple question, Does Congress Even Exist Anymore? Applying the Ian Betteridge law of headlines, that any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no, you don’t have to guess at my answer. Berman and Godrey call it a fast fade. I call it a slow self-suicide.

Closing out this week, I’m pointing to a venture from a raconteur I feature here often, David Todd McCarty. He’s gathering up his words and images from over the years on a new website. David is quite a storyteller. If you think for yourself, I suggest you pay attention. For a taste check out David Dreams Of Everything.

Go Bears!

(Image from Rey Seven on Unsplash)

Sunday Morning Reading

Go Bears!

Sunday Morning Reading is on hiatus this week as we’re helping my daughter and her family with the second phase of moving into a new house by watching the grandchildren.

Oh, and watching the Chicago Bears pull off an improbably win in the wildcard. My granddaughter’s concern mirrored mine for most of the game, but the Bears pulled off another miracle comeback. Go Bears!

Sunday Morning Reading

Boulder bustling

The world prepares to begin a new year and wakes up to an entirely new world. Or does it?

You go to bed on a Friday night with the holiday season inching to a close and wake up on Saturday morning and your country is running Venezuela after invading it and kidnapping its president and his wife. Or so the narrative on Sunday morning goes. I’m sure it will change by the time we get to midweek. Yeah, it was that kind of weekend and that will be reflected in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading along with a host of other topics.

Main-9 24-Nov-2.

I’ll lead off with a few in the moment takes on what happened in Venezuela yesterday. Note that in the moment takes often fade once the moment has its moment.

First up, David Frum says that Trump’s Critics Are Falling Into An Obvious Trap. Frankly, whether you’re a critic or a MAGA hat wearing supporter we’ve all fallen for so many obvious traps, what’s one more?

Thinking bigger picture, Tom Nichols thinks Maybe Russia and China Should Sit This One Out. They need to stop laughing first.

In the wake of the news, Carole Cadwalladr sees “a mass propaganda event” about to engulf the US in her piece, The Threat From America. She’s correct.

Written before the events of this weekend, Mathew Walther’s The Strange Death of Make America Great Again may seem out of place and time as it focuses on the MAGA culture wars within itself. I would venture that it is not, so stay tuned.

Turning to more local concerns that resonate alongside the global news, the folks at Block Club Chicago including Francia Garcia Hernádez and Madison Savedra have an excellent look at How Operation Midway Blitz Changed Our City in Chicago Under Siege.

As if not to be left out of the making bad news moment, Elon Musk’s back in the swing of things with his AI tool Grok allowing users to essentially turn X into a porn machine using photos of real folks to wreak havoc. Just note that X is still the social media platform of choice for far too many. Matteo Wong has the story in Elon Musk’s Pornography Machine.

Cory Doctorow published the text of a recent speech called A Post-American, Enshittification-Resistant Internet. He continues fighting the good fight like Sisyphus with that boulder.

JA Westenberg makes The Case For Blogging In The Ruins.

And to close out the week when holiday close out sales come to an end, Jake Lundberg takes a look at The Cult of Costco. Great piece whether you shop there or not.

Sunday Morning Reading

Sharing thoughts about big ideas and little things

Sunday Morning Reading is back from a two-week hiatus in which we watched the grandkids while their parents began moving into what will be their new house after the first of the year. It was a big deal featuring lots of little things with the little ones. As usual the column this week presents some interesting reading and writing that I think worth sharing. Big topics side by side with little things.

As the Christmas season I knew growing up begins to wind down and everyone begins gearing up for the New Year, I ran across Matthew Cooper’s Why We Need A New Dickens. He makes a good argument, but in my experience everyone loves reading what Dickens chronicled, but somehow it never really catches on.

Keeping somewhat in the Christmas vein The Guardian View On Far-Right Perversions Of The Christmas Message: Promoting A Gospel Of Hate by the Guardian’s editorial department hits its target, but in a glancing blow that proves my point from the link above.

NatashaMH takes on The Great Wall Of Honesty with blunt truths, bear hugs, and a bit of resilience.

JA Westenberg points out that we never pay much attention to the tech folks who do the grunt work behind the scenes to keep things running in The Rime Of The Ancient Maintainer. That’s the little story behind most of the big things we take for granted.

Illustrator Lauren Martin writes On The Pitfalls Of Saying Yes To Everything. Hat tip to Stan Stewart for this one.

I don’t usually link to book reviews in this column, but this one by Dorian Lynskey of Sven Beckert’s book Capitalism: A Global History made me buy the book. Check out Capitalism by Sven Beckert Review — An Extraordinary History Of The Economic System That Control Our Lives. (FWIW there are no affiliate links on this site.)

Speaking of the little things, David Todd McCarty enjoys The Casual Comfort Of Champagne And French Fries.

This piece by Josh Marshall has been sitting in my Sunday Morning Reading queue during the aforementioned hiatus and it’s certainly lost none of its luster with time. Check out Will The 21st Century Nabobs Win Their War On Public Accountabilty?

I’ve followed and linked to a number of Denny Henke’s posts about how he’s changing his personal computing habits this year. His 2025 End Of Year Personal Computing Check-In is worth a read even if you haven’t been paying attention up until now.

Neil Steinberg notices things big and small and occasionally writes about those he hasn’t seen in a while. Check out his observations on seeing an Armored Car.

And to close out this week and this year’s Sunday Morning Reading, here’s a piece that good friend Sumocat linked to that is indeed an obituary. One worth a look even if you never noticed or took for granted what the deceased created, The Moylan Arrow. Take a look at The Inventor Of The Little Arrow That Tells You What Side The Fuel Filler Is On Has Died by Daniel Golson.

It’s the little things that make a difference in this big world. Have a happy turn of the New Year.

The Before Times

Family circles

The Before Times. Today begins the round of family and friend holiday gatherings that follow Christmas. In Chicago basements and dining rooms. In the occasional pizza parlor on the Northwest Side. I call it The Before Times because it was before Trump. Before COVID. Before Trump again. Before some of the folks in this picture from 2014 succumbed to illness, divorced, or on the flip side gotten married and had kids, or seen their kids finish college and move on.

Like I said, before so much.

These gatherings were and are always fun. Always a bit tedious. Always full of laughter. Always with an air of tension. Always always.

While they still happen, so much has changed. Families have separated and merged into new families with new family traditions. The younger ones have scattered across the country and don’t always come back for the holidays as they build their own. As a matter of fact, we’re in the midst of building a new one with my daughter and our grandkids. One family grouping continues the bi-weekly Zoom call that began during COVID.

But that’s life and the part of life that holidays always remind us of. Regardless of what’s happening within our family circles or outside of them, life goes on. It is just always changing.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

Hands on with playwrights, movies, smart toilets, and a discomforting rooster

Another Sunday. More snow overnight. More shoveling later. The holidays creep closer or perhaps they’re already here, given that grandpa mode has kicked into high gear. Started writing a new play out of the blue yesterday. I have no idea why, but it just tumbled out of my brain on to the screen via the keyboard. Time to share some Sunday Morning Reading. Read as you will, even if it’s on a smart toilet.

I often save the softer pieces for later in this column, but I’ll lead today with David Todd McCarty’s Christmas Means Comfort. Tell that to the rooster.

The world lost a treasure this week with the passing of architect Frank Gehry. Lee Bray writes a nice obituary and tribute. Check out Architect Frank Gehry Who Designed Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavillion and Foot Bridge Dies at 96.

Samuel Beckett’s Hands is a terrific piece by Rob Tomlinson about, well it’s about Samuel Beckett’s hands and how Dupuytren’s contracture may have influenced not just how, but what he wrote, given that Beckett always begin his writing with pen and paper.

While I’m sharing stories about playwrights, the movie Hamnet is garnering lots of attention and accolades. (I haven’t seen it yet.) Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s excellent novel of the same name, Hamnet mostly follows accepted scholarship that William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet while grieving the death of his son, Hamnet. (At the time, the two names were practically interchangeable.) As with most things Shakespeare, there’s generally accepted knowledge and there are always those who challenge it. James Shapiro takes a look at The Long History of the Hamnet Myth.

And while I’m sharing stories about movies, take a look at Susan Morrison’s piece on How Noah Baumbach Fell (Back) In Love With The Movies.

I linked earlier this week to a piece by Phillip Bump called There Are Limits to the Hitler-Trump Comparison. Just Ask These Historians. I don’t disagree with the thesis. I just think it stops short in the way most history usually does.

Rory Rowan and Tristan Sturm write that Peter Thiel’s Apocalyptic Worldview Is A Dangerous Fantasy. Here’s hoping this first draft of our current history proves lasting.

There’s been much talk about all things military recently given how the current administration is tossing away most of what we believe the military stands for as easy as my grandson tosses away toy soldiers. Carrie Lee says The Soldier In The Illiberal State Is A Professional Dead End. I concur. Sadly.

In the wake of the cataclysm that was Twitter, social media is essentially a messy muddle these days with users continuing to migrate from one platform to another seeking some sort of place that feels comfortable enough to share and often discomfort others. Ian Dunt writes what he calls a love letter to one platform with Thank God for Bluesky.

Smart toilets were in the news this week. I actually got to see and use one at a Christmas party last night. All I could think about while doing my business was this piece by Victoria Song called Welcome To The Wellness Surveillance State.

And to conclude this week, Amogh Dimri informs us that the Oxford University Press has chosen Rage Bait as 2025’s Word of the Year. Dimiri thinks it’s a brilliant choice. I guess it begs the question, if we’re angry enough to rage, is it really baiting?