Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3
Musings on life, the theatre, technology, culture and the occasional emu sighting
Ho! Ho! Ho!
These early winter’s snowfall seems to have put the damper on Christmas yard decorations in my neighborhood. But that hasn’t stopped some folks from going all out. This household’s ballsy display is quite something.
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?
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.
Mother Nature and football rivalries
Chicago is a football crazy town at the moment getting ready for the first meeting this season of the Chicago Bears and the enemy to the north, the Green Bay Packers. Typically that first meeting comes along earlier in the season, but not this year.
Chicago football fans and teams are used to games played in snow, ice and frigid temperatures in December. Quite frankly, I find memories of some of those games to be some of my most cherished. That’s the scene for this year, with everything still covered under blankets of the white stuff. Apparently more is on the way over night.
That said, I’ve often found it a sort of odd, cruel joke of nature that the colors of the Chicago Bears’ biggest rivals, green and gold, are the most prominent colors we see in our streetscapes once the leaves begin turning in the fall. When the Bears play the Packers earlier in a football season under canopies of green and gold something just doesn’t quite feel right watching two teams from the Black and Blue division fight it out. It almost feels like Mother Nature has chosen sides.
That’s not the case this year. Perhaps it heralds a change in the football forecast as Green Bay has had the Bears’ number for quite sometime in this rivalry, regardless of the season’s colors.
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.
Last night, after a day of shoveling snow, we headed out to a friend’s house for a Christmas tree decorating party we attend most years. Given that most of Chicago was still digging out and our friend lives on a very narrow street, we decided we’d bundle up to walk there and take an Uber home rather than fighting icy streets and trying to park if our friend’s street hadn’t been plowed yet.
Our path took us through Portage Park. We were largely alone through that part of the 45 minute hike, save for one man and his dog. Given the snowfall and the absence of others there was a quiet eerie, yet comforting stillness. Always fascinating that the park was plowed, yet several of the streets we walked along were not, but that’s Chicago.
Here are a few photos I took along the way through the park and before we got there. Even the alleys felt a bit magical under the moonlight.
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.
Winter is coming. Or is it already here?
It’s a snowy Sunday after the Thanksgiving holiday here in Chicago. The Chicago Bears have already played this week’s game, beating the Philadelphia Eagles on Friday, sending the town into a tizzy before it got covered in a Saturday snowfall. So it feels like the perfect day to settle in and do a little Sunday Morning Reading after the shoveling and snow blowing move stuff around. Bitch of it is, the stuff still has to melt. Let’s take a look.
Humorist Emily Bressler has a frighteningly funny piece of satire that I think sums up the chilling undercurrents in so much of what we’re living through at the moment in I Work For An Evil Company, But Outside Work, I’m Actually A Really Good Person.
Winter may be a few weeks away officially, but in Chicago, it feels like it’s here already this weekend. Actually the metaphor feels like it’s been too close for comfort for quite some time. The U.S. might be sinking ships in warmer waters threatening an invasion of Venezuela, but the Danes haven’t forgotten threats in colder climes and have been preparing. Miranda Bryant spells it out in Denmark Sets Up ‘Night Watch’ To Monitor Trump After Greenland Row.
Theaters and other arts organizations are feeling quite a chill in this inhospitable political climate these days. Adam Harrington is Taking The Temperature Of Theater In Chicago: Distress As Venues Fall, But Optimism Driving By A Vibrant Community.
Speaking of theater, Mathew Ingram takes a look at the ritualized charades that happen after a tech company gets called on the carpet for being evil in What Did Mark Zuckerberg Know And When Did He Know It? These performance art pieces happen all too frequently, regardless of venue. The audience never buys it. So why do these unfunny farces continue?
If we survive the Artificial Intelligence tsunami the next big thing that’s been the next big thing for quite some time will be when quantum computing actually turns into something. I imagine it’ll all be lumped in together as all of these waves crash ashore with the same promises. The Swinburne University of Technology asks the question If Quantum Computing Is Solving ‘Impossible’ Questions, How Do We Know They’re Right?
Josh Marshall takes a look at The Surreal Madness Of The AI Boom. I’m not sure I’d call it surreal, but it’s certainly something other than real. Otherwise, why would folks like Laura J. Nelson be chronicling how Tech Titans Amass Multimillion-Dollar War Chests To Fight AI Regulation. (Hint, when you have to play that kind of expensive defensive game, you’re trying to hide the ball, not advance it.)
NatashaMH provides a quilted farewell in a touching remembrance of a friend who passed too soon. Her closing line of My Best Friend Wrapped In Peace, “be safe in winter till summer arrives again,” chills and thaws in the same breath.
To close out this snowy holiday weekend, Neil Steinburg gives us a short piece titled simply, Home. Read it. Whether you’re home, on your way there, or returning to it.
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.
Winter wondering
It’s a snow day in Chicago. Not exactly the fun kind. The kind where you need to make at least three passes at the sidewalks before calling it a night. They’re predicting 10 inches or so. At the moment we’ve got about six with more to come overnight.
The good news the snow blower is working harder than we are.
It sorta feels quite appropriate for the weekend after Thanksgiving for colder temperatures and snow in Chicago, even though the calendar says it’s still Fall. So, no complaints.
Free Hot Dogs!
Chicago is one crazy town. Especially when it comes to sports. Multiply that by a very large number when it comes to the Chicago Bears. After today’s win over last year’s Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles the crazy is out of this world.
So much so that new Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson, who has become famous for his post game chant of Good, Better, Best after the Bears have been on what once seemed like an improbable winning streak, took up a challenge today and ripped his shirt off in the locker room to lead his now famous chant.
The challenge came from another wonderfully crazy Chicago favorite, The Wieners Circle, famous not only for its Chicago hot dogs, but also it’s wonderfully witty and irreverent statements on its sign, challenged the coach to take off his shirt during one of his post-game rallying cries. And Coach Johnson did so today after a thrilling victory.
Johnson’s acceptance of the challenge means the Wieners Circle is serving up free hot dogs this week.
Meanwhile the Chicago Bears keep serving up wins to a hungry sports town heading into the stretch run before the playoffs. There’s no question Johnson has changed the culture of the Bears. It’s a far cry from a year ago on Black Friday when the Bears fired head coach Matt Eberflus the day after a huge Thanksgiving day loss at Detroit. Perhaps equally important, Johnson is also rallying the entire Chicago Metro area after all we’ve been through this late summer and fall.
Put it another way that Chicagoans understand. He’s on his way to owning this town and certainly giving new meaning to the slogan, Bear Down!
Edit: Added the photo below from The Wieners Circle later in the evening.
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.
Just a quick share of a quick shot I grabbed that captures the season, and I dare say, my mood.
Small acts
It’s only business they say. Nothing personal. That’s the way the world works. Well, what I share each week in Sunday Morning Reading always comes from a place of personal interest. That may not be how the world works, but it works for me and I hope it does for you. Call it a small act.
In the wake of the continuing and confounding ICE occupation of Chicago comes a terrific piece by Kyle Kingsbury called I Want You To Understand Chicago.
Follow that up with a ProPublica piece by Melissa Sanches, Jodi S. Cohen, T. Christian Miller, Sebastian Rotella and Mariam Elba about the nighttime raid on a Chicago apartment building that featured men rappelling from Black Hawk helicopters, and all of the residents emptied on to the streets with many of their belongings. The punchline is in the article’s title, “I Lost Everything”; Venezuelans Were Rounded Up In A Dramatic Midnight Raid But Never Charged With A Crime.
A Nation of Heroes, A Senate Of Cowards by Will Bunch calls it like it is and much the way I see things after last weekend’s actions in the U.S. Senate.
Growing up, I never understood the cliché, “it’s nothing personal, it’s only business.” Frankly I still don’t. It excuses too much that I find wrong about the way the world works. Charles Broskoski examines the personal side in Personal Business.
And speaking of the way the world works (or doesn’t) in the midst of the Epstein fever I don’t think we’ll ever shake, Sarah Lyons points out that the violence in his and others’ actions is something we all live with in This Is How The World Works. It shouldn’t be.
Corbin Trent says We Didn’t Kill American Manufacturing—We Let It Die. He’s spot on.
Mark Jacob tells us How News Coverage Eases Us Into Tyranny. However this saga we’re living through ends up, one thing is for certain. The media has killed any chance of returning to what it once was.
Hardly a day goes by that we don’t read of some nefarious business practice spilling out of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta. Turns out Meta is knowingly leeching off of scammers to the tune of about 10 percent of its revenue. I guess that makes Meta and Zuckerberg a scammer too. Cath Virginia has the writeup with Meta Must Rein In Scammers — Or Face Consequences. I doubt they will.
The Internet Archive is under attack in the same way libraries, media organizations, and text book publishing is. It shouldn’t be. Mathew Ingram has the lowdown in The Internet Archive Should Be Protected Not Attacked.
On a more positive note, Jeff Veen tells us how Small Acts Build Great Cultures. Boy, do we need lots of small acts these days.
To close out, did you ever wonder where collective nouns like “a watch of nightingales” or “an ostentation of peacocks” come from? For many years it was assumed that the anonymous author of this collection of collective nouns was the work of a “gentleman of excellent gifts” written down in one of the first books printed after the invention of The Gutenberg Press, The Book of Hawking, Hunting, and Blazing of Arms. Turns out the author was a woman named Juliana Barnes. Maria Popova has the story in A Parliament of Owls And A Murder Of Crows: How Groups Of Birds Got Their Names, With Wondrous Vintage Illustrations By Brian Wordsmith.
(Image form Ganesh Narahanan on Unsplash)
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.
The snow from earlier in the week is gone, revealing a hidden blanket of leaves underneath. It appears we’ll begin the holiday season in mild weather again this year. No one is complaining.
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 