Chicago – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Sunday Morning Reading

The art of dancing on the line that separates and defines humanity

It was a good week for reading good writing. It’s a better week for sharing what popped up. A variety of topics, spanning art and the making and selling of it, technology — which these days is more about the selling than the tech — the humanity, or lack thereof, behind it all, and…well to continue a list would sell it all short. Here’s hoping you enjoy the links shared in today’s Sunday Morning Reading as much as I enjoy sharing them. Yia Mas!

An overhead, first-person perspective shows a person lying on their back on a teal couch, holding open a large book to read. The person's head is closest to the foreground, with long, blonde-streaked hair spilling downward. They are wearing a deep maroon, long-sleeved sweater and light grey sweatpants. Image from Matias north v8DSLoY80Xk unsplash.

Om Malik wrote one of the best things I’ve read in quite some time. We Are Living In Pinocchio’s World is about lying. It’s about AI. It’s about a pen. But it’s about so much more.

Cory Doctorow’s Refining Humanity takes on our propensity for explanation, personhood for machines, and that line we seem to want to dance with defining just what makes us human in the midst of it all.

Meanwhile Martyn Berlin of Martyn’s Random Musings finds himself an outcast in To Have A Moral Stance On AI Is To Be An Outcast, And It Sucks.

At what cost art? Natasha MH wonders and writes about it in Sold At A Premium. At what cost, anything?

Mike Masnick thinks it’s not about whether technology is inherently good or bad, liberating or oppressive. You could argue the same could be said about most aspects of human endeavor. But then that’s the point. Tech is just another in a long line. Check out Enshittification, Despotification, And The Open Internet.

“The only conviction worth having is the kind you could lose tomorrow and survive it.” JA Westenberg warns us not to take a pill, regardless of color in Be Thou Not Pilled.

Mathew Ingram wonders Have Investors In AI Companies Lost Their Minds? I’m not sure we can call them investors any more. As to their minds? No comment.

Two interesting takes on what’s going on the business of making movies in Hollywood that occasionally and almost accidentally is about making art. M.G. Siegler talks about how YouTube Beats AI To Disrupting Hollywood. Meanwhile Sonny Bunch takes a look at The Thoughtlessness of AI Filmmaking.

Word came down this week that a restaurant was finally going to fill one of the retail spaces in the Trump Tower in Chicago, after they had all sat empty for seventeen years. Neil Steinberg asks Will Chicago Happily Eat Dolmades And Drink Roditis In Trump Tower?

To close, click through the popover on John Gruber’s post This Is A Dickover, and give the post a read. You know what a Dickover is. Now you have a name for it.

(Image from Matias North on Unsplash)

Thanks for reading. Feel free to subscribe if you want. It’s free. 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. This site does not use affilate links.

Yikes! Chicago Bears Caleb Williams Will Be On The Cover of Madden NFL 27

Cursed or not?

Chicago Bears football fans are gasping with excitement and stocking up on antacid today after it was announced that the team’s quarterback, Caleb Williams, has been picked to grace the 2027 cover of the popular game Madden NFL.

Promotional cover art for the video game "Madden 27" features an action shot of Chicago Bears Quarterback Caleb Williams mid-air preparing to toss a pass against a deep blue sky.

It’s certainly great recognition for the quarterback who had some amazing moments on the field last year in a surprising Bears season. He’s an exciting, if sometimes erratic player who managed to pull out last minute victories with some spectacular plays more times than not. Of course the other side of that coin is that more consistent play by the quarterback and the team should theoretically lead to less of those hair raising/pulling moments. But a win is a win.

However, the cover recognition is also believed by quite a few to be a curse for the player chosen, presaging down seasons or possible injury. According to CBS Sports 14 or the 24 players chosen between 2001 and 2024 had less than spectacular seasons after being so anointed.

Whether or not it’s a curse, who knows. But it does just add another level of anxiety for Bears fans already on edge heading into a season where we should find out what this team is made of after a season that surprised most. With the upcoming season schedule rated as the toughest in the NFL and a number of players who led the way last year lost to free agency or retirement, it was already shaping up to be nerve wracking.

It’s not easy being a Chicago sports fan.

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. This site does not use affilate links.

Hot Dogging It

Fun times in the city

Yesterday I took a stroll through the neighborhood to once again visit the Windy City Hot Dog Fest. It’s an annual weekend event for hot dog lovers and street fair aficionados, blocking off Milwaukee Avenue for a few blocks in front of the under renovation Portage Theatre.

Of course visitors can order up a typical Chicago hot dog, but that’s not the point. There are also a few exotic creations available. I mean, you can get a typical Chicago hot dog any day of the year, but ordering up a rattlesnake and rabbit sausage is something else entirely. I did order up one of those, along with a snapper and alligator sausage as well. Both were excellent.

In addition to the hot dogs there’s a variety of beers available as well as the other street or county fair staples like funnel cakes and of course corn dogs.

There’s even choices for those not looking for hot dogs.

You can also find all of the usual civic and social organizations with booths and information, as well as a variety of merchants selling their non-edible wares.

What impressed me the most this year was the large number of families with small children enjoying the day, the food, and the fun. I’m sure they’ve been there in past years, but this year I was struck that so many chose to take a break from all of whatever we’re living through to enjoy fun, food and the day together on a few blocks in a very wonderfully diverse city.

More shots in the gallery below.

Sunday Morning Reading

Biker heroes, cheese thieves, and stupidity checklists

Sunday Morning Reading time with stories and good writing about crime, incompetence, technology, shifts and changes, and cheese. There’s also hope in and amongst the chaos. Add a slice of cheese to your morning repast and give a read.

A rustic indoor display features a wide variety of artisanal cheese wheels and blocks stacked tightly on wooden shelving. On the left, smooth, rectangular orange-brown blocks are piled horizontally. On the right and center, large round wheels of varying sizes are stacked vertically, displaying diverse rinds—ranging from textured dark brown and dusty gray to smooth ochre and patterned beige. Photo by Azzedine rouichi YW_5rJvAdKw unsplash.

Starting this week’s edition with a surprising feel good story that reminds us we shouldn’t judge books by covers. Marlon G. Baxter tells the tale of young hearing impaired child who was saved from being trafficked in a Walmart by what appeared to most as an unlikely hero. You need to read “Heroes Wear Leather Too”: How A Deaf Child And A Biker Stopped A Trafficking Plot.

UPDATE: This pisses me off. Apparently the feel good story linked above is fake. I and several others have looked into it and it’s not holding up. Pardon my swearing, but this is so goddamned frustrating. I’m leaving the link and my description in for two reasons. Pointing out that we can’t trust a damn thing on the Internet anymore. Secondly, that really sucks given we’re all in a posture of looking for hope whenever we can find it.

In the wake of what’s happening at the ICE Delaney Hall ~~detention center~~ internment camp in New Jersey, Josh Kovensky recounts the story of what happened in the courts after similar battles over humanity happened earlier in Chicago. Check out How The Broadview Six Fought The Trump DOJ—And Found Massive Wrongdoing In The Process. Tough to see hope in these horrible moments as they occur, and it’s hard to believe we have to rely on the incompetence of evil doers after the fact, but here we are.

Speaking of incompetence, there are stories and there are stories. Andrew Kersley’s The Body In The Wheelchair: How Did A Troubled Family Get Lost By the State? This a tough read to digest on a Sunday or any day, but definitely worth your time.

On the arts and politics front, a court has ruled Trump has to take his name off of the Kennedy Center and not close it down for renovations. Sounds like a victory. In the long term it may be, but Janay Kingsbury tells us that in the immediate future the damage may already have been done in Trump Hasn’t Left Much Kennedy Center To Stay Open. So much of what’s happening these days hurts my heart, but this misadventure hits me where I live.

Everything is changing, like it or not. Sonny Bunch thinks Hollywood is standing on the doorstep of yet another pivotal moment. Check out Hollywood’s About To Change (Again).

As far as pivotal moments go, there are quite a few happening all around us. Especially regarding searching the Internet. Google is reinventing itself and the Internet, leaving an opening for companies like DuckDuckGo and Kagi. Doc Searls writes How DuckDuckGo Can Be A Hero. Let’s hope these search companies seize the moment that’s before them.

And while we’re on the topic of tech, John Siracusa has published The EV Stupidity Checklist, suggesting ways the EV industry might get back on track. John could and should publish one of these for so many things in the tech sector. Perhaps also for so many other sectors of our lives.

I’m a cheese fan, and I’ve been known to nick a slice or two off of the hors d’oeuvres tray before the guests arrive. Olivia Potts tells us how organized crime fell in love with cheese in The Grate Cheese Robbery. Who knew cheese was the most stolen food in the world?

(Image from Azzedine Rouichi 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. This site does not use affilate links.

Sunday Morning Reading

Wandering through the Internet, disregarding along the way

We live in interesting times. I’m spending a lot of my time being interested in watching my grandkids develop, and watching everything around how I thought they might grow up change. In my opinion, change not necessarily for the better. They won’t know what things changed from necessarily, unless they choose to look into it. That assumes they’ll be able to do so the way we can now. I have my doubts about that. Regardless, that’s tomorrow. Here are some links to share in this edition of Sunday Morning Reading.

A close-up photograph captures a bronze statue of a young boy sitting on a stone bench outdoors, absorbed in reading a book.

Terry Godier says the Internet is dying. I’m not sure if it’s dying, morphing, collapsing in on itself, or just in the midst of growing pains, but I take the point. Check out The Boring Internet. (That’s a link to the text version. There’s also an animated version here. Quite nicely done.

JA Westenberg believes Nobody Is Destined For Greatness. I happen to agree. Shakespeare gave his greatest comic villain, Malvolio, lines about being born great. I wish I could label our current day villains as comic. Perhaps one day.

Derek Sivers reminds us that Geography Is Four-Dimensional. How true. There’s a reason Shakespeare more often than not capitalized the word “Time.”

Stories about religion occasionally get shared here. Mostly they are stories about how it’s really not religion, but a cover for grift and abuse. This is one of those. He Remade The Southern Baptist Convention In His Image. Then Came The Abuse Allegations by Robert Downen chronicles yet another of those tales we seem to hear far too frequently these days.

For another take involving religion, check out Neil Steinberg’s Being Formed By Christians Does Not A Christian Make. He quotes Thomas Jefferson’s “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” I’m not sure we can say either of those things any more.

There was a bit of a funny fracas after Google’s all in on AI announcements this week at its annual I/O conference. Apparently for a short time after Google announced big changes to Search, you could not Google the word “disregard” and expect the usual quick definition. Google quickly fixed that. The root of the problem? “Disregard” is an AI command that you have to put in a prompt to keep the AI demons from you know, making a mistake. Check out Russell Brandom’s quick story, You Can No Longer Google the Word ‘Disregard.’

Speaking of Artificial Intelligence, the talk is all about agents. (Actually that’s been the talk for a while, the volume is just increasing.) Hayden Field thinks If Google Can’t Make AI Agents Useful, Maybe No One Can. FWIW, I think Hayden is spot on.

In an article The Economist credits as anonymous, someone thinks Vladimir Putin Is Losing His Grip On Russia. Perhaps that’s true. I don’t know about you, but I’m as tired of hearing about autocratic oligarchs losing their grip as I am about hearing all of the promises about generative AI and autonomous driving being just around the corner.

Looking Back On Simpler Times

Missing what may have never been

As chaos, criminality, and incompetence all in equal parts masquerade as something pretending to be the U.S. Government swirls us around like flotsam in a whirlpool destined to be dragged under, I’m missing simpler times when, upon reflection, I remember there were easier ways to stay afloat.

Life was always challenging, but I was younger then. Girded with the innocence of youth, I still felt like I could overcome whatever obstacles lay in front of me.

Given the higher costs of just getting around currently, I miss those younger days, when I lived in a part of town where I could walk to just about anything I needed to, or hail a cab if it was a longer journey not on a public transit route. Being younger, those trips included far fewer visits to doctors, and far fewer trips to help out older relatives. Again, mostly visiting doctors.

It was nothing to wheel a portable grocery cart a few blocks for a load of groceries and again back home. There also weren’t many thoughts about comparison shopping, as convenience outweighed whatever cost differences there were between competing grocery stores, pharmacies, and other merchants.

If I wanted to get out of town for the weekend, a car was easily rentable. Leaving and returning to the city was never a planning chore attempting to avoid whatever construction currently makes a joke out of the term expressway.

I miss the days when stupidly crooked politicians got their comeuppance if they tried to beat the rap, or had a sense of shame and the good sense to leave office on their own. Yes, things were still crooked. But there was a harmlessness about it, unlike in this moment.

In the neighborhood taverns, sports talk was sports talk. About the sport and real stats. Not about analytics, salary caps, and free agency. A trade was a trade. A hit was a hit, and no one knew the exit velocity.

Talk about politics was actually about the issues, and the political peccadillos certainly. But it all felt harmless compared to the blood sport it is today.

I visited one of those taverns recently. Felt like a stranger in my own town. Perhaps I am the stranger. Maybe I’m just strange. Perhaps it’s not my own town any longer. Today is not yesterday. Tomorrow won’t be either.

The Grandkids Are Invading

Invasion of the smalls

The grandkids are coming! The grandkids are coming!

It certainly feels like an invasion as we prep the house, prep the fun and games, and prep ourselves for their arrival. They’re spending most of the week. We’re spending a small fortune.

But we wouldn’t have it any other way. Bring ‘em on

Sunday Morning Reading

Looking beyond and beneath the words on the page

Good writing is good writing. But underneath the surface or the subject matter of good writing, you find subtext, perhaps buried, that surprises beyond the words on the page, the summaries, and the top lines that often reduce more than broaden. That’s the case with this week’s edition of Sunday Morning Reading. Read on, dig beneath, and enjoy.

An over-the-shoulder view of a bronze statue depicting a young person with short hair sitting on a stone bench and reading a large open book. A small bronze bird is perched on the top right corner of the book's pages. The statue is situated outdoors in a paved park area with grass visible in the background.

First up, is a piece by film critic Sonny Bunch, discussing The Weird Right-Wing Freakout Over ‘They Odyssey’ Yes, it’s about casting and race and history and myths and all those things. On the surface a tired argument. Dig below the controversy, and you might find a morsel or two worth chewing on, but in reality only being upset about if you believe in exercising or conjuring demons through outrage. Maybe someday we’ll all eventually end up back where we started from. But like Odysseus, the homecoming might feel as hazardous as the journey we’re putting ourselves through to get there.

Things are certainly screwed up in U.S. Politics, but we’re not alone. In fact, we’ve got more than enough company. Great Britain is having its moment as well. Ian Dunt’s piece There Is A Light That Never Goes Out is one heckuva piece of writing that beneath the stormy surface of British politics, points to the problems far and wide and far below, regardless of what flag your ship might be flying when it sinks.

The trial between Elon Musk and Sam Altman over OpenAI and whatever the hell all of that means, sounds like a circus where the clowns won’t leave the center ring. M.G. Siegler takes a look at some of the shenanigans in Take Me Down To The “Amateur City.”

Rex Reed was, if nothing else, a show into and of himself as a film critic. I always found him both entertaining and I occasionally agreed with his acerbic criticism. For better or worse he set a standard that presaged much of what passes for criticism today. He passed away this week. Merin Curotto has written quite a remembrance piece that’s so much more than about the one man. The Rex Reed I Knew (1938-2026) is worth a read even if you weren’t a fan or don’t have any sense of who Rex Reed was.

Alessandra Ram explores what happens when you might be married to a man who is smitten with AI in Meet The Sad Wives Of AI. I think this could also apply across any way the genders choose to partner. I’m sure there’s a promise out there somewhere that AI will fix all of this. Right?

Chicago baseball is having a moment with both of its major league teams doing reasonably well and playing each other in the Crosstown Classic. There were and are great expectations for the Chicago Cubs, not so much for the Chicago White Sox, which is why the exciting level of play on the South Side is capturing some of the North Siders glow. In the midst of all of that, this week marked the passing of Sam Sianis, the legendary owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, who placed a curse on the Chicago Cubs back in 1945 when the owner wouldn’t let him bring his goat into the stadium. Paul Sullivan has a great write up on the history, the myths, and the lore. Check out Sam Sianis And The Curse Of The Billy Goat Remind Chicago Fans Why We Love Baseball And It’s Myths.

When you do look beneath the surface of a moment, a life, an obituary, or perhaps even the remains of what’s left, sometimes you find more than you might have imagined. Archaeologists Find Egyptian Mummy Buried With The ‘Iliad’ by Franz Lidz tells such a tale. Homer says, “the sort of words a man says is the sort he hears in return.”

I’ll add, the sort one reads to that as well.

(Photo by the author)

Gearing Up For Another Journey With The International Voices Project

The plays may be from far away, but the stories feel closer to home

It’s that time again. A time to journey into parts unknown with writers new to me. That means it’s time for The International Voices Project festival.

This is a gig I participate in once or twice a year. IVP gives me a chance to explore writers, different cultures, and a larger world. The mission of IVP is to bring international works translated into English to Chicago audiences. They are presented in a staged reading format. That simply means actors are carrying scripts and the production isn’t fully realized. The emphasis is on the text and the story.

This year I’m headed to Indonesia and the play, OH, by Puta Wijaya. The story features a young attorney who arrives at his father’s hospital bedside to fulfill his father’s request, but he comes not as a son, but as an ambitious lawyer seeking his mentor’s opinion on a case: defending a drug dealer facing two death sentences. Wijaya himself adapted the piece into a play from an original short story of his, called The People’s Justice.

The one thing I always learn from these plays from other countries is not how different we are, but just how much we are the same. That’s more than true with this piece, as much of what the main character thinks could be ripped out of today’s US headlines or from social media.

Looking forward to spending the next week rehearsing and hearing the staged reading of OH, next week.

Spring Nights In The City

Weird meteorological magic

Sometimes the city calls to you and begs you to pay attention.

A wide-angle, low-light shot captures a busy urban intersection at twilight in Chicago. In the foreground, a prominent black traffic light pole features a glowing green light and a "One Way" sign pointing left, heavily adorned with stickers. A black metal trash can sits on the brick sidewalk nearby.

Certainly on some early Spring evenings, when the air is clear, and there can still be a chill in the air.

You may want to escape a jacket during the day, but it brings comfort as the sky darkens. You may curse the morning chill, but not that of the early evening.

Because you know as the weather warms, the city works its weird meteorological magic and the air warms up with the setting sun as the heat of the day escapes the streets and the buildings.

In the Spring, in the early evening, the city calls to you, and says enjoy it while you can.