travel – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bumper Cars and Grocery Carts

We’re an angry lot these days

We’ve been away for a week, so we had a number of errands to run in order to restock the home larder, pick up the dry cleaning, etc.. It’s a Saturday and a sunny one at that. Cooler than I’d like, but reasonably pleasant. Unfortunately, the cooler temperatures and bright sunshine aren’t leading to cooler heads.

An high angle, wide shot of an old black and white photograph captures the interior of a grocery store where shoppers wait in line at checkout stands.

The nice weather means everyone and their extended families in Chicago has decided to get in their cars and drive today. Add to that, the outbreak of road construction sites that have popped up like spring flowers and you’ve got your typical tangled traffic mess.

One of the things that always gets me is how considerate drivers never focus their consideration beyond what’s in front of them. A considerate driver will pause to let another motorist entering from a side street, or trying to change lanes, not recognizing the line of cars behind them that they are holding up by doing so. It can be aggravating.

It’s different in the grocery store. It’s usually considerate to let someone who might have one item jump in front of you if you’ve got a reasonably full cart. But in my experience, that doesn’t happen if there’s a long line of folks behind them. Spatial and situational awareness is a little more acute when you’re not behind the wheel of a car, instead surrounded by other humans.

Today I witnessed that break down. One customer with a line behind him, decided to let another customer with only a gallon of milk, cut in front of him. It lead to quite a loud chorus of complaints from other customers standing behind the gentleman. The considerate customer fired back with a retort and, well, let’s just say verbal chaos ensued. The cashier and eventually the manager got involved.

Obviously the difference between grocery carts and cars is that you’re not protected by metal and other materials that entomb us in cars. You might hear car horns blaring, but you don’t hear the shouts of other angry customers, separated only by the length of a grocery cart or two or three.

When I came out of the grocery store, the argument had continued in the parking lot. Fortunately, the offending gentleman and the most vociferous objector to his consideration were parked in separate parking lot lanes meaning they were headed in different directions once they got in their cars, doors slamming, to depart.

I’ll leave it this way. We’re an angry lot these days. With all of what we’re dealing with as a society, rising prices certainly being one of them, everybody more than willing to express their anger, regardless of whatever armor they may be incased in.

(Image from the Boston Public Library on Unsplash)

Sunday Morning Reading

“The life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.” -David Hume

On the weekend when some parts of the world think they can alter time by simply changing the clocks, I’m reminded of the biggest lesson most learn in life: we’re each not the center of the universe. Most learn it. Some never do, or if they do, they continue to operate under that delusion. We pretty good at setting up systems and structures that reinforce and rely on that delusional thinking. Somehow that seems to be the theme running through the articles and writing I collected this week for this edition of Sunday Morning Reading.

Bronze statue of a child sitting on an outdoor stone bench with legs crossed, reading an open book that rests on their lap, a small bird perched on the top edge of the book, and a stack of books beside them, with a paved walkway, grass lawn, and buildings in the background. Kicking things off is the story of how Humanity Altered an Asteroid’s Orbit Around The Sun by Becky Ferreira. The article links to the ScienceAdvances abstract on the nudge that might be as good as a wink.

Last week the war in the Middle East had just kicked off as I was publishing this column. This week it continues. And, yes, it’s a war, regardless of the stupid debate. Jonathan Taplin looks at The Terrifying New Era of American Imperialism, and Jay Caspian Kang examines The No-Explanation War.

“Society grows great when old men plant trees who shade they’ll never sit under” and the opposite of that wisdom is how Scott Galloway kicks off his piece on Role Models.

Ali Breland takes a looks at those yearning for a return to McCarthyism in ‘We Need To Do McCarthyism to the Tenth Power.’ Turning back time only works as a song lyric.

JA Westenberg offers up a A Soft-Landing Manual For The Return To The Second Gilded Age. It’s tough to avoid the usual hard crashes.

The Dodgy Code examines The Great AI Arbitrage: Making A Killing Before Your Client Wises Up. The inevitable turnaround on this is going to be something to see.

Before we get to that turnaround, Mathew Ingram says The Danger Posed By AI Just Got A Lot More Real All Of A Sudden. Going to be interesting to watch AI bots fighting each other to be the center of the universe. If we’re around to see it.

David Todd McCarty is Searching For Originality In A Sea of Slop. Even on dry land that’s tough.

I’ve been revisiting a lot of Shakespeare of late, so this piece by Alice Cunningham caught my eye. Check out Author To Revive Shakespeare Club After 300 Years. We could all do with revisiting the his works.

And to conclude this week, James Verini brings us the wild tale of The Man Who Broke Into Jail.

(Photo taken by the author.)

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)

Touring in Tongues

Still enjoying touring London. Still marveling at how weird it is seeing the reaction to this week’s news and the sadly predictable reactions to it back home.

Chatting with drivers and other folks met along the way, the news back home may seem foreign to my view on the world as I thought it might one day become, but I’m reminded how, though separated as we are by a common language, we are inextricably tied into a gordian knot, by those who thrive on stirring up division for gain.

I say that as London prepares for supposed “free speech” protests today, with what’s in those quotes more easily defined as a way to drive the wedge of division deeper into our collective souls at whatever cost for whatever profit.

Adding An Item To The Bucket List

Seeing things with a different lens

We’ve been doing a lot of travel this Summer, mostly driving. Wandering down familiar roads and those not so familiar I’ve found my eye landing on old houses, old barns, and other old structures.

Some of these I’ve driven past many times before (like one pictured above). I’ve driven past it easily hundreds of times. Perhaps I’m just paying attention in a different way. Others are new to me.

Regardless, it makes me wonder what stories these structures contain. It’s also making me think that I might need to purchase a non-smartphone camera again and schedule some time to just travel and take some photos of these buildings and their stories.

So, I’m adding that to ye olde bucket list.

Chicago’s Uptown Theatre Hits 100 and is Still On The Skids

Decaying majesty

They certainly don’t make movie theatres like they used to. That’s not surprising or new, and long ago signaled a passing of a time when building special places for people to gather became less of a priority than so many other concerns. Chicago’s Uptown Theatre was one of those special places back in the day. It’s been decaying and shuttered since 1981 and every now and then efforts surface to try and bring it back to life.

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The Uptown celebrates its 100th birthday on August 18. Built as a grand show palace by Balaban & Katz and the architectural firm Rapp & Rapp, it was hailed as spectacular, and a “splendiferous palace of a place.” The Uptown sat 4,320 in what was called “an acre of seats.”

Offering movies and live entertainment it was billed as a “shrine to democracy where there are no privileged patrons. The wealthy rub elbows with the poor — and are better for this contact.” It also had air conditioning.

Obviously a lot changed throughout the years, talkies took over from silent films, the Great Depression, and the advent of TV changed the dynamic. The Uptown part of town itself fell on hard times and saw big changes, and during much of my time in Chicago was the last section of the lakefront resisting redevelopment. The final act on the Uptown stage was a concert by the J. Geils Band in 1981.

Robert Loerzel has a terrific piece looking back at the Uptown Theatre in the Chicago Tribune that’s more than worth a read as we approach the show palace’s centennial. There’s also an excellent gallery of photos, which the photo above is from. The link should be a gift link, although I don’t know how long that lasts. Loerzel has also authored a new book, The Uptown: Chicago’s Endangered Movie Palace

When I first moved to Chicago in 1999 there were still a few of these show palaces in operation around the city, but the Uptown had long since shuttered. I got to take a tour of the place in the early 1990’s and the scale of what it once offered was impressive to see, only dwarfed by the decay and disrepair.

There are still efforts to try and find funding to restore the Uptown, but I’m sad to say I think priorities have shifted in such a way that we won’t see that happen.

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

Roads traveled too well

Some things defy understanding. Others appear less murky. Occasionally some hit the target. That’s why I read. That’s why I share. I’m still traveling and on the road for a bit, but there’s plenty to share in this week’s Sunday Morning Reading. Tomatoes and potatoes may be involved.

Phillip Bump recently accepted a buyout from The Washington Post and hasn’t announced new plans yet. But he’s still writing. Glad he is. He has always been one of my favorite writers and chroniclers. Check out his latest piece Humans Didn’t Evolve To Understand Our World.

When you reach a certain age (certain is alwasy self-defined) you start looking back to the beginning and wonder what will mark the ending. Cris Andrei calls them Bookends. This piece hit the target given that I’m visiting some old haunts on this trip. Oh, and approaching a certain age (self-defined.)

Tuning out news, noise and distractions is never easy. NatashMH takes a look through the marking of Ozzy Osbourne’s passing and other recent cultural touchpoints in Fractals of Modern Life. If you don’t look too hard, all the news, noise and distractions don’t really touch or point towards much in the grand scheme of things. But are we entertained or just dulled into carrying on?

Sometimes writers write just for the fun of it. David Todd McCarty says that’s where this piece, Killing Time Waiting for Friend, came from. I need to find more of the fun of it. Anyway his piece, gave me a chuckle. I did not read it at Denny’s, although I visited one of my favorite locations of the past during my travels.

I’ve linked to and written about Cory Doctorow’s theory of enshittification quite a bit. I’m doing so again with this piece You Can’t Fight Enshittification. I don’t think it’s a question of not fighting, I think it’s a question of not knowing there was a fight to begin with.

Staying in the tech vein, I’ve been linking to Mathew Ingram and others who are talking about the demise of Google Search. Take a look at Pete Pachal’s piece, What Content Strategy Looks Like In The Age of AI. Look beyond the headline on this one.

Speaking of Mathew Ingram, you should read Social Media Didn’t Start The Fire, It Just Fanned The Flames. I agree. That said, if you drink acclerants through a firehose you’re bound to bust.

On the political beat, Jon Pavlovitz offers up Everyone Believes They’re Esssentially A Good Human Being. Actors who play villains will always say that they look for what’s good in their evil character. It’s a form of coping. I happen to think this bunch of performance artists trying to burn down the country never bothered looking beyond the glee they take from their villainy. Apologies to real performance artists.

And to close things out on a competely different note, check out Will Dunham’s piece on the Evolutionary Origins of the Potato Revealed — and a Tomato Was Involved. Some things do defy understanding.

(Image from Mr. Abstract 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.