Pete Lit

Dreams

On Friday night, I had a very ominous dream. (Might have become a nightmare, had I slept longer.) We were sitting in our car, just outside of a military base. We were trying to drive inside, but the base seemed to be on some sort of high-alert lockdown. Then I was in a corporate conference room with several apparent work colleagues, and we were being addressed by some executive. He prefaced his remarks by pointing out how each one us, while from different backgrounds, had come together and done so much for each other. The message seemed unsettlingly like those post-9/11 appeals for unity and strength, and my impression is that the executive was about to deliver some devastating news, on the order of a nuclear or terrorist attack. Then I woke up, bringing the dream to an inconclusive end.

Downstairs in the kitchen, as I began to feed our cats, I remembered my dream. Though it didn't greatly concern me, it still stuck in my mind. It occurred to me to check my phone, just to make sure a global catastrophe hadn't occurred overnight that my dream was a premonition of. The first news site I have bookmarked is the Chicago Tribune, and when I pulled that up the first two headlines were "Jeffery a controversial pick for Bears" and "Bulls can alleviate anxiety only with championship."

I breathed a mild sigh of relief, knowing that even the Tribune wouldn't run two sports stories ahead of a catastrophe. Trifling mundanity was safe for another day.

Largehearted Ben

Mi compadre Ben Tanzer scores another Book Notes piece* at Largehearted Boy, this time for the anniversary reissue of his debut novel, Lucky Man.

I am looking back, but I am also looking at now, and I am trying to make sense of something, nostalgia, emotions, decisions made and not made, and what the music means to me, the characters I write about and the stories we tell.

Lucky Man, incidentally, was what basically launched our friendship. We first met at a RAGAD reading we both did at MoJoe's in Chicago in 2007, and afterward I bought a copy of the book from him. With both of us working in the Loop, lunch soon ensued, which has now become a regular gig, along with our collaboration on This Zine Will Change Your Life and the occasional flurry of witty emails. Though I'm partial to the original cover design, I also admire the reissue's vivid cover (by Ryan Bradley) for its allusion to the four main characters.

(*If I could score even one of these, I might just immediately retire from writing.)

Julie's Supper Club

Oh wow, oh wow. Would I love to own this sign.

Counting sheep, the writer's version

Lately I've rarely been able to sleep straight through the night. Inevitably I wake up at about 2 or 3 a.m., much too alert, and struggle to get back to sleep. (I wonder if there's something this myth of the eight-hour sleep business after all.) Though tempting, I try not think through whatever fiction project I'm working on at the time - conjuring settings and plot situations are much too mentally engaging for me to get sufficiently drowsy. And counting sheep has never really worked for me.

I've recently hit on a trick that seems to work, which I'll call first name-last name. One challenge faced by fiction writers is inventing characters' names, which fit both their personalities and backgrounds while also being poetic or at least memorable. So my trick is to randomly think of a first name, and then a last name that goes with it. Frequently the initial last name chosen creates the name of a celebrity (which would be cheating and not at all creative), so if I have "Robert" and first think of "DeNiro", I abandon that last name and think of another, such as "Woodside." And after Robert Woodside, I think of a new first name that begins with W, and continue on from there. I know this might also sound too mentally engaging for drowsiness, but the names come and go quickly, in a free-association sort of way, and their steady progression usually lulls me back to sleep.

Try it sometime. The only thing I warn is to not choose too many last names that begin in L or M - I often find myself gravitating toward the center of the alphabet, and before long I've run out of the standard L or M first names and have to settle for Langley and Mervin. Try for the ends of the alphabet instead.

"Give it five minutes."

Not a bad idea. I could eliminate most of my half-baked fiction concepts this way.

(Via Gapers Block.)

Month of Letters draws to a satisfying close

Yesterday I wrote my twenty-fifth and final letter of the Month of Letters project. (Technically, it was only supposed to be 24 letters - one for each day the post office was open during February - but I hand-delivered my letter to Julie to be sure she'd have it on her birthday. She appreciated the letter but insisted on getting delivered through the mail, so I wrote her a second one yesterday.)

It was a great experience, and from the feedback I've gotten it seems like people really enjoyed getting a hand-written letter in the mail. Letter-writing is such an anachronism in this era of email and text messaging, and has obvious limitations in terms of timeliness. But it also requires the writer to really slow down and reflect more on what's being written, and I think the message is better for that extra thought even though it takes a few extra days to arrive. I've already gotten several letters in reply, including: one written on a deli bag; a dense thirteen-pager packed into a box whose wonderful contents I've promised not to divulge; and some sky charts from an astronomer in New Mexico which allowed us to watch the International Space Station pass overhead this week. And several more people have promised to write back, which I'm very much looking forward to.

My own letters were a varied bunch. Most dwelled on my own life - family, career, writing - while a few others were about the recipient and how much that person means to me. One letter was a rambling travelogue of my evening train ride (where I wrote most of the letters) and another was a short story written in one hour, between Chicago and Joliet. The importance of this project to me was two-fold: first, it instilled the habit of writing every day (a practice I don't observe with my fiction writing, though I really should); and second, it forced my out of my introverted shell in reaching out to others. I think the project was good for me, and hope my correspondents appreciated my effort.

Boy's gotta have it.

Suh-weet. I can have modern photographic convenience without sacrificing my hard-earned retro/old fogey reputation.

(Via Boing Boing.)

An anniversary of sorts

Fifteen years ago today, I had my first date with Julie, the woman who would soon become the love of my life. It was actually an accidental date - we worked together, and planned to meet a co-worker and her sister at The Cue Club, an upscale pool hall in Chicago on Sheffield near Diversey. But there was a big snowstorm, and the other two couldn't make the drive in from the suburbs, leaving Julie and me (we both lived in the city) to ourselves. I had been interested in her for more than a year but still hadn't gotten up the courage to ask her out, and so that evening (with plenty of pool and many drinks) proved to be the perfect opportunity to get better acquainted. Julie has readily admitted ever since that she had no interest in me before that night, but something was definitely sparked there, and when I finally asked her out later that week she enthusiastically agreed. We've been together ever since.

Interestingly enough, that was the only time we were ever at The Cue Club together. The place closed years ago, as did the locale of our first formal date, Dolce Vita on Armitage. Fortunately our relationship has fared far better than either of those two places.

Boy's gotta have it.

The D.C. writing office of National Geographic's Wade Davis. Just fantastically, impossibly beautiful.

(Via Boing Boing.)

Contemplating Bette

This past weekend, I found this interesting snapshot in a box of old family photos. As you can see, it's a man standing outside a movie theater (the poster is for Jezebel, starring Bette Davis), apparently on his way inside. Based on the man's general build, hair color and attire (hat cocked to the right), along with the fact that the photos in the box are all from my mom's family, I'm pretty sure this is my grandfather. The movie's appearance dates the photograph at 1938. I'm very glad to have this unique view; almost all of the other photos in the box are standard, straight-on posed shots, but this one almost has an artsy feel to it.

Special thanks to Michael Leddy for identifying the movie, based on just that visible portion of the poster.

Month of Letters - REMINDER!

Just a reminder that I'm doing Month of Letters right now. The first two letters are already mailed, but at the moment I only have two other people who have indicated interest in hearing from me. If you want a good, old-fashioned, hand-written anachronism filled with my generally lucid musings, drop me an email (pete_anderson [AT] comcast [DOT] net) with your snail mail address. Or if you're sure I already have your address, then just leave a comment below. I may even include some thoughtfully chosen ephemera with your letter. Don't miss out!

Boy's gotta have it.

Sweet book, sweet history, sweet design.

So proud

Maddie, 11-year-old blogger.

Month of Letters

I think I'll give this a try: The Month of Letters Challenge.

I have a simple challenge for you.

1. In the month of February, mail at least one item through the post every day it runs. Write a postcard, a letter, send a picture, or a cutting from a newspaper, or a fabric swatch.
2. Write back to everyone who writes to you. This can count as one of your mailed items.

All you are committing to is to mail 24 items.

Care to hear from me via good old-fashioned snail mail? Drop me your address at pete_anderson [AT] comcast [DOT] net. I can't guarantee that whatever I send will be earth-shattering or even enlightening, but I'll do my best. (And now, thanks to this project, Aztec Camera's "We Could Send Letters" will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day.)

(Via Boing Boing.)

Boy's gotta have it.

Drool.

(Via Boing Boing.)

First lines, 2011

The last time I ran a "first lines meme" here was in 2007, and since I so enjoyed that self-indulgence then and it's very slow at the office this week, I thought I'd run it again. Below are the first lines from my first blog post of each month of 2011. The skinny: Royko and drinking, novel writing update, indie rock, local publisher, bad poetry, Summer of Classics, photography and Chicago history, politics, obsessing over a single phrase from a 100+ year old novel, Maurice Sendak, saving an architectural relic, Joliet history and my tenuous connection to it. Yes, that covers most of my obsessions, though admittedly I don't really think about Sendak that often.

January: Mike Royko, "How To Ease That Hangover" (2.7mb download)

February: Hüsker Dü did the job last evening, and I eked out three or four pages of line edits.

March: The iPod shuffle-played the following for my walk from train to office...

April: Chicago-centric publisher Lake Claremont Press is running a sale on its stock of returned books.

May: For the same reason that I once avidly watched such cringeworthy TV fare as The A-Team, The Tim Conway Show and Quincy, I can't help but appreciate the sheer awfulness of the poem "Abbottabad".

June: "The business of the poet and the novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things." -Thomas Hardy

July: I was pleased to recently see the first photo, shown above, at Shorpy.com.

August: The really mind-boggling thing about the budget mess is that the debate could be this acrimonious without any of the final proposals including even a tiny increase in taxes.

September: I have a new post up at the Contrary Magazine blog, about a single phrase from Jude the Obscure.

October: The Guardian has a great profile of Maurice Sendak.

November: The rapidly-expanding electronics chain H.H. Gregg reportedly plans to buy and demolish the former Michael Brand Brewery complex at 2500 N. Elston, for a new store location.

December: Here's an interesting historical piece in the Joliet Herald-News about the old Porter Brewery, including a column by the late John Whiteside on the Feds' attempted crackdown during Prohibition.

Ha!

My retro/throwback/old-school/geezer self loves this. I have two of these computers in my messenger bag, and use them daily.

(Via The Week Behind.)

Hilton Head, Day 9

Day 9: Berea, KY to Joliet
Not much to say about Kentucky, expect that even if Google Maps tells you there's a Starbucks on the north end of Richmond, you shouldn't necessarily believe it, and you definitely shouldn't bypass the Starbucks that you saw earlier, right next to the expressway. Our unexpected and unnecessary detour ended with us getting back on the expressway without stopping, and finally grabbing coffee in Lexington. Oh, and also that Kentucky handles ramp closures better than they do in North Carolina. Unlike our Asheville misadventure, the detour signs in Louisville easily got us onto I-65, over the bridge and into Indiana.

After all of the thrilling mountains, curvy roads and ramp closures of the southern end of our drive, it was almost comforting to get back to the flat, predictable terrain of the Midwest; that's a typical Indiana view in the first photo. And definitely comforting to finally get back home, where our lonely cats were thrilled to see us. (Julie's family did check in on them daily while we were away, so the cats weren't neglected.) That second photo is Mud sitting on my lap, where she hopped up within seconds of me plunking down on the couch - and she didn't seem to stop purring for about two or three days. We felt likewise. Great trip, but great to be home.

Hilton Head, Day 8

Day 8: Hilton Head to Berea, KY
Saturday was the first leg of our long drive home. We packed up the car and drove off the island. Though we do enjoy Java Joe's in Hilton Head for our daily espresso, it's mostly for the convenience (a two block walk from the condo) and not necessarily the taste, which is actually nothing out of the ordinary. So before we left I looked up coffeehouses in the broader vicinity, and saw a listing for Corner Perk in Bluffton, the first town on the mainland. What a terrific little place - cozy (actually, like Java Joe's was at their former location), very good espresso, friendly and helpful staff. And we picked up a bag of locally-roasted coffee beans to take back home. Highly recommended.

I-40 between Asheville and Knoxville is the most spectacular stretch of interstate highway I've ever experienced. It rams right through the Pisgah and Cherokee National Forests (on the North Carolina-Tennessee border) and is filled with twisting, anxiety-inducing curves, sheer rock walls (many sheathed in steel mesh to keep falling boulders off the road) on either side, and soaring, tree-covered mountains that were just turning to fall colors as we passed through. It's actually a fairly short stretch of road (maybe 20 miles) that feels much longer with the white knuckles it often brings on. After that we stopped for dinner in Knoxville before continuing north to Berea, Kentucky, for a much-needed overnight stay.

Hilton Head, Day 7

Day 7
By Friday, things were definitely winding down. Though eager to squeeze in a few last-minute things, we were also bracing for the long drive ahead, and longing to be home. We enjoyed a round of mini golf (Maddie's first) and went back to the beach for one last stroll. But the weather had started to turn, and a stiff wind from the east whipped down the beach. That first photo is of the mini-sandstorm we walked directly into (I was still scrubbing sand off my shins the next day) and we soon turned to head back. One more walk toward the setting sun, and a lovely shot of Julie and Maddie standing in the surf. (The sight of those surging waves naturally prompted the quoting of "The sea was angry that day, my friend...like an old man returning soup at a deli", from Seinfeld.)

The changing weather - the forecast for the following week was rainy and colder - confirmed that it was time to go home. 

Hilton Head, Day 5

Day 5
On Wednesday, Maddie was gung-ho to fly a kite on the beach, which surprised me since we've only kited once at home and she's never really prodded me to do it again. So we stopped at a kite shop near the condo, bought a kid-friendly (easy to fly) kite, and headed to the beach. In no time she had it aloft, despite the winds being light. A very pleasant experience, and much more successful than when we tried at home.

As for the second photo, I often lag behind when we walk the beach at sunset, hoping to catch quietly beautiful moments like this one.

Hilton Head, Day 4

Day 4
At Hilton Head we walked the beach at least once a day, and always at sunset. We were constantly on the lookout for shells (and, in Julie's case, shark teeth - unsuccessfully). The shells we found were small (few were wider than a nickel) which made us quite excited to come across the hand-sized conch shell shown above. A shell this big would normally have been quickly grabbed earlier by some other beachcomber, but when we were there it was close to sunset with few other people around, and the high tide was receding, so the shell hasn't been exposed for long. We eagerly picked it up and brought it back to our condo.

When we got back, Maddie shook the shell several times and, hearing a rattling sound, insisted there was a critter (likely dead) inside. Julie and I scoffed at the idea, and Julie held the shell under the streaming faucet to rinse out the sand. Imagine our shock, then, to see claws suddenly emerge! Julie screamed and dropped the shell, and a hermit crab came halfway out before disappearing back inside. After a brief outburst of yells and screams all around, we calmed down again and decided that we obviously couldn't keep the crab, and had to return it to the ocean. Maddie and I walked back to the beach in almost total darkness, and she tossed the shell (with crab still inside) as far as she could into the surf. That done, we lingered to enjoy the sight of the very last traces of sunset, as shown in the second photograph above.

As we walked back, I said it was too bad that we couldn't keep such a great shell. Maddie replied that keeping the shell wasn't nearly as important as saving the crab and returning it to its home. Great kid, huh?

Hilton Head, Day 3

Day 3
Our first full day in Hilton Head had us renewing old acquaintances, and discovering but also saying goodbye. The local coffeehouse, Java Joe's, is still thriving, and once again became my daily morning stop as I fetched espresso for Julie and myself, and brought it back to the condo for a lazy morning. But sadly, the natural food store Healthy Days closed earlier this year after thirty years in business. We first found the store on last year's trip, just after Maddie was diagnosed with Celiac disease, and the owner there was wonderfully helpful in recommending gluten-free foods. Fortunately, we were comforted at dinner time to find that Mellow Mushroom, the Southeast-based pizza chain, offered gluten-free pizza. We ordered carryout, and were delighted to discover the best GF pizza we've had yet. We only wish they had stores near our home.

On the discovery front, we stumbled across The Courtyard, a combination used bookstore/yarn shop tucked away in the back of a retail center. We look for used bookstores everywhere we go but didn't think Hilton Head had any, which made this quite a pleasant surprise. And Julie's an avid knitter, which made our visit even more appealing; she's been to plenty of bookstores and yarn shops, but can't remember ever seeing a combination of the two. It's a warm, inviting place with plenty of chairs for relaxing and browsing. The photo is of the store's rare book corner (all rare, apparently, other than that bottom shelf with the $2 and $3 signs). I was particularly intrigued by an old first edition of a short story collection by the playwright Thornton Wilder, though when I saw the $130 price tag I gently put it back on the shelf. Between the three of us, we picked up six books for a ridiculously cheap nine bucks, with my own haul being Peter Orner's Esther Stories and J.P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man, both of which I had already wanted to read. The Courtyard will definitely be a regular stop on all future trips.

Hilton Head, Day 2

Day 2: Knoxville, TN to Hilton Head
After driving I-40 through the spectacular Pisgah and Cherokee National Forests (more on that later), a deliberate detour into Asheville, NC brought us to Green Sage Coffeehouse (shown above) for espresso. We discovered Green Sage on last year's drive to Hilton Head, and it's become one of our must-stops along the route. This photo was taken on our way out of town, shortly before a ramp closure lead to a rousing game of Lost in Asheville. Our matrimonial bond was somewhat strained [1] before we finally decided to take the interstate loop all the way around town, which despite being the long way at least got us back on track.

Then a long drive across geographically featureless South Carolina brought us at last to Hilton Head. (True, most of Illinois is flat as a board, but at least there you can see the terrain for miles and miles. In South Carolina the interstates are thickly walled in with trees, and you can hardly see anything.) Our first walk along the beach brought the unexpected and totally delightful sight of dolphins leaping offshore, over and over (though, sadly, too far out to get any good photos with our iPhones). Earlier, we stopped at the Piggly Wiggly right across the street from our condo for provisions. I took a long look at the beer aisle and was tempted by several New Belgium varieties before realizing how little sense it made to drink Colorado beer in South Carolina. So instead I went local and opted for Palmetto Brewing Pale Ale, from Charleston. Though far from earth-shattering, it was a good basic ale that I enjoyed for the rest of the week.

[1] Julie's comment (below) reminds me that I failed to mention the best part of our Asheville misadventure: once we were back on the right road, she turned to me and said, "See? THIS is exactly why we're never going on The Amazing Race." We both had a good laugh, and were friends once again.

Hilton Head

Julie, Maddie and I just got home from a week's vacation at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Since I don't like to broadcast the fact that we're out of town (might as well run a Craigslist ad for house thieves), I refrained from any vacation-specific posting to my blog while we were away. So now that we're back, I'll run a daily photo diary of our trip, with each posting occurring ten days after it actually occurred.

Day 1: Joliet to Knoxville, TN
After driving the length of Indiana and seeing numerous billboards for various sin palaces ("adult superstores", liquor stores, fireworks stores, etc.) near the Kentucky border, Julie wondered aloud, "Are we really in the Bible Belt?" and then shortly afterward answered herself with, "I guess you can't have salvation without sin." (It was interesting to note that billboards like these seemed to be clustered at the northwest and southern borders, as if Illinois and Kentucky are uptight/conservative states whose citizens are eagerly welcomed by the more permissive Indiana.)

This photo was taken along I-75, just north of Carysville, TN. Though you can't see from the photo, just beyond this massive cross is an establishment called Adult World. There's no church nearby, so there's no obvious reason for the cross to be standing there. It's almost as if the cross people put it there to shame the customers of Adult World, giving them the guilts for whatever they might be buying or browsing at the store. The proximity of those two landmarks is one of the most appropriate sin/salvation metaphors I've ever seen.

Sunday in the park with Maddie

At Inwood Park in Joliet. I've lived here eleven years now, but this is the first time I've been to that park. Nice little place.

Farewell, Elliott Handler

An icon of my childhood has passed away, albeit an icon whose name I didn't know until today: Elliott Handler, co-founder of Mattel, and - even more important to me - inventor of Hot Wheels. I don't know what my childhood would have been like without Hot Wheels. I hope he thoroughly enjoyed speeding down the bright orange track of life.

Post-holiday blues?

Blues be gone: photo gallery of Basset hounds, running. I love that breed. When I was a kid, our neighbors had a sweet elderly Basset named Judy that I will never forget.

(Via Boing Boing.)

Champaign on my mind

For some reason I seem to be strangely preoccupied with Champaign (and Urbana) this year. First, a few months ago I finally finished my first novella, Wheatyard, which is primarily set in C-U. Second, last week I belatedly discovered the Vertebrats, a much-loved band that thrived in the twin cities before breaking up in 1982; I had only been familiar with a few of their songs, an inexcusable omission now rectified after finding a copy of their wonderful anthology A Thousand Day Dream at a used record store. Then last night I was saddened to learn that my favorite campus restaurant, Zorba's, was burned out of its building by a fire in March and now faces an uncertain future...sigh.

If I close my eyes and really concentrate, I can almost smell the soybean-processing stench wafting over from the Kraft plant on the other side of town.

My quotable dad

My dad, John Anderson, was not an eloquent man. But he still had some memorable favorite phrases, including:

Famous last words.
Pull the pin.
Never stir a sleeping snake.
Keep the peace.
Keep your options open.
Don't sign anything.
Get out and pound the pavement.
Good-o.
Oh, you handsome devil, you!
Clean living always pays off.
Close only counts in horseshoes.
Don't marry for money. But remember, you can love a rich girl just as easily as a poor girl.

Lost tooth: $3.01. Fatherly pride: Priceless.

Even though I already read this note last night, reading it again today online had me laughing to tears, right in the middle of the Loop, on a Madison St. sidewalk. This will give you just a hint of why I love my little girl so much.

On poetry and dandelions

Right now I'm working my way through Brute Neighbors, an anthology of poetry and prose devoted to the intersection of the natural and urban (primarily Chicago) environments that was recently jointly published by DePaul Uninversity's Humanities Center, Poetry Institute and Institute for Nature & Cutlure. Interesting work throughout. I was particularly struck by this passage from Mike Puican's poem "The Day is 7:03 AM, the Smoking Smart Car":

Emptiness is primed with slate blues
                  and maroons,
          fierce wills of dandelions

that brighten cracks in the sidewalks.

Our lawn has been herbicide-free for the past three years, to avoid weedkiller getting anywhere near our vegetable garden, strawberry plants and blueberry bushes. Gradually, without herbicide the bluegrass is being overrun by heartier natives, particularly clover and dandelions. (Which makes me realize how artificial the typical suburban lawn is. Left on its own, the grass probably wouldn't have a chance.) But I still don't want the dandelions to spread, which means I have to pry each plant out by its roots with a long-stemmed weeding tool, a task which gets more difficult each year. I had my latest dandelion-prying mission yesterday, after which I can heartily attest to the accuracy of Puican's "fierce wills" observation. I pulled out one whose root was over a foot long - that one certainly had a fierce will to live. And the ones whose roots snapped off will undoubtedly return.

Given that dandelions are usually considered an unsightly nuisance, I also like his idea that they can "brighten cracks in the sidewalks." Set against a drab gray sidewalk, I suppose the vivid yellow can indeed be a lively positive, even though I don't appreciate the sight of them in my lawn. All a matter of context, I guess.

Coffee. Internet. Kitchen walls. Library book sale. Beautiful new range. Pogues. Chipotle. St. Peter's Sorgham Ale. The Social Network.

My great day.

Some thoughts on New Year's

"Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to."
- Bill Vaughan

I hear you, Vaughan. I remember feeling so grown up when I was eight years old, and could stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning. (Does anyone remember the Marx Brothers marathons that WGN used to run on New Year's Eve during the mid-1970s? Those were great.) These days I'm thrilled - no, make that relieved - to make it until midnight.

"New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions."
- Mark Twain

Hear you too, Twain. New Year's Eve, like St. Patrick's Day, is Amateur Night for drinkers, and is best spent safely at home. And I've never been big on resolutions, except...

"Nothing changes on New Year's Day."
- Bono

The turning of the year itself changes nothing, except the need for a new calendar on the wall. You have to make change happen. So I'm striving, if not strictly resolving, for three changes: 1) getting my two books-in-progress finished and sent off to publishers; 2) exercising five days a week, no exceptions (I've slacked off this year); and 3) career.

First-of-Month Meme

I ran this meme a few years ago, and thought I'd revisit it. The following are the first sentences of the first blog post I made during each month of 2010.

January: I'm continuing to work my way through Nelson Algren's story-and-essay collection The Last Carousel.

February: This morning I started reading Kent Haruf's Eventide which my wonderful wife gave me for Christmas.

March: Longtime readers of this space may recall that every March I read nothing but Irish fiction.

April: As I mentioned earlier, before my latest reading of Gulliver's Travels I was under the presumption that at least some of the book's satire must have specifically pertained to the age-old conflict between England and Ireland.

May: "Another attendant opened the door for him at the top of the stairs, and a huge roar of smoke-hazed, lime-lit laughter, coming out of the door like blast from a bomb, hit him in the face..."

June: We know how you feel, Mr. Hayward, because we'd like our Gulf back.

July: Sure, I realize it's spread over three days, but dear gawd what a lineup.

August: Okay, so I have thousands of ways to back up that statement, more than I could ever fully elaborate upon here.

September: Over the weekend, Julie was kind enough to buy me the charming little camera shown above - a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye from the 1960s.

October: Ah, to be independently wealthy.

November: Do your civic duty and vote today, or else refrain from complaining about our political system for the next two years.

December: Hard to imagine Poe as a college student.

So let's see: literary, literary, literary, literary, literary, shot at hapless BP CEO, musical, spousal appreciation, latest camera acquisition, Scottish pub for sale, civic call to arms, literary. Almost looks like I made a concerted effort to have more diverse, or at least non-literary, interests starting in mid-year. Also interesting to note that the February, August and September posts all involved spousal appreciation - I guess Julie was particularly good to me this year. (She's very good to me every year, of course.)

Glögg

Mmmm...glögg. It's getting to be that time of year. My dad always used to say the best thing about glögg was that if you imbibed a few glasses, no matter how cold it was outside you could comfortably walk home without your coat on. My favorite nickname for the stuff is "Scandinavian antifreeze." If you're not lucky enough to be invited to my mom's place for Christmas this year - and her guest list is highly exclusive - Simon's will have to suffice.

Maddie is 10!

I'm with what she said. Eleven years ago, when we first got serious about becoming parents, I really wasn't sure I was ready to be a dad yet. But from the moment Maddie appeared, I've loved being a dad so much that it's impossible to imagine not being one. It's been a wonderful ten years, Monkey, and I'm looking forward to many many more.

Seven highlights of our week at Hilton Head

Kenny's B's French Quarter Cafe. Awesome cajun food.


Hilton Head Castle, by the acclaimed design firm of Maddie & Associates.


The relocated and expanded Java Joe's.


Dinner at Roastfish & Cornbread.


Mr. K's Used Books, in Asheville, NC. (Stock photo from the store's website; we have no idea who this woman is.)


Sunsets.


Just being us.

Boy's gotta have it.

Drool. Oh, to have $33,751.00 just burning a hole in my pocket.

(Via Dinosaurs and Robots.)

How Samuel Pepys spent my birthday, in 1667

(Okay, so I guess "my birthday" should actually read "the date of my future birth." Whatever.)

Up, and at the office all the morning till almost noon, and then I rode from the office (which I have not done five times I think since I come thither) and to the Exchequer for some tallies for Tangier; and that being done, to the Dog taverne, and there I spent half a piece upon the clerks, and so away, and I to Mrs. Martin’s, but she not at home, but staid and drunk with her sister and landlady, and by that time it was time to go to a play, which I did at the Duke’s house, where “Tu Quoque” was the first time acted, with some alterations of Sir W. Davenant’s; but the play is a very silly play, methinks; for I, and others that sat by me, Mr. Povy and Mr. Progers, were weary of it; but it will please the citizens. My wife also was there, I having sent for her to meet me there, and W. Hewer. After the play we home, and there I to the office and despatched my business, and then home, and mightily pleased with my wife’s playing on the flageolet, she taking out any tune almost at first sight, and keeping time to it, which pleases me mightily. So to supper and to bed.

Nice day - he had drinks at two different locations, watched a play, and listened to his wife play the flageolet ("a woodwind musical instrument and a member of the fipple flute family"). But I'll still take my day over his.

Boy's gotta have it.

Kölsch

One of the nice things about having a garage sale, or any other sort of clutter-purging, is unexpectedly discovering stuff that isn't clutter at all. Preparing for our garage sale of this weekend, I opened up a box in the basement that hadn't been touched in years. I assumed everything in there was junk to be sold, but was surprised to find a smaller box inside that contained the five glasses in the photo above. They're beer glasses, or more specifically Kölsch glasses, after the beer style native to the Cologne area of northern Germany. The glasses were a family hand-me-down from my cousin Bud in Green Bay, Wisconsin, who passed away during the late 1990s. We last had these glasses out on display in our condo in Chicago, more than ten years ago, but they were packed up when we moved and never re-emerged until just now. I knew they probably hadn't ever been thrown away, but still I always wondered where they were. Once found again, I cleaned them up and now have them on display in a cabinet.

The fact that they're Kölsch glasses has even greater meaning for me, given that Kölsch was the first real beer I ever drank (sorry, Heilemann's Old Style, you really don't qualify) during a visit to Germany when I was sixteen years old. In fact, the two glasses on the right - Küppers and Dom - are the two brands I remember consuming the most while I was there. So I'm doubly pleased to have these glasses again.

Of course, there's only one way to make these great-looking glasses look even better:



My local liquor store is pretty limited on German beers in general (the dudes in line in front of me were buying cases of Bud Light and shooters of Cuervo), and of course had no genuine Kölsch. So I went with Dortmunder Gold from Great Lakes Brewing (from Cleveland, Ohio), with Dortmund being as close as I could get to Cologne. Last night, after getting the garage sale remnants disposed of and myself cleaned up, I cracked one open, poured it in the Küppers glass, and had a wonderfully refreshing and relaxing time.

I have the best wife in the entire world!

Okay, so I have thousands of ways to back up that statement, more than I could ever fully elaborate upon here. So I'll cite just three examples from this weekend:

On Friday morning, she called me at the office. Fridays are when she and Maddie hit the local garage sales, hunting for unique finds, and the first thing she says is "What kind of camera do you have?" Long story short, I have two Mamiya-Sekor SLRs from the early 1970s, and she found me yet another, a 1000 DTL (I have a 500 DTL and a DSX 1000) in a complete kit. The camera's in great condition, but what really has me excited is the 50mm and 135mm lenses, both of which I've wanted for years. Once I get the lenses cleaned up, I think this will lead to a resurgence in my print photography. The fact that she was looking out for something I'd like to have, when she'd undoubtedly rather be hunting for Pyrex bowls or antique cast iron pans, really touched me.

Yesterday, after the three of us came home from another garage sale, I accidentally dropped the vintage Atari 2600 we had just bought for $3, and it's a testament to Julie that she didn't divorce me on the spot. Given how excited she was about the Atari - she's a passionate videogamer - she would have been totally justified in doing so, or at least locking me out of the house for the night. But instead she forgave me (I think!) and we found the Atari didn't sustain any serious damage. The Mario Bros. cartridge worked (albeit not to 2010 technological standards) though we still have to tweak the system somehow to get Asteroids to work.

Then this morning, I slept in until after 8 (very late for me) and awoke to the heavenly smell of Muffins That Taste Like Donuts. Julie's not a morning person, but she still got up early and baked this delicious breakfast from scratch. And now we're having our typical Sunday morning - sitting on the couch, surfing the web, drinking espresso, eating goodies, and watching TLC. I couldn't be happier, and Julie is most of the reason for that. (Maddie, too, of course, but Julie gets much of the credit for her as well.)

Baby, if you ever wondered, wondered whatever became of me...

No, I haven't been living on the air in Cincinnati, Cincinnati WKRP - just visiting there over the weekend for a family reunion. Until this weekend, I never realized how much my family is into euchre - the late-night scene in the "hospitality suite" we always rent at the hotel is now confined almost completely to cards - or how much more difficult candlepin bowling is compared to regular bowling.

As I've mentioned previously, whenever we're out of town we like to find a local coffee shop for our daily espresso instead of taking the lazy way out at Starbucks. This trip was no exception - after an aborted stop at one local place I found on Google last week, a bit of technologically-assisted intuition (our car's GPS gave us a list, and from those names and addresses I divined the right place to go) brought us to the wonderful Branch Hill Coffee in Loveland. It's a charming little place, just up the road from the Little Miami River, that had a real espresso machine (none of that pushbutton crap you find everywhere these days) and fresh baked goods - the scones were not only right out of the oven, but were even still on the cookie sheet when we arrived. The espresso was great. If you find yourself in the north suburbs of Cincinnati and in need of a coffee fix, I highly recommending finding this place.

And right across the parking lot from our hotel was a Graeter's ice cream shop, which quite simply is just about the best ice cream I've ever had. The caramel ice cream was incredibly smooth and melted (literally and figuratively) in my mouth. Definitely worth a visit, whether or not you have calories to spare.

Here come the Hawks, the mighty Blackhawks...

...and several years earlier than I would have expected. I had thought the Blackhawks were right there on the brink, though maybe still a year or two away from being championship caliber. Yet here they are, just one win away from their first Stanley Cup in almost fifty years.

I must admit that my Blackhawks history is surprisingly spotty. Given that I come from a Chicago-area spectator-sports-loving family and was quite a sports a fanatic myself for my first three decades, and have always admired hockey, I've never really been a big fan of the team.

When I was five or six, I remember listening to Hawks games on WIND in the evening, to lull myself to sleep. That was at the tail end of the era of Bobby Hull (part of the renowned MPH line, with Pit Martin and Jim Pappin), just before Hull bolted for the richer pastures of Winnipeg and the fledgling World Hockey League and put the team on a downward spiral that it didn't recover from for nearly two decades.

After Hull departed my fandom did as well, and was revived only during the late 80s and early 90s when, fresh out of college, I finally attended my first Hawks games at the legendary old Chicago Stadium and was instantly hooked. Watching games from the second balcony there was truly an unforgettable experience. Cheap-seats Hawks fans are probably the most passionate and knowledgable sports fans anywhere - and also cynical and sarcastic, which of course immediately endeared them to me. Two anecdotes from that period:

First: Back then the Hawks' power play was particulary inept. Even with a man advantage they'd be lucky to get off more than one or two shots on goal, and rarely scoring - in fact, a shorthanded goal by the other team was at least as likely as the Hawks scoring on the power play. It got so bad that when the Hawks were on a power play and dumped the puck across the blue line (since Denis Savard seemed to be the only guy on the entire team who could stick-handle the puck across the line, even with a man advantage), the guys in the second balcony would call out "Line change!", as if the best the Hawks could hope for on the power play wasn't a goal, but a moderately successful change of lines. Thing is, those fans were deadly accurate in that assessment.

Second: Ed Olczyk was a local Chicago kid who was a high draft pick of the Hawks and played several unaccomplished seasons with the team. Then he was traded away, to Winnipeg, and I happened to be at his first game back in Chicago after being traded. "This is cool," I thought. "The fans will definitely give the local guy a warm welcome on his return. Was I ever wrong. When they announced Olczyk before the game, some guy in the second balcony yelled, "Hey Olczyk! Your wife's a dyke!" Obviously I have no idea how accurate that comment was, but it was hysterical none the less.

Back then, the team's dinosaur owner, Bill Wirtz, refused to broadcast home games on local TV, even when the games were sold out, arguing that it wasn't fair to the ticket-buying fans. (Who presumably couldn't care less, since they wouldn't need to watch on TV anyway.) This mindless stance even extended to playoff games, and when the Hawks made the playoffs in 1991, I went so far as to watch every game at Sluggers in Wrigleyville, which swiped every game off the satellite dish and made a small fortune showing them on a huge projection screen in their back room. (Being there also gave me the memorable sight of a drunken patron, who had been at the Cub game that afternoon and whose drinking day had undoubtedly commenced around mid-morning, blearily marking the end of a Hawks' loss by flinging a full can of beer at the big screen. And not being ejected.)

My buddy Chris and I would sit there in the plastic lawn chairs at Sluggers during the Hawks-North Stars opening series, drinking far too many beers for a weeknight, and wondering if there would be enough players left on the ice to finish the game after the endless fights (especially between the troglodyte tag-teams of Stu Grimson-Mike Peluso vs. Basil McRae-Shane Churla) sent most of both rosters to the penalty box. But spending the next two years in Champaign for grad school dampened my ardor for the Hawks, even despite them reaching the 1992 Stanley Cup finals but losing to Pittsburgh, in what would be their last finals appearance before this season. And I've mostly been away from the team ever since.

Ah, yes, this season. Bill Wirtz passed away several years ago, and his son Rocky has totally revitalized the team, doing all of the right things. Putting home games on TV. Embracing the team's old icons - Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Tony Esposito - and bringing them back as heroes and the best goodwill ambassadors the team could possible have. Signing the team's young stars - Kane, Toews, Keith - to expensive long-term deals, locking them up as the stable core of the team for years to come instead of pinching pennies and letting them escape as free agents. And now they're one win from their first Stanley Cup since 1961.

And yet I can't really claim to being a fan, or truly savoring their fantastic playoff run. I just don't have that emotional attachment to the team, haven't been to a game in person for fifteen years didn't even watch a substantial portion of a game on TV this season until just this past Sunday, and am only just now figuring out how to pronounce "Byfuglien." So instead of getting stark-raving-mad, red-jersey-attired like most of the city seems to have become, I'm instead admiring the Hawks from a safe distance. Part of that is that I hate bandwagoners and know I have no right to claim to suddenly be a fan after ignoring the team for so long, and suppose part of it is also that, being so familiar with Chicago sports for so many years, there's always the nagging feeling that defeat will ultimately be snatched from the jaws of victory, as the Bears and especially the Cubs have proven so memorably, time and again.

When the Hawks win it - and I do mean when; they truly seem to be the team of destiny - I'll just sit back, smile, and raise a glass to them. But I won't be getting shitfaced drunk, running out to the souvenir stand or lining up for the victory parade. It will be their victory, and that of their true-blooded and long-suffering fans, but not mine. And I'm fine with that. This is great for Chicago, and I'm glad to be a part of it, even from such a far distance.

Quote

"It's so hot, I feel like my neck is melting and my head is sliding into my shoulders...like Andy Rooney."
- Madeleine Anderson, 5/29/10

Love It Love It Love It!

Here's a fantastic gallery of background artwork from various Warner Brothers/Looney Tunes cartoons from way back in the day. I was heavily into Looney Tunes when I was growing up (weekdays on The Ray Rayner Show and Saturday mornings on CBS) and always loved the artwork. These stills show that even the backgrounds were wonderful.

(Via Drawn!.)

Not only are my parents awesome...

...but now they've also been immortalized for their roles in what was purportedly the first panty raid in history, at Augustana College in 1949. Just good clean fun, though the starched college elders and many students' parents were scandalized by the event.

Three more for the pile

The Joliet Public Library had one of its periodic book sales this past Saturday. Recognizing the folloy of such declarations, I've given up on making any sort of vows against acquiring any more books until my to-read pile is down to a manageable level. I've made these vows repeatedly in the past, only to break them at the next good opportunity. I've come to grips with the fact that I have a book addiction - which is pretty benign as addictions go, especially since most of the books I acquire are from library sales, book recycling events and used book stores. I rarely buy a new copy of a book, and even then never at full price. So being a book addict (and a frugal one at that) isn't going to kill me, so there's little reason to resist the urge.

That said, going forward I'm going to at least temper my acquisitive mania at such events by trying (just trying, mind you) to limit myself to unique volumes which can't easily be found elsewhere. (Including, of course, the Joliet Public Library, which is completely purging many of these titles from its holdings.) The three books I picked up Saturday are case in point:

Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley Remembers: The Informal Memoirs of Finley Peter Dunne
Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer
Kurt Vonnegut, Happy Birthday Wanda June

The first is a combination of the memoirs of Dunne (the great Chicago journalist), Philip Dunne's remembrances of his father, and several of Dunne's trademark "Mr. Dooley" pieces. The second is edited interviews with the great Singer. The third is the only Vonnegut stage play I'm aware of. I'm very interested in reading each one, but probably couldn't otherwise find a copy to read without a great deal of hunting. So I think this shows some restraint. And we definitely showed restraint by not bringing home an unabridged Webster's dictionary - the thing was enormous, and had to weigh at least 25 pounds - which we could have had for just a few bucks. But we had no good place to display it and already have several other dictionaries, so we declined.

Oh, and as it turns out my library sale mania apparently isn't that manic at all. Check out this phenomenon. Camping out and tailgating - for a library sale. Awesome.

B.J. & Dirty Dragon

That image above is an autographed photograph from Chicago's "The BJ and Dirty Dragon Show", circa 1972. The human in the photo is BJ (Bill Jackson) and to his right is the smoke-spewing Dirty Dragon, while the big-grinned google-eyed character just below BJ's right hand is Weird. I've long since forgotten the names of all the other characters shown. The show was on every weekday right after school back then and was a beloved part of my childhood.

Readers of a certain age may recall the "BJ's Gigglesnort Hotel" show which ran nationally (on CBS, I think) during the mid-70s, but the Dirty Dragon show actually predated Gigglesnort Hotel and ran only locally, on WFLD Channel 32. Both shows had many of the same characters (some puppets, some human actors in costume) and the same weird brand of humor. My favorite part of the Dirty Dragon show (don't remember if it was also part of Gigglesnort Hotel - I didn't watch that show very much) was with Blob, a formless hunk of modeling clay which BJ crafted into a different object each show. Though that might not sound unusual or particularly interesting, I should point out that Blob was an actual character of the show who would talk to BJ in a lively but completely unintelligible voice as BJ worked - and also emitted moans of discomfort and/or pain when BJ carved up large pieces of him. A very odd routine, but my seven-year-old self loved it.

The photo was my reward for running a backyard carnival on behalf of the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which was Bill Jackson's favorite cause. My carnival consisted almost entirely of very lame games (Bozo Buckets, sack races, etc.) that neighbors and friends played for prizes (mostly candy bars, as I recall), with all of the proceeds from game tickets, refreshments, etc. being sent to the MDA via the Dirty Dragon show. It was my first exposure to fundraising, and though I probably didn't raise more than ten or twenty dollars I was pretty pleased with myself for accomplishing even that little. I would have been more than satisfied with just that, which made the completely unexpected arrival of this wonderful photograph to be doubly sweet.