Ambassador for Baseball
January 31, 2015
Chicago Tribune, January 31, 2015 To the Editor: When I worked at Lerner Newspapers in the mid-’70s we put together a softball team and challenged
It is a vanity project and a writing closet, a treasure chest for news, views and reviews.
More prosaically, it provides a store house for my writing. Some of it is quirky – poems, sayings and asides. There are movie and book reviews, profiles and other articles from my past and present sojourn as a journalist. Plus my new book — The Dream Machine: A Novel of Future Past!
Novel
The Dream Machine: A Novel of Future Past
A thrilling, highly imaginative and tautly written journey back in time to find “the tool to unrule” a post-American fascism.
“Brilliant,” says National Book Award winner and MacArthur Genius Fellow Charles Johnson of “The Dream Machine: A Novel of Future Past.”
“A great tale, brilliantly told,” says violist and international recording artist Roger Chase. “There are surprises on every page, and the end, which comes only too soon, is a coda of marvelous drama, invention and imagination.”
ETHS Principal Marcus Campbell: Having Fun, Making Progress
January 22, 2015
Evanston RoundTable, January 15, 2015 Marcus Campbell thinks schools “need to be redesigned fundamentally from the bottom up.” If he could wave a magic wand
Bashmet Premieres New Viola Concerto by Gubaidulina
January 16, 2015
Journal of the American Viola Society, July 1997 On 17 April Russian violist Yuri Bashmet performed the world premiere of a new viola concerto written
Econ 101
December 12, 2014
The reason economics is such an inexact science is that it’s so dismal at understanding the vagaries of human nature. Take pricing, about which people are
Tim Kazurinsky: Hardest-Working Funny Guy in Town
December 7, 2014
Evanston RoundTable, Dec. 4, 2014 Sometimes the life of a comedian is anything but funny. Take the schedule of Evanston resident Tim Kazurinsky, comedian, actor,
Mexbeth
November 20, 2014
Tamale and tamale and tamale
Creep through my innards like plaster dust
Greasy fajitas and quesadillas
To the last rutted inch of my shrieking guts;
It surges forward – where? – unto eternity I swear.
Thus forsweareth I from ever eating
More chips and salsa
Mole enchilada
I keep repeating:
It is a menu I know so well – Taqueria Diarrhea
Received Wisdom: Daisy McGee (1934-2013)
November 11, 2014
Daisy was the grandmother of my African American mentee. Aside from 11 children of her own, she raised him – plus his two sisters and three cousins – for ten years, from the time he was 9. She was fiercely protective of their safety and devoted to their well-being. She was a lovely person and a beautiful human being. She said:
When I was young I’d say I’ll have time to do this or do that. I’ll have plenty of time. But you don’t have plenty of time. When you’re old you can’t do it anymore. Now I tell my grandkids, there’s no tomorrow. Get your education and enjoy life. Because life is short.”
Daisy: I was born October 30, 1934, in Memphis, Tennessee. Daisy Bryant was my maiden name. I was the oldest of nine children. I came here [to Evanston, Illinois] to live with my father and my aunt when I was 13. I’ve been here ever since. I’m 77 now.
Me: Why did you move?
Not The Johnsons
October 29, 2014
Bennie knocked on Pattie’s door.
No answer.
“Hey, Pattie, you there?”
No answer.
“Come on, I know you’re in there. Your mom said so.”
Silence. He knocked again, louder, three bangs, a little brave and brazen, he knew, but he was a boy on a mission. The door rattled on its hinges.
“Pattie! Talk to me!”
“Yeah, what?”
“I want in. Can I come in? I’ve got the study notes,” he said, patting two folded-up pages stuck in his pocket.
No answer.
“Pattie come on. You know I’ll be nice.”
Colossi
October 24, 2014
Bach and Beethoven are twin towering peaks, and which is the taller depends, on any given day, only on how our emotional clouds are blowing.