The Chicago Symphony Orchestra had it first concert last week after over a year-and-a-half. They've tried to fill in the spaces with a pretty aggressive and interesting online presence, but it's not the same as being at Symphony Center. Its Music Director Riccardo Mutii addressed the audience with impromptu comments before the concert began. He explained that since English wasn't his first language, it was difficult to express all his thoughts on the occasion, which is why he didn't want to write anything down and wanted to speak more from the heart. If he did so this superbly, talking about arts and culture and what it all does for society and, most interestingly, how society is impacted when its missing, I can only imagine what he'd say in Italian. It wasn't patting "fine arts" on the back, but noting all aspects of culture, and -- more specifically -- explaining movingly why it had impact. His off-the-cuff words started out low-key, and then built into something far more moving that I suspect people there expected. I thought he deserved today's opening spot.
0 Comments
I've written in the past about my cousin Diana Leviton Gondek, who's a terrific artist in Chicago. Among other things, she's worked with the Special Olympics -- who are based in Chicago -- even to the point of being commissioned to design their 50th anniversary poster. I've also noted the three fiberglass horses she was commissioned to create for the city to honor fallen policemen, one horse of which was on display outside of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office.
It turns out that the Special Olympics is introducing a new program, where they feature artwork from their athletes shown side-by-side with professional art. The CBS-TV affiliate in Chicago, WBBM, did a report on this, and the Special Olympics asked Diana to speak on behalf of it. (I think this could lead to a spin-off series, an artist who solves crimes as a hobby, finding patterns that lead her to the culprits, accompanied by her sidekick cat, Banksy.) So, okay, yes, I'm biased. In either event, I can now refer to her as my artist cousin Diana Leviton Gondek as Seen on CBS News. And so, we take you now to our correspondent in the Windy City. Donald Rumsfeld died yesterday at the age of 88. On her show last night, Rachel Maddow opened with a long piece on Rumsfeld -- but I loved how it wasn't a eulogy, but rather more of a recitation of his despicable actions over the decades. I'm not concerned with "Oh, how can you say that about someone who just died?" when it comes to Rumsfeld. How many died not only in unnecessary wars because of him, but wars we got into because he lied and manipulated facts? And how many lives did he hurt dividing America? I've written here that I've known of Donald Rumsfeld for a very long time. He not only was the Congressman who represented my district when I was a kid, but we also went to the same high school, New Trier in Winnetka, a northern suburb of Chicago. In fact, we even crossed paths once -- and there's photographic evidence! And to make matters even worse, Donald Rumsfeld and I went to the same high school, albeit at different times -- New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois. Not long ago, I wrote here about how my childhood growing up in Glencoe, Don Friedman (who roams around these pages on occasion) sent me a note about how he was going through some old photos and came across one from a class trip we took to Washington, D.C. Both of us think this took place during junior high, though the box was marked Freshman Year in high school. But there I am -- with Don -- and also the other Don, Rumsfeld. You can see Our Congressman standing with the teacher chaperones in the lower far-right (and how appropriate is that?!) . And you can see that he signed it on the Capitol steps. That's me, the short fellow in the top row, fourth gremlin from the left. Don Friedman is to my left, in the light sportcoat and dark sweater. I’m trying to decide if it’s a good thing or bad that I have a picture with me and Don Rumsfeld together. However, I take great comfort knowing that the two of us are about as far apart as two can be in the photo, which is a lovely metaphor for life… I've told this story here about five years ago about the time a few years earlier when a friend with connections to the Los Angeles Philharmonic had an extra ticket to a concert and invited me. We met up at Disney Hall for dinner, where he saw an older couple he knew, and they invited us to join them at their table. It turned out that the women and I had grown up in the same area, and had indeed both gone to the same high school, New Trier (though she'd gone there a long time earlier). And it turned out, as well, that she had been a classmate of Donald Rumsfeld. In fact, it was with great enthusiasm and pride that she told the tale of how her fellow classmates had gotten together and convinced their Donald to run for Congress! My friend shot me furtive sideglances that basically said, "Oh, please, be on your best behavior, I have to work with people here sometimes..." He had nothing to fear, I was all good cheer and offered no rants. That said, neither did I offer a "Hey, good for you all!!," that I sensed she usually got from others. But she didn't seem to mind, she was as convinced of the rightness of her actions as I'm sure her old school chum Donald was convinced about everything he did throughout his career -- even when noting to ABC News in 2011 about Iraq which he'd scathingly ridiculed others for disagreeing with him a decade earlier, because he knew better than everyone else, "My goodness, the intelligence was certainly wrong." My goodness, indeed. There was no goodness involved at all. Anyway, Rumsfeld's passing brought to mind an article I wrote for the Huffington Post on October 19, 2006. Donald Rumsfeld and MeI
'm back from vacation at the Midwest Communications Ranch in Chicago. It was a good trip, cleaning up brush along Lake Shore Drive and splitting rails. The latter is a tradition here in the Land of Lincoln, though it also shows me to be a man of the people. Having bratwurst does that, too. To be clear, this was officially a working vacation, since I checked my phone messages every day. Also, I got some reading in, and will be releasing my full list soon. But among those I did get to are "My Pet Goat II: The Goat Returns," "Gilles Goat Boy" by John Barth, and "Three Billy Goats Gruff" in the original Norwegian. I started "The Stranger" by Albert Camus, but didn't get much farther than I did back in high school. (After grasping that it's about this guy who kills an Arab without being provoked and has no remorse, I flipped to the last page, curious how at least this ended. The back flyleaf simply said, "You might enjoy other existential French stories," and suggested 'No Exit' by Jean-Paul Sartre." Oh, God, no thanks, déjà vu. However, it was good to learn something on my vacation: who knew that neocons get their war plans from French existentialists?!) I also read plot summaries of a couple poems by Shakespeare, and a biography of former Ambassador to Portugal, Frank Shakespeare. Also, "Dante's Inferno" (not really), "Sports Illustrated," "TV Guide," a flyer for The Corner Bakery, the Tribune sports section, and a dozen menus. And the back of a box of Cheerios. It is also time to come clean. When I was there, wandering through the ghosts and shadows of home and the past, recognizing that the Cubs wouldn't be winning the World Series this year, the memories swirled around me, and I knew that I had to reveal a secret from long ago. Donald Rumsfeld and I go way back. He may not know this. But it's true nonetheless. When I was but a wee kidling growing up in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago, far too young to vote, Donald Rumsfeld was elected Congressman of my district. I would say he "represented me," but that's stretching things a bit. The district number? It was 13. Tell me that God doesn't have a whimsical sense of humor. It speaks volumes when a young child not only remembers his Congressman from long ago, but was actually embarrassed by who that Congressman was. Most little children barely know who their cousins are. The only time they're really embarrassed is if their father belches in front of friends. But I was embarrassed by Donald Rumsfeld being my Congressman. I'd apologize, but I was too young to vote. Donald Rumsfeld was our Congressman for only eight years, and while that sounds positive, it actually started a long chain of good news/bad news. The good news is that he resigned in 1969. The bad news is that he was brought into the Nixon Cabinet and given national authority for the first time. The good news. We got a new Congressman. The bad. It was Philip Crane. A man so utterly conservative he not only was to the right of Rumsfeld, but to the right of Generalissimo Franco. (One of the prides of my life is surviving this upbringing.) The very good news is that there was redistricting, Watergate came along, the backlash hit, and the wonderful Democrat Abner Mikvah got elected. An election so stunning, it remains legend. Let this be a sign of encouragement to all. The bad news. He was elected by about 87 votes. (I exaggerate. But not by much.) The good news. Remarkably, he was re-elected, even without the pull of Watergate. I believe this margin was 64 votes. The bad. He knew he didn't have a future in this conservative district, so when President Jimmy Carter offered him a lifetime appointment as a federal judge, he took it. (Most people actually know of Abner Mikva, but aren't aware. At the end of the movie, "Dave," when the former-VP is sworn in as President...that's Mikvah doing the honors. Check the credits. Okay, he's accomplished far more than that, but unless you want to read-up on his legal decisions, that's what you get...) And so, it all starts with Donald Rumsfeld. And ends with a Democrat winning that same district in an election when the voters got fed up with a corrupt Republican President facing the possibility of impeachment surrounding an unpopular war. Life is funny, and God does have that sense of whimsy. There's an amusing thing in this tale, even if your not a baseball fan. But first, the background. Last night, I was watching some of the early innings of the Chicago Cubs game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, but had some other things to do, so I left. I came back later -- around the fourth inning -- to check things out and planned to watch an inning or two before I got back to my other activity. But I noticed that the Cubs hadn't yet given up a base hit, so I knew I couldn't leave until the no-hitter was broken up -- or not. And so, I kept watching. And continued to watch through the final out because four Cubs pitchers together threw a no-hitter and won by a score of 4-0. What was more notable is that in the 145 year history of the Cubs in the National League, it was the team's 17th no-hitter...but the first time ever that they'd thrown a "combined" no-hitter with more than one pitcher on the mound. Making this all the funnier is that none of the three Cubs relief pitcher had any idea that there was a no-hitter going on when they were on the mound! Zach Devies started the game and pitched six innings, and then the three relievers were Ryan Tepera, Andrew Chafin and Craig Kimbrel. Chaifin came in second, for the eighth inning. After he got the side out hitless, he was done for the night and so went to the Cubs clubhouse. “I’m sitting there with a couple of trainers," he said, "and there was a stat on the bottom of the TV saying something about there’s been six no-hitters already this yea. I started talking to them about it and then I turned around and they both went looking in the opposite direction." There is a baseball tradition not to talk about a no-hitter when it's in progress, so as not to "jinx" anything. But Chafin didn't know there was a no-hitter in program -- although everyone in the clubhouse did, which is why they all looked away from him. “Then I was like, ‘Wait a second, why would they be showing that stat at this point in the game?" Which is when he added, "‘Oh, [expletive], I might’ve just ruined it for us.’ But yeah, it worked out." Even when closer Kimbrel entered the game, he didn't know either. “When Willie [Cubs catcher Willson Contrerar] gave a big fist bump, I knew something was up,” Kimbrel said. “And [Ryan] Tepera ran out there and whispered and he’s like, ‘You have no idea what happened.’ And then [Javier Báez] put me in a headlock. I had no clue when I came into the game that we had a no-hitter.” Odd as it might be that none of the relievers knew there was a no-hitter going on, as the Chicago Tribune explained -- "The location of the visitors bullpen near the right-field corner at Dodger Stadium creates a limited view of the scoreboard. The Cubs pen could see the count, number of outs and some statistics, but the hit column was obstructed. The TV in the bullpen wasn’t any help, either. It showed an overhead view of the field because of MLB’s video rules. Plus, there are no box-score features on the screen." And as Kimbrel added, the relievers in the bullpen could see that there were a lot of Dodgers on the bases during the game. "When you have a lot of traffic on the bases," he said, "you don’t really get as consumed that they’re all walks. You figure, well, maybe one of them is a single or something like that. But that wasn’t the case.” I also thought of one other thing -- you'd think that someone would have told the relievers what was going on, at the very least when they came in to pitch. But I realized that no one would likely mention to them that there's a no-hitter in progress, since doing so would be against baseball tradition and "jinx" things. Here's the last out, with Kimbrel striking out pinch-hitter Will Smith for the final out. You'll notice that when catcher Contreras pumps his fist in great excitement, Kimbrel himself is stoic, as if he couldn't care less. But when the camera eventually cuts back to him, mobbed by teammates at the 1:34 mark, his face is covered with a huge smile, since he's by then been told. Yesterday, I was exchanging emails with a friend in Texas that had to do with the blistering weather there. I went to a weather website to track down some information, and once there I saw a headline to story about a tornado that just hit a Chicago suburb. I knew that growing up in Glencoe, north of Chicago and on Lake Michigan, we'd occasionally have tornado watches -- though rarely reaching the level of a tornado warning -- but the tornados (and most "warnings") were usually in the more outlying and western inland areas. I immediately clicked on the article and saw that the subheading said that the area hit was southwest of Chicago. That gave me some relief, because I was mainly checking for Glencoe (where I'm from) and other norther suburbs where most of my relatives in the area live. But then I realized that I have a cousin who lives southwest of Chicago in Naperville, so I wanted to check about that, though happily "southwest of Chicago" is a very huge area. And reading deeper in the article, it turned out that the down hit by the tornado was...Naperville! This is where my cousin Diana lives. I've mentioned her several times for her artwork (including the memorial fiberglass horses she was commissioned to design by the City of Chicago) and the articles that periodically have been written about her. When I phoned her, there was no answer, so I admit to a little bit of concern -- but she called back about half an hour later. Her family was fine, and fortunately they have a basement and huddled there, While it was certainly concerning as the tornado sirens were going off at 11 PM, with torrents of rain and gale-force winds, happily there was almost no damage to the house, limited mostly a little bit of the grounds. However, when she went out for a walk the next day to assess the area, she came across where the tornado hit. Close enough, obviously, for her to walk to. (She quipped that before going out, she made sure to first put on her ruby red slippers. And no, just to be clear for anyone wondering, and not knowing her sense of humor, she didn't actually do that.) Not only was the damage terrible, it was only about a mile from their home. As awful as the damage was, though, happily no one died, and the one person who was listed as critical and be taken off that list. Here are some of the photos she took of the area a mile from her. And as Diana noted in her email -- there used to be a house here. What's odd is that the homes next door on either side were relatively spared, not in the absolute direct path.
After going a while without an "IneterMISSION" podcast from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, they appear back up to speed, and here's another.
This week, as they describe, "Six CSO musicians describe the power of sharing music with audiences of all ages, while working with a commitment for unified impact. As they also anticipate the return of live concerts again, each also describes the timeless power of the orchestra to connect with listeners."
What I also love about these podcasts -- and sets them apart from many, I think -- is that they also post links to full versions of all the snippets of music that play through the show.
|
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
Archives
May 2024
Categories
All
|
© Copyright Robert J. Elisberg 2024
|