Gallery Conversation: George Gershwin and the Color of Jazz – Art Institute Chicago – Feb. 27, 2026

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Loren Wright, assistant director in Interpretation (who knew there was such thing?) at the Art Institute, led the event. Per the museum’s website, Interpretation in this context, is the “highly collaborative,” way of making “sure the galleries are accessible and relatable to visitors.”

Wright did just that as we first stood in front of Marc Chagall’s America Windows, which, appropriately, are not only are blue, but also feature panels suggesting urban life and music, for her presentation about Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, complete with a few moments of listening pleasure.

The thought of too much audience participation is always a little off-putting in these situations, but the attendees proved to be knowledgable, appropriately inquisitive and considerate of time constraints while reacting to Wright’s prodding questions about the art, the music and their interrelationship.

We moved en masse to Archibald Motley”s painting Blues, depicting a Paris nightclub, for a discussion that, not surprisingly, included Gershwin’s An American in Paris.

Finally, we literally turned around to see Thomas Hart Benton’s The Cotton Pickers and accompanied that with conversation about Gershwin’s controversial Porgy and Bess and his song Summertime, along with quick excerpts of Louis Armstrong/Ella Fitzgerald and Audra McDonald versions of it.

No one left the program feeling blue.

Holiday – Goodman Theatre – February 14, 2026

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I’ve seen the 1938 movie Holiday, based on the 1928 Philip Barry play, several times. It’s a favorite of mine, but I’d never seen the play.

With the original play’s copyright expiring on January 1, 2025, the time was ripe for an updated adaptation and the now late Richard Greenberg jumped right in and had a new script ready to go before the expiration, as evidenced by the October 21, 2024 one-night only benefit reading done by The Acting Company in New York.

I’ll start by saying that, alas, there was no Cary Grant (Johnny Case) or Katherine Hepburn (Linda Seton) in the Goodman cast. (Rachel Brosnahan played Linda in the benefit reading – that would have been fun to see.)

The Grant and Hepburn characters had great chemistry in the movie. I didn’t feel that in this production.

What did jump out at me was that Ned, the alcoholic brother, had all the best lines, all the laughs, and the actor, Wesley Taylor, did not go too far over the top, as often can be the case when heavy drinkers are portrayed.

That said, I agree with one review I saw that spoke to the relative lack of “investment in the very real issue of addiction.” But it’s basically a romantic comedy, despite it’s philosophical overtones, so two hours away from real life is okay for me.

And speaking of the laughs, I didn’t think the actors did a great job of letting them happen, walking into some of their lines a little too quickly.

The sets were excellent, but the changeover during the second act, done behind a dropped curtain while the audience sat in the dark and silence wondering what the hell was going on, needs to be addressed.

Greenberg didn’t miss a trick in updating the 1920’s script, keeping the skeleton of the show, but throwing in NFTs, cryptocurrency, text messaging, social media, red eye flights and the kitchen sink.
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The play is set in Dec. 2019-Jan. 2020, which makes it the second show I’ve seen recently (after Eureka Day) that is placed on the cusp of Covid. Strangely, it reminds me of the way plot lines had to change when cell phones took over the universe.

The Irish . . . and How They Got That Way – Porchlight Music Theatre – Feb. 6, 2026

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I wrongly assumed that the play, The Irish . . .  And How They Got That Way, was about the University of Notre Dame not getting picked for the recent 12-team college football playoff and announcing thereafter that it would reject any other bowl bids that might be made, which, to me, seemed antithetical to their nickname, the Fighting Irish, which was approved by the university’s president in 1927 as being “preferable to the school’s more derisive nicknames,” and with the “hope that we may always be worthy of the ideal embodied in the term.”

So, no football, but a lot of drinking, as if at a football game, unaccompanied, however, by the Irish bar classic Whiskey in the Jar. 

There were 34 other songs in whole or part, but not the Notre Dame Victory March (acknowledging, I suppose, that you can’t win if you don’t play), which Sports Illustrated, in 2019, ranked as the fourth best college fight song.

The players (I mean the cast, not the members of the football team), all of whom I have seen before, were up to their usual high standards, but I would have liked to hear more from violinist Elleon Dobias, who was a standout. 

Eureka Day – Broadway Playhouse (TimeLine Theatre Company) – February 4, 2026

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Before getting into a “review” of the play Eureka Day, I wanted to make something clear for the record. I never met or, in any way communicated with, Jeffrey Epstein.

I did, however, go to a baseball game in Oakland (the play takes place in nearby Berkeley) on the evening of June 16, 1971 when Mike Epstein (no relation to Jeffrey as far as I know) hit his third and fourth consecutive home runs, having started his streak in his last two at-bats the day before. I should add that I also got to see Vida Blue that night, in his prime, pitch a complete game (if you are old enough to remember what that is).

Getting back to Eureka Day, I would like to add that I loved the totally unrelated TV show Eureka, which is still available for streaming.

And, before I forget, given his association with the word eureka, without which the name of the school in, and title of, the play would not be as clever as it is, a shout out to Archimedes, our first known streaker, and perhaps the inspiration for the 1970’s craze, which I’m sure included Berkeley.

The play first grabs our attention for the machinations the characters, members of the Eureka Day private school board, go through trying to convince each other and themselves that they are all on the same page about their world views (we’re not fooled) and how the school should operate. The administrator, in particular, might actually hurt his back bending over backwards in his role as a mealy-mouthed conciliator.

As one might imagine, attempts to not offend fall by the wayside when the topic becomes school vaccination policies (the play is set in the school year of 2018-19, when it foresightedly premiered), highlighted by the online chat with parents that had the audience in stitches and, given the topic and the location, made me consider a possible subtitle of “Sittin’ on the Doc of the East Bay.”

Everything seemingly gets resolved, thanks in part to the parents, unlike boards I have been associated with, actually reading the by-laws, as we move into the 2019-2020 school year – what could go wrong?

We’ll Meet Again

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For those of you who rely upon me for your Doomsday Clock news, be aware that, as of this morning, it has been moved up to 85 seconds until midnight, once again setting a new record we should so proud of.

Frankly, listening to the explanation for the move in the annual announcement, I’m surprised they didn’t move it even more.

The one hope they held out was that somehow the entire population of the world would band together to make their singular voice of concern heard. I will be calling the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists with a great offer for them to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.

So, how does this affect our day-to-day lives. I’m not sure. Should I buy travel insurance? Probably not, The insurance companies probably include a clause denying coverage in the event of the end of humanity (The cockroaches will, as always, survive.).

You probably don’t want to buy the seven-minute ab workout video suggested by the serial-killing hitchhiker in There’s Something About Mary. Maybe the seven second version instead.

I, the eternal optimist, am not going to change my plans for next week, and I actually have a bunch of them, only one of which involves a possible end-of-mankind scenario. So, mostly upbeat stuff you’ll hear about from me.

I understand that Survivor 50 premieres next month. Perhaps it will contain some helpful hints. In the meantime, as Stanley Kubrick told us in 1964, we’ll meet again.

Night Crawlers

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When I started writing this blog in 2018 I did some homework (that was a first) and discovered a recommendation that posts of at least 300 words were more likely to enhance search engine optimization, which sounded like good thing.

Early on, that was one of my goals and I largely achieved it in the first two years. Over time, however, and with some causation related to the pandemic, my default state of apathy crept in and my blog lengths became much more random.

This month, however, something has gone berserk. My blog already has received almost as many nonsubscriber visits as it did in all of 2024, even though I’ve posted only one new item (things will be picking up soon).

Apparently, the bots have found me, each online night crawler (not the great Jake Gyllenhaal movie)  jumping around my site like Olympic acrobots, though, I must note, I still have never had a viewing from anyone in Botswana.

Should I be worried? How did this version of botulism arise in the Petri dish we call the Internet? What attracted them to me? Is it chemical? Has my vocabularic syntax generated some sort of pheromones? (which sounds like a horse in the Kentucky Derby or a minor character in a Shakespearean play).

Whatever the cause, it has inspired me to think bigger, ergo Bots: The Musical, using songs to be developed through the miracle of generative AI, once all the copyright lawsuits have been settled.

In the meantime, bottoms up.

What’s Past is Prologue

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I have now completed 8 years of blogging. Phew! Whose idea was this anyway?

In that time I have posted 592 pieces of my mind (who knew I had that many?), for an average of 74 per year, while attempting to avoid redundancy and trying to augment my cerebral remnants by doing Wordl, Connections, Spelling Bee and the NYT Crossword every day, not to mention, but I will, reading the daily missives from Merriam-Webster and Word Smarts.

Over those years I have had 4006 non-subscriber visitors to the site, from 59 countries (out of 195), including the U.S. (which does not yet include Greenland), one special administrative region and one organized, unincorporated territory.

I have written 160,045 words, which sounds like a lot, but they weren’t all different, and the total is still far less than that of Moby Dick, so consider yourselves lucky.

Writer’s block is a constant concern, so I’m thinking about joining a writers’ bloc for support.

I may need to expand the focus of my work as I run out of theatrical productions, concerts, museum exhibits, author events, and Lego projects to write about. Suggestions are welcome, though not necessarily taken seriously.

Goodbye 2025

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When sports announcers start giving viewers the odds on one thing or another, I turn off the sound on the television. But I’ve finally found something worth betting on – the end of the world.

According to the Online Betting Guide (olbg.com), there is, as of a few weeks ago, an 80% chance that, in January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will move the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight than its current 89 seconds before the hour, which is the closest it’s ever been since first being instituted in 1947, when it was set at 11:53.

I don’t know, having not laid down any money to join a betting site, whether there are any incremental wagers that can be made on this topic. Can you bet on the amount of time the Clock might be moved closer, not just that it will be moved closer, and receive different odds?

You can, instead, not bet, but rather go to a prediction market (wink, wink) and, for example, on one site, vote yes or no, as to whether the Clock will be moved to 60 seconds or less to midnight.

Contemplating this led me to wonder whether a big move like that, akin to the 30 second moves forward in 2017 and 2018 (hmm, what do those years have in common with each other and 2025?) might lead to the world going all the way to its bitter end, a self-fulfilling prophesy. And, if it does, how does one collect on one’s bet, or prediction?

And, finally, what is the effect on the Clock of the recent 4.8 microsecond drift reported by the National Institute of Standards and Technology? Perhaps I’ll look for answers by drifting off to the nearest microbrewery. In the meantime, Happy New Year?

Chamber Music Immersive – A Holiday Special: Celebration with Vivaldi and Bach – Chicago History Museum – Dec. 16, 2025

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Violinist Philippe Quint was at it again. Accompanied by the Magellan Chamber Orchestra, the program included J. S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins, featuring a duet with 14-year-old prodigy Katherine Schaufenbuel, who lived up to the hype about her, and not just one or two, but all four of Vivaldi’s Seasons.

Vivaldi, himself, made an appearance to read the sonnets he had written to introduce the concertos. He might have fooled me, given his costume, wig and Italian accent, but he read the pieces in English, so I deduced that it was an actor, and a rather hammy one at that, which helped explain why, despite Quint’s urging, there were no questions for Antonio from the audience.

The evening also included an exhibit of rare, priceless instruments (actually I heard the figure 15 million dollars bandied about, though any security measures were subtle) by Chicago’s Stradivari Society.  Later, a few instruments formed the basis for Quint’s “violin tasting” (his words), wherein he successively, and successfully, played the same passage on one after the other. I couldn’t tell the difference and Quint didn’t rate them for the attendees, so I’m not sure what the point was. A wine tasting would have been more pleasing.

John C. Reilly is Mister Romantic – Steppenwolf Theatre – Dec. 5, 2025

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I’ve seen Mr. Saturday Night, Mister Roberts and now Mister Romantic, John C. Reilly’s one-man show, if you don’t count the four musicians, but you should, because they’re great.

The evening started when said musicians marched down an aisle to the stage, playing a New Orleans-type walking song. What most caught my attention was the performer who was playing the coronet with one hand, while simultaneously playing the accordion with the other. I later prided myself for this mental note when Reilly, at the end of the show, acknowledged that same skill for the audience.

Reilly, at first, was nowhere to be seen, but suspicions grew when the quartet, after reaching their destination, pulled a steamer trunk, with the words Mister Romantic on it, from stage left. Sure enough, a vaudevillian-like-appearing Reilly arose from the luggage to greet the crowd and announce that he had no memory, other than that he had to find someone who would love him forever in order to be freed from the box.

What followed was Reilly beautifully singing classics such as Dream, What’ll I Do and You Don’t Know Me, accompanied by the musicians he claimed not to know (but was pleased that they knew the same songs he did), and augmented by a lot of amusing schtick, including a fair amount of miming and interaction with the audience, with the hope of finding eternal love and never having to return to his portable home.

He added a little extra spice to the show with a rendition of Earl Okin’s “My Room,” before which he suggested that any children head to the lobby for popcorn.

His quest was not gender specific, as he walked into the audience to engage, rather closely (after asking consent), for a few minutes each, two women and two men, one of whom was me. If I were a rabid fan, I would never wash my eyebrows again.