Speakers

Printers Row Lit Fest – September 7, 2024

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I started with the Sisters in Crime, represented by four women mystery writers, including Sara Paretsky. As there had been when I saw her there in 2018, a minute mystery competition was promoted. But I was so bored after listening to the first writer read from her forthcoming book, that it was no mystery that I left after 10 minutes to wander around, thereby missing the contest.

At last year’s Lit Fest I recorded a 10-second sound bite for the Get Lit Podcast, As I still haven’t received my imaginary royalties from that appearance, I decided to forego treating them to further words of wisdom this year.

I came across a tent selling t-shirts with messages like “The book was better” and “I’ll stop when I finish this page, chapter, book.” Tempting, but no sale.

For all you Wordle addicts, I came across a book of Wordle limericks, written by a retired oncologist from Fresno (please note, not a single five-letter word in that sentence, or this one).

Deciding to actually listen to a speaker, I dropped in on Thomas Maier, who thoroughly engaged the audience with stories about his career in journalism; his book and later Showtime series Masters of Sex; the recently-released Paramount+ docuseries entitled Mafia Spies: The Inside Story of the CIA, Gangsters, JFK and Castro, based on his 2019 book of the same name; and his newest book, Montauk to Manhattan: An American Novel.

I forgive him for the self-important addition of “An American Novel,” as it was undoubtedly the publisher’s idea.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Part 2) – John Berendt and Taylor Mac – American Writers Museum – July 8, 2024

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I had trouble determining the identity of the musical. Taylor Mac, who wrote the book of the show, helped by saying he meant to present two interwoven stories, those of Jim Williams and The Lady Chablis, aided by an antagonist for each, Emma Dawes and Lavella Cole, respectively.

The book’s author, John Berendt, stressed how important humor was, stating that his background at Esquire magazine had taught him to write with knowledgeable irreverence.

Mac specifically pointed to the Dawes character, played by Sierra Boggess (what a voice!), who had my favorite line of the show when, in representing the interests of historical and hysterical Savannah, she promised she wouldn’t sell Mercer House to anyone who would knock down a wall to make an open kitchen.

As I stated last time, J. Harrison Ghee, as The Lady Chablis, was great. Their antagonist, Cole, as played by Shane Bailey, had, for me, the best song, among many good ones, in the show when she delivered Clap on One and Three.

I was going to complain about the opening of the show, but Mac’s comments about slowing the audience down to Savannah time, seemed reasonable, though I might still tweak it a little, as I would in a few other places. (I don’t think the audience as the author was explained clearly enough for all.)

Mac commented that no one should expect to “get” everything upon first viewing, that just like a book or movie, a second viewing lends itself to greater appreciation. Moreover, he said they changed the ending after the first five previews, so, oops, you also might have to go again for that reason. Nice marketing.

I also wondered whether the show would be attractive to post Broadway licensees. I asked Mac about whether he took possible future productions into account in his writing. He said he, unlike many others, does, and that the Choreographer, Tanya Birl-Torres, who also was the Cultural Consultant, played a big part in those considerations.

Georgia O’Keeffe: “My New Yorks” Member Reception – Chicago Art Institute – June 24, 2024

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Note to self – next time you go to an event at the Art Institute that features “light bites,” skip everything but the chocolate banana bread.

It stands to reason that trained experts know a lot more than I do about their chosen fields, but that doesn’t mean that all the opinions they serve are easily digested. So, when curator Annie Morse told us that she viewed Georgia O’Keeffe’s Black Cross as, in a way, a self portrait, I had to take it with more than a grain of salt to make it appealing to my uneducated palate. (No amount of salt could have helped the quiche.)

That said, Morse gave an interesting, educational presentation in a nice half-hour package that included, not only photographs of New York from her husband Alfred Stieglitz, but also some mention of and visuals from other artists who Morse saw as influenced by O’Keeffe, including Roger Brown and his famous Leaning Tower of Touhy, housed at the Art Institute.

As for the exhibit itself, it was crowded, so I’ll have to go back to spend more time with it. It’s probably good, so I’ll give it a provisional four brushes for now and salt it away for future reference.

Last Comiskey Book Launch – Chicago History Museum – May 16, 2024

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I’m only going to say this once. Never go to a program where Tom Shaer is the emcee. Wait. I better repeat that. Never go to a program where Tom Shaer is the emcee.

I went to see the panel of former White Sox players, who turned out to be Donn Pall, Ron Kittle and Jack McDowell. By the time they were seated, we were over an hour in and I couldn’t take it any more. Thankfully, it was a nice night for a walk.

To be fair, Nancy Faust was there before the program started, playing the organ with her usual aplomb, to the great delight of everyone.

Faust also was featured in the 20-minute clip from the documentary Last Comiskey, which was a fun watch, particularly the part about Dave Stewart’s jock strap. I need to go to YouTube now and watch the whole film.

According to Shaer (when he wasn’t being a cloying, stand-up comedian wannabe windbag, or telling us a half dozen times that he hates to use notes, while referring to his notes), Faust, creator of the walk-up song, played her first one for Dick Allen in 1972, namely Jesus Christ Superstar.

Shaer spent an eternity introducing practically everyone in the audience, ranging from former sportswriters to former team administrative personnel to random people he knew. He skipped me, even though I co-created, produced and appeared on both episodes of a failed local cable tv sports talk show a million years ago. He must have missed it.

Charles Troy: PORTER VS. SONDHEIM – Porchlight Music Theatre – December 4, 2023

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I went in thinking it would be a knockout, Porter over Sondheim, in four rounds, out of the seven, but then I thought that the particular selection of competitive categories that musical theatre historian Troy used put Porter at a disadvantage, as if he were only allowed to punch with one hand.

The composers felt each other in the first round, Sondheim taunting and jabbing away with Comedy Tonight, and Porter dancing around the ring, or rather having Fred Astaire and George Murphy do it to the tune of Please Don’t Monkey with Broadway, in Broadway Melody of 1940, 25 years before Murphy was elected to the U.S. Senate.

And then the roundabout hook of Getting Married Today caught me off guard, comparing favorably to Porter’s They Couldn’t Compare to You, and causing me to award Sondheim the round.

It turned into an MMA fight when Porter floored Sondheim for an 8-count with I Get a Kick out of You.

Sondheim rose from the mat and decked Porter with Together Wherever We Go, but Sondheim was penalized by the referee for only being the lyricist on that song.

Then both fighters symbolically went down (Porter’s Down in the Depths and Sondheim’s Uptown-Downtown).

The next round was drawn from the start – Never, Never Be An Artist versus Finishing the Hat.

Finally, just when it looked like Sondheim might win the bout with America (even though, again, only the lyricist), he acknowledged that he hated what he had written (and told CBS News in 2020 that he was embarrassed by the lyrics he wrote for West Side Story, though acknowledging that the audiences might think differently), which left Porter standing over him, flag in hand ala George Foreman at the 1968 Summer Olympics, to the tune of I Still Love the Red, White and Blue.

Bears vs. Cardinals: The NFL’s Oldest Rivalry – Chicago History Museum – December 2, 2023

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Had I known a few months ago that I would be attending this program, I wouldn’t have thrown out the autographed Charlie Trippi football I’d been saving for most of my life after having determined that it had no intrinsic value and was taking up valuable space that some equally worthless keepsake might be afforded.

I’m pretty sure I could have found a home for it with the speaker/author Joe Ziemba, who brought along some other memorabilia and made reference to the treasured boxes of related materials he had been gifted prior to writing this, his latest book.

Ziemba’s biography noted that, because of his knowledge of the early days of the professional game, he has been a resource for articles or reports in a number of well-known publications, including Sports Illustrated. In regard to that attribution, I can attest that it was, in fact, a real person standing before me, and not the avatar of a computer in the back room.

Ziemba covered the time frame from slightly before the 1920 founding of the NFL through 1959, after which the Cardinals started their westward trek that ultimately led to Arizona, a retirement exurb of Chicago.

The already obviously well-informed audience was treated to numerous interesting and humorous anecdotes, along with digs at Packer fans, player photographs and pictures of contracts and ledgers from the less-affluent days of the NFL, when players might make $75 a game and no one had ever heard of CTE.

Airplane! Behind the Scenes of a Comedy Classic – Chicago Humanities Festival – October 21, 2023

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David Zucker was the only one of the three creative forces behind Airplane! to be there is person, his brother Jerry and Jim Abrahams appearing briefly via previously recorded segments. Zucker’s remembrances about the writing and making of the movie were interesting and funny.

I never knew that it was a parody of the 1957 drama Zero Hour! (including the exclamation point in the title). Apparently, though, the Zuckers and Abrahams were told that it was closer to plagiarism than parody and had to get permission from Paramount, the studio for the original, to proceed. Now I need to find Zero Hour! and watch it.

As for funny, the biggest laugh of the program was produced by a clip of Leslie Nielsen from the movie:

Striker: “Surely you can’t be serious.”
Rumack: “I am serious … and don’t call me Shirley.”

In 2005, the American Film Institute ranked this as 79th in all-time movie quotes. Given that one of the criteria was “Cultural impact: Movie quotations that viewers use in their own lives and situations; circulating through popular culture, they become part of the national lexicon” I would have rated it higher, around 50th on the impressive list.

Nowhere on the list, although shown to attendees, was Peter Graves saying “Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?” According to Zucker, Graves originally turned down the part and had to be convinced by his wife and daughter to do it, in part because he was leery about playing what seemed to him like a leering part on the page.

Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key – Chicago Humanities Festival – October 5, 2023

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Before Keegan-Michael and Elle Key even stepped out on stage, we were reminded by a member of the host committee that there was still an actors strike going on, so the guests wouldn’t be able to discuss any of the TV shows or movies they had worked on.

This could have been deflating, but I looked upon it as an opportunity, given that the topic of the presentation related to their new book, The History of Sketch Comedy, and they had the chance, unfortunately not taken, to create a sketch right before our eyes wherein they portrayed two people dancing around mention of their work.

She did most of the talking at the event, and I believe, most of the writing in the book, which made me wonder whether Danny Kaye was mentioned in the book. Huh? In fact, there is the briefest of references to him as being in White Christmas. My connection is that Kaye’s wife, Sylvia Fine, wrote songs for him for at least five of his movies, the writing spouse behind the comic.

Upon request from his wife, Keegan did a mean impression of Tracy Morgan, but otherwise pretty much just sat back, smiled and enjoyed her storytelling. Clearly, the key to a happy marriage.

Printers Row Lit Fest – September 10, 2023

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Among other things, Jena Friedman has been a field producer at The Daily Show and written for Late Show with David Letterman. She was at the Fest promoting her book, Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera.

She actually is funny, but the most interesting thing she had to say about her book was that you can find a couple publications on Amazon that appear to want to steal her thunder, including Jena Friedman: The Biography of Jena Friedman and Her Rule to Success, which was written by someone (something) named Justice Wall, who supposedly has written 107 biographies, all published in 2023, sold by Amazon Asia-Pacific Holdings Private Limited. According to Bloomberg.com, that company’s line of business includes providing computer programming services, which provides some insight into how it can be so prolific.

When it was suggested to Friedman that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, she countered that, in fact, payment is the sincerest form of flattery, and so the writers are on strike over, among other things, the threat posed by artificial intelligence.

From a discussion of AI’s potential for taking bread from writers’ mouths, I went to a program on Taking a Bite Out of the Heartland, with Monica Eng and David Hammond, (Made in Chicago: Stories Behind 30 Great Hometown Bites) and Big Jones Chef Paul Fehribach (Midwestern Food: A Chef’s Guide to the Surprising History of a Great American Cuisine, with More than 100 Tasty Recipes).

They discussed pizza, ribs, and tamales, but most importantly, when questioned about hot dogs, the chef voted for Super Dawg (also my pick).

On my way out I paid my annual visit to the popular Vintage Graphic Art vendor and did a 10-second sound bite for this week’s Get Lit Podcast, my first radio appearance in years.

Coming Attractions (or not) – September, 2023

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I was berated today for not telling people about events before they happen. So, for all of you out there who haven’t yet learned how to use your computer, and since I have a little time to kill, here are some ideas for things to do in September.

First, and foremost, and before you tire of my sarcasm, you must go to the Porchlight Music Theatre’s Icons Gala on the 8th at the Athenaeum Center. It will, as always, be a very entertaining evening and, if you buy one of the top-tier tickets, you get to mingle with me at the pre-show cocktail reception. Also, the guest of honor, Ben Vereen, will be in attendance.

As I alluded to in an earlier post, the Chicago Jazz Festival comes to town the first few days of the month. You’re on your own as to which acts might interest you. I stopped going years ago, as I tired of the modern, atonal nonsense they inappropriately call music, but there are a few acts on the calendar this year that I either have seen before and liked or am confident enough about to risk a trek down to Millennium Park or the Cultural Center for a look-see.

The Fourth Presbyterian Church takes its Noonday Concerts indoors starting this Friday, which seems premature to me, but allows them to put to use their big honking organ, though, fortunately for my tastes, not until the end of the month, so, again, why not keep things outdoors until then.

The Harris Theater for Music and Dance is celebrating its 20th Anniversary (seems like 40 years taking into account having to traverse all those stairs) on the 9th in Millennium Park. The unprecise schedule makes it hard to know when I might want to drop in, though the likelihood of families attending the afternoon sessions is fair warning to avoid those.

The Printers Row Lit Fest is that same weekend (both days). It always presents a plethora of interesting exhibitors and programs, if you can find them in the event’s labyrinth (watch out for the Minotaur).

And, not finally, but I’m tired, the American Writers Museum is hosting Get Lit: Grown-Up Book Fair on the 12th, which will feature refreshments, carnival games, and an Adult Spelling Bee, which, I assume, means either dirty words and/or easier ones than the obnoxiously well-prepared kids at the real one have to tackle.