I used to like awards shows but now they just remind me of how different my tastes are from those of most Americans. I watched a few episodes of The Bear (too over-the-top; nobody is that mad that consistently) and Bad Reindeer (too bizarre). Shogun I have no interest in. My favorite TV shows are/were My Brilliant Friend (which I assume wasn’t nominated because of the year break), Curb Your Enthusiasm (which at least got nominated), and Real Time with Bill Maher (nada).
The man behind Bad Reindeer, in one of his three acceptance speeches, praised the fact that the studios are taking risks on shows with unconventional premises. But the real risk, it seems, would be in backing a show about the everyday lives of ordinary people.
Sunday in Chicago was a beautiful day and I headed over to the Printers Row Lit Fest, where I had spoken the day before. Once there, I heard a man talking in passing with the vendor of posters, in that easy, familiar intercourse of people connected by place – and for a moment I wished I lived in a city like Chicago - or Chicago, for that matter. But then I realized that that connection, that deep-seated social cohesiveness, while it still exists, is not as strong as it once was when there were metropolitan newspapers that everybody read and other institutions – like department stores – that everybody frequented. About all that’s left now to unite a city’s residents are its sports teams, which explains why sports are so popular today and why, at games, even grown men and women now wear the caps and jerseys of their home teams.
At one of the tents I found a book about Mike Royko. The great newspaper columnist was a man whom Chicagoans read and quoted and followed with a devotion that cut across ethnic and economic spheres and created a feeling of belonging among the population. That was Royko’s genius, and it doesn’t show up in every generation. But if it did today, it would be drowned out by a thousand podcasts.
On my flight to Chicago last week I sat next to an older woman whose husband, sitting by the window, kept the shade down the entire flight. This is behavior I fail to understand; even if you’re unmoved by cloud formations, don’t you want to see the moment you “slip the surly bonds of Earth”? Even more vital for me is a view of the landing, knowing when to expect the gratifying jolt of wheels on tarmac. If I had a smaller prostate I would always book a window seat – and keep the shade up the entire flight.
Not this man. He kept working on his crossword as we taxied to the gate, which, at O’Hare, is a considerable journey. We had flown over a thousand miles and he had no interest in seeing what the landscape or weather were like in this new place. Perhaps, I thought, he has an eye condition that makes him sensitive to bright light. But then why would he book a window seat?
Finally, moved by some unprecedented spark of curiosity, he lifted the shade two inches to peer out. I leaned over greedily, demonstrably, to catch a glimpse at the great outdoors before he banned it from sight.
“Do you want him to open the shade?” the woman asked me.
“Yes,” I said, “I’ve been sitting in a tube for the last three hours.”
He obliged. A few seconds later, we arrived at the gate.
I watched the debate last night while simultaneously reading comments on X. Invariably, liberals praised the moderators – David Muir and Linsey Davis – for doing an excellent job, while conservatives complained that they were clearly biased toward Trump and favoring Harris.
I saw the conservatives’ point. But I also wondered if bias toward Trump is really a bias or simply a healthy human response.
The NFL season has begun. It’s been hard for me to take football seriously after realizing a few years ago that the players are wearing shorts. Take a look: Their pants end above their knees. In the old days, pants came down to above the calf, so that pads could protect the knees. I have no idea when or why that changed.
I was in Chicago on Sunday and the place I ate lunch had numerous TVs tuned to the Bears game. I looked up and saw a man in shorts tackle another man in shorts very close to the line of scrimmage. The man who made the tackle jumped up and, with puffed out chest, ran a few yards into the other team’s backfield, celebrating his accomplishment. And I thought: You just made a tackle, the thing that you are paid to do; why are you demonstrably gloating about it? I don’t get up and run a victory lap around my office every time I write a sentence.
Friday I flew to Chicago for the Printers Row Lit Fest. It was my first outing since my bronchitis and I had a number of concerns, not least of which was my cough, which is dormant much of the time but still active and, occasionally, disruptive.
The weather in Chicago was unseasonably cool, as it is wherever I travel (I am a one-man defense against global warming) so Friday evening I went to a restaurant near my hotel. It was Japanese and the two couples at the neighboring table were speaking Polish. Ah, Chicago.
I said something to them in Polish and they asked, kindly, if I were Polish. I said I was American, but had lived in Poland for two and a half years. I mentioned that I had just written a book about Poland, and that I was presenting it tomorrow at the book festival. The one couple, Maria and Tomek, said they would come hear me.
They not only came – they each bought a book. Theirs may now be the only household in America with two copies of Falling into Place.