Holmes is Where the Heart Is

Holmes old and new.

After hearing that I had enjoyed watching Benedict Cumberbatch in The Year of the Dog my brother-in-law recommended that I watch Mr. Cumberbatch in the Sherlock TV series. I haven’t checked off that box yet, but the mention did set off memories of Sherlock Holmes, and of one heavyweight book that I used to own.

The book was almost as thick (over 1100 pages) as the title was long —The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All Four Novels/All Fifty-Six Adventures. It was a Bar Mitzvah gift from a good friend who was also a lover of mysteries and the written word. Much of my 13th year was spent devouring every word of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 60 pieces of the Holmesian mythos. And unlike Elizabeth, the current Holmes in the news who claimed to solve blood chemistries from a tiny drop of blood, Sherlock really did make much out of little, solving crimes from the smallest piece of evidence.

A Study in Scarlet, The Red-Headed League, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Famous stories, and names I remember so well. Yet I couldn’t tell you the plot or the denouement of any of them. In fact, the part of the volume I remember the best is the forward — a few pages that were written by an American Holmes aficionado, Christopher Morley.

While I read each story once, I must have read that forward fifty times. It is odd, but my mental picture of Holmes was penned more by Mr. Morley than by Sir Conan Doyle. And just to be sure my memories were accurate I tracked down the four-page forward online. As I read it this morning I was quite impressed with my own recall. There were paragraphs that I could recite almost word for word. I wish I could say the same for my Torah portion from that long ago Bar Mitzvah!

As for my friend who gave me the book, we are still in touch, although he lives across the country. A movie critic and college lecturer, he still acts as the post hoc unpaid editor for this blog, taking up the slack when Grammarly fails me. One day I will have to ask him which one of the dozens of actors who have portrayed Sherlock Holmes have been the best. And thank him for that gift from so long ago.

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Our Holiday Verse

A Holiday Greeting,
It's meant for the masses,
No matter how full,
Or how empty your glass is.

The year was a weird one
With DC insurrection
From Big Lie believers
And in the end from Joe Manchin.

With Covid we battled
Through every Greek letter
And vaccines J and J--
Moderna - Pfizer did better.

We boosted when able
Though we formed a greater schism
'Tween the vaxers and those 
Who feared the jabs caused magnetism.

At times we were joyful,
We thought our lives would recover
And we travelled a great distance.
To see a spouse, child, or lover.

But flying's a hassle,
The skies sometimes unpleasant
Unless you're first class or private,
And not in coach like a peasant.

We went out to the movies,
Or at least some of us tried to
Most found Prime, Netflix or Hulu,
The theaters we were confined to.

We had an Atlanta World Series, 
And a Super Bowl for Tom Brady.
The Summer Olympics were delayed
And not terribly paradey.

And with Omicron sweeping
This month to remember
Some leagues are postponing
Their games in December.

There's now a new worry
That is raising its head.
Prices are rising,
Inflation, it's said.

The costs they are higher
On cars new and used.
On gas and on beef steaks
And the Fed seems confused.

But a New Year is coming.
We hope life will be brighter.
So all raise your glasses,
And say "Cheers" with this writer.

———————————————————————-

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Have I Found My Missing 1%?

I have mentioned my devotion to Grammarly before. It is an app that lives on my desktop PC, monitoring my spelling and my grammar. It has saved me from dozens of there for their swaps, from hundreds of misplaced commas, and from tens of thousands of mispellings misspellings.

Grammarly also uses its Artificial Intelligence brain to categorize the “tone” of my writings. My latest report card was:

Confident:     33%
Optimistic:    33%
Informal:       22%
Friendly:        11%

I guess that is a fairly good assessment of my personality and of the way I write. But when you add it up, it only comes to 99%, not 100%. Since that report, I have been wrestling with myself, trying to figure out what makes up the final 1% of me.

This morning I discovered it! I became ANGRY and it felt good. Some background: Over the weekend, we traded in Barb’s car for an updated, gently used one. We handled the haggling and paperwork on Friday and Saturday (The price of a one-year-old used car was practically as high as the original MSRP, but that’s a story for another day.)

Barb picked up the sparkling white sedan yesterday. I told her to be sure to notify our insurance agency about the update, and gave her the name and phone number of our local agent. Barb called twice, left two voice mails, and got no response. I called the agency main number, left a message, and got the same response as Barb–nothing.

Starting to get fed up, and not wanting Barb to be driving around an uninsured car, I tried a different tact. I called the national emergency number on the back of our insurance card, explained the situation, and begged to be transferred to the correct extension at the national office.

I was connected with someone who could give us immediate coverage, though he pointed out this was really supposed to be done by the local agent. I nodded my head and thought “whatever you say, just get me covered.”

Today I got a call back from the local agency. “Did you leave a message about something?” That’s when my 1% let loose.

“Why didn’t anyone answer our calls yesterday? What happened to our agent? Why weren’t we informed she was no longer with the agency? Who was taking care of our account?”

I didn’t lose control. I didn’t act like Matt Nagy dropping F-Bombs on the officials in last night’s Bear’s game. But I made no attempt to hide my anger at such poor customer service to a “Private-Client” at a very high-end insurance agency.

I know it was a small thing to become furious with. I know most people have much greater concerns and existential reasons for anger. But it felt good to let that 1% of me fly–even if just for a moment.

So maybe 1% Anger will show up on my next Grammarly report card. Until then, I just hope it just keeps finding my missing commas.

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Springsteen Sells It.

Bruce Springsteen: Image courtesy of Chicago Tribune

Word is out on the street that Bruce Springsteen, the tough kid from New Jersey, America’s storyteller, Mr. Broadway, and of course, The Boss, has sold the rights to his music to Sony. The reported sale price, about $500,000,000 dollars. That is, half a billion bucks, or 1/10th of 1 percent of a Musk.

Selling music rights has become the current rage. Dylan, Paul Simon, Neil Young; all have taken the money and run, though none will be able to run as far as Bruce and his big bundle.

I am a big Springsteen fan, though for many years the only music of his that was bought and paid for was a tape cassette of the Born in the USA. All the songs from the Born to Run album are on my iPhone, but I think that has more to do with something called Napster than any laying out of cash.

I enjoyed the one time we saw Bruce and the E Street boys live at the United Center, though Barb was regretting leaving her earplugs at home as the band’s booming sound bounced off the concrete. My two Bruce disappointments: his autobiography and the TV version of his Broadway show. I gave up on both before reaching the halfway point.

How much was Bruce worth before the deal with Sony? “Reliable sources” online give his previous net worth also at half a billion, so I guess with the additional half-billion he has hit billionaire status. I know it is a lot of money, but I can’t help feeling my daughter would be worth that much if someone had given her 3 shares of Tesla stock instead of 3 shares of Walgreens as a Bat Mitzvah gift.

Of course, Mr. Springsteen is not universally loved. In a question I once posed to a Facebook group, asking who was the better storyteller, Springsteen or John Mellencamp, most respondents just wanted the opportunity to dump on Bruce. I think it had more to do with politics than with music. And now those haters probably just want to get a loan from him.

So Bruce, more power to you. I hope you spread a little of that cash with the bandmates who supported you, guys like Steven and Max. And don’t forget Clarence’s and Danny’s families. And there better be a big new bauble for Patti–and maybe some charitable donations, too.

Oh, and Sony execs, if you are reading this, the rights to my blogs are available. It won’t even cost you $500 mill. I’ll take $500 plain.

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I Will Think About Michael Nesmith Whenever I Remember My Puffy Sleeves Green “Monkees” Shirt.

Michael Nesmith. (Photo Courtesy Chicago Tribune)

Michael Nesmith has died. Three-quarters of the Monkees have now passed away, leaving Mickey Dolenz as the sole survivor of the TV super-group. And breaking one more of the strands that held our generation together.

Did you watch The Monkees religiously, Monday nights on Channel 5? I’m sure in the memory of many of us it lasted for years and years, but it really only survived for two seasons.

Was it a good TV show? Not at all. Even my pre-teen critic’s eye recognized that. It was just a string of music videos strung together with a slight, silly, plot. We didn’t know Nesmith would eventually be one of the forces behind the whole music video revolution.

But yes, the show was fun–and bringing the boys into our living rooms every week made them our friends. We knew their eccentricities–Mike’s wool hat, Peter’s kookiness, Davy’s accent, and Mickey’s wanting to be the boss. By the way, if they ever make a biopic about the boys, can anyone but Adrian Grenier play the role of Mickey?

The Monkees popularized the puffy-sleeved shirt, years before Seinfeld satirized it. Maybe the boys wanted to look like pirates. I bought a green number, probably at Leonard’s Juvenile Shop on Morse Avenue. I wore it to the school dances, in heavy rotation with my two Nehru shirts. I thought I was very fashionable back in the day.

Davy, Peter, and now Michael have left us. Mickey is 76. Monkee business is winding down. But I’m a believer that a little bit of me and a little bit of you will remember them even when the last train to Clarksville has gone.

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It’s Time for Time Travel. Where would you go?

Good news! It is “Pretend to Be a Time Traveller Day!” OK, PTBATTD was actually a few days ago, December 8th to be precise. But let’s pretend to travel back to the 8th, and then we can pretend to time travel even more.

Is there any spot in your life you would like to travel back to? Any moment that was so marvelous you want to experience it again and again, ala a good Groundhog Day? Or any Sliding Doors instant that you would have changed, and that may truly have altered the flow of your life, presumably for the better? How about the moment that you decided to do something out of the ordinary that set you on an unexpected course? Lots of instants to choose from.

I’m going to set some ground rules, some restrictions. It must be a moment you were actually present for. And let’s knock out the obvious choices; no choices of “the day my partner and I formed an official union” or “the day that my child was born or adopted.” Now the moment your baby was conceived…that could be a perfectly acceptable choice if it really was that great of a morning, night, plane flight, or whatever.

I’ll go first–and I’ll volunteer an example for each of the three situations I described above.

  1. Most fabulous moment–the instant Barb and I walked into the ballroom at our daughter’s wedding and began to dance. It was electric: the band, the room, the people, the joy-the culmination of months of planning, all the details melding into surreal perfection. I hope it was as exquisite for our daughter and her new husband.
  2. My sliding door? The ranking of residency choices for “The Match.” I chose an outstanding community hospital program over a challenging academic one. I have had a great career in pathology, but it could have been very different (and at least as rewarding) had I ventured into a program where I would have done research as well.
  3. And then the unexpected. I volunteered to serve on a committee in the local grammar school district. I never anticipated that this would lead to a 20 year committment to public school leadership. And if I get to choose two more fantastic moments, they would presenting each of my children with their high school diplomas signed by me as President of the Board of Education.

OK, enough of me baring my soul. What about you? If you could go back to any single day in your life, what would it be? And you don’t have to stop at one. The more you spill, the better we will get to know you. And be glad I didn’t choose to honor “Let’s All Talk Like a Pirate Day!”

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From 1 to 500. It All Started with Elizabeth Holmes.

Yes, this is the 500th contribution I am making to the pages of ChicagoNow. My blog, first known as “Downside, Maybe” joined the Chicago Tribune network in October of 2015. My first topic? Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos. You know, the blonde CEO who is currently on trial in San Jose, California for bamboozling investors and the public.

And though it may feel like I have wound up where I started, I think I have said a lot in those 500 blogs, those roughly quarter of a million words.

What started as a cataloging of the stresses of building a modern, stylish, empty nest home in suburban Chicago, has come to be (at least to me) so much more.

It has been a love song to my family, as that family has grown, while also giving me a chance to look back at those I have lost through the years. I have honored mentors and vilified a nemesis or two. I have welcomed, and said goodbye to, various 4-pawed family members, and described walking through our neighborhood in their company.

I have written of all the politics, as many of us moved from mocking Donald Trump to fearing him, the tropes he spouts, and the troops he spawns. I berated Hillary Clinton for her losing campaign, but I am not sure that I ever congratulated Joe Biden for his winning one.

I have let you know what I think about music and art, about movies, television, and my first love, the theater. You read about it when we pedaled in Hanoi, noshed in New York, and bought a time-share in Mexico. And you cruised the tollway with me as I described my daily commute in my embezzler’s Beemer and its successors.

I have written in free verse and in haiku. I have sent you song lyrics and raps. I have asked for your help in getting jobs (host of Jeopardy!, Tribune columnist) and I have given you my thoughts on health and medicine.

As a physician, my first motto is primum non nocere—first, do no harm. I have tried to remember those words when advocating PSA testing, pushing immunizations (well before COVID), and explaining just what it is like to be a pathologist.

The best part? Connecting with friends, old and new, and hearing back from so many readers. Nothing is more rewarding than having one of you relate what a particular post meant to you or referencing an obscure point from something I had written months ago. Yes, I have been heckled, but most responses have been positive, friendly, and informative.

So let me know what blogs you have liked and what you haven’t. And I promise you–the show will go on!

500 more
500 more
I hope that you will read
500 more!
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There’s A Cream Cheese Shortage in New York City. Will Chicago be Loxed out?

The Lox Tower at Sadelle’s in New York.

I did not grow up in a lox-and-bagel family. My mother didn’t serve lox or bagels or cream cheese for Sunday brunch. My many toasted bagels at Ashkenaz, accompanying steaming bowls of kreplach soup, were just spread with butter; once again, no cream cheese or smoked salmon in sight.

My first taste of lox could have been enough to turn me off for good. As a young teen in Rogers Park, I was a regular attendee–and newsletter coauthor–of the Post Barb-Bat Mitzvah Club at Congregation B’nai Zion. In the half-hour between sacred morning religious services and vicious, no-holds-barred floor hockey games, the PBBMC’ers were treated to breakfast.

Seated with the gentlemen of the Men’s Club, served by the ladies of the Sisterhood (yes, the late sixties were sexist times) we breakfasted on orange-pink lox, tinged with phosphorescent green. Each slice contained double the daily RDA of salt. It is amazing that in my years of attendance not a single corpulent Men’s Club macher succumbed to a fatal stroke on-site as the sodium sent his blood pressure through the roof.

After that my lox-bagel-and-cream-cheese experience had nowhere to go but up. Once my horizons expanded to the suburbs I began to enjoy some of the better North Suburban delis. The cost of the lox increased, but so did the quality. We have gone from Kaufman’s Bagel and Delicatessen in Skokie, to Max and Benny’s Restaurant in Northbrook, to Once Upon a Bagel in Highland Park, without a slice of salty green seafood anywhere to be seen.

Our current favorite is Upper Crust Bagels in Deerfield. The hand-sliced lox costs as much per pound as the finest prime beef, but the rich, slightly oily fish is a delicacy to be shared with family and friends at Sunday Brunch. Especially with their crusty bagels and smooth cream cheese.

But Chicago cannot compete with the ultimate lox masterpiece we enjoyed a few years ago. Brunching with Long Island friends in New York City, the four of us splurged for the Lox Tower at Sadelle’s. It was probably more expensive than our orchestra tickets to whatever Broadway show we had seen the night before, but enjoying it felt like we had died, gone to heaven, and come back to Earth for seconds.

Yet now thanks to Supply Chain Issues, New York is facing a cream cheese shortage. If Joe Biden, who alone is responsible for all such things, can’t correct this crisis it alone may be enough to lose the New York Jewish vote for Democrats. A tragedy in brown, white, and coral.

And on a more personal basis…New York, figure out how to get your damned cream cheese. ‘Cause we are headed that way in the spring, and I want my Sadelle’s. Heaven is calling.

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Hey, NPR. You Are Making Me Feel Old!

In July of 1984, I mentioned to a friend that for the first time that I could recall, the number one song on the Billboard charts was something I had never heard. The song was “When Doves Cry” from Prince’s Purple Rain soundtrack album. It had totally escaped my ears and for the first time in my life, I was all of 28.

So imagine my feelings today at age 65 upon reading the NPR list of best songs of 2021, and not recognizing a single song, from #100 down to #1. A total shut-out. And this wasn’t a list from some hip new-age media outlet. This wasn’t the 100 most streamed songs on Tik-Tok. No, this was a list from National Friggin’ Public Radio, the network programmed for old farts and fans of over-enunciated world news. NPR is 100% cooler than I am.

I did recognize the name of one artist on the list. Robert Plant showed up for a duet with Allison Krauss. For those of you even more out of touch than I am, Mr. Plant was once the lead singer for a band called Led Zeppelin. No-those boys didn’t make this year’s NPR 100.

It’s not that I have stopped listening to music. I still do. And “my” station, WXRT plays some new music along with the oldies. But I guess not one of the adult alternative songs they play (that’s the description of the format from Audacy, Inc. the station’s owner) was one of the year’s 100 winners. What a losing record! That’s what they get for letting Mary Dixon run off to WBEZ. Hey–isn’t WBEZ the local NPR affiliate? Mary must be even hipper than I thought!

So what was NPR’s Number One Song of the Year? Lil Nas X’s “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” took the number one slot. If I had a nickel for every time I have heard it, well, I wouldn’t have a nickel.

Yes, I am old, crotchety, and out-of-date. On TV I’m watching the new documentary about John, Paul, George, and Ringo. The last books on music I have read were by Keith, Bruce, and Patti. I just am not on a first-name basis with Cardi and Nas and Megan Thee.

So I’ll just sit back and listen to my radio. “Once In a Lifetime” by The Talking Heads is playing. I remember when they were avant-garde.

And so was I.

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This Is My Favorite Chocolate Treat. What Is Yours?

Cora Lee Orange Peel fulfills childhood memories.

You can have your Raisinets. You can have your chocolate-covered strawberries, your chocolate-covered cherries, your chocolate-covered Oreos. For me, there is only one delicacy deserving a thorough coating of rich dark chocolate, the orange peel.

I am not sure how I first fell in love with these skinny strips of candied peel, but I know it was very, very early in life. Perhaps my parents first bought them for me as we walked home from lunch at Ashkenaz, the iconic Morse Avenue deli in East Rogers Park. The source was the Dutch Mill Candy Store just down the block. Sadly, once a thriving Chicago area chain of confectionery stores, Dutch Mill closed in 1988.

As I grew I kept seeking out my favorite treat. For many years, Marshall Field’s Department Stores were my go-to supplier. Although best known for Frango Mints, most Marshall Field’s stores had a fully stocked candy counter with a variety of fresh chocolates. I would make many Saturday afternoon visits to the lower level of the Field’s store in Old Orchard to pick up a quarter pound of my favorites. When Field’s became Macy’s, those visits came to an end.

Friends who know my proclivity for orange peels have tried to feed my flame. In that way, I have had the chance to try a variety of candy confectioners and chocolate styles. Some have been OK, none great. Either waxy chocolate or dried-out peels have doomed them. And one definite conclusion–bland milk chocolate is NOT the proper coating for the sugary peels.

Fortunately, several years ago Barb discovered a source that fulfills my fruity fantasy. The orange peels from Cora Lee Candies in Glenview duplicate the taste and texture of my Dutch Mill daydreams.

On my birthday or our anniversary, on Valentine’s or Father’s Day, I can usually expect a loving card and a pound of the Cora Lee sweets to be waiting for me on the kitchen island. I put the card on our buffet, pop the candy box in our freezer and then treat myself to an after-dinner chocolate crunch every night for a month to come.

A pound of Cora Lee Chocolate Coated Orange Peels isn’t cheap, but I guess I’m worth it!

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First Name
Last Name
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