Ending and Starting the Years With Loren Estleman

I like to end the year in style and start the next one with a statement about distance running and hope and ambition.

Starting the serene day after Christmas, when I am content knowing that I have loved my family well, I make every effort to have a hell of a lot of fun. I start by getting up as early as I can----usually in the four to four-thirty morning hour and heading downstairs to get lost in the world of crime fiction.

Jump starting my heart before my morning run with a cup of hot coffee, I nest in the stuffed chair next to the Christmas tree. Sitting next to this brightly lit ornamental history of the family, I greet a Loren Estleman novel to enter the world of crime.

Loren Estleman has taken me into a trance like few other writers have. In a few pages I find myself in Detroit two generations ago-- as mobsters are making their fortunes running rum and other spirits across frozen Lake Superior from Canada. What fun. What a different world from the strait-laced, buttoned down world of law that I live in year after year.

Estleman, writes with an affection for Detroit from its zenith to its decline and despair. He is also an expert at guns. His descriptions reveal one who has studied them through and through and used them for recreation(I hope).

I admire Estelman's writing for its humor and its subtle moral lessons. An important quality in Estleman's writing is his skill in telling an absorbing story in about two hundred seventy-five pages. Time and time again over the ten or more Estleman novels I have enjoyed, Loren can finish a fine tale in under three hundred pages. Good for him and the rest of us with limited time for novels.

For me Christmas has always been about a pool of brand new books to swim in. My Godfather, Burt Mitchell, a high school history teacher, used to bring me two or three new history books each Christmas---no doubt launching me further into the humanities. My own family had started me down this fascinating road years before. I am deeply grateful to my Greek parents for that.

My end of the year is a chance to stretch out, find stillness and serenity, say thanks and rest the body from the marathons I run weekly. Christmas vacation is about the "Pause" that Jack Shea has spoken about in his Advent reflections at Old St. Patrick's Church. It is a chance to reflect on my very happy life.

After six or seven mornings of this wonderful regimen, we come to New Year's eve. For years the most important part of the turning of the year is the New Year's day long morning run. One such run---perhaps 2007---took place right into a Norman Rockwell type showfall of six or seven inches. I start these New Year's Day runs about seven in the morning. Chicago belongs to me and me alone. My footprints are the first in the snow. The beauty of a fresh snowfall in the wooded Irving Park neighborhood is breathtaking. And the run is usually blessed with some brilliant sunshine-----plenty of hope for the year ahead.

One run went almost seventeen miles---probably in 1999, when I trained for two marathons. It started in a light snowfall and ended almost three hours later in four inches of snow.

Life is grand. Aways has been and always will be.

Voltaire

BASKET CASE by Carl Hiassen: A BOOK REVIEW

This is a funny pot-boiler that I recommend. Though it is not as good as some of this fine novelist's other books, you may enjoy it. I got the book as a gift and enjoyed it while I ran some morning miles.

Hiaasen's hero, Jack Tagger, is a charming investigative journalist with too big a mouth. I can relate to him. I was born with the same defect. Tagger was knocked off his hard-won perch as a newpaper's chief investigative reporter after his public denunciation of his boss, Race Maggot III, the Rupert Murdoch type owner of a Florida daily paper.

Tagger has been exiled to the obit column for the past two years. Most recently he has been bothered by his young editor, Emma, an attractive, smart woman twenty years his junior. This Generation Xer and Tagger have been fighting.

When Tagger's research into the untimely death of a famous singer leads him right into the middle of a murder investigation involving the dead singer's wife and many semi-illiterates poulating the rock music production world (some would say the underworld), Tagger and Emma find their relationship changing.

Blind ambition and greed ruined Macbeth, Nixon, untold others and surely inspired Hiassen's murderer in this tale.

Voltaire

College Football: A Civilizing Influence

It has been a distinct pleasure to meet so many Americans since I passed on some two hundred odd years now. This rather young country seems to have such an anti-intellectual and puritanical bent to it. Witness the election of such dolts as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and his father.

It seems to me that America often jolts forward toward a more humane society and then is pulled backwards just as often by the reactionaries that fool many American voters into giving them the reins of power. Such a shame. America in my view has great unrealized potential.

Forgive my digression into politics and philosophy. It comes to me as easy as breathing. And I believe Mr. Ghandhi was telling me the other day that all our actions are political in some sense. He is quite right.

One very curious thing I have noticed about my American friends of the 20th century is their obsession with college football. Every Saturday I wander around my favorite haunts looking for my American friends--Mike Royko, Joseph Campbell and Brenda Ueland---only to find them obssessed with young men in helmets runnning in packs called the Buckeyes, Fighting Illini, Golden Bears, Thundering Herd and the Horned Frogs.

Try as I might to engage my dear American friends in just a few minutes of rich intellectual discourse on Saturdays, I always fail.

Despairing in my loneliness last Saturday I unloaded on Mike Royko, one of the funniest Americans, my disappointment in the Americans' obsession with college football. He told me it straight: "Voltaire, get over it. If we didn't have college football and pro football on weekends, we would be wreaking a lot more havoc on the world. Not a good thing for the world."

Mike always makes a lot of sense I have found. And even better he makes me laugh.

Voltaire

LOVING

I don't remember the name of the place, but what happened there was so loving that it will never be forgotten. My son, Matt, deserves all the credit.

I walked upstairs to the second floor of this popular Chicago bar, a place on Sheffield between Belmont and Addison. Matt and his gorgeous fiancee, Stacey, were experts at knowing all the trendy places in town. Still are.

I was headed for a party of friends to celebrate the upcoming marriage of Matt and Stacey. Arriving when the party began, as my wonderful Greek Mother had raised me to do, I soon realized that I was the only parent at the party. I wondered a bit whether I would be lonely in the hours ahead.

Matt's Mother, a truly outstanding woman, had died almost eight years before. She launched Matt on his successful journey through life with the greatest energy and dedication.

The room I entered was big, clean and well-lit with a bar in the back half of the room. Matt and Stacey, the couple with "movie star looks" as my dear friend Pam has said, greeted me with warm hugs.

Soon the room filled with 75 friends, who I knew immediately to be among the most talented and attractive youth of Chicago. I knew quite a few of these people through Matt's days at St. Ignatius, hockey career and fraternity life at Illinois. They were fun. They worked hard, played hard and were very dedicated to each other as friends. I always admired this group---they had a great balance in their lives---and they took very good care of one another in honoring each other at important times in each others' lives.

For the entire time that I was at the party my son treated me with the greatest kindness and hospitality you could imagine. He spent all that time with me visiting with the people I knew and helping me meet all the others. I was an honored guest. I was deeply touched and think of that evening often as a great expression of love and kindness.

As if the evening was not thrilling enough, toward the end of my stay, I was visiting with Matt's friend, Joe Walsh (now a successful young physician). Joe was always a young man with a fine affection for family--both his own and those of his friends. As we were telling stories about Matt, he told me that my son "was universally loved." I went directly into orbiting the moon upon hearing that.

Matt is loved because he knows how to love me and others so well. He is a gift to all of us.

Voltaire

DICK KELLY, A DEAR FRIEND

I had a spectacular day yesterday, that started with my eight mile meditation. That means I ran eight miles along Chicago's lakefront up from Monroe harbor into Lincoln Park and back again. I ran with a dear friend who has trained for many marathons with me since 2004.

The weather for the run was mild and sunny. The views of Lake Michigan were captivating and delicious.

The eight miler was over in a flash, in part due to conditioning and in large part due to fine conversation.

We finished the run with a trip to the marathoner's coffee shop, the Corner Bakery at Monroe and Wabash. I had a vision of the post-run treat: a tangy lemon bar (hopefully a fresh one) and some fresh steaming coffee. It was heavenly. I can still taste the tart lemon a day later.

Then home to clean up and chores.

Then off to Oak Park to visit one of my dearest friends, Dick Kelly, who is very very ill. Dick is bed-ridden with more ailments than I can count.

We visited for a couple of hours as if nothing was different. I didn't want them to be different. I never want any of my friends to leave my company or their loved ones.

Dick and I had met in Democratic politics in 1973 in that amazing eighteen month period in which I met my wife to be and many of my dearest friends for the next thirty-five years.

Dick has lived a life of great energy and a passion for social justice. He and my wife Beth were cut from the same mold, Catholics who cared all about love and forgiveness, the building of community and alleviating suffering and nothing about the reactionary leadership of their Church.

As I told my running buddy the story of Dick's life as a civil rights' activist in the South and in Chicago in the 60's and 70's, an activist in anti-war, union and other progressive causes, an athlete with a sweet fade away jumper and a good husband and family man, I was telling the story of someone I admired. I admire generous people who live authentic lives. Dick is one of those people. Living generously for others came as naturally as breathing for him.

I also admire Dick because he always had a boyish side to him---a fun-loving openness, a wonderful sense of humor and a zest for the richness of life.

Dick has hundreds of friends. I am happy to have been one of them.


Voltaire

ROYKO AND LIEBLING AT THE NEWSEUM

Joe Liebling and I have been hanging around since I met him last week at the coffee house. I have been having a lovely time of it as he has told me about his career in journalism in America. He had a thrilling forty year career. Many writers do.



Joe spent a fair amount of time in my beloved France during the dark days of World War II. He was a war correspondent who wrote his dispatches for The New Yorker. In more peaceful days after the War ended, Joe wrote columns about the joy of French cooking. Gargantuan French meals were the mainstay for Joe at that time, undoubtedly leading to the gout and hastening his death at a mere 62 years of age.



I was walking by the Greek coffee house last Friday with Joe when we came upon a tall grumpy man swearing as he was reading some Chicago newspapers. Joe knew him and introduced me to Mike Royko.



Mike had a firm handshake, which I was soon to learn had developed from a lifetime of playing Chicago softball and thousands of rounds of golf.



I, the curious one, asked Mike what was troubling him so. He said, "The goddamn Chicago newspapers are in the toilet. I knew this was going to happen. It started with Murdoch, continued with Conrad Black. Awful. I am sick. I need a drink."

Joe said, "Mike, what you don't need is another drink. It is your drinking and my reckless eating that got us here ahead of our contemporaries."

I thought for a while about having met two American writers in the past week, both of whom were so upset over the state of journalism in America. I ventured forth boldly (I know no other way) with an idea.

"I have an idea. Let's take a trip to America and get a closer view of what's going on in journalism. Where should we go ?"

Mike said, "Chicago. It desperately needs us. Chicagoans are so distressed with the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times that they are regularly diving off the Michigan Avenue bridge to their death in the Chicago River."

Joe responded,"Mike, that is tragic but New York is the place. Home to my beloved The New Yorker and The New York Times."

"The New York Times that missed the absurdity of Bush's Iraq War. That New York Times ?"

A storm was brewing. Royko appeared volatile and likely to throw a punch at the portly Liebling. Joe had never seen a punch up close and personal, only from ringside as a reporter on the boxing scene. I, promoting tolerance and good will, said," Let's go to Washington, D.C. and check out the scene from the center of power."

Joe and Mike went along with it, though Mike mumbled something unprintable about New York. I had never been to Washington but looked forward to the adventure. Nothing is more fun than traveling with writers, particularly brilliant American writers.

We sat three abreast in the latest model jet run by The Angelic Express. The trip to DC took about ninety minutes. Royko had four cocktails and a beer and was promptly entertaining all of us with stories about bumbling Chicago politicians and judges. We touched down at National Airport and within twenty minutes found ourselves outside this massive building called The Newseum.

The building was about five stories tall---all glass windows on the front of the building. A feeling of openness and light was the effect of the architecture. Joe was the first to comment on the design, "Clever design, very appropriate to the news business. We are opening the public's eyes to the truth in America and shedding light on it."

Mike ambled ahead of us a bit. At the entrance to the museum we came upon a glass enclosed display of two dozen front pages of newpapers for the day from Maine to California. Then, all hell broke loose.

Mike yelled, "Goddamn it. What the hell did I tell you. Look at this for chrissake. This paper is a comic book, it's not a newspaper."

Joe and I caught up with him and looked down at the front page of The Chicago Sun-Times. The paper had a front page photo of a golf star standing at a podium looking grim. At the bottom of the page were three little graphics, one on baking, one on sports and the third on car repair. There was no writing on the front page except the headline and a sentence or two under the photo.

Joe was aghast and consoling to Mike. I took it all in and started to process it. I found so much in my lifetime absurd. This bit of nonsense was just another chapter.

We entered the building and spent a solid five hours captivated by the history of journalism in America from penny papers to something called Internet blogging that I am trying to understand.

Mike was beaming when we came upon the display of Pulitzer Prize winners. His photo was prominent for 1972, the year he won the award for Commentary. Joe had his turn at the display of press critics, where he took his place as the unrivaled champion.

The more time we spent in the museum the more glum both Joe and Mike got. Joe spoke for both of them. "The news business has been captured by huge corporations. God help America in the 21st Century."

I was not as despairing as my new friends. Hope always defeats despair, always has and always will.

I lived in an earlier age and fled my native France in my middle age. At the time I fled, the country had no independent press of any kind and no constitution with a First Amendment like that in America guaranteeing freedom of speech and the press. My writings were smuggled into France in the early morning hours and burned if discovered by the Catholic Church or the French government.

I just felt that the need for truth and an independent press was so ingrained in the American way of government and law, that no concentration of capital would doom the news business to mediocrity and extinction.

We finished our visit to the museum and DC and were home by dinner. Royko was melancholy and very drunk by now. Joe and I got him home safely and cheered ourselves up with a great French meal and two bottles of port.

And that is the way it is.


Voltaire

ABBOTT JOSEPH LIEBLING

I met the most fascinating man the other day after returning from a four mile run in a fresh snowfall near the Bahai temple.

The very very rotund and brilliant Renaissance man----A. J. Liebling.

I met owlish Joe Liebling outside a Greek coffee house in my neighborhood. He was sitting at two tables pushed together and strewn with newspapers. I was attracted to him by his mumbling and cursing to himself about bad writing and publishers and all sorts of sins of the Fourth Estate in America of all places.

Sidling up to him I hoped he would have time for some good rich talk. Talk as dark and rich and delicious as the first cup of fresh coffee in the morning. Fortunately, he was a warm, amiable man with an intellect as thirsty and insatiable as mine.

Over the next four hours I learned about Liebling's exciting career as a writer for The New Yorker. Writing for that fine publication from 1935 until his early death in 1963, this Francophile wrote masterful and ground-breaking press criticism, sports reporting about the boxing scene in New York, war reporting from Europe during WW II and French gourmet cooking reviews. An impressive breadth of knowledge.

Anyone interested in a career as a writer should study Joe's use of the English language. Writers can feast on his work and wisdom.

I have read some of Joe's press criticism in his essays in The Wayward Pressman and The Press. They are wonderful. My American correspondent Peter Katsaros tells me that these books are a must read for every American citizen. Peter added that reading Liebling's books on the press in his law school days was the high point of law school. Who am I to disagree ? Peter's reporting has been quite good to date.

Had Liebling lived in my day he would have been a frequent visitor to Cirey and Ferney. Joe wrote with a joyful and honest pen. Like me he would not have been welcome in France. America is lucky to have had him write for the ages.

And I am thrilled to have him as a new friend.


Voltaire

My Trade is to Say What I Think

I spent a wonderful long life writing satire in poems, plays and my distinct creation, the philosophical tales.

What great fun that writing was: 20,000 letters and 100 books. I still laugh for hours when I reread Candide. I am so deeply grateful to Leonard Bernstein for writing the music that brought my favorite creation back onto the world stage in the 20th century.

Yes, I admit I caught quite a bit of hell for my writing. Two trips to the Bastille before I turned thirty and a violent mugging by a gang hired by an aristocrat convinced me that France in the early 18th century was no place for freedom of thought or my unconventional pen.

England was a far better place. I loved the intellectual freedom of England in my three years there after my ouster from France. Wrote a book about my learning there, Letters on the English.

You know much of the rest of my story. Most of my books had to be smuggled into Paris and sold underground. Read my Philosophical Dictionary and you will see why. Both the hateful, fearful Catholic Church and the French Regent had the ear of the prosecutor, so I made my home in Ferney in Switzerland. I did my best to make that home the intellectual capital of Europe in the Enlightenment. Quite a few historians say I did a good job at it.

Ferney was a delightful place. Plenty of space, beautiful gardens, a great library, guest quarters for visiting thinkers from all over Europe who wanted to come and study and talk a while. I built a church on the grounds, hired a priest I could tolerate. Life was very very good.

And, do you know what ? I returned to Paris a hero on the eve of my death in 1778. The prayer that I had always lofted skyward ringing in my ears. "God, may you reveal all my enemies to be wholly ridiculous. You have answered me."

I led a life dedicated to truth, beauty, tolerance and justice. That carries risks but they are all worth it.


Voltaire

The Athenian Jury Trial

I must commend the Greeks----those of the Golden Age of course------for their marvelous contributions to democracy. Both the right to vote for leaders and the right to have cases decided by juries of citizens have civilized many societies ever since 500 B.C.

Now the juries in Athens took a while to choose and administer, given the fact that a jury had to have 501 members.

And the juries sometimes got it wrong. The worst example of an Athenian jury going off the rails (forgive the prophetical reference to an industrial development that followed my death by 70 years) was its conviction of Socrates for "corrupting the young."

Those of you who know me and what I fought with great energy in my lifetime recognize that religious hypocrisy made me crazy. Well, Socrates was convicted for corrupting the young by teaching them that they did not have to worship or honor the Olympian gods.

Socrates' jury trial was a travesty. The Olympian gods were a pack of scoundrels, whose escapades made some memorable stories and myths to entertain people for thousands of years. But, as moral examples of conducting a good honorable life the Olympians were clueless.

Now that I think of it a bit. To worship and honor the Olympians would do more to harm the moral fiber of the Athenian youth than would have a good talk over coffee with Socrates.

Socrates taught the youth of Athens and anyone else that would listen to him for free, much to the chagrin and regret of his wife and children who had little to live on.

Too bad the Greeks did not have a brilliant constitution like the Americans came up with, in which the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution wisely protected a robust free speech, the freedom to exercise religion and kept the church and state at a respectable distance.

Of course the Americans had the benefit of 2200 years of recorded history to learn from and some brilliant founding fathers. The Americans saw the value in voting and jury trials, protecting both rights with great energy.

Wise folks, those ancient Greeks and modern Americans.

Voltaire

WHILE THE DEMOCRATS SLEPT

Forgive my foray into American history. I barely knew America before I passed into my present state: eternal satirist. I always thought America had great potential. Still believe that.

But, somewhere in my memory I remember a conversation with my American friend Ben Franklin. He spoke of some brilliant courageous move by George Washington leading the American troops in some ships across the Delaware River at night. The British troops were sleeping. The Americans surprised them with the night time attack and won a big victory.

That appears to have been what happened this Tuesday when Republican Senatorial candidate Scott Brown upset the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley in a special election for a U.S. Senate seat from Massachusetts, a Democratic stronghold.

I just finished the New York Times article on the election. It appears that all the top Democrats were sleeping, vacationing, inept or some combination thereof. Coakley, who probably would have made a fine Senator, was an inept and arrogant campaigner. In a sports crazy state she knew little or nothing about Boston Red Sox history. She found the gritty work of politics distasteful.

The Dems in the White House, who are some of the finest political organizers around, took Massachusetts for granted until it was too late.

I was having coffee this morning with Harry and Bess Truman, who had just finished one of their brisk walks. We were talking about the Massachusetts Senatorial election. Harry and Bess told me that Harry and his team had upset Tom Dewey in the 1948 Presidential race in a similar way. Dewey had been so far ahead in the polls in the summer of 1948 that he and his team stopped campaigning for quite some time. Until it was too late.

Repeating the mistakes of the past. That what the Democrats did on this one.

That is it for today. I am going running.


Voltaire


Voltaire

SARAH'S BIRTHDAY

Happy birthday to Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Dennis, my oldest daughter. Born in a raging snowstorm, in the famous winter storm of 1979.

She is a star, has always been and will always be.

Outstanding for her passions: love for her families and friends, love for education.

The world is a lot better place because this young woman is striding through it.

In love and admiration,


Voltaire

A Writer's Voice

I have been taking creative writing classes, doing some writing in different genres and hanging around writers, dramatists and other artists since June of 2005. Like the rest of my life this has been thrilling.

Often, I heard the phrase "writer's voice." The more I read, the more I write and the more I think about the most important issues in a life, the easier it is for me to discern a writer's voice.

I start almost every day during the business week with some reading at 3:45 AM (CST) in my writing room with a steaming cup of coffee at my side. I don't always know what I will read when I enter that room. This week I picked up Brenda Ueland's Strength to Your Sword Arm.

This book is a goldmine and its author a saint. Read one essay in this book and you will immediately understand the concept of a "writer's voice."

Brenda Ueland is in a friendly warm conversation with her readers. She writes with a fine hopeful view of life that will immediately boost your spirits and bring a smile to your face.

There is no better writer's voice extant.

And I should know since in my first life in 18th century France no one wrote more than me.


Voltaire

Winston Spencer Churchill

A guiding light for all of us.

Winston raced thru life with wonderful enthusiasm, zest, reslilience and COURAGE.

I highly recommend to you and your children Paul Johnson's Winston Churchill (2009). This 170 page biography captures the essence of a remarkable leader.

I have never given my talented children any required reading, but this book may be the first.

With love and enthusiasm,


Voltaire

Brenda Ueland

Looking for a muse ?

Looking for a morning dose of hope, love and saintliness ?

Then, spend a few minutes with this woman's writing and you will be immediately refreshed.

Her books include: If You Want to Write, Me and Strength to Your Sword Arm.

Ueland was an essayist, journalist and creative writing teacher of the first rank.

Her warmth radiates in her writing.

Please tell me what you think of her.


Voltaire

Movie Reviews: December 2009

1. It's a Wonderful Life. (Frank Capra as director; starring James Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore) 1947. Stunning film about the value of community, family and friendship. As contemporary as ever, given the mortgage crisis of the last two years and the declining size of the middle class in America.

2. Sherlock Holmes (2009, starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law). A disappointing 21st century adaptation of the 19th century detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Director tried to make Holmes act like James Bond. A rather bad idea. Great acting by Mr. Downey as the eccentric Holmes. Save your money and rent a Bond movie with Sean Connery on Netflix.

3. Up In the Air (2009, starring George Clooney and a lovely actress whose name escapes me).
A fairly profound film. "Profound" and film in the same sentence ? Doesn't happen often with American made films. The emotional effects of corporate downsizing and the frightening lack of intimacy in the lives of some corporate execs. My honey and I strongly recommend you see this one and call us to talk about it.

4. It's Complicated (2009, starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin) Want a good night at the show ? Go see this flick. Funny funny scenes keep your mind off a bad plot. Pathos is there also. Helps all of us appreciate loves that last.

Christmas Vacation 2009

It was a great one--about ten days long. Full of love, sleep, running, reading often and widely, some good long runs (12, 9 and 5), four movies, two fine holiday parties with lovely friends.

Finished a wonderful, powerful bio of Winston Churchill by Paul Johnson. I recommend this book highly. I find Churchill to be one of the most inspirational figures in history. Lots of people share that view.

Very very refreshing time.

A time to dream big dreams. There is no limit to what we can do. As Brenda Ueland and Wm. Blake said so well:" God is the creative imagination, and the more you use your imagination generously for the benefit of others, the more you have."

2010 is going to be a great year for all of us.

Happy New Year.