Five-O’Clock World
June 25, 2011 Leave a comment
Listen:
Bruce Wolf and Dan Proft (WLS890 AM, weekends) talk with author David Mamet about his new book, “The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture”
Vivian Maier – Street Photographer
June 25, 2011 2 Comments
You have to check out this extraordinary street photographer Vivian Maier
– a nanny with a Rolflex camera.
Rotation
June 24, 2011 Leave a comment
It’s early Friday morning and my two feet are now shuffling along on the circumference of the earth moving at a tortoise’s pace even though I am told that my land speed is actually the product of the cosine of my latitude times the earth’s equator’s circumference speed of just over 1000 MPH – not as fast as High Speed Internet but faster than the speed of sound. And speaking of sound, I woke up early and shut off the alarm clock before its due diligence was required. Hiding under the covers I was moving less than a centimeter an hour but thinking about work. OK, I had to get up.
After the morning ritual of making coffee, feeding Henry my Parrolet, feeding myself, showering and listening to the weather lottery numbers I head to the train. (If the train heads east at 40 MPH and the earth is rotating east at 1000 MPH will my accumulated speed be 1040 MPH and why are the trains always late?)
I stand behind the yellow line waiting for the train. Today the commuters are standing waiting at the south side track. The train traffic lights indicate this but there has been no announcement. Headlights appear around the bend. Everyone around me starts running around the gate to the north track. I stay put with this super good looking guy who is not married and standing right next to me.
I tell him that it looks like the train is on the south tracks. He says, “Yeah it is.” Then someone yells “There’s a freight coming”. We run and catch up with the others and we meet up on the other side. The freight finally passes and the guy says, “Watch, the train will probably come on the south track.” I say, “Yeah, right”, wanting to agree with anything he said. At this point I didn’t care which track the train came on. I just wanted to stand waiting with him thinking that if he and I were polar opposites we would be virtually standing still, moving only centimeters an hour, very slowly, taking our time…
I had this all the physics worked out but then the train arrived. We boarded the train and I walk to my seat in the front car and mystery man heads off to his usual seat in the next car. (Love and Schrödinger’s cat: dead or alive?). We reach the train station and I start walking the six blocks to my office.
It’s chilly this morning. I’m glad I wore a jacket. This summer’s been in the cooler but at least today the wind off the lake is giving me a break. Good. I won’t have a ratted hair style by the time I get to work.
Then I see them – red and tan men in white tee shirts and blue jeans walking with red and white lunch buckets, pulling red hand-trucks loaded with tool boxes. We pass each other on the sidewalk with knowing glances: me – the good ones aren’t gay; them – she’s no teenage dream.
I walk past Polish cleaning women holding cigarettes at clichéd angles and large peg-legged women getting out of taxis. Homeless men say ‘Good morning.” They offer me StreetWise and the SunTimes. I say, “Good morning” and smile. I always buy the SunTimes from the guy outside the Corner Bakery who says “Good Morning, Lovely” every time when I walk up.
Along the way there are whiffs of sewer gas mixed with the aroma of fresh baked bread and the homey smell of the daily brew. I see young girls behind counters busy filling cupcake display cases. I see lettuce being chopped, bacon being crisped, deliveries being made and bums waking up. I finally get to work.
At noon I will go to the Taste of Chicago with my friend Deon. I’ll find the Billy Goat’s Tavern booth and order my usual: “Cheezborger with no fries, cheeps! No Pepsi, Coke!” She’ll order her usual: cheesecake with Caramel Pecan sauce. We’ll come back to work smoky, smelling like Robinson’s No. 1 barbeque rib pit. I’ll be sleepy, too.
But tonight is Friday Night and in my head the dance mix is just revving up. Later, its rhythm will move to my feet and I’ll be moving and dancing with a speed that is the product of the cosine of my latitude times the earth’s equator’s circumference speed of just over 1000 MPH. Rocket girl.
They also say… love makes the world go ‘round.
I’ll let you know.
Father’s Day Under Wraps
June 20, 2011 Leave a comment
Sunday morning: My lunch plans with my two youngest, R18 and R14, changed to breakfast plans. My daughter’s new place of employment asked her to work from noon to five.
I am happy for my daughter. She has just graduated from high school and has now landed a job in a matter of days – a job which pays $10.00 an hour in a workplace surrounded by cool knickknacks and fun art objects. It is one of her favorite stores. R18 is a graphic artist (designed her senior year high school yearbook cover) and she may soon get an internship with a local graphics arts company. She wants to learn the business side of things, she told me. She’s just like her dad.
I made breakfast for my two youngest: pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon. R14, my youngest son, doesn’t do well in the morning. He’s slow to come around but he did find the orange pop hiding in the fridge. I wanted him to drink the orange juice that I bought for our breakfast but then I conceded, as fathers do when confronted by the magnanimity of Father’s day.
At breakfast, R18 & R14 gave me a $50.00 gift card to Barnes & Noble. This was totally unexpected: my kids get money from me. R18‘s first paycheck must have covered the cost. I was completely wowed by such generosity. I didn’t cry till later, another father’s day concession.
I told my kids that I had been coveting a book at B & N: David McCullough’s The Greater Journey, Americans in Paris. The book was priced at $37.98 less 30%. The reduced price was still too much for me to pay during this Obamic depression so I kept saying No, hoping the price would descend to a pauper’s price. The gift card covered the reduced cost of McCullough’s book plus Mario Livio’s The Golden Ratio and Mario Vargas Llosa’s Death in the Andes. The unexpected gift told me that I was loved.
On Sunday afternoon I purchased these books. The day before, Saturday, I had been at B & N browsing as I always do after a weekend breakfast. I ended up purchasing an inexpensive CD: Joe Cocker: Icon. I brought the CD to the counter to pay for it and the short grey-haired woman behind the counter said that she had just purchased Mad Dogs and Englishmen. I said, Lot of memories there. She said, Yeah that’s why I bought it. Our smiles said the rest.
After B & N I went to a local Mexican restaurant, a new place founded by a chef who had worked with Rick Bayless. The restaurant is only three blocks from my place so I figured margaritas could have their way with me (while I stimulated the economy). I ordered a Mora-rita and Blue Marlin Ceviche. Authentic Mexican food is great. I am not crazy about Tex-Mex.
After finishing another Mora-rita I felt pleasantly pacified so I took my order of De Panza tacos home and situated myself in front of the TV. I had hoped there would be something of value on the tube. As it turned out Life With Father was on TCM and Steven King’s (Rita Hayworth and the) Shawshank Redemption was on another channel.
Feet went up, food went down. I settled into the end of Father’s Day 2011 believing that love and redemption go a long way, from one year to the next.
Dad
June 18, 2011 Leave a comment
Dad,
Masquerading man –
Provider, Decider, Chronicler,
Motivator and Love’s unlikely dance Partner,
A mischievous Mirth-er who’s my mother’s lover
(Confused by Eve but not alone),
A baseball phenom:
Always at bat for me;
Always fielding my bloopers;
Always never keeping score,
A figurine in flannel wearing
Camouflaged feelings in the blind
Savior of children’s happiness with
Strength born of recycled weakness –
Dad,
A Giver given.
© Sally Paradise, 2011, All Rights Reserved
One Very Good Reason Why I Like Texas Gov. Rick Perry
June 12, 2011 Leave a comment
BTW: The separation of church and state effectively means that the state cannot control the church. Separation of church and state does not mean that we the people cannot voice our faith in Almighty God while serving our government. The wrong definition came directly from Bill Ayers, a known radical terrorist.
***You have to listen to these guys: Bruce Wolf and Dan Proft. They are a riot. Tell them Sally Paradise sent you.
http://wlsam.com/sectional.asp?id=37837
Andre Dubus
June 10, 2011 Leave a comment
“…my belief in the sacrament of the Eucharist is simple: without touch, God is a monologue, an idea, a philosophy; he must touch and be touched, the tongue on flesh, and that touch is the result of the monologues, the idea, the philosophies which led to faith; but in the instant of the touch there is no place for thinking, for talking; the silent touch affirms all that, and goes deeper: it affirms the mysteries of love and mortality.” On Charon’s Wharf
“For ritual allows those who cannot will themselves out of the secular to perform the spiritual, as dancing allows the tongue-tied man a ceremony of love.” A Father’s Story
“Short story writers simply do what human beings have always done. They write stories because they have to; because they cannot rest until they have tried as hard as they can to write the stories. They cannot rest because they are human, and all of us need to speak into the silence of mortality, to interrupt and ever so briefly stop that quiet flow, and with stories try to understand at least some of it.” Into the Silence
“Very early, I understood that women were required to be other than what they were.” Of Robin Hood and Womanhood
Cindy Wity 