The Irishman–More of the Same from Martin Scorsese (SPOILER ALERT)

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There’s a bit of irony in all of the news that director Martin Scorsese made when he lashed out at Marvel sequels and big budget comic book films recently. Scorsese criticized Marvel films suggesting that cinema should allow you to “confront the unexpected on the screen”. Well, there’s not a whole lot of unexpected in The Irishman. If you’re a fan of Scorsese, which I am, that is mostly a good thing. The film is not without its significant flaws, and I fear Scorsese may have unknowingly fallen into the same trap as the franchise filmmakers with whom he so publicly disagrees.

I do believe the film is worth your time, and at three and a half hours, that in itself is saying something. Scorsese knows how to open films effectively. The opening shot of the film that pans through a nursing home until we come to Frankie Sheeran (Robert De Niro) seated alone in a wheelchair manages to speak volumes without a word of dialogue being uttered. The setting, which is immediately recognizable to most adults with parents of a certain age, undeniably suggests the contemporary endgame of life—where most people spend their last days, no matter how daring or successful their earlier days were. The fact that Sheeran is alone and speaks directly to the camera is no small matter. He has outlived most of his peers, but, in so doing, has alienated those close to him; the only one he has to talk to is the camera.

Scorsese has always been able to cast fine actors and squeeze wonderful performances out of them. This film is no exception. De Niro is in a huge number of scenes in the film and manages to make us care about him, despite using his hangdog look to express everything from contrition to confusion. But it’s actually the performances of Joe Pesci and Al Pacino that stayed with me the most. Pesci as mobster Russell Bufalino, is playing a much more mellow and controlled gangster than the one he played in Goodfellas, and the effect is to make him more, not less dangerous. Pacino plays notorious Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa in the film, and breathes new life into the character. Hoffa’s insistence on punctuality and proper dress “for a meetin’” leads to one of the funniest scenes in the film. Hoffa is meeting another powerful union man Tony Provenzano in Miami, but cannot get past Tony’s lateness and casual attire; as a result, it is up to Tony’s driver and De Niro’s Sheeran to try and mediate, which is hilarious as both are semi-articulate at best. This scene also reveals one of the weaknesses of Scorsese’s casting. He has two of the most famous Italian American actors (De Niro and Pacino) playing non-Italians Sheeran and Hoffa. When Pacino scornfully refers to Tony Pro as “you people”, it’s just utterly confusing, because Pacino still looks as Italian as he did when portraying Michael Corleone in The Godfather. I had to look up Hoffa’s ethnicity to discover he was part German and part Irish. Still, the acting, on the whole, is a major strength of the film.

Though it appears De Niro’s age can be changed, technology has not progressed far enough to alter the expression made by his mouth!

Social commentary is another feature of many of Scorsese’s films, and there is no shortage of it here. As in Goodfellas, there is an emphasis on the ethics of organized crime. In fact, it is so common in a Scorsese film to hear a murderer saying “that’s just not right”, that we might lose sight of the irony here. These mobsters subscribe to an extremely complex series of social mores and crossing them often leads to mayhem. Thus, when Crazy Joe Gallo delivers a very public hit and then disrespects a mafia brother with profanity, he has to pay. Later, when Sally Bugs goes to speak to the Feds without telling anyone in the mob about it, Sheeran rubs him out. When it is revealed that Bugs had informed someone and they forgot to relay the message, Sheeran admits it was “a bad hit”. In other words, a targeted killing can be “bad” or “good” depending on the circumstances and how they fit into the code. This is old hat for Scorsese and most filmgoers who have seen a film about the mob.

Another asset of the film is the insight it provides into historical events. Whereas what Frank Sheeran may or may not have done is subject to much debate, the background issues seem well documented. For example, I had no idea that Hoffa alienated the mob because of his ego and desire for control which conflicted with the mob’s desire to utilize the union’s pension fund for easy loans. While I knew that organized crime was unhappy with John F. Kennedy, the film does a fine job of explaining that the mob believed Kennedy would reciprocate the support he had been given and reestablish Cuba as a place where capitalists and mobsters could thrive. When the Bay of Pigs resulted in disaster and when Kennedy’s brother Bobby attacked organized crime in his role as Attorney General, the mob was outraged (again, violation of code). In one of the best lines of the film, when asked by a reporter how he felt about JFK’s assassination, Hoffa replies “I guess his brother is just a lawyer now”. Scorsese makes a nice dig at our ignorance of history late in the film when a nurse attending Sheeran has never heard of Jimmy Hoffa. The scene suggests the powerful are utterly forgotten or languish in nursing homes (sometimes the same thing) before a generation even turns.

Scorsese’s vision of women: an obstacle on the journey!

As fine a film as The Irishmanis, it cannot be excused for its portrayal of women. This is where I was hoping for some development from Scorsese as a filmmaker. But he treats women much like the mob when planning a hit, as something to be avoided. Women exist in the film primarily to document the reaction to male criminality—they grieve, they fear and they smoke in their fashionable pant suits. The only female character of any depth in the film, Sheeran’s daughter Peggy, is conspicuous for her silence. Apologists might make the case that Scorsese is depicting a world where women were on the periphery, and that might have held up a couple of decades ago, but it does not wash today. We need only look at the TV series Mad Men to find strong and complex female characters in a male dominated world. Even though the film is based on a source, a director always has choices, and Scorsese has elected to continue a depressing tradition of women as peripheral figures who are only present to reveal something about the psychology of the male leads. In one of the most glaring instances of chauvinism in the film, Scorsese takes all of about thirty seconds to introduce the woman who will become Sheeran’s second wife and to mention the marriage—he spares less than a minute for this in a film that is three and a half hours long. Towards the end of the film, in what looks like a tacked on measure to appease, Sheeran talks to another daughter (whose name viewers probably can only guess at) about his failure as a father. She reveals that his children were frightened to death to come to him with their problems for fear of the reprisals he would inflict. This is an interesting consequence, but the four daughters are not allowed much screen time or focus, and the camera quickly moves elsewhere. Too bad Scorsese has not allowed viewers to “confront the unexpected” in terms of the depth of and focus on female characters.

The film also does not need to be as long as it is. I don’t think I’m being unfair in characterizing Scorsese as self-indulgent. How many scenes do we need of De Niro shaking his head worryingly about the growing conflict between the mob and his buddy Hoffa? We get it Marty, Sheeran is conflicted. Judicious editing surely could have trimmed half an hour or more off the film. To his credit though, Scorsese gives us an ending that avoids sentimentality and only hints at Sheeran’s remorse. The biggest epiphany in the film is mumbled and missed by a priest trying to goad Sheeran into a comprehensive confession. De Niro’s “What kind of a man makes a phone call like that?” tells us all we need to know about late twentieth century America. The film, for better and for worse, tells us much about story telling in the twenty first.

I’ll miss you MAD magazine

992fbf03a7c42fd3e7ee080301537087 When my nephew told me earlier this month at a family get together that MAD magazine was about to cease publishing new material, I felt a sadness reserved for the end of an era. In truth, I had stopped reading MAD regularly decades ago, though I still have half the collection that my cousin and I once thought would be a profitable investment. There is little doubt that MAD did not fare well after it moved its offices from New York to Los Angeles in 2017. Even before that, the magazine lost a good part of its rebellious ethos once it decided to allow advertising in 2001. Yet, despite this slow decline, it was still somehow comforting to know MAD existed in a world that kept getting madder.

My first memories of MAD are rooted in the early 1970’s and the parodies of movies such as The Exorcist, The Godfather, The Planet of the Apes and The Sting. Mort Drucker was the artist for most of these and his ability to recognizably render such a wide array of movie stars and supporting characters was stunning. The writers of these parodies alternated between Larry Siegel, Stan Hart, Arnie Kogen and others, but in truth, I could not differentiate between them the way I could if someone other than Drucker was drawing. MAD-Magazine-Godfather-Parody-Splash

Of course, I wasn’t old enough to see many of these movies in the theatre, but my first cultural exposure to them was through the MAD parody. The true genius of the parody would sometimes not be revealed to me for several years until I had a chance to actually see the movie. This, of course, was in an era when there was no internet, and no VCRs for that matter, so it meant waiting two to three years after the movie was released for it to be shown (often in a censored form) on prime time television. What was especially endearing about the parodies is that the writers frequently had the characters break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience (a technique familiar to television audiences of Saved by the Bell, The Office and Modern Family). What made this technique so unique in the MAD parodies was that the characters were not speaking to the audience in role, but rather as the actor, possessing a self-consciousness of which pioneering dramatist Bertolt Brecht would be proud. I particularly remember the parody of The Great Gatsby in which the frequent moments where Gatsby excuses himself to speak on the phone are actually instances of Robert Redford frantically calling his agent to get him out of this bomb of a movie. No matter the critical acclaim the movie might have received, the MAD parody would focus on a weak spot, whether it be the movie’s slow pace, convoluted plot, derivative nature or plot loopholes. For some reason, I didn’t feel the television parodies, usually drawn by Angelo Torres, were as captivating as the film parodies.

Of course, there were other regular features of MAD that I eagerly looked forward to reading. One of these was the back inside cover known as the “fold-in” and conceived by Al Jaffee. I loved to pore over the image and the text below it to try and figure out the solution. This was partly a practical measure, as when I began collecting MADs, I felt that actually folding the back cover would alter the condition of the magazine as a collectible and render it less valuable.

But there was another semi-regular feature of Al Jaffee’s that I loved even more than the fold in and that was his “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” segment. jaffee_snappy-580x456

‘Snappy Answers’ was MAD to a tee. It featured great visuals, witty comebacks to everyday obliviousness, but most of all, it invited the reader to be part of a community that rejected the banal conformity of a society used to politely tolerating verbal drivel. Another fun part of the equation is that there would often be an empty dialogue box at the bottom of the sequence encouraging the reader to create their own snappy answer.

Yet another fantastic regular was Don Martin, whose characters featured elongated faces and emitted sensational sound effects. The violence of the cartoons never seemed at all menacing; rather the characters who were crushed by a falling safe or flattened by a steamroller seemed to be part of a common tragedy we recognized as the all too familiar plight of ordinary folk. don-martin-running-press-mad-magazine-2014

And there were more features that made the magazine something I would relish eight times a year (even its publication schedule was unconventional): they included ‘scenes we’d like to see’ which upended the cliche and the establishment, various ‘primers’ which presumed to introduce readers to a facet of modern life using phrasing borrowed from children’s books, the ‘do it yourself’ letter of some kind which anticipated “Ad-Libs”, the iconic ‘Spy vs. Spy’ (why did I always cheer for the Black spy?), the header which pivoted on a pun and preceded an item by labelling it as such and such department, and any manner of items that emphasized the crumminess of consumer products and the emptiness of the advertising that promoted them.

Some parents presumably complained about the low brow nature of the magazine (mine never objected–in fact, they patiently took me to the Madison Avenue office of MAD on my first visit to New York City in 1977–the editorial staff gave me a personal tour, an Alfred E. Neuman poster and treated me like a celebrity), but the truth is that MAD in the 60s, 70s and 80s was the antithesis of dumb humour. A quick look through the typical edition from these decades will find poetry parodies (with apologies to Edgar Allen Poe, Shakespeare, etc.), political awareness and historical overviews which reveal both a detailed knowledge of historical eras and an obvious delight in teaching their readers a thing or two about history while making them laugh. The “usual gang of idiots” as the contributing artists and writers referred to themselves could be prophetic too. A look at the July 1979 issue reveals an item entitled “Re-Writing Classical Poetry to Give Women Equal Time”. While no-one should expect a serious approach to the issue in MAD, it is revealing that they were picking up on cultural trends years before high schools and universities would address the sexism in their curricular choices.

And, yes, not everything in the magazine was gold. Dave Berg’s “The Lighter Side Of” was a bit predictable and visually conventional. And yes, the post-advertising years featured cruder and less intellectual pieces (“Planet Tad” aside) that seemed to be trying to pander to a typical adolescent sensibility (you could never accuse the MAD of William Gaines or Harvey Kurtzman of pandering–they never underestimated their readership, but rather challenged them). And, yes, MAD’s influence can be felt everywhere from Saturday Night Live to Weird Al Yankovic to the Simpsons to the Daily Show and beyond, so it’s not like we are bereft of satire. But I’m still going to miss new MAD content. I’ll miss flipping through the issue at Shopper’s Drug Mart or Indigo deciding whether there were enough quality features to merit purchasing it (no longer “50 cents cheap”). I’ll miss sharing issues with my two sons who don’t agree on much, but both enjoyed MAD. I’ll miss borrowing an issue from or loaning an issue to my cousin Josh who shared my passion for MAD and who housed our shared collection for decades. But most of all, I think I’ll miss a connection to a past where reading a magazine and sharing it with others provided you with an entry into an informal community of anti-establishment skeptics; a past where people read physical magazines rather than giggling over fershlugginer memes and watching endless you tube videos.

What, me worry?

I’m afraid I do in a world without MAD.

Misunderstanding History

Recent events and issues have many people bandying the word “history” about, and when this occurs, it is often accompanied by a healthy dose of ignorance about what history actually is. In the United States, the matter of what to do with Confederate statues and monuments was the pretext for the violent confrontation in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this month. Closer to home, a debate has been instigated by an Ontario teachers’ union that believes schools should not be named after John A MacDonald in light of his treatment of Indigenous communities. As expected, some politicians, including Donald Trump, have been highly critical of these efforts. John Baird, former Conservative foreign affairs minister called the union’s stance on Macdonald “just simply trying to erase Canadian history in the guise of an extreme and radical political correctness”. Conservative MP, Erin O’Toole has tweeted that the teachers’ union “needs a lesson on how to teach history”. But is a changing view of the past synonymous with an attempt to wipe out history?

It is important to understand that history, like science, is a human activity, and, therefore, subject to the strengths and limitations of humans. Historians review primary and secondary sources to develop an understanding of past events. In doing so, they will employ intuition, emotion, perception and language, all of which are highly inexact and subjective. Not that we would want it any other way; an account of the past that was totally void of emotion would leave us feeling that the past had been reduced somehow to statistics and chronology. The point is though that no historian or group of historians is capable of producing a purely objective account of the past. One or many may succeed in producing a history that is most widely accepted, but the accepting is being done by other humans, who themselves have personal biases, agendas and partly shuttered perception. This is something to bear in mind when politicians and others refer to history as if it is an objective totality that is vulnerable to tampering.

Another key point is that historians live in a present age, different from the one they are studying, and frequently different from those of the historians who came before them. This is no small point. It is impossible to look at the past without viewing it through the lens of the present. This is how history evolves. In fact, historiography is the study of historical writing. Such a field would not exist if the accounts of the past were static. Our understanding of the past is intricately linked with our present culture, politics, economy and technology; it could hardly be otherwise. A well known example can be found in historical accounts of the origins of the Cold War. Fear of Communism and atomic warfare in the 1950s and early 1960s dictated an understanding in most of the non-Soviet world that was rooted in containment of an ideology bent on world domination. After Watergate and American involvement in the Vietnam War, historical accounts of the Cold War were more interested in looking at motivation that was less ideological and more connected to securing American political and economic advantage. After glastnost and the collapse of the U.S.S.R., there was even less emphasis placed on the conflict’s ideological underpinnings and a growing willingness to look at the factors associated with individual leaders and internal power struggles. And it is highly likely that the history will change again in response to future shifts in the balance of power and reaction to various influential events. A Canadian example can be found in the reaction to Louis Riel who was widely understood to be a rebellious traitor by many in English Canada for decades, but has since the 1960’s been identified with minority rights and largely seen as a victim of narrow minded government. So history, or our understanding of the past, is not immune to change.

Let’s return to the two attention getting cases mentioned earlier. Statues and monuments do not simply appear spontaneously; they are a reaction to someone or something rooted in the period in which they are erected. As New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu has accurately pointed out, the Confederate monuments in his city were established not so much to remember war leaders, but rather as a reminder as to who was still in charge. And yes, Landrieu himself has his own understanding of the monuments’ history rooted in his embrace of diversity. But taking down or covering Confederate Monuments is not an attempt to erase history. Erasing history is what Winston Smith was employed to do in Orwell’s 1984. It’s what Holocaust deniers are all about. No one is saying the Civil War did not occur, that these generals never fought a battle. What Landrieu and others are saying is that in our current society, certain statues and monuments are hurtful and inappropriate. We change and modify past laws all the time. Why shouldn’t we have the right to say that a monument no longer reflects our community values? At that point, the statue may be placed in a museum which offers suitable context in an effort to understand how people thought in past times. We don’t currently have statues of physicians known for using leeches to bleed patients outside of hospitals. Why would we?

Now to the matter of naming. It too reflects the time period. Look at how sports stadiums are currently named. The move from SkyDome to Rogers Centre is typical of sports arenas around the globe that were named based on a geographic feature of some kind and are now named for a business interest that buys the right to the name. What better example of changing values is available? Money has replaced geography in terms of tribute. Some might not like to face that fact, but that says more about them than it does about our world. Now to John A MacDonald. No doubt he was an important force in forging our country and guiding the early direction it would take. Should he be part of the history curriculum? Absolutely. No one ever argued that he was flawless or should be removed from the ten dollar bill because he abused alcohol. But in a society that sees reconciliation with our Indigenous peoples as a priority, maybe re-examining who our schools are named after is reasonable. Our schools promote inclusivity. Can they truly teach that if there are students who feel the name on their gym shirts is associated in their culture with oppression?

Societies evolve and our values change. This affects how we understand the past. Monuments and names reflect current understanding. That’s not an erasure of history but rather part of the historical process.

Charlottesville Horror About More than Trump

In the wake of last Saturday’s terrible events in Virginia, most of the media attention has focused on the astounding non-scripted comments of Donald Trump. That an American president could equate White Supremacists, including neo-Nazis, with those gathered to protest against them is indeed mind boggling. But I have ceased to be surprised by any non-scripted dialogue of Trump. He is so unfit for his position that I wonder why we continue to be amazed at the lies he tells or the total idiocy of most of his comments, those that are even intelligible that is.

What I am most dismayed about after Charlottesville is that I fear many Americans do not relate to either of the sides that mobilized on Saturday. Obviously White Supremacists make up only a tiny minority of Americans. But I think a great many more Americans do not relate with those gathered to protest against the White Supremacists. The mainstream media sympathizes with them, but I wonder how many look at the images on the television and think that both groups are extremists and as rotten as each other. And if that is the case, it is utterly horrifying.

I am not suggesting that those who gathered to protest against the White Supremacists are heroes. On the contrary, everyone who has any sense of community and civic duty should have been counter-protesting. Being outraged that in the year 2017, White Supremacists can brazenly assemble and parade armed in the streets should be the norm, not the heroic exception. But maybe American history moves slower than this. After all, it took a hundred years after slavery was abolished for segregation to be legally struck down. It’s taken half a century more, and real integration is still a long way off. How else could you explain the convergence of these frightened, modern day Klansmen. For if America was truly integrated, these men would be terrified of being shamed for taking such an antithetical stand. But they are not afraid of this. They clearly feel emboldened. Emboldened enough to demonstrate their fear of change. If we thought that World War II would solve forever the problem of men who violently cling to fatherland and tradition in the face of technological and demographic change, look again. History is repeating itself. Let us pray that the conflict this time will not take as catastrophic a toll. But beyond prayer, let us peacefully stand up and express our outrage so that these fearful men will be more terrified of mass condemnation than they are of freedom.

Happy 150th Birthday Canada

Canada Day this year has generated more attention than usual. For the most part, this is because 150 is a significant number for many. Another reason is that there has been a considerable protest against the sesquicentennial celebrations on the part of those trying to highlight the nation’s poor treatment of indigenous peoples. Though the protest can hardly be considered as mainstream as the flag waving and fireworks, it is worth considering the position and purpose of the protesters.

For example, the Ryerson Students’ Union is encouraging people not to celebrate the sesquicentennial. Among their reasons for the stand is that the number 150 is an arbitrary one considering that the land was inhabited by indigenous peoples long before confederation, that at this point, the 150 years is really a history of exploitative colonialism and that spending half a billion dollars on birthday celebrations while indigenous communities still lack basic necessities is unconscionable.

It’s likely the average Canadian’s response to this might be something like, ‘look, Canada is an amazing country and this is a special occasion; don’t rain on our parade’

So perhaps the problem is the false dichotomy that many are prone to adopting. Yes, Canada is a wonderful country that I feel extremely fortunate to call my home. While I can wave the flag proudly, that doesn’t mean I should ignore the shameful legacy of Canada’s treatment of its indigenous peoples. At the same time, the need for reconciliation does not mean that I cannot celebrate all of the wonderful aspects of the country.

I understand why the protestors have seized on this moment. When you are trying to raise the profile of your cause, you need to act when most eyes and ears will be paying attention. The protestors are likely very aware that the timing of the action will frustrate many and maybe even harden their opposing position. An easy reaction would be to see the dissenters as spoil sports, or worse as traitors. But the demonstrators are not concerned about popularity; they are interested in righting an injustice.

For me, I will celebrate Canada, warts and all. I harbor no resentment towards those who are striving to advance reconciliation and move us towards acknowledging a large part of our history that is dishonorable. I believe it is a fair position to be thankful for all of the nation’s beauty, freedom and accomplishments, and still keep reconciliation as a priority that needs to be acted upon.

Happy Canada Day to all Canadians—may the next 150 be guided by the courage to examine our values in an objective manner and the determination to be a beacon for others in all that we do.

I Love Kyle Lowry but I Wouldn’t Re-Sign Him

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I love the way Kyle Lowry plays basketball. I love the way he drives fearlessly to the basket, his ability to distribute the basketball, his eagerness to take a charge no matter the behemoth bearing down on him, his streaky and sometimes impossible three point shooting, and his ability to play through pain. That is also, in part, why I wouldn’t re-sign him, and why I see his decision to forego his option year to test free agency as an actual gift for the Toronto Raptors.

Let’s be honest. As long as LeBron James is around, the Toronto Raptors are not going to get to the NBA final. We’ve seen them play the Cavaliers when Lowry was healthy (loss in six games) and when he was hurt (swept in four). Lowry is an exciting, dedicated and gifted player. He is also injury prone and at 31 years of age, entering a part of his career where he will no longer be able to fling his body to and fro without consequence.

Now that Raptors’ fans have experienced a conference final, anything less is going to seem disappointing, and even a loss in the finals will seem like failure. So, why would you handcuff your ability to spend on players by shelling out 200 million dollars to remain the Cav’s door mat?

Let’s be clear. I am not suggesting that foregoing Lowry and signing other players is going to lead to a championship. It’s not. However, it will allow young players like Delon Wright and Fred Van Vleet to develop, and it will allow the Raptors to bring in some other players of interest. The team may not be as good without Lowry, but it will not be financially paralyzed because they are crushed under a bad contract. When they are ready to rebuild, they will be able to do so more quickly without the Lowry contract.

Many Toronto fans will accuse me of being willing to doom the team to mediocrity. I counter that they are willing to condemn the team to good but sub-elite status that will end up slowing a potential rebuild significantly.

And honestly, do you really want to have to witness the spectacle of the glum faced Lowry and DeRozan at the press conference where the Raps are eliminated talking about having to get better? How long can we be expected to be subject to Lowry’s looks of utter shock at missed calls or his endless, running on court monologues on the finer points of officiating? And why should we put up with Lowry’s aggressive dismissal of questions about putting his all-star appearance over his health?

Let’s not forget that the team actually went on quite a run while Lowry was injured and climbed back into the top tier of the Eastern Conference. It would be interesting to see what a Cory Joseph/Delon Wright/Fred Van Vleet point guard trio would produce. The point is how badly do you want a second or third place team? And yeah, I know, that no matter where Lowry ends up, he will probably rip us apart when he faces us. But that still doesn’t justify 200 million dollars over five years. Wouldn’t you rather have great memories of Lowry’s time here than see him become a shadow of his former self and watch his abilities diminish and his injuries mount?

Call me a realist, but I don’t see the Raptors winning an NBA title in the next decade. But keeping financial flexibility gives them an outside chance of achieving elite status one day. Overpaying Lowry keeps the Raptors just good enough to keep getting pasted by LeBron and pals. LeBron’s athleticism and determination means the Raptors have to play the long game. The long game means not getting sentimental when it comes to re-signing popular players. The truth hurts.

Spoiler Alert! Tracy Letts’ Linda Vista Theatre Review

Tracy Letts-playwright and member of the Steppenwolf Theater Ensemble

I don’t know how many people have had a chance to see Tracy Letts’ new play Linda Vista, now on stage at Chicago’s fabled Steppenwolf Theater. Maybe 40,000, maybe less. I know that it’s heading for Broadway after Chicago and that eventually it will likely make its way to Toronto and other major cities. So if you think you are going to go see the play in the near or distant future, please be forewarned that this review contains spoilers.

At its core, this is a play about dishonesty. The play’s protagonist is named Wheeler (absolutely no one refers to him by his first name, Dick, though it is pretty accurate) and the play concerns his dishonesty. Letts’ choice of Wheeler as a surname is fitting for Wheeler spins his wheels in the play, can be seen as a ‘wheeler dealer’ and possesses a breeziness that the name suggests. Wheeler is a big man, both in physique and personality. He dominates the play and, in fact, is on stage in every scene of this 150 minute drama. Wheeler has moved to an apartment in Linda Vista, a neighbourhood of San Diego. He has left his divorced wife and son behind in Chicago, and certainly left behind any aspirations to be a serious photographer. He is a know it all, but is so self-deprecating, that he has a certain charm. It’s easy to agree with his disparagement of current movies and pop music, though the tone he uses to deliver his message is so strident and his smugness so absolute, that it is also off putting. His friends Paul and Margaret want to set him up with a friend. Wheeler complains loudly but goes along with it. On the date, Wheeler appears to be miserable, yet he takes the woman, Jules, home and starts an unlikely relationship with her. He then lies to Jules about why he is ending the relationship and jumps heedlessly into the current pop culture he earlier maligned. As the lies build up, the audience loses patience with Wheeler, who, perhaps, grates on us because we recognize bits of ourselves in him.

The play is remarkable in a number of ways. The revolving stage is employed cleverly to indicate movement between disparate places, to demonstrate impulsive behavior between rooms of one location and to suggest that Wheeler’s natural movement is to go round and round. There are two scenes which feature full frontal nudity. Interestingly, it is not the sex that shocks, but the sharing of such mundane post-coital acts as a casual tissue wipe of semen. Obviously, the commitment that nudity and simulated sex demands of actors is uncommon. But the sex does not dominate the play; rather, Wheeler’s dishonesty is the specter that looms over the play. Another great feature of the play is the use of the music of Steely Dan. The super cool duo are a favourite of Wheeler and perfectly represent his penchant for the cooly ironic and the anti-commercial. Wheeler’s admiration of film director Stanley Kubrick is a nice touch too; Kubrick is an auteur that continues to breed admiration from his smarter than the rest of you devotees. Yet, in a compelling scene, Wheeler tries in vain to share Barry Lyndon with Jules and only succeeds in putting her to sleep. The viewing even causes Wheeler to question what he saw in the film.

The acting is remarkable. Ian Barford is tremendous as the protagonist Wheeler and his exhaustion at the curtain call is understandable. Also shining in this production are Cora Vander Brock as life coach Jules who sees the good in Wheeler that even Wheeler has given up on, and Tim Hopper as Paul, who puts up with Wheeler even though he knows what he’s like. Their characters are consistent and believable.

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Ian Barford as Wheeler (left) and Tim Hopper as Paul in Linda Vista

Ultimately though, it is the writing that shines above all. Some stellar dialogue resonates long after the curtain call. In a great scene between Paul and Wheeler, Letts asks some hard questions about marriage and if it is ultimately worth the compromises that it demands. Paul’s repetition of the phrase “you are going to do what you are going to do” sounds evasive at first, but ultimately reveals how well he knows Wheeler and sees through his supposed moral line of questioning. Two other great scenes of dialogue occur late in the play. Wheeler breaks up with Jules at a restaurant and the dramatic irony present makes his phony anger truly repulsive. Later, in a scene at the camera shop where he works fixing old cameras, Wheeler rips into his lewd boss Michael, but the condemnation which is supposed to be a defense of his colleague Anita from Michael’s perverted conversation, is really thinly disguised self-loathing. What’s more, it ends up dooming Anita and forcing her to quit.

The choice of camera repairman as Wheeler’s job is a stroke of genius. Wheeler spends his days poring over what is obsolete. He prefers the mysteries of single lens reflex to the mass commercial appeal of iPhones. He even admits that no one uses the cameras he labors over; his very employment is a rejection of reality. The fact that he was once employed as a photo journalist also demonstrates the extent to which he has rejected the possibilities of imagination in favour of mechanical repair.

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Ian Barford as Wheeler and Caroline Neff as Anita in the symbolically charged camera shop

Ultimately, Wheeler can run from Chicago, but he can’t escape himself. His self-destructiveness is so thorough that it has the power to undermine what seems a final innocent act-the artistic photograph of his co-worker Anita. As much as we may want to believe that there is some trace of a desire to be good in Wheeler, we can’t help wondering if this is all a pick up move too.

This production was not perfect. Both the characters Michael and Minnie seemed less like real individuals and more like convenient foils to Wheeler. In fact, Minnie and Wheeler’s relationship seems to defy plausibility. A scene at Jules’ workplace includes a large red fitness ball; Jules is a life coach, not a personal trainer. It is too predictable when Wheeler sits on the ball like a forlorn child after his attempt at rapprochement is summarily rejected. Similarly, in the opening scene of the play, Wheeler and Paul are in the process of moving Wheeler in to Linda Vista, but the sporadic unpacking of the boxes seems less like real life and a lot more like calculated stage business. Finally, there is the title of the play. Linda Vista simply does not capture the essence of the drama. Even if taking the Spanish translation of beautiful view into consideration, the title is weak and fails to compel. Perhaps ‘Single Reflex’ or ‘Shuttered Bug’ are too self-consciously punny, but Letts needs to find a better title before this production heads to New York City.

Linda Vista is a powerful play which in its examination of dishonesty forces us to re-examine the positions we hold and the way we manage relationships. It is by turns funny, sad, surprising and utterly predictable. Go see it.

Chicago At Last!

The Wrigley Building as seen from the Chicago River tour

Until very recently, I was the only member of my family not to have visited Chicago. Both my wife and my sons have been their individually on music trips. My drama trips head to New York, and so while I had been to the Big Apple a dozen or so times, I had not gotten around to visiting the breezy city on Lake Michigan.

What was I waiting for?

Chicago has so much to see and do, and the people I encountered were very friendly. My friend Al and I arrived at O’Hare early Saturday morning and quickly made our way to the subway. Our CTA three day pass cost 20 dollars. It entitles you to unlimited subway and bus rides during that time, which turned out to be an excellent deal for us. The subway ride from O’Hare to downtown takes almost an hour. Much of the subway is actually elevated above ground, earning it the nickname of the “El”. Each station clearly lets you know when the next train will be arriving.

The subway celebrates the beloved Cubs

Like many other cities, the onboard P.A. keeps up a steady stream of matters for moral improvement such as prohibited activities (eating, smoking, gambling, soliciting), and encouraged deeds (giving up your seat to the elderly, pregnant or infirm; keeping an eye out for suspicious behavior or unattended packages). I also got a kick out of their method of announcing the station we were entering: “THIS IS Monroe”. I was kind of hoping later on when we encountered a problem, that the voice would pronounce “THIS IS an unforeseen delay” in as chipper a voice. Our hotel, the Whitehall, is an older brick building that like the Hollander in St. Petersburg advertises itself as a “boutique” hotel.

The Whitehall Hotel–not the newest or the tallest, but excellent nonetheless

Presumably this means that the charm of the place will distract you from the lack of certain amenities. The Whitehall, though, like the Hollander, was an utter delight. Who cares if the lobby is tiny and doesn’t boast a fountain with glass dolphins spraying forth towards the impossibly high ceiling. How much time do you really need to spend in the lobby when you have a city with so much to offer? The two elevators are tiny (capacity of five persons each), but they really move, and we rarely had to wait more than twenty seconds for one to arrive. When our room with two queen beds was not ready when they said it would be, they upgraded us to a suite with a pull out couch, a mini-fridge, second bathroom, additional television and dedicated work area. The location, just off the Magnificent Mile in what is termed “The Gold Coast” was fantastic; close to subways, buses and to Sprinkles Cupcakes, purveyors of salty caramel cupcakes and accessible 24-7 thanks to the Cupcake ATM right outside the store.

My first ever Cupcake ATM

A definite highlight of the first day was the river tour run by the Architectural Society of Chicago. The Chicago River allows for a wonderful view of the buildings that are part of the city’s allure. Our “docent” was spectacular; her encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the city, the architects for each building and the particular approach they took to solve particular challenges was impressive and delivered in an entertaining manner. There were easily two hundred people on board, including a lot of children, but our guide managed to keep everyone’s attention and didn’t tire, despite speaking continuously for the ninety minute tour. One thing she didn’t mention was the odd makeshift homeless encampment on the banks of the river. The tents were a stark contrast with the grand buildings that were the official focus of the tour.

Makeshift tent housing went unremarked upon by tour guide

Still, they are a reality of the current city and I think that the tour guide could have incorporated this to provide a more balanced view of how Chicago has evolved, rather than ignoring them as if they didn’t exist. What the guide did comment upon was excellent and really provoked my interest in architecture.

After the wind-blown tour, we warmed up in Dylan’s candy store, a three floor homage to candy, old and new. One of the most arresting displays was of a box of Pez dispensers featuring several Presidents of the United States.

The Prez Pez Collection

It was interesting to see Richard Nixon on the shelf next to Sponge Bob and Iron Man. Al was eager to hit the Billy Goat Tavern as it inspired Saturday Night Live’s “Cheeseborger, Cheeseborger” skit.

For S.N.L. fans, but not necessarily for foodees

This was the first of several Chicago meals that could hardly be classified as hearth healthy. The approach to the Billy Goat we went to was curious. You feel that you are on ground level walking along the Magnificent Mile, but actually ground level at certain points is a flight of stairs below. The restaurant was located underneath the Magnificent Mile and unless you are seeking it, you are not likely to run across it.

Though the subway was our preferred method of transportation, we did hire four Lyft rides (Lyft is like Uber, but cheaper) over the course of the trip. The Lyft app gives you an option if you want a private ride or a shared one. Our first driver, Shabbaz, picked us up and shortly thereafter, picked up two Russian girls who were not what you could call loquacious. Lyft was an option if we were tired or if the subway really didn’t get us much closer to where we needed to go. It also came in handy in the early hours of Tuesday morning when we needed to get back to O’Hare.

I was intent on having deep dish pizza at some point in our stay and had read impressive reviews on a chain called Lou Mulnati’s. Of course when I asked the hotel clerk, I thought he was talking about another restaurant altogether called Luminati’s. It was only after reflection, that I realized this was the product of his Chicago accent. Unfortunately, the closest Lou Mulnati’s was hosting a private function Saturday night and wasn’t opening to the public until 11:00, so we moved to plan B, which was another highly regarded deep dish place called Giordano’s. It was packed when we arrived and we decided to wait in the bar. Unfortunately, the hostesses weren’t exactly crystal clear on the fact that we should pre-order our pizza to avoid the customary 45 minute wait for a pie. They did hand us a menu, but certainly no one entreated us to pre-order. When we got our table about a half hour later, the upstairs hostess asked if we had pre-ordered. The result was that we spent a good chunk of time in the restaurant. Al had thin crust, but I opted for deep dish and was satisfied, though I certainly have had similar pizza in Toronto.

Our next stop was Second City where we had tickets for the 11:00 showing of “Winner of Our Discontent”, their latest stage show. I was looking forward to it since the current political situation in the States would seem to provide a treasure trove of material for a keen comic mind. The show was a disappointment. I thought there was only one truly gifted member among the cast of six, and the writing ranged from predictable to sophomoric. Perhaps someone who had never seen this style of theatre would be impressed, but I could count on one hand the number of times I really engaged in a full belly laugh. The saving grace was that they returned for a third act of pure improve and it was more enjoyable. I have to give the cast credit for coming back well after midnight and having performed two shows that day to do improve. There were some funny moments, though what must have been a local reference to Target stores was lost on us. I also failed to find the frequent references to the Spice Girls to be as hilarious as the cast seemed to think they were. Afterwards, Al and I wondered if our luke warm response to the show was a result of a generational disconnect, because the rest of the audience which was considerably younger than us was laughing harder and more frequently than we were. This was the first of two consecutive evenings of theatre for us; the second would not disappoint.

Sunday morning featured a nice breakfast at “The Original Pancake House”. To speed things up a bit, we agreed to an outdoors table, despite the chilly weather. Throughout our stay, the sky was clear and the sun was present, but it never edged above 12 degrees Celsius and was frequently considerably cooler than that. After breakfast, we headed to Wicker Park, a neighbourhood that Al heard was “up and coming”. Upon arriving, Al felt it was like Chicago’s version of Brooklyn.

Hanging Out in Wicker Park

Brimming with cool at all costs coffee shops, record stores reminiscent of the one in High Fidelity, book stores and niche or vintage clothing shops, Wicker Park attracted a healthy crowd on a Sunday afternoon. The record shops range in terms of snobbery, with Reckless Records containing the most vinyl, biggest staff and haughtiest attitude. My query as to whether they carried posters was met with disdain. Still, I did buy a couple of Band CDs there. The two streets with the most action seemed to be North Milwaukee Street and North Damen Street. Lunch at Big Star was agreeable. Big Star is this taco restaurant with a mammoth patio and a separate take out place across the street. The place was packed, and not only with diners, but with dogs and babies too. It was the second time today that we were eating outside with dogs right beside us. The woman beside us was insistent that the staff turn on this mammoth propane heater, which was funny because her dining companion looked very comfortable in shorts. Nonetheless, the staff spent the better part of ten minutes trying to light the heater, and then switching places with another one to try and warm this woman up. In the meantime, we were baking in the sun and when the heat finally got going, we felt like we were eating tacos in Mexico; maybe that was the climate she was hankering after.

Tracy Letts is the playwright who wrote August, Osage County which our school put on a few years back. I’ve been impressed with his writing since then, so when Al informed me that his newest play, Linda Vista, was on at Steppenwolf Theatre while we would be in town, I was really excited. This show did not disappoint. If you’re interested in my impressions, see my separate blog (coming soon) in which I review the show. Meanwhile, the drama wasn’t confined to the stage. I needed to visit the restroom prior to the show and discovered that there were no gender specific washrooms at all. There are two separate washrooms, each with a number of stalls, but no urinals. When I left the stall and went to wash my hands, there was a woman washing her hands, presumably having just used one of the other stalls. While I certainly don’t count myself as a prude or a diehard traditionalist, I must admit there was something jarring about exiting the stall and being confronted by a woman. In Florida, I came across single bathrooms that were non-gender specific, but this was something again, a multiple user bathroom anyone can access. I suppose it’s a boon for women who normally fume at men who saunter right into the washroom while women wait in endless lines. Al had to visit the washroom at intermission and needed to line up. Two women ahead of him in line looked somewhat nervous and when it came time for the first to enter, she whispered to her friend: “Wish me luck!” I’m not sure the genderless restroom will catch on beyond the relatively cultured theatre crowd, but if it does, it will be interesting to see if it changes behaviours.

Monday was a huge walking day for me. I tried a little shopping on the Miracle Mile but found that even the stores known for discount prices had little in the way of bargains. I decided to walk to Navy Pier and it’s quite a hike to navigate the whole pier. On the way back, I walked along the shore of Lake Michigan for a bit. It’s kind of amazing to realize that there is this major road right on the shore of a Great Lake. Monday was probably the least successful day of the trip, with the exception of the salty caramel cupcake I had at Sprinkles. I had read decent things about the Chicago History Museum, so Al and I decided to bus out there to see it. Had to wait quite a while for the bus, and the museum seemed geared to elementary school kids. The exhibits just scratched the surface of moments in Chicago history and the film was embarrassingly juvenile. This is a museum to avoid as it did not add much knowledge to my understanding of the city.

We decided to check out a trendy burger restaurant called Au Cheval which had generated rave reviews from a number of people, including one of our Lyft drivers named Javier. We phoned ahead but were told they don’t take reservations. So after taking a subway ride on two different lines, we were told in a matter of fact tone by the hostess that the wait would be two hours. I guess this doesn’t faze locals who know how popular the place is. So, we did what any self-respecting modern consumer would do: we got on Yelp and looked for places to eat nearby. Turns out we found a place right across the street that had received rave reviews. It was a wine bar called The Lunatic, the Lover and the Poet, and they had a table waiting. As the menu was very limited and I had burgers on the brain from anticipating Au Cheval, I ordered the burger. It was ok, but not worth the price. I found the beer prices high, but the Miller High Life to be very reasonable. Read the fine print. It was a “pony” bottle, only six ounces. Interestingly, the waiter and water boy must have made thirty separate trips to our table to see if we were ok. Maybe they thought we were food critics? Décor in the place was whacky. Suspended from the ceiling, they had five black, open bird cages. I would love to have been in the meeting in which that idea was pitched. On the wall opposite us, there was a painting of an immense skull.

Interesting Decor

A conscious choice?

The music was unusual too. Each song seemed to be a cover of a pretty famous tune. I asked the manager if the cover of “Sounds of Silence” was Tom Waits and he said no that it was by a hard core metal band called Disturbed. While it wasn’t a terrible meal, it was the least satisfying and most expensive meal of the trip. Perhaps the yelp review was so high because the place was so new.

All in all, I definitely enjoyed Chicago and left plenty to do for my next trip here including seeing live jazz and blues, catching a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, checking out Looking Glass Theatre and improv at iOTheater, taking a walk on the 606 Elevated Walking Trail, exploring Oz Park, tasting an ice cream at Rainbow Cone, visiting the Smart Museum of Art and the International Museum of Surgical Science, and catching up with the Tamale Guy.

Can’t wait.

From “No Brainer” to “Brainless”: The Contract Extension of John Gibbons

gibbons-john-2013

There’s a lot to be excited about on the current Toronto sports’ scene. The beloved Maple Leafs have made the playoffs with a young squad considered ahead of schedule. The Raptors are about to begin what many hope will be a deep playoff run. TFC is hoping to improve upon its best season ever last year. But what’s the fun in writing about success, when you can write about the Blue Jays’ wretched 1-9 start to the season?

Even in the worst case scenarios, pre-season predictors generally thought the Jays could dip below .500 and fall to the bottom two teams of the American League’s Eastern Division. Nobody thought they would be playing .100 baseball. Sure, they are going to improve—no team can maintain such an abysmal pace over the course of a long season. But the damage done by such a horrid start is often impossible to overcome, especially because seven of their nine losses have been at the hands of division opponents and because they play in a very competitive division.

Here’s another ghastly thought to consider. On many fronts, the Jays could get worse as the season wears on. Their relief pitching, universally thought to be the team’s Achilles’ Heel, has been pretty good, with one or two exceptions. The starting pitching, an acknowledged strength, has been about as advertised. Twice through the rotation, they’ve received two excellent starts from Marcus Stroman, two good starts from Marco Estrada, two mediocre starts from J Happ, and one really good start from each of Francisco Liriano and Aaron Sanchez. In only one game, Liriano’s first, did the starter bury them. So even if the hitters perk up, they might find that the pitching goes south.

The batters have been awful. Not only are they striking out in droves, but they have been horrendous with runners in scoring position. Their go to move has been hitting into double plays. Donaldson has hit for average, but is injured now and looks like he might have one of those seasons where the body never completely heals. Aside from Tulowitzki and Morales, no one has produced clutch RBIs. Pillar and Smoak have looked more disciplined at times, but Travis, Bautista, Martin, and Pearce have been wretched.

Then there’s the manager. Back at the beginning of April, amidst much congratulations to John Gibbons on his contract extension, I expressed my reservations on twitter. My complaint with Gibbons is that he rarely if ever asks players to move outside their comfort zone. God forbid he should ask Jose to bunt or to move a player over. He does not manage to manufacture runs; he waits on the three run homer. And when times were good, and the baseball world was feeding the Jays fastballs, Gibbons was a popular manager. Doing nothing with a group of veterans that are pounding baseballs over fences apparently makes you a “player’s manager”. But we got a hint of what would happen when teams started out thinking the Blue Jays in last year’s American League Championship against the Indians. The manager was slow to react, or perhaps more accurately, paralytic. So the fans kept waiting for the Jays to start looking for breaking balls, but they never did, and the series was over in the blink of an eye. What looked to some like laid back Texas wisdom in the last couple years’ playoff runs (“The bats will come around, but they battled out there”) is now exposed as a lack of imagination and strategy. Even little league managers know that when you are in a team wide slump, you need to shake things up. It’s the hockey equivalent of “put pucks on the net and hope for a greasy goal”. But Gibbons has been loathe to bunt, to run, to try to surprise teams and to try and pressure teams into making mistakes. He’s still playing for the five run inning. With the pitching the Jays have received, they should be at worst a game below .500 and at best, a couple games above that mark. Meanwhile Gibbons continues to be the country bumpkin, stroking his stubble, marveling at the impotency of the bats, serving up cliché after cliché. Well here’s a cliché for you John courtesy of a true genius, Albert Einstein: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” For years, this quote could be aptly applied to the Maple Leafs who would overspend on aging veterans while giving away young talent that others would develop into stars. Now Atkins and Shapiro, having erroneously equated team success with good managing, have endorsed a manager that thinks the epitome of creativity is changing up your leadoff hitter.

Meanwhile the Red Sox are loaded, the Orioles are solid and the Yankees and Rays have exciting, young talent that will be good for years to come.

Maybe the Jays turn it around. Maybe they go on a torrid streak in June and are battling for a playoff position in the fall. Far more likely is that after the Leafs and Raptors have finished participating in playoff contests, Blue Jays’ nation is going to get awfully tired of Gibbons’ post game laments. And his contract extension which many called a “no brainer” might be viewed more simply as brainless.

Pro Sports–Compelling Escapism

“April” according to T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” “is the cruellest month”. Fans of professional sports would likely disagree as this month marks the beginning of both the NHL and NBA playoffs, the beginning of baseball’s regular season and The Masters golf tournament. This year may even provide the thrill of Toronto Maple Leafs’ participation in the grueling post-season marathon to capture the Stanley Cup.

Of course, Thomas Stearns Eliot was almost certainly not referring in his poem to the relative joy or pain of sports’ fanatics and their loyalties. “The Waste Land” is a serious poem dealing with death, rebirth, spiritual paralysis, history, sex, isolation and other heavy concerns. It is quite likely to be read and studied a hundred years from now (assuming humans survive that long), whereas the outcome of a particular sports’ game or even a league championship will generally be forgotten by most in a quarter of that time. There are exceptions of course. The date 1967 sticks in the minds of Leafs’ fans because of what has come (or failed to come) after that. And yes, there are certain hockey games I remember from 1978 or 1993 (upset victories or unrealized dreams can sear the memory), but for the most part, we can concur that sports is not the equivalent of literature. It is gripping in the moment, but much less so once the result is known. It can unify large groups of people briefly, but rarely inspires world improvement. Unlike literature, it is a means of occupying our minds by directing us away from the urgent problems of the moment. Yes, some people like to “escape” by sticking their head in a book, but if it’s really literature, it will encourage a connection back to the world and human relationships. And please don’t try to counter that sports teaches lessons too. It does, but much more significantly for the participants than the spectators. Sure, sports often requires teamwork, perseverance and dedication, but you can learn that from watching one game; you don’t need to follow teams for decades or risk losing that understanding.

So, why is it that so many people, many of them intelligent, responsible and sensitive souls, spend so much time following professional sports’ teams? Is it just out of habit? Is it a response to the insistent advertising for sports beamed at us on each and every device we use? Is it to fill time that we don’t know how to productively use? Or is it a special kind of escape from an impersonal and troubled society?

The more I think about it, the more sports provides a certain order that is lacking in so called ‘real life’. Think about the intervals in a sporting event. How long is an inning in baseball? Three outs long. There is something very comforting about that. A manager may argue whether a runner was safe or out, but no manager would dream of arguing that a team deserves four outs one inning. There are certain rules or axioms that are agreed upon by all which allow the competition to occur. A bit like mathematics when you think about it. In our democratic societies, we lack this axiomatic certainty. A law only lasts until a group of politicians decide to replace it with something else. Now it’s true that a sporting rule can change, but these are usually peripheral ones, and not the bedrock regulations that help define the sport. For example, a two line pass in hockey was once illegal, but is now permitted; this is of a different order than proposing passing itself be banned. And yes, sometimes the rule change can have a significant impact on the game; witness the introduction of the three point shot in basketball or the American League’s designated hitter rule. But notice that no one is suggesting that hockey be reduced to two periods or that baseball should do away with innings and just have the first team to score five runs win. And notice how universally upset fans get when they feel the way to determine the end of the game has been tampered with in an impure manner. I don’t know of any diehard hockey or soccer fan that approves of the shoot out as a means of determining a winner. Why? Because it is not the way the game is played, but is just a fragment of the game. Could you imagine if instead of extra innings in baseball, a pitcher threw a batter one pitch without any fielders on the diamond and he just had to hit it? It would be a travesty. The games have a certain logic.

In addition to the timing and ending of games, sports is also attractive because of the schedule. We know when the season will begin and when it will end. Many people cannot even say the same about their workday. Sports’ fans know that no matter how horribly their team performed on one day, there will be another day where they will have a fresh opportunity. Which explains all of the magic attributed to opening day or night of a season. Can you think of a sport that doesn’t have a boundary? In life, we are often looking in vain for boundaries that don’t exist. It’s comforting in sports when they do. Think of how frustrating it is in society when boundaries are vague or non-existent. For example, where is the boundary on what behavior is impeachable for a sitting President?

No doubt there is a large element of escapism in the desire to follow professional sports teams. Just as some people check “that masterpiece of total unreality, the daily stock market report” (see Ursula K. LeGuin’s excellent “Why are Americans Afraid of Dragons”) every day and that becomes their reality, others are glued to the standings of the sports leagues they follow. Some go even further and create their own fantasy team in a fantasy league which cranks up the escapism another notch by betting on a team that exists only in the realm of statistical record keeping.

To be fair, there’s a lot about our world that encourages escapism. The growing gap between the rich and poor, environmental devastation, nuclear weaponry, xenophobia, political instability, and, for lack of a better phrase, human nature are all part of our grim reality. Perhaps we can be forgiven for getting caught up in whether the Leafs make the playoffs, who will be the next batter to hit .400 and who will be named the NBA’s MVP. As long as we realize sports is a distraction, then it has its uses and can enrich our lives. At some point though, we also need to engage in the kind of pursuits that inspire us to reflect on ourselves and to improve our world.

prose by p. rose