Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Unblinking Eye

“A photograph is a biography of a moment.” Art Shay
 Art Shay by Andrea Bauer


Nelson Algren Museum in Miller was the site of a 96th birthday celebration for photographer Art Shay, whose renderings of Chicago novelist Algren, a summertime Miller resident, adorn its walls.  Beforehand, Ron Cohen invited me to lunch at Captain’s House to meet feature speaker Erik Gellman, a Roosevelt University historian who organized the exhibit “Troublemakers: Chicago Freedom Struggles through the Lens of Art Shay” and is writing a book on that subject.  With us were Ron’s wife Nancy and Gary city council member Rebecca Wyatt.  Picking up a carry-out order was McKenya Dilworth, coordinator of an after-school program at Dunes Charter School; she hopes to rally support to keep Wirt-Emerson open for use as a community center.  I barely made a dent in my Cobb salad, although I gobbled up the homemade croutons, bacon, and mango bits.  Before leaving, I used the bathroom.  When I returned to the table, my coat was gone.  A waitress noticed my distress and explained that Chef Angela, assuming I had left without it, had rushed outside hoping to catch up with me.  Nice.
 Art Shay photos: above, "Backyard Olympics"; below Cassius Clay in 1961
Billy Corgan in 2011 by Art Shay

The illustrated talk before a standing-room only crowd concentrated on Shay’s depictions of young African Americans and poor whites often deemed juvenile delinquents, many stripped naked and tortured by corrupt Chicago cops during the 1950s and 1960s, according to Gellman.  Hostess Sue Rutsen provided a summary of the photographer’s distinguished career and pointed out that it would have been Nelson Algren’s birthday number 109.  Art Shay’s son Bill noted that years before, his parents befriended Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, who often came for Sunday dinner, and that Art had been working on a pictorial project with him.  Shay’s assistant Erika repeated life lessons learned from Art about fortitude and stepping up to the plate. Fielding questions about his colorful life, Shay alluded to his Bronx roots, where his Jewish father, a Trotskyite from Latvia, became a tailor.  A pilot’s navigator during World War II who flew 52 missions, Art became a stringer for Look, Life, Sports Illustrated, and other popular magazines.  Studs Terkel called him a treasure, who “has an unblinking eye for Chicago’s underside – and its humor.”
 victims Kristopher and Kailani Gober
Meanwhile, a few blocks away, a fire at Lakeshore Dunes Apartments had started in a fourth floor when kids stuffed a blanket into the oven, killing Kristopher Gober, 5, and two-year-old sister Kailani.  In an adjacent unit, Monty Spencer made his way through black smoke to the window and yelled for help.  Earl Stiff told a Chicago reporter from WBBM, “We grabbed this cover, and we told him to just jump, and they told him 1, 2, 3, 4, and he jumped.  It was like 20 people holding the blanket.”  What a tragedy: in the blink of an eye two young lives wiped out.
above, Wendell Carter charged into; below, Stormy Daniels on "60 Minutes"


I was home for the exciting Kansas-Duke Elite Eight conclusion.  I had Duke advancing to the Final Four; two of my picks, Villanova and Michigan, were already in.  The Blue Devils could have won in the final second had a ten-footer by guard Grayson Allen gone in. In overtime, a crucial call went against Duke’s Wendell Carter on a clear charge, and Kansas never looked back.  On “60 Minutes” Stormy Daniels seemed totally credible describing her one-night stand with Trump.  At one point Anderson Cooper quoted porn star Jenna Jameson, who said about Daniels, The left looks at her as a whore and just uses her to try to discredit the president. The right looks at her like a treacherous rat. It's a lose-lose. Should've kept her trap shut.”  I disagree with the whore/rat analysis, but Daniels’ reaction was: “I think that she has a lot of wisdom in those words.”  Asked why the story is significant, Stormy Daniels’ bulldog attorney Michael Avenatti mentioned the White House cover-up and thuggish efforts to sully the adult film star’s reputation and browbeat her. In other words, obstruction of justice.
 Phil's family

Becca and Alyssa Jones in Nashville


Over the weekend Phil celebrated a fiftieth birthday and scored a soccer hat trick.  Becca traveled through a snowstorm to Nashville with Chesterton’s Sandpiper choir, where the group performed at the Grand Old Opry.  Next stop: Orlando, Florida. Angie is a chaperone.

David Parnell’s Roman History students participated in a war game that he described as a cross between Risk and Diplomacy.  I enjoyed David’s Crusades class so much, I had been tempted to audit it.  I told Nicole’s Diplomatic History students that soldiers’ experiences in Vietnam differed depending on when they were there, where they were located, and their function.  Whereas morale was initially high among the troops, when it became apparent that the war was not winnable, drug use, desertions, fragging and other evidence of poor morale escalated.  As Omar Farag stated, the goal of patrol missions became not to search and destroy but search and avoid.  When a student who had taken several courses with Raoul Contreras brought up the CIA’s role in overthrowing Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, I noted that the apparent success of CIA operations in Central America and Iran emboldened Dwight Eisenhower’s Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA director Allen Dulles to attempt nation-building in South Vietnam.  What folly!

 In “Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War” by Karl Marlantes, a former marine combat officer in Vietnam, Waino Mellas has been put in charge of a rifle platoon consisting of 40 mostly teenage marines on a fire-support base located on an isolated hill between Laos and the DMZ.  This summary appears on the book jacket:
  From the moment his feet hit the mud – the brass have named the hill Matterhorn – his senses are assaulted by a chaotic swirl of monsoon rain and fog, screeching radios and bulldozers, and the stench of almost 200 men who are some combination of sick, exhausted, filthy, sodden, and scared out of their minds.  He has no idea if he is up to this.
New York Times reviewer Sebastian Junger concluded: “Matterhorn is a raw, brilliant account of war that may serve as the final exorcism for one of the most painful passages in American history.”

Life master Joe Chin emailed, “Received the precious copy of Steel Shavings.  So proud to be part of the history of the Gary region, my adopted home since 1973.”  At bridge Chin recognized Dottie Hart from her photo in volume 47.  Dottie and Terry Bauer and Jim and Marcia Carson both made slams against Dee Van Bebber and me for high boards.  Typical of our bad luck was a hand where I bid 4 hearts and was the only North player to garner 11 tricks, only to lose high board when another couple on defense foolishly doubled 2 Hearts and the other North player made an overtrick.  On another hand, I executed a cross-rough to make 3 Clubs for 110 points only to find that two other North-South couples got plus 200 for setting 3 Hearts vulnerable down two.
 Bill Lowe and Rufus Redhawk pose with IUPUI chancellor Charles Bantz and Jawz the Jaguar at 2014 Black Expo

IU’s Bicentennial Committee asked Steve McShane to provide a history of IUN’s mascots.  This is what he wrote:
      In its nearly 60-year history, IU Northwest has enjoyed several names for its mascot.  In each case, the campus sought names tied to its service area, the Calumet Region of Northwest Indiana (aka “The Region”).  Mascot names ranged from the area’s human history to its natural historical development.
      In 1971, the campus mascot was the Chiefs, a nod to the rich Native American heritage of the area.  After a few years, the name was changed to the more general Indians, both because Indiana means “Land of the Indians”, and also the baseball team chose to wear hats modeled after the Cleveland Indians’ headgear.  Both of these names appeared to be used interchangeably in the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1992, the campus held a contest for a new mascot name.  A number of students submitted suggestions, many of which were tied to the steel industry, such as Steelworkers and Ingots.  A selection committee chose the IUN Blast in 1992, to denote the local steel industry’s most iconic symbol, blast furnaces.  The new mascot also referenced the blast of icy cold winds coming off of Lake Michigan in the Region.
      In 1999, on the eve of the opening of a new student activities building (which included the campus’ first real gymnasium), the campus community felt a new name should be chosen as part of the Savannah Center’s opening festivities.  A call for mascot suggestions tied more closely to the area’s flora and fauna resulted in the Redhawks, named after the local Red Tailed Hawk.  Today, Rufus the Redhawk keeps busy, rallying the spirit of faculty, staff, and students behind all of the athletic teams at IU Northwest.

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