Political Efforts in Illinois

Illinois is in such pathetic financial condition, we're almost as bad as California. So I've been working on a small effort to change one thing here, the Illinois Fair Map amendment, which will ask voters to change the way we set redistricting after each census reveals population shifts.

Iowa, to name one eminently fair state, uses a computer to redraw district lines after each census. How sensible!

Illinois allows the ruling party leaders to propose new district lines. If the other side doesn't like the proposal, they can come up with their own version. Each side tries to draw lines that reward incumbents and punish the other party. Some districts look like weird jigsaw puzzle pieces with long peninsulas and strange shapes. If no one can agree - they actually flip a coin. And this has been done. How ridiculous!

So, I'm out trying to find people who are registered voters in Illinois and convince them to sign a petition to put the Fair Map amendment on the ballot in November, but it ain't easy. Getting people to listen to your appeal on the Metra platform is discouraging.

I hate rejection. I can't imagine how people can decide to run for office - getting rejected right and left most of the time. Office-seekers must have to have an elephant's hide. Either these people are heroes or their egos are so huge that they can weather anything. Onward.

The Lost Boys in Fargo

There's a new play at the Victory Gardens/Biograph Theatre (where John Dillinger was killed in the alley after seeing Manhattan Melodrama) called The Lost Boys of Sudan. As soon as I read that the play follows the war refugees to their new home in Fargo, N.D., where I was born, I knew we had to see it. We immediately signed up to be volunteer ushers for last night's performance.

There was plenty to think about as actors showed the horrific effects of the wars in Sudan on the civilians and on the child soldiers. But we also were looking to see what happened to them in Fargo - and were sadly disappointed. The refugees could have been in Anytown, USA. The actors were really good at African accents, but where was the Fargo accent, or any reference to Fargo "culture?"

Since I grew up in Moorhead - just across the river from Fargo - I can assume that I, too, have an authentic Fargo accent. Or, at least I did. I've been gone from Moorhead since 1964, and from Minnesota since 1969, but when I get on the phone with one of my sisters in the Twin Cities area, my family still says I start to "sound funny." I'm not sure I could even imitate someone from Fargo if I tried. What's an example of a word that Fargoans (Fargo-ites?) say that is unique to them? Readers, over to you...

Victoria and Albert

Last night we saw probably the last showing in town of The Young Victoria, a splendid costume drama about Queen Victoria and how she came to fall in love with her German cousin while declaring her independence from her mother.

We loved the dresses worn by the actresses, but I know they would be horribly uncomfortable to wear. Corsets and wig pieces, horsehair and tight laces - oh my!

I always thought of Victoria as a sour old woman wearing a lace headdress, but it was fun to see a movie with her portrayed as lively and "winsome" in the beginning. Albert seemed sincere, but lackluster. It's hard to understand what she found so compelling about him.

Now I know how much I count on a full house in a theater for the full movie experience. When there are only a handful of people in the seats, the collective gasps, sighs, and laughter are just too weak to count. I'm paying for audience reaction in sound surround - and I missed it!

Dickens, Saint and Sinner

After reading Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold about Charles Dickens' wife, I decided to read a Dickens biography to learn whether he truly was as merciless as he was portrayed in the novel. He was, but..

Dickens was a driven man - he literally worked himself to death by insisting on grueling trips around England at the end of his life to give personal readings of excerpts of his books - even to America - despite very serious health problems. He could be very generous to people who reminded him of himself at a young age - trapped by circumstances into a life of destitution and/or drudgery. A few lucky breaks and a tremendous will to advance himself got him out of the blacking factory, back in school, and on the road to acting and writing. The thought of his father's careless behavior that put the family in misery, and the fear that he, too, might end up a financial failure, dogged him all his life.

Once he was established as a successful author, he found that the pretty, sweet wife he had married when they were young was now the dull mother of 10 who suffered from lengthy post-partum depression and spoiled his dinner parties. His only solution was to insist that Catherine move out of the family home, leaving her children, including a four-year-old son, in the process. She was given a small house and a modest personal allowance, and was excluded from family weddings, holiday and birthday celebrations. This I cannot understand - why didn't he move out?

Aren't we all a strange mix of good and evil, talents and foibles? I still love Dickens the writer, but have no more illusions that he could write a wonderful book like David Copperfield because he was such a compassionate person who understood human nature. What a mystery!

Grandma is a Supercentenarian!

Now that my mother-in-law, Mary McGowan, has reached her 110th birthday on February 17, 2010, she is qualified to join the list of living supercentenarians. The Gerontology Research Group keeps track of these people around the world who have documented proof of their birth more than 110 years ago. Their list is updated every day. You can also see a similar list on Wikipedia.

Mary has no birth certificate since she was born at home, but she does have a baptismal certificate. In those days, babies usually were baptized within a week of their birth due to high infant mortality rates. I expect to see her added to the supercentenarian lists very soon!

Golosa

The crown prince works with a guy whose wife is the director of a Russian folk choir somehow connected to the University of Chicago down on the south side of the city (we live on the northern border). So now he is singing with the choir, Golosa, in Russian!

Whenever I heard him singing around the house, he always made his voice as low as possible, so I had to laugh when I heard that he was assigned to the tenor section.

NPR's Worldview program last Wednesday had a section on Golosa and we got to hear them sing. What a shock! They don't sound at all the way I'm used to hearing Russian choral music on the radio. Golusa's cultural background is from a group that was exiled to Siberia and there is a wailing, shouting element to their music. The director said that they have opened for rock bands at venues in Chicago and rock fans really like them! Download the program and see what you think. We'll be able to see and hear them in person in April when Golosa is part of an ethnomusical conference at DePaul. Can't wait to see their costumes!

Ushering at Symphony Center

Last night we had our first chance to usher at Symphony Center. The concert was not part of the CSO's regular series, but it was for some jazz performers I had never heard of (the better to practice on). The first group was Eliane Elias, a bossa nova jazz singer/pianist and her backup guys - all from Brazil. She did a version of "Tangerine," a song my mother taught me to sing way back when, that I really liked. There was a nice crowd of all types and ages of people that came to hear them.

At intermission, we resumed our posts as statues at the bottom of one set of stairs to the balconies. When we realized we would never make the 10:35 train back home, we decided to leave right after intermission to make the 9:45, but we had to really walk FAST. We made it with one minute to spare and were home by 10:30. A good first assignment. Now we can feel ok about doing a real CSO concert!