Letter

I had a friend who would only make plans if I agreed to meet at their house. We’d known one another for decades but I only noticed this during plague-time. When I suggested they come to my place, they’d nod and promise to, but next time they texted, weeks, months later, the plan was always for me to go to theirs.

I explained this to myself by saying they were more worried about catching the virus, were being careful. In any case, it was nice to be invited. But as years went by I started to resent this setup. It was clear that our interactions were conditional on my accepting their terms. I had no one to blame but myself for letting this happen.

What kind of friend are you? What are your friends like? At this late date I find I need them less and less. The terms of engagement are often too much. We all get so set in our ways. It’s easier and usually better time not to even bother and just stay home.

The plague crystallized a lot of these realizations. Taking a step away from relationships that had become rote and habitual it was easier to see the defects and flaws that had been there all along. Now I find I will put up with a lot less than I did before from people I thought cared about me.

I have no doubt that some of these friends I’m thinking of came to similar conclusions about me. That the frustrations and annoyances of having me in their lives weren’t worth whatever positive there might have been. I don’t hold it against them. But I probably won’t be calling them anytime soon either.

Aging is part of it too. When it becomes clear that the time left is no longer endless you take more care in how you spend it. I have a few things left I’d like to do before I’m done and sitting bored sipping a drink I don’t even want on somebody else’s couch takes away from that.

It’s all the more special when I meet up with someone I care about and we have a good talk or a meal. That feeling of being met, if not halfway, then at least part-way, is rare and precious. It means a lot to be valued on my own terms. It doesn’t happen much.

I’m no hero or martyr but I’m also not that thirsty a flower. I don’t need much from others. I’ve lost friends over a single unresponded-to text. The same ones who ignore messages for weeks at a time. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as equality in any relationship, there’s always an imbalance of affection and of power, but if one side of the seesaw is always up, the one holding it down will grow tired and will get up and leave.

If they have any self-respect.

Don’t worry, I wasn’t talking about you.

—Listen to my talk with Mat Daly then tune in Wednesday for one with Jake Austen, of Rocktober and Chic-a-Go-Go fame. Mallory and I discuss a really shitty zombie movie she made me watch.

—I made you a playlist called “The Worst Thing You Can Do For Your Health“.

Claire Denis’s Stars at Noon won the Palm D’Or at Cannes but isn’t playing at a single theater in Chicago. The reason is that the studio has decided to release it VOD same day. The big movie chains don’t like that so they fight back by not booking films for theatrical runs. The whole business seems like it’s in death throes, trying to cause as much collateral damage as it can before disappearing for good.

But I wanna see the movie in a theater so I get on my bike and pedal to Wilmette.

I listen to a podcast interview on the way. It’s fifteen miles or so. I’m into Evanston before they finish talking. I put on something else. There’s still a way’s to go.

Then I’m passing the Ba’hai Temple so I know I must be close. It’s an uncanny edifice. Sort of like aliens plopped the thing among this quiet place of trees and houses like an outpost to be visible from far away. The daylight’s fading as I leave it behind me.

I’m over an hour early so I walk around the quaint commercial strip where the theater sits, then choose an Italian place next door for dinner. It’s busy so the hostess hesitates to give me a table. But I promise I’ll be out of there by 6:45 so she relents.

Every other table includes screaming infants. The family seated to my right has three. The mom keeps taking the smallest one outside. I watch her pace up and down the sidewalk as the dad tries to control the two left inside. Their oldest knocks a full sippy cup off the table. It sprays soda in a big puddle inches from my feet. It takes several employees to clean it up.

To my left, by the window, a couple is on an early date. They’re not young but I can’t tell their ages. Younger than me for sure. He looks like maybe he was athletic once but has settled into something like insurance or maybe he sells cars. She has an accent I can’t make out over the competing squalls of children. Eastern-European, maybe? He reaches to hold her hand awkwardly across the table. Doesn’t feel like they’ve done even that much before. He keeps checking movie showtimes on his phone, then reading her the descriptions of the movies. She suggests they skip the movie and go to his house after they get what’s left of their pizza wrapped to go. He doesn’t get the hint. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?” she keeps asking, obviously frustrated.

There’s no one inside the lobby when I go in, then a young woman, possibly a high-schooler, comes out of a messy office to the side of a makeshift concession stand. I show her the ticket I printed out at home and she points me to the auditorium door. Inside there are a bunch of mismatched loveseats and armchairs arranged in approximate rows. There’s a stage with amps and music stands below a movie screen at the far end of the room. Judging by the position of the left wall and the incline of the floor, I’d guess this is the right side of a single-screen theater that was chopped back when multiplexes were first coming in in the 80s and the home-video market began the gradual murder of movie-going that is nearly complete today.

Despite the theater losing power at one point, causing a five-minute stop in the screening and the young woman frantically running about trying to unplug the lights after, the movie’s amazing. Maybe my favorite this year. The tindersticks soundtrack and Denis Johnson source-material doesn’t hurt.

Claire Denis is one of the great filmmakers going. Too bad the age of movies is just about done. I’ll keep going to whatever rec center or forgotten hall I have to to see movies on a screen, but the audiences will keep shrinking. There’s no use crying about it. This is the way of things. Every art medium has its day in the sun before it fades. Then it’s the job of outcasts and obsessives to keep it flickering rather than being snuffed out for good.

—Just in time for the playoffs, here’s my Jean-Paul Sartre, Sox fan t-shirt.

—Listen to my talk with Westley Heine, then tune in Wednesday for one with musician/printmaker/craft fair impresario Mat Daly.

—Read my review of an epic new play.

I think the store opened in 2018. I recall walking by with a friend and making a mental note to come back. I got to know Aaron and Mary soon after. Made some art for them. Even filled in now and then when they needed a break.

A bookstore reflects the personality of its owner. If the owner is a corporation the store will be faceless. That was never a problem at PCB. Every inch reflected Aaron and Mary in one way or another. I was happy to be a small part of it.

Then they opened a second store downtown and I got involved there too. A whole wall full of Chicago writer portraits. More fill-in shifts. A couple book launches.

Then Aaron and Mary decided to get out of the bookstore business and move to michigan to have babies or live in the woods or something. We were never in each other’s lives on a personal level so I don’t know for sure.

They sold both stores and left town. Then the plague came.

The Pilsen store, now run by Katharine and Mandy, fought for life and persevered. Throughout the lockdown, though no one could go inside, it was a hive of activity. I picked up books whenever I could, hoping to do my small part to keep it afloat.

A couple years ago I did a Zoom launch for All Hack through PCB and they’ve always stocked my books. There are remnants of what Aaron and Mary created in the storefront on 18th Street but it’s now a very different store. Katharine and Mandy are fierce advocates of local community causes as well as larger political movements. Their business is a reflection of their beliefs. I’m happy to be friends with people who feel strongly and aren’t shy to say what they mean.

This Wednesday I’ll have a talk with local writer Annie Howard about my new book. I hope to see you there.

—Listen to my talk with Nancy Carey, then come back Wednesday for one with Westley Heine. Mallory and I talk about Bob Balaban’s Parents and there’s a whole article about our podcast/friendship.

—Made a new t-shirt design.