In 2007, The New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl gave a talk at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in which he said that the hosting city was “a great place to be, if you have a particular reason.” He went on to call Chicago one of the “great receptor cities of the world” for all the artistic talent it sends to other places, maybe not realizing he had opened up old wounds inflicted by another New Yorker writer nearly 55 years earlier when the late A.J. Liebling proclaimed Chicago the “Second City,” behind Mr. Liebling’s hometown of New York. The most recent New York media potshot at Chicago was by Rachel Shteir, an ex-New Yorker and current Chicagoan, in a recent New York Times Book Review piece, “Chicago Manuals.” Ms. Shteir, who claimed not to be “some latter-day A.J. Liebling” in her attack on the city she has called home for the last 13 years, pointed out Chicago’s many faults, from rampant gun violence to the nation’s second-highest combined sales tax and the clear lines of segregation that zip through its neighborhoods. (Ms. Shteir's review generated titanic reaction from the media in Chicago, all of it wounded, which pretty much proved her point; she wrote about the experience for the Observer.) I left Chicago over a decade ago, but I still recognize these problems in my beloved hometown. And yet I wondered what city doesn’t have a laundry list of specific failings. 

Thomas Dyja, a Chicago native, doesn’t set out to change the view of contemporary Chicago with his latest book, The Third Coast. Instead, the book charts “When Chicago Built the American Dream” through a detailed look at postwar Chicago and how the Second City changed the course of America for good.

Of all the characters you meet throughout The Third Coast (and there are so many of them it’s hard to keep track), the German-born architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe looms the largest, from the start of his ambitious career to the point at which he “resembled a medieval abbot ... trying to think his way into heaven” in the early 1960s. In a city built on industry and defined by the Democratic political “machine” (every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat), Mies’s Modernist architectural perfection, which he himself acknowledged was sometimes viewed as “cold and rigid,” fit perfectly into the city’s framework and transformed the way major cities around the world put up buildings. He was the last director of the Bauhaus and “had chosen Chicago for practical reasons,” especially the state’s lax laws for professional education compared with New York or Massachusetts. But he moved to a city with an already rich architectural legacy, taking a position as the director of the Armour Institute (later to be renamed the Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1938. Within two years, the school was “becoming a kind of architectural monastery, producing a brotherhood trained to spread [Mies’s] word.”

Mies pops up throughout The Third Coast, whether directly or as an influence as the city assembles its skyline. Along with him is a mob of people, connected only loosely by geography, that threatens to overstuff an already large book: the author and historian Studs Terkel, the gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, the avant-garde jazz icon Sun Ra, the outsider artist Henry Darger, the Chess Brothers and Muddy Waters, a host of high-ranking political figures, low-level ward bosses, architects, magazine publishers and too many others to list here. But this unruly throng is the whole point: Chicago is whatever these people made of it—a city full of suckers to exploit, an easy place to make a buck, “that same old place,” as Robert Johnson would have it, a city of migrants blanketed by the façade of Midwestern permanence, a city of underdogs making good.

Mr. Dyja’s book gains heft from the city’s self-made men, like Mayor Richard J. Daley, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and Ebony publisher John H. Johnson. But its heart is the undercurrent of racial tension that you can feel dripping off nearly every other page. The term “hypersegregation” was created with Chicago in mind. The white population has historically been situated on the city’s north side, with the African-American population pushed to the south. Surprisingly, one of the book’s most endemic chapters takes place in Mississippi: the murder of 14-year-old Chicago resident Emmett Till while he was visiting relatives in Money, an unincorporated community in the Delta, which helped set off the civil rights movement when pictures of Till’s mutilated body were published by Chicago-based African-American newspapers and magazines with the headline “Black America reunited to witness Emmett Till’s body.”

Although Till’s murder took place nearly a thousand miles to the south of Chicago, his funeral was held in the city of his birth, and the story became an American dilemma. It is a perfect example of how a “prairie city with a waterfront,” as Saul Bellow called it, influenced the entire nation. Even the few paragraphs that Mr. Dyja devotes to the condensed version of how Ray Kroc turned one McDonald’s restaurant in suburban Chicago into “a global behemoth that represents to much of the world all that’s bad about America, and all they want,” demonstrates how the city is America in microcosm.

For Bellow, it was “that somber city,” but even he wasn’t “altogether clear” on what it stands for. And so the fact that the literary representative of Mr. Dyja’s Chicago is Nelson Algren, rather than the more famous Bellow, is appropriate. Algren’s life and work are chronicled through his professional disappointments and a doomed affair with Simone de Beauvoir. Although Algren was a brilliant writer and his book The Man With the Golden Arm won him the National Book Award in 1950, he was always coming in second to somebody else: Bellow was more acclaimed, de Beauvoir wouldn’t leave Jean-Paul Sartre for her American lover, and his contemporaries like John Fante and Charles Bukowski used similar formulas with much better results. Algren, like the great city that he grew up in, played second to many. And although Mr. Dyja makes that metaphor very clear throughout The Third Coast, you’re left to wonder why exactly these people are credited with building the American dream, save for the fact that they all called the same flawed and proud city home.

editorial@observer.com

The piece went viral, with analysis of the piece and analysis of the reaction to the piece and reactions to my reaction. When a book review becomes the subject of editorials on local news, I knew that "struck an exposed nerve" didn't quite cover the collective anger my adopted hometown had displayed.

Some early attacks treated a literary essay as a piece of reportage. Many people, including one of the writers of one of the books I reviewed, took the role of armchair analysts, writing that in my perilous mental state I clearly needed “help.”

That could not be truer. Cleaning the snow off my car in the winter—that always takes way too long. Also, I wish I knew how to bake. And I never mastered eyeliner.

It was striking to learn that complete strangers responded to a piece in which I talk about the look of Chicago with emails, Facebook posts, and blogs about my looks (I resemble a vampire “with black dead eyes”); my sexual preferences (lesbian!); my character (“deceitful” (now, hold on there, wasn’t that the former corrupt governor of Illinois, one of the subjects of one of the books I reviewed, who was deceitful?). Also, that I should leave Chicago and go back to New York.

By the end of the week, the backlash had been picked up by the national media and meta pieces ran in the New Republic and on All Things Considered and the scandal was reviewed—like a play--in the Sunday arts pages of the Chicago Tribune.

“Why Squander Shteir?” was one of my favorite lines.

Cultural critics far smarter than I have written about the Internet as an assault on civility and about how Facebook makes it impossible for the individual to exist outside of the marketplace.

Thankfully, I’m not going to repeat those indictments here.

But I would like to take the opportunity to recite a brief prayer for the man who has inspired me more than any other.

I’m talking about Steve Bartman.

Oh, sorry, I forgot. Writing for a New York newspaper, a reference to a guy who received death threats after catching a foul ball at a Cubs game just is not going to play.

Okay, then, I’m talking about Christopher Hitchens, the man who attacked Mother Theresa.

But seriously, as the week dragged on, I thought many times about how being a critic, a job that LA Times theatre reviewer Charlie McNulty recently referred to as “antediluvian”—does something that, despite the efforts of educators, politicians, and Tedtalks, has less than zero value in the marketplace today—namely, it makes people think.

And I wondered (as Carrie Bradshaw used to write on the TV show that was created in these pages) why I do it.

Well not because I luv being attacked (last week, some people asked if I was having ‘a blast’ as if we had all just gone to the amusement park) or because there’s even the remotest possibility of my capitulating to any of my critics’ ideas (there isn’t). I do it because I actually believe ideas and arguing are important.

And, also, I wanted to draw attention to the issue of female critics, which, let's face it, has just not gotten as much play as “having it all” or being a “tiger mom.” Or gay marriage or day care. Goooooo Female Critics!

The thing that kept pissing me off last week—besides the fact that I had to wear a blond wig--was the total irrelevance of Sheryl Sandberg to my situation. I mean, I tried to lean in. And look what happened!

Women should not be leaning in as if life were some sort of coffeeklatch from the Mad Men era. Instead, they should not be backing down or allowing themselves to be sidetracked by arguments that are irrelevant to the points they’re trying to make.

What women should not be doing is worrying so much about being liked.

In fact, whether I “like” Chicago was the theme to the backlash against my piece, as if I nursed some kind of secret grudge against the city. Or as if we were all trapped on Facebook.

Does being liked have to count for so much? Especially for women? Is it a zero sum game?

One intrepid reporter wanted to know if I liked Chicago hotdogs. And one person I actually didn’t like reassured me that he still liked me. Despite everything.

Isn’t that always how it goes?

And countless people asked: “Are you happy here?” as if my elation would diminish the infamous murder rate.

Then there was the ultimate piece of Freudian analysis--that I needed to get laid.

I just don’t see how my sex life has any bearing on the problems of the city.

It was impossible not to notice that so many of the journalists asking me somberly if I regretted writing the piece were men. (Would male journalists be asked about their regrets, I-- to use the word again-- wondered? Regret is just such a delicate, feminine emotion, unlike big, macho, bravado.)

And it was also interesting to see that several male, um, frenemies inquired, in the tone that my mother used to adopt when she would tell me that something I had on for school was inappropriate: “Didn’t you know that the piece would provoke this kind of response?”

I will just say what I used to say to my mother: the answer to that question is no. I didn’t think, while I was writing the piece, gee, I’ll take out the word “bloviate” because if I don’t, readers will call me names. Nor did I imagine, while sweating over my laptop, that the city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, would tweet: “read the book, don’t read the review”—now there’s a triumph for the beleaguered publishing industry-- or that some entrepreneurial soul would set up a fake twitter account in which “I” say things like “Chicago Eats Dick.” Or that anyone would actually believe that “I” was me.

I didn’t sit around thinking that if I went on television to defend a book review—yes, that actually happened—and under pressure, conceded that one thing I liked in Chicago was walking along the lake, I would receive death threats. “Maybe you should get a dog. A big dog. Or some mace.”

I didn’t think about these things because when I wrote the piece, I wasn’t thinking about being liked.

Lest you get the impression that everything that happened last week condemns me to an existence as a pariah, that’s not true! Hundreds of supportive emails poured in, from my students, former students, strangers, and friends.

I also received invitations to do activism and a man with a European accent left a message on my voicemail saying he had files on political corruption that he thought I should see.

Someone even emailed me telling me I would look good in a cheerleader outfit.

Now that is the kind of compliment that makes me appreciate living here.

Because to paraphrase Nora Ephron on bikinis, you can only wear cheerleading outfits until you’re 34.

And by the way, New Yorkers, I once a few years ago muttered Ephron’s line in the upscale lingerie store, La Petite Coquette, where I did happen to be browsing the obscenely priced two-pieces against my better judgment.

The salesgirl looked at me in horror. I had committed the unthinkable sin in New York: I had said I was too old.

“Oh, no,” she said, in an optimistic voice. “You can wear a bikini anytime.”

As Ms. Ephron might say, Sister, not if you want to be liked!

--

Rachel Shteir is the author of The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting

New logo will fix everything. (LiveStrong Foundation)

Despite the lack of of its president and CEO Doug Ulman--delayed because of weather--the LiveSTRONG Foundation went ahead with its planned "State of the Foundation" yesterday in Chicago. The task of delivering the Foundation's remarks was given to the executive vice president of operations, Andy Miller, who we imagine started to sweat when he saw that his cancer organization--founded by the now-disgraced Lance Armstrong (LiveSTRONG had, in fact, just changed its name from the Lance Armstrong Foundation)--had decided on the title "What Now?: A Challenge for the LIVESTRONG Foundation, on Behalf of Survivors, for the Cancer Community."

How old is this kid? He looks like he's 15! (He's in his early 40s, but still! Looks great!) More important than Mr. Miller's looks, however, is how he and the Foundation chose to address the Lance Armstrong controversy:

But let’s do talk about the swirl. We did our work for many months, some might say for a
couple of years, with unanswered questions about our Founder’s cycling career. As those
questions were answered – first in October and more recently through Lance’s televised
interview – some important issues were finally settled. Lance stepped away from the
Foundation in October. In November, the Foundation also made a legal name-change it had
long led with unofficially – the LiveSTRONG Foundation. We set about charting an
independent course forward.

Still, we’ve found ourselves caught in the crossfire of the media frenzy.

Back in 2010, Ken Berger, the CEO if Charity Navigator had this to say to the Chronicle of
Philanthropy – “[They are] not going to be able to thrive if the person who is the spirit behind it
is in trouble. It is just going to devastate them.”

And the shots kept coming. Now, we don’t know these people. These “experts” don’t know
anything about our work. Yet they feel entitled to publicly question our credibility, our
sincerity and our mission.

But we do know these people. And they know us because they don’t award these designations
lightly. I also know what’s true about our work and I believe in it, wholeheartedly. And I
believe you do too. Thank you for standing with us in this storm.

We were deeply disappointed when we learned along with the rest of the world that we had
been misled during and after Lance’s cycling career. We accepted the apology he made to us
in order to move on and we remain grateful for what he decided to create and helped build.

... But we didn’t do it for Lance. We did it for our loved ones. Our husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. We did for our children. We did it for our friends and neighbors. We did it for ourselves. Because we believe in life! We believe living every minute of it with every ounce of our being. And that you must not let cancer take control of it!

Fair enough. Though without the star power of Mr. Armstrong, it's also fair to say that LiveSTRONG will be facing challenges, especially with donors asking for their money back after the cyclist's fall from grace. But the real question is: will they be keeping the rubber wristbands?

The teachers’ strike has moved into its second week, although there are signs that the dispute may end as early as late Tuesday afternoon, after press time. If it doesn’t, the mayor plans to go to court to force the teachers back into the classroom. As well he should, because the strike was an affront to the city and, of course, to Chicago’s 350,000 students. Before they walked out, the teachers managed to water down some needed reforms—the city agreed, for example, to hire back some laid-off teachers regardless of their past performance in the classroom—and extracted an additional $74 million per year in salary hikes. Mr. Emanuel, for his part, insists on including standardized tests scores as part of teacher performance evaluations. The union, of course, hates this. Like their counterparts in New York’s schools, union leaders in Chicago oppose anything that even hints at accountability.

New York most definitely has a dog in this fight—his name is Rahm. Mr. Emanuel may have gone out of his way to antagonize the union, and he may have made this battle more personal than he should have, but in the end, what matters is who wins. If Mr. Emanuel wins, teachers’ unions across the country may be inspired to re-consider their chronic obstructionism. If the union wins, well, you can expect teachers in New York and elsewhere to become more aggressive in defense of archaic work rules and in opposition to evaluations and other forms of accountability.

Even as the strike unfolded in Chicago, a new film about union intransigence is about to open nationwide. The lead characters in Won’t Back Down are two mothers who come together to bring change to a failing urban school. Needless to say, the teachers’ unions are in an uproar—the truth may set you free, but it also can cause great discomfort. Randi Weingarten has lashed out at the film’s “blatant stereotypes and caricatures.” Apparently she believes any portrayal of out-of-touch union leaders who haven’t been in a classroom in decades is somehow a “caricature.”

It seems undeniable that public opinion is moving away from the world views of Ms. Weingarten and her fellow bosses. Leaders like Mr. Emanuel and Michael Bloomberg are demanding accountability, not excuses, and flexibility, not red tape, as they seek to bring public schools into the 21st Century. Neither party has a monopoly on reform, although it is significant that Mr. Emanuel, a Democrat and onetime chief of staff for President Obama, has become public enemy number one for teachers’ unions (replacing, of course, Michelle Rhee, the innovative former leader of Washington D.C.’s schools).

Unions have had many opportunities to adapt to changing public demands. But they have chosen to rely on old arguments, old rules, and old formulas. They say they care only about “the kids.”

Does anybody really believe that?

Laurie Penny (Twitter)

Update: After speaking to Ms. Penny, she told The New York Observer she was shoved by the police, but not a victim of police brutality. And although the retweets have disappeared from her timeline, Ms. Penny said they were not deleted by herself.

You guys remember Laurie Penny? She's the world's luckiest woman: not only did she miss getting ht by a car, but she missed getting hit by a car by Ryan Gosling! As a writer and a feminist and a gentlewomen, the British journo was a tad ungrateful to Mr. Gosling for being famous enough that the media picked up her story and cast her as "the ditzy damsel in distress."

Well she might not be ditzy, but Ms. Penny is certainly in distress...She's been writing from the Chicago NATO protests, where she claims to be the victim of police brutality.

As a journalist with a press pass for The Independent, Ms. Penny claims she was shoved by police officers, despite her credentials:

@PennyRed: Photo of me getting shoved by a cop at yesterday's march. You can clearly see my press pass in my hand. By @kateharnedy http://katehphoto.photoshelter.com/image/I0000JCeA4gk.YeM

Soon after, Ms. Penny started retweeting 'hate messages' she had received on Twitter.

She deleted most of them before we were able to get a screenshot. But just to prove that they existed:

Where was Ryan Gosling during all of this?!

On AntiRacistAction.org, the group stated the alleged motivation behind the incident:

On Saturday, May 19th a group of 30 anti-fascists descended upon Ashford House restaurant in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park where the 5th annual White Nationalist Economic Summit and Illinois White Nationalist Meet-and-Greet was taking place. The White Nationalists were targeted inside the restaurant and physically attacked, causing several injuries and completely shutting down their meeting. The anti-fascist group was privy to anonymous inside information. This fascist event had been in secret planning for six months. The attendees have attempted to cover up the true intent of the event with mainstream media reports initially reporting the white nationalist conference as a wedding party and then as an Irish heritage meeting. The event was advertised on www.stormfront.org, an established white nationalist fascist internet forum.

The apparent other side of this story developed in the comments section of an article by the Tinley Park Patch, one of AOL's subsidiary websites devoted to "hyper-local" news. The attack was reported there (and elsewhere) as a strange, random incident possibly linked to the Occupy-associated anti-N.A.T.O. protests that have been revving up in downtown Chicago since mid-week.

A message thread at Stormfront.org dating back to April matches Anti-Racist Action's statements regarding the date and nature of the meeting. User "Sgathaich" posted about the event on April 3 and added, "If you are a business owner/self employed bring your info. All ideas are welcome. White's working for White's [sic]. White's supporting White's [sic]. We are taking back what is ours."

Tinley Park Mayor Ed Zabrocki told the Chicago Tribune late Saturday that authorities were not certain about connections between the groups or the attackers' motivations.

The Tribune reported three of the injured were taken to the hospital. Others refused medical attention.

The Chicago paper also reported that one of the three vehicles that fled the scene was pulled over on W. 159th and five people were taken into custody.

Tinley Park's Patch quoted an employee inside Ashford House when the attack took place. "Tables were being thrown and chairs were broken," said the employee. Unknown words were also spray-painted on a wall during the melee.

The same unnamed employee told Patch that the woman who made reservations for the group that was attacked claimed they travel the country touring 'Irish festivals.'

From Brent Betterly's Facebook profile

Three men who allegedly planned attacks on President Obama's Chicago headquarters and the mayor's residence have been arrested by Chicago police. Reuters reports anti-N.A.T.O. and Occupy Chicago-associated protesters Brian Church, Jared Chase and Brent Betterly were charged Friday with "conspiracy to commit terrorism, providing material support for terrorism, and possession of an explosive incendiary device." In a report published Saturday afternoon the Associated Press said prosecutors allege the men also planned attacks on police vehicles and substations.

Mr. Church, age 20, and Mr. Chase and Mr. Betterly--both 24--were picked up during a raid Wednesday on the South Side of Chicago. Authorities say they were planning to use Molotov cocktails during the N.A.T.O. summit, which begins Sunday.

Brent Betterly, originally from Florida, arrived in Chicago on April 27, according to a post he made on the Facebook timeline for a page dedicated to Occupy the Chicago N.A.T.O. Summit. "just arrived in chicago last night," wrote Mr. Betterly on April 28, "the people in occupy chicago have been awesome! thanks for the hospitality! this is going to be a great summit!"

Jared Chase is from Keene, New Hampshire. On May 2 Mr. Chase posted a news article about a peaceful protest of a Bank of America branch in downtown Chicago, commenting, "Thats me again lol."

Nothing on either man's Facebook indicates overt support of violent, Black Bloc-style protests.

In a statement quoted by Reuters, Occupy Chicago member Natalie Wahlberg ridiculed the charges against the men, stating that they "are utterly ridiculous." The Chicago Police Department, said Ms. Wahlberg, "doesn't know the difference between home beer-making supplies and Molotov cocktails."

More than 12 protesters have been arrested since the anti-N.A.T.O. actions began, but mostly for minor charges such as trespassing.

Mr. Betterly, Mr. Chase and Mr. Church will have bond hearings Saturday.

Charlie Sheen's tour has less in common with past successful speaking tours, like Hal Holbrook's Mark Twain schtick, than with quick-burning train-wrecks--Britney Spears disappears for two-year chunks, just long enough to stoke sufficient interest in her next staggering dance across America. (Will there be a single unironic fan in any given stadium?) Snooki gets paid more than Toni Morrison to speak at Rutgers--unsurprising, given the rich legacy of MTV burnouts who'll speak about "issues" at your university. As mass media has made the speaking tour effectively irrelevant (could a Hal Holbrook act, without a healthy local-theater circuit, thrive today?), one wonders what a Charlie Sheen hopes to get out of a speaking tour. Ms. Spears and Snooki seem to need the money (and may as well milk their notoriety while they can)--but Mr. Sheen's case is more opaque (he has earned millions on Two and a Half Men, but clearly is not a conservative spender).

One is reminded of a second film, 2007's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, in which, after the titular assassination, Mr. Ford re-enacts his one notable act onstage. There's money for him in it, but also the frisson of having done something that people will praise, something that he knows was wrong. Mr. Sheen's self-knowledge is in doubt, but in that film depicting a pre-mass media era, interest in Robert Ford's glamorous misdeeds and "bad boy" image dwindled quickly. The tour grinds on.

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

Emanuel left his D.C. job in September. He officially announced his candidacy in the race for Chicago City Hall on Saturday. 

The ad begins by emphasizing Emanuel's roots Windy City roots. 

"Chicago is a great city with great people and I want my children to feel as passionate about this city as I did growing up," Emanuel says amid footage of him shaking hands in the streets. 

The title of Emanuel's ad is "Tough," which is appropriate given Emanuel's reputation as an enforcer and the blunt assessment of Chicago's future that he offers in the commercial.

"We face big challenges from our schools our streets to our businesses," Emanuel says. 

Emanuel ends the ad with a comment that, in the words of Mediaite's Rachel Sklar, "smartly appeals to city status anxiety" in Chicago.  

"I think we're at  a crossroads, we've got to decide whether we're gonna continue to be a great city or become a second tier city," he says.

Emanuel's campaign commercial makes its television debut tomorrow. It will be interesting to see whether playing into the local inferiority complex backfires or brings him votes. 

Watch video of Emanuel's campaign ad below.

Someone threw an egg at Rahm Emanuel while he was out campaigning for Mayor in Chicago. Emanuel left his gig as White House Chief of Staff in September to make his mayoral bid.

The flying ovum missed Emanuel and struck a local cameraman. Emanuel kept his cool as he watched the projectile whiz by.

"Don't worry about it," said Emanuel when someone informed him that someone threw an egg at him.

Reports about the attempted egging didn't reveal the identity of the cameraman or the perpetrator. The egg-throwing occurred in the Little Village neighborhood.

Mayor Bloomberg should keep his guard up. Last month, the New York Times reported that "egging confrontations" in the five boroughs "have led to at least 24 serious injuries or deaths since 1984."