Tag: Books

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Illinois Playlist

What we took.

We packed to skip the baggage claim in Chicago. We flew in early on Saturday, and spent the rest of the day looking for things we’d never seen.

The only specialized fishing gear we took were polarized lenses. Our guides, Midwest Waters Anglers, provided all the gear, and it was great gear.

What I lost, Where we didn’t go.

I lost my beloved Bonefish & Tarpon Trust Yeti thermos. I really liked that Thermos.

I wish we’d had time to go to Springfield for the Abraham Lincoln Museum. We could have easily spent more time in Chicago.

What we ate.

By some measures Houston is now the most ethnically diverse city in the US, but that’s somewhat disingenuous. It treats all white people as a lump, which is like treating all Asians and Asian Americans as a lump, or treating all Africans and African Americans as a lump. Chicago’s story is in part a story of 19th and 20th century first-generation Irish, Polish, German, Italian, Welsh, and Jewish immigrants, white immigration that wasn’t from England via New England–the immigrants in The Jungle are Lithuanian. In 2019 the nativist impulse is aimed at immigrants from Mexico and Central America. In 1850 it was the anti-Catholic No-Nothings opposed to Irish and German Catholic immigration. Things never change.

Uncle Sam’s youngest son, Citizen Know Nothing, lithograph, 1854, Sarony & Co., lithographer, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. American political prints, 1766-1876. From Wikipedia. He looks a lot like Lord Byron.

As of 2010, Chicago is 31.7% non-Hispanic whites, 32.9% black or African American, 5.5% Asian, and 13.3% Hispanic, and 16.1% mixed or other, but there are lots of ethnic traditions not covered in those numbers. We wanted Chicago ethnic food, and got a list of restaurants from our friend Tom, who knows these things. He said that there were three great ethnic food cities in the US, New York, Chicago, and Houston, and that the hard part of the list for Chicago was coming up with stuff we didn’t have in Houston. It’s a great list, even if we only made it to three of the places. Some of Tom’s notes are included in quotes:

  • Min Hing Cuisine – “great dim sum for breakfast (6 kinds of shrimp dumplings is good enough for me).” We went there straight from the airport. Chinese are about 1.6% of Chicago’s population, and first got there before 1860 with the railroads. The population boomed in the 1950s and 60s.
  • Parachute – “fusion Korean American, in the best way.” This place has a Michelin star, and seems to be everyone’s favorite restaurant, Alinea be damned. Make reservations in advance. We didn’t make reservations, and getting in on a Saturday night without a reservation might be harder than catching steelhead. We didn’t catch any Illinois steelhead either.
  • Shokran – “Moroccan kebabs and salads, also tangines and couscous. Cash only. BYOB.”
  • Staropolska or Lutnia Polish – About 6.7% of Chicago is Polish, with Polish the third language, after English and Spanish. We ate at Staropolska, just around the corner from St. Hyacinth Basilica. The young blonde waitress with the Polish accent was proud that it was the oldest Polish restaurant in Chicago. It could use some freshening, but that might ruin the vibe, and the food was great and the service was great.
Staropolska, cabbage rolls and potato pancakes. That red sauce seemed to be heavily paprikad, and was outstanding.
  • Jibek Jolu – “dumplings and noodles . . . Uighur.”
  • Sayat-Nova – “Armenian. Typical middle eastern fare . . . ” It was also in the middle of the Miracle Mile, and we went on the Sunday night of a long weekend when there was still plenty of shopping to be done. After some terrified driving we found a parking garage ($26 for a bit more than an hour, and well worth it). Kris loved Sayat-Nova, and said I have to ask Tom for recommendations wherever we go. I wish Tom could have helped out in Pittsburg, New Hampshire.
Sayat-Nova. Lamb meatballs in yoghurt and mint sauce.
  • Little Bucharest Bistro – “quality Central European food, excellent service.” Romanian. We didn’t go, but the descriptions on the internet were great. It wasn’t far from Staropolska.
  • Birrieria Zaragoza – “fast casual Mexican all about goat.” The Mexican population is the fastest growing population in Chicago, so it made sense to include something, but it broke Tom’s rule, sort of. I don’t know of anyplace in Houston that specializes in goat.

The best thing about ethnic Chicago restaurants? Other than the food of course. I could wear my stylish fishing clothes, the ones designed by the fashion-forward stylists at Patagonia, to any of them, which I did.

If that wasn’t enough of a list, Tom provided a supplement: “Ghareeb Nawaz Indo-Pakistani. San Soo Gob San-Korean. Galit-Israeli-Middle Eastern. Kaboobi Persian Grill (North side – our favorite). Cabra Peruvian (Rooftop restaurant). If you have time for breakfast before you leave, make it to Dove’s Luncheonette….”.

Books, Movies, TV.

There are tons of movies from Chicago, and we watched The Blues Brothers, The Fugitive, and The Untouchables. Pretty good Chicago movies. We never watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I may be too old for it now.

Mostly I read about Lincoln. I wonder how he managed to govern so well without Tweets. This is a good time to ponder Lincoln, and there’s a ton of stuff out there. Sometimes we get better leaders than we deserve. Sometimes apparently we don’t.

I read Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Auggie March. I had tried to read Bellow before, but didn’t quite get it. This time was better. I tried to read The Jungle, but found it too painful. I listened to a lot of Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski novels, but never did figure out how to pronounce Warshawski’s name, which is a weak and obscure joke about the inevitable unlikable character trope in every novel. If they can’t pronounce her name, they’re almost certainly the villain. I listened to some Dresden File novels by Jim Butcher, but didn’t think they were nearly as amusing as when I’d listened to them years ago. Michael Harvey wrote some good Chicago mysteries, and I listened to those when I got tired of the others.

Donuts.

We picked up Polish pastries at Kurowski Sausage Shop, pretzel-like crescents lightly filled with an unidentifiable jam, but I was too intimidated to brave the meat case. On Sunday morning we made a quick drive to Oak Park for Donuts at Firecakes Donuts and a quick visit to the Frank Lloyd Wright studio. The donuts were just fine, and I wish we’d had time to look at the scattered Wright houses. Next time.

There are Dunkin’ Donuts everywhere in Chicago. Chicago should do better.

Playlist.

This was a long list, so it’ll be pretty general.

Chicago’s population is 32.9% non-Hispanic African or African American. The percentage of African American population in Houston, a Southern city with significant historic black communities, is only 22.9%. For the Houston metropolitan area, Houston plus the suburbs, the number drops slightly, to 21%, but for Chicago 32.9% plunges to 17% when you add in the suburbs.

The two cities are of roughly the same size, but their largest growth occurs about a century apart. The historic African American population in Houston has its origin in slavery, but much of the dispersion from the city into the suburbs occurred after the Civil Rights Movement, and Blacks apparently moved out to the suburbs in about the same numbers as they stayed in Houston. In Chicago, the boom in African American population occurred in the great migration, from 1910 to 1960, and plenty of movement to the suburbs occurred largely before the Civil Rights Movement. Blacks apparently stuck to (or were confined to) the City.

Why this is kicking off the music playlist may not be obvious, but there is a lot of great music out of Chicago’s African American community. There are three cities most responsible for the origination of jazz: New Orleans, Kansas City, and Chicago. The earliest migration of the Blues was from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago. This is Great Migration stuff, and stuff that shaped us profoundly.

Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, 1925, Chicago

There’s another odd thing about Illinois music, there’s a surprising number of good folk/country/Americana musicians out of Illinois. Illinois is our second flattest state after Florida, tucked in as a drainage between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi. It hides all that flatness with a combination of skyscrapers and trees. Anyway, all that flatness makes for great farmland, and except for Chicago, this is Midwest farm country. It’s no surprise that farm country makes for country music and Republican voters.

Jazz

I probably should have done better, but Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong. Armstrong’s first recordings are from Chicago. The singers Dee Alexander and Johnny Hartman, and Herbie Hancock.

Blues

Of course the Blues Brothers was set in Chicago. Where else would it be? All of these musicians were from, cycled through, wrote about, or sang about Chicago: Robert Johnson, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Jimmy Rogers (no, not that Jimmie Rodgers), Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, Little Walter, Luther Allison, Hound Dog Taylor, Jimmy Reed, Slim Harpo, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Son Seales, Otis Rush, Sonny Boy Williamson, James Cotton, Magic Sam, Lonnie Brooks, Earl Hooker, Freddie King . . . Is Bo Diddley the Blues? We talked about going to a blues bar on Saturday, but we’re old, things start late, and fishing starts early. Next time.

Dovydenas, Jonas,  Muddy Waters, Checkerboard Lounge, 423 E. 43rd St., Chicago; Chicago, Illinois, 1977, Library of Congress, Chicago Ethnic Arts Project Collection.

Folk/Country/Americana

John Prine, Allison Krauss, Shawn Colvin, Son Volt, Wilco, Steve Goodman.

Has there ever been a sadder song than Steve Goodman’s A Dying Fan’s Last Request? Not only was Goodman in fact dying, he was a Cub’s fan. There is nothing more pathetic than the Chicago Cubs, but it’s still one of the best baseball songs ever.

Scattered and Inconsisten Rock

In early adolescence, I thought Chicago was the greatest band ever. I liked the brass, I liked the politics, I liked the guitar. I hadn’t listened to them since. Color My World was probably the first song I learned to play on the guitar, though in my defense it was probably before it became the most important high school prom song ever written. I still think 25 or 6 to 4 was a pretty great song. Pretty good song. Ok, I still like it.

Reo Speedwagon, Cheap Trick, Smashing Pumpkins.

When Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville came out in the 90s it got great reviews and I bought a copy, probably without actually reading the reviews. We were on a family car trip and I started the CD in the car. Some song came on, Flower? Fuck and Run? Anyway, it was really not age appropriate, either for me or my children. This trip was probably the second time I’d listened to it. It’s pretty raw in a “I grew up in Chicago suburbs and graduated from Oberlin” sort of way. It may be age appropriate for my children now, but it’s still not age appropriate for me.

Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville.jpg

Random Stuff

  • Allister, Somewhere Down on Fullerton.
  • Mobstability, Crook County (Bond Crusher Mix).
  • Rhett Miller, The El.
  • The Lawrence Arms, A Guided Tour of Chicago.
  • Andrew Bird, Pulaski at Night. Good song.
  • Common, Chi-City.
  • Frank Sinatra, My Kind of Town.
  • Graham Nash, Chicago/We Can Change the World.
  • Sufjan Stevens, Illinois.
  • Dan Fogalberg, Illinois.
  • Ben Folds, Effington.
  • Twista, Crook County.
  • Kanye West, Homecoming
  • Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah, Lake Shore Drive
  • Jim Croce, Bad Bad Leroy Brown.
  • Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Mahler, Symphony #9 in D. The Chicago Symphony Center Orchestra Hall is magnificent.

Guitar.

Didn’t take one. A guy in the airport told me that he always checked his guitar, and convinced me that I could do the same with a good enough case. Kris thought that was a great idea. Stuffing a guitar in the overhead is a pain. I got back to Houston and ordered a new case.

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Illinois

Over the Labor Day weekend we’re fishing in Illinois. This year we’ve fished in the Northeast, the South, the West, and Hawaii, and we’re on our way to Idaho, but we’ve made no trips to the Midwest. I have this premonition of us coming down to the last states with Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Indiana the last on the list, so we’re making a special effort to knock Illinois off the list. I’ve been to Illinois plenty, or at least I’ve been to Chicago plenty, but Illinois isn’t a fishing destination, no matter how much I might otherwise like Chicago

And I do like Chicago. Chicago overwhelms the state, but the population in the corporate limits of the city is declining. In 1840, Chicago’s population was 4,470, St. Louis’s 77,860, and New Orleans’ 116,375. Midwestern trade ran down the Mississippi on steamboats from St. Louis and points north to New Orleans. While St. Louis and New Orleans thrived, Chicago was a frontier settlement badly located in a muddy swamp. Trains changed everything. By 1900, six years before one of the great Chicago novels, The Jungle, the population of St. Louis was 575,238 and the population of New Orleans was 287,104. Chicago’s population was 1,698,575.

Chicago won the 19th Century.

McCormick Harvester Company advertisement – Front page of The Abilene reflector, Kansas, May 29, 1884 – scanned by US Library of Congress http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84029385/1884-05-29/ed-1/, from Wikipedia.

Three things built Chicago: meat, grain, and railroads, and Chicago’s rail and Great Lakes access to producers and markets and processing of meat and grain shaped the settlement of the the rest of the Prairies. With a McCormick reaper purchased on the installment plan (and other stuff purchased by catalogue from Sears, Roebuck), Chicago carried the Prairies into a market economy that was something new, something different. In the 18th Century Long Island farms produced grain. In the 19th Century Long Island farms converted to truck farms for produce.

Hog Butcher for the World,
   Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
   Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
   Stormy, husky, brawling,
   City of the Big Shoulders:

Carl Sandburg, Chicago, 1914.

Sandburg’s not much in vogue, but explaining the City of the Century in 22 lines was pretty good work.

But still, Chicago is only one city in Illinois. In 1900 the population of Chicago was 1,698,575, the population of Illinois was 4,821,550. In 1950, Chicago’s zenith and three years before Saul Bellow published another of the City’s great novels, The Adventures of Auggie March, the city’s population was 3,620,962. By 2010 the city’s population had declined to 2,695,598.

Augiemarch.jpg

But in the 2010 census Illinois remained the sixth most populous state with 12,830,632 people, behind, in order, California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Chicago proper may have shrunk, but greater Chicago, the municipal statistical area known as Chicagoland, had a population of 9.5 million. There’s Chicago, and then there’s Chicago.

For Democrats, Illinois has been a dependable presidential vote, and Hillary Clinton carried the state in 2016 by 55.83%. There was, however, a decided rural/urban voter split, with Donald Trump carrying the rural counties.

Al Zifan, Illinois Presidential Results 2016, Creative Commons Attribution.

Illinois and Chicago also have a long and distinguished mastery of political corruption and political incompetence. Four of the last seven governors of Illinois, three Democrats, one Republican, served time after leaving office. The most imaginative may have been Rod Blagojevich (D), who tried to sell the appointment for Barrack Obama’s successor in the US Senate. Its most famous congressman, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R), plead guilty to structuring bank withdrawals to avoid reporting requirements, but is perhaps better known for admitting to molesting boys as a high school wrestling coach. Other well known Congressmen included Dan Rostenkowski (D) (mail fraud, 17 months) and Jesse Jackson (D) (mail and wire fraud, 30 months).

There’s also a special level of City of Chicago corruption, best captured in its 50-member Board of Aldermen. Patronage drove Chicago politics at least through the modern age, but even in the modern age the corruption is magnificent: The Economist quotes Dick Simpson of the University of Illinois, who estimates that of the 200 aldermen serving since 1969, 33 have served time for corruption. That’s only about 15%, but one suspects that there’s plenty of undetected malfeasance, and it’s 15%. Think of it being the norm for 15% of your co-workers going to work for fraud. That would be a special kind of office culture.

Of the places we’ve been, only New Orleans and Louisiana can hold a candle to Chicago and Illinois.

Chicago, Illinois. Union stockyards, Delano, Jack, 1943, U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War InformationChicago, Library of Congress.

And the incompetence! Chicago’s pension deficit is $28 billion and there’s no real plan to fix it. And as crippling as that is, it’s a drop in the bucket when stacked up against the estimated $214 billion state pension deficit. Standard & Poor’s rates Illinois’ long-term debt at BBB-minus. Junk. Illinois government is broke and failing.

There’s plenty of good stuff to say about Chicago. The University of Chicago championed the social sciences, there’s the magazine Poetry, a fine symphony and opera, the Art Institute, and Prairie Style architecture and the modern skyscraper. There’s the White Sox. Of course there’s also the Black Sox.

Illinois did give us our greatest statesman, A. Lincoln. One can put up with a lot for A. Lincoln. And I thought Barrack Obama a very good president, and he’s at least as Illinoisian as Lincoln was.

Abraham Lincoln, Matthew Brady, 1860, National Portrait Gallery.

Of course we’re going to go to Illinois to fish, and it’s not known for its fishing. I thought about trying urban fishing in the city, but honestly that feels presumptuous. It seems to me that urban fishing may be best left to local residents, and this exercise is stunt-like enough. Plus I should at least once get out of Chicago. We’ll go looking for smallmouth out of the City.

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Island Kingdom

Catskill Mountain House Hotel, opened 1824, ”View From The Mountain House” by W.H. Bartlett, 1836. Engraving by R. Branford, published in “American Scenery”, London 1838.

I have been to New York City just enough, and I could live the rest of my days without returning. How often? I don’t know. A half dozen times? A dozen? But the number of times I’ve actually been there isn’t really the point, is it? Most times I’ve turned on the television or listened to the radio or read a book I’ve likely as not been on a trip to New York City, or at least someone’s idea of the place.

Getting ready for the Catskills we’ve been watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and yes, she is Marvelous, and because of the tv show I’ve been reading about why the great Jewish Catskill resorts died: greater mobility, mismanagement, dispersion from the City by the New York Jewish community, air conditioning, and assimilation.

I have a favorite movie moment, ok I have a lot of favorite movie moments but one is when Cary Grant is abducted from the Plaza Hotel’s Oak Room in North by Northwest. Everything in that sequence, the room, the martini, Grant’s suit and perfect shirt and tie, were meant to show the rest of us New York City. Becoming a man who takes a phone call in the Oak Room and begins an adventure was at least one of the things that I could aspire to. It was as exotic as Tahiti, and just as appealing.

North by Northwest (1959)

When we were getting ready for Louisiana I read a book by Shane K. Bernard about the Cajuns, called, fittingly enough, The Cajuns.* The premise of the book was that until after the World War II mobilization the Cajuns were culturally isolated, and that after World War II and the advent of television the Cajuns were assimilated into a national culture. Not completely: we still thank God have red beans and rice and boudin and spring crawfish, but a Cajun boy born in the 50s or 60s or 70s no longer looked solely to Lafayette or New Iberia or Lake Charles for his only point of reference. The television beamed New York and Los Angeles and London into his home every evening, and what it beamed was inordinately influenced by New York City. As much as any place it came from New York City.

It worked both ways though. If New York had more influence on the national culture, the rest of the nation was more accessible to New Yorkers. New Yorkers also assimilated. Air travel opened the nation physically and at the same time old prejudices declined. New Yorkers were no longer confined to the Castskills. The Catskill resorts died.

Getting ready to go to New York, I’ve been reading a history of Catskill fly fishing by Ed van Put, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Burrows and Wallace, “Rip Van Winkle”, E.B. White’s short essay “Here is New York“, a book of New York geology (orogeny, glaciers). But whatever I read now, whatever I might try to read before we go, much of my reading life has already involved New York, and I give up. It wins. Just to name a few important books to me: The Last of the Mohicans; The Great Gatsby; The Summer Game; The Emperor’s Children; Netherland; How the Other Half Lives; Bright Lights, Big City; The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York; Eloise; Washington Square; Kaddish; Enter the Goon Squad; Veronica; The Pushcart Wars; Breakfast at Tiffany’s; Lunch Poems; The Boys of Summer; The Poems of Hart Crane; Brooklyn; Catcher in the Rye; The Poems of Charles Reznikoff; Motherless Brooklyn; Leaves of Grass; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Klay; The Age of Innocence; The Bonfire of the Vanities; it wins. It wins.

Spider-Man lived in New York City.

I suspect though that New York doesn’t win in the same way any more. There was a time when a good part of our notions were bundled and delivered from New York, but our notions now come from Fox News or CNBC or what our friends, defined as the people we haven’t unfriended, post on Facebook. We have so many media choices that we only need to see the things that affirm our own prejudices. We can happily return to alienation and separation.


The Oak Room closed in 2017.

Maybe it was always really this way, but it seems that every man is now his own island kingdom of inclinations and prejudices. I’ve been to New York City plenty enough, but at least I’ve been, and it has always changed me in ways I didn’t expect. While there are other places I’d rather go, I don’t at all mind going again, or another half-dozen or dozen times. Mrs. Maisel is still Marvelous. And each time I ‘ll likely come back a little different, a little surprised at what else there is.

* * *

There are roughly three weeks each spring when Houston is the best place in the world to be. Home-grown tomatoes ripen, the largemouths move onto and off of their spawning beds, the reds and the flounder return to the bays from the Gulf, baseball returns, the last of the winter northers come into town not for revenge but gently, sweetly. It is always green in Houston, but for that three weeks it could be no other color. Best of all the walls of climbing star jasmine bloom and add their scent, a scent less cloying but as lovely as a roomful of lilies, and you smell the scent of jasmine on every walk or bike ride or run.

We went Sunday to Damon’s Seven Lakes to catch post spawn bass, and I caught three of these on my new five weight rod. The rod is a Winston Pure, and Trout Unlimited sent it to me because I am kind, handsome, and amusing. It was very good of them. I also saw, cast to, and caught a six or seven or eight pound catfish, which for various reasons neither Kris nor I got a picture of, mostly because she thought I was taking the picture and I thought she was taking the picture. Anyway I caught a trophy catfish and three good largemouths on a rod that, if you look carefully at the picture, is inscribed “Trout Unlimited.” It’s not inscribed “Bass Unlimited,” and certainly not “Channel Cat Unlimited,” but “Trout Unlimited.” It’s not just any trout rod either: according to R.L. Winston it’s Pure. That must mean it’s probably too pure for bass, and certainly too pure for a big channel cat. I hope Trout Unlimited and R.L. Winston don’t find out. They might take the rod back because I abused it, and it really is sweet.

Since I didn’t get a picture of the catfish, I took a picture of a half-eaten plate of cheese enchiladas from Ninfa’s on Navigation to show you. They were delicious, and you’ll have to let that serve in the catfish’s stead. In a Texas sort of way it seems an appropriate trade. Probably because of that fish I had the catfish at Brennan’s of Houston on both Monday and Tuesday, but it’s just not my week to take pictures of catfish, live or fried. The Brennan’s catfish was good though, and the Damon’s catfish was magnificent. Just don’t tell the folk at Winston.

*Actually the name of the book was The Cajuns: Americanization of a People, but the shorter title works better in the paragraph.

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Reno, Nevada Packing List

What We Took

If you’re fishing with a good guide he will have good equipment, and dragging rods and reels and flies to the Territory almost seems pretentious. Still, we do. We took Kris’s 8 weight, my 7 weight, and two 5 weights. We took 5 weights for the Truckee River, and never took them out of the luggage. We fished the 7 and 8 weights some the second day. We took 250 grain and 350 grain and intermediate sinking lines, which we didn’t use, and floating lines, standard trout lines, which we did use but which we didn’t like as much as the guide’s Orvis Bank Shot lines.

Maybe we drag stuff because of familiarity, but I suspect it’s mostly pride of possession. Part of the fun of fly fishing is the esoteric gear, the rod cases, the well-made reels, the lines, and most of all the small bits of fur and feather, and there is always the notion that even with a guide we may sneak off to fish for a quiet evening and need our own stuff.

I tied flies for the trip and never touched them, and I felt bad about it, but it was my fault. They weren’t bad flies, either. At least the balanced leaches will be used. And the worms, but I won’t admit that I’ll use the worms.

I hate tying those squirmy things, not because I’m squeamish but because the squirmy part won’t stay straight. They also melt if they get Super Glue on them. Aiden at Reno Fly Shop said he now ran them through a bead head that he then ran onto a barbless hook. He never touched them with thread.

Casinos

I had never been into a casino. Some people find that odd, but there are none in Texas, and I never went out of my way to get to one when I traveled. I don’t understand the attraction of gambling. If I lose I hate losing and if I win I only feel lucky, not skilled. We looked around the Reno Circus Circus, which I hope is the worst casino in the world, because if it’s the best I’m baffled. This wasn’t James Bond playing baccarat, it was just kind of dismal. A friend said that he loves casinos because even though he doesn’t gamble he loves the people watching, and that the dismal is the point. He says that you can measure how upscale a casino is by the height of ladies’ heels: when you get to the place with stilt-like stilettos you’re in the upscale casino. I didn’t notice the heels in Circus Circus, but my guess is they were pretty flat.

Restaurants

We had one memorable meal, Louis Basque Kitchen, where Kris had the sweetbreads and I had the lamb. Everything was served family style at communal tables, though you ordered your entree. It was great fun, and one of the high school football coaches sitting next to us said that when we went to California we should hire his nephew at AC Fly Fishing as a guide. He was really proud of his nephew, and how could we now use anyone else? When we get to Redding it’s Anthony at AC Fly Fishing for us.

There’s a lovely French place, Beaujolais Bistro where we ate Friday, and I like a lovely French place. The last night we shared prom night in the suburbs at a place called Twisted Fork. The best part of Twisted Fork was the prom dresses and, oddly, the boys’ hair. Boys’ hair in Reno in prom night is magnificently well-coiffed.

There’s a surprising number of German bakeries in Reno. We went to one, The results were excellent. They also have a restaurant and a dance floor.

Pronunciation Guide

Nə-væ-də, as in banana, not Nə-vah-də, as in Prada or nada or whatever, the “what” part. In Spanish it means “snow covered.” I’m pretty sure that the correct Spanish pronunciation is not Nə-væ-də, but I’m from Houston, and you should hear the old-timers here pronounce San Felipe, or New Yorkers pronounce Houston. If you say Nə-vah-də then Nə-væ-dəns will cringe. At Louis Basque Corner it was the first thing our communal table mates told us. I have to admit that here in Houston Sæn Fɪl-ɪ-pee has pretty much gone by the wayside. I’m sad to see it go, so I’ll try to say Nə-væ-də.

Playlist

Crime Novels

I looked for mystery novels set in Nevada, but couldn’t find anything I liked. There were plenty of mystery novels, but the crimes were so despicably unpleasant that I couldn’t stomach them. I don’t think that’s an accident. What other kind of crime could get any attention in Nevada? I decided that the appropriate crimes for Nevada would be blackmail and theft. The threat of something not staying in Vegas, either secrets or money, might be pretty believable. All these serial killers get old.

Playlist

I found two musicians from Nevada, an operatic mezzo-soprano, Emma Zajick, and Panic! At the Disco!. I liked the opera singer.

So instead of native born music I listened mostly to songs that mention Reno or Las Vegas, and Vegas Acts. There are a lot of songs that mention Vegas.

Louis Prima
  • Sheryl Crow, “Leaving Las Vegas.” I liked the 80s, and nobody says the 80s like Sheryl Crow.
  • Sara Bareilles, “Vegas.” I didn’t know this song, or Sara Bareilles. Apparently it was kind of a big deal when it was first released. Its a good song.
  • Panic! At the Disco, “Vegas Lights.” I guess this the kind of music Vegas would produce if left to its own devices.
  • Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Cowboy Junkies “Ooh Las Vegas.” Things always go better with Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, and the Cowboy Junkies.
  • Elvis Presley, “Viva Las Vegas.” This song needs an exclamation point after Viva!
Heinrich Klaffs, Johnny Cash, Bremen, 1972.

Songs that mention Reno are different I think. They are generally stranger.

  • Johnny Cash, “Folsom Prison Blues.” This is one of the great songs, it’s impossible to say “Reno” without thinking “I shot a man . . .” There are actually two mysteries about the song. First, why would shooting a man in Reno, Nevada, put somebody in prison in a California prison? The usual internet answer is that the singer also committed a crime in California. Second, why would a train going through California end up in San Antonio? That’s one long haul. I figure these mysteries are like the creation of the world in seven days: poetic truth doesn’t need to be literal, and neither God nor poets are confined to mere facts.
  • REM, “All the Way to Reno.“
  • The Stone Foxes, “Reno.” I learned from this song that Casinos are built without windows.
  • Dottie West, “Reno.” This has nothing to do with the city.
  • Jonathan Richman, “Reno.” I thought this the best of the lot, except he doesn’t go fishing.
  • The Whiskey Gentry, “Reno.” You now know almost as much as I do.
  • Bruce Springsteen, “Reno.” This is the worst song Bruce Springsteen ever wrote. It’s about the additional price a prostitute charges for anal sex. I suspect Springsteen likes to write about places, and he’s good at it, but in Nə-væ-də he ran into the same problem the mystery novels run into: run-of-the-mill grittiness just don’t signify. So he wrote this. He shouldn’t have.
  • Beck, “Loser.” “I’m a loser baby/So why don’t you kill me.” That may be the strangest ear worm ever written.
  • Grateful Dead, “Friend of the Devil.”

And then there are the lounge acts: Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Frank Sinatra, Charo, Liberace, Celine Dion, Lois Prima, Bobby Darin, Wayne Newton, Elton John. There are some great songs in this songbook, “That Old Black Magic,” “Mambo Italiano,” “Everybody Loves Somebody,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” “I’ll Never Smile Again,” and the first time I listened through it I was so excited, and the second time I was a little weary with much of it, and on the third day I wondered who ever listened to a steady diet of this? And Celine Dion, what’s up with that? We never made it through a single Celine Dion song, and she’s been in Vegas for 17 years straight. Celine Dion will never be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because she will still be playing Vegas.

I promise Kris that when Celine came through Houston on her new world tour I’d get tickets. Man was Kris excited.