The Looking Glass Bookstore in Oak Park

I've been wanting to write up a little opinion piece on this store for the longest time and finally did so last month. Read it here.

The Curse of the Crystal Palace

(Another writing exercise)

In a crumbling section of Cicero sits the Crystal Palace Restaurant, an eatery once frequented by none other than Al Capone. When that mobster went to jail for tax evasion, legend tells of a celebration hosted by his enemy, Bugsy McGillicuty, at the Crystal Palace (which after that night was renamed, for a few months, the Palace of Broken Crystals for reasons you will learn in a moment. Capone might have been behind bars but his henchmen were not).

A grinning Bugsy had just raised his glass to his imprisoned enemy, or so the story goes, when a bullet shot the goblet out of his hand. It was embarrassing to be interrupted like that right in the middle of a gloat. Everyone dove to the floor except Bugsy, who was determined to finish the toast, despite the obvious presence of a hit man. He had been working on the speech for days, had committed it to memory, and didn’t want to see all that work go to waste, come what may. Faced with such determined courage (some might, and did, call it idiocy), the hit man stopped his work for one stunned moment. Bugsy was enormously flattered. “Here’s to that piece rancid pastrami who is now behind bars, will likely rot there, and so can’t do anything else to hurt any of u—”

His last word was cut short by the assassin’s bullet who, though a killer, was a very honest man, and couldn’t bear to hear a lie being told, especially in a public place. It would have been an extremely embarrassing moment for Bugsy, had he still been alive, to know that not one person clapped for his toast. They were all dead or fleeing into the parking lot.

From that moment on, anyone who ever raised a glass at the Crystal Palace suffered some sort of  public humiliation. There was the woman who swallowed her glass eye while toasting her doctor; the tiny elderly man who fell out of his elevator shoes when announcing his betrothal to his tall fiance; and the young girl who, while toasting herself at her 15th birthday party, suffered something akin to face rearrangement. She had spent hours applying her makeup but had unfortunately forgotten to take her antihistamine, so, during one enormous sneeze her false eyelashes fell off and landed above her lip, of all places. While she had earnestly hoped that her beautiful image would reverberate throughout the revered temple of social media, she couldn't have possibly foreseen that this would come to pass only because she appeared to be wearing a mustache.

The following year, her cousin suffered an even more cruel public humiliation. As she began to toast her beloved mother on the event of that woman's 41st birthday, she reverted to her odd second language, as she always did when she was nervous. Lifting her trembling goblet into the air, she began: “Etslay allyay aiseray ourhay lassesgay…” Crushed with the realization that she wouldn’t be able to speak anything but Pig Latin for the rest of the evening, she ran, weeping, into the bathroom and refused to come out, wishing to the dark skies above that she had believed her mother’s warnings about the curse of the Crystal Palace.

Harry Potter and the Clue of the Screeching Owl: Harry Potter characters in a Hardy Boys Setting

“Summer vacation!” Ron Weasley exclaimed. “No more saving the school until September!” He was sitting in his room with his friends Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. Harry and Hermione smiled. It was true that they had saved Hogwarts School—and the entire British wizarding world—three times in a row, always risking their lives and academic status to do so. They loved Ron but he was never much serious help during their adventures because he was a bit thick. Ron's contribution was lowbrow humor peppered with mild swearing that anyone who could understand his accent valued for its tension-breaking effect. That sort of thing came in very handy while repeatedly facing mortal danger.

“Sure, Ron, no more saving the school” said Harry, who was at that moment stunning some tiny woddle-hoppers that were trying to scurry under the rug. 

“Of course, Ron" said Hermione. "We aren’t allowed to use magic yet, outside of Hogwarts." She slapped Harry’s want out of his hand and returned to her favorite book, Hogwarts, a History. Although it was often the retention of her extensive reading that saved Ron and Harry during their repeated attempts to save the school, Hermione never let her extracurricular activities interfere with her studies and she still had dark circles under her eyes to prove it. 

“Let’s go for a ride, then” said Ron. “In Dad’s muggle car” he added in a whisper. Muggle was the perky slur used by magical people to refer to average human beings.

“Won’t your parents be ups-“ said Hermione in a nervous voice.

But Harry was already on his feet, following Ron, who was nearly flying down the stairs.

“Will you stop running down the stairs, Ronald Weasley!” his mother shouted angrily. Mrs. Weasley was supervising some spoons that were stirring three big pots on the stove. Although she used magic to do most of her chores, she was generally at loose ends, her face red and sweaty, her temper sharp.  Ron should have expected his mother’s outburst—she had mentioned the bit about running through the house once or twice—but it still took him by surprise and he tumbled down the remaining stairs. 

Harry froze. Hermione, following close behind, bumped into him and would have sent him flying if Mrs. Weasley hadn’t stepped over Ron's crumpled body, run up the stairs, and thrown her arms around Harry.

“I didn’t mean you, Harry dear”, said Mrs. Weasley in a sweet voice, patting Harry on the head and pinching his cheek. “You don’t have to look so worried. You can run through our house any time you like!”

“Um, thanks" said Harry.

“Bloody ‘hew” shouted Ron, who was still at the bottom of the stairway, curled up in the fetal position, and groaning in pain. “Mum, I think my ankle’s broken.”

“Ronald! What have I said to you about swearing in this house! Go on now, off with you three. Supper’s at six!”

Although Harry never knew what to do when Mrs. Weasley pinched or patted him, one of the things he loved best about staying at Ron's were the regular meals he enjoyed there. He usually spent the summers at the home of his inexplicably cruel muggle relatives and he had nearly been starved by them once or twice, partly because his obese cousin stole all of Harry’s food while his aunt and uncle looked on with approving smiles. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would have been more than happy to see their nephew die but only if it was completely, or nearly, accidental since their reputations mattered to them almost more than their morbidly obese son.

But here at Ron’s house, there was no threat of death by starvation. The constant kitchen-related fretting of the plump but attractive lady of the house always resulted in something delicious which she then proceeded to force upon everyone present, challenging them to eat “just one more bite.” It was a miracle that none of her children had grown as plump as she but perhaps that’s because they took after their slim but slightly less attractive father who, at six feet two, towered over his plump but attractive wife.

“Don’t worry, Mum!” cried Ron, limping out the door.

“Keep them out of trouble, Hermione!” Mrs. Weasley’s called over her shoulder. Hermione’s shoulders sagged. Just once she would like to be assumed to be the life of the party instead of the babysitter.

Part two.

Part three.

Part four. 

Some charmingly dark humor from Barbara Pym

"Mrs. Dyer went on to tell them all about a 'mystery tour', taken by the old people's association of a neighbouring village (the Evergreen Oldsters), on just such a hot afternoon as this on which they were now setting out. One of the old people on the journey home had been observed to be curiously silent, not joining in the sing-song.

'And do you know what?' Mrs. Dyer waited for an answer.

'He was dead?' said Emma brightly. 'Or was it an old woman?'

'No, it was an old gentleman.'

'I thought as much -- a woman would have more consideration than to do a thing like that, to die on an outing, with all the inconvenience.'"

Excerpted from page 109-110, A Few Green Leaves, E.P. Dutton edition.

Bumblebuzz, Rosalie K. Fry's first book

Bumblebuzz, Rosalie K. Fry’s first in a long illustrious line of children's titles, is a 20-page picture book about an anthropomorphic bumble bee who meets some new friends and gains a roommate. Simple enough, but as a Fry fan, I was fascinated to see in this little book a few seeds of Fry’s future work, especially her crème de la crème, The Secret of Ron Mor Skerry, published in 1957, nineteen years after Bumblebuzz.

Bumblebuzz lives in the roots of a tree and is befriended by two beetles, a snail, and a ladybird. All of Fry's books prominently feature some aspect of nature (not surprising considering Fry's bucolic childhood) . This is magically true in Ron Mor Skerry where the protagonist, Fiona, discovers a selkie in her family tree and learns that nature has powerfully impacted her immediate family as well.

Colorized Rosalie K. Fry Sketch. From The Secret of Ron Mor Skerry

After setting up the premise—Bumblebuzz is busy but lonely—Fry introduces the other tiny creatures who knock on Bumblebuzz’s door and ask if they can build a house on her field. When their new thatched roof house is demolished in a rain storm, Bumblebuzz suggests they rehab a deserted house around the corner from her, in the roots of the same tree. This activity winds up solving two problems: the homeless insects (and the crustacean) have a home and, as one of them moves in with Bumblebuzz, she is no longer lonely. 

Most of Fry’s books feature children solving problems by joining forces in a very similar way. In Ron Mor Skerry. Fiona, the protagonist, and her cousin, Rory, take it upon themselves to restore their family's abandoned, decaying cottages on Ron Mor Skerry to their original coziness, a prerequisite action for the story’s magical denouement.

From The Secret of Ron Mor Skerry

Bumblebuzz is a charming look at the first attempt of a beloved children’s author and a fascinating window into her future work. 

My discovery of James Whitcomb Riley

I once paid tuition dollars to learn that 19^th century English poetry was subpar. Not all of it, of course, but one professor, while explaining how “The Wasteland” was revolutionary for its time, constantly referred back to the following schmaltzy line from Shelly: “I fall upon the thorns of life, I bleed.” That, in his estimation, was the essence of what T.S. Eliot et al were trying to overturn in the early 20th century.

While Eliot was my favorite poet back then, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman (both, of course, iconoclastic in their day) have long overtaken the author of “The Waste Land” in my heart and in the number of minutes I spend reading poetry for pure pleasure. Eliot’s intellectualism seems bare and ascetic compared to Dickinson’s beautiful, pithy, mysterious brilliance or Whitman’s verbose exuberance.

But I've remained wary when it comes to 19^th century poetry collections, so when my library page daughter brought home three century-old books of poetry, I tried to remain unimpressed with the beautiful illustrations, inside and out, and the lovely thick paper that made the books quite heavy for their size. They were all written by someone named James Whitcomb Riley. 

I Googled him. In a nutshell, Riley was a Hoosier who celebrated the Midwest in his poetry. As a born and bred Midwesterner, I dove in and discovered some serious poetry chops in action, clearly displayed in the following lines from a poem titled “The Circus Parade”:

The Circus!—The Circus!—The throb of the drums,

And the blare of the horns, as the Band-wagon comes;

The clash and the clang of the cymbals that beat,

As the glittering pageant winds down the long street.

In the Circus parade there is glory clean down

From the first spangled horse to the mule of the Clown

With the gleam and the glint and the glamour and glare

Of the days of enchantment all glimmering there!

I could almost feel the excitement of a sleepy Midwestern town jolting to life as The Greatest Show on Earth rolled in. I could almost hear it too—Riley had some serious onomatopoeia going on, a few of the lines reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Bells." 

He could also be funny, as seen in "At Ninety in the Shade":

Hot weather? Yes; but really not,

Compared with weather twice as hot.

Find comfort, then, in arguing thus,

And you’ll pull through victorious!—

For instance, while you gasp and pant

And try to cool yourself—and can’t—

With soda, cream and lemonade,

The heat at ninety in the shade,--

Just calmly sit and ponder o’er

These same degrees, with ninety more

On top of them, and so concede

The weather now is cool indeed!

A painfully accurate description of a Midwestern summer! And while, perhaps, not as sharply humorous as an Ogden Nash poem, the above lines brought the latter immediately to mind (see “Lines to be Scribbled on Somebody Else’s Thirtieth Milestone”).

Thirty today? Cheer up my lad!

The good old thirties aren’t so bad.

Life doesn’t end at twenty nine

So come on in, the water’s fine…

I kept reading and discovered that Riley also did pathos. He did it well. While I knew that Americans of that period absolutely loved to drench themselves in mawkish emotion, I couldn’t find an ounce of it in the following poem entitled “He and I”, describing the quiet love of an elderly couple. It could have easily turned maudlin. It didn’t, and I loved it so much I’ve included the entire poem below:

Just drifting on together—

He and I—

As through the balmy weather

Of July

Drift two thistle-tufts imbedded

Each in each—by zephyrs wedded—

Touring upward, giddy-headed,

For the sky.

And, veering up and onward,

Do we seem

Forever drifting downward

In a dream,

Where we meeting song-birds that know us,

And the winds their kisses blow us,

While the years flow far below us

Like a stream.

And we are happy—very—

He and I—

Aye, even glad and merry

Though on high

The heavens are sometimes shrouded

By the midnight storm, and clouded

Till the pallid moon is crowded

From the sky

My spirit ne’er expresses

Any choice

But to clothe him with caresses

And rejoice;

And as he laughs, it is in

Such a tone that moonbeams glisten

And the stars come out to listen

To his voice.

And so, what’er the weather,

He and I,--

With our lives linked thus together,

Float and fly

As two thistle-tufts imbedded

Each in each—by zephyrs wedded—

Touring upward, giddy-headed,

For the sky.

I'm not sure how Riley was able to capture the quiet beauty long-time love so perfectly since he never married. But it’s crystal clear how he became one of the most popular American poets in his own time, even if he has been forgotten in ours.

Have you heard the one about the rector and the physician who walked into the mausoleum?

One of those deliciously awkward moments that only Barbara Pym can make completely hilarious. From A Few Green Leaves.


Even though the interior of the mausoleum was not to Tom's taste, there was something attractive about the idea of chilly marble on a hot summer day, and he pushed aside the velvet curtain and went in.

'Ah, rector...'

Tom had not expected a greeting and was startled when he saw that Dr. G. was already inside the mausoleum. Tom had sometimes wondered why Dr. G. should, like himself, have a key to the mausoleum. Its inhabitants were surely beyond his help now.

There was something slightly ridiculous about the two men confronting each other in this way and in such a place, and after the doctor's first 'Ah, rector...' and Tom's response of, 'Well, Dr. G...' they stood smiling at each other, Tom's hand resting, almost in blessing, on a cool marble head, and the doctor appearing to be examining the contours of a marble limb as if he were probing for signs of a fracture.