Mayor Johnson's unfortunate — and telling? — effort to echo MLK

& some excruciating dad jokes to take your mind off the news

9-25-2025 (issue No. 211)

This week:

• That’s so Brandon! — The mayor calls prisons and cops a “sickness,” then edits those highly charged words out of the official video. Tsk.

• Last week’s winning quip

• News and Views — Hot takes, fully baked

• Land of Linkin’ — Where I tell readers where to go

• Squaring up the news — Where Charlie Meyerson tells readers where to go

• Media notes

• Quotables — A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

• A thought about schoolteachers and administration social media policies

• Cheer Chat — A “Songs of Good Cheer” update

• Quips — The winning visual jokes and this week’s contest finalists

• What’s on “The Mincing Rascals” podcast this week

• Good Sports — It looks as though it will be a historic season in baseball after all

• Green Light — “Bring the House Down” by Charlotte Runcie

That’s So Brandon!

Jails and incarceration and law enforcement is a sickness that has not led to safe communities. — Mayor Brandon Johnson, 9-16-2025

Hizzoner was hot when he gave the above response last week to a reporter who asked him about President Donald Trump’s threats to send the National Guard to patrol the city. In one little sound bite, Johnson undid all his soothing reassurances that, no, despite some of his earlier rhetoric when he was a mere activist, he’s not one of those radical, defund-the-police, abolish-prisons idealists.

He went on to add:

I get so sick and tired of people in this country and in this city that believe that the only thing that you can offer Black people and poor people is jails, incarceration and police officers. Dr. King said this right here in Chicago (at) the National Conference on New Politics. What did he say? He said, “Militarism is a sickness.” I am trying to eradicate the sickness from this city and from this country.

So Johnson’s ill-chosen word “sickness” was an effort to channel the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. who was not referring to incarceration or police or the National Guard in his 1967 speech, “The Three Evils of Society,” but to America’s gross expenditure of blood and treasure in the Vietnam War:

We are now experiencing the coming to the surface of a triple-prong sickness that has been lurking within our body politic from its very beginning. That is the sickness of racism, excessive materialism and militarism. … Nothing more clearly demonstrates our nation’s abuse of military power than our tragic adventure in Vietnam. This war has played havoc with the destiny of the entire world. It has torn up the Geneva Agreement, it has seriously impaired the United Nations, it has exacerbated the hatred between continents and worse still between races. It has frustrated our development at home, telling our own underprivileged citizens that we place insatiable military demands above their critical needs. It has greatly contributed to the forces of reaction in America and strengthened the military industrial complex. And it has practically destroyed Vietnam and left thousands of American and Vietnamese youth maimed and mutilated and exposed the whole world to the risk of nuclear warfare.

Referring to cops as “a sickness” quite naturally offended the local Fraternal Order of Police. Chapter President John Catanzara fired back in a YouTube video recorded near Johnson’s home:

Behind me is the mayor's house​. Three squad cars blocking it, patrolling it, protecting it for him and his family​. Yet he calls law enforcement ​a “sickness.” What a hypocrite​. Piece of garbage. … He ​has always hated us. He still hates us.

Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke was more measured in her response, calling Johnson’s words “disappointing and disheartening” and adding:

We are part of law enforcement. I have 1,300 people who work in this office, who are dedicated public servants, who get up every single day to make sure that they keep women safe from domestic violence, to make sure that we are doing our jobs in protecting children from being sex trafficked, to make sure that we are prosecuting murder cases. What we do every day does not call for our eradication.

Johnson himself indicated he might like to have that declaration back by editing it out of his official video from the news conference (see the telltale jump cut at about the 30-second mark).

When CBS 2 asked him about the controversy, Johnson didn’t back down:

The people who heard my statement, they know exactly what I meant and what I'm talking about. (Critics of the statement are) using this moment to politicize to justify their own insecurities. I'm not going to stand for it, I'm not going to take it, and neither will the residents of this fine city. … Law enforcement alone does not keep communities safe. Law enforcement agrees with me on that. … How do you send police officers into communities where there's little access to affordable housing? What is a police officer's responsibility to hunger? What is a police officer's responsibility for the lack of funding for special education and bilingual education? Should police officers solve those problems? No, that's not their responsibility. So I've said this for years now. This is nothing new.

Sorry, but using the word “sickness” to describe the men and women who risk their lives to keep us safe and to describe the institutions that incapacitate those who prey on our communities is something new.

Johnson’s remark received surprisingly little coverage in local media given how incendiary it was and how likely it is to play a role in the 2027 mayor’s race, though the Tribune Editorial Board did weigh in with a strong piece:

So the message he delivered remained a divisive one, meant to cast aspersions on those who would hold criminals responsible for their actions and to find common cause with those who believe in third, fourth and fifth chances for criminals.

We don’t believe this is a winning political message, but we do think it is revealing of what Johnson really believes — that policing and law enforcement are at best necessary evils in reviving the Chicago neighborhoods most beset by violent crime. And that’s giving Johnson the benefit of the doubt; he did of course initially refer to law enforcement as a disease.

Are policing and imprisoning the only ways to lower crime rates? Clearly not. Police misconduct is far too common, and prisons aren’t doing a good enough job at rehabilitation. Few people dispute that a multi-pronged approach to crime also involves better job, education, housing, health, recreational and nutritional opportunities in high-crime communities. I’d add gun restrictions to that list.

But are policing and imprisonment necessary components in the effort to enhance public safety? Absolutely.

An aside about newspaper editorials

Yes, I approvingly quoted a Tribune editorial above after slamming two of their editorials (here and here) in Tuesday’s Picayune Plus. I call ’em like I see ’em. And I categorically reject the views of those who claim the Editorial Board’s positions are reliably far right, far left or just always off base.

I also reject the view that newspaper editorials don’t matter anymore. Now, I don’t think they should matter, as they simply reflect the views of, at most, a few journalists. But since many people take with extra seriousness the unsigned, institutional voice of major publications and since the reading public often conflates views expressed on the opinion pages with the views of journalists who edit and write the news, it remains important to hold editorials to a higher standard than, say, an op-ed ghost-written for perennial candidate Willie Wilson.

Last week’s winning quip

A rare tie this week:

Two things I learned yesterday: 1. I’m not too old to sit in a beanbag chair. 2. I’m too old to get out of one. — @sixfootcandy

My Tinder bio says that I have a corner office with views of the entire city, drive a $500,000 vehicle and that I'm paid to travel. My dates are always upset when they learn I'm a bus driver. — unknown

Here are this week’s nominees and the winner of the Tuesday visual-jokes poll. Here is the direct link to the new poll.

News & Views

News: Jimmy Kimmel returns to late-night network TV after a brief suspension.

View: Tuesday night’s monologue was pitch-perfect. No notes.

News: Trump gives an unhinged eulogy at Charlie Kirk’s funeral and a rambling narcissistic diatribe at the United Nations, then offers deeply irresponsible medical advice at a news conference.

View: I can’t keep up with the flabbergasting outrages. And maybe that’s the point. I haven’t touched on the extrajudicial murder on the high seas of suspected drug smugglers, reports that Trump’s Justice Department shut down an investigation into allegations that his “border czar” Tom Homan took a $50,000 bribe to steer border security contracts a certain way, the crackdown on independent reporting by journalists covering the Pentagon, Republicans eliminating nearly all the funding for an IRS program designed to go after wealthy tax cheats and, closer to home, the fatal shooting of undocumented immigrant Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez by ICE agents on the streets of Franklin Park.

Any of these stories would have been major scandals dominating the headlines under previous administrations. It’s been difficult for any of us to focus our indignation on any one dismaying event — the White House’s refusal to disgorge the files related to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, for instance.

About that shooting in Franklin Park: The New York Times posted a lengthy analysis of the Sept. 12 incident (gift link) that at the very least gives a lie to the Department of Homeland Security’s claim in the aftermath that an ICE officer had suffered “severe injuries” during the encounter. Their analysis also undercuts the DHS claim that Villegas-Gonzalez “attempted to drive his car into officers.”

I’m reminded of the false claim that the Chicago Police Department made that Laquan McDonald had to be shot because he lunged at officers. When video evidence emerged, it showed McDonald was, in fact ,walking away from officers when one of them opened fire at him.

How about an independent investigation?

News: Henry Bienen named interim president of Northwestern University.

View: His name prompts an unpleasant flashback. Bienen — who served as NU’s president from 1995 until 2009 — stepped in after Michael Schill resigned earlier this month. And the story triggered in me a memory of one of the more egregious examples of left-wing cancel culture.

In 2020, Bienen was president of the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the foundation released this statement:

The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine stand in solidarity with the Black community, and denounce injustice and systemic racism.

As an organization we recognize that there is much work to be done, and we are committed to engaging in this work to eradicate institutional racism. We acknowledge that real change takes time and dedication, and we are committed to making this a priority.

We believe in the strength and power of poetry to uplift in times of despair, and to empower and amplify the voices of this time, this moment.

If you don’t see what’s deeply wrong with this, you are insufficiently radical. More than 1,800 inflamed lefties signed an open letter to the foundation blasting the statement as “vague,” “non-substantive,” “an insult” and “worse than the bare minimum.”

Rather than respond to the foundation’s statement with “Yes, and …” along with suggestions of how the organization might use some of its resources to better address the issues that were then prompting great racial unrest, the mob responded, “Fuck you!” in effect and demanded Bienen’s resignation, which he offered.

I wonder how many of those insufferable signatories joined in the outrage over Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension last week. To those who didn’t, I admire your consistency.

Land of Linkin’

• CNN: “Joe Rogan defends Kimmel and tells conservatives supporting censorship: ‘Oh my God, you’re crazy.’”

• Kenneth Lowe in Paste: “Chicago and the Slow Death of the Professional Movie Review.”

• A year ago this week, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson disconnected the ShotSpotter gunfire detection system. CWBChicago’s “Brandon’s Bodies” count of “cases where people were found shot in areas formerly covered by ShotSpotter—incidents where the system could have played a vital role in providing a timely response” has reached 57. Twenty-three of the incidents resulted in fatalities.

• Politico: “5 Reasons the Supreme Court Might Change Its Mind on Same-Sex Marriage.”

• President Donald Trump is in a lather about the glitch in his teleprompter at the U.N., but in 2016, Politico reviewed Trump’s many criticisms of pols who use that technology. Meanwhile, Trump wrote that those who hit the stop button on a U.N. escalator as he was boarding “should be arrested!”

• Fox News host Jesse Watters “suggests UN should be ‘bombed’ over Trump escalator malfunction.”

• The Tribune’s Hope Moses reports on the out-of-scale and in some cases puzzling salaries of school superintendents in area districts. (gift link)

• “As of the end of August, the whereabouts of two-thirds of more than 1,800 men detained at Alligator Alcatraz during the month of July could not be determined by the Miami Herald.”

• PolitiFact rates Trump’s claim “There's no downside” to avoiding Tylenol or acetaminophen while pregnant as a “pants on fire” lie. But is it a lie if you’re so ignorant that you believe what you’re saying?

Squaring up the news

This is a bonus supplement to the Land of Linkin’ from veteran radio, internet and newspaper journalist Charlie Meyerson. Each week, he offers a selection of intriguing links from his daily email news briefing Chicago Public Square:

■ If Disney/ABC placed any restrictions on Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late night after a suspension over his remarks about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, they were nowhere in evidence Tuesday night as he struck what Variety’s Michael Schneider calls “the perfect tone.”

■ Stephen Colbert: “Thanks to everybody … watching from home—which might be just my wife, Evie. Because everybody else is probably watching ABC.”

■ That wouldn’t include viewers in markets with ABC affiliates owned by the right-skewing Sinclair and Nexstar station chains, several of which are in Illinois, where Sinclair co-owns the Cubs’ Marquee Sports Network.

■ Columnist Christopher Armitage: “We brought Kimmel back in six days. Now let’s destroy Sinclair’s censorship machine.”

■ “A dark fantasy of narcissism and Christian nationalism”: Historian Heather Cox Richardson reviews Trump’s … oh, let’s say … whack-job speech to the United Nations, two minutes of “deranged” highlights from which Zeteo provides here and in which the president repeatedly complained about embarrassing escalator and teleprompter malfunctions that the U.N. later attributed to Trump’s own team.

■ Emily Atkin at Heated calls it the “dumbest climate speech of all time … so stupid and unoriginal, it was actually kind of funny.” Trump also complained about the U.N.’s flooring.

■ Public Notice columnist Lisa Needham says one of the president’s social media posts over the weekend “made clear that he sees no problem whatsoever with openly calling for the most mind-bendingly corrupt behavior imaginable.”

■ Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin cheers signs The New York Times is “finally getting real about Trump” with some “surprisingly unflinching” articles.

■ Trib and Sun-Times alumnus Mark Jacob lists 10 ways MAGA is not like the Nazis—including No. 4: “ICE routinely wears masks. The Gestapo didn’t.”

■ “It’s possible President Donald Trump should’ve picked a better podcaster to head up the FBI”: USA Today’s Rex Huppke reviews two days of “embarrassing” congressional testimony from Kash Patel.

■ “I swung my camera forward and saw a man who was carrying an American flag walk into the huge cloud of gas”: Tribune photographer Stacey Wescott describes how she captured a viral image of Friday’s protest outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement holding center in Broadview.

■ Sign up now for a special—free—event for Chicago Public Square readers Nov. 3: An online introduction to AI tools and fact-checking help for regular people.

You can (and should) subscribe to Chicago Public Square free here.

Media notes

Mary Mitchell makes the wall of fame

Press release from Chicago News Guild President Andy Grimm:

Longtime Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell will join the ranks of Chicago newsroom greats whose bylines hang on the wall of the legendary Billy Goat Tavern, joining only two other women to receive the city’s most idiosyncratic journalism honor. Always a trailblazer, Mitchell also will be the first woman of color to have her name on the wall at The Goat.

Mitchell will be surrounded by dozens of current and former news colleagues at 4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 26 at the Billy Goat location (at 430 N.) Lower Michigan Avenue. … Mitchell retired in 2024 after 34 years at the Sun-Times, where she rose quickly from a 41-year-old college graduate and cub reporter, to become one of Chicago’s most influential voices and a decorated columnist.

The Tribune has a new platform for its digital edition

I read the Trib’s print replica every morning on my iPad.

I know that, given my age, it would be fair to assume I’m one of those “I like the feel of an actual paper and the look of it spread out on the table in front of me” dying-breed atavists, but no. The digital replica gives me the sense of how the editors have prioritized yesterday’s news, also the serendipity of coming across stories I otherwise might not have been looking for and the ability to increase the size of the font for easier reading. I use screen captures to clip-and-save articles of note.

Recently, the paper changed platforms, and now the replica comes with banner ads at the bottom of the page and photos on the article-view page that obscure part of the headline:

The Sun-Times (which I also read in digital replica) still uses the format the Tribune used to use, which is more than adequate. I bring this up mainly to urge readers to give this approach to newspapers a try.

“Dallas Morning News shareholders vote to deny the hedge fund Alden Global Capital.”

From the Nieman Reports article that characterizes the Morning News’ decision to join the Hearst Corp. family of papers:

Alden Global Capital (which owns the Chicago Tribune and many other newspapers) is well known as the worst possible newspaper owner for anyone who cares about journalism, a hedge fund that has gutted newsroom after newsroom across the country.

David Axelrod’s memorial tweet for longtime local newspaper publisher Bruce Sagan

“Bruce Sagan’s Hyde Park Herald in Chicago hired me as a political columnist when l was just 18. He died this week, after a long and remarkable life. I’ll always be grateful for him and that break, which laid the foundation for my entire career.”

Disclosure: My wife is on temporary assignment as a news editor at WBEZ.

Quotables

A collection of compelling, sometimes appalling passages I’ve encountered lately

I can’t believe ABC Fake News gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. … He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative. — President Donald Trump

(Charlie Kirk) did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent. And I don’t want the best for them. — President Donald Trump

Biden was always a mean guy but never a smart guy . You go back 30 years ago, 40 years ago — ​he's a stupid guy​. But he was always a mean son of a bitch​. How's it working? ​Not working too well for him right now,​ is it? So when you start feeling sorry for ​him, remember: H​e's a bad guy. — President Donald Trump on Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis

(New York Times columnist Ezra) Klein wrote a whole column arguing that Kirk had done “politics right.” Which is completely accurate if you ignore everything Kirk ever said or did or stood for. Like if you completely ignored the virulent racism, the homophobia, and the transphobia, the history of racism in Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, and the iffy way it skirted campaign finance laws, then sure. That’s politics done right. Plastic bags have more structural integrity than Ezra Klein, and a lot more backbone. Ezra, buddy, did they give you a gold star for being such a good bootlicker? Does it help you to be the dictator’s favorite little boy? — Lyz Lenz

I’ve got it! What if we pointed out their hypocrisy? After we point out their hypocrisy, they’ll have no choice but to behave in a manner that is consistent with their purported values. — Travis View

Acetaminophen doesn’t cause autism — studies that suggested it might were confounding taking Tylenol with the conditions that Tylenol was being taken to treat. It was like saying white canes cause blindness. — Neil Steinberg

They actually said during the campaign, they had a hat, the best-selling hat. “Trump was right about everything.” And I don't say that in a braggadocios way, but it's true. I've been right about everything. And I'm telling you that if you don't get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail. — President Donald Trump

A Democrat congressional candidate was thrown to the ground by an ICE agent. Good work! — Laura Ingraham

There is a reason there are no North Korean comedians — unknown

Look, Tom Homan has not had a trial and has never been proven guilty. So let’s all take a step back and do what he would do: Send him to a secret prison in El Salvador until we can figure this out — Bryan Tucker

(Charlie) Kirk, in life, could float the ugliest stereotypes, the most extreme rhetoric. But washed clean in the blood of martyrdom, it became a fireable offense to even mention that. And … the utter hypocrisy of it all. The people who debased public discourse prove to have the most exquisite sensitivities when it comes to their precious selves. — Neil Steinberg

What if Kimmel stood up during his monologue and said … “I want to be able to get married, buy a home, have kids … while also not having them have to hear the Muslim call to prayer five times a day.” Would that be the good kind of free speech? If I’m following this all right, I think it would. Because that’s something Charlie Kirk said. — Rex Huppke

A thought about schoolteachers and administration social media policies

This set of guidelines for teachers and staff happens to come from Oak Park and River Forest High School but is similar to guidelines in many districts:

I see in the above a lot of room for administrators to react to public criticism by saying that any uproar, no matter how ginned up by culture warriors, is "interfering with the employees job duties," is "disruptive to the employer's operation," "adversely affects the learning or work environment" or "diminishes a teacher's effectiveness." So much room, in fact that it amounts to very little protection at all from even a small, loud band of parents.

Cheer chat

Update on preparations for the 27th annual “Songs of Good Cheer” winter holiday singalongs Dec. 11-14 at the Old Town School of Folk Music hosted by Mary Schmich and me.

We are very close to naming a substitute for the brilliant Jim Cunningham, who is taking the year off to attend to other musical obligations.

The first task of the season is to choose roughly 20 songs for the program — some familiar seasonal classics and some wonderful, though less well-known, holiday songs.

At an organizational meeting Tuesday afternoon I was unable to gin up much enthusiasm for “Sound Your Instruments of Joy,” an a cappella pub song that my fellow castmates consider both too unfamiliar and too difficult to make for a good singalong. I concede that they are probably correct, but what a great Christmas song!

We’re sure to include the Beach Boys’ “Little Saint Nick” this year as a tribute to band co-founder Brian Wilson who died in June at age 82 and are almost sure to revive “Sweet Chiming Christmas Bells.” I’m hoping to once again lead the song “Chariots,” as this lyric in particular seems apt these days:

 As a candle can conquer the demons of darkness
As a flame can keep frost from the deepest of cold
So a song can give hope in the depths of all danger
And a line of pure melody soar in your soul.
So sing your songs well and sing your songs sweetly
And swear that your singing it never shall cease
So the clatter of battle and drums of disaster
Be drowned in the sound of the pipes of peace.

Come out and sing with us!

Buy tickets online, by phone at 773-728-6000 or at the Old Town School of Folk Music box office, 4544 N. Lincoln Ave. in Chicago.

Quips

In Tuesday’s paid-subscriber editions, I present my favorite tweets that rely on visual humor. Subscribers then vote for their favorite. Here is the winner from this week’s contest:

The new nominees for Quip of the Week, special dad-jokes edition:

Apologies in advance for the cringy puns, but you will be telling some of these in polite company tomorrow, I’m sure. As usual with the occasional dad-jokes poll, I have not given attribution, as experience has shown me that the vast majority of these gags are not original with the person who has posted them.

• What's the difference between a hippo and a Zippo? One is very heavy, the other is a little lighter.

• I lost three fingers on my right hand, so I asked my doctor if I would still be able use that hand to write. He said: "Maybe, but I wouldn't count on it."

• I applied for a job hanging mirrors. It's something I can see myself doing.

• What do you call a magician who's lost his magic? Ian.

• Never fall for a tennis player. Love means nothing to them.

• Someone tried to sell me a coffin today. I said, that's the last thing I need.

• I didn't want to believe my dad was stealing from his job as a road worker. But at home, all the signs were there.

• I haven't kept up my subscription to Scrabble Club. Now they're sending me threatening letters.

• I finally found out what “chronology” means. And it's about time.

• If the King sleeps on a king mattress and the Queen sleeps on a queen mattress, where does the Prince sleep? On an heir mattress.

Vote here as soon as you are done groaning and check the current results in the poll.

For instructions and guidelines regarding the poll, click here.

Why “quips”? See “I’m rebranding ‘Tweet of the Week’ in a gesture of contempt for Elon Musk.” Also, I’m finding good stuff on BlueSky now.

Minced Words

Cate Plys, Marj Halperin and I joined host John Williams on this week’s episode of “The Mincing Rascals” podcast. We discussed Jimmy Kimmel’s return monologue and related issues, President Donald Trump’s attack on the active ingredient in Tylenol,the deaths of undocumented immigrants when in ICE custody, and, on a lighter note, dogs in restaurants.

Traffic lights:

• John: A green light for playing card games with friends, particularly “Liverpool Rummy.”

• Cate: A green light for “Death Throes of the Republic,” a series of episodes of Dan Carlin’s “Hard Core History” history podcast.

• Marj: A green light for the novel “North Woods” by Daniel Mason.

• Eric: A green light for the novel “Bring the House Down” by Charlotte Runcie.

Subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Or bookmark this page. If you’re not a podcast listener, you can hear an edited version of the show at 8 p.m. most Saturday evenings on WGN-AM 720.

Read the background bios of some regular panelists here.

Good Sports

Too bad about the Rockies!

The Colorado Rockies won their 42nd game of the season last Friday and thus dodged a date with infamy. That victory assured that the 2024 Chicago White Sox — 41-121 (.253) — will continue to hold the record for most losses in an MLB season. It looked promising for a while. The Rockies were playing .229 ball at the All-Star break in July but have been playing at a .339 clip since then. Bad, but not bad enough.

Nausea in the Motor City

But this will be a historic season in another way: “Guardians overcome largest deficit in MLB history to take first in AL Central.” From July 6 to 8, the Guardians trailed the Detroit Tigers by 15.5 games. They drew even with the Tigers on Monday night then passed them in the division standings Tuesday night as the Tigers lost their eighth game in row. The previous comeback record was set by the 1914 Boston Braves, who were 15 games back in the standings before surging to win the National League pennant and then the World Series.

“Tigers could find themselves on list of worst regular-season collapses in MLB history” (USA Today). A month ago today, the Tigers had a 10.5-game lead in the AL Central and a 12.5-game lead over the Guardians. Should they fail to make the post-season, even as a wild card — which now seems likely given that they have four games left and are in full swoon — it won’t quite match the epic fold of the 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers, who held a 13.5-game lead over the New York Giants in the National League pennant race on Aug. 11. The Giants caught them and forced a three-game playoff, which the Giants won in very memorable fashion:

Green Light

Green Light features recommendations from me and readers not only of songs — as in the former Tune of the Week post — but also of TV shows, streaming movies, books, podcasts and other diversions that can be enjoyed at home — i.e., no restaurants, plays, theatrical films, tourist sites and so on. Email me your nominations, and please include a paragraph or two of explanation and background along with helpful links, perhaps including excerpts from reviews or background articles. For TV shows, please include links to trailers/previews on YouTube and advice on where to stream them.

Audible recently suggested “Bring the House Down” by Charlotte Runcie to me after I’d finished a Hannah Pittard novel, and now I am suggesting it to you. The story begins when Alex Lyons, a British theater critic, files a scathing review of a one-woman show about climate change — “After you’ve endured the first 10 minutes of what the venue is loosely calling ‘a show,’ you’ll be begging for the world to end much sooner than scheduled” — goes to a bar, meets the very actress he has just savaged (she doesn’t know who he is) and takes her to his place for a one-night stand.

When the actress reads the review and realizes what Lyons has done, she makes him and what she learns about his sexual history the focus of her one-woman show. It becomes a huge hit, and I’ll say no more about how the novel unfolds from there.

Publisher’s description via Goodreads — “A brilliant Trojan horse of a book about art, power, misogyny, and female rage, ‘Bring the House Down’ is a searing, insightful, and often hilarious debut that captures the blurred line between reality and performance.”

Toby Litt in The Guardian — “(An) entertaining and very timely debut novel from Charlotte Runcie, an arts journalist who, as a young intern, was lambasted on stage by a successful standup to whom she’d given a bad review. … One of the most enjoyable novels I’ve read in a long time … Runcie (exhibits) verbal wit, narrative chops and emotional subtlety.”

Jesse Green in The New York Times — “(Runcie) gets the critic’s peculiar brew of idealism and indifference just right. … Yet ‘Bring the House Down’ sidesteps the most interesting question I wish it would answer. Should critics tell their absolute truth, even if it hurts? For (Alex) Lyons, the answer is yes: ‘A doctor saying that you have cancer doesn’t give you cancer. You had the cancer already and the doctor just pointed it out.’ That seems a little extreme to me, but I’ll buy another of his hot takes: ‘Clarity is generosity.’ In that spirit I give ‘Bring the House Down’ three stars. … It’s a pleasant ride.”

Hannah Korbel in the Chicago Review of Books: “‘Bring The House Down’ is a turbulent and harrowing ride on what it really means to criticize a culture, and discusses what the ‘cancelling’ of a person looks like outside of a social media doom scroll. … The difficult genius of ‘Bring The House Down’ is how hard it hammers the idea of there really being two sides to every story—even if those two sides are relatively simple to label as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ from multiple perspectives. … This novel addresses questions about culture wars that no one wants to be the first to answer, at least not without checking in with our feeds and ‘for you’ pages first.

Runcie is a former arts journalist who found inspiration for her first novel when a comedian whose show she had given a bad review revised the performance in order to include unflattering details about her.

Info

Eric Zorn is a former opinion columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Find a longer bio and contact information here. This issue exceeds in size the maximum length for a standard email. To read the entire issue in your browser, click on the headline link above. Paid subscribers receive each Picayune Plus in their email inbox each Tuesday, are part of our civil and productive commenting community and enjoy the sublime satisfaction of supporting this enterprise. Browse and search back issues here.

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