“I'm writing this ahead of schedule, as I'll be in the middle of a 600-mile drive back to Chicago when I normally write, from our family's lake cabin near Vergas, Minnesota after our annual Fourth of July get-together. Happily, potato salad and baked beans were, as always, on the menu, but politics was not.
We used to verbally spar, playfully, with conservative members of the family on such occasions, but politics is no longer playful and is less so with each passing year.”
Brian Hieggelke – Newcity
Brian was one of my first editors and publishers. He’s a criminally underrated Chicagoan, one of the most culturally literate and connected folks I’ve met. He’s also a generous publisher and film producer with a scout’s eye for local artistic talent.
Brian spends a lot of time editing, but he’s also a good writer and thought leader. I’ve always thought of him as the kind of person who speaks out when he believes he needs to, so when I read these words a few weeks ago just after the holiday, I was moved.
I was moved, because holidays with my family too included a lot more silence and a laceration of the connection between the brain and the tongue. I thought it necessary for tranquility and harmony, but, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with this.
Even without Brian’s words, I think many of us are worried about the conflict in America and have a general reluctance to enter any kind of fray right now. In this spirit, I found myself googling “American mood before the civil war” the other day. Would the results foretell of another split about to come?
Research was inconclusive. America was actually built on division, and division has been pressure forming our perfect union for centuries. If you’ve seen the musical Hamilton, you know of the bitter conflict between Hamilton and Jefferson, and also of course between Hamilton and Burr, which lead to a duel, and a gunshot that killed Hamilton. Still, America did not end. Farmers took up arms against the government at various points in that era, but that still did not finish America. Because conflict has been ever-present, ebbing and flowing, it’s really hard to know what’s necessary unrest leading to a better country and what ends up leading to a cataclysmic civil war.
What what we do know is that silence is often violence. Seven people were killed during a parade in Highland Park by Robert Crimo III. We know that Crimo obtained these guns because his father didn’t speak out. In Illinois, you can get a gun before you’re 21, but you need a sponsor for what is called am FOID license. A few years before the shooting, Crimo had threatened to kill his whole family and police removed an arsenal of knives and swords from his house. His father refused to press charges and instead sponsored his son’s ability to buy an assault weapon, which Crimo III used to massacre his fellow citizens. Even after the murders, Crimo’s father defended his own inaction, calling the domestic disturbance a childish outburst and characterizing Crimo III’s Kill Bill-like weapons cache as a harmless hobby akin to collecting stamps.
Unlike weapons, we know that dialogue, no matter how loud, doesn’t usually kill. It may foment anger or hatred, but words are not physically violent. Expression is a relief valve. If there is a silver lining to hateful expression, it’s that talking about something is often a replacement for doing the actual thing. I am convinced, even though I too have been quieter than usual, that we must continue speaking up when we believe we should.
This applies whether we’re talking about the implications of a super-schizophrenic society or something ostensibly lighter, like the food industry. This may seem like an unfair or odd transition, but food writers fawned over four star pre-fixe temples without recognizing that the seemingly impossible outcomes achieved by these places were often achieved at the physical, mental, and financial expense of their workers. We built up chefs as mythological deities, and like Zeus, they literally raped and assaulted without repercussion.
Just as restaurants realized they could raise prices and charge for health care and improve their cultures, we created influencers. Influencers wielded their cultural vacuum to suck up restaurant’s hard won assets, assets that could be used to build a positive and supportive kitchen culture .
Even the food critic of 2022, if there any left, generally writes in a voice of hyperbolic positivity. One star reviews read like four star ones. Even I, a hardcore devotee of honesty, get this. When I wrote about Wazwan last week, I genuinely questioned whether I should mention the salt and flavor issue with the dumplings because I wondered if it was fair. I reasoned that if I mentioned something that challenged me, readers used to frothy alacrity might read my minor criticism as major indictment. I legitimately enjoyed my experience and I want people to fill that room. Still, I had to be honest, because feedback makes us better.
If I’ve pulled punches on reviews, I’ve also backed out of the social media fray. Once a mainliner and pusher of 140-character quips, I have tempered my use of Twitter in recent years because the business of dispensing truth with context and irony is almost unattainable.
But, like my homeboy Dante said, the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. For me this means, I gotta invest in more speak up and less fence sitting. During the pandemic I suggested I’d stay away from negative reviews in the future. The thing is even the most pedestrian restaurants are super expensive now. The stakes for protecting your wallet are higher. You deserve to know what’s truly good instead of wasting money because the chef is really good at making Instagram posts or paying others to make them. I’ve decided I still need to write those reviews if a place isn’t delivering. It also means I’m going to start commenting again on food news that I believe are unjust PR stunts. Speaking of which…