A slice of modern day life ... like an “Open Book”

Open Book host Scott Simon
with The Cactus League
author Emily Nemens

Modern day life as we know it slowed down back in mid-March. Sometimes, it's not always easy to remember what day of the week it is – there is a blur to them all after sheltering in place for eight months because of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet, I have found there are many wonderful and simple things in which to be thankful. For me, “Open Book” is something that is both simple and worth appreciating.

Each evening, I look forward to connecting via Twitter with NPR Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon, who has invited us into his Washington, D.C. residence for a half-hour salon he calls “Open Book.” Each “Open Book” show commences at 6:15 p.m. EST (3:15 p.m. San Francisco, 11:15 p.m. London, 12:15 a.m. Paris), and Simon, a Chicago native and unabashed Cubs fan, craves our company and the questions we submit for his guests.

In any given week, Simon's visitors might include: Columbia University historian, author and Financial Times contributor Simon Schama, ESPN Outside the Lines host Jeremy Schaap, Paris Review editor and author of the novel The Cactus League Emily Nemens and Veep co-star/comedian Matt Walsh. Among his many guests have been: Moneyball author Michael Lewis, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conductor Marin Alsop, American writer Terry Tempest Williams, sports writer and author Howard Bryant, and music writer and pop culture historian Greil Marcus.

On Open Book, Scott Simon
shares his love of reading and literature.

For me, “Open Book” is like an extension listening to Weekend Edition Saturday because there is the calming presence of Simon's voice and the idea that if you tune in, you’ll come away having acquired new knowledge and feel good about our world. On “Open Book,” Simon shares an anecdote or two about daily family life during the pandemic followed by reading a poem or a short story from the likes of Dorothy Parker, Terrance McNally, Shel Silverstein, E.B. White – maybe a haiku penned by his dog Daisy – then, there's a visit by a special guest. Finally, it’s followed by question and answer time that enables viewers to participate in the discussion. Recently, Simon has also been reading from his work-in-progress baseball novel, tentatively titled Wins, Losses and Saves, and asking viewers for their feedback.

Not only is Simon a master interviewer, he’s also a great listener. It all adds up to a scholarly conversation in the new normal. At the end of each show, Simon remembers to pay tribute to our everyday heroes: first responders, healthcare workers, postal carriers, food service workers and others who are doing their part to help keep “the trains” of everyday life running on schedule.

Scott Simon, host of Open Book.

Don’t worry if you’re busy at the appointed time to catch “Open Book” live. It immediately is available for replay on demand and previous episodes remain on Simon's Twitter account @nprscottsimon and are archived on his website, scottsimonbooks.com. So, it's actually possible to binge-watch “Open Book” while enjoying a coffee or tea, any time of the day or night.

While it's difficult to predict how long we will be shuttered by the coronavirus outbreak before it's safe to resume our normal daily comings and goings, I do hope Simon will consider continuing “Open Book.” If not nightly, then perhaps he can host “Open Book” at least once or twice a week. Thanks to Periscope and Twitter – and with able assistance from his wife Caroline and his oldest daughter Elise feeding him questions and helping with production – Simon has shown the simplicity of reaching so many of us with relative ease and he does so with much warmth.

Hopefully, if there’s a positive to come from the pandemic, it's that people will appreciate the gentler things of life, like “Open Book.” I know I have.

What day is it today?

Looking out my front door on Saturday morning.

What a difference a month makes. Indeed, as someone recently wrote, “Time looks different than it did a month ago.” No more commutes, allowing an extra hour of sleep on weekday mornings, no more Saturday morning grocery shopping – Thursday mornings at my local Trader Joe’s seem less crowded and hectic – and no baseball or any live sports of any kind to distract the rhythm of hurried lives. Instead, watching sports means watching classic replays of NCAA Final Fours or World Series.

By the way, what day is it today? I woke up this morning swearing it was Wednesday. It wasn’t, it was just Tuesday in Mount Rainier, Md.

Now, social distancing is likely to recognized as the buzz phrase of the year – and it’s only the beginning of April. Suddenly, my Google calendar is full of cancelled entries – from my Friday docents tours at the Library of Congress to hosting our Seattle friends last week to our own weekend mid-month theater trip we looked forward to in New York City. Lots of plans and hopes dashed – cancelled – because of the global coronavirus pandemic that’s spreading across the country like nothing I’ve ever experienced. No sense in buying concert, theater or baseball tickets or planning any travel until we know when our lives return to normal and it’s safe to do things that until last month we took for granted. By the way, what will the new normal be like anyway?

The past month has been filled with strange and scary times. Our narcissistic president has shown his incompetence, greed and his lack of empathy. He and his inept administration are in way over their heads. Decorum is not one of this president’s strong suits. Speaking of suits, would it pain this president to button his suit coat when he’s in front of the cameras, which lately seems to be every day since he can’t hold one of his “campaign rallies”?

Now, no matter how busy – or panicked – we might become, day by day, worrying about our health, our finances, our future, we look for diversions. Anything to avoid thinking about the coronavirus crisis and how POTUS wants to get us all killed. Fortunately, there are ways to break the monotony and find daily solace in our discretionary time while we stay at home “flattening the curve” in quarantine. For me, these simple pleasures include:

• Watching live or on demand Steve Nieve’s daily improvisation. Steve who? Steve Nieve. For those in the music know, The British-born Nieve, 62, is a longtime keyboard maestro who for more than 40 years has anchored Elvis Costello’s Attractions and Imposters bands. He’s an accomplished classical and jazz pianist, and each evening, he turns the naturally-lit living room of his and wife Muriel’s simple-but-colorful French home into a music salon for about half-an-hour on his Facebook page, Steve Nieve Page. Nieve plays, Muriel operates the smartphone camera (and sometimes shows images of their colorful backyard while she hums and sings along in her delightful French accent). They are joined by young singer Ajuq. Chances are good you’ll hear Nieve break out into some Costello faves like “Alison,” “Shipbuilding,” “The Long Honeymoon,” and “Useless Beauty.” These sessions will definitely make you smile.

• Watching live or on demand NPR Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon’s nightly “Open Book” family get-together that he broadcasts via his Twitter page @nprscottsimon. Each evening, from his home in Washington, D.C., Simon talks about and reads from books and also FaceTimes with special guests. The art of conversation about literature and music lives on.

• Also on Twitter, former longtime ESPN SportsCenter anchor Keith Olbermann joins us from his New York City residence, sitting alone in his comfortable reading chair – sometimes joined by one of his dogs – and reads to us in his wonderful and distinctive voice. His nightly “Thurbercast” is both delightful and enjoyable. Like the others, you can catch the “Thurbercast” live or on demand on Olbermann’s Twitter page @KeithOlbermann.

• Finally, NPR Music has an abundance of Tiny Desk Concerts which you can link to through their website. Thanks to the pandemic, it’s be re-branded for now as Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts. One of the newest ones features Death Cab For Cutie’s frontman Ben Gibbard singing a newly-penned tune, “Life in Quarantine,” as well as “Me & Magdalena,” a tune Ben wrote for The Monkees’ Good Times album, and finally  “She’s Got a Problem,” an homage to songwriter and musician Adam Schlesinger of the band Fountains of Wayne, who passed away on April 1 from complications due to COVID-19.

There’s no right or wrong way to spent your hours and days and nights and weekends and weeks. Many different cultural organizations from coast-to-coast such as the Kennedy Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center and San Francisco’s de Young Museum of Fine Arts are offering music and conversations and virtual exhibition tours.

And, of course, what better time than now to binge-watch something you’ve been wanting to binge-watch? There’s lots to find perusing through streaming channels like Netflix and Acorn TV. I’m currently enjoying Ugly Delicious, New York chef David Chang’s original series for Netflix, in which he combines travel, cooking and history – three things I’m very fond of. Each episode highlights a single dish or concept, and he explores how it is made in different regions and how it evolves. Pretty cool, eh?

In the meantime, “Let people know you love them and wash your hands everybody. We’ll see you on the other side,” says Gibbard at the conclusion of his NPR Music Tiny Desk (Home) Concert.

 It kind of says it all, doesn’t it?

On books: In NPR host Scott Simon’s ‘Sunnyside Plaza,’ he reminds us why kindness starts from within

Scott Simon is one of America’s most admired writers and broadcasters. Every week, I make an appointment to listen to NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, which he hosts. I follow him on Twitter, along with a million others. So, when Simon writes, speaks or uses social media to convey what’s on his mind, I’m eager to be in the mix, and I have an appreciation for his respectful thoughts on topics that range from humor to serious matters.

Simon has already written eight books – from novels to memoirs – on a variety of subjects near and dear to him including baseball. 

He’s an unabashed Chicago Cubs fan and loyalist and his enthusiasm for our National Pastime easily rubs off on others. 

Last month, Simon’s recently-penned ninth book – a story he’s wanted to tell for years – was published by Little, Brown and Company. Sunnyside Plaza, a mystery aimed at young readers, is a “story of empowerment as a young woman decides to help solve a mystery of multiple suspicious deaths in her group home.” 

A deft storyteller who can make you both laugh and cry, Simon wrote the mystery of Sunnyside Plaza from his own past. After all, when he was in his teens, Simon took a job in an assisted living facility in Chicago, where he worked with people who had developmental disabilities. He drew upon those experiences there in writing his new book.

“It was more formative in my life, I think, than most any war I’ve covered, any political campaign I’ve covered, any reportorial experience I’ve had,” Simon said in a recent NPR interview. He explained how “it really opened my eyes into seeing the world differently.”

NPR Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon

Recently, my path crossed with Simon’s on his book tour, where he spoke about Sunnyside Plaza before an attentive audience at the American Library Association mid-winter conference in Philadelphia. 

In describing the kinds of individuals he came across in the group home, Simon explained that there were “people who have joy and amazing ingenuity just to get through the day, people with great spirit who see past the superficial differences we often see. Once I saw past it, it opened my eyes. It taught something to me.”

On this particular day in Philadelphia and in interviews, Simon speaks about how his personal experiences of working in the group home shaped his thinking and writing about it. In his familiar, midwestern polite tone of voice, he says that he purposefully avoids using specific terms to describe the people living at Sunnyside Plaza because he doesn’t want to get tangled up in an issue of language. Instead, as he suggests, “I want readers to see them as people, not put a label on them at any point in the book.” 

Since its publication, Sunnyside Plaza has drawn much critical praise, both in print reviews and from peers. For instance, The Wall Street Journal wrote: “A wise, humane book from NPR’s Scott Simon tells a mystery from the point of view of a 19-year-old resident of a group home for people with intellectual disabilities. Mr. Simon’s respect and affection on every page of this gentle mystery narrated by Sally Miyake, a 19-year-old resident of a group home.” Meanwhile, Jerry Spinnelli, the Newbery winning author of Maniac Magee and The Warden’s Daughter, says: “Sunnyside Plaza is a light in the shadows that illuminates the humanity in us all. It’s a book as special as its characters. A treasure.”

A question that Simon is often asked on his book tour centers on why he’s decided to leap from his role as a highly-respected journalist into writing novels. On his personal website, scottsimonbooks.com, he notes: “I wanted to challenge myself. And I thought I might have something to offer. I’ve been blessed with a rich reporting career that’s often veered between the imperative, like covering wars, and the inane, like learning how to tango (within the same week, I reported the war in Kosovo, and went swimming in Beverly Hills with Esther Williams). One refreshed my perspective for the other. So, I hope I can use my experiences to put details, feeling, and a certain humor into my fiction. And I hope I can apply some old reporting muscles to try to imagine new lives.”

Photo credits: Sunnyside Plaza dust cover courtesy of Amazon.com. Scott Simon photo courtesy of americanlibrariesmagazine.org. 

On "Miss Sarajevo"

Sarajevo is a city that is historically famous not only for hosting the 1984 Olympic Winter Games, but also for its traditional cultural and religious diversity. There aren't many places in the world where adherents of Islam, Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Judaism have coexisted for centuries. Thanks to its its long and rich history of religious diversity, Sarajevo has often been called the "Jerusalem of Europe".

Scene from the documentary
Miss Sarajevo

And, yet, it's not too far in the past that this leading social, political and cultural center of the current Bosnia and Herzegovina, was entangled from 1992 to 1996 in the Bosnian War.

The Siege of Sarajevo, the longest siege in the history of modern warfare, resulted in large scale destruction as thousands of Sarajevans lost their lives as a result of the constant bombarding and sniper shooting at civilians by Serb forces, whose goal was the creation of a new Serbian State of Republika Srpska that would include a portion of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Nearly 12,000 people lost their lives during the Siege of Sarajevo, including over 1,500 children. Additionally, 56,000 people were wounded, including nearly 15,000 children.

Thanks to the passing of time, today, Sarajevo has become one of the fastest developing cities in southeastern Europe. And, yet, I was reminded recently, thanks to hearing Scott Simon's homily entitled "Bosnia Remembers When the World Looked Away" on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, last Friday (April 5) marked the 20th anniversary of the start of the Bosnian War.

"The world saw the 'ethnic cleansing' of Muslims and mixed-ethnic people in vivid color. But Europeans looked and saw the ghosts of World War I. Americans saw the ghosts of Vietnam. We changed channels," said Simon, during his NPR commentary.

U2's "Miss Sarajevo" played in the background at the conclusion of Simon's commentary. Hearing this somber tune piqued my interest. I searched the Internet to find a video of the song and to further read about its background and use in the Bill Carter documentary film Miss Sarajevo.

In the words of U2's Bono, he said: "The camera follows the organizers through the tunnels and cellars of the city, giving a unique insight into life during a modern war, where civilians are the targets. The film captures the dark humour of the besieged Sarajevans, their stubborn refusal to be demoralized and suggests that surrealism and Dadaism are the appropriate responses to fanaticism."

Carter's goal was to expose people to the individuals living through the war. "The war is just a backdrop, it could be any war," he said. "The point is the vitality of the human spirit to survive, (to) laugh, to love, and to move on, that is something we will be addressing always."

The song "Miss Sarajevo" not only protested the war in Bosnia. It also criticized the international community for its inability to stop the war or help those who were affected by it.

Bono went on to say that he felt the lyrics to the U2 song, "Miss Sarajevo", reflected what the people of Sarajevo were feeling at the time. It is sung with passion and conviction, and it also includes a solo by the great Italian opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti. The song's lyrics include:

... Is there a time to walk for cover
A time for kiss and tell
Is there a time for different colors
Different names you find it hard to spell

Is there a time for first communion
A time for East 17
Is there a time to turn to Mecca
Is there a time to be a beauty queen. ...

"Over 44 months of war, Sarajevans refused the appeals of governments and prestigious international groups to divide their country into ethnic enclaves," said Simon, at the conclusion of his NPR commentary. "I remember a Bosnian government minister saying, 'After all these centuries trying to build civilization, are we to go back to being tribes?' ... While the world looked away from them, Sarajevans dug a tunnel. They stood up for civilization."

And so, on an autumn night in 1995 in Modena, Italy, with Bono and the other members of U2 beside him, Pavarotti sang with a raw emotion:


Dici che il fiume
Trova la via al mare
E come il fiume
Giungerai a me
Oltre i confini
E le terre assetate
Dici che come il fiume
Come il fiume...
L'amore giungerá
L'amore
E non so piú pregare
E nell'amore non so piú sperare
E quell'amore non so piú aspettare


As I reflect upon this dark and somber period with the help of perspective, thanks to U2 and Scott Simon, one thing seems certain: Sarajevans indeed stood up for civilization.