fauxklore

As I mentioned before, the primary purpose of this entire trip was going to the Fforde Ffiesta, which is a celebration of the works of Jasper Fforde. The personal back story here is that from the late 1980s through 2002 I more or less commuted between Los Angeles and Boulder, Colorado. I discovered a mystery bookstore in Boulder (Rue Morgue Books, owned by Tom and Enid Schantz) and made regular trips there, especially when they had signings and, hence, stayed open late. A couple of my colleagues were also mystery fans and we spent many pleasant evenings at a Caribbean restaurant a couple of doors away, followed by book browsing. Anyway, they published a newsletter, in which they made book recommendations and one recommendation in 2001 was for a book titled The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. I bought and read this and loved the originality of the concept, so I kept reading the Thursday Next series and many of the rest of his books. A couple of years ago, I had a conference to go to in London and learned of the existence of the Fforde Ffiesta, but the tickets were already sold out. I kept it on my list of things to do. And back in May 2025, I was able to register for the 2026 event, which happened the first weekend of this May (i.e. 2026).

I had a little preparation to do. For one thing, it made sense to reread The Eyre Affair as I had forgotten various things in the past 40+ years. I had ideas for the costume contest, but never managed to complete executing them. I also never quite got around to crocheting a dodo. (Dodos are popular pets in the Ffordean world.) I decided that it would be easy enough to join the Legion of the Danvers, so I did actually do what amounts to cosplay. Mrs. Danvers is the evil housekeeper in Daphne DuMaurier’s novel, Rebecca, and the prototype for evil housekeepers in other literature, e.g. Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein. Clones of her work for the Goliath Corporation in Fforde’s books. Dressing as her just requires a long black dress, a grey wig, and dark glasses. Here I am as Mrs. Danvers, standing next to a cardboard cut-out of Jasper Fforde, i.e. Flat Jasper. (I’ll explain more about this later on.)



While the Ffiesta officially started on Saturday morning, I arrived at the hotel in Swindon late in the afternoon on Friday. I ended up having supper at the bar and didn’t know that two of the people sitting across from me at a table were Jasper and his wife, Mary. (And I got to explain airag, the Mongolian fermented mare’s milk drink, to Mary. It’s actually not bad and, yes, I’ve done some weird traveling over the years.)

Anyway, I picked up my Ffiesta packet and joined a group of people to play the unofficial Friday night trivia. Our team was doing well until a question which required teams to match Shakespeare plays to the number of people who died in each one. I figured that people don’t die in the comedies, but I have pretty much no clue when it comes to the histories. I redeemed myself when it came to some geography related questions and, in particular, got us close enough on listing countries that have capitals starting with the letter “K” for the rest of the team to make a good guess and have us end up in 3rd place overall.

The official Ffiesta started on Saturday morning. There was a Ffordian Fete with several games to play. Two of them stuck in my mind. One involved guessing the contents of three cans with their labels removed. (I didn’t have a clue.) The other required fishing for magnetic word tiles and using them to write a poem. I came up with:

Chant sweet summer death
Her dragon eyebrows can shine.

Also on Saturday morning was a brief opening ceremony, which included singing the song “Leaning on a Lamppost.” The significance of that is that it was originally popularized by George Formby, who is President for Life in the Thursday Next books. But it has some personal significance for me, because it was used in the revival of the musical Me and My Girl in 1986. I saw the Encores production of this in 2018. “Leaning on a Lamppost” is the second stickiest song in its score (behind only “The Lambeth Walk,” which is as much of an earworm as “It’s a Small World” and the Oompa-Loompa Song from Willy Wonka. There is a special circle of hell for the writers of all of these.) There was also an opportunity to sign up for some activities and I signed up for Literary Karaoke, choosing Chapter 12 of The Eyre Affair, which involves Mycroft’s Prose Portal.

The first event of the afternoon was Jasper’s Tour of Swindon. Some people had spent the morning building a cardboard model of Swindon and Jasper pointed out various of the places and people in it. My favorite part of this involved Michelle, Swindon’s only jogger. There was also Michelle’s understudy, her understudy’s understudy, her stalker, her stalker’s stalker, etc.

That was followed by a Q&A. The most exciting thing Jasper said is that there will be a sequel to Red Side Story, which is itself the sequel to Shades of Grey. Yay!

After a brief break, there was Quiz Hour, with three games. I thought I would have been good at Name That Fruit, since I’ve eaten odd things like kiwano melon and tamarillo (tree tomato) but it turned out to include activities like making a face out of a coconut, which I don’t think I would do so well at.

Next was Evade the Question, in which contestants had to talk for a minute without mentioning anything relating to the given subject. For example, the first subject was “elephant” so one couldn’t mention anything like animal, Africa, trunk, grey, etc. My favorite challenge of that round came when one contestant said “I was painting my room” and was challenged because “elephants are notoriously in the room.” By the way, the last round is traditionally “Life, the Universe, and Everything,” and the challenges were fast and furious, on the order of one or two seconds. I may suggest playing a version of this at a Loser event. (For those who don’t know, Losers are devotees of the Invitational, a humor contest that used to appear in the Washington Post. For more information, see The Not Ready for the Algonquin Roundtable Society. Loserdom is a big part of my life.)

The final game was Fforde or Fraud in which two contestants had to guess whether or not characters appeared in The Eyre Affair. The catch was that they were separated by a whiteboard, so couldn’t see each other. The funniest part of this is how much trouble Jasper and Mary had with it.

I also spent some time hunting lobsters. There were various toy lobsters hidden around the public areas of the hotel, each with a tag on them. You had to find them and write down the name on each tag next to the number from the other side of the tag. I call shenanigans as some of them were actually crabs. (And some of us know the sad story of Herman the Lobster and Sally the Crab, immortalized by the Smothers Brothers in the lyrics “crabs walk sideways and lobsters walk straight and we won’t let you have her for your mate.”) I never did manage to find the last few crustaceans, alas.

The evening started with the Fancy Dress parade. (In case anyone doesn’t know, “fancy dress” is British English for “costume.”) My personal favorite was the two people who dressed as “Deleted Characters.”

The day ended with an auction, which was raising money for a literary charity in Swindon. There were several interesting items, but the prices got steep rather quickly. I was seriously tempted by a CD about Swindon and cheese, but wasn’t willing to spend GBP 40 for it. Overall, I think the auction raised about GBP 3000, which is impressive.

By the way, my favorite quip of the day (from Jasper, of course) was “I just learned that microbiologists are the same size as other biologists.”

Sunday morning started with Jasper reading from Dark Reading Matter, the last book in the Thursday Next series, which is scheduled to come out in October. I’m looking forward to being able to read it.

Then it was time for the Legion of the Danvers to meet in the hotel’s quadrangle. There were 81 of us, total, which is impressive given that there were 158 total attendees at the Fforde Ffiesta. There was an oath, a bit of “tutting” and “huzzahs,” drills, marching, and songs. Later on in the day, we got our service and pay books, which obviously need to be kept in a safe place for future events. Here’s a picture of extreme Danversing. (I think you should be able to click on the picture on flickr to see the action.)



I did not stay around for Lobster Space Invaders, since I wasn’t in the mood for a water fight. I used the lunch break to catch up on my travel journal and puzzles and such other mundane activities. In the early afternoon, everyone reconvened to watch the production of Richard III. There were a few people who seemed a bit lost as to what they were supposed to be doing, but it was still entertaining, especially as we were provided with noisemakers to aid us with audience participation.

That was followed by Literary Karaoke. I think my reading went fine and someone did tell me I’d read well. The main thing I’d practiced was making sure I stayed within the time limit.

After a short break, there was a demonstration of dodo whispering. Because, as everyone knows, it does take some effort to train your pet dodo properly. That was followed by prize giving. There were elaborately designed plates for the winners of the big contests and bags or boxes of sweets for the more minor events. Even though there was a brief closing ceremony, there was another unofficial event later on. That was a race night. There were videos featuring races with dachshunds, Shetland ponies, marbles, pigs, sheep, babies, and Fforganizers (that’s the term for the volunteers who organize the Fforde Ffiesta). I used the same approach which I take to actual horse races - namely choosing the contestant whose name I like best. It worked about as well as it does for actual horse races, in case you thought that was a rational approach.

In the morning, I got a taxi to the train station and on to the next leg of my trip, which I’ll write about soon. The bottom line is that the Fforde Ffiesta proved to be ffabulous ffun and I’ll certainly try to go to it again in the ffuture.

I got back from New York on Sunday afternoon and was off to the UK late in the day on Tuesday. There’s no longer a daytime flight from IAD to LHR, so it was the agony of a redeye, which is, at best, just tolerable, even in premium plus. The e-gates at Heathrow worked fine, but I arrived on the day of a major transit strike. This was a somewhat complicated trip and the transit strike definitely didn’t help. I’d vaguely intended to leave my luggage somewhere convenient (e.g. either Paddington or Victoria Station) and do something for a few hours. But I was exhausted and decided it would be best just to go to the hotel I was staying at overnight and figure things out from there.

By the way, I had managed to forget to bring my Oyster card with me. But using my credit card to tap in and out of the tube worked just fine. And the Elizabeth Line and Thameslink were not affected by the strike.

That hotel was the Bloc Hotel at Gatwick Airport. Why? Well, I was flying to Jersey from LGW the next morning. As it happened, by the time I got there, my room was ready and the idea of a nap was more appealing than the idea of actually doing anything. The hotel was quite comfortable and amazingly quiet for a hotel that is inside an airport. It had somewhat complicated controls for the lighting, but I figured out enough to be comfortable. The only problem with the hotel was that the bathroom is of the “wet room” variety. That is, there is no actual shower stall (not even a curtain), so taking a shower just floods the entire bathroom. I’ve encountered that before and it still strikes me as a horrible design flaw. Anyway, after catching up on some things on-line (e.g. puzzles) and napping for a couple of hours, I got supper at Giraffe, mere steps away. I went back to the room, read for a while, and got an okay night’s sleep.

I should probably explain that I was leveraging off an event in England to finally get to the Channel Islands, a region I’d been interested in for several years. Jersey is the largest island of the group and definitely has the most developed tourism infrastructure, though there is still plenty of agriculture there, including both cattle and vegetable farming. It doesn’t hurt that both Jersey and Guernsey are on the Travelers’ Century Club list of countries and territories. Also, I’d met a woman from Guernsey when I was on the Queen Mary 2 in November and made plans to get together with her.

In the morning, I just had to check out and take the elevator downstairs, where I used a machine to print out a bag tag and send my bag off to my plane. My British Air flight (booked using Alaska Air miles) to Jersey was fine. After retrieving my bag, I took a bus to the main bus terminal in Saint Helier, from which I had a short walk to my hotel. I had booked a room at the Pomme D’Or Hotel largely for its location, right in the heart of St. Helier and across the street from Liberation Square. It proved to be a good choice - both convenient and comfortable.

My first sightseeing excursion started with walking over to Liberation Square.



After a stop for lunch, I walked around the waterfront, which has an interesting (but non-working) steam clock.



Then I went over to the Maritime Museum. I’m not particularly interested in shipping, so I opted to go just to the Occupation Tapestry Gallery. This has 13 tapestries (one for each of the 12 parishes on the island, plus a final one added later on) having to do with the Nazi occupation of Jersey during World War II. The work is quite detailed and I found this fascinating. Here are photos of a couple of the panels, so you can see for yourself.





There are also videos about the occupation and liberation and about the making of the tapestries. I found all of this very interesting, especially as it is something we never really learned about in school when I was growing up. (We spent almost all of European history on the French Revolution, with everything from World War I onwards covered in under a week.)

I wandered up to the Central Market, getting there about an hour before it closed. I suspect it would have been livelier a bit earlier in the day. I browsed briefly at a book stall and found a yarn shop, which was (alas) already closed. And there was this interesting fountain to look at.



I spent another hour or so wandering a bit aimlessly around St. Helier (and getting lost in the process). Eventually, I made my way back to the hotel and, after eating supper, had an early night to try to get my body clock back in sync.

One of the sights I was particularly eager to see was the Jersey Zoo, which had been founded by Gerald Durrell. I have to admit that I haven’t read any of his books, though I have read a couple by his brother, Lawrence. Gerald was a pioneer in conservation and founded the Jersey Zoo specifically to breed endangered species. Getting there is fairly straightforward, as there is regular bus service from the terminal in St. Helier. There are a couple of different routes and the one I took was quite scenic, making me wish I had more time to explore some of the places it passed.

The zoo itself is not really my sort of zoo, since it runs heavily towards primates and I am a lions and tigers and bears (oh, my!) type of girl. Still, I did watch some gorillas and geladas (Ethiopian baboons) and (more briefly) orangutans and tamarins and a few lemurs. I will concede that this young gorilla was cute.



And I don’t think I’d ever seen geladas before.



There was also a good reptile house (poison dart frogs!) and a lot of birds. But I think the most interesting part of the zoo is the building devoted to Gerald Durrell’s life story. His grave (well, the site where his ashes were interred) is right outside that.



Overall, I was reasonably satisfied with my visit to the zoo.

I started my final day on Jersey by seeking out a statue I’d seen a photo of on-line. I did find it, but only after a brief diversion to listen to a ukulele club.



The story behind this is that, just as British people call the French “frogs,” the French decided to call the people of Jersey “les crapauds” meaning toads. The residents of Jersey responded by adopting the toad as a symbol for their residents. I’m not sure how old this story is, however, since the toad statue wasn’t actually erected until 2004. Still, it’s an interesting landmark.

There is a yarn shop a short walk from there and, alas, I was able to verify that there isn’t any local yarn available. So Jersey will not see a place in the long-standing knitting project that I call “the coat of many countries.”

Another priority for me was visiting the Jersey Museum. This includes a reasonably informative film about the island, a history exhibition (focused on the Nazi occupation, the liberation, and the aftermath, e.g. the marketing of Jersey as a honeymoon island), an art gallery, and a Victorian house. It was prety interesting and, best of all, admission was free.

There was a food festival going on nearby. I might have gone to it, but it was very crowded and there was an admission charge, so I opted just to sit on a bench across the street and listen to music for a little while. Then I decided to take “Le Petit Train,” which is a tourist ride (not a real train) that goes along the coast to St Aubin. It was scenic and the narration was entertaining enough, so it was a reasonable way to kill a little over an hour. After that I retrieved my bag from the hotel and headed over to the ferry port, to take the ferry to Guernsey,

The ferry ride should have been an hour and 10 minutes. But, as we approached St. Peter Port (the capital of Guernsey) the ferry began to vibrate and we pulled back out to sea. Eventually the captain announced that we had to abort landing due to a propeller problem. It turned out that a fishing bob had gotten caught in one propeller. They did eventually free it (so we were able to dock) but not before people were speculating that we might have to spend the night on the boat. I managed to find my way to my hotel (the Best Western Moores Hotel) where I collapsed for the night. While the hotel was at a convenient location, it was a bit weirdly designed. For example, there’s an elevator, which is very useful if you have a large rolling suitcase. But there was a flight of six steps down and another of six steps up in the middle of the hallway between that elevator and my room. And the bathtub was very deep, which is nice if you’re going to soak in it, but makes getting in and out to take a shower a bit treacherous.

I texted with my friend, Julie, and we made arrangements to get together for lunch on Monday. I had arrived on Saturday night and on Sunday there was a Seaside Sunday Festival event along the waterfront. There were craft stalls lining the quay and food stalls (and a stage with music) on the Victoria Pier. I did buy one crafts item (a felt hat). I enjoyed listening to a couple of singers. And I ate some tasty fish and chips and some particularly delicious gelato, especially the orange ricotta flavor. By the way, there was a surprising variety of ethnic foods, including West African dishes like jollof rice, and stalls selling Thai and Vietnamese food.

I also took Guernsey’s version of Le Petit Train, which had some interesting commentary. For example, at the bathing (i.e. swimming) beach, they had a story about a lifeguard who could only rescue people by throwing a rope towards them because he had never learned how to swim. There were also good views of the primary tourist attraction in St. Peter Port, namely Castle Cornet, which dates back to the 13th century.



On Monday, Julie met me at my hotel and whisked me off around the island. We had lunch at a restaurant called Coast (in the Imperial Hotel) with a lovely view of the sea. Our next stop was the Folk and Costume Museum. The “folk” part consisted largely of household items, e.g. an old-fashioned kitchen, and a display of a child’s room with toys, as well as a dollhouse and a collection of marionettes. The “costume” part included a selection of Dior dresses, as well as a collection of historic costumes, many of them hand-sewn. There were also some knitted Guernsey sweaters, which are notable for the use of steeking for creating necklines and armholes - a technique which, frankly, I find terrifying.

After that we went to Oatlands, a small shopping center. Alas, the crafts store there told us there was no local yarn, the chocolate store was closed, and the cafe didn’t have Guernsey gache, a fruit cake that I was curious about. Julie continued around the island, stopping at a few places with views across to Sark and Herm. Ideally, I would have had time for day trips to those islands, but I was at the mercy of ferry schedules, so it would have to be some other time. At any rate, there were lovely views from the places we stopped at.



Back in St. Peter Port, we did succeed in finding gache at Cafe Emilia, just a couple of doors from my hotel. This proved to be somewhat similar to the fruity bread my friend, Tim, makes, though not quite as sweet. At any rate, it was quite tasty, eaten with butter and accompanied by tea.

My major expedition on Tuesday was to the Guernsey Museum. This was actually not very far from the hotel, but I took a taxi because I found the idea of climbing the hill to get there to be intimidating. The museum is in a lovely park (Candie Park) which also has a library, gardens, and a statue of Queen Victoria. The museum was very interesting. For example, there was a display of paintings about nature, which included some relief casts of how the paint was applied. The Discovery Room was intended for children, but did have recordings of a storyteller performing Egyptian myths. The main museum had all sorts of odds and ends, including an embroidered sampler and a lock of Victor Hugo’s hair. (He had lived on Guernsey when in exile and you can tour his house if that sort of thing interests you.)

I was particularly interested in a display of glass reproductions of invertebrates because it was made by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, who also made the glass flowers at the Harvard Museum of Natural History which is one of my favorite museum exhibits of all time. There is plenty of material about early life on Guernsey from neolithic times through the Romans. I especially enjoyed sections on Guernsey language (which included samples to listen to), folklore, and witchcraft. Me being me, of course I had to listen to all of the stories.



After a stop for a light lunch, I wandered around the Candie Gardens, which were lovely.





By the way, there is a Guernsey Tapestry, presumably similar to the Jersey one. But it is in storage, so I was unable to see it.

In the evening, Julie and I went to Saint James Assembly Hall for a poetry reading by Brian Bilston, which was part of the Guernsey Literary Festival. He has been one of my favorite poets for a while and his reading was phenomenal. He engaged well with the audience, making occasional side comments and enhancing his poetry with his deliberate pacing. If you have the opportunity to hear him read, go. Unfortunately, they ran out of books.

Overall, I had a good time in the Channel Islands, though I could have used a few more days. But I very much wanted to take the ferry versus flying back to the UK mainland, which I did the next day. The ferry from St. Peter Port to Portsmouth takes about 8 hours, so I’d opted to pay a little extra for lounge seating. That’s less crowded, but the reclining chairs were just okay. I read and napped for a lot of the trip. Fortunately, I didn’t get seasick, though several other people did. So, if you do this, you might want to bring your seasickness preventative of choice. (Mine is acupressure bands, with bonine as a backup for more extreme conditions.)

We docked at Portsmouth and I got a taxi to the train station. I boarded the first train from there to London, which took me to Victoria Station. That was convenient to get a District Line train to Earl’s Court - and the next part of this travelogue.

I had intended to get some catching up done over the past few days, but had underestimated how many other things I had to do. And I'm about to head halfway around the world tomorrow, so I suspect I won't get anything more done tomorrow.

I intended to do some catching up here, but I also had to do things like unpacking and opening mail and a bunch of household nonsense, etc. So here is a list of what I have yet to write about:

1) my 50th high school reunion

2) the trip I just got home from which included:
a) the Channel Islands (Jersey and Guernsey)
b) London
c) the Fforde Ffiesta in Swindon
d) Brighton
e) back to London
f) a bit of a rant about hotels

3) the trip I am about to leave on (which will most likely take 3 posts to write about).

4) my contining efforts on the Stafford Challenge

5) a lot of magazine clippings that have piled up on my dining room table, my sofa, and other radom places in my condo

6) probably a locked entry about the world's longest running brief meaningless fling

Catching up on some other things, it’s been a while since I’ve done the ever popular celebrity death watch. (Early February to be exact)

Celebrity Death Watch - February 2026: Sir Nicholas White was a tropical disease researcher, specializing in malaria treatments. Daryl Hoole wrote books about homemaking. Myra MacPherson was a journalist, primarily for The Washington Post. Chuck Negron was a founding member of Three Dog Night. Dame Carole Jordan was an astrophysicist. Lamont McLemore was a founding member of The 5th Dimension, Mickey Lolich was a pitcher, primarily for the Detroit Tigers. Sonny Jorgensen was a Hall of Fame football player. Ed Crane co-founded the Cato Institute (a libertarian think tank). Andrew Ranken played drums for The Pogues. Bud Cort was an actor, best known for playing Harold in Harold and Maude. Ed Graczyk was a playwright whose most successful play was Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. James Van Der Beek starred in Dawson’s Creek. Karen Glaser was an underwater photographer. Eric Dane was an actor, best known for appearing in Grey’s Anatomy. Dan Simmons was a fantasy, science fiction, and horror writer. Iris Cantor was a philanthropist. Coleman Barks was a poet and responsible for popularizing the works of Rumi. Sondra Lee originated the roles of Tiger Lily (in Peter Pan) and Minnie Fay (in Hello, Dolly!) on Broadway. Lauren Chapin was a child actress, best known for playing Kitten in Father Knows Best. Bobby J. Brown was an actor, best known for The Wire. Colman McCarthy was a peace activist.

Robert Duvall was an actor, He won a best actor Oscar for his performance in Tender Mercies and had won several other acting awards. He’s been referred to as “the American Olivier.”

Jesse Jackson was an ordained Baptist minister, a civil rights activist and a politician. He appeared to have repented for some antisemitic comments he made during his run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984. I was once delayed at the Oakland airport while he and his entourage were there, but I don’t remember whether he was coming or going.

Isaiah Zagar was a mosaic artist, who created the Philadelphia Magic Gardens. This is my favorite thing in Philadelphia. I was introduced to it by artistic friends and I’ve gone back to see it multiple times since.

Bill Mazeroski was a second baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates, who is best known for driving in a 9th inning home run in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series to defeat the Source of All Evil in the Universe.

Neil Sedaka was a singer and songwriter. Among the songs he is best known for are “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” and “Love Will Keep Us Together.” I find those two an interesting juxtaposition.

Ali Khamenei was the ayatollah, supreme leader, and president of Iran. The world (and Iran, in particular) may well be a better place without him, but it’s not like he’s been replaced with anyone better.

Celebrity Death Watch - March 2026: Gary Walker was the drummer and a vocalist with The Standells, whose song “Dirty Water” is a Red Sox tradition. Lyle Conway designed the Audrey II puppet used in the film version of the musical Little Shop of Horrors. Russell W. Meyer, Jr. was the CEO of Grumman in the late 1960’s to mid-1970’s and of Cessna after that. Sir Anthony Leggett won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on superfluidity. Alexander Butterfield revealed Richard Nixon’s White House taping system during the Watergate investigation. Tommy DeCarlo was the lead singer for Boston. Paul Ehrlich wrote about the consequences of population growth. Christopher Sims won a Nobel Prize in economics. William C. Dietz wrote military science fiction. Dolores Keane sang with De Dannan. Terry Cox was the drummer for Pentangle. Mike Melvill was a test pilot for SpaceShip One, becoming the first commercial astronaut. Chuck Norris was a martial artist and actor. Nicholas Brendon played Xander in the TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Robert Mueller was the director of the FBI from 2001-2013. Calvin Tomkins was an art critic who wrote for The New Yorker. Chip Taylor wrote songs, including “Angel of the Morning” and “Wild Thing.” Dash Crofts sang with Jim Seals and wrote songs, including “Summer Breeze.”

Lou Holtz was a football coach for Notre Dame (and other schools). He earned me 19 ghoul pool points.

Country Joe McDonald headed up a musical group with the Fish. He’s best known for the “I-Feel-Like-Im-Fixing-to-Die” Rag,” which he wrote and performed at Woodstock.

Len Deighton wrote spy novels, including The IPCRESS File. He also wrote cookbooks.

George H. Goble won an Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry for preparing a barbecue using a smoldering cigarette, charcoal, and liquid oxygen.

Tracy Kidder wrote a number of important non-fiction books, including The Soul of a New Machine and Mountains Beyond Mountains. His writing was vivid and absorbing and well worth reading.

Celebrity Death Watch - April 2026: Jim Whittaker was the first American to climb Mount Everest. Barbara Gordon wrote the book I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can, about her pill addiction. Nick Pope investigated UFOs. Davey Lopes played second base primarily for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ray Monette sang and played guitar for Rare Earth. Africa Bambaataa was a hip hop pioneer. Moya Brennan sang with Clannad. Kevin Klose was the president of NPR from 1998-2008. Don Schlitz wrote country music songs and was best known for “The Gambler.” Roger Adams invented Heelys. Garret Anderson played left field for the Los Angeles Angels.

Sid Krofft was a puppeteer who, along with his brother, Marty, created such television shows as H.R. Pufnstuf and Land of the Lost.

Justin Fairfax was the lieutenant governor of Virginia under Ralph Northam. During his term in office, he had faced multiple allegations of sexual assault. He murdered his wife, Cerina, and killed himself.

Desmond Morris was a zoologist. He was best known for his book The Naked Ape, which has been widely criticized for sexist assumptions.

Belated Celebrity Death Watch: I only learned recently that Lyle Feisel died in November 2025. He was known for writing a column in The Bent, the magazine published by the engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi, about the people various scientific units are named after.

Continuing my catch-up, I did a theatre binge at the end of March. The impetus for this was City Center’s Encores, which was doing a production of Michael John LaChiusa’s version of The Wild Party. For those unfamiliar with Encores, this is a series that produces infrequently performed, often forgotten, musicals, with minimal staging (although it has gotten more elaborate over the years) and short runs (2 weeks). This was a show that I had wanted to see for ages. They had planned it for a previous season, but it got postponed and there was no way I was going to miss out when it did show up on the schedule. So I bought a ticket as soon as they went on sale - at full price, no less! I built the rest of this trip around that production, so let’s take things in order.

The first show I saw was on Friday night. The hot ticket of the moment was Giant, starring John Lithgow as Roald Dahl. I was able to find a ticket on TodayTix for Friday night. I was literally in the last row of the the theatre, but I had a perfect view. The show has to do with an incident in which Dahl wrote a highly antisemitic review of a book about Israel, leading his publisher to try to get him to issue a retraction. In addition to Dahl, the characters include his fiancee, his housekeeper, and representatives of his publisher (a British man who Dahl considers a friend and a woman from New York). The play was well acted and sadly relevant to our times. I’ve written before about the problem of separating the artist from the art, and Dahl joins people like Caravaggio and Neil Gaiman in my list of people who created some great works despite being terrible people. So this was an interesting look at a deeply flawed person whose works (that is, his children’s books) still endure. However, I didn’t find the play completely satisfying, since Dahl’s deliberate abrasiveness is unrelenting. The reason to see this is Lithgow, rather than the lines he’s been given.

The main event was Saturday afternoon, when I saw The Wild Party at City Center. The back story of why I wanted to see this show so much is that both LaChiusa and Andrew Lippa wrote musicals based on Joseph Moncure March’s 1928 narrative poem in 2000. I’d seen (and liked) Lippa’s version a while ago. But I think LaChiusa ia a better composer. The plot involves Queenie (a vaudeville singer) and Burrs (the vaudeville clown she lives with) who throw a party to try to stir up their disintegrating relationship. The party involves pretty much every vice imaginable, full of sex and drugs and jazz (since this was set in the 1920’s, long before rock and roll). The music was excellent and I thought the choreography was also notable, given the relatively small stage. It’s a show I would definitely see again.

I was back at City Center (this time at the Manhattan Theatre Club, which is their smaller venue) on Saturday night for Bigfoot. The plot involves the residents of the town of Muddirt, which is located between a chemical dump and a nuclear power plant. Bigfoot lives in the woods outside of town because his mother knows he wouldn’t be safe among the biased town residents. The mayor stirs up the townspeople against him to distract them from his plans to sell the town and turn it into a waterpark. Overall, I found the show funny and cute, but pretty silly. I felt like it was more appropriate for a fringe festival.

If you’re going to binge, you might as well go all the way. So I went to see About Time at the Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater, which is in the YMCA on W. 64th Street, just a stone’s throw from Central Park. This is a follow-up to Maltby and Shire’s revues,Starting Here, Starting Now and Closer Than Ever and focuses on issues of aging. The six performers were all excellent and most of the songs were very enjoyable. My favorite was “Smart People” which included lines like, “It’s not a new idea, though to me it’s kind of newish / that when your cast talks really fast, it simply means they’re … smart people.” I also found “I’m Here” (which is about travel) very relatable. However, I’m in my mid-60’s and I was one of the youngest people in the audience. I suspect the show may not appeal as much to younger folks.

The final show I saw was a cabaret show by Joe Fox at Don’t Tell Mama. Anyone who knows me won’t be surprised that I couldn’t resist something with the title Don’t Cry for Me My Yeshiva. Fox combined his story about making a documentary about the fight for (and against) gay marriage in Maine with his personal experience as the gay son of an Orthodox rabbi. That he was adopted is also relevant to his story. I found this pretty entertaining though I thought it could use some editing. I should also note that one of the songs Fox used was based on the Maltby & Shire song “I Want It All” (from the musical Baby.

Overall, this was a good weekend. I should also mention that I stayed at the Sheraton on 50th Street and 7th Avenue, which was convenient, but disappointing. There was an absurdly long wait to check in, for example. The temperature control in the room didn’t work well, so I was too cold most of the time.

Also, I didn’t leave myself time to do much besides theatre going, though I did get in a nice walk around (part of) Central Park. I do have one more trip to New York scheduled, but I don’t think I have any free time on that one.

Books:
I read 11 books this quarter, which is not quite the pace I need to reach my goal of 80 for the year.

1. Herman Melville, Moby Dick (reread). I’m not sure if this counts, since I’ve read it several times. I went to my third Moby Dick marathon (my second in New Bedford; the other was in San Francisco.) It’s an amazing book, with a mix of adventure, social commentary, and humor. If you haven’t read it, you should in order to understand why so many people consider this THE Great American Novel.
   
   
2. Sujata Massey, Girl in a Box. The title refers to a young woman who is overly protected, mostly by her family, Re Shimura is undercover at a Japanese department store, investigating financial malfeasance. The issues she stumble upon involve the yakuza, money laundering, and, unfortunately, murder. There are a lot of interesting details regarding Japanese culture, e.g. a funeral for old sewing needles. While the ending is abrupt and implausible, I still enjoyed this for the most part.
   
   
3. Christopher Buckley, Supreme Courtship. Buckley has long been the master of humor about Washington, D.C. and this is no exception. The story has to do with a TV judge who gets appointed to the Supreme Court, largely as revenge against the Senate Judiciary Committee, after they reject two perfect candidates. She’s hardly an intellectual, but she’s plain spoken and able to use her common sense. The things that happen are wild - and wildly funny. Overall, this is a delightful romp.
   
   
4. Jasper Fforde, Red Side Story. This is the sequel to Shades of Grey. It started out rather slowly , but picked up as soon as Eddie and Jane set out on a mission to search for spoons in Crimsonalia. The world building is superb and the ending is extremely satisfying. Lots of fun.
   
   
5. J. J. Marric, Gideon’s Power. Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard is dealing with a strong of power outages that appear to be sabotage. And there have also been cases of children kidnapped, molested, and murdered. I didn’t find all of it particularly plausible, but I think it was a reasonably good read as procedurals go.
   
   
6. Terry Pratchett, Making Money. I’ve always found Pratchett to be amusing, but inconsistent, and this book is no exception. Moist van Lipwick (whose name I find very off-putting) was a crook who was saved from hanging and put in charge of the post office, which he made successful. Now he’s put in charge of the bank and the mint. But all the gold has vanished. There’s some funny stuff, but, overall, I didn’t find this book very satisfying.
   
   
7. Boris Kester, The Long Road to Cullaville. I read this for the Travelers’ Century Club Book Club. Kester is one of many people who has been to every UN country. His stories cover some of his travels, including places like Yemen, Cuba, and Equatorial Guinea. The roughest story involves a near-fatal auto accident in South Africa. The writing (which was his own translation of the original Dutch) wasn’t brilliant, but it was still reasonably interesting.
   
   
8. Susan Branch, The Summer Book. I was given several of Branch’s books by one of my mother’s neighbors. This is a mix of household tips, recipes, and such. It’s hard to read because of the fonts, which are meant to resemble handwriting. While I did save a few recipes, overall, I found this (and other books by her) eminently skippable.
   
   
9. Rona Jaffe, Family Secrets. This lengthy novel traces three generations of a Jewish family. The patriarch builds a real estate empire. His children marry, have careers and children, and live in a large compound he’s built. One granddaughter is clearly based on Jaffe herself, who went to Radcliffe and had a successful writing career, starting with her first novel. An okay read, but dated.
   
   
10. Annie Hartnett, The Road to Tender Hearts. I read this for Crones and Tomes and enjoyed it a lot more than I’d expected to. It’s the story of a road trip taken by an alcoholic older man, who has never recovered from the death of his older daughter, his younger daughter (who does the driving), and the two children of his estranged older brother, who he has become the guardian of There’s also a cat, who frequently steals the show. The premise sounds depressing, but there is surprising charm and humor throughout. Highly recommended.
    
    
11. Graham Greene, Journey Without Maps. This was another TCC Book Club selection. In the late 1930’s, Greene set out to cross Liberia on foot. Because maps were not available he consistently got conflicting information about the distances to towns along the way. He didn’t really know much about the people and, in general, didn’t seem to like them. There were also weird digressions, e.g. one abut an Estonian woman in Riga and another about his youthful episodes of depression. I thought, overall, it was fairly interesting, but a bit of a slog to get through. I wish it had been edited by someone neutral.
    

Movies:
I only saw one movie this quarter.

1. The Choral: This movie is set in 1916 and involves the choral society in a small community in Yorkshire. They’re putting on a production of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius but, because of World War I, there are not enough men available, so they make some changes in the story. Ralph Fiennes puts on an excellent performance as the chorus master. The stories involve the various members of the choral society, and touch on several topics, including sexual relationships. The music throughout is exquisite. Recommended.
   

Goals:

• I’ve got solid plans for one long distance train trip. In May. In Australia. The Ghan. I have an idea about another one.
  
• I’ve got tentative plans for 2 minor league baseball games.
  
• I’ve got solid plans for 2 new to me TCC countries / territories.
  
• I have ideas about national parks, but haven’t acted on them.
  
• I don’t feel like I am making much progress on reading Hangul.
  
• I am way behind on shredding household paperwork.
  
• I’ve read 12 books so far this year (the 11 discussed above plus one more in April) and should finish at least 2 more this month. So I am behind where I should be.
  
• Finished one crafts project (a needle felted penguin.) I am getting close to finishing my Tunisian crochet afghan.
  
• I have done nothing about getting rid of LP records.
  
• I have been keeping up with the Stafford Challenge.
  

In short, I am doing reasonably well on goals so far this year.

I'm sorry for not having written in a few weeks, but I was fairly swamped with the Women's Storytelling Festival, after which I took a trip up to New York City for a theatre binge. I have managed to get through about a quarter of my to-do list, so should be able to do some catching up here.

I've written a blog post about the festival for the Better Said Than Done website and will post a slightly edited version of that here in a little while. Other things I need to write about are:

• the theatre binge
  
• my quarterly run-down on books, movies, and goals
  
• Stafford Challenge update
  
• various articles I've clipped (and some other news items, e.g. the ever popular celebrity death watch)
  
• general kvetching
  

See you soon!

I’ve been rather swamped, trying to get some things organized at home (with little progress, alas) and doing a lot of work for the Women’s Storytelling Festival which is less than 2 weeks away. You can still get tickets here, either in-person or virtual. And you get access to the recordings for an entire month.

Theatre Going: After my trip to New York in early February (which I already wrote about here), I saw a couple of shows locally. I went with my friend, Cindy, to the Taffety Punk Theatre Company production of Beowulf at the Capital Hill Arts Workshop was wonderful. Storyteller Marcus Kyd mixed the story of Beowulf with other stories about heroes - Eddie Aikau, John Henry, and the Oversteegen sisters. He was a very engaging performer and managed to get a whole bar full of people singing Hrothgar’s genealogy to the tune of “This Land is My Land.”

At the end of the month, I went to see The World to Come at Woolly Mammoth. Pretty much everything I’ve ever seen there was pretty strange and this was no exception. The plot involves a group of four people (three women and a man) at a Jewish home for the elderly. The world has started crumbling and everybody over the age of 75 has been forced to move into a retirement community, where they’ve slowly been cut off from the rest of the world, being deprived of television, mail, and visitors. And then the flesh-eating ostriches show up ...

Storytelling: I also went to three story swaps. One was at the Quince Orchard Library in Gaithersburg. It had multiple themes - love (for Valentine’s Day), Asia (for the Asian New Year), and Horses (specifically, for the year of the Fire Horse). I combined all three to tell a Mongolian story about a wife taking revenge on an abusive husband. The next one was the monthly Voices in the Glen swap on-line and I recited a poem I wrote about looking for my muse. I recited the same poem the next day at the Community Storytellers on-line story swap.

Poems: Speaking of poems, I am still keeping up with the Stafford Challenge. Here are the titles of my poems for two more weeks.

Week 6:

21 February 2026 - Soup

22 February 2026 - People of the Notebook

23 February 2026 - Novocaine

24 February 2026 - Game Night Haiku

25 February 2026 - Holiday Edition

26 February 2026 - Levi Strauss

27 February 2026 - The End of the World

Week 7:

28 February 2026 - Silly

1 March 2026 - Measuring Time

2 March 2026 - Hospital Waiting Room

3 March 2026 - Poe-try

4 March 2026 - Midweek Meditation

5 March 2026 - Whelmed

6 March 2026 - The World’s Longest Running Brief Meaningless Fling


A Few Medical Things: I had an annoying periodontist appointment, involving deep scaling of one quarter of my mouth. I hate waiting for novocaine to wear off. And I hate the noises involved.

I also had my mammogram. Taking flat pictures of round objects is painful. At least nowadays, you get the results back in under an hour. And all is well.

I still need to do some bloodwork and my annual physical.

Moving on to March, I took Cindy to the hospital for outpatient surgery. I am not good at sitting still, so waiting for four hours was hard on me, even though I had a good supply of books and puzzles with me. Still, us older women need to support one another.

I went up to New York a couple of weeks ago for a long weekend. (That was after several days of not going outside at all, due to what they called “snowcrete,” i.e. icy sleet on top of snow, which created a disgusting substance with the texture of concrete.) I had originally scheduled an evening Acela, which would have arrived about 9:30 p.m. but I was notified a couple of days in advance that it was canceled, so I took a train that was scheduled to get in about 5 p.m. I usually just take a northeast regional since the time difference from the Acela is minimal, but this was one of those rare times when the cost differences was minimal. In the end, my train was delayed about an hour, which was annoying mostly because they kept changing the time it was going to leave. And, several times, the text they sent claimed that the new time was the original time, despite what was being announced. It didn’t matter much to me, since I was still getting in quite a bit earlier than my original plans. And Amtrak did send me compensation, which will be helpful since I have 2 or 3 more Amtrak trips in the next couple of months.

I had enough time to grab takeout pizza before going to my hotel. I’d gotten a reasonable price at the Fairfield Inn & Suites right across the street from Moynihan Train Hall. I ate my pizza and watched the Olympic opening ceremonies, which annoyed me because of NBC’s overemphasis on Team USA. I wanted to know more about things like the sole competitor from Guinea Bissau. I was also following the Israeli bobsleigh team because their captain, A.J. Edelman is an MIT alumnus (and even course 2, like me and Senator Alex Pedilla!) He was the first Orthodox Jew to compete in the Winter Olympics (in Skeleton in 2018) and his brother is the comedian Alex Edelman, whose show Just For Us has to do with his experiences with a white supremacist group. And, by the way, one of the members of that Israeli bobsleigh team is Druze.

It was particularly windy and frigid out, which limited the amount of random walking around that I did. My plans were for a theatre day, so that wasn’t a huge issue. The first show I saw was the matinee performance of Buena Vista Social Club. This was an easy choice for me to make since I like Cuban music and have loved both the movie and CD for years. And it was, indeed, very enjoyable. The performances were heartfelt and I really appreciated the booklet about the songs that was included inside the Playbill. And the band was incredible, well deserving of the special Tony award they got. By the way, the real Omara Portuondo is still alive (in her mid 90’s) and has recorded an album as recently as 2023. Highly recommended.

Saturday night’s selection was Death Becomes Her. I didn’t know a lot about this musical going in and had chosen it largely because the reviews were good. The basic premise is that Viola Van Horn (played by Michelle Williams, who had started her career in Destiny’s Child) has access to a potion that promises eternal youth - and life. The actual story has to do with the rivalry between an actress named Madeline Ashton, and the friend (named Helen Sharp) who she abuses all her life, down to stealing her plastic surgeon fiance. And that’s exactly the problem I had with this show. The songs have amusing lyrics and there is plenty of funny material and the special effects are impressive. But do we really need a show that is based on two women attempting to sabotage one another?

By the way, how cold was it out? They were claiming the wind chill made it feel like -17 Fahrenheit. In more practical terms, I walked 4 blocks (to 43rd street) and got on the subway for the remaining 10 blocks because I just couldn’t handle the temperature any more. And I was wearing 3 layers of clothes, as well as my warmest jacket.

Sunday wasn’t much better, though I had the sense to add yet another layer to my clothes. I headed cross-town to meet up with a group of folks from FlyerTalk at the 2nd Avenue Deli. Josh organizes Deli Do a couple of times a year and there were about 20 attendees. I’ve been once or twice before and I’ve eaten at that deli lots of times, going all the way back to when it was actually on 2nd Avenue. I noticed that the menu no longer has hot open faced sandwiches, which used to be one of my go-to orders in my childhood. A tongue sandwich and a kasha knish is my most common deli order these days. But, given the cold weather, I thought that the soup and half sandwich option was a good idea. I got the mushroom barley soup and half a chopped liver sandwich. Both were quite good. And, of course, a Dr. Brown’s diet cream soda, since I never acquired the taste for cel-ray. Jewish soul food and talk about flying / travel - what better way to spend a long lunch? Several of us walked over to Blue Haven East afterwards for adult beverages and more conversation. I have a long standing quest for the best hot buttered rum in NYC and theirs was pretty good. And it was nice to be able to mingle and chat with people who had been sitting at the far end of the deli from the table I ended up at.

I took advantage of proximity to walk over to the Morgan Library, which had been on my list of places in New York that I had not been to before. I was particularly eager to get there since they have a Caravaggio painting temporarily on loan from the Galleria Borghese in Rome. In addition to Boy with a Basket of Fruit, there were other naturalist works, mostly by contemporaries of Caravaggio and other painters influenced by his style. I’m mostly a modern art aficionado, but I was awestruck by Caravaggio’s use of color and light when I saw two of his paintings at Saint John’s Co-Cathedral in Valetta, Malta some 25 years ago and consider him the greatest painter of the late 16th / early 17th centuries.



It was also the last day of an exhibit of Renoir drawings. I’m not particularly keen on Renoir (or, frankly, the impressionists, in general). But a quick look through that exhibit left me impressed with Renoir’s skill as a draftsman.



But, of course, the real highlight of the Morgan Library is the actual library, which is spectacular.





Don’t forget to look up at the ceilings, too!



I wandered over to Grand Central Terminal for a bit, then headed back to the west side to go to a cabaret show. I had heard of Don’t Tell Mama from a couple of puzzle people, but had never been there before. I was impressed with the number of people who went there alone, which is a bit unusual in my past experience at cabaret venues. I had a lively and interesting conversation with the woman sitting at the table next to mine, who I found out at the end of the evening was a somewhat well-known actress, Neva Small. As for the actual show, it was called Jewish Caroling: The Music of Carole King, Carole Bayer-Sager and Carolyn Leigh. The performer, Deborah Zecher,is a singer, storyteller, and rabbi and she put together an interesting mix of songs by those three Jewish women. I hadn’t known this going in, but the proceeds from the show are being donated to Beth Israel, the synagogue in Mississippi that was burned down.

For women of my generation, Carole King’s Tapestry was a truly iconic album. I remember listening to it with my best friend in the bedroom of an older girl who lived on our block, who would go on to tell us that an orgasm is like a sneeze between the legs! And, yes, I do still have my own copy of it. Anyway, it was a very enjoyable show and I’ll check out the offerings at Don’t Tell Mama for future New York trips. By the way, the wind had died down and walking back to the hotel was tolerable.

I went down to the Lower East Side on Monday. Walking through Penn Station to get to the F train, I passed this interesting glass mosaic mural. It is called Garden of Circus Delights and was done by Eric Fischl. There is actually quite a lot of interesting art in the New York City subway system and it would be fun to spend most of a day exploring it.



My goal was seeing a temporary art exhibit, sponsored by Manischewitz in honor of a new line of bottled soups.





They also had some cute merchandise, e.g. aprons, baseball caps, and patches with various Yiddish slogans. But none of that is anything that I’d ever use. And neither my brother nor the gentleman with whom I’m conducting the world’s longest running brief meaningless fling ever wear any type of hat. They were also selling soup from a food truck nearby, but I had other intentions.

Specifically, I had lunch at Russ & Daughters. The “Super Heebster” consists of whitefish and baked salmon salad with horseradish-dill aream cheese and wasabi roe. I got it on a bialy, and it was very tasty. It also came with half sour pickles and, while I normally favor full sours, they worked well with the mild spiciness.



And I couldn’t resist their halvah ice cream. While I enjoyed it, I would have actually liked a smaller portion and I didn’t think the salted caramel topping added much to it.



The food was pricy, but worth it.

I spent a lazy afternoon catching up on some reading and puzzles, before heading uptown towards Lincoln Center, where the subway station had another attractive set of glass mosaics (but I didn’t photograph those). From there, it was a short walk to the Marjorie S. Dean Little Theatre to see Going Bacharach. This was (obviously) a tribute to Burt Bacharach, performed by three singers with a small band. All three singers were excellent. I was not thrilled by the musical arrangements, which lacked brass. The music director, Adrian Galante, was impressive on the clarinet, but the flamboyance of his piano playing annoyed me. I’d also have liked to actually learn something about Burt Bacharach as a person. One of the singers did talk a bit about his use of mixed meter, which I thought was interesting. But, overall, I found the show disappointing.

Speaking of disappointing, I ‘d stayed at that Fairfield several times before. While the rooms are comfortable, the breakfast offerings have deteriorated. The breakfast on the weekend was better, but on weekdays, they didn’t have salsa for the scrambled eggs (though they did have bottles of a few types of hot sauce) and they didn’t have pancakes or waffles. More egregiously, the only fresh fruit they had were bananas (yuk). On the weekend, they had salad, but not on weekdays. This is a minor annoyance as there are plenty of places to get a decent breakfast within easy walking distance. But there used to be more variety. Another issues is that one of the three elevators wouldn’t recognize my room key, nor those of several other people, and this did not get repaired during my stay. My biggest complaint is that the rate for Monday night was considerably higher than for the previous three nights and this was not clearly displayed when making the reservation on line. I’ll have to rethink whether or not to stay there in the future.

I didn’t have any issues with Amtrak going home on Tuesday morning. The metro also cooperated and I was able to get in a lovely afternoon nap, before catching up on some household chores.

Celebrity Death Watch - December 2025: Robert Lindsay wrote The Falcon ad the Snowman. Perry Bamonte played guitar for The Cure. David Rosen cofounded Sega. Lou Gerstner was the CEO of IBM from 1993 through 2002. Jeffrey R. Holland was the president of the LDS Church. Thomas J. Fogarty invented the balloon catheter, used for treating blood clots. Julius Berman was a lawyer and Orthodox rabbi who served in leadership positions in several Jewish organizations, including the Orthodox Union. Tatiana Schlossberg was an environmental journalist and the daughter of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg. Dick Zimmer was a congressman from New Jersey (and the father of my friend, Ben).

Brigitte Bardot was an actress. She cared more about animal rights than about human rights and was fined several times for inciting racial hatred.

Ben Nighthorse Campbell served in both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. During his term in office, he was the only Native American serving in Congress. He had earlier become the first Native American on the U.S. Olympic judo team. He switched from the Democratic to the Republican party in 1995, largely due to a dispute with the Colorado Democratic Party over the balanced-budget amendment.

Celebrity Death Watch - January 2026: Brian Doyle was a Canadian writer, primarily of children’s books. Diane Crump was the first woman to ride in a parimutuel race in the United States. Johnny Legend was a rockabilly musician. Aldrich Ames was a spy, who compromised more CIA assets than any other intelligence officer at the time of his arrest. Philippe Junot was the first husband of Princess Caroline of Monaco. Bob Weir was a founding member of The Grateful Dead. Louis E. Burs won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for co-discovering quantum dots. Kenny Morris played drums for Siouxsie and the Banshees. Gladys West was a mathematician who worked primarily on developing satellite geodesy models. Valentino was a fashion designer. Hudson Talbott wrote and illustrated children’s books and collaborated with Stephen Sondheim on a book version of Into the Woods. Roland Huntford wrote several books about polar exploration, notably The Last Place on Earth about the race between Scott and Amundsen to the South Pole. Bryan Loren wrote the satirical song “Do the Bartman.” Demond Wilson played Lamont on Sanford and Son. Catherine O’Hara was a comic actress known for appearing in Home Alone, Beetlejuice, and Schitt’s Creek. Billy Bass Nelson played bass guitar for Parliament-Funkadelic. Mingo Lewis was a percussionist for Santana and Al Di Meola.

Scott Adams was responsible for the comic strip, Dilbert, which adorned office doors throughout the United States. He fostered a negative view of the corporate world and wasn’t any nicer in the rest of his life. He took to political commentary and was eventually brought down by persistent racism. (I knew someone who had worked with him at Pacific Bell and she said he was, in general, an asshole.) By the way, a colleague and I once bought our boss a pointy-haired boss wig and he wore it while doing our performance reviews. He was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 19 points.

X. J. Kennedy was a phenomenal poet. He began his career writing science fiction stories for pulp magazine (mostly under the name Joe Kennedy) and had his first book of poetry, Nude Descending a Staircase: Poems, Songs, A Ballad in 1961. He wrote a lot of poetry for children, as well as for adults, and was the poetry editor for The Paris Review. He also taught writing at several universities (notably at Tufts for 15 years) and wrote textbooks. If you like light verse at all, you owe it to yourself to read his work. He was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 24 points (including a 12 point bonus for uniqueness.) I wrote the following, loosely based on his poem “In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus,” which was the first of his poems I ever read. (This is a revised version after one of my friends objected to an imperfect rhyme on my first attempt.)

A Eulogy for X.J. Kennedy

In a small living room on Long Island one day
I first read the works of the poet, X. J.
Joseph Charles Kennedy was his name at his birth
His poems were amusing, they sparkled with mirth.

He wrote about children, he wrote about art
He wrote with sharp humor, but also with heart.
His verses showed off his supreme savoir faire
He loved rhyme and meter, and used them with flair.

He translated works, from French and from Greek
He won many prizes - at least one each week
And now in his nineties, death’s pulled him away
but I’ll always remember the poet, X.J.


Convergence - Lullabies and Anthems: The final session of Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell’s class was Tuesday of last week. He had two subjects to talk about. Re: lullabies, he asked us which ones we knew. The most familiar one to me was the Yiddish song “Rozhinkes Mit Mandlen” which has a widow sitting in the corner of the synagogue singing to her son about his future. He discussed another Yiddish lullaby and the song “All the Pretty Little Horses,” which he explained as an enslaved man singing to his son, after her mother had probably been sold down the river. He focused on the theme connecting these being the absent parent. I didn’t think of it at the time, but now I’ve been wondering about the level of violence in lullabies, e.g. “Rock-a-bye Baby” (in which “down will come cradle, baby and all”).

As for anthems, most of us knew “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Hatikvah” (the Israeli national anthem, whose title means “The Hope”) but he also wanted us to discuss things other than national anthems, e.g. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (which is sometimes called the Black National Anthem) or even “I Am Woman.” He closed by posing the question, “What does victory look like for us?” It’s a good question to ask in troubled times.

Overall, I thought the class was worth my time. I’ll look for other offerings from New Lehrhaus, though it is always hard to clear my schedule for things like this.

Stafford Challenge - Week 2: I managed to write a poem every day again for the second week. I will, in general, include just the titles here.

24 January - Winter Storm

25 January - Do You Know Who I Am?

26 January - Ink

27 January - The Bordens

28 January - Irony

29 January - LIRR 1

30 January - LIRR 2

I’ve noticed two things. First, I can’t write just about things associated with the wreck of the Congressional Limited, because other topics distract me. I have plenty of things to say about trains in general (including my habit of writing haikus when I am frustrated with the Metro). But other topics inevitably creep into my head. And, secondly, the best advice I’ve gotten for doing this challenge (and for writing in general) is that when you feel blocked, you just have to lower your standards.

Projects: My Tunisian crochet afghan is crawling along. The biggest problem is that I really only work at it during crafts group. I probably need to watch more television.

I finally wrote the first part of my guide to Lithuanian Jewish names. This part covers given names. I still want to write about surnames, but I am not sure where I put my notes for that.

I also have a bunch of things to do for the Women’s Storytelling Festival. I’ve got two major tasks and need to get a good start on them this week.

Snowcrete: We had about 6 inches of snow a little over a week ago. The problem is that we got 3 inches of sleet on top of it, resulting in an annoyingly hard layer of ice which was too difficult for most people to clear. My condo complex does an okay job of clearing the sidewalk, but a lot of people don’t bother. (Or, physically can’t.) And it’s been too cold for ice melt to be effective. Can we please fast forward to springtime?

Both Sides Now: I went to a concert Saturday night at Sixth and I on Saturday night. It was titled Both Sides Now: The Music and Lives of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. It was performed by Robbie Schaefer, who I’ve liked since the days of Eddie from Ohio, and Danielle Wertz, who I hadn’t heard of before. It was generally enjoyable, though I had qualms about a few of the arrangements. In particular, I thought the arrangement of “Big Yellow Taxi” was slowed down too much. But, overall, I thought it was a success. And the audience was engaged and responsive and well-behaved. At the end, everybody sang along to “The Circle Game, which felt like the right closing. I'm glad I braved the frigid evening to go.