The Past Week or So
Jul. 28th, 2020 01:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fauxkloreI am still having trouble with executive function. That is, there are lots of things I should be doing, but it’s hard to motivate myself to do them. Today, I did manage to set up an account I need at work (a temporary thing for a specific project) and I made an appointment to get my car serviced next week, so I feel somewhat productive.
I have been fairly busy with entertainment of various sorts, however. The Sunday before last was a story swap with Community Storytellers, the Los Angeles group that introduced me to storytelling.
Tuesday night was a Profs and Pints lecture by Allen Pietrobon on “The Truth Beyond White Picket Fences.” This is the third of his talks I’ve been to and he is always engaging, informative and entertaining. He talked about the post-World War II housing shortage and how that led to the development of suburbia, with its environmental impacts and explicit racism. My home town was a fishing village turned suburb, so this had some personal resonance for me. We were always aware that Mr. Garrett, who had developed our neighborhood (if not other parts of town) had what was, by far, the nicest house in the area. (We always made a particular point of hitting up his house when trick or treating, for example.) I don’t think there were explicit racist covenants there, though there were in many other places. The really chilling story involved the Pennsylvania Levittown, which harassed a black family for 4 years before they gave up and moved away. There were perfectly nice looking women interviewed by a reporter about how they wouldn’t have bought their houses if there weren’t racial covenants. There was a little discussion at the end about the trend now for younger people to want to live in cities and the uncertainty about whether that will continue with the pandemic. Overall, a very interesting talk. (The recorded talk is available on line if you are interested.)
Wednesday night, I played board games – Code Names and Wise and Otherwise.
Thursday night was an on-line musical theatre trivia game run by York Theatre, which is a theatre in New York that I like a great deal. I mostly go to their Musicals in Mufti, which are concert versions of (generally) obscure old musicals. There were four rounds with 8 questions each. I had a perfect score in the first two rounds, but the last two had more questions I needed to guess on, so I didn’t win any of the prizes. It was still fun.
Friday night saw me listening to a program of Broadway musical performances by Upper Room Theatre Ministry. It was reasonably entertaining, but there was nothing really surprising. Before and after that, I listened to bits and pieces of the Lowell Folk Festival (which went on all weekend).
I spent the weekend doing some household odds and ends, including grocery shopping. Sunday night was a Chavurah meeting, which included some rather bizarre political discussion. Er, no, Biden is not a puppet of “those three girls.” And, no, it is not unreasonable for vaccine manufacturers to get paid for their products. To be fair, this was pretty much on the part of one person and other people pushed back.
Which brings us back to doe, er board games. We had a quick round of trivial pursuit and spend the rest of the time playing Fibbage.
I have been fairly busy with entertainment of various sorts, however. The Sunday before last was a story swap with Community Storytellers, the Los Angeles group that introduced me to storytelling.
Tuesday night was a Profs and Pints lecture by Allen Pietrobon on “The Truth Beyond White Picket Fences.” This is the third of his talks I’ve been to and he is always engaging, informative and entertaining. He talked about the post-World War II housing shortage and how that led to the development of suburbia, with its environmental impacts and explicit racism. My home town was a fishing village turned suburb, so this had some personal resonance for me. We were always aware that Mr. Garrett, who had developed our neighborhood (if not other parts of town) had what was, by far, the nicest house in the area. (We always made a particular point of hitting up his house when trick or treating, for example.) I don’t think there were explicit racist covenants there, though there were in many other places. The really chilling story involved the Pennsylvania Levittown, which harassed a black family for 4 years before they gave up and moved away. There were perfectly nice looking women interviewed by a reporter about how they wouldn’t have bought their houses if there weren’t racial covenants. There was a little discussion at the end about the trend now for younger people to want to live in cities and the uncertainty about whether that will continue with the pandemic. Overall, a very interesting talk. (The recorded talk is available on line if you are interested.)
Wednesday night, I played board games – Code Names and Wise and Otherwise.
Thursday night was an on-line musical theatre trivia game run by York Theatre, which is a theatre in New York that I like a great deal. I mostly go to their Musicals in Mufti, which are concert versions of (generally) obscure old musicals. There were four rounds with 8 questions each. I had a perfect score in the first two rounds, but the last two had more questions I needed to guess on, so I didn’t win any of the prizes. It was still fun.
Friday night saw me listening to a program of Broadway musical performances by Upper Room Theatre Ministry. It was reasonably entertaining, but there was nothing really surprising. Before and after that, I listened to bits and pieces of the Lowell Folk Festival (which went on all weekend).
I spent the weekend doing some household odds and ends, including grocery shopping. Sunday night was a Chavurah meeting, which included some rather bizarre political discussion. Er, no, Biden is not a puppet of “those three girls.” And, no, it is not unreasonable for vaccine manufacturers to get paid for their products. To be fair, this was pretty much on the part of one person and other people pushed back.
Which brings us back to doe, er board games. We had a quick round of trivial pursuit and spend the rest of the time playing Fibbage.
