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Catchety-Uppity
Here’s a run-down on other things I’ve done so far this month, focused on the good things. (I’ll save the stressful stuff for another post, which will probably be a non-public one.) But first, an announcement of an upcoming event
Shameless Self-Promotion: I am going to be part of a show of an on-line storytelling show of Fractured Fairy Tales on Thursday February 9th at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Tickets and more information are available here. If you can’t make it live, it will be recorded and you can watch the replay.
Routine: I have a lot of standing meetings. Book Club is every 6 weeks. My Lithuanian Jewish genealogy mentoring session is monthly. I have a standing crafting get-together every Thursday afternoon. And I play board games with a couple of different groups regularly. I have another book club starting up, too.
Three Genealogy Things: I went to a genealogy talk last week specifically for grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Since both my father and grandfather were survivors (of the Kaunas Ghetto and Dachau), I qualify as both a 2G and 3G. I don’t think I really learned anything new from the talk, but they sent out a good list of resources.
I submitted a proposal for a talk about Telling Family Stories at the IAJGS conference in London. I have no idea whether or not it will be accepted. I plan to go to the conference anyway, since it has been way too long since I have been to London.
And I got a reply from a cousin who I contacted a couple of years ago. Now I need to get back to her. I am hoping she has some info about my grandfather’s mother’s family.
Two Jews Walk Into a War: I went with my friend Cindy to this play at Theatre J last weekend, i.e. a week ago Saturday. The play is very loosely based on the actual story of the last two Jews in Afghanistan, who loathed each other. I am reasonably sure that neither of them was descended from a concentration camp survivor, however, since the Soviet Jews who came to Afghanistan in the 1930’s and 1940’s were from Central Asia. And they certainly would not have spoken any Yiddish. Nor was the klezmer music played between scenes at all appropriate. I can’t imagine why they didn’t even try to find something mizrahi to use.
On the plus side, much of the play was funny, albeit a bit cruder than I’d have preferred. The biggest plus was the actors. Bobby Smith and Sasha Olinick both gave excellent performances.
Bit of historical trivia is that after Ishaq Levin died and Zablon Simintov emigrated to Israel, it turned out that a distant cousin of Simintov’s, Tova Morandi was still living in Afghanistan. But she left (to Albania!) a month after he did.
Museum of Illusions: On Friday, Cindy and I went to the pop-up Museum of Illusions in downtown D.C. A lot of the exhibits are familiar optical illusions, e.g. things where two lines look different lengths but are the same or staring at something makes it seem to move and so on. But there are some fun interactive exhibits. You really need someone else there to take pictures of you playing with them.
For example, here is a picture taken from a short distance:
But, if the picture is taken from the right spot (marked on the floor), I turn into Edith Ann:
In some cases, you have to manipulate the photo, e.g. by rotating it to get the effect, as in this one:
And here I am, just beside myself because I’m playing cards with untrustworthy sorts:
Overall, it was a fun way to spend about 45 minutes, but it was pricy and rather more crowded than was optimal. The museum is there until late March if you want to check it out for yourself.
Post-Post Loser Party: This past Saturday night (i.e. a couple of days ago) was the annual Style Invitational Loser post-Holiday party. The WaPo may have dropped us, but Loserdom lives on and we’re continuing on Gene Weingarten’s substack page. There were about 75 people there and we ate and mingled before the obligatory sing-along of loser-written songs. Usually there’s a certain amount of topical (i.e. mostly political) humor in the songs, but this year’s were all focused on the Post having canceled the contest. Overall, I had a pretty good time.
Two Minor Triumphs: I got Redactle #287 in 1 guess. That falls in the category of things that are unlikely to happen ever again.
And, yesterday, I reached #1 in the Diamond League on Duolingo. So I’ve gotten all of the achievements except the ones for playing consecutive games. That satisfied my competitive spirit since I can reach that remaining achievement independent of what anyone else does.
Shameless Self-Promotion: I am going to be part of a show of an on-line storytelling show of Fractured Fairy Tales on Thursday February 9th at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Tickets and more information are available here. If you can’t make it live, it will be recorded and you can watch the replay.
Routine: I have a lot of standing meetings. Book Club is every 6 weeks. My Lithuanian Jewish genealogy mentoring session is monthly. I have a standing crafting get-together every Thursday afternoon. And I play board games with a couple of different groups regularly. I have another book club starting up, too.
Three Genealogy Things: I went to a genealogy talk last week specifically for grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Since both my father and grandfather were survivors (of the Kaunas Ghetto and Dachau), I qualify as both a 2G and 3G. I don’t think I really learned anything new from the talk, but they sent out a good list of resources.
I submitted a proposal for a talk about Telling Family Stories at the IAJGS conference in London. I have no idea whether or not it will be accepted. I plan to go to the conference anyway, since it has been way too long since I have been to London.
And I got a reply from a cousin who I contacted a couple of years ago. Now I need to get back to her. I am hoping she has some info about my grandfather’s mother’s family.
Two Jews Walk Into a War: I went with my friend Cindy to this play at Theatre J last weekend, i.e. a week ago Saturday. The play is very loosely based on the actual story of the last two Jews in Afghanistan, who loathed each other. I am reasonably sure that neither of them was descended from a concentration camp survivor, however, since the Soviet Jews who came to Afghanistan in the 1930’s and 1940’s were from Central Asia. And they certainly would not have spoken any Yiddish. Nor was the klezmer music played between scenes at all appropriate. I can’t imagine why they didn’t even try to find something mizrahi to use.
On the plus side, much of the play was funny, albeit a bit cruder than I’d have preferred. The biggest plus was the actors. Bobby Smith and Sasha Olinick both gave excellent performances.
Bit of historical trivia is that after Ishaq Levin died and Zablon Simintov emigrated to Israel, it turned out that a distant cousin of Simintov’s, Tova Morandi was still living in Afghanistan. But she left (to Albania!) a month after he did.
Museum of Illusions: On Friday, Cindy and I went to the pop-up Museum of Illusions in downtown D.C. A lot of the exhibits are familiar optical illusions, e.g. things where two lines look different lengths but are the same or staring at something makes it seem to move and so on. But there are some fun interactive exhibits. You really need someone else there to take pictures of you playing with them.
For example, here is a picture taken from a short distance:
But, if the picture is taken from the right spot (marked on the floor), I turn into Edith Ann:
In some cases, you have to manipulate the photo, e.g. by rotating it to get the effect, as in this one:
And here I am, just beside myself because I’m playing cards with untrustworthy sorts:
Overall, it was a fun way to spend about 45 minutes, but it was pricy and rather more crowded than was optimal. The museum is there until late March if you want to check it out for yourself.
Post-Post Loser Party: This past Saturday night (i.e. a couple of days ago) was the annual Style Invitational Loser post-Holiday party. The WaPo may have dropped us, but Loserdom lives on and we’re continuing on Gene Weingarten’s substack page. There were about 75 people there and we ate and mingled before the obligatory sing-along of loser-written songs. Usually there’s a certain amount of topical (i.e. mostly political) humor in the songs, but this year’s were all focused on the Post having canceled the contest. Overall, I had a pretty good time.
Two Minor Triumphs: I got Redactle #287 in 1 guess. That falls in the category of things that are unlikely to happen ever again.
And, yesterday, I reached #1 in the Diamond League on Duolingo. So I’ve gotten all of the achievements except the ones for playing consecutive games. That satisfied my competitive spirit since I can reach that remaining achievement independent of what anyone else does.
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