fauxklore

Random odds and ends, though I am still way behind.


Beisbol: All of the teams I care about are doing horribly. The only team with a worse record than my beloved BoSox is Pittsburgh (who I don’t really care about). The Nats, the Giants, and the Royals are all cellar dwellers and the only reason the Mets aren’t is because they play in the same division as the Nats. Even worse, the Source of All Evil in the Universe is In second in the AL East, which is, as always, a bad sign for the universe in general. Sob.

Quick Political Note of the Day: I am not watching much of the Democratic Convention, but I couldn’t resist watching the roll call. I have two questions: 1) What on earth was the woman from Iowa wearing? And 2) Does anybody actually think of calamari when they think of Rhode Island? I could see clams, but tentacles? Really? (Note: when I think of Rhode Island, I mostly think of johnnycakes and coffee milk.

Other Places to Consider Living: I should probably also look at Rhode Island (both Newport and Providence) and maybe Southern Connecticut, though the latter suffers from lack of great airport access.

Looking at Boston-area real estate (on-line) is depressing. I am spoiled where I am now, with a lot of space (1100 square feet) and full size washer and dryer in my unit, as well as various yuppie amenities in my condo complex (aside from the expected like gym, pool, and sauna, there is, for example, a golf simulator). It looks like prices in, say, Somerville, would beat least half again as much as what I would be likely to get for my condo, with taxes about double what they are here and none of those amenities, not that I really make much use of them. To be fair, HOA fees are about half what mine are now. But still …

And, no, I don’t know why I am even looking since I have no intention of moving for at least 3 years.

10 Rules For Pairing Potato Chips: I forgot to write about this virtual play I saw a douple of weeks ago. The premise was interesting enough. The world expert on crispology, the art of what potato chips to serve with any given main course, has to avert a diplomatic crisis when a White House menu has both potato chips and French fries on the menu to accompany hamburgers. An agent of a rival country is opposing her, as is another expert on potato chip pairing. She is assisted by her young protégé. This should have been funny, but it didn’t quite work for me.

Code Names: We’ve continued to play Code Names a couple of times a week. I’ve noticed that when we are teaming up, we most often do it along gender lines.

Wednesday night, I thought I had given a rather clever clue, by using “Frenchman” to clue the words “cheese” and “monkey.” Alas, my teammate had never heard the phrase “cheese-eating surrender monkey,” so it didn’t work.

Film Talk: I went to a n on-line talk with Eric Anjou, director of Deli Man and other Jewish-themed movies, including a couple of documentaries about Jewish music, last night. He spoke well, though he was wrong about several things. For example, he claimed that Katz’s is the only Jewish deli left in Manhattan. Er, no, there’s Ben’s, Pastrami Queen (which is opening a branch at the old Fine and Shapiro’s), and, my favorite, 2nd Avenue Deli, as well as others I don’t generally go to. He also said that Kenny and Zuke’s in Portland is gone, which is not true.

Celebrity Death Watch: Anne Hart wrote biographies of fictional characters, e.g. Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. Juliette Kaplan was an actress who appeared in Coronation Street. John Giorno was a poet and performance artist and created Dial-a-Poem. Robert Forster was an actor, best known for an Oscar nomination for his role in Jackie Brown. Mac Christensen was the president of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. E. A. Carmean was an art historian and curator (and was married to someone who works in my office). Sophia Kokosalaki was a fashion designer. Beverly Sackler was cofounder of Purdue Pharma (of opioid fame). Harold Bloom was a literary critic. Kate Braverman was a novelist. Patrick Day was a boxer, who died of injuries sustained in a bout. Bill Macy was an actor, best known for playing Maude’s husband, Walter, on the TV show Maude. Alicia Alonso was a Cuban ballerina and choreographer. William Milliken was the longest-serving governor of Michigan. Mark Hurd was the CEO of Hewlett Packard and, later, of Oracle. Thomas D’Alessandro III was the mayor of Baltimore in the late 1960’s.

Alexei Leonov was a cosmonaut. In 1965, he became the first person to walk in space.

Woodie Flowers was an MIT professor of Mechanical Engineering. Students of my generation remember him largely for the 2.70 Design Competition, in which we got paper bags full of odds and ends (fasteners, springs, venetian blind slats, and other what-have-you) to fashion into a machine to do something. I remember his advice that it was better if your creation did something like going to pieces spectacularly rather than just sitting there. He later on got involved with STEM programs for younger children and was rather a hero to participants in FIRST Robotics.

Leah Bracknell was a British actress, best known for appearing in a soap opera called Emmerdale. She was on my ghoul pool list because she was widely known to have terminal lung cancer. She earned me 19 points.

Elijah Cummings was a member of the House of Representatives from Maryland. He chaired the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.


World Series: The Washington Nationals are in the World Series! This is incredible and will be keeping me sleep deprived for at least the rest of the week.


I Try Things So You Don’t Have To: I like Coke Zero. Vanilla Coke Zero, however, is terrible.


The Grapevine: I made it to The Grapevine (a monthly storytelling show at a venue right at the D.C. / Maryland border) last Wednesday. The featured tellers were Megan Hicks and Jamie Brickhouse. I told a story with a particularly atrocious pun at the end during the open mike. Megan had a great piece about her mother’s music career and Jamie had stories about his mother and his finding his true self to lead a "sissy fabulous life." All in all, it was an excellent evening and worth the next day’s exhaustion.


Storytelling Workshop: I spent Sunday at a storytelling workshop on dealing with complex stories. It gave me lots of time to work on an idea I have. I’ve mentioned my great-aunt Mary Lehrman before. She died, along with 78 other people, in the 1943 wreck of the Congressional Limited near Philadelphia. I will be telling her story in a show in November. But I want to do a longer piece, which will include stories of some of the other victims of the train wreck. There are some interesting stories there. For example, a man in Brooklyn went to the Philadelphia morgue to identify his wife and children, who were killed in the wreck. He returned home, closed all the doors and windows to his apartment, and turned on the gas. There’s also a story about a Marine lieutenant who never let his briefcase out of his site. He was killed and the briefcase was damaged, but an armed group of men came and took both his body and the briefcase, which appeared to have a sheaf of papers.

I was also curious about survivors who were mentioned. When I got home, I googled Lin Yutang, who the newspaper reports had identified as a Chinese author. He’s really an interesting character. He invented a Chinese typewriter, for example. He published a number of books in both Chinese and English and his wife wrote some of the first Chinese cookbooks in English. I am thinking that using some quotes from him might be an interesting way of structuring the piece – and might also provide a lighter touch to such a tragic story.

Dinner in Sweden: The MIT Club of Washington had its annual meeting at the House of Sweden last night. The buffet dinner had reasonable variety and everything was quite tasty. The menu included roasted vegetable grain salad, potato salad with herbs, green salad, turkey meatballs with lingonberry sauce, salmon with cucumber and tartar sauce, assorted breads, and cake with berries. There was also an open bar, though I limited myself to one glass of sauvignon blanc.

Susan Hockfield (former president of MIT) was the keynote speaker and discussed her new book, The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution. She gave examples of how biology is influencing development of technology for addressing several problems, including medicine (specifically cancer detection using nanoparticles), energy (virus-built batteries), and protein-based water purification. I’ve heard her speak a few times before and she is always informative and engaging.

We also got to go up to the roof deck of the embassy afterwards, which has amazing views over the Potomac. All in all, it was quite a lovely evening. There are times when I think about how nice a life I have and this was definitely one of those.

Sources of Stress: To make sure the evil eye doesn’t retaliate for my smugness about a good life, I just spent over an hour wrestling with our on-line tool for doing our end of week reports. And the only person who can help anyone with it is out today.

Also, a four game series between my Red Sox and the Source of All Evil in the Universe is starting tonight. In accordance with the Grand Unified Theory of Politics, Economics, and the American League East, the world is in considerable danger.

2018 was fairly stressful, largely due to a work situation that appears to be resolving itself. And, of course, the state of the world didn't help.

Books: I read 40 books, which is probably the fewest since I learned how to read. Also, surprisingly, only 6 were non-fiction. This is a little misleading in that I don’t count guidebooks, which end up being most of what I read when I’m traveling. My logic for not counting them is that I rarely read them cover to cover.

Favorites were Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See, Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon, and Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde.

The book I hated the most was Murder By Sacrilege by D. R. Meredith.

I really need to do a used bookstore run. I’m not even sure how many books I have ready to go out.

Volksmarch: I did three events – in New Orleans, Atlantic City, and Charleston, West Virginia. The latter was a State Capital walk. I should get back into focusing on special programs, but first I need to resolve some issues with my right foot.

Travel: I started the year out in Singapore. My last trip of the year was to the U.S. Virgin Islands (St. Thomas and St. John) which is only semi-international, involving a dependency of the U.S., not a separate country. My major trip of the year was my family roots trip to Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus (plus a part of a day in Zurich), which was incredible.

Domestic trips included business trips to Colorado Springs and to Layton, Utah. Personal travel was to New Orleans, Stamford (Connecticut, for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament), Atlantic City,New York (4 times, including a Brooklyn Cyclones game), Portland (Oregon), Rhode Island (mostly for a PawSox game), Memphis (Redbirds game), Milwaukee (Wisconsin for the National Puzzlers’ League con), Frederick (Maryland, for Loserfest. It counts because I did stay overnight), Richmond (Virginia – and, again, staying overnight makes it count), and Charleston (West Virginia). It seems unlikely, but it appears that I had an entire year without going to California.

Puzzles: This was pretty much a middle of the pack year. I ended up in the 62nd percentile at the ACPT, the 39th percentile at the Indie 500, and 55.7th percentile at Lollapuzzoola. Annoyingly, I didn’t solve cleanly at any of them.

I also had a good time (as always) at the NPL con. That included bringing along a hand-out puzzle, which I think went over reasonably well. I am planning for a walk-around puzzle for the 2019 con, since it’s in Boulder, Colorado, a city I have spent a lot of time in.

Ghoul Poul: I didn’t do particularly well in my second year. I finished 14th out of 20 participants, with 70 points. The people I scored with were Prince Henrik, Barbara Bush, John McCain, and George HW Bush.

Genealogy: I did the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks project, which got me writing about a few family stories, but didn’t really drive much research. I did, however, get in touch with a few unknown cousins (two from the FAINSTEIN family, one from the KHAIKEL / MEDINTS family) and made some progress on the GOLDWASSER family (my maternal grandfather’s mother’s side).

Baseball: I only made it to one Major League game this year – Red Sox at Nats on the Fourth of July. But it was a good year since: 1)I got to three minor league games (Memphis, Pawtucket, and Coney Island) and 2)my BoSox won the World Series.

Culture: If I counted correctly, I went to 16 musicals, 2 operas and 14 plays. My favorite musicals were Dave at Arena Stage and Me and My Girl at Encores in New York. My favorite plays were Heisenberg and 4380 Nights at Signature Theatre and Becoming Di. Ruth and Treyf at Theatre J. I also went to one ballet, one Cirque du Soleil shows, and 6 concerts. The most significant of the latter was seeing Jonathan Richman at the 9:30 Club. I had wanted to see him live for ages, so I was really glad to have the opportunity.

I went to One Day University 5 times. And I saw 16 movies, of which my favorites included What We Do in the Shadows, The Shape of Water. and Bathtubs Over Broadway

There was also a bunch of storytelling in there, some with me on stage and more with me in the audience.

Goals: I had six goals for 2018. So how did I score? I got about halfway through 2 afghans, so that gives me 33% on the goal to finish three. I did nothing about organizing photos, though I did find out about scanning resources at the library. I read 40 books, including 1 poetry book, so I I get 77% and 33% for that goal. I think I entered the Style Invitational twice, so will give myself 33% there. I did 3 Volksmarch events, so get 50% there. And I think I got through roughly 65% of catching up on household paperwork. I figure that gives me somewhere around a 40% on the year, which is not terrible, but not wonderful, either.

So what about goals for 2019?

• Finish shredding and filing household paperwork.
  
  
• Organize my genealogy files, both physical and electronic.
  
  
• Organize my yarn stash. Ideally this would include using up at least 25% of the yarn. While I am at it, I also need to organize knitting needles and crochet hooks and the like.
  
  
• Organize photos. Yes, really.
  
  
• Read at least 52 books.
  
  
• Enter the Style Invitational at least 4 times.
  
  
• Do a 20 minute or longer workout at least 3 times a week.
  
  
• Bring lunch to work at least twice a week.
  
  
• Eat fruit every day.
  
  

Celebrity Death Watch: Oliver Knussen composed an opera based on the book Where the Wild Things Are. Melanie Kantrowitz was a poet and activist, writing a lot about Jewish women. Marion Woodman was a psychologist who wrote The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter, an excessively Jungian analysis of eating disorders. Peter Carington was the Secretary General of NATO from 1984 to 1988. John A. Stormer was a propagandist, best known for None Dare Call It Treason. Henry Morgenthau III was a television producer. Carlo Benneton co-founded the clothing company that bears his name. Nathaniel Reed co-wrote the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

Puzzle Follow-up: If you are interested in the puzzle I brought to the NPL con, here’s a link to it.
road to bocon puzzle


While I am Linking to Things - a Friendzy: Here is ghost_light’s birthday friendzy. Probably of more interest to the LJ crowd vs. DW but lots of us use both, n’est ce pas? And lots of people could use more friends.

Weather and Baseball: We had one hell of a storm yesterday afternoon. Fortunately, it was fairly brief, but my power must have gone out at home for a few minutes (based on the kitchen clocks) and there was a lot of flooding. It did stop hours before the All-Star Game, at least. I will admit that I don’t really care about the All-Star Game, but my obsession with Jewish baseball players has me happy that Alex Bregman was the MVP.

Speaking of Treason: I am not quite convinced that Trump’s remarks at the press conference with Putin, disturbing as they were, qualify by the constitutional definition. The question is how one defines an actual enemy. Without a war having been formally declared, I could argue that Russia is not officially an enemy, no matter how much I believe they are in practical terms. Lawyers complicate everything.

Further Proof I am Tired: I saw a reference to a DC superhero show and it took me a minute to realize they were talking about comics, not the District of Columbia.

Ch-ch-changes: I’ve decided to write about only new graze snacks, as I was finding it hard to find things to say about the umptyumpth bag of microwave popcorn.

I need to get better control of my time and space. I am not sure how to do that, but I am thinking I should aim for leaving one unscheduled weekend a month. What I really want to change is the rotation of the earth, but I’ve been advised that is not within my bailiwick.

Celebrity Death Watch: Big Van Vader was a professional wrestler, as was Matt Cappotelli. Constance Adams was an architect who designed space habitats and spaceports. Richard Benjamin Harrison was a Pawn Star. David Goldblatt was a South African photographer. Joe Jackson was the patriarch of the Jackson 5. Harlan Ellison was a science fiction writer. Liliane Montevecchi was a Tony-winning actress. Dame Gillian Lynne was a dancer and choreographer. Alan Longmuir was the bassist for the Bay City Rollers.

Charles Krauthammer was a political commentator. I agreed with some of his positions (primarily on Israel and on Trump) and disagreed with more. Regardless of that, I will always be grateful to him for founding the Jewish classical music series, Pro Musica Hebraica, which put on excellent concerts of music that deserves to be better known.

Donald Hall was a poet, essayist and critic. I heard him read when he was Poet Laureate of the U.S. in 2006. I particularly like that he wrote poems about baseball. I’ve also always loved the title of his memoir String Too Short to Be Saved.


Baseball Americana plus Michael Lewis: Wednesday night was book club, so I normally wouldn’t go out on Thursday night. But a friend had gotten free tickets to hear Michael Lewis (the author of Moneyball) speak at the Library of Congress. The ticket included early admission to the Baseball Americana exhibit, which officially opened on Friday. I got there too late to see much of the exhibit, so I definitely need to go back and spend a few hours there.

As for the talk, he was very entertaining. He apparently had a bit of high school baseball glory and his coach compared him to Catfish Hunter ("he also didn’t have a fastball"). My favorite line was that "children’s sports exist for the moral education of their parents." That was part of an anecdote about his children playing baseball in Berkeley, where the ideal was for a team to finish at .500 and then them being on travel teams where they had to cross the hills and play against Republicans. Overall, it was a very entertaining talk and I’m glad I went, despite my tiredness.

Better Said Than Done: Saturday night was a Better Said Than Done storytelling show at The Auld Shebeen. I told a story about the more normal summer camps I went to. I was having trouble finding an ending, but a spam email I got on Friday morning led me to exactly what I needed. It’s always fun when something works out in an unexpected way. Overall, it was a good show and the audience was responsive.

Hamilton; I saw Hamilton at the Kennedy Center on Sunday. It was very impressive, but I was glad for the open captioning as I could not have kept up with the rap sections otherwise. I’d argue that the rapping serves the role of operatic recitative, making the show closer to opera than to traditional music theatre, though really the whole thing is sui generis.

There are numerous historical accuracies, though I suspect the majority of them are Ron Chernow’s fault, rather than Lin-Manuel Miranda’s. The most egregious has to do with Angelica Schuyler, who was actually already married when she met Alexander Hamilton. I also think John Adams was treated unnecessarily harshly, though he was, after all, obnoxious and disliked. I’m also annoyed at the complete absence of my favorite founding father, Gouverneur Morris.

But whatever the historical flaws, it succeeded in making me more interested in Hamilton’s life and career, which makes it a success overall. I’d also be interested in seeing it again, as I know there are things I missed. (I did catch references ranging from Sondheim to Gilbert and Sullivan.)

I’ll also note that the orchestration is a bit strings-heavy, which is a good thing in my book, but might not be in everyone’s. I wasn’t really crazy about much of the choreography, which I thought was often a bit more frenetic than necessary and has way too much of people jumping on chairs. Still, I would probably benefit from seeing it again and being able to focus more on the staging without the distraction of the captioning.

As for performances, I thought Austin Scott (who played the title role) could have been more energetic, as he was overshadowed by Nicholas Christopher as Aaron Burr and, especially, Carvens Lissaint as George Washington. But this is definitely an ensemble show and the cast did, in general, work well together.

Bottom line is that it is, indeed, a great show. But I still think Guys and Dolls and West Side Story are the best musicals of all time.

I should also note that it is a nice change when the audience demographics look fairly diverse, instead of the more typical experience of a theatre full of older white people. I have been to way too many shows where I am one of a handful of people who can walk unassisted.

Living on the Surface of the Sun: Sheesh, it is hot out. I was outside a bit more than I’d have preferred yesterday, since I went to see the documentary Three Identical Strangers at the DC JCC. And today I discovered that a shuttle bus I needed to take was running only every half hour instead of the normal every 15 minutes, so I roasted while waiting for it. It would have been helpful if they’d put a note to that effect on the schedule board at the stop, instead of the schedule change from March of last year that was posted.

Celebrity Death Watch: Clint Walker was an actor, best known for his role in the TV series Cheyenne. Dovey Johnson Roundtree was a civil rights activist. Allyn Ann McLerie was an actress whose roles included Amy in Where’s Charley? (as in the song "Once in Love with Amy.") Richard Peck wrote children’s books. Ted Dabney cofounded Atari. Gardner Dozois was a science fiction writer and editor.

Philip Roth was a highly overrated writer. Portnoy’s Complaint is one of those books I finished only to see if it improved. It didn’t. His attitudes towards Judaism and towards women were simply obnoxious.

Alan Bean was the fourth person to walk on the moon. He had a later career as a painter, apparently incorporating moon dust from his patches into some of his art. There are now only four moonwalkers still alive – Buzz Aldrin, David Scott, Charles Duke, and Harrison Schmitt.

New England Trip: I flew up to PVD on Saturday morning. I always get a minor kick out of taking advantage of Star Alliance lounge access (thanks to my United Gold status) at IAD when I’m taking a short flight. Especially when it’s a flight on a CRJ, the most uncomfortable planes around. In this case, I had a nice breakfast at the Turkish Air lounge – yogurt, berries, and simit (the Turkish equivalent of sesame bagels, but better because the ratio of sesame seeds to crusty bread is higher) plus surprisingly drinkable coffee.

I rented a car and drove to Connecticut. I had planned to walk around Mystic, but it was very hot and there were big crowds for the holiday weekend, so I didn’t spend long there. Then I drove up to Mohegan Sun, which provided a quick lunch, people watching, and some gambling. It is remarkably glitzy. I was tired so drove on to my hotel (the Hampton Inn in Norwich) in the late afternoon. I took a nap and read for a while, before ordering in what proved to be mediocre Chinese food for supper. Overall, it was an unexciting day, but the next day was the real reason for the trip.

In the morning, I drove to northern Providence to pick up my friend, Ron, at the bus station. We then headed to Pawtucket, hoping to find somewhere to kill time before the PawSox game we were going to. Fortunately, there turned out to be a diner right by McCoy Stadium, where we had a reasonably cheap brunch. Then we headed to the stadium, which has something truly miraculous – free parking! We hung out for a while until the gates opened. That gave us time to notice cute sculptures of children playing ball, as well as a larger statue of Ben Mondor, who bought the team out of bankruptcy in 1977. There is also a mascot statue who needs new pants.

We stopped at the team store for me to buy a hoodie as the fleece I had brought with me had a broken zipper. This was a wise move as the weather was not very baseball suitable – cold and drizzly. Fortunately, the rain stayed light enough that the game could be played. The PawSox defeated the Lehigh Valley IronPigs 1-0. The most notable aspect of the game was a large number of walks. I should also mention there was a sports bottle give-away, so I got to add to my collection of ballpark gimmes.

McCoy Stadium is old (1942) and is at least somewhat endangered, but I thought there was nothing really wrong with it. It’s not at all glitzy, to be fair, but the seats are okay and the concessions, while unexciting, are pretty much in line with other minor league ballparks. The most unique thing there is the tradition of "fishing" for autographs. The field level seats aren’t really at field level, so people lower buckets to the dugouts on ropes with something to sign, a sharpie to sign it with, and some sort of "bait" (typically candy or gum). There are also lots of banners about team history and famous players, as well as a big display about the longest game ever played – the famous 33 inning game between the PawSox and the Rochester Red Wings.

I should also note that the PawSox follow a lot of Red Sox traditions – including singing "Sweet Caroline" in the moddle of the 8th inning and playing "Dirty Water" at the end of the game when they win. The latter doesn’t really make sense that far away from the Charles. Overall it was a fun afternoon, despite the weather.

I drove Ron to the Providence train station, then headed back to Pawtucket to the Hampton Inn there for the night. I read for a while, before walking over to an Irish pub right next to the hotel for supper. The food wasn’t great, but the Narragansett IPA was good.

I flew back Monday morning. I didn’t get nearly as much done Monday afternoon as I’d hoped to, though I did accomplish fairly major grocery shopping and fairly major napping.

Minor League Ballparks: I haven’t officially decided that I should go to a game at every minor league ballpark (as I did with the majors) but I am obsessive enough to sort of have it in mind. So, for the record, here are the ones I have been to (in chronological order):

Salt Lake Bees – Pacific Coast League (AAA) affiliate of the Anaheim (not L.A. damnit) Angels. Apparently, the stadium in Salt Lake City is called Smith’s Ballpark. It’s easy to get to, since there is a light rail stop one block away. I was in SLC for a conference in May 2006 and the game gave me something to do one evening.

Reno Aces – Pacific Coast League (AAA) affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Greater Nevada Field is conveniently located downtown, a short walk from the hotel area. I was in Reno mostly to do a volksmarch or three in April 2011, so this was another target of opportunity.

Portland Sea Dogs – Eastern League (AA) affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. I was in Portland, Maine for Sharing the Fire in April 2013 and thought it would be fun to spend Sunday afternoon going to a game at Hadlock Field. What I neglected in this thinking was the fact that Maine is still uninhabitable in April. Even though I wore multiple layers of clothes plus my winter parka, I don’t think I thawed out completely for a solid week.

Potomac Nationals – Carolina League (A-Advanced) affiliate of the Washington Nationals. G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium is in Woodbridge, Virginia. This is maybe 30 miles from my house, but one has to figure an hour, given traffic on I-95. It’s a shorter drive from Lorton, where I had spent the day at a storytelling event in July 2013. The main reason to go there is that it is a lot cheaper than going to a real Nats game.

Lexington Legends – South Atlantic League (A) affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. I was in Lexington for a Flyertalk Do in April 2014 and skipped out on Friday night partying to go to a game at Whitaker Bank Field because I am more obsessive about baseball than about either horses or bourbon.

Vancouver Canadians – Northwest League (A – Short Season) affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays. Another target of opportunity, as I was in Vancouver for the July 2015 NPL con. I figured I might as well go to a game at Scotiabank Field (aka Nat Bailey Stadium)

Toledo Mud Hens – International League (AAA) affiliate of the Detroit Tigers. Fifth Third Field is downtown, as much as Toledo has a downtown. This was the first time I went somewhere specifically to go to a minor league game, as part of a FlyerTalk Do in September 2015.

Pawtucket Red Sox – International League (AAA) affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. McCoy Field is the oldest of the AAA ballparks and they are talking about either building a new stadium in Pawtucket or moving to Worcester. This was a trip specifically to go to a game there while the ballpark still exists.


Shameless Self-Promotion: I have a few storytelling performances coming up. This coming Sunday (June 3rd), I’ll be telling folktales having to do with Tricksters and Treatsters at the Washington Folk Festival. The festival is at Glen Echo Park in Cabin John, Maryland and is free. My set is at 5 p.m. but there is storytelling and music and dance all day (and all day Saturday, but I have another commitment then.)

On Wednesday June 20th at 7 p.m. I’ll be telling at a Better Said Than Done show at the Lake Anne Coffeehouse in Reston, Virginia. The theme is Top Chef: stories of dining, wining, and winning (or trying to. And on Saturday June 30th at 7 p.m. I’ll be at the Auld Shebeen, again with Better Said Than Done, as part of a show about S’More: stories about camping, food, and wanting more.

Celebrity Death Watch: Raymond Sackler was a physician whose pharmaceutical company marketed Oxycontin among other drugs. He was also heavily involved in various philanthropic ventures, both in scientific fields and in the arts. Kenneth Jay Lane designed costume jewelry. Chester Bennington was the lead singer of Linkin Park. Geoff Mack was an Australian singer-songwriter, best known for "I’ve Been Everywhere." John Heard was an actor. Jim Vance was a news anchor in Washington, DC. Artyom Tarasov was the first person in the USSR to become a millionaire. Patti Deutsch was a comedian and voice actress. Cool "Disco" Dan was a graffiti artist. Sam Shepard was an actor and playwright. John G. Morris was a photo editor for Life and The New York Times as well as various other publications. Stan Hart wrote for MAD. Lee May played baseball fpr the Cincinnati Reds and the Baltimore Orioles among other teams. D. L. Menard was a major figure in Cajun music. Jeanne Moreau was a French actress, best known for starring in Jules et Jim. Marina Ratner was a mathematician.

June Foray was the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Natasha Fatale among others. She is particularly significant because she earned me 31 ghoul pool points (19 for where I had her on my list and another 12 because nobody else had her at all), catapulting me into a tie for fifth place. I would feel bad about that, but she made it to 99, which is pretty respectable.

Not Dead Celebrity: I woke up this morning in a minor panic over whether or not Carol Burnett was still alive. She is, but I have to wonder if that panic meant anything.

Storytelling: I told a new story at Saturday night’s Better Said Than Done Show. It went okay, though the first third of it was definitely much more polished than the rest and the last third could have been much funnier. Of course, later that night I had a moment of inspiration on something that I could have added. The story has to do with my battle against Argentine ants, which invaded an apartment I lived in in Los Angeles many years ago. They reminded me of the horror movie, THEM, which was also set in Los Angeles. They even invaded my freezer, which didn’t have a very effective seal. I opened the freezer door one day to find the freezer overflowing with antsicles, setting me on the path of various ineffective solutions. I documented those, but there was an important one I left out. I should have checked my lease to see whether anteaters were allowed as pets.

On a related note, it appears that Grant’s Kills Ants is still available, but no longer contains arsenic.

Clothes Shopping: I have a bar mitzvah to go to next weekend and thought I would use it as an excuse to get a new dress. Hah! Those ridiculous (and highly inappropriate) cold-shoulder designs are all over the place. I found a couple of almost acceptable dresses, but one was a little too short. And several had necklines that were too wide. That was a particular pity in the case of one that had something rare and wondrous – namely, pockets.

At least it wasn’t as if I don’t have anything acceptable to wear. But it’s still frustrating.

Speaking of Frustrating: The Red Sox seem determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Sigh.

I went to Atlanta for the weekend. My primary motivation was checking out the new ballpark, but, of course, that wasn’t all I did.

I had no issues with my United flights either way. In fact, I got upgraded both ways, though they failed to email me the upgrade notification for the return. It is also a big advantage to fly an airline other than Delta to/from ATL because you come in and out of the T-gates and don’t need to take a train to your plane.

I had contemplated staying near the ballpark, but decided that didn’t really make sense because it is the middle of nowhere in deep suburbia. Staying in midtown was actually more convenient, allowing me to take MARTA to and from the airport. More significantly, it also allowed me to do some important sightseeing on Saturday morning.

The High Museum of Art is one of the major art museums of the country. It is normally fairly pricy, but I have a Bank of America credit card, which gives me free access to various museums on the first weekend of the month. I find that if I have to pay to go to a museum, I feel like I need to see everything. But getting in free means I can just pick and choose a few parts to see without feeling like I’ve wasted money.

My main priority was the African art selection. There is an interesting mix of both traditional and contemporary pieces from several countries. My favorite – actually, my favorite piece in the entire museum – was one named Taago by El Anatsui, a Ghanian artist. It consists of pieces of aluminum from the tops and necks of local liquor bottles, joined with wire, to form a sculpture reminiscent of kente cloth. There was also a special exhibit of works by Ashley Bryan, who illustrated a lot of books based on folklore.

I moved on to the contemporary art, which includes a large collection of works by folk artist, Howard Finster. Other notable works include a painting by Richard Estes, whose photorealism I’ve admired for some time, and Insect Icon Tapestry by Jon Eric Riis. All in all, I spent a few pleasant hours at the museum, before heading off to the Cumberland area to meet up with friends for a late lunch / early dinner at Copeland’s. The food was good and the conversation was intelligent and wide ranging. Eventually, we left and they dropped me at the ballpark.

My first impression of SunTrust Park was that it was chaotic. They are still developing The Battery, a shopping and entertainment complex around the stadium. From what I could tell with the crowds, it is pretty much a collection of high end restaurants and watering holes. I fought my way through to the Right Field Gate, where there was a long and chaotic set of lines to get into the ballpark itself. I had bought a ticket package for Star Wars day, which included an R.A. Dickey Stormtrooper bobblehead, so my first stop was to redeem my voucher for that. The instructions they had emailed actually told me the wrong place to go to do that, but it was easily enough resolved. I should probably note that I am not really a big Star Wars fan, but it is always fun to add to my collection of ballpark gimmes.

That accomplished, I went to check off their monument garden, which has various exhibits on the history of the team. Of course, much of that history is pre-Atlanta – both in Boston and in Milwaukee – but that is fair enough. The statue of Hank Aaron is the centerpiece, as it should be. Overall, it is a reasonable exhibit, though the crowds were a bit of a pain.

The actual stands were not crowded. There were a few people at the entrance to the seating area taking photos with costumed Star Wars characters, but not so many actually sitting down to see the game. The Braves were playing the Cardinals, so this fell into the class of games in which I didn’t care who won. It looks like the Braves have a fair number of loyal fans. Unfortunately, those are generally identifiable by the tomahawk chop, a particularly obnoxious method of cheering. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but would prefer a non-racist way of showing it. On the plus side, several people sang along with the national anthem, and, later on, with "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." (Singing along to the latter is one of my three primary ballpark rating criteria, along with local character and a general level of fan engagement.)

It was actually hard to gauge fan engagement, because the weather sucked, with a few brief rain showers, which weren’t enough to affect play, but did send many people scurrying for cover. I’ll also note that there appeared to be particularly long lines for the concessions (none of which seemed particularly local or interesting). They don’t have any vendors in the stands, either, which doesn’t help.

As for the game, the Cardinals won, largely because Julio Teheran’s pitching was not up to snuff. I’ll also note that I was impressed by a couple of nice catches that Randal Grichuk made in right field. And Aledmys Diaz hit a three-run homer which pretty much clinched the game for St. Louis. Overall, it was a reasonably exciting game to watch.

I’d rate the ballpark in the group of vast group of middling ones. It’s a pleasant enough place to watch a game, but lacks soul. It also loses significant points for difficulty of access. Their website claims the Circulator bus connects the ballpark to the Cumberland Transit Center, but that bus actually appears to stop running at 9 p.m. and does not run at all on Sundays. The transit center is a long walk from the ballpark. There is a closer stop to a Cobb County Transit bus, though the ballpark staff misdirected me on how to get to that stop. And that bus runs infrequently, so was very crowded, largely with fans complaining that it is supposed to be the Atlanta Braves, not the Cobb County Braves. I should also note that the ballpark website pushes Uber as their transit solution, but the Uber pickup location had a line three blocks long. That is, of course, in addition to the cost and moral issues associated with Uber. When the team played at Turner Field, they ran shuttle buses from the Five Points MARTA station, which was a much better solution.

The really important thing is that I have, again, been to a game at every major league ballpark. One does, after all, have to keep up one’s standards when it comes to obsessions.

As for the rest of the weekend, I got home in time for a much needed nap, followed by dinner at Tachibana for a friend’s 50th birthday. What I didn’t get done was any housework, alas.

Celebrity Death Watch: Stuart McLean was a Canadian broadcaster, whose The Vinyl Café also aired on NPR. Richard Schickel was a film critic. Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as "The Blind Sheikh," was convicted of seditious conspiracy in relation to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Nancy Willard wrote children’s books. Kaci Kullman Five was chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Kenneth Arrow was a Nobel laureate in economics. Larry Coryell was a jazz guitarist.

Norma McCorvey was the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade. She later became active in the anti-choice movement. Note that she never actually had an abortion, as the Supreme Court case took three years.

Leah Adler was Stephen Speilberg’s mother and also owned and ran The Milky Way, a kosher dairy restaurant in Los Angeles. I can’t count how often I’ve eaten there, especially since I used to live more or less across the street from it. I particularly liked their lasagna. Mrs. Adler was a charming hostess, and part of the appeal of the place.

Mildred Dresselhaus was an MIT professor, and one of the most prominent women in science. She did vital work in thermoelectrics and materials, especially nanotechnology. But, more importantly, she inspired almost every woman of my generation at MIT.

Presidential Dining Note: It doesn’t appear that Donald Trump eats out here, except, possibly, at Trump-owned properties. I realized this when I got lunch at Good Stuff Eatery and they still have the Prez Obama burger and the Michelle Melt on the menu. Admittedly, it’s only been a month, but I don’t expect to see him at local restaurants or cultural events very much.

Not Everything Evil is His Fault: I’ve made no secret of my feelings about Trump’s incompetence and bad ideas. But not every bad thing that happens here is his fault. Two specific items are not. First, it is perfectly normal for political appointees to submit their resignations to be effective on inauguration day and, despite what some people have commented in various places, only a small percentage (5% or so) get asked to stay on. That doesn’t, of course, excuse Trump’s slowness in naming appointees. Out of 549 appointments requiring Senate confirmation, 14 have been confirmed and another 20 are awaiting confirmation. This is well behind the pace of past administrations. But that may be a good thing in this case. It means that career civil servants are acting in a number of positions and, in general, people who are career vice political are more likely to push back against bad ideas. Politicals know they only have so many silver bullets, so conserve them and sometimes don’t act when they probably should. On the other hand, politicals are usually easier to deal with for precisely this reason.

The other thing that is not Trump’s fault is Customs and Border Patrol asking people to unlock smartphones and, in general, seizing electronics. This is a bad thing, yes, but the exception to the need for a search warrant when it comes to electronics at borders has been policy for a number of years. There are a couple of court cases which affirmed the CBP right to do so, both of them involving child pornography. My advice is not to travel with electronics with important data. (My company will lend international travelers clean laptops. Not sure what they do about smartphones.) In my opinion, the only thing that would really help here is for a case to get to the Supreme Court. Of course, there is no guarantee of privacy rights prevailing there.

Commonwealth Politics: In general, Virginia has Democratic politicians who align well with my views. But it has occurred to me that I can’t think of any women who are up and coming right now. Of our 11 Congressional districts, the only female congresscritter is Barbara Comstock, a Republican. So what other women could run for Congress? Maybe Delegate Charniele Herring, who seems to have an interesting personal history, including growing up in a military family and spending some time in a homeless shelter? Or the much more privileged Sharon Bulova, who chairs the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, except that she would be in the 11th district and Gerry Connolly doesn’t seem likely to step aside? I’ll admit I don’t know a lot of the politicians from outside Northern Virginia. Is there anyone in the Hampton Roads area or Richmond?

Intentional Walks: The Washington Post reported today that MLB is going to do away with intentional walks, replacing them with a signal from the dugout. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. While it may be rare that they had unintended consequences, such as an overthrow allowing base runners to progress or a pitch too close to the strike zone allowing a hit, that could always happen. And the psychology gets changed when the target has to stand there and reflect on how afraid of him the other team is.

For something this evil, I do indeed blame Trump. (Along with, of course, Robert Mugabe and the New York Yankees.)