fauxklore

They are sort of predicting snow tomorrow morning. I say “sort of” because: a) it is only a 30% chance and b) the temperature is supposed to be above freezing (34 - 36 Fahrenheit). And it’s been warm enough for the past few days that there is pretty much no chance of anything sticking.

I am hoping for just enough light flakes falling to collect in a pie pan and use to make sugar-in-the-snow, which consists of hot maple syrup poured over it to make a sticky candy. And for it to be gone when I actually have to go anywhere.

About the only thing I really accomplished today was mailing some holiday cards and going grocery shopping. The latter required four stops because a few things on my list were hard to find. In a brief fit of insanity a few weeks ago, I signed up for a cookie exchange. I decided to make two types of cookies - lemon and rosewater and pistachio. Giant in Vienna did not have unsalted shelled pistachios, which would save some effort. Nor did they have dried rose petals, which I don’t technically need, but would pretty things up. So I tried Fresh Market, which also had neither of those, though they did have unsweetened dried coconut, which I didn’t immediately need but is something I normally keep on hand. There’s a small Indian market in the same shopping center, but they were out of dried rose petals. Finally, I tried Whole Foods, which didn’t have any of the things I needed either.

There are three Iranian markets near me and I think it would be worth trying the largest of those. And I am fairly sure Trader Joe’s usually has the pistachios. TJ’s is also next to Staples, which would be a good source for the mailing boxes I need for the cookies. But, really, grocery shopping shouldn’t take me almost three hours.

Lest this sound whiny, I do remember grocery shopping while I was overlanding in Africa and how it took us three days before we could find eggs to buy in Malawi. I am grateful to have options.

1. Have you ever been caught outdoors away from shelter during a thunderstorm? More than once. I remind myself that people are, more or less, waterproof.

2. Did you ever build furniture forts as a child? I don’t think so. I used to hide inside my quilt cover, however.

3. Do you use any medicines daily? Yes. The joy of being middle-aged.

4. When was the last time you used a disposable camera? I had a disposable underwater camera with me while snorkeling a couple of times. I never remembered how to use it quickly enough when I saw something worth photographing, however. At any rate, it’s been several years.

5. When was the last time you flew on a plane? August, when I flew back from Chicago.

6. How many first cousins do you have? That’s a bit complicated. I have two on my mother’s side, who I am slightly in tough with. But I know one of my father’s half-sisters has at least two children, though I haven’t met them. I suppose it’s possible that the other half-sister does, but she and my father were estranged my entire life.

7. What’s the longest period of time you’ve gone without sleep? About 56 hours. It had to do with completing the final project for a robotics seminar I took in grad school. I am never going to do that to myself again.

8. Did the house you grew up in have a big yard? It wasn’t a huge yard, but it was big enough for us to have an above-ground swimming pool and a patio in the back. And big enough for us to use the front yard as a (non-regulation size) softball diamond.

9. What has been the most difficult class you’ve ever taken? Probably the graduate acoustics class I took as an undergraduate. I really needed to have had a continuum mechanics class before that. If nothing else, that would have helped me with notation I didn’t understand.

10. What’s something that’s much more difficult than a lot of people realize? House cleaning.

11. What are some things a house would need to have for you to purchase it? Rooms that are more or less rectangular. Before I bought my condo, I can’t count how many condos I looked at that had weird shaped rooms, which it would be hard to arrange furniture in.

12. Would you ever go out in public wearing pajamas? Maybe to take out the trash or take in mail, but not more than that.

13. Have you ever had a lemonade stand? No.

14. Do you think you look older or younger than your real age? I think I look about my age. My skin looks younger, but I have grey hair, so things balance out.

15. Where have you lived throughout your life? I was born in the Bronx. Grew up on Long Island, with summers in upstate New York, New Hampshire, and Connecticut. Went to college in Massachusetts and grad school in Berkeley. Then lived in Los Angeles for 17 years before moving to Northern Virginia almost 20 years ago.

16. Do you want any piercings? No. About the time that many of my friends were getting their ears pierced, I read Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins. The main character’s uncle tells her that if she gets her ears pierced, she has to get her nose pierced, too. He didn’t follow through on that, but it freaked me out enough that I never even got my ears pierced.

17. What’s your mouse pad look like? I haven’t used a mousepad in years, but I have one with Bugs Bunny on it.

18. Have you ever been to a psychic/tarot reader? No, though as a teenager, my friends and I played around with fortune telling with an ordinary deck of cards and a little book that cost about a quarter we used to interpret the results.

19. How do you identify spiritually (do you follow a religion, what do you think about soul/spirit, etc.)? I’m Jewish and, generally, like traditional Jewish philosophy and practices.

20. Do you prefer your nails long or short? Having been the victim of the aggressive fingernail clipping of a piano teacher, I keep my nails short. When want them long for some special occasion, I wear Lee press-on nails.

21. What are your favorite smells? Sea air. Bread baking. Cinnamon. Coffee. Lily of the Valley.

22. Do you still use a radio or just use your phone/computer for music? How do you count listening to radio stations on the computer? I do also listen to the radio in the car.

23. What kind of socks do you prefer to wear? I am partial to double layer walking socks.

24. Do you have any family heirlooms? I have a necklace which my great-grandmother allegedly bought in Shanghai. I haven’t found any evidence that she actually ever went to Shanghai, so that story seems dubious, but I do like the necklace.

25. Are there any musicians you didn't like at first but grew on you? Lady Gaga.

26. Is there anything you used to love but now dislike? There are some foods I ate as a child that I gag at the mere thought of now - soft-boiled eggs and bananas with sour cream (and, frankly, bananas in any form) are two that come to mind.

27. Your favorite place to be aside from your home? This is tough. Maybe, by the ocean.

28. What is your favorite kind of tea? Lapsang souchong.

29. Any old home remedies you use when you're sick? Jewish penicillin, i.e. chicken soup.

30. What level of brightness do you usually keep your phone at? Right around the middle.

Normally I would start Holidailies with an introduction, but I’ve been working on writing this entry for a few days and wanted to get it posted.

In case somebody has been stuck on a desert island without news for the past several days, Stephen Sondheim died this past Friday. Hence, this special edition Celebrity Death Watch.

Why does Sondheim merit a special write-up? Well, anyone who knows me knows how much I love musical theatre. And nobody has influenced American musical theatre in my days as much as he did. He changed the emphasis of the songs and tackled subjects that had never been addressed in musicals before, paving the way for so much modern musical theatre.


Like many people my age, I first knew Sondheim as a lyricist. If I recall correctly, there was a production of West Side Story at my junior high and my brother was in the chorus. The songs that made the most impression on tween Miriam were "America" and "Gee, Officer Krupke," - in both cases because of the humor in their lyrics. Adult Miriam would probably name "Maria," but that is because of composer Leonard Bernstein’s unusual use of the tritone. I think I knew Gypsy only via the original cast album (and later the movie version) and, while I think "If Mama Was Married" is quite clever, I think the best aspect of the show is the orchestration of the score by Jule Styne.


I knew a lot of shows primarily through their cast recordings, because my father brought home records every few weeks and cast recordings were a big part of the rotation. (Many of the rest were comedy and novelty records, e.g. Allan Sherman and Tom Lehrer.) The Sondheim show whose cast album I remember getting hooked on the most was A Little Night Music. I am sure I saw the (badly miscast) movie at some point, but it was the album (actually, a cassette of it) that I played over and over when I was in college. There was the sheer cleverness of "Now / Later / Soon" and "You Must Meet My Wife." But in those undergraduate days, the song my suite mates and I repeated the most was "Every Day a Little Death," with the line, "men are stupid, men are vain, love’s disgusting, love’s insane." I should note that from a strictly musical standpoint, I liked "The Miller’s Son," quite a lot - and still do. Adult theatre geek Miriam remains impressed by the musical trick in the score, which is almost all in 3/4 time.


The first Sondheim show I saw on an actual stage was Sweeney Todd. My brother and I went to see it on Broadway in 1980, possibly as a college graduation gift from him or maybe as a going away gift before I left for grad school at Berkeley. I think we had dinner in the city with our parents, but they refused to see it because of the grotesque subject and went to see some other show. Anyway, the show captured me right from the beginning. "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" is one of the great opening numbers of a Broadway show, setting the mood perfectly. (Sondheim also wrote "Comedy Tonight," for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way too the Forum, which is another great opening number. But, sorry, Steve, Frank Loesser had you beat with "Fugue for Tinhorns" from Guys and Dolls, the perfection of which is unlikely to ever be surpassed.) Anyway, the song that had been mentioned in all of the reviews was "A Little Priest," which is, indeed, funny. So I was unprepared for the raw emotion of "There’s No Place Like London," "The Barber and His Wife," and "Epiphany." But the truly outstanding song in the score for me is "Johanna," in its various versions, starting with Anthony’s wide eyed early love song and progressing to the quartet in which Sweeney Todd laments his lack of connection to his daughter. There are some things in the score I don’t particularly care for, e.g. "The Contest"” though I understand why they’re there for things to make sense overall. The whole show straddled the line between musical and opera - not quite as revolutionary as Loesser’s Most Happy Fella in that, but unique in taking on such dark material and doing it so ably. I’ve sometimes said that Sondheim was at his best when confronting his most challenging subject matter and this is a great example.


Still, for some years, most of my exposure to Sondheim musicals was via recordings. In 1985, I moved to Los Angeles and over my time there, I did see a few live productions. In particular, there were the touring companies of Sunday in the Park With George and Into the Woods. I know I also saw a production of Do I Hear a Waltz in Pasadena. And I had lots of discussions about Sondheim (and other topics) in the usenet group rec.arts.musicals.


One of those brings me to a key point. I often hear people say they don’t like Sondheim’s work because it’s not hummable the way that, say, a Jerry Herman musical (think Hello, Dolly is. This is complete and utter nonsense. Any song that can be sung can be hummed. Much of Sondheim's music is, indeed, more complex and not going to get stuck in your head hearing three minutes of it briefly during a show. But repeated listening is rewarding and leads to greater appreciation. Anyway, I thought this criticism was particularly ridiculous when it comes to Into the Woods, the title song from which has all the earworm annoyingness of a commercial jingle.


As time has gone on, I’ve been able to see live performances of most of Sondheim's musicals. A particularly memorable evening was the premiere of Bounce, later renamed to Road Show, at the Goodman in Chicago. It’s decidedly an imperfect show, but the mere idea of seeing something new was so exciting. (Plus, I always love an excuse for getting all dressed up!) Another big night was seeing Sondheim on Sondheim on Broadway in 2010. And, of course, I’ve seen several productions here in D.C., particularly at Signature Theatre.


Anyway, here are my recommendations for 10 Sondheim songs I particularly love. Note that there are easily another couple of dozen songs I could name and, in a different moment, I could have chosen even more.

• "I’m Still Here" (from Follies). A showpiece for an older actress. "I’ve been through Herbert and J. Edgar Hoover…"
  
  
• "Another Hundred People"(from Company). To me, this song summarizes both the good and bad of New York - the excitement and the anonymity of the city.
  
  
  
• "The Miller’s Son" (from A Little Night Music). This is sung by a minor character (Petra, the maid) but is a good song for summarizing the point of the show. She considers her possible futures and concludes "There’s a lot I’ll have missed, But I’ll not have been dead when I die!"
  
  
• "Saturday Night" (from Saturday Night) I have spent many a Saturday night alone with the New York Times, sitting at home and fighting the urge to mingle.
  
  
  
• "Invocation and Instructions to the Audience" (from The Frogs). This is a witty summary of bad audience behavior. I can’t count how many times I’ve quoted the line that runs "And please don’t fart, there’s very little air and this is art."
  
  
  
• "The Boy From …" (from The Mad Show, music by Mary Rodgers). This bossa nova parody is very very funny. I am also impressed by anybody who can remember "Tacarembo la Tumba del Fuego Santa Malipas Zacatecas la Junta del Sol y Cruz."
  
  
  
• “Johanna” (from Sweeny Todd). There are actually three versions of this in the show, reflecting different character’s versions of their love for Johanna. The second version, originally sung by the Judge, is particularly creepy and, hence, usually omitted.
  
  
  
• "Gun Song" (from Assassins). This is more or less a summary of the thoughts and motivations of all of the characters. Czogolsz is thoughtful, Gauteau egotistical, Moore provides comic relief, etc.
  
  
  
• "A Bowler Hat" (from Pacific Overtures, which is my favorite Sondheim score). One thing that was revolutionary about Sondheim was his emphasis on using songs to illuminate character. And, as far as I’m concerned, this song, which shows the evolution of Kayama as he Westernizes his lifestyle. It’s beautiful and sad at the same time.
  
  
  
• "Someone in a Tree" (from Pacific Overtures) This was Sondheim’s favorite of his songs. It’s a great summary of how the whole is more than the sum of the parts.
  
  
  

Finally, it would be remiss of me not to mention Sondheim’s role in the world of puzzles. He is credited with popularizing American cryptic crosswords, for example. If you want just a minor taste of his puzzle making abilities, I think you would do well to start with the movie The Last of Sheila.


My life has been richer for his artistry. May his memory be for a blessing.

When I did my grocery shopping last week, I noticed that Giant had party hats for just a dollar. I had four zoom events to go to, so I figured that it was worth getting one.





I've got a feeling twenty-one is gonna be a good year ....

It turns out that the SUV that hit the power pole yesterday caught on fire and melted some of the fiber optic lines in our neighborhood, which is why my FIOS was out. It was restored a little after midnight.


jwg wrote an entry about cars recently, which triggered these thoughts.

My family was unusual for 1960's suburbia in that my mother did all the driving. My father did have a driver's license, but he claimed that the 1954 Plymouth Bel Air my parents bought when they got married in 1956 didn't work right for him. I believe he'd actually gotten scared after a minor accident, but he never said that.

In 1967, my parents had some success with a stock investment and went to Ocean Spray Dodge, where they bought a brand new Dodge Dart, in which we took a trip to Montreal for Expo 67. A few days after we got the car, Dad decided he would try driving it. Mom wouldn't go with him, so our neighbor across the street did. Dad backed the car out of our driveway, drove around the block, pulled back into the driveway. And never got behind a steering wheel again for the rest of his life.

Mom's attitude towards cars was that you keep them until you can see the road through the floor boards. About 10 or 11 years later, the Dart was stolen from the train station in town. I happened to be home from college so I saw the denouement of that. It turned abandoned, a few blocks away from where it was stolen. The police came to the house. When they told us they'd found our car, Dad said, "who asked you to?" Mom was angry because the thieves (presumably joy riding teens) had broken a window to get in, not realizing the door locks didn't work.

When my brother graduated from college, my parents flew to Michigan for his graduation. Dad had a high school friend there who had arranged their purchase of a 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, which they then drove back to Long Island. Mom drove that car until the day before she died in 2014.

I didn't own a car until late 1985, when I moved to Los Angeles. I leased a 1986 Toyota Corolla and bought it at the end of the lease term. It served me well for 8 years, though it was annoying that there were a lot of non-standard parts that you had to buy from Toyota, at vastly inflated parts. The sealed headlights, for example, cost $65 instead of the $5 or so for a normal bulb. Similarly, their windshield wiper blades were about four times as much as those for other cars. The Corolla met a tragic end on a rainy day, when I skidded on a wet road and hit a guard rail.

I replaced it with a blue-green 1994 Saturn SL2, which I named Neptune. Neptune was the great love of my automotive life - not sexy, but practical and cheap to maintain. In its later years, the odometer failed and the air-conditioning failed and, finally, last summer, I decided that 25 years was a good enough automotive lifetime.

So I bought a white 2019 Hyundai Accent, which I named Twain. The logic is Hyundai Accent - Accent Mark - Mark Twain. With things being as they are this year, I've only put on a little over 1500 miles in that year and 4 4 months, but I am happy with Twain so far. I doubt that I will ever buy another car.

I have been in various zoom sessions most of the day. I got nothing. I will try to be interesting tomorrow.

Usually, I am traveling on Christmas. I've been to various unlikely places, ranging from an Antarctic cruise to Vietnam to Oman to Las Vegas. Asia is a particularly good bet, since everything is likely to be open.

If I am home, I usually do the stereotypical Jewish Christmas of Chinese food and a movie. That seemed inappropriate this year, partly because of the pandemic and partly because today was the Tenth of Tevet on the Jewish calendar, which is a fast day. It's a minor fast (sunrise to sunset) and commemorates the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. Not that I actually observe minor fasts, but still...


Also, the best of the very nearby Chinese restaurants has closed.


So I spent the day trying to catch up on reading newspapers and magazines and doing crosswords. I could have made a stir-fry for supper, but I am trying to use up some things in the freezer to create room for a couple of casseroles and a lot of soup, so cooked fish and chips instead. Maybe tomorrow.

Our gaming group had a little Festivus celebration this evening. We started out with my offering of this completely reprehensible video from Sunday Comes Afterwards:



We followed that with some clips of the Seinfeld episode about Festivus. Kyle displayed a picture of meatloaf on a lettuce leaf and he and Mike showed off their aluminum poles. Then we did the airing of grievances. My primary one is, of course, that people keep scheduling things I want to do at the same time.

For the feats of strength, I pointed out that we could all pin whoever we wanted to using one click on zoom. But Kyle also provided a game in which he displayed drawings of various people (real and fictional) on Superman's body and we tried to guess who they were. Not surprisingly. I can get Darwin and Shakespeare, but I suck at pop culture.

After we were done, we played a couple of rounds of Quiplash, before moving on to Code Names. It was a fun way to pass an evening.


Happy Festivus everyone!

No story swap tonight. I did have something else to do, but it was being recorded, so I was able to go to game night, which was fun. We played three games of Quiplash - two of which I even won. Then we went to our favorite game, Code Names. They've added new decks of words to the on-line version, including a holiday set, which made for extra variety. It also completely confused my team when our spymaster gave the clue "25th," intending "present" and "silver," thinking of what one gives for a 25th anniversary. We were thinking of Christmas, so we got "present," but went down a host of unrelated rabbit holes.