fauxklore

I have a number of things to write about (so what else is new) but let’s start with festive food.

On those occasions when I spend Thanksgiving at home, it’s an excuse to cook a rare multi-course meal. This year I started with a green salad with lemon basill vinaigrette dressing.

For the main course, I roasted a turkey breast. This is easy - you just mix olive oil with seasonings (a little paprika, oregano, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, except I was out of thyme and didn’t have time to go out to the store for more). You rub that under the skin of the turkey breast and then rub more on the skin. Then roast the whole thing in a 375 degree oven until a meat thermometer inserted in the thickest part reads 165 degrees. (It took a little over 2 hours.)

I wanted to go with Indiian (as in East Indian, not Native American) flavors for the side dishes. One of those was a potato casserole with spinach and chick peas, that is intended to be sort of like the filling of a samosa. It’s seasoned with garam masala and amchur (mango powder). and chilis. It wasn’t as spicy as I’d hoped and I’ve been remedying that as I heat up the leftovers.

My other side dish was going to be butternut squash theron. But the recipe called for coconut and, when I took the bag of shredded dried coconut out of the pantry, I discovered it had weevils! Despite one friend who suggested that just adds extra protein, er, no, I don’t do insects. So I just tossed the squash with olive oil, cumin, black pepper, and cinnamon and roasted it until tender.


I was also going to bake carrot bread, but that also calls for coconut, so I just skipped it. It’s not like I needed more food.

Here’s a picture of the plated turkey and sides:




I poured some shiraz to drink with that, which worked well.

For dessert, I had apple-cranberry crumble:




That came out a bit sweeter than I intended, probably because I used sugar bee apples instead of the granny smith apples I would usually have used. It was still good.


I’ve been eating leftovers ever since. Though I’ve now used up the leftovers I put in the refrigerator and can hold off eating those in the freezer for a few weeks, while I eat other stuff.


On top of that, Chanukah started last night. I’ve gone with boughten potato latkes this year, since I don’t feel like grating onions. (Grating potatoes is fine, but onions get painful quickly. No wonder my mother used to make me and my brother do those.) also bought a box of sufganiot, i.e. doughnuts from Astro Doughnuts and Fried Chicken in Falls Church. The challenge is trying to make them last eight days. I fear I am going to fail at that.





The undecorated ones are creme brûlée. The ones with powdered sugar and chocolate gelt on top are filled with jelly. Everything is tasty.


I’ve made plans for my next round of ProLon in a couple f weeks.

I’ve been fairly busy the past couple of weeks.

The Beltway I picked up some books from a friend who lives in Beltsville and is clearing out some of his collection. The map function on my phone routed me through way too much construction, but I managed to get there fine. I did choose a different route home, but the radio suggested the outer loop of the Beltway was backed up, so I took the inner loop. which is more or less the same distance. So I drove more or less the entire way around the Beltway to run a 15 minute or so errand.

Yom Kippur: I went to a zoom service put on by Shirat HaNefesh, which was not ideal but was better than the other ones available over zoom. I do like their cantor and several things about their services, but nothing over zoom is going to be entirely satisfying. And I don’t really care for the use of musical instruments and some other less than traditional aspects. But at least they do a good job of showing a PDF of the service and have some interesting ideas to think about (in this case, having to do with how we address poverty).


Break the Fast: My chavurah had a breakfast gathering after Yom Kippur. There were standard foods like bagels with cream cheese and lox, as well as various salads. And desserts, including my contribution of tahini and halvah brownies, which were well received. (I did have some leftovers, which I wrapped individually and put in the freezer.)


Mama Tigre: I went out to dinner with a friend Friday night, largely because she said she needed some intelligent conversation to counter some issues at work. We went to Mama Tigre in Oakton, which is a newish Mexican fusion place. Most of the menu is pretty normal Mexican fare, but a few things have Indian touches. I got cauliflower tacos, which were quite tasty. It was good to see her, as she isn’t someone who I see often and we had a lot of conversation about things like travel and dancing and yarn and everybody’s lack of executive function in these days


Story Swap: The Voices in the Glen monthly story swap was Saturday night. I didn’t have anything I felt like telling, so I just listened. Jim had a particularly interesting story that had to do with the construction of the Pentagon.

The Flushies: Sunday was the Style Invitational Awards gathering, called the Flushes. It was at a lovely house in Potomac - a big enough property that 60 people in the backyard did not feel crowded. My food contribution was something called archaeologist’s cornbread, which has layers of white, blue, and yellow cornbread. That tasted fine, but the different colors of cornbread don’t taste all that different, so it’s really just a stupid culinary trick. There were songs to celebrate the Loser of the Year (actually plural, since we did last year as well as this year) and one of the major highlights was Jonathan Jensen’s acceptance speech in song. We also played a pub trivia game. My team was far ahead but blew it on the final question. It was still fun. And, of course, it was good to see people who I don’t see often and meet some people who I hadn’t met before.

Household: I forgot to mention in my last entry that I also got my water heater replaced. There have been a lot of issues with older water heaters in my condo complex, with multiple units having leaks. The complex had competitive deals with a couple of companies for replacement, which I had been intending to do anyway. So I went with the company that had better reviews. (It’s a little more complicated here, because we have a combined system, that also provides our heating. Not every company knows how to install those.) Anyway, that’s one big household thing done. I still have a few odds and ends to get done, but nothing quite so critical.


Pesach: The first night I went to a friend’s zoom seder, which was rather scaled back because she was dealing with a family health issue. The second night, my chavurah was invited to join the community seder put on by the synagogue one member belongs to. It was fairly amusing, but was decidedly mostly entertainment, not at all traditional. For example, there was a song called Manishewitzville (to the tune of Margaritaville.) And the simple child was illustrated with a picture of Alfred E. Newman. One thing I thought was cool was putting a cotton ball on the seder plate to note the oppression of the Uighurs who are, apparently, forced to work in the cotton fields.


As far as food goes, since everything was on-line, I was on my own. I cooked a turkey breast half, with some mango relish. I accompanied that with roasted potatoes and some butternut squash which I roasted with what turned out to be too much cinnamon. There was also gefilte fish the first night and chopped liver the second night. For non-seder meals, there are assorted leftovers, as well as some of my Pesach staples - borscht, matzo ball soup, chremslach (matzo meal pancakes), etc.



Women in Baseball: Since my favorite season (i.e. baseball) is about to start, I want to mention how pleased I am that there are finally a few women climbing the ranks of baseball management. Bianca Smith is a minor league coach for the Red Sox organization. And Kim Ng is the general manager of the Marlins. You go, girl(s)!

I had a busy weekend, but made next to no progress on my to-do list.

Yesterday, I caught up some on sleep. In the early evening, there was a Chavurah Chanukah get-together, basically for us to light candles together and talk. It was nice just to be around other people, even virtually.

The bigger event of last night was the Better Said Than Done show(s). I hosted the first half, which was the family friendly part. All six tellers did well, with stories involving a range of food items (cookies, scrambled eggs, waffles, rouladen, tater tot waffles, and deviled eggs). Of course, the real point of food stories is that food is a way of bringing people together. I could just relax and enjoy the rest of the evening, which was more adult themed. The stories still had to do with food, and there was a minor secondary theme about eating your friends or not. (One story had to do with a chicken and another with a guinea pig, so don't think cannibalism.) My favorite stories were Angela Lloyd's telling of a Romanian folktale (which didn't really have a food link) and Antonio Sacre's piece about the contrast between Christmas with his Irish relatives and his Cuban relatives. All in all, it was an excellent evening of storytelling and community.


My only real accomplishment of the day was finishing reading last Sunday's Washington Post. I did also get grocery shopping done, including picking up this week's New York Times, which has their annual Puzzlemania supplement. I listened to the lifestream of a friend's music show. And I played games with other friends later on. Now I'm exhausted.

This post is a mixture of a few things, but the common bond is synagogues.


Yom Kippur: For Yom Kippur, I “attended” services put on my Shirat HaNefesh. Their cantor is a friend of a friend and it turns out that I had me their rabbi a couple of times, though she was conducting services elsewhere. Their zoom set-up worked reasonably well, with the cantor (and, in some cases, other speakers) visible in one window and the text of the service scrolling in the main window. I’d characterize the service as more or less Reconstructionist. I could have lived without the sporadic guitar music and some other less traditional elements, but it was okay under the circumstances. One thing I did like a lot was that they had various congregants talk about sections of the service. In particular, I thought that having an EMT talk about life and death was appropriate. Also, they used Ishay Ribo’s Seder HaAvoda for that part of the service (which has to do with the high priest’s Temple service), which is a great piece of music, (They played his recording for that.) I could have drifted off, but I think they skipped the Martyrology, which is fine with me. I was, alas, disappointed in the lack of the priestly blessing.

Bottom line is that it was fine under the circumstances, but not really quite what I was looking for. I suspect I need to go to an Orthodox shut to get the level of tradition I want.


Grandpa: As I’ve mentioned before, my paternal grandfather was a cantor and there were some years he was hired to do the High Holiday services at our shul. I had this realization this year, when I was thinking about him, that, since he was born in 1906, he would have been 62 (the age I am now) in 1968. Which is when I was 10 years old. I tend to think of him as being much older. I’m not sure that means anything, but it’s interesting.


Synagogue Art and Architecture: In October, the Orange County (California) Jewish Community Scholar Program had a three part lecture series on synagogue architecture with Samuel Gruber, who is a well-known expert on the subject. I’m not sure where I heard about this - somewhere on Facebook, I assume - but it was right up my alley. The lectures are actually available on YouTube, including a bonus lecture (a continuation of Lecture 2) because Dr. Gruber was ambitious in how much material he intended to cover.

Lecture 1 had to do with Great Synagogues of the World. A key point was the multiple uses of the synagogue, which include a house of meeting (Beit Knesset), house of prayer (Beit Tefillah), and house of study (Beit Madras) and, in early times, also included use as a hostel. (I believe that is not necessarily limited to early times, as there are folktales where people sleep in the synagogue of a town they are visiting.) Dr. Gruber listed a lot of historic synagogues in places ranging from Alexandria, Egypt to Vilnius, Lithuania, from Sydney, Australia to Fez, Morocco. One interesting feature was what he called the “bipolar” plan, in which the bimah (reading desk) is at one end and the aron kodesh (ark where the Torah scrolls are kept) is at the other, with seating along the sides. Another interesting seating arrangement was in the Kehila Kenosha Yeshen (Old Synagogue) in Ionian, Greece, where seats faced outside, as well as inside. He also noted that painted synagogues were the norm in Eastern Europe. As for synagogue exteriors, he discussed the rise of the Moorish style in the 19th century.

Lecture 2 was titled Arise and Build: American Synagogues and Jewish Identity. It was interesting to learn that there was not, in general, any resistance to synagogue building in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. The dominant arrangement of interiors of those earlier synagogues was the “bipolar” one and the “theatre” style came later. Some of the synagogues were originally churches (and, of course, some synagogue buildings later became churches). As a result, there are some with stained glass derived from Christian Bible pictures. There were a variety of architectural styles, including Greek revival, Federal, and Egyptian revival. The biggest development in interiors was the rise of the Reform movement, which replaced the women’s balcony with an organ loft (and, in some cases, a choir loft). In the mid-19th Century, the Romanesque Revival style became popular with Central European congregations,, while the Gothic style was popular with German congregations. Almost none of the Gothic style synagogues are used as such now, however. The Moorish style became popular under the Reform leader Isaac Meir Weiss, who envisioned a “Jewish Alhambra.” By the 1880’s, all of these styles merged, with the Moorish dominating and that style (notable for having two towers, often topped with cupolas) was adopted by Orthodox congregations, too.

What made these synagogue buildings uniquely American was the eclectic mix, which also included styles from other American civic buildings, e.g. town halls. Dr. Gruber also noted that “Americans like change.” But the Moorish style predominated, with horseshoe arches, cupolas, and arabesque decorations. Eastern European congregations favored painted interiors, some of which still exist, with scenes of Zodiac signs (“mazole” in Hebrew) and Holy Land landscapers dominating. However, another common style, particularly in rural areas, was the vernacular wooden synagogue, derived from a common form in Poland and Lithuania. This was a rectangular building with a gabled roof. Those also often had elaborate paintings and carved arks. He showed several pictures of a mural from a shul in Burlington, Vermont. The building became an apartment building, but the mural was intact and has been conserved.

Lecture 3 was focused on Modernism. Dr. Gruber noted that we tend to think of modernism as dating from the 1930’s, but “yesterday’s modernism is today’s tradition.” In the late 19th century, classicism was considered modern, especially among the Reform movement. The 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago was a major influence and the so-called White City was picked up by the City Beautiful movement. However, he noted, that Shearith Israel in New York (aka the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue) had always been classical because its architect, Arnold W. Brunner, thought that was appropriate based on excavations in Palestine. What also arose during the early 20th century period was the Jewish Center movement, with synagogues also hosting classrooms, gyms, and even a swimming pool. However, few of those buildings survived the depression. Other modern features that arose were domes (applied to all styles, starting in the early 20th century), art nouveau, and art deco. Orthodox synagogues came to favor the stripped down International style. By the 1950’s classroom wings became as important as the sanctuary. Under the influence of Percival Goodman, a lot of synagogues came to resemble high schools.

The trend now is for smaller, more flexible spaces. This is true even at Orthodox synagogues. There is also a trend to use natural materials and art made by congregants. The lifespan of American synagogue buildings is typically 20-40 years. Finally, Dr. Gruber suggested that you should view photographing a synagogue as if you are the last person ever to see it.

Overall, this was an excellent lecture series and I am glad I stumbled upon it. It was very information dense, with lots of photos of specific synagogues and information about architects, so what I wrote above is a very brief summary. The Community Scholar Program has a lot of other lectures recorded and I intend to watch some of them when I have time.


Three Specific Synagogues: I have attended some High Holiday services at Sixth and I Synagogue in Washington, D.C. which is interesting for having been successfully restored and revitalized in 2004, after having become a church when Congregation Adas Israel moved to the Cleveland Park area in Northwest D.C. (where it remains) in the late 1940’s. It is also a major cultural center with an active program of lectures and concerts in normal times.


The Vilna Shul on Beacon Hill in Boston has, alas, become more or less a museum and cultural center, but has not had an active congregation since 1985. My understanding is that it was pretty much the victim of urban renewal, which destroyed the Jewish community in that part of Boston. I went to High Holiday services there (along with a few friends) during my undergraduate years. It was obviously struggling since, without the four or so young men from MIT who went there, they would have been unable to have a minyan even on Yom Kippur. I liked the connection to my Litvak heritage (my grandfather was born in Vilna, after all), though apparently the building had been altered enough as not to completely reflect that, with the wall murals having been painted over to a bland American beige. While I was sad about this, somebody once reminded me that we are supposed to think of all synagogues in galut (i.e. exile, the Diaspora) as temporary).


Finally, the synagogue I grew up going to was the Jewish Center of Island Park, aka Congregation Beth Emeth. It merged with another congregation some years ago and became the South Shore Jewish Center. I was last there in 2014, when my mother died, and found that they were no longer using the main sanctuary upstairs because too many members of an aging congregation couldn’t handle the stairs. Anyway, it occurs to me that I don’t know much about when the building was erected, as it was already there when we moved to town in 1961. The congregation was apparently founded somewhere around 1950ish (I have seen both 1948 and 1952). I was growing up during a time of rapid growth and there was an expansion added, which was used as a social hall for bar mitzvahs (and, presumably, weddings, though I have to admit not knowing of any). It was also used for services on the High Holidays. I think it was built in the late 1960’s. I should actually know, since my father (who was a civil engineer) chaired the building committee, but my memory is fuzzy on the details. Anyway, in light of Sam Gruber’s lecture series, it would be interesting to spend some time documenting its history - and the history of suburban Long Island synagogues more generally. Because, you know, I don’t have enough projects to spend time on.

I 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.

Celebrity Death Watch: Anna Quayle was a Tony winning actress, who died in August but whose obituary was just published this past week. Marko Feingold was a Holocaust survivor and head of a Jewish community in Austria, who lived to 106 years old. Christopher Rouse was the composer in residence for the New York Philharmonic from 2012-2015. Robert Hunter was the lyricist for the Grateful Dead. Jimmy Nelson was a ventriloquist. Jimmy Spicer was a rapper who managed to die of natural causes. Jose Jose was a Mexican singer. Jessye Norman was an opera singer. Kim Shattuck was the lead singer of The Muffs. Rip Taylor was an actor / comedian. Karen Pendleton was one of the original Mouseketeers. Larry Junstrom was a bassist, who cofounded Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Jacques Chirac was a former prime minister and President of France. I read that this also made him co-prince of Andorra during that time, which is a cool bit of trivia.

Stephen Lukasik was a physicist who led DARPA and the FCC at various times. He played a key role in development and deployment of ARPANET, as well as supporting technology development related to nuclear device development, computer networking, and AI.

Diahann Carroll was the first black women to win a Tony for best actress in musical (for her performance in No Strings), though she was better known for the television series, Julia.

Ginger Baker was the drummer for Cream. He was probably the most influential rock drummer for my generation, spectacular for his use of jazz and African rhythms.


Work Stress: I had a tedious business trip the week before last. Then I was out of the office for a couple of days for Rosh Hashanah. I came back to trying to catch up on paperwork related to the project the trip was for. I need to get caught up on my actual job, but I suspect this other project is going to have lots of follow-up questions here and there, which I will get sucked into.


One Item re: Hotels: I stayed at an airport hotel the last night of the business trip, since I had an early flight. They charged for parking and claimed the room key would open the gate. Let’s just say it was less than obvious where to swipe the card to do so. Eventually, someone came and helped me, but the whole thing was annoying and could have easily been prevented if they had a light allowing the target to be seen at 5 a.m.


Old School Storytelling: I got back in time for a Friday night storytelling show. Which is a good thing, since I was one of the tellers. My story had to do with Class Nite, which was a big deal annual event when I was in high school. This involved a competition between the classes, with events ranging from decorations and costumes, to a song and skit, to assorted sports (basketball, volleyball, various races, tugs of war, and something called cage ball. All I remember about the latter is that it involved a ball and a cage.) The thing is that it was all rigged, so that the seniors won, followed by the juniors, sophomores, and freshman. Of course, we believed it was a fair competition, since it was the 1970’s when we still believed that Russian figure skating judges were unbiased. Anyway, the story went okay, but I was disappointed in it, largely because I don’t think I ever really figured out what the point of the story was, beyond making fun of silly things from my youth.


Speaking of Storytelling, It’s Shameless Self-Promotion Time: I’m in a show this coming Thursday night (October 10th) as part of the Fall for the Book Festival. It’s at The Auld Shebeen (3971 Chain Bridge Rd, Fairfax, VA – entrance downstairs, via North Street) at 7:00 p.m. And it’s Free! The theme is True Lies: Lies and the lying liars who tell them.


Rosh Hashanah: I was not very into it this year. I have plenty of personal issues I need to work on, but having a hard time focusing and prioritizing. This is my usual issue with having trouble doing one thing at a time. I did take advantage of some introspection time. There’s something I should say about how ritual helps with that, but I am not quite sure how to articulate that.


Disenchanted: I finished off last week (i.e. three days in the office writing up stuff from the previous week) by going out to dinner and the theatre with a couple of friends. The dinner part was at Pizzeria Orso, chosen for convenience to the theatre part at Creative Cauldron. I should have gotten pizza, but saw eggplant parmesan on the menu and thought it would be a good idea. I was wrong. It was okay, but not as good as I can do myself. (Assuming, of course, that I wasn’t too lazy to make It myself.)

As for the theatre, Disenchanted is a musical by a man named Dennis T. Giacino about Disney princesses. Essentially, each of the princesses (led by Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty) gets to sing a song about what is screwed up in their story. The pieces I thought best were "Without a Guy" (in which Hua Mulan wonders if she might be a lesbian since she is the only princess who doesn’t end up with a prince), "Finally" (in which the Princess Who Kissed the Frog sings about the commercial potential of a black princess), and "Perfect" (in which the chubby Sleeping Beauty explains that she is just fine as she is). The show was reasonably amusing, but the music was unmemorable and it was a bit raunchier than I was expecting. It was still worth the evening out, but could have been much better.

My friends were appalled afterwards when I told them that the Princess doesn't really kiss the frog - she throws him against the wall. As for Sleeping Beauty, her Prince rapes her and what wakes her up is the pain of childbirth.


WBRS Reception: Sunday night was a William Barton Rogers Society reception at the Cosmos Club. (WBRS has to do with giving $$$$ to MIT.) The speaker was Richard Binzel who talked about NASA deep space projects he (and his students) have been involved in. He was informative and entertaining. Overall, it was a pleasant evening out in a ritzy setting.

Don’t Brits Know the Alphabet? I sometimes watch semi-mindless television in the form of British quiz shows. While they are slightly less mindless than American game shows, I have found something really puzzling. Some games on a show from 2012ish called Five Minutes To a Fortune have people figuring out answers by seeing a series of letters and having to come up with an answer by shifting each letter one to the right. So, for example, if the category were animals, the answer DOG would be obtained from the sequence C N F. I am astounded by how many contestants could not grasp the concept and do this.

Life is still busy. I will do a separate entry for this past weekend, but here is what I did last week.


Celebrity Death Watch: Alice Rivlin was an economist who, among other things, was the founding director of the Congressional Budget Office. Bob Hawke was the Prime Minister of Australia from 1983 to 1991.

Tim Conway was a comedian, best known for his work with Carol Burnett. He earned me 18 ghoul pool points. I reloaded with Tom Kennedy (host of Name That Tune).

I.M. Pei was an architect. I had him on my ghoul pool list this year but took him off in favor of someone else and forgot about him when it came to reloads. Some of his work (e.g. the pyramid at the Louvre) was interesting. But he had lots of trouble with wind. The Green Building (aka Building 54) at MIT, for example, had to have revolving doors installed so people could get in and out on windy days. And, of course, there were the years that the Hancock Building in Boston kept losing windows, causing it to be referred to as the Plywood Palace.

Herman Wouk was a novelist, whose works included The Caine Mutiny and Marjorie Morningstar. I will admit that I have never read anything by him. But he did earn me 16 ghoul pool points.

This is slightly belated (he died May 2nd, but I didn’t learn that until this past Wednesday) but I had a personal connection to David Gordon Wilson. He was an MIT professor in the Mechanical Engineering department and a designer of recumbent bicycles. I did a UROP (i.e. undergrad research project) in his lab the second semester my sophomore year, working on an exercise system for disabled patients. He was a really nice guy and genuinely interested in helping students learn and grow. I did not know this until reading a couple of his obituaries, but he was also the inventor of the carbon tax. It's been lot of years since I even thought about him, but he is one of the many people at MIT who helped make me an engineer.


JxJ – Zalman Mlotek: I went to two events in the JxJ Festival last week. Monday night was a talk about Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish by Zalman Mlotek of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. He was accompanied by Jennifer Babiak (who plays Golde) and Bruce Sabath (who plays Leyzer-Volf and understudies Tevye). The conversation was moderated by Celeste Headlee, who asked all three of them questions about the production. A lot of what they talked about had to do with actors learning Yiddish for the production. Mlotek had an interesting story about some of his dicussions with Sheldon Harnick re: the choice of lyrics. They also sang a couple of songs from the production and closed with a sing-along to "Sunrise, Sunset. Overall, it was a fun evening.

By the way, Fiddler was the first show I ever saw on Broadway. My parents also had a cast recording of an Israeli production of it in Yiddish. And I am seeing this current production in August.

JxJ – Yemen Blues / Nani: The other JxJ event I went to last week was a concert on Thursday night by Yemen Blues and Nani. Actually, Nani was the opening act. The friend I went with had looked up Yemen Blues on youtube and didn’t quite understand when Nani appeared and looked and sounded quite different.

Anyway, Nani sang some traditional songs in Ladino, along with some of her own compositions and other odds and ends. I thought the Ladino songs were more appealing, especially "Los Guisados de la Berendjena" which describes seven ways to cook eggplant. The most familiar song she did (which she saved for the end of her set) was "Cuando e Rey Nimrod," which I admit has never made sense to me since I don’t understand how there was a Jewish quarter before Abraham was born.

As for Yemen Blues, they did about what I expected – Middle Eastern fusion music. I had seen them before and categorized their material as music I can’t sit still listening to. Unfortunately, things were running late and we were concerned about catching the metro, which stops running at 11:30 on weekdays. So we couldn’t stay for their entire set.

Also, the concert was at Union Stage on the Wharf, which I had not been to before. I was glad we got there early enough to grab a table. But why did they put high tables in front of the low tables, effectively blocking the view of the stage?

Masala Art: We had dinner before Yemen Blues at Masala Art, an Indian restaurant by the Waterfront metro station. Oddly, I got a notice from Open Table at about 5:15 saying that the restaurant had canceled our 6 p.m. reservation. When I asked them about it, they had no idea what had happened and they did, in fact, honor the reservation.

As for the food, we got bhune bhutte ki tikki, which was described as patties of grated sweet corn, coated with sesame seeds. I thought this was just okay – I couldn’t really taste the corn, but it came with an interesting spicy sauce. For the main course, I got bhaingan bharta (eggplant with onion, tomato, and cilantro), which is something I often order in Indian restaurants. Their version was not as good as I’ve had at other places, with the flavors not especially well-balanced. It wasn’t terrible, but I would probably try something else if I were to go there again. (My friend got saag paneer, which I gathered she had a similar reaction to.) We also ordered pilau rice, so we were annoyed to discover that the entrees came with rice already. The waiter should have told us that. And we ordered naan, which was also just okay – a bit overcooked, in my opinion. Overall, it wasn’t a terrible meal, but there are better Indian restaurants around.

I am still feeling stressed and overwhelmed. That is partly due to having a lot to do at work, including one project that is: 1) being run by somebody who isn’t qualified to shine my shoes and 2) for which the two of us doing all the real work will not get the credit for political reasons. There is also a big meeting I’ll be at next week, which will end too late on Friday for me to fly home that day, making it impossible for me to get to an event I’d really like to go to on Saturday. On top of the work stress, I am still scrambling around to find some paperwork I need to file this week (because I won’t be around next week). And at least three of my friends have had recent mental health crises, with two of those involving hospitalization. I am functioning reasonably well, but I am exhausted. The net result is that I spent most of the past weekend In a state of suspended animation, i.e. do a few household things, take a nap, lather, rinse, repeat.

Corporate News: I’d be a bit more convinced about my company placing fairly high on a list of best employers of our size if the listing didn’t show our CEO as the one who retired over 2 years ago.

Don’t Analyze This Dream: The first half of this dream involved watching an hour-long romance musical on television, possibly on youtube. The plot had something to do with a woman looking for love and attending the wedding of her friends. Later on, she was kissing their child and I decided she was waiting for the kid to grow up to be her partner. Then, somehow the scene switched to me looking out a window in Philadelphia at a Chasidic family leaving a synagogue.

Pesach: My father has been gone for well over 30 years, but I particularly miss him when it comes to the Passover seder. He didn’t let his lack of a good singing voice stop him from singing every verse of every song, and it’s only as an adult that I think that Grandpa (who had an excellent voice) must have turned off his hearing aid in order to deal with that. And, who knew? It turns out to be possible to hide the afikomen somewhere other than on top of the refrigerator.

I should also note a break from personal tradition this year. I bring string cheese, matzoh, and fruit to work for lunch. But this year I am eating clementines instead of grapes. (And, by the way, clementine has 4 syllables. It sort of rhymes with ballerina.)

I will get back to catching up on vacation (and pre-vacation) things, but I don’t want to fall further behind, so here is what I’ve done since I’ve gotten back.

Celebrity Death Watch: V.S Naipaul was a Nobel laureate in literature. Mark Baker was a (primarily) theatre actor, best known for playing Candide in the 1974 production of the Bernstein musical. Morgana King was a jazz singer and actress. She actually died in late March, but I didn’t see her obituary until mid-August. Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister of India from 1998 to 2004. Kofi Annan was Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1997-2006. Barbara Harris was an actress, both on Broadway (On a Clear Day You Can See Forever and The Apple Tree among others) and film (Nashville, Freaky Friday, etc.) Ed King played guitar with Strawberry Alarm Clock and Lynyrd Skynard and wrote the song, "Sweet Home Alabama." Martin Shubik was an economist whose work included analysis of the best pastrami sandwich in New York. Robin Leach hosted Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Princeton Lyman was a diplomat, credited with helping to end apartheid in South Africa. Marie Severin was a comic book artist. Paul Taylor was an influential modern dance choreographer. Peter Corris wrote crime novels. Susan Brown was a soap opera actress. Vanessa Marquez was an actress, best known for playing a nurse on E.R. Gloria Jean was an actress and singer, who appeared in several 1940’s and 1950’s films. Carole Shelley was an actress, whose roles included playing one of the Pigeon sisters in The Odd Couple. Randy Weston was a jazz pianist and composer. Christopher Lawford was the son of actor Pater Lawford and a nephew of JFK, who also became an actor and wrote a memoir about his struggles with drug addiction. Bill Dailey wa a character actor, known for appearing in I Dream of Jeannie and The Bob Newhart Show. Burt Reynolds was a television and movie actor, best known for Deliverance. Richard DeVos co-founded Amway. Mac Miller was a rapper. Sam Cornish was Boston’s first poet laureate.

I hope you don’t need me to tell you about Aretha Franklin. She was one of the greatest singers of all time and a truly iconic American voice. I’m usually not keen on people being dubbed royalty of some genre, but I will make an exception for the Queen of Soul.

Khaira Arby was a Malian singer. I heard her perform at the Festival Au Desert in 2011 and met her briefly in the market in Timbuktu while I was there. She was apparently the first Malian woman to start a career under her own name. She was also an activist for women’s rights and an advocate against female genital mutilation.

I assume I don’t need to tell you about John McCain. He was an interesting politician, something of a maverick among Republicans. While I often disagreed with him, I do think he had a lot of integrity. In an era of bad behavior, he seemed able to be a gentleman most of the time, which deserves credit in and of itself. He also scored on my ghoul pool list (and almost everyone else’s, alas.)

Neil Simon was a playwright, whose work focused on New York and the Jewish-American experience. He received more combined Oscar and Tony nominations than any other writer. His plays were a good example of my theory that funny and serious are not antonyms.



Please Don’t Analyze This Dream: I don’t remember the context, but there were a bunch of soldiers wearing triangular green-painted (or maybe enameled) metallic masks that I referred to as "Turkish death masks."



Passion: I saw Passion at Signature Theatre on Saturday. This is one of the more difficult Sondheim musicals, largely because Fosca is a fundamentally unlikeable character, stalking Giorgio, a sensitive man who has the heart of a poet in a soldier’s body. It’s an uncomfortable view of love, accompanied by emotional (and only sporadically humorous lyrics, mostly relating to the other soldiers’ reactions to Giorgio). Despite all that, Signature did an excellent job with it. Claybourne Elder was a convincing Giorgio. And Natascia Diaz made Fosca a little bit sympathetic. Overall, I thought it was worth seeing, but though I will never love the show the way I do most of Sondheim’s others.



Gelato Festival DC: On Sunday, I ignored the chill and rain and went off to the city for Gealto Festival DC. The idea is that you buy a wristband (for $30 plus fees) and get to taste all the gelato you want. There were several gelato makers competing, with flavors designed for the festival.

Crusty Fantasy from Gelato Gourment in Weston, FL was a mixture of caramel, cashews and rice krispies. The name is terrible, but the flavor was reasonably good.

Blue Majik from Gelato’oh Brick & Motor in Philadelphia was pineapple flavored with a blue coloring from algae. It supposedly also had ginger and apple juices, but I couldn’t detect them. I liked the idea of a sugar-free sorbetto, but it didn’t quite work for me, largely because the texture was not as smooth as is ideal.

Apurimac from local DC shop Pitango Gelato was a very intense chocolate. I know some people will doubt this is possible, but I thought it was actually too intense and I ate only a couple of spoonfuls.

Trinacrium from uGOgelato in Miami was my favorite. It was a mixture of pistachio and almonds, with a spray of orange. This was absolutely delicious – a lovely combination, with great flavors and texture. I was clearly not the only person who thought so, as it won the competition.

American Dream from Gelato Bliss in Hagerstown, MD had salted peanuts swirled with a coca-cola reduction. This was better than I expected from that description, but not something I wanted more of.

Butter Pecan from Marinucci’s in Reston, VA was disappointing. They apparently used European butter instead of cream, which gave it a weird mouth feel to me. This was another one where I didn’t eat more than a couple of spoonfuls.

Cheesecake with Cherries from Mike’s Gelato in Columbia, MD was exactly what it sounds like. It wasn’t bad, but I am just not crazy about cherries, so had just a small taste.

Nocciola Chocake from Zerogradi Gelateria in Ambler, PA was hazelnut gelato with chocolate sauce and chocolate cake crumbs. I liked this, but would have liked it better if there were more chocolate flavor.


There were also a few non-competitors:

PreGel apparently sells a gelato base to shops, rather than selling commercially. I tried two of their flavors – hazelnut and cannoli. The hazelnut was excellent, but then it’s a flavor that I tend to like a lot. The cannoli was good, but would have benefited from more crunch.

Bella Gelateria (not clear where they are) had some sort of caramel and coffee flavor. This was just okay. There was nothing wrong with it, but it seemed pretty ordinary.

Moorenko’s from Silver Spring, MD had two flavors. The burnt caramel and pear with walnuts was quite good, but could have used more pear flavor relative to the other ingredients. Their ginger, however, was sublime, with large chunks of fresh ginger in it. If this had been a competitor, I would probably have voted for it over the Trinacrium. Best of all, they said it’s available at a couple of local grocery stores!



Rosh Hashanah: I went to the traditional service at Sixth and I. On the plus side, I like the cantor, who is reasonably inclusive, versus some who think they’re performing as operatic soloists. On the minus side, the siddur they use has absolutely terrible English translations. And if I notice that, with my lack of Hebrew fluency, they must be really bad. I was also suffering a bit from difficulty focusing, which I will attribute to jet lag. At the very least, I got to spend time with a couple of friends who I see all too infrequently.

Happy 5779 everyone!