fauxklore

This morning I got through a stack of papers, filing some and tossing some. I also changed my bed linens, cleaned the toilet, and went grocery shopping.

I had two odd emails today. The first was from resy cancelling a restaurant reservation which I hadn't cancelled. I called the restaurant and straightened it out, but it was annoying.


The other one was a notice saying my order has been shipped from a company that I never heard of and, therefore, am reasonably sure I have not ordered anything from. I can think of three possibilities, aside from some sort of potential scam. I have more or less dismissed having backed some kickstarter project I forgot about. My leading guess involves knowing two people in the city it is being shipped from, one of whom is likely to have sent me something. The less likely possibility is that something I ordered is being sent from an unexpected location. I'll just have to wait and see.

I am feeling a bit stressed tonight over how much stuff I need to do. Part of this is my own fault, as I screwed up synching email on my phone. I have things working again, but it looks like older email hasn’t propagated. I suspect it might if I had some actual patience. But that is something I’m generally fairly short of.

Anyway, I think that trying to get through some of my chores is a better use of my time tonight than writing here would be. At least now that I’ve managed the 50 word minimum that I think is the Holidailies criterion for a post.

I’ve been exhausted all day. I had intended to go to bed at 11 last night, but there was somebody making a lot of noise in my complex. After about an hour and a half of not being able to sleep, I got dressed and went to go complain to them. It turned out not to be my next-door neighbors, but the people on the other side of them. And it sounded like they were having a knock-down drag-out fight. I even heard what sounded like glass breaking. I decided it would be too dangerous to confront them, so went back to my place and sent an email to the building manager (who I am sure won’t see it until Monday morning). In retrospect, I should have called the police.

Anyway, it was almost 2 a.m. before it was quiet enough to sleep. I assume these are the same people who were playing music loudly on Friday night (which I only heard when I got up to use the bathroom at about 3 a.m.) Sigh. Normally the only noise I hear comes from birds in the courtyard and cicadas in summer.

I did get up early to run some errands - mailed off my packages (there is a post office a few miles away that is open on Sundays), dropped some cookies off with a friend, put a few books in the Little Free Library down the street from her house, and did my grocery shopping. I had a genealogy-related zoom meeting at noon, so I didn’t really have a chance to take a nap until mid-afternoon.

Hopefully, the neighbors will be quiet tonight.

I have a lot of catching up to do, but let’s start with a couple of items of shameless self-promotion.


Shameless Self-Promotion - Storytelling Edition: There are still a few days left for you to get tickets to my next storytelling show. This is Saturday night, November 27th at 7 pm EST and is both live at The Auld Shebeen in Fairfax, VA and being live streamed, so is watchable from anywhere. The theme is Thanksgiving: Stories of Gratitude, Grace, and Gravy and my story, which is up first, has to do with what I really learned in ballet class. Tickets are available at the Better Said Than Done website.


Shameless Self-Promotion - Podcast Edition: I am (again) on the Style Invitational podcast that Mike Gips produces. Six of us played a game show, which was tremendous fun. Theres an audio only version up right now at the You’re Invited website and a video version is in the works.


Celebrity Death Watch: Eddie Robinson played first base for the Cleveland Indians and later managed the Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves. Joy Watson wrote children’s books. Gerald Home was an actor and puppeteer who, among other things, operated Audrey II in the 1986 film version of Little Shop of Horrors. Pauline Bart was a sociologist who studied women’s issues, including rape. Granville Adams was an actor who was notorious for pushing somebody into an elevator shaft in a nightclub brawl. Ruthie Thompson was an animator for Disney and was 111 years old at her death. Paddy Moloney co-founded the Irish band The Chieftains. Marcus Malone was a percussionist who was one of the founding members of Santana. Ray Fosse was a catcher for the Cleveland Indians and Oakland A’s. Gary Paulsen wrote children’s and young adult fiction. Madame Nguyen Van Thieu was the first lady of South Vietnam from 1967 to 1975. Betty Lynn was an actress who was best known for playing Thelma Lou on The Andy Griffith Show. George Butler made documentary films including Pumping Iron and a trilogy about Ernest Shackleton. Robin McNamara was a singer-songwriter, best known for “Lay a Little Loving’ On Me.” Jay Black headed up Jay and the Americans. Peter Scolari was a sitcom actor in Newhart and Bosom Buddies. Linwood Holton was governor of Virginia in the early 1970’s. Jerry Remy was a baseball player and long-time color commentator for the Red Sox. Justus Rosenberg was a member of the French resistance during World War II. Pat Martino was a jazz guitarist and composer. Aaron Beck was a psychiatrist who developed cognitive behavior therapy. Declan Mulligan was the guitarist for The Beau Brummells. Bettina Grossman was a conceptual artist. Ruth Ann Miner was the governor of Delaware from 2001 to 2009. Dean Stockwell was an actor who appeared in the TV show Quantum Leap as well as numerous movies. Max Cleland was a disabled Vietnam veteran (triple amputee) who served a term as a U.S. senator from Georgia. Graeme Edge was the drummer for the Moody Blues. Petra Nayer was a book reviewer for NPR. Sam Huff was a linebacker for the Washington Redskins. Julio Lugo played shortstop for the Red Sox. Clarissa Eden was the widow of former British prime minister Anthony Eden. Art Lafleur was a character actor who appeared in The Sandlot and Field of Dreams. Dave Frishberg wrote comic songs, including “My Attorney, Berne,” as well as a few songs for Schoolhouse Rock. Keith Allison was a singer and bassist for Paul Revere and the Raiders. Peter Buck co-founded Subway. Bill Virton was an outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates and later managed several teams, notably the Houston Astros. Robert Ellis was an artist whose work included what was at one time the largest tapestry in the world. Jay Last was one of the founders of Fairchild Semiconductor. Ron Shaffer originated the Dr. Gridlock transportation column in the Washington Post.


Arthur Mattock was a professor of mathematics at MIT. I am reasonably sure that I had him for 18.03 (Differential Equations) back in spring semester 1977. I have a vague memory of him assigning a problem set the day before it was due on the grounds that everyone does them last minute anyway.


Colin Powell was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993 and the Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He formulated a doctrine that said the U.S. should not intervene militarily unless American national security interests are at stake and there is overwhelming public support, but also gave a speech to the United Nations on the rationale for the Iraq War that did not meet those criteria. He had the integrity to leave the Republican party after the January 6th insurrection.


Leslie Bricusse was a composer and lyricist, His movie work included Dr. Doolittle and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. His most prominent musical theatre works were his collaborations with Anthony Newly on Stop the World - I Want to Get Off and The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd.

Mort Sahl was a comedian and broke new ground as a social satirist.

Neal Edward Smith was the longest serving U.S. representative from Iowa. He earned me 25 ghoul pool points.

F. W. de Klerk was the last apartheid era president of South Africa. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for dismantling apartheid but was controversial for the inadequacy of his apologies for the racist system.

Robert Bly was poet. His book Iron John is widely credited with starting the mythopoetic men’s movement.


Malaise: I’ve been in a bit of a funk for the past couple of weeks, for no obvious reason. I think it is most likely a combination of lack of sunlight and chilly temperatures. I am trying to counter it by doing things and planning more things.


Politics - Virginia: Another factor in my malaise was the outcome of the elections. There has been a lot of analysis about what went wrong in the Virginia gubernatorial race, but I think it’s really a lot simpler than the way the pundits have portrayed it. Namely, Terry McAuliffe ran a completely incompetent campaign. I got lots of mailers from him early in the race but nothing in the last two months. Youngkin had ads on the radio about every 5 minutes, while McAuliffe had none. He needed to get out beyond his supporters who went to rallies to counter the lies (primarily about education) that Youngkin was spouting.


Politics - Rittenhouse: While I am disappointed that Rittenhouse was acquitted on all charges, I’ve read a couple of pieces that provide a rational explanation. Namely, once the judge limited the case by removing the illegal possession of firearms charges, the only issue was whether or not he could claim self-defense. And, in Wisconsin, the burden of proof is on the State to prove he did not have grounds for that claim. Interestingly, the same is true in most states now. In fact, Virginia may be the last exception.


Broadway’s One Hit Wonders: Just before my vacation I went to a virtual One Day University lecture by Sean Hartley about Broadway’s One Hit Wonders. When I’d seen the description, I had some objections. Sure The Music Man was much more successful, but Meredith Willson also wrote The Unsinkable Molly Brown which did respectably. And Galt McDermott (who wrote the music for Hair) won a Tony for Two Gentlemen of Verona, a show I was surprised to like as much as I did. Hartley did talk about both of those and admit he was stretching the definition. At any rate, the talk was quite entertaining and informative. I’d say the gist of it is that the creative teams did not want to work together for various reasons. In addition, several of the people involved preferred to concentrate on other projects, e.g. pop music. Of course, there is also the tragedy of Rent with Jonathan Larson’s death the night before the off-Broadway premiere. (Which reminds me - I need to find time to see the movie version of Tick Tick Boom.) Perhaps it is more surprising that there are so many people who did have a string of Broadway hits.


Travel Talk: There was a (virtual) Travelers’ Century Club talk by John Gimlette about the Guianas this past weekend. This is a part of the world I’ve been interested in for a while. The talk was excellent - entertaining and informative, with a lot of practical information. I need to look up Gimlette’s book, Wild Coast (and, probably, his other travel books).


Criminal relatives: Today there was a JewishGen webinar about researching criminal ancestors. Ron Arons has written a couple of books on the subject and was fairly informative, but he needed way more than the one hour he had. And, yes, genealogy research is something else I am way way way behind on.


Another Genealogy Talk: There was a JGSGW meeting on Sunday with a talk on the topic of planning for what will happen to your research after you die. I’ll say the most useful part of that was the suggestion to just devote 30 minutes a day for 30 days to working on an action plan. I think I will wait until January, however.

I keep meaning to post here and not getting around to it. Here’s an update.


Celebrity Death Watch: Carola Eisenberg died in March at the age of 103. She was the Dean of Students at MIT during at least part of my undergraduate days and was the first woman to hold that position. Adlai Stevenson III was a senator from Illinois through the 1970’s. Edward Barnes co-created Blue Peter. Neddy Smith was an Australian criminal, who I’d had on my ghoul pool list a couple of years ago but given up on. Art Metrano was an actor who appeared in the Police Academy movies. Audrey Haine was a pitcher and Joan Berger was an infielder in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Abigail Guzman was the founder of the Shining Path terrorist group in Peru. Don Collier was an actor in television westerns. Ida Nudel was an activist who was instrumental in freeing Soviet Jews. Norm MacDonald was an actor and comedian. Reuben Klamer invented board games, including The Game of Life. George Ferencz was a theatre director. Penny Harrington was the first woman to head a major police department in the U.S. (in Portland, Oregon). Clive Sinclair was pioneer in electronics, including personal computers. Jane Powell acted in a lot of MGM musicals. Ronald Probstein was a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, who did a lot of research on hydrodynamics and spacecraft reentry. Sarah Dash sang as part of Labelle. Melvin Van Peeble was a filmmaker, actor, and director. Peter Palmer played Li’l Abner on Broadway. Al Harrington was an actor, best known for appearing in Hawaii Five-O. Willie Garson was an actor known for appearing in Sex and the City. Jay Sandwich was a television director who won four Emmys. Roger Michell was a film director, whose work included Notting Hill. Pee Wee Ellis was a saxophonist. Bobby Zarem was a publicist for people ranging from Dustin Hoffman to Cher. Michael Tylo was a soap opera actor. Lonnie Smith was a jazz musician. George Frayne, better known as Commander Cody, was a pioneer ion alt-country music. Lars Vilks was a sculptor who founded his own micro country, Ladonia, due to a property dispute over the location of some of his work.

Willard Scott was best known as a TV weatherman. He had also been the creator of Ronald McDonald, but the company decided they wanted to use a thinner man as their mascot.

Harold Franklin was the first black student at Auburn University. The university removed everyone else from a wing of his dorm to prevent contact with him and refused to grant him his degree by creating various pretexts to refuse to accept his thesis. It took until 2001 before they acknowledged his having been their first black student, even though he enrolled in 1964. They finally granted his master’s degree in 2020 after he had retired from an academic career at other universities.

Anthony Hewish was a radio astronomer who won a Nobel prize. He is widely reviled for having appropriated the work of his graduate student, Jocelyn Bell, who discovered pulsars.

Rabbi Moshe Tendler was an expert on Jewish medical ethics. His writings on the subject of organ transplantation (which include discussion of the concept of brain death) have been very influential in the Orthodox Jewish world.

Tommy Kirk was a child actor in Disney films, including Old Yeller and The Shaggy Dog. His later career was, alas, destroyed by drug addiction.


Health Update: I think my rib is as close to fully healed as I’m going to be able to tell. However, I wrenched my left wrist painfully last week. How? I was just trying to open a a plastic bottle of Coke Zero. See, I knew soda was bad for me. (I eventually had to resort to using pliers.)

Rosh Hashanah Leftover: I forgot to mention that I had seen a video (about cooking fish) that mentioned five traditional foods for Rosh Hashanah. These are apparently based on having Aramaic names which sound similar to words in accompanying blessings. These are zucchini, black-eyed peas, leeks, Swiss chard, and dates. I wonder if this is the source of the Southern U.S. tradition of eating black-eyed peas for the (secular) new year. Also, Ashkenazim (i.e. Eastern European Jews) added carrots to the list, presumably because of availability.Of course, a better known tradition is to eat the head of a fish or a sheep. If you’re a vegetarian, you can just have a head of lettuce!


National Book Festival: The National Book Festival was the last week or so of September and was mostly virtual. I watched two presentations. One, on book construction (i.e. book structures and bookbinding) was mediocre, but might be of more interest to people less familiar with the topic. The other was about crossword puzzles and featured Will Shortz (of course) and Adrianne Raphel. They were entertaining and there was some fun crossword trivia included. I need to find time to go back and see what other presentations I want to watch.

Aptonym: The founder of Epik, the web host of choice for neoNazis and other right-wing lunatics is named Rob Monster. And that is, apparently, his real name.

Korean Food: I went out to dinner a few nights ago with a friend who I hadn’t seen in a while. We went to ChiMC, which is a Korean place near where I live, chosen for interestingness, outdoor seating, and easy parking. She got their signature fried chicken, but I am not so keen on fried chicken, so I opted for something called tteobokki, which consists of fish cakes and cylindrical rice cakes, in a spicy sauce. It was pretty good, assuming you like spicy food, but the texture of the rice cakes was a bit weird.


Mock Jury: I spent a day in a hotel conference room being a mock juror. I can’t write about any of the details, but it was interesting and I walked away with $200. I’d do it again. I’ve filled out an info form with another company that does what sound like similar focus groups. (And I felt like Susan Dennis who seems to do lots of focus groups.)


Speaking of Finding Time: The National Storytelling Festival is going on right now. But I have two things I need to finish by October 5th, so I won’t be watching any of it until at least Wednesday. Plus, of course, baseball is another distraction, what with my Red Sox facing the Source of All Evil in the Universe in the Wild Card playoff on Tuesday. I went to Saturday’s game at Nats Park, by the way, which was exciting, but in a way that I am sure was not good for my blood pressure. Fortunately, the BoSox pulled it out, but the eighth inning was decidedly scary. And why did Alex Cora leave Austin Davis in for the ninth? Admittedly, that led to the rare sight of a pitcher being deliberately walked (and then advancing to second base, a place he probably hadn’t seen since high school) but he raised the stress level in the bottom of the ninth by giving up a two run homer.

A Follow-up re: the Flushies: You can hear me interviewed on the You’re Invited podcast. The little segment where Mike talked with me starts just about 07:34, but if you listen to whole show, you can get an idea of what my social life is like. And, as a bonus, this is a photo of the shirt I was wearing (which is part of what we talked about):



I will fully admit I don’t know what all of the equations are supposed to be. And I especially don’t know why one of them is repeated on the shirt.

Lots more to catch up on, but here are my answers to the July prompts.


1. Have there been any periods in your life that could be described as being chaotic? Yes, especially the year or so after my mother died. I was going back and forth to her house to clear things out, as well as having a lot of conflict with my brother.

2. What was the last thing you bought used? Books. Which are pretty much the only thing I buy used.

3. Has anyone ever told you that you're getting too competitive over minor things? I think I’ve more often told other people that they are over-competitive, e.g. with respect to board games.

4. What was the first thing you ever saved up to buy with your own money? In high school, I saved up money to buy a three-speed bike. But my parents bought me one before I had enough on my own.

5. After high school – straight to college or straight to work? Straight to college.

6. If I looked in your fridge right now, what would I find? Vegetables, noodles, and surimi for a stir-fry. Apples and lemons. A lot of condiments (a category which includes a jar of pepperoncini). A few types of cheese, some cream, yogurt, and sour cream. Eggs. A couple of bottles of wine and a bottle of amurula. A large jug of water for emergencies. Butter. Yeast.


7. If you had to move to a new city, where would you move? There are several possibilities, but the top few are Boston, Charleston (South Carolina), Tel Aviv, and Montevideo (Uruguay).

8. What did your parents do when you were growing up? My father was a civil engineer turned urban planner. My mother had a number of different jobs over the years, ranging from selling Avon to selling real estate to secretarial work.

9. When someone knocks on the door, who do you think it is? Most likely the postman.

10. Did your parents live in a different country before you were born? My father was born in Germany (well, East Prussia) but only because of better medical care than in Lithuania, where he grew up. (His mother had had an earlier baby who was stillborn.) He survived the Kovno Ghetto and Dachau and spent a few years in Displaced Persons camps in Italy before coming to the U.S.

11. What's something you've experienced that very few others have? A zero-G flight.

12. Do you have to wear an identification badge at your job? I'm retired now, but I did have to wear an ID badge when I worked.

13. Do you like when friends stop by unexpectedly? Friends really can’t stop by unexpectedly since my condo complex is semi-secure. And my place is generally a mess so I really wouldn’t want anyone to just drop in.

14. How old were you when you moved to your current home? Uh, 49, I think.

15. If you apply your makeup, do you do it in a specific order? I rarely wear makeup, but when I do, it is first foundation, then rouge and powder, then eye makeup (shadow and mascara), and then lipstick.

16. Were you born with naturally straight teeth? Uh, aren’t most people born without teeth?

17. Do you like going to museums? Any particular type? I love going to museums. I like a lot of different sorts of museums. I probably go to art museums most often, but I have a particular fondness for the sort of small town museums that have a mixture of local history, oddities, and collections donated (or lent) by local people. I’ve also gone to a lot of doll museums.

18. What time do you usually go to bed at on weekends? Maybe midnight.

19. How often do you re-watch / re-read things or are you more ‘once only’? I reread certain books, e.g. my once or twice a year rereading of Alice in Wonderland. I do rewatch things now and then, but less often than I reread.

20. If you could marry any celebrity today who would it be? I have no real desire to marry anyone. But, if I had to, whoever has a lot of money and poor health?

21. Do you own anything that's an antique? Sort of. I have a necklace my great-grandmother allegedly bought in Shanghai. And I have a crocheted beaded bag my grandmother made.

22. Do you let your hair air dry or do you blowdry it? Air dry.

23. How long does it take for you to fall asleep at night? I usually fall asleep fairly quickly, but I tend to wake up after 4-5 hours and can’t always get back to sleep.

24. What's the first thing you do when you get on the computer? Check my email.

25. What's one item that you wish you owned right now? The perfect display cabinet for my doll collection. But I’d settle for owning lamps that all used the same type of lightbulb.

26. Do you like makeup? I think it can be fun on special occasions, but I wouldn’t want to use it every day.

27. What celebrity death(s) that effected you the most? William Strunk, Jr., who would have been as shocked as I was by the poor grammar of this question.

28. Musician you would like to see live if you had the chance? Luka Bloom.

29. Have you ever met an online friend in real life? Plenty of them.

30. What would you miss most if you moved from the area you currently live in? The cultural life of the D.C. area is phenomenal.

31. Have you ever cried in school? Yes, but that was long ago.

I’m finally getting around to the May prompts.

1. Has a random person ever asked you for your phone number? Not that I can think of. And, frankly, I can’t imagine giving my phone number to someone I don’t really know.

2. Do you have freckles? Some, but mostly I have small moles.

3. Ever stolen a street sign? No. And I can’t imagine why someone would.

4. How would you describe your last disappointment? There are people who are best avoided.

5. Is there someone you absolutely cannot stand but have to tolerate? I had that situation at work, but retirement cured it.

6. What’s the last thing you said out loud? Probably “excuse me,” a phrase I am the last person in North America to use.

7. What time is your alarm clock set for? The hour varies, but the minutes will be either 17, 37, or 57.

8. Do you get any magazines in the mail? Technology Review.

9. Would you rather take a shower or a bath? Shower for getting clean, bath for soaking and relaxing, ideally with bubbles or bath salts.

10. Out of everyone you know, who has the most heart? Tony goes out of his way to help people who need it.

11. How many beings live in your house? Just me, unless I forgot about something in the back of the refrigerator.

12. How many cars have you ever owned? Three - a 1985 Toyota Corolla, 1 1994 Saturn SL2, and my current car, which is a 2019 Hyundai Accent.

13. Can you do math in your head well? I can do mental arithmetic well, but not, say, differential equations. When I was a kid, my parents would send my brother and me into town to pick up the Sunday New York Times and a box of Italian pastries. We were allowed to spend the change and it helped to be good enough at arithmetic to maximize our comic book purchases.

14. Does your house have air conditioning throughout, or do you have one that sits in your window? I have central air conditioning in my condo.

15. What’s your least favorite chore to do around the house? Nature abhors a vacuum and so do I.

16. What’s your favorite flavor of potato chips? I grew up liking Wise onion and garlic potato chips, but they are not available here. In their absence, I suppose barbecue.

17. Do you ever read the weather forecast? At least daily.

18. Do amusement park rides make you sick? No, but I don’t do a lot of rides because I am terrified of heights.

19. What kind of cheese do you put on your sandwiches? I don’t. Except for grilled cheese, which I make with pepper jack. Unless you count bagels with cream cheese and lox as sandwiches.

20. How old were you when you got your driver’s license? I took driver’s ed in high school, but didn’t get my license until I was in my 20’s and about to move to Los Angeles.

21. Do you have any bumper stickers on your car? No.

22. How many jobs have you had? It depends on what you count. Growing up, I babysat exactly once for the imps across the street and did a bunch of tutoring. In college, I worked desk at the dorm and also serviced rooms during times when the dorm was used as a conference hotel. I also worked as a counselor at a couple of summer camps. In grad school, I was paid for being a research assistant, so I suppose that counts as a job. In the professional world, I worked for the same company for 35 years, but I had 7 jobs over those years, assuming I remember correctly. So maybe 14-ish total? Wait, I’ve also gotten paid for photography and for storytelling.

23. What’s your favorite kind of soup? This time of year, cold borscht with sour cream and boiled potatoes. Or gazpacho. Other times of year, matzo ball soup or lentil soup or bean and barley soup. Or meatball pho from a particular food truck.

24. Do you still have your wisdom teeth?> No, I had them out many (30+) years ago.

25. Did you have a swing set in your yard when you were a child? No, we walked to a playground a block or two away.

26. What was your favorite book you had to read for school? We read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton in junior high. I cried my eyes out.

27. Last wedding attended? Hmm, maybe my brother’s sometimes in the 1990’s? (They got divorced around 1998).

28. How long was your longest drive in a car? I drove from Los Angeles to northern Virginia in 2002.

29. Do you frequent social media more or less now? More or less than what? Probably less, though I do check LJ/DW and Facebook at least daily.

30. What is something that never fails to make you feel accomplished? Completing a crafts project.

31. What kind of cake did you have for your last birthday? I don’t think I had cake. In general, as sweets go, I prefer ice cream.

Continuing my backlog of things to write about, here are my replies to the April prompts:



1. Do you have any channels you regularly watch on YouTube? I am a big fan of The Try Channel, in which Irish people sample various foods and drink - sometimes restaurant foods of various cuisine, sometimes fast food or junk food from other countries. Comedy gold.

2. Do you listen to any podcasts? The only podcast I listen to is You’re Invited, which has to do with the Washington Post Style Invitational.

3. Favorite fast food chain? Their U.S. outlets are more fast casual, but in South Africa Nando’s Peri Peri is more fast food.

4. What are your goals for the next year? Getting my life completely organized, which has several subcategories.

5. What was your first pet? My brother and I had turtles when we were little. We got a mouse from our next door neighbors when their mother freaked out over it. Later on (after Rosie, the mouse, had died) Mom adopted a feral cat which was named Sunshine.

6. Have you ever been lost in your own neighborhood? Sadly frequently, because I have a horrible sense of direction.

7. Do you like any board games or card games? I play Code Names with some friends almost every night. Some other games I like are Plague and Pestilence, Wise or Otherwise, and Illuminati, but there are plenty of others.

8. What is the last thing you watched on TV? A baseball game.

9. How often do you get hiccups? Rarely.

10. What’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen? There’s a small islet in the Republic of Kiribati called Ouba. It’s about a 2 hour boat ride from Tarawa and is just a spectacular tropical paradise. (I was there to see the 2009 total solar eclipse).

11. Are you more sensitive to heat or the cold? I hate being cold.

12. What’s the most historic thing that has happened in your lifetime? Probably the moon landing.

13. What brand are you most loyal to? This will probably sound ridiculous, but I think Puffs tissues are superior to other brands. They’re both soft and strong, so they don’t chafe my nose.

14. What’s the most awkward thing that happens to you on a regular basis? Deborah Tannen has written about speech patterns, in which different cultures have different ideas about how much of a pause you need between two participants in a conversation. Coming from a culture in which uses a cooperative interruption model, I am often perceived as interrupting people.

15. What do you think could be done to improve the media? Making it clear what their biases are. I can adjust for perspective if I know what it is, but not if a source is pretending to be objective.

16. What kind of traveling do you not enjoy as much? Bus travel tends to be uncomfortable.

17. What’s a common experience for many people that you’ve never experienced? Raising a child.

18. What did you Google last? A map of the Broad Street SEPTA subway line in Philadelphia.

19. What’s the dumbest thing someone has argued with you about? How big trolls are.

20. What’s the most frustrating product you own? My vacuum cleaner. It’s bagless, so it is a pain to empty.

21. What's the best concert you've ever been to? Great Big Sea at Wolf Trap.

22. Do you need money to be happy? I need enough money to meet my basic needs, but I live pretty modestly.

23. What is something you do well? Tell stories. Crochet. Take notes.

24. How do you find new music? Mostly from friends. Back in ancient history, there were record stores with listening stations and well-curated selections on them. There are a few radio programs (available on-line) that are also helpful.

25. What physical traits have you inherited from your father? My curly hair.

26. What physical traits have you inherited from your mother? My coloring.

27. Where were you raised for most of your life? Island Park, New York (a small island off the south shore of Long Island).

28. Would you consider yourself to be in shape? Round is a shape, right? In other words, no.

29. Have you ever been in a car accident? Yes, but only minor fender benders fortunately.

30. Have you ever been on an island? Our family joke was about an island hopping trip to Long, Coney, and Traffic. Aside from having grown up on an island off an island in the suburbs of an island, I’ve been to places ranging from large ones like New Guinea (plus New Ireland, New Britain, and Rabaul), Madagascar, Honshu (Japan), Great Britain, Newfoundland, and Iceland to small ones like Ouba Islet (mentioned above), Saint Helena (south Atlantic), the various islands of the Galapagos, and Zanzibar, and dozens in between.

I don’t know why, but it is far easier for me to do these a month at a time than to try to write daily entries.

1. What are your favorite indoor activities? Reading, crafts, listening to music, storytelling. (The latter two could also be outdoors, too.) In non-pandemic times, going to restaurants with friends and going to museums.

2. What are you favorite outdoors activities? Walking, going to baseball games.

3. How do you feel about plastic surgery? I have no desire for it, but I have no objections to people getting it if they think it will improve their lives. For example, consider the song “Dance 10, Looks 3” from A Chorus Line.

4. What responsibilities do you think the media have, if any?Honesty is at the top of the list. I can deal with media bias if I know the biases of a particular source as long as I know what their slant is.

5. What is your take on organ donation? It is, obviously, a good thing. I do care, however, about it being done with respect to the donor’s body. (For example, Jewish law requires proper burial of organs that are not used.)

6. What do you think about hunting? I am theoretically okay with hunting for food, though I don’t think it is necessary in modern society here. Hunting in less developed places is more acceptable. Hunting for sport and for trophies disgusts me.

7. What places are you really grateful exist? Museums, libraries, bookstores, parks.

8. What does it mean to you to be spiritual? I like to feel connected to Jewish tradition and to what my ancestors struggled for.

9. Do you believe things happen for a reason? Sort of. Sometimes the reason is that people are idiots.

10. What is your take on making mistakes? Everyone makes mistakes. The key thing is to be capable of acknowledging whey you screw up and trying to make things right.

11. Who would you like to trade lives with for a day and why? It would be interesting to be a man for a day and see what sex is like for one of them..

12. How would a stranger that met you at a dinner party describe you? It really depends on who else is at the party. If it were people I know well, they’d probably think of me as loud and outspoken. If it were other strangers, they might see my shy side.

13. How old do you feel? It depends on the day. Most of the time, I feel my age (62). But sometimes I feel 15 and sometimes I feel 90.

14. How has getting older helped you deal with challenges in life?I think I am better at realizing that most of the things that go wrong don’t really make a difference in the long run.

15. When I have a look around my home, it’s very obvious that I… suck at housework.

16. Within the next month I will… spend too much money on household repairs.

17. 5 years ago I never thought… I’d spend a year without traveling.

18. What are you most fascinated by at the moment? my spice rack.

19. What are the three most dominant emotions in your life right now?anxiety, impatience, frustration

20. What is sure to make you cry? Chopping onions? I also sob through movies where one of the romantic leads dies.

21. How does the weather effect your mood? I am really tired of being cold. Beyond that, I actually like some cloudiness, but prefer not to deal with heavy rain and winds.

22. What would you change if you knew you could not fail? Maybe audition for more storytelling shows.

23. If you could get rid of anything on the planet what would it be? Anti-Semitism, since that has the biggest negative effect on me.

24. What would be the ultimate travel experience for you? A cruise through the Northwest Passage.

25. What’s the most recent show you’ve binge watched?I haven’t binge watched stuff in ages. Maybe Better Off Ted.

26. What conclusions did you make about money as a child? That I wanted more? I remember being determined to save up $100, which seemed like a huge sum.

27. What would you like to have less of in your work right now? Not really applicable, since I am retired.

28. What did you love to do as a child? Lie on the front lawn and watch planes overhead. Go to the seaplane port and watch the seaplanes taking off and landing. Read. Play with my Barbies. Draw house plans. Do all sorts of crafts.

This is definitely the latest I am doing a year in review. 2020 was, obviously, a challenging year. The biggest thing that happened was retiring (in October) and I am, frankly, still adjusting to that. I am trying to stick to my usual format, though much of that may cover things I had hoped to do and wasn’t able to because of the pandemic.’’


Books I read only 26 books in 2020. I found that working from home definitely cut into my reading time, as did my general stress level. On the other hand, I did keep up with newspapers and mostly caught up on magazines. Anyway, my favorite book of the year was A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Other books I liked include three of the novels in the Undead series by Mary Janice Davidson, My Mother’s Son by David Hirschberg, The Bastard by John Jakes, and West With the Night by Beryl Markham. Books I disliked included A Home At the End of the World by Michael Cunningham Puzzle For Fools by Patrick Quentin, and North Haven by Sarah Moriarty.


I got rid of 23 books. I have over 100 ready to go out, but I need to catch up on documenting that.

One other thing I should mention was going to a few virtual presentations as part of the National Book Festival. That is not, of course, as satisfying as a live festival, but was still interesting.


Volksmarch: Nothing, since I don’t generally do much walking in the winter. And then came the pandemic….

Travel: This is where my biggest disappointments of the year were, of course. I started out the year by flying home from Oman (via Dubai, with a long layover at DBX). The only other trip I took was a weekend in Las Vegas in February.

The biggest thing I missed out on was the Passion Play in Oberammergau, Germany, which is rescheduled to 2022. I also had intended various weekend getaways, including puzzle events in New York, Connecticut, and Toronto, my college reunion in Boston, and going to the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Some of that ended up virtual, about which I will say more below.


Puzzles: 2020 was my first time participating in the MIT Mystery Hunt, which I did virtually because my workplace did not have MLK Day as a holiday. Most of the usual events were cancelled, though some went virtual. The only one of the virtual ones I did was Lollapuzzoola and I did terribly, at least partly due to issues with the interface.


Ghoul Pool: I did fairly well, finishing in 5th place with 272 points (just 1 point out of 4th!) out of 17 players. The people I scored on were Kirk Douglas, Sultan Qaboos, Olivia de Havilland, John “Sonny” Franzese, Alex Trebek, Jean Edman, Freeman Dyson, Stirling Moss, Betty Dodson, John Lewis, Eric Bentley, Doug Supernaw, Nick Cordero, and John Prine.


For the record, my 2021 list is:
20. Prince Philip
19. Beverly Cleary
18. Al Jaffee
17. Naomi Replansky
16. W. Nicholas Hitchon
15. Anne Hutchinson Guest
14. Carmen Herrera
13. Renee Simonot
12. Bob Barker
11. Marsha Hunt
10. James Lovelock
9. Rachel Robinson
8. Lee Adams
7, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
6. Gilbert Seltzer
5. Roger Angell
4. Jiro Ono
3. Ned Rorem
2. James L. Buckley
1. Jimmy Carter

(The number is how many points you get if that pick dies, You then get to reload that slot. You also get 12 bonus points for unique picks.)

Genealogy: The biggest item here is that I was able to go to the International Association of Jewish Genealogy Societies conference virtually. I still need to finish writing up notes from the presentations I listened to after the conference was over. I also went to lots of (virtual) events with the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington and a couple from other organizations.

I also made contact with a few cousins, including a Bruskin descendent in Argentina.

What I haven’t done is getting organized.


Baseball: None, alas, due to the pandemic.


Culture: Pre-pandemic, I saw 4 musicals, 3 plays, and one revue I don’t know how to characterize. Oh, and also one Cirque du Soleil show. Favorites were The Toxic Avenger: The Musical at Rorschach Theatre, The King’s Speech at The National Theatre, andSilent Sky at Ford’s Theatre. The one concert I went to was Jonathan Richman at the Lincoln Theatre and he was wonderful.

I only saw three movies all year, which is not super surprising given that I normally watch movies mostly on airplanes and at film festivals. The Iron Giant was my favorite of them.

As for storytelling, the biggest live event I went to was the First Annual Women’s Storytelling Festival in March. I was on the organizing committee fr this and also emceed part of the day on Saturday. This was just before everything shut down, so attendance was low, but it was still pretty successful. And we are doing it again (but virtually) this March. The other live event I performed in was the Folklore Society of Greater Washington MiniFest in February.


Virtual Events: Once things did shut down, I found myself “going” to a lot of virtual events, mostly over zoom. The bottom line is that I am good at staying busy. Those included:

• Several performances by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, including sing-alongs with Zaman Mlotek, a concert of Allan Sherman songs, and a couple of concerts by Adam B. Shapiro,.
  
  
• Profs and Pints lectures on The Great American Road Trip, Epidemics in American History, Folkloric Felines, and The Truth Behind White Picket Fences.
  
  
• Jewish Food Festival
  
  
• Two plays and an opera, my favorite of which was the opera, Why Is Eartha Kitt Trying to Kill Me?
  
  
• The National Storytelling Conference (which I’ve written up in some length, The National Storytelling Festival (which I still need to write up), and lots of story swaps and performances. I also performed in at least one Better Said Than Done show (and hosted another) and in a Halloween concert. Among the best of those were two shows by Stories With Spirit (which I plan to write more about) that focused on fairy tale variations, one about Snow White and one about Hansel and Gretel. One plus of virtual events is that I can go to non-local story swaps, so I get to see my Los Angeles friends, as well as my local friends from Voices in the Glen and Better Said Than Done.
  
  
• A few sessions at Balticon and at Awesome Con..
  
  
• Book club
  
  
• Loser board games. I should probably explain that losers are devotees of the Washington Post Style Invitational.
  
  
• New York Adventure Club visual tour of City College of New York, which I am mentioning mostly because I’ve been going to more of their virtual tours so far this year.
  
  
• Art history classes, which are part of the Smithsonian Certificate program I am doing (and also need to write about)
  
  
• Various MIT related events, including my 40th reunion.
  
  

Goals: I had set 8 goals for 2020. I’ll give myself a 50% on updating household technology, since I still have to decide what to do about replacing my rather ancient television. I haven’t formally written a budget for my retirement income so get a 0% on that one. I did enroll in the Smithsonian Certificate Program in World Art History and took 2 core and 4 elective classes, so get 100% there. I haven’t finished organizing household paperwork, but I have made good progress and will give myself a 75%. I only got 23 books out of my house, so will round down to 10%. I learned 2 folk tales (where learning means to the point of being able to tell them) so get 33% on that goal. I did enter the Style Invitational 4 times (and even got ink once) so get 100% there. And I read 26 books, so get 50% on my reading goal. So it looks like I scored 52% for the year, which is decent, given the pandemic throwing a wrench in the works.


So, let’s see, goals for 2021:

• Get at least 200 books out of my house.
  
  
• Enter the Style Invitational at least 6 times.
  
  
• Finish the Smithsonian Certificate Program in World Art History. This requires 4 core classes and 6 electives but most elective classes are only a half credit.
  
  
• Get everything out of my storage locker so I don’t need to spend money on that.
  
  
• Organize my genealogy files.
  
  
• Organize my craft supplies, especially yarn.
  
  
• Read at least 52 books. I’m retired, so there’s really no excuse not to spend more time reading.
  
  
• Get at least 4 new stories to tellable form.