fauxklore

I think this will get me caught up on everything up until this month.

I’ve been using the same format for my year in review entries for several years now. It seems to work. Note that I took off the Volksmarch category this time since it’s been a couple of years since I managed to actually do anything there.

2023 started out stressful with mail being stolen, including a check which was washed and used fraudulently and a credit card which had to be replaced. It all got resolved, but I could have lived without the stress. There was a lot of stress later in the year, with the incompetence of the person at the local Social Security office who sat on my Medicare application for over two months without doing anything. That took way too many phone calls to get resolved. And, of course, there was the whole Middle East situation to make 2023 the Age of Anxiety.

Fortunately, things were otherwise good during the year.

Books: I read 53 books over the year. 39 of those were fiction, 3 were poetry, and the rest were nonfiction. Only 3 were rereads.

Favorites included Our Ancestors Did Not Breathe This Air (a poetry collection by Muslim women at MIT), Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozu Adichie, The Ghostwriter by Alessandra Torre, and The Caxton Private Lending Library and Book Depository by John Connolly. I also read 6 novels by Dick Francis, whose books provide a reliable antidote to ones in which not enough happens to keep me satisfied. Favorite non-fiction was The Best Strangers in the World by Ari Shapiro. Least favorite book was Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.

I got rid of 39 books and have at least another 33 ready to go out.

In addition to my longstanding book club (called READ for Read, Enjoy, And Discuss), I joined another book club, Crones and Tomes, which was started by a friend from the puzzle world.

Other book events included the Moby Dick Marathon in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which was an amazing experience, and a talk by Ari Shapiro at Sixth and I.

Ghoul Pool: I finished 4th out of 14 players, with 220 points. People I scored on were Naomi Replanski, Steve Harrell, Bob Barker, Tony Bennett, Al Jaffee, John Goodenough, Robert Solow, Daniel Ellsberg, Sandra Day O’Connor, James L. Buckley, W. Nicholas Hitchon, and David Oreck.

Travel: In January, I went to New Bedford, Massachusetts for the Moby Dick Marathon. In February, I went to Tucson, which included going to Saguaro National Park and Biosphere 2, as well as winning some money at a casino. March included a trip to New York City to go to the symphony and the theatre and visit with a high school friend. April’s travel was to Connecticut for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

In May I took a river cruise, which included going to the Kentucky Derby. The Derby arrangements were kind of a fiasco, but the stops at various small towns were a lot more interesting than I expected.

June took me to Svalbard, which featured amazing scenery, though the wildlife (or, more accurately, lack thereof) was disappointing. This was somewhere I’d wanted to go to forever, so I am glad to have had the opportunity.

In July, I went to Montreal for the NPL con. That also included eating a lot of Montreal Jewish food and following in the footsteps of Leonard Cohen. Later in the month, I leveraged off a genealogy conference in London to take a trip to Ireland (including a day trip to Belfast) and the Isle of Man. That included fulfilling a life list item by having a beer at the South Pole Inn in Anascaul. After the conference, I did a few more things in London, including side trips to Canterbury and to Ipswich and Sutton Hoo. Soon after I got back, I took a quick trip to New York City for Lollapuzzoola and theatre going.

LoserFest was in Philadelphia in September. Highlights included the Masonic Temple and the Magic Gardens.

In October, I took a quick trip to San Antonio for the annular solar eclipse, which was awesome. While I was there, I also did a day trip to the Hill Country, where I saw several sites associated with Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as visiting the town of Fredericksburg. Later in the month I went to Boston, mostly to go to a concert by Jonathan Richman.

I’m not sure if taking a day trip to Harrisonburg, Virginia in November counts as travel. But my trip to French Polynesia (Austral Islands and Aranui cruise to the Marquesas) definitely does.

Virtual travel talks I went to included one on Jewish Barbados and a few Travelers’ Century Club zoom sessions. There were also a few in-person TCC meetings.

Puzzles: I participated once again in the MIT Mystery Hunt as part of Halibut That Bass. I think the team worked particularly well together, but we had some issues with the way the hunt was structured, which resulted in our seeing only about half of the puzzles.

I was disappointed in my performance in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. I finished solidly in the middle of the pack and I wasn’t surprised to have trouble with Puzzle 5, but I left a blank square in Puzzle 3, which was sheer carelessness. I did worse at Lollapuzzoola 16 in August, because I failed to completely read parts of some clues in Puzzle 5 there. I blame jet lag from my trip just before that event.

As I mentioned above, I went to the National Puzzlers’ League Con in Montreal. Highlights included a couple of games by Cute Mage, as well as Rasa’s over the weekend cryptic.


Genealogy: I continued to volunteer as the Subject Matter Expert for a Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington Litvak Special Interest Group. I also went to several JGSGW virtual meetings. And, of course, I went to the IAJGS conference in London at the end of July / beginning of August. Aside from several interesting talks, the highlight of that was meeting a distant cousin.

Baseball: I went to a little bit of a Nationals game in May, but it got rained out. In September I went to the new Texas Rangers stadium (Globe Life Field), putting me back at having been to a game at every Major League Ballpark. I also went to two minor league ballparks to see the Aberdeen Ironbirds and the Fredericksburg Nationals.

Culture: I’m not a big television watcher but I kept Apple TV+ long enough to watch Schmigadoon and Schmicago, both of which were tremendous fun for musical theatre geeks like me.

In terms of movies, I saw 18 overall, 4 of which were in theaters, with the rest on airplanes. Favorites were A Man Called Otto, In the Heights, Blackberry, Cocaine Bear, Searching for Sugar Man, Barbie, and Remembering Gene Wilder. Most disappointing was Weird: The Al Yancovic Story.

I went to 5 Gilbert and Sullivan operettas at the G&S International Festival in England, with the best production being of Ruddigore. I went to two other operas, both by Jeanine Tesori (Blue and Grounded). I also saw two ballets and one modern dance performance, with the ballet of The Crucible being the most satisfying. As far as classical music goes, I saw the National Symphony Orchestra twice and was privileged to see Michael Tilson Thomas conduct the New York Philharmonic. The only popular music concert I went to was one by Jonathan Richman, who is always wonderful.

I saw 14 plays and 9 musicals, assuming I counted correctly. Favorite plays were All Things Equal (about Ruth Bader Ginsburg), The Lifespan of a Fact at Keegan Theatre, Selling Kabul at Signature Theatre, and The Pillowman, which is a Martin McDonagh play I saw in London. I also loved The Enigmatist, which is a mixture of comedy. magic, and puzzles and, hence, I consider sui generis. Top musicals were In the Heights at Next Stop Theatre Company, Signature Theatre’s production of Pacific Overtures. and Shucked and Kimberly Akimbo on Broadway.

Storytelling: I went to several storytelling shows, including one by my Grimmkeepers group. I performed in two shows for Artists Standing Strong Together, and also told at the C&O Canal Visitor Center with Voices in the Glen, at the Washington Folk Festival, and in a Better Said Than Done show at the Stagecoach Theatre. Some other shows I particularly enjoyed were Ingrid Nixon’s show about Shackleton and several of the performances at the National Storytelling Festival. And, of course, the Women’s Storytelling Festival (which I also emceed at) os always a highlight of the year.

On a rather different note, the Grimmkeepers discussions about the Grimm fairy tales continue to be enlightening and enriching.

Museums and Art: I went to 32 museums over the year. Highlights included the New Bedford Glass Museum, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, two exhibitions of miniatures (the Mini Time Machine Museum in Tucson and the Small is Beautiful exhibit in New York), the MIT Museum, the Virginia Quilt Museum, and the Museum of Failure. I also really enjoyed seeing the Book of Kells, the Manx Museum, and Sutton Hoo during my travels in July. My absolute favorite for the year was the Museum of Broadway.


Other Stuff: On New Year’s Day, my friend, Cindy, and I went to the Winter Lantern Festival at Tyson’s, which was impressive.

I went to various Loser events, including the post-Post Loser Party, the Flushes, LoserFest. I should probably count Poetry and Punchlines (a poetry reading associated with Light, which is a magazine of light verse) as a Loser event, too.

My crafting group changed to meeting on-line every other Thursday and in person at one members house on the weeks in between. I make it when I can. Similarly, I occasionally managed to get to my other (mostly) knitting group, which meets at the police station twice a month.

I went to a virtual organizing conference in September, which was moderately useful.

I played board games a few times a week, when I was home. Yes, sometimes I was home.

Goals: So how did I do on my 2023 goals? I went through maybe 10% of the photos from my parents and realized I have no idea where I put the slides, so I’ll give myself a 10% there. I did go to some sort of lecture or other formal educational event, either in person or on-line, every month, so I get 100% there. I get full credit (i.e. 100%) for taking 4 international trips. I finished only 1 craft project, so only get 33% there, though I did make progress on two others. I read 53 books, out of a goal of 75, so get 71% there. I get 100% credit for going to three new (to me) ballparks. I made it to at least one museum each month so get 100% on that goal. I only went to one national park, so get 33% on that goal. And I averaged significantly less than a half hour every day on housework, so I’ll give myself 10% there. Averaging things out, I’ll give myself a 62% on the year, which is not great but not terrible either.

Which brings me to goals for 2024:

• Circumnavigate the globe going westward. The backstory is that way back in 2000, I did an eastward circumnavigation, from Los Angeles to Russia via Germany by plane, overland through Siberia to Mongolia and to China, and back to Los Angeles by plane. I’ve got ideas for how I want to do the westward circle.
  
  
• Go to at least 3 national parks.
  
  
• Clean out my saved files of genealogy related emails.
  
  
• Read 80 books with a stretch goal of 125.
  
  
• Finish organizing my bedroom.
  
  
• Finish 3 afghans.
  
  
• Find and sort through my parents’ slides.
  
  
• Go to games at at least 4 AAA ballparks.
  
  
• Exercise for at least 20 minutes at least 3 times a week, with a stretch goal of at least 30 minutes at least 4 times a week.
  
  

I finished a couple of things in the past couple of days, so it seems like a good time to catch up here.

Celebrity Death Watch: Royston Ellis wrote travel guides, particularly for south Asia (e.g. India and Sri Lanka) and rail travel. Charle Harrington Elster was one of the original hosts of A Way With Words. Leon Hughes was the last surviving member of The Coasters. Wayne Shorter was a jazz saxophonist. Tom Sizemore was an actor, best known for starring in Saving Private Ryan. Judith Heumann was a disability rights activist. Gary Rossington was the lead guitarist for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Ian Falconer wrote and illustrated the Olivia series of children’s books. Robert Blake was an actor, about equally well-known for playing Baretta and for being accused of murdering his second wife. Raphael Mechoulam was the chemist who (with Y. Gaoni) isolated THC from cannabis. Masatoshi Ito was the founder of Ito-Yokado which owns over 10,00 7-11 stores, as well as being a franchisee for several other brands in Japan. John Jakes wrote epic novels, including North and South. Dick Fosbury was a high jumper who invented the style of jumping known as the Fosbury flop. Jim Gordon was the drummer for Derek and the Dominos, wrote the song “Layla,” and later murdered his mother. Joe Peptone was a first baseman for the Source of All Evil in the Universe. Pat Schroeder was one of the most prominent women in Congress for over 20 years. Stuart Hodes danced with Martha Graham. Sean Burns was the administrator of Tristan da Cunha for many years. Fuzzy Haskins was one of the founding members of Parliament-Funkadelic. John Jenrette was a congressman from South Carolina, best known for being involved in the Abscam scandal. Lance Reddick was an actor, best known for his roles in The Wire, Bosch, and John Wick. K.C. Constantine was a mystery writer. Jerry Green was the only sportswriter to cover each of first 56 Super Bowl games. Keith Reid was a songwriter and lyricist, most famous for Procul Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” Dan Ben-Amos was a folklorist, who studied Jewish folklore among other subjects. D. M. Thomas was a writer, best known for the novel The White Hotel. Howie Kane sang with Jay and the Americans. Virginia Norwood designed satellite imaging systems, leading to her being called the “mother of Landsat.”

Klaus Tuber created the game “Settlers of Catan.” Kwame Brathwaite was a photojournalist and popularized the phrase “Black is Beautiful.” Seymour Stein co-founded Sire Records. Judy Farrell played Nurse Able on M*A*S*H. Roy McGrath was a former chief of staff to the governor of Maryland, who failed to show up for his trial for various corruption charges, leading to a manhunt and his death from a gunshot, though whether by the FBI or his own hand is unclear. Craig Breedlove was a five-time land speed record holder. Leon Levine founded Family Dollar. Hobie Landrith was a catcher and the first person to sign a contract with the New York Mets. Nora Forster was a music promoter, probably more famous as Johnny Rotten’s wife. Ben Ferencz was a prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials. Ian Bairson was a member of The Alan Parsons Project. Pierre Lacotte was a ballet dancer and known for helping Rudolf Nureyev defect to the U.S. Meir Shalev was an Israeli writer. Ed Koren was a cartoonist whose work appeared frequently in The New Yorker.

Robert Haimer was a singer and songwriter, half of Barnes & Barnes and known for writing the song “Fish Heads,” which got a lot of airplay from Dr. Demento.

Chaim Topol was an Israeli actor, best known for playing Tevye in the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof.

Jesus Alou was an outfielder who played for a number of teams, including the Giants and the Astros. His younger brother, Matty, died in 2011, but the oldest of the Alou brothers, Felipe, who was the first Dominican to play regularly in the major leagues, is still alive.

Napoleon XIV was best known for the novelty song “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!”

Willis Reed played for the New York Knicks from 1964 through 1974 and went on to coach for several teams.

Gordon Moore co-founded Intel and was famous for Moore’s Law, which states that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles about every two years.

Mark Russell performed his unique style of political satire on regular PBS specials, as well as live. I was fortunate enough to be able to see him perform at Ford’s Theatre several years ago.

Mimi Sheraton was the food critic for the New York Times for many years. She also wrote several books, including From My Mother’s Kitchen and The Bialy Eaters.

Harry Lorayne was a memory expert. I once commented on The Memory Book as having been written by “Jerry Lucas and some author,” which may give you an idea of how effective I found his techniques.

Anne Perry was a mystery writer. She was several years into that career when the story came out that she had been convicted of murder as a teenager. It’s a complex story, involving what appears to have been an obsessive relationship with the friend whose mother she helped kill.

Al Jaffee was one of the greatest humorists of the 20th century. He invented two features for MAD Magazine - “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” and the fold-in. My Dad bought MAD regularly, allegedly for my brother and me, but we noticed that the fold-in was always done already by the time we got it. He also had an interesting family history, being dragged back and forth between the U.S. and Zarasai, Lithuania by his parents because his mother was unable to adjust to American life. He lived to 102 and credited his sense of humor for his longevity. Also, he earned me 23 ghoul pool points.

Mary Quant was a fashion designer, known for inflicting miniskirts and hot pants on society. And, yes, I wore those back in the day.


Puzzle Community Death Watch: Marc Spraragen, known within the National Puzzlers’ League as Marcus Asparagus, died suddenly of a ruptured aortic aneurysm. He was smart and kind and I always looked forward to seeing him at the NPL con. He was highly devoted to his family - his wife, Pauline, and their three-year-old son, Zachary. Such a huge loss to our community.

Ari Shapiro: The last Monday of March, I went to Ari Shapiro’s book launch event at Sixth & I Synagogue. He was interviewed by Audie Cornish. He had some interesting things to say about storytelling in the context of journalism and the value of encouraging people to tell their stories. Also, a storytelling friend, Cricket, was there, and it turns out she went to college with Ari’s father.

The Eleventh Plague: My friend, Teri, works at the Library of Congress and let me know about Jeremy Brown’s talk about Jews and Pandemics. Some of the things he talked about were the threat of execution for anyone violating quarantines in the Roman ghetto and exactly how a pandemic was defined by the rabbis. For example, only deaths by people who earned a living were counted, but deaths of animals and of non-Jews were included. It was an interesting talk and the library had various books and other reference documents on display.

Pacific Overtures: Pacific Overtures is my favorite Sondheim score, for a number of reasons. In particular, I think “A Bowler Hat” is an excellent example of how to use a song to illuminate character. “Chrysanthemum Tea” has my favorite Sondheim rhyme in “it’s an herb that’s superb for disturbances at sea.” I think “Please Hello!” is a great rebuttal to those who think of Sondheim primarily as a lyricist, since it takes a lot of musical talent to produce such on-the-mark pastiches of different musical styles. Sondheim’s own favorite of his songs was “Someone in a Tree.” Signature Theatre’s production was brilliant, as I expected, with excellent use of puppets and taiko drumming. Jason Ma was very impressive as the Reciter. All in all, it was a fabulous evening of theatre.

ACPT: The first weekend of April (and the Friday night before) was the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The ACPT deserves its own entry, which I will try to get to soon.

Grimm Keepers: Our story for the most recent meeting was “The Nightingale and the Blindworm.” This is a particularly short story, which is only in the first edition and not later Grimm collections. The gist of it is that those animals had one eye each and the nightingale asked to borrow the blindworm’s eye for a party, but refused to return it afterwards. This got us talking about other stories with similar themes, e.g. an African dilemma tale about a couple who find eyes and have to decide who to give the last one to.

Pesach: I had a hard time finding a lot of Pesach food this year. Many years, I drive to the Baltimore suburbs, but I had too much going on this year. And most of my local stores didn’t have certain things I usually look for. For example, nowhere had kosher for Passover jam. So I ate a lot of matzoh with cream cheese, borscht, chremslach (matzoh meal pancakes), and fruit and was bored.

Ballet - Anna Karenina: Last Friday (April 7th) I went to see the Joffrey Ballet production of Anna Karenina at The Kennedy Center. Cindy and I had some miscommunication, so I had an extra ticket, which my friend, Teri, took. None of the three of us had ever read the book, so we were somewhat lost. At intermission, I did read the synopsis, but it didn’t help quite enough. For example, I never understood what the scene in Parliament where Anna’s husband rails against immigrants, had to do with anything else. Still, the dancing was impressive.

Afterwards, we walked over to The Reach (the newish extension to the Kennedy Center) and looked at some of the River Run exhibit there. The theme is largely environmental, so, for example, there is this scu[pture made out of plastic pulled from rivers.



And here is an exhibit of “fabric” woven from fishing line.



We also went outside and looked at this installation called Survivors by Cuban artist Roberto Fabelo.



All in all, it was a nice afternoon, even if we didn’t completely understand the ballet.

Story Swap: The Voices in the Glen monthly story swap was last weekend. We had a small group, but an enjoyable evening. I told a Tuvan story about “How the Camel Lost Its Beauty.” I’d been thinking of it because it has some elements that are similar to those in “The Nightingale and the Blindworm.” It had been a long time since I’d told it, but I pretty much remembered it.

Crones and Tomes: This months book was The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. This was about her experiences when her husband died and her daughter was hospitalized in a coma for several months. I thought it was a good read but a lot of people had problems with her level of privilege that let her pull in impressive doctors for her daughter.

Counted Cross Stitch Project: I’ve been working on this counted cross-stitch project for two years and a few months and I finally finished it at my crafts group on Thursday afternoon. I still have to get it framed, of course.



It was designed by Saifhon Borisuthipandit and I bought the kit in Bangkok in 2008. I can, of course, see all my mistakes, but I assume nobody else will notice them.

Taxes: I finished my taxes Thursday night. As usual, what takes time is finding all of the documents I need. The one thing that I had a hard time finding was how much I paid in property tax for my car. In the end, I had to look on the county tax administration website. I ended up having to pay a few hundred bucks because I’d owned shares in an American Depository Receipt which delisted itself from the New York Stock Exchange, triggering capital gains. It was kind of a pain to find my cost basis because I’d owned the shares for nearly 30 years. Anyway, it’s done.

Storytelling - The Musical: To continue the busy Thursday, I attended a virtual storytelling show. Carol Moore emceed and there were 6 tellers. Natalie Jones had a cute story about show piglets (as in “there’s no piglets, like show piglets”) putting on a production of “The Three Little Pigs.” Paul Strickland had a story about an enchanted apple tree with a cursed knife stuck in it. Mo Reynolds told a version of the folk tale “The Sword of Wood.” She was followed by Jack Scheer explaining his magic iPod. Jessica Robinson’s contribution had to do with her mother’s love of singing. And Sam Payne closed out the night with a story about going to church dances as a teenager. All in all, it was a very enjoyable evening and a nice way to transition out of my busy day to a more relaxed evening.

And so it is again catch-up time. My pre-Pesach chocolate weekend will get its own write-up, but this is everything else.

Celebrity Death Watch: Jesse Witherspoon was a country singer / songwriter. Steven A. Shaw founded eGullet. Lorenzo Semple, Jr. wrote the first few episodes of Batman for television. Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was a boxer, but better known for having been wrongly convicted of murder and vindicated after many years in prison. Mickey Rooney was an actor.

Moving on to the literary world, Sue Townsend wrote about Adrian Mole. Peter Matthiessen wrote about snow leopards (among other things). Gabriel Garcia Marquez has the distinction of being the author of the book that has been in my unread pile the longest. I bought One Hundred Years of Solitude a good 20 years ago for a book club which fell apart before I got around to reading it and, somehow, I still haven't opened it. Seeing as how I am more likely to read dead authors, maybe it’ll bubble to the top of the stack soon.

Networking: The MIT Club of Washington had a dinner talk on Orbital Debris. That being a work-relevant topic for me, of course I went. I brought along two friends, one of whom is currently job hunting. What struck me is that neither of them made much of an effort at networking. I realize that they may have felt a bit shy because they are not MIT alums, but this was an obvious opportunity. I don’t think of myself as particularly good at schmoozing people up, but it seems natural at this sort of event. (And, yes, the talk was interesting, though I can’t say I learned much.)

Pierre Bensusan: As I have inevitably mentioned before, Pierre Bensusan is my favorite musician on the planet. He’s doing a 40th anniversary tour and he played a concert at Jammin’ Java, which is very close to my house. So, of course, I had to go. I’ve seen him perform numerous times before (for over 30 years, in fact) and I am happy to say his guitar playing is as amazing as ever. I was particularly pleased that he played Agadir Ramadan. He even played some new material. And, of course, I bought his new recording – a 3 CD live collection. If Django Reinhardt were still alive, maybe Pierre would have some competition, but that isn’t the case.

Pesach: Did you know that, prior to splitting the Red Sea, Moses had to file an Environmental Impact Statement?

In other holiday news, I cooked a potato and kale frittata which proved to be a surprisingly good idea.

Don Quixote: The American Ballet Theatre was at the Kennedy Center. I went to see Don Quizote on the grounds that I prefer narrative ballets to mixed repertory programs. On the plus side, Veronika Park and James Whiteside were very impressive dancers. However, the narrative was pretty weak, at least for somebody who has actually read the novel. Beyond the tilting at windmills scene, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were mostly spectators to village (and gypsy camp) dances.

Tender Napalm: I don’t see a lot of straight (i.e. non-musical) plays, but Signature Theatre has a few as part of their annual subscription. This play, by Philip Ridley, was interesting, provocative, and disturbing. It involves two characters (Man and Woman) who may be stranded on a desert island. There is a lot going on between them, which may or may not involve a tsunami, a sea serpent attack, battling armies of monkeys, and/or an alien abduction. What seems to have happened in the real world is the death of their daughter, possibly in a terrorist attack. The violent imagery is a bit much to handle and it’s a difficult play to watch, but it definitely held my attention. I’m glad I saw it, but I am hesitant to recommend it. It felt more like a fringe production than something at a more mainstream theatre, so maybe I can offer a cautious recommendation on that understanding.

By the way, for future reference, Easter Sunday is possibly the ideal time to go to Signature. This was the first time in ages that there were dozens of open spots in the public parking areas of the Campbell Street garage. Unfortunately, I will probably forget that by next year.

If I don’t wait an entire month to write stuff, the blog posts get shorter. I am pretty much caught up on what I've been doing, though I am heading to the NPL Con imminently so will be uncaught up again.

Pink Martini: I started off July by seeing Pink Martini at Wolf Trap. The sultry summer evening was well accompanied by the sultry music. There was lots of familiar material (some of which is still stuck in my head over a week later) but some new stuff, too. The only problem is the usual one with Wolf Trap. Namely, it takes me 10 minutes to drive home, but first I have to spend 30-40 minutes getting out of the parking lot.

When Art Danced With Music: The National Gallery of Art has an exhibit on Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes and I went with a couple of friends this past weekend. The exhibit was impressive, with paintings, backdrops, costumes and film excerpts. The latter were very helpful in seeing the rest in context. The key point is that Diaghilev had no particular artistic talent himself, but was able to bring together composer, choreographer, designers, dancers, etc. to influence the development of ballet. That prompted one of my friends to say, "so he was the systems engineer of the ballet!" I love that as a way of explaining what systems engineering is about. Anyway, it was an excellent exhibit, even if I think Picasso’s costumes for Parade are too absurd to dance in.

Not Quite Knitting: I went to knitting group on Sunday. I attempted to wind a hank of a complex yarn into a ball, but the swift fell apart just after I started. I managed not to have the right needles with me for any of the yarn I’d brought to work with. And I seem to have lost half a sweater in my living room. This was not my finest hour.

In Memorium: My colleague, Young Shin, passed away in his sleep on the Fourth of July. The memorial service was last night. It’s something of a tribute to a person when a few hundred people show up for their memorial. He was an interesting character and we’d had many discussions about history and language, among other topics. I know he was extremely proud of his children and I hope they can take some comfort in the deep feelings he had for them.

I keep thinking I will get caught up, but I keep doing things. I am telling myself that is good. Let’s see how far I get with this entry.

Celebrity Death Watch: The most prominent celebrity death of note was, of course, Margaret Thatcher’s. I’d say more, but I prefer not to speak ill of the dead. (Actually, I would speak ill of the dead, but what I was trying to find is the lyrics to a folk song of that era called “Don’t Call Maggie a Cat” and I was entirely unsuccessful at finding any reference to it at all. I thought it was possible that it might have been a cow and not a cat, but that failed too. So I will pretend to be polite.)

Other prominent deaths to mention are fashionista Lilly Pulitzer, Mouseketeer Annette Funicello, and comedian Jonathan Winters. Of more personal significance, Carmine Infantino was a DC comics artist and editor. Peter Workmman founded an interesting publishing company. And Maria Tallchief was my favorite ballerina when I was growing up.

The most interesting obituary I read recently, by the way, was that of Patricia McCormick, the first North American woman to become a professional bullfighter.

American Utopias: Mike Daisey was performing his most recent monologue at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. He uses three subjects – Burning Man, Disneyworld, and Occupy Wall Street – to talk about public / private partnerships and their implications for community. It’s a screamingly funny piece and definitely provocative, but it is also over 2 hours long without an intermission. And it finishes outside on the street corner, which might be fine at times, but it was bloody cold the night I went. Admittedly, all three of his subjects also involve a level of physical discomfort, so maybe that is part of the point, but it took away a half star or so from my mental review.

Our Hank: This was a program at the DC Jewish Community Center to celebrate the 80th anniversary of baseball’s “Hebrew Hammer.” There was an intro by an ESPN reporter (whose name I have forgotten ), followed by two speakers. John Rosengren (who is not Jewish) wrote a recent biography titled Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes. He talked a little about Greenberg’s significance and read an excerpt which explained the overblown title. He was followed by filmmaker Aviva Kempner who is, of course, well known for her documentary The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg. There’s a new DVD of the film out and she showed some of the material added for it. The most amusing of those excerpts involved her brother and his friends debating who the best Jewish baseball players of all time were, by position – a subject that is the entire premise of The Baseball Talmud by Howard Megdal. It was an interesting enough evening, but I can’t say I learned anything I didn’t already know. I did not buy the DVD, by the way, since I have the original one and don’t see the point in paying again for some added features.

Portland, Maine: Then I went to Portland, Maine for Sharing the Fire (a storytelling conference). That deserves its own entry. And I think I will throw the rest of that trip in with the conference entry.

American Ballet Theatre: Continuing my year of going to a lot of ballet, I went to a mixed repertory show by ABT at the Kennedy Center. The first of the three pieces was Balanchine’s choreography to Bizet’s Symphony in C. The music was lovely and I do appreciate the skill of the dancers. But masses of ballerinas in white tutus can be a bit visually monotonous, so I didn’t find this particularly exciting. It was followed by Jose Limon’s choreography to The Moor’s Pavane by Purcell. I absolutely hated this. I understand that Limon was trying to work with Renaissance court dance to tell the story that is not quite Othello. But the movements were too artificial for my taste. The final piece, Symphony #9 by Shostakovich had choreography by Alexei Ratmansky. In this case, I loved the dance, which was visually exciting and fit the music well. It’s not a piece of music I care much for, but I’m likely to seek out other works choreographed by Ratmansky in the future.

I should also note that I felt the intermissions were excessive. The first ballet was maybe 35-40 minutes long and followed by a 20 minute intermission. The second was barely 20 minutes long and had a 15 minute intermission. It’s not like there was extensive scenery to adjust either. Or maybe I was just grumpy because I was tired.

Ping Pong Dim Sum: This is apparently a London-based chain and I had dinner (and frequent flyer conversation) with a few friends there. We had a nice sampler of dim sum, thanks to a very reasonable prix fixe menu. Consensus was that the best of the dishes was a beef and cumin dumpling. I am also making an attempt to be less boringly predictable in drink choices and tried a pineapple, basil and pistachio cocktail (with pisco). It was okay, but not significantly different than pineapple juice. There was next to no pistachio flavor. So far I have to admit to not having tasted anything that is likely to wean me away from drinking gin and tonic on these occasions.

As for the conversation, this is the group of friends amongst whom “I just spent the weekend in Lisbon” brings no astonishment. The statement (by a different person, obviously) that he had not been on an airplane since November, however, elicits concern and questions about withdrawal symptoms.

Speaking of travel: I have all my arrangements set up for my May vacation. It might be useful for some people to know that Marriott now lets you redeem the electronic Category 1-4 certificates on-line.

Story Swap: Our regular story swap was Saturday night. It was fun, as always. I have decided that I am way too self-satisfied with my holiday story, but I still enjoy telling it. There were young’uns present, so I refrained from using the f-word.

Taxes: It took me forever to find a couple of pieces of paper, but I still finished everything well before the last minute. I have made my usual vow to keep my records better organized. We’ll see how long that lasts.

The Last Five Years: My Signature Theatre subscription continued with this two character musical by Jason Robert Brown. The plot involves a couple who are splitting up. Jamie Wellerstein (played by James Gardiner) tells their story forwards, while Cathy Hiatt (played by Erin Weaver) tells it backwards, with the two versions meeting at their wedding. That’s less confusing than it sounds, mostly since the whole piece is pretty much a song cycle, rather than a musical play. At any rate, I particularly enjoyed the two of Jamie’s songs that had the most Jewish flavor. “Shiksa Goddess” is very funny and “The Shmuel Song” is catchy, while telling a story that sounds like an actual folktale. Cathy gets to be funny, too, in “A Summer in Ohio,” which describes the dubious joys of doing summer stock, including sharing a house with a former stripper and her snake. The basic issue in the relationship is his early success as a writer and her lack of similar success as an actress and that feels like a pretty realistic situation. While I wouldn’t say this is an essential show, it was definitely worth the 90 minutes or so it lasts.

Hello, Dolly: This production at Ford’s Theatre was also part of my Signature subscription. I have always suspected that Jerry Herman is perfectly capable of writing great music and made a deliberate decision to focus on blockbuster songs that people leave the theatre humming. This show is an excellent example of that. Everyone knows the title song, which is lyrically monotonous and doesn’t do much to advance the plot. “Before the Parade Passes By” is better, especially in this production because it was one of the few songs that Nancy Opel (who is, alas, no Carol Channing) seemed to have her heart in. But the perfectly lovely “Ribbons Down My Back,” sung here by the excellent Tracy Lynn Olivera as Irene Molloy is barely known. (I do have a quibble with the costume design. The song says the ribbons are blue and green, but the ones on the hat in this production appeared to be a dull taupe from where I was sitting.) The biggest issue I had with this production is that a cast of 16 is just not enough to create the sense of New York bustle and grandeur the show demands. It wasn’t a terrible production, but it just felt thin and not entirely adequate.

Work related item #1: Only a man would schedule a 4 hour meeting with no breaks.

Work related item #2” In the “my workplace is not like yours” department, that lengthy meeting was in a conference room with several digital clocks on the wall. The largest showed the Zulu time (i.e. GMT). The clock for Kabul time was larger than the one for local time, however.

Ten Minute Plays: Short short plays are not particularly my thing, but supporting friends is. So I went to the Kennedy Center on Wednesday night to see Milbre Burch’s play, which was part of the American College Theatre Festival. Hers was actually the last play of the event. The first piece involved two excerpts from a full length play, A Second Birth by Ariel Mitchell. The story involved an Afghani girl who has been living as a boy. Now, her father wants her to go back to being a girl – and has arranged her marriage to her best friend. It’s an intriguing situation and I’d love to see the whole thing to find out how it turns out.

Then came Like Pigeons by Nate Harpel. This involved two old men sitting on a park bench and, while it was funny, it was more or less a character sketch of two, not very different, characters. That was followed by Disconnect by Caity Shea Violette, which involved the conflict between a mother and her daughter’s lesbian lover over whether or not to continue life support for the daughter. It was well enough written, but I didn’t think it offered any particularly original insight into that painful situation. After that was Tattoo You by Lisa Kenner Grissom, which dealt with a confrontation between two women in the ladies’ room before a high school reunion. I thought this did a good job of dealing with the (not uncommon) situation in which the power imbalance between people changes from school to their later lives.

I’m pleased to say that Milbre’s play, Washing Up was the most original of the evening, possibly because she’s a graduate student in my age range, not a 20 something with limited life experience. Her play involved two young women trying to figure out how to honor their dead mother’s heritage.

Ancora: After the plays, I went out with Milbre and four of her other friends. We ended up at Ancora, Bob Kincaid’s new restaurant in the Watergate. I started with an asparagus salad that tasted like springtime. For the main course, I had brioche-crusted fluke with asparagus sauce, which was very tasty. We shared two desserts – a molten chocolate cake and an absolutely amazing berry tiramusu. The service was a bit sluggish at the start and the waiter auctioned off dishes (i.e. he did not remember who had ordered what), so they have a little ways to go in that area. By the way, Kincaid himself stopped by our table, which is a rare occurrence for me at celebrity chef restaurants. At any rate, it is a place well worth knowing about and I expect the service glitches will be ironed out in time.

Hong Kong Reception: Finally, I went to an MIT Club event last night at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office. The food was particularly interesting with both Eastern and Western offering. The Eastern table had dimsum, spring rolls, fried rice, and sushi, while the Western table had beef, salmon, crab cakes, various dips, and (to my immense surprise and amusement) dolmades. There were also chocolate-dipped strawberries and three types of truffles for dessert. The speech was interesting enough, but the room was sweltering hot and the set-up had everyone standing. Still, the food boded well for my upcoming visit.

Still to Come: I still need to write about Sharing the Fire. And about dating. And some recent books. And I have a bunch of things to do in the next week or so. Oh, and I also have opinions on everything which I have a burning need to inflict on the world at large. But, for the moment, I will declare victory on catching up.

Insert usual excuse about being too busy to catch up here.

So, let’s see, what have I done over the past few weeks? Let’s start by finishing up February.

Flyer Talk Dinner: We had the usual frequent flyer conversation, along with pretty good pub grub and beer at American Tap Room in Clarendon. The most amusing conversational item was a discussion about what to do with your butler at a high end hotel on a point stay. The one time I had that experience, I think I ignored that amenity completely.

Movies and Poets: The Smithsonian American Art Museum had a free showing of The Artist. I will write about that separately when I get to the catch-up entry on movies. But it was a good excuse to check out the exhibit on Modern American Poets at the National Portrait Gallery, which is a wing of the same museum. I’d say the selection was fairly predictable (e.g. Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, Ezra Pound), but it did include excerpts from their works, along with their portraits. I was pleased that they included Lawrence Ferlinghetti and disappointed they left out Reed Whittemore. I also sought out the exhibit on Amelia Earhart, which was fairly interesting, but small.

Ballet: My Washington Ballet subscription continued with a mixed repertory program. The main feature was Balanchine’s “Stars and Stripes Forever,” which is set to a group of Sousa marches. I prefer more narrative to my ballet viewing, so this isn’t really my thing. There were several short excerpts from ballets like “Le Corsaire,” which are really just a forum for dancers to show off their most impressive skills. My favorite piece of the evening was “Cor Perdut.” That was partly because I really like the music, which had a North African feel. I also thought that the choreography (by Nacho Duato) matched the music particularly well.

Milwaukee: My United Airlines challenge brought me to Milwaukee for a quick weekend visit. Why Milwaukee? 1) It’s a cheap flight in winter and 2) I had never really spent any time in downtown Milwaukee. I stayed at the Hyatt. I spent much of the day Saturday with an old internet friend, Theresa, who I had not met in person before. We explored the Central Library, part of the Marquette University campus (notably, the Joan of Arc Chapel) and miscellaneous other downtown architecture, e.g. the Public Market. Marcia, who I know from internet things and who I had last seen 20 some odd years ago and who Theresa knows from college, joined us for dinner at the Milwaukee Ale House. Their Hop Happy ale is aptly named and the food was above average pub grub. After dinner, we came back to the Hyatt and ate delicious frozen custard and talked until I kicked them out on the grounds of exhaustion.

On Sunday, I went to the Milwaukee Public Museum, which is mostly a fairly old-fashioned natural history museum, with bits of local history thrown in. It was a perfectly reasonable place to spend a few hours. But I remain puzzled over why their section on the South Pacific, which includes Vanuatu, Samoa, Kiribati, the Solomon Islands, etc., fails to have any mention of Fiji.
The trip home, by the way, involved a long delay at CLE, due to a mechanical problem with the incoming plane. It was a good thing I had actually driven to DCA since arriving five hours late meant the metro was closed.

Eivor: The Kennedy Center has a series of events right now called Nordic Cool. This included a free concert by Faroese singer, Eivor. Free? Faroese? Of course, I had to go. I liked her more traditional material, with just drum and voice, best. I also checked out some of the exhibits on the Terrace Level, which included a sampling of photography and design from the Nordic region. I was disappointed to see a lot more people playing Angry Birds on ipads than were playing with the Legos, but maybe I was just there at the wrong time.

Dante’s Inferno: I saw this one man show, performed by Bill Largess as part of Washington Stage Guild, listed on Goldstar and couldn’t resist checking out such an intriguing concept. It’s certainly an acting tour de force, as Largess uses a mixture of pure performance, props, and even puppetry to take the audience on a 90 minute journey through hell. The most dramatic moment was the story of Ugolino, forced to gnaw on his enemy’s skull through all eternity. Some of the encounters with demons, however, seemed to go on just a bit too long. It’s not the frivolous sort of show I usually go to, but I was definitely impressed.

I keep meaning to write blog posts, but then I end up being too busy actually doing things.

This week included the yarn bomb get-together on Wednesday night, at which I completely failed to remember how to make hairpin lace. I looked at a tutorial when I got home and, of course, it is amazingly easy as long as you remember the hook goes in the loop from the bottom. This week for sure.

On Thursday night, I went to see The National Ballet of Canada's production of Alice in Wonderland at The Kennedy Center. It was an interesting evening, but I'd describe it as a triumph of special effects and puppetry, rather than dance. Not that the dance was bad, but the choreography was nothing particularly memorable, while some of the effects were (e.g. the Cheshire cat being done as several puppets animated by black-clad dancers). I also thought it was a bit longer than it needed to be. And I was puzzled by the transformation into a love story between Alice and the Knave of Hearts, which seems to be done largely to allow for a lot of pas de deux.

Saturday night was storytelling. The theme this month at Better Said Than Done was "15 Minutes of Fame." There was an interesting mix of stories, ranging from attempts at stardom to bad encounters with famous people. I told my Jeopardy! story. That got lots of laughs, so I'd say it went well.

And then I did a mileage run, hitting 3 more airports for that United challenge. I flew IAD to CLE (Cleveland) to TPA (Tampa) and back via JAX (Jacksonville). I remembered that my Star Gold card gets me into Lufthansa's lounge at IAD, which was handy since I was actually there during a time it was open. (It closes from noon to 5, so is usually of little use.) I was upgraded on all three of the flights I could have been on, also. (TPA to JAX was on a SAAB 340, so has no first class to be upgraded to.) The catch came on the last leg, when the incoming flight was delayed due to a mechanical problem, leading us to be 2 1/2 hours late. Then we had a long wait for someone to come to ramp and pull us into the gate. I'd taken the whole day off but had actually intended to get caught up on some stuff at home, so I was peeved. Still, I do want them to repair the planes I'm going to be on, so I can't really complain.

I can, however, complain about the shuttle to the Hampton Inn - Tampa. Hotel shuttles don't circulate at TPA, so you need to call. Which would be fine if the front desk clerk had not put me on hold, for 27 minutes. I need to figure out who at Hilton Honors to complain to about that.

Despite such joys of travel, I actually made some future travel plans. The near term one (well, April) involves going to Portland, Maine for Sharing the Fire. This is a storytelling conference I've wanted to go to forever and, for a change, it didn't conflict with anything else. The longer term and bigger plan is a trip to Turkey. Let's just say there are very very good fares to Istanbul right now. It will be on Delta, who I don't normally fly, but I can credit the miles to Alaska Air, which is even more of a win. Oh, I also finally bought my train ticket for the Indian Pacific for my post-OzFest excursion.

So that's the basic catch-up. Now to quietly collapse with exhaustion.