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Um, I fell behind on this.

Celebrity Death Watch - April/May 2024: Duane Eddy was a rockabilly guitarist. Richard Tandy played keyboards for Electric Light Orchestra. Susan Buckner was an actress, best known for playing Patty in the movie version of Grease. Frank Shrontz was the CEO of Boeing from 1986-1996. Frank Stella was a painter, sculptor, and printmaker. Wayland Holyfield was a country music songwriter. John Barbata was a drummer for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Turtles, Jefferson Airplane, and several other bands. Dame Shirley Conrad was designer along with her husband, Terry, and became a journalist and novelist later on. Bette Nash worked as a flight attendant for over 65 years, primarily on the east coast shuttle flights run by Eastern Airlines, US Air, and American. Ivan Bosky was an insider trader. Caleb Carr was a novelist and military historian, best known for The Alienist. Morgan Spurlock was a film director, best known for Super Size Me. Doug Ingle founded the band Iron Butterfly and wrote their hit song In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Bill Walton was a basketball player, whose career included stints with the Portland Trailblazers and the Boston Celtics. Jack Clemons led the development of the Apollo space program and the space shuttle.

William Calley was an Army Lieutenant who was blamed for the My Lai massacre. His original sentence was life imprisonment with hard labor, which was first commuted to 20 years imparisonment, then 10 years, and eventually by President Nixon to 3 years of house imprisonment. A lot of the controversy had to do with his being given complete blame for the massacre, while 25 other officers and soldiers involved were acquitted. I have particularly strong memories of the spoken word song “Battle Hymn of Lt Calley” by C Company featuring Terry Nelson. I also probably still have an editorial cartoon showing blood dripping off his hands. By the way, he died in late April, but his death was not announced until July 20th.

Dick Rutan co-piloted the Voyager aircraft on the first non-stop non-refueled around-the world flight, along with Jeana Yeager.

Pete McCloskey was served as a member of Congress from California from 1967-1983. He co-authored the Endangered Species Act in 1973 and was the first member of Congress to call for Richard Nixon’s resignation. The most interesting part of that is that he was a Republican at the time. (He later changed to the Democratic Party in 2007.)

Roger Corman directed a lot of pop culture films, notably Little Shop of Horrors (the 1960 non-musical version.

Alice Munro was a Canadian short story writer, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. She also won the Man Booker prize in 2009. There was a major scandal over her having returned to her second husband, who had molested her youngest daughter.

Dabney Coleman was an actor, who was mostly known for playing acerbic characters. He appeared in such movies as 9 to 5,Tootsie,and You’ve Got Mail as well as television shows including Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and Buffalo Bill.

Gordon Bell designed several computers for DEC, including several of the PDP machines, as well as overseeing development of the VAX computer systems.

Richard M. Sherman wrote a lot of the scores for Disney movie musicals, along with his brother, Robert. Their movies included Mary Poppins, Chitty Chity Bang Bang, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks. They also wrote the most annoying earworm of all time, “It’s a Small World.”

Celebrity Death Watch - June 2024: Uzi Gelled was an Israeli chess champion. Michael J. Karels designed BSD/OS, an early UNX version for he Intel platform. Parnelli Jones was a race car driver, who won the 1963 Indianapolis 500. Mark James was a songwriter whose hits for such artists as Anne Murray, Elvis Presley, and B.J. Thomas included “Hooked on a Feeling,” “Where Do We Go From Here,” and “Always on My Mind.” Edward C. Stone directed JPL from 1991 through 2001. Tony Mordent was an actor and choreographer who appeared in West Side Story on Broadway and was married to Chita Rivera from 1957 to 1966. Mike Downy was a long time columnist for The Chicago Tribune. Jerry West played basketball for the LA Lakers. Bruce Bastian cofounded WordPerfect. Buzz Carson wrote the song “Everlasting Love.” Peter Theisinger directed the Engineering and Science Directorate at JPL and was the project manager for the NASA Mars Exploration Rover mission. Martin Mull was an actor, best known for Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, as well as satirical songs. Orlando Cepeda played first base, primarily for the San Francisco Giants.


Janice Paige was an actress, who played Babe in The Pajama Game on Broadway and was the first replacement for Angela Lansbury in Mame. She also appeared in the film version of Please Don’t Eat the Daisies. She earned me 10 ghoul pool points.

William Anders was the Apollo 8 astronaut who took the famous photograph, Earthrise. He later held a held major positions with the Atomic Energy Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, before becoming the U.S. Ambassador to Norway from 1976 to 1977. He followed that with a career in industry, eventually retiring as the CEO of General Dynamics.

Willie Mays was a true giant of the baseball world. In fact, he played for the Giants, both in New York and San Francisco, though he did finish off his career with a year (1972-1973)playing for the Mets and continued on their staff until 1979. I don’t have the room here to list all of his accomplishments. But do look up his biography, which is truly impressive. Say hey!

Narsai David was a food writer and restaurateur in the Bay Area. I have vague memories of his namesake restaurant in Kensington (part of Berkeley) but I doubt that I ever actually ate there. Maybe there was a shop selling some of his products in I. Magnin in San Francisco?

Donald Sutherland was a Canadian actor who appeared in numerous movies. He was particularly memorable for playing Hawkeye Pierce in the movie version of M*A*S*H. He had a lengthy career, with a wide range of roles, which is about as much as an actor can hope for.

Kinky Friedman was a musician and writer and politician. I was privileged to see him perform at the Washington Jewish Music Festival a few years ago. You have to be able to handle deliberately offensive lyrics, but he was genuinely funny. That was also reflected in his books (which include a series of mysteries) and in his run for governor of Texas. A unique character, who will be sorely missed.

Celebrity Death Watch - July 2024: Joe Egan was one of the two main members of Steelers Wheel and co-wrote their song “Stuck in the Middle With You.” Marina Kondratyeva was a ballerina with the Bolshoi. Joe Bonsail sang with The Oak Ridge Boys. Dave Loggins was a singer and songwriter, best known for the song “Please Come to Boston.” Joe Engel was a shuttle astronaut. Thomas Neff was a physicist who was involved with the dismantlement of thousands of nuclear warheads. Shelly Duvall was an actress who worked a lot with Robert Altman. Bill Viola was a video artist. Bob Booker produced the comedy record The First Family which stared Vaughn Meader and parodied the Kennedy family. James Sikking was an actor who its best known for having played Lt. Howard Hunter on Hill Street Blue. Benice Johnson Reagan was a founding member of The Freedom Singers and of Sweet Honey in the Rock. Jerry Fuller was a songwriter, whose work included a number of songs written for Ricky Nelson, including “Travelin’ Man.” He also wrote and produced songs for Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, including “Young Girl” and “Lady Willpower.” Lou Dobbs was a right wing political commentator, who promoted birtherism, as well as opposing left-wing positions on environmentalism, and immigration, and promoting assorted conspiracy theories. I know very little about anthropologist James C. Scott, but the titles of some of his books sound interesting, e.g. The Art of Not Being Governed. Sheila Jackson Lee was a long-standing member of Congress from Houston. Jerry Miller was a guitarist and a founding member of Moby Grape. John Mayall was an English blues and rock musician. Duke Fakir sang with The Four Tops. Lewis Lapham was a writer and long-time editor of Harpers Magazine. George B. Crist was a Marine general and commanded U.S. Central Command. Francine Pascal wrote the Sweet Valley High book series. Robert Banas was an actor and dancer and the first husband of Chita Rivera.

Jim Inhofe was the longest serving U.S. Senator from Oklahoma. He had previously served as mayor of Tulsa and as a U.S. representative. In general, his political positions were extremely conservative and he was particularly hostile to the EPA and to the Kyoto Protocol. He was also opposed to gun regulation, LGBT rights, and federal disaster relief.

Dr. Ruth Westheimer was a sex therapist and well known for her radio show. I really enjoyed the one-woman biographical play Becoming Dr. Ruth and recommend seeing it if you ever get the opportunity. It includes her experience with the Kindertransport and as a sniper for the Haganah, as well as her famous radio and television career.

Richard Simmons was an exercise instructor. I have to admit to owning a few of his Sweating to the Oldies videotapes, which did provide a decent dance workout, if you could get past his sheer weirdness and focus on weight loss vs. fitness for its own sake.

Shannen Doherty was an actress whose career include Beverly Hills 90210 and the movie Heathers. Her struggle with breast cancer was well publicized. She earned me 11 ghoul pool points.

Bob Newhart was a comedian and actor. His deadpan style was spot on and I remember both his television shows and his comedy recordings. His driving instructor routine was particularly funny.
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Here’s an attempt at getting all caught up before doing too many things again.

Celebrity Death Watch: Steve Lawrence was a pop singer and actor, best known for his collaboration with his wife, Eydie Gorme (who died in 2013). David E. Harris was the first African-American to be a commercial pilot (for American Airlines). Barbara Hilyer wrote about feminism and disability. Eric Carmen was the lead vocalist of The Raspberries. Bernard Schwartz was the CEO of Loral Space & Communications for 34 years and the largest donor to the Democratic Party from 1992 to 1996. Jim McAndrew pitched for the New York Mets from 1968 through 1973. Angela McCluskey was a Scottish singer, who performed both as a soloist and as part of The Wild Colonials. Air Force General Howell Estes III served as the commander of NORAD and the U.S. Space Command from 1996 to 1998. James D. Robinson III was the CEO of American Express for 16 years. Thomas P. Stafford was a Gemini and Apollo astronaut and one of the 24 astronauts who flew to the moon. Vernor Vinge was a science fiction author. Barry Silver was a lawyer, politician, rabbi, and abortion rights activist. Mike Thaler wrote and illustrated roughly 200 children’s books and was best known for his 37 books of riddles. George Abbey directed NASA’s Johnson Space Center from 1996 - 2001. Gerry Conway was a drummer for a number of bands, as well as a member of Pentangle and of Fairport Convention. Lou Gusset Jr. was an actor, probably best known for his role in An Officer and a Gentleman. Barbara Rush was an actress, best known for It Came From Outer Space and the television series Peyton Place.

Christopher Durang was a playwright, best known for Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You and Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. John Barth wrote post-modern fiction, notably Giles Goat-Boy. Lynn Reid Banks wrote the children’s book The Indian in the Cupboard. Lori and George Schappell were the first set of conjoined twins to identify as different genders. Clarence “Frogman” Henry was an R&B singer. Ken Holtzman pitched for the Chicago Cubs, including pitching two no-hitters. Ben Eldridge was a banjo player and a founding member of The Seldom Scene. Bob Graham was a U.S. Senator from Florida from 1987-2005 and had been the governor of Florida prior to that. Carl Erskine played for the Dodgers in both Brooklyn and Los Angeles and was the last surviving member of the “Boys of Summer” of the 1950’s. Dickey Betts was a guitarist and a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band. Roman Gabriel played football for the L.A. Rams. Terry Anderson was a journalist, who was best known for being held hostage by Hezbollah for 6 years. Mike Pinder was a founding member and original keyboardist of The Moody Blues. Paul Auster was a prolific writer, who had over a dozen novels published and edited NPR’s National Story Project.

Laurent de Brunhoff wrote approximately 50 books in the Babar the elephant series, which had been created by his father, Jean de Brunhoff. He also wrote children’s books about other characters of his own creation.

Peter Angelos was the majority owner of the Baltimore Orioles from 1993 until his death in March. He strongly opposed the move of the Montreal Expos to Washington, D.C., which I’ve never forgiven him for.

Richard Serra was an artist, known primarily for large-scale abstract sculptures.

Daniel Kahneman was a psychologist and behavioral economist and won a Nobel prize for his work in the latter field. His book, Thinking Fast and Slow was an influential best seller.

Joe Lieberman was a U.S. senator from Connecticut and Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 Presidential election. His biggest political mistake, in my opinion, was his opposition to including a public option in the Affordable Care Act. I will note, however, that the influence of the insurance industry in Connecticut was probably the primary driver for that.

Larry Lucchino was a baseball executive for the Baltimore Orioles, San Diego Padres, and (most importantly, of course) the Boston Red Sox. He led the Orioles to one World Series championship and the Red Sox to three. He also played a major role in the construction of both Camden Yards and Petco Park, as well as initiating the renovation of Fenway Park.

Jerry Grote was a catcher for the Mets from 1966 - 1977. Notably, that includes 1969.

Peter Higgs was a physicist and got a boson named after himself. He also got a Nobel prize.

O. J. Simpson was a football player and got away with murder. But you didn’t need me to tell you that. Interestingly, Frank Olson, who cast O.J. in several Hertz commercials, died just a few days after he did.

Trina Robbins was a comic book artist and wrote extensively about women in comics.

Robert MacNeil was a journalist and television news anchor. He was best known for his public television collaboration with Jim Lehrer.

Faith Ringgold was one of my favorite artists and I feel privileged to have been able to see a couple of retrospectives of her work. I particularly liked her story quilts, such as The French Collection. She was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 13 points.

Whitey Herzog managed the Saint Louis Cardinals throughout the 1980’s.

Alex Hasilev was one of the founding members of The Limeliters. Their records were on frequent rotation in our house when I was growing up.

Non-celebrity Death Watch: Dick Plotz, whose NPL nom was Geneal, died in early March. In addition to being a puzzle constructor and having organized the NPL con in Providence, he was very involved in Jewish genealogy and offered me some helpful tips when I started my own research.

I knew Ed Gordon from Loserdom. He was part of the group that I play Code Names with frequently. And he attended Loserfests in both Niagara Falls and Philadelphia. He was also a Scrabble player and active in Mensa. I’m glad he was able to take a 20 day cruise and see the eclipse shortly before his death.

Nancy Schuster was a crossword constructor, editor, and tester. She competed in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament from its very beginning and, in fact, won the first ACPT. She also served as a mentor to a number of other puzzle people.

Leading Jewish Minds at MIT: Barry Posen gave a talk about Israel’s Response to October 7th. He attempted to summarize the range of choices in how to respond. Unfortunately, he essentially summarized the possible responses as bargaining vs. annihilation, which is a misleading choice of terms in my opinion. Most of the history between Israel and Hamas (between 2008 and 2021) was based on bargaining after some precipitating event. The result was something of an equilibrium, largely because nobody saw any acceptable alternative. The problem is that there is less and less reason to trust Hamas. A counter-terrorism strategy, which essentially means killing Hamas leadership, is complicated by the urban nature of Gaza. The other aspect is what political outcome is desirable. That essentially leads to a goal of destroying Hamas as a military entity, which is what he said he meant by annihilation but most people would not characterize it that way. Overall, I was left primarily with despair.

Book Clubs: I missed the Travelers’ Century Club book club meeting this month, since I was at the VASA Gathering. But I made it to both other book clubs. Crones & Tomes discussed Where the Crawdads Sing, which I thought was an enjoyable enough read, though I wasn’t convinced by the last third or so of it. (I had seen the movie previously, by the way, and thought it was pretty true to the book.)

READ had a discussion of Sounds Like Titanic, which I thought was brilliant. This is a memoir about working for an ensemble that is essentially faking their performances while a CD plays in the background. I think it does help to have some background in music. And a little knowledge of geography wouldn’t hurt. (One person thought that her family moving to Virginia meant that they left Appalachia!) I’m a little more sympathetic to the person who thought the author was whiny, but not to the person who didn’t understand why she took the job, apparently having failed to grasp that she needed money to pay for college. Anyway, it was definitely compatible with my sense of humor. How could I not love her description of her job as “Milli Violini”?

VASA Gathering: As I mentioned above, I went down to Richmond for the Virginia Storytelling Association Gathering. Thanks to Jessica for driving and Jennifer for coming along. We stopped in Careytown for dinner at a Thai restaurant and then headed to the hotel for the gathering. The Best Western was in a heavily industrial area, across from the Philip Morris plant and, while the room was okay, it was pretty basic and much of the staff was not particularly amiable.

Anyway, Friday night featured a story swap. There was enough time for everyone who wanted to tell and there was a wide mix of stories. I told a story from Afghanistan about an illiterate lion, which went over well. Some of us went to the bar to chat for a while. Maybe it’s a matter of being old, but how do people not have a go-to drink that they always order at a bar? (For what it’s worth, I’m a gin and tonic gal.)

My biggest annoyance with the hotel was that breakfast wasn’t included and the yogurt parfait and English muffin I got were overpriced. And they were slow to refill the coffee in the lobby.

The morning started with an inspirational talk by Clinton Atwater. That was followed by a talk by Jessica Robinson about the business aspects of storytelling, which covered a lot of ground and had a lot of lively discussion. Lunch was included with registration and the pasta they served was pretty good, as was the tiramisu for dessert. After the VASA business meeting, we returned to the meeting room for a workshop with Loren Niemi, who focused on reimagining how we tell traditional stories. That was interesting (and gave me a few ideas) but he needed a lot more time than he had. Finally, there was a story swap, including feedback, which also needed far more time.

Overall it was worth going to. Of course, the real highlight was getting to see some people who I don’t see very often. (And meeting some new people.) Anyway, the traffic coming back wasn’t too terrible andI got home at a reasonable hour.

A Few Story Swaps: Right after getting back from the VASA gathering, I went to the monthly Voices in the Glen zoom story swap. We had a fairly small group, but it was still fun. I told a very short story about what a clever man asked for when the prophet Elijah offered to grant him a wish to thank him for his hospitality.

The next day, I got together with a few other people from Voices in the Glen for an in-person story swap. With Pesach approaching, I told a story based on my father’s explanation of the crossing of the Red Sea. Since Dad was a civil engineer, Moses had to file an environmental impact statement.

And on Sunday, I went to a zoom swap put on by Community Storytellers in Los Angeles. I told a story I hadn’t told in a while, which mostly has to do with things my father used to say and what I really did and didn’t learn from them.

Grimm Keepers: This session’s discussion was of “The Pink,” also known as “The Carnation.” I think that every single time we meet, our discussion includes the phrase “what a strange story!” In this case, one of the strange aspects is how few things a boy who has the power of having anything he wishes for come true actually does wish for. There was also a lot of discussion about the significance of poodles in German folklore. At ay rate, the discussion left us with a lot of unanswered questions.

Board Games: I have mentioned before that I play board games (almost always Code Names) on-line with a few friends at least a few times a week. We recently realized that our first session of doing that was on 27 April 2020. It was a great way of getting us through the social isolation of the pandemic and it’s continued to be a great way to socialize.

Please Don’t Analyze This Dream: I had a dream the only detail of which I remember is that it involved a character named Tutsi Tu Bruskin. Bruskin is one of my ancestral names (specifically, my paternal grandfather’s mother’s family name) but that doesn’t provide any enlightenment.

Pesach: We’ve just now finished Pesach and I’ve had my traditional post-holiday pizza. I was fairly lazy about cooking this year and, hence, ended up having a lot of string cheese, grapes, matzoh with orange marmalade, and other monotonous foods. Oh, well, it’s only 8 days,

A Few Brief Comments About University Protesters: I think that the correct way for universities to deal with the protests is to focus on enforcing the community rules with respect to “time, place, and manner.” In particular, violence against anyone should be punished, as should blocking off access to particular places. For example, one of my particular concerns about what has happened at some campuses is protestors who have blocked access for disabled students, which is a violation of Title VI and can (and, in my opinion, should) result in the loss of federal funding if it is tolerated. The most difficult of the criteria is “manner of protest,” but I think any civilized person should agree that calls for murder is unacceptable. There are definitely some cases which have crossed that line, e.g. the Columbia student, Khymani James, who published a video in which he said, “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” Students holding up posters with slogans like “go back to Poland” are both anti-Semitic and ignorant. (Roughly 12% of the population of Israel has Polish-Jewish ancestry. And over 90% of Polish Jews were massacred during the Shoah.)

My other comment is that I wonder how many of the students pushing divestment from everything associated with Israel are using iPhones or used Waze to find routes to campuses, Do any of them use RSA public key encryption? How many of them eat cherry tomatoes or have websites using wix.com?
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Once I fall behind, it always gets tempting to procrastinate further. So, come on, let me buckle down and write an actual entry.

Celebrity Death Watch: Hinton Battle was a Tony Award winning actor and dancer. Carl Weathers was an actor, best known for playing Apollo Creed in the first four Rocky movies. John Walker was a co-founder of Autodesk, a CAD software company. Wayne Kramer was the lead guitarist of MC5. Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples, was the only son of the last king of Italy. Aston "Family Man" Barrett led Bob Marley’s backing band. Sir Anthony Epstein was one of the discoverers of the Epstein-Barr virus. Anthony George designed the flag of Grenada. Henry Fambrough had been the last surviving member of The Spinners. Jim Hannan pitched for the Washington Senators in the 1960’s. William Post invented Pop-Tarts. Bob Moore founded Bob’s Red Mill, an organic grain company. Jack Higgins was an editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Sun-Times. Bob Edwards was a journalist and radio host, primarily on NPR. Randy Sparks founded the New Chirsty Minstrels. Rabbi Jules Harlow was one of the editors of Siddur Sim Shalom, a popular Conservative Jewish prayer book. Benjamin Lanzarote wrote music for television shows. Reuben Jackson was a poet and jazz historian. Marc Pachter directed the National Portrait Gallery from 2000 to 2007. Brian Stableford was a science fiction writer. Ramona Fradon was a comic book artist. Jacob Rothschild was a banker, duh. Richard Lewis was a comedian. Iris Apfel was a flamboyant fashion designer. Juli Lynne Charlot created the poodle skirt.

Chita Rivera was an actress, singer, and dancer. She won Tony Awards for her performances in The Rink and The Kiss of the Spider Woman as well as receiving a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2018. She was the first Latino American to win a Kennedy Center Honor (in 2002) and received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Her most iconic roles included Anita in West Side Story and Velma in Chicago. The last time I saw her perform live was a production of the Kander and Ebb musical adaptation of The Visit at Signature Theatre.

Jean Malarie was one of the first two men to reach the North Geomagnetic Pole. (The other was an Inuk man named Kutsikitsoq.) He was a strong advocate for the rights of Arctic minorities. He wa son my ghoul pool list and earned me 19 points.

Toby Keith was a country singer. I had a colleague back around 2002 who played his song “I Love This Bar” constantly. I retaliated with Tuvan throat singing.

Sieji Ozawa conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra for many years. I first saw him conduct in the mid-1970’s when I went to Tanglewood several times on excursions from the NSF biochemistry program I spent a summer at. He was a very animated and energetic conductor and always interesting to watch. And he got bonus points for being a Red Sox fan. Which brings me to this story, which I should probably apologize for (but won’t):

Seiji was conducting Beethoven's 9th during a critical time in Boston. The Red Sox were fighting for a post-season slot and everyone - including the members of the orchestra - was excited. Well, there's a long section towards the end of that piece where the bass players have no music to play and they took to slipping across the street to a bar to watch the ball game. To make sure they'd get back in time , they tied a string to the page in the music a little while before they needed to return. They strung that to the bar so that they could feel a tug when Seiji turned the page.
One evening, the game was particularly exciting and the beer was flowing more freely than usual, so they missed the tug on the string and got back late. Seiji was furious. And justifiably so...

It was the bottom of the 9th, the score was tied, and the basses were loaded.

Mojo Nixon performed music that was a cross between rockabilly and punk. His songs included “Elvis is Everywhere” and “Debbie Gibson is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Love Child.” The late 1980’s were interesting times.

Alexei Navally was the opposition leader fighting against Vladimir Putin’s regime. I really hope you didn’t need me to tell you that.

Brian Mulroney was the prime minister of Canada from 1984-1993 and participated in the development of NAFTA.


Non-Celebrity Death Watch: Millie Loeb died in July 2023, but I didn’t find out until late January. Back in the late 1980’s I took a couple of writing classes through UCLA extension. One of those was Millie’s class, Our Stories, Ourselves. The women in that class became close as we wrote stories about our life experiences and we went on to continue for another semester outside of UCLA, meeting at one another’s homes. The work I did in that class led to some of the personal stories I still tell. In short, Millie was a great influence on my life and I’ll miss her.


Speaking of Storytelling: I have told my story about my sense of direction at two story swaps since the show at the beginning of February. I think that the last time (at the Community Storytellers zoom swap), it was pretty much where I want it to be.

I’m not performing in the Women’s Storytelling Festival this year, but I am volunteering and will be emceeing on Sunday morning, March 17th. Tickets are still available. For more info and to buy tickets see The Women’s Storytelling Festival Web Page. Note that, while we’d love to see you in Fairfax, Virginia, the festival is being live streamed so you can watch from home. And the recordings will be available through April 21st.


Assorted Medical Stuff: I had some catching up to do on routine medical stuff (and one less routine but inevitable item). So I had a regular dental appointment. The same week, I had a bone density scan, which was a bit uncomfortable because I don’t normally lie flat ton my back on a hard table. Alas, I have some bone density loss in my spine, though my neck and hip are fine. A few days later came my mammogram, which was negative. Finally, the non-routine matter, was an ophthalmologist appointment to prepare for cataract surgery. I've now got that scheduled for mid-June. I’m somewhat of a nervous wreck about it because I made the dubious decision to read the whole write-up of potential complications. By the way, I have an appointment with my primary care doctor this Friday to go over the usual test results and get a couple of more vaccines because I’m old.


TCC Book Club: The travel book of the month was I Married Adventure by Osa Johnson. She was just a teenager when she married Martin Johnson and they set off to photograph people and animals in the South Pacific and, later, in Africa. She certainly lived an interesting and unconventional life. The curator of the Osa and Martin Johnson Safari Museum in Kansas joined our meeting and it definitely sounds like a place I need to get to one of these days.


Travel & Adventure Show: Cindy and I went to the Travel and Adventure Show on the last weekend in February. I’d gotten the tickets free. I found info on a couple of things I’m interested in but, as usual, there were far too many things like time shares, cruises on megaships, and other things I have no interest in. On the plus side, I did also manage to resupply my stock of tote bags.


Genealogy Meetings: The February meeting re: Apple Users and Jewish Genealogy was particularly interesting because we had a lot of good discussion about organizing photos. Our local Jewish genealogy society meeting had a presentation on researching relatives in the UK. The speaker was very good, but the subject wasn’t particularly relevant to my family.

The bigger genealogy event I went to was RootsTech, but that deserves its a separate write-up.
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Sorry for the long delay in writing. I’ve been distracted by trying, not very successfully, to get caught up on stuff at home. I’ve also been getting ready for an upcoming storytelling show (live only and sold out, so I’ll spare you the shameless self promotion this time).


Celebrity Death Watch: Edwin Wilson was a theatre critic, primarily for the Wall Street Journal. Denny Laine co0founded both the Moody Blues and Wings. David Ellenson was a Reform rabbi, who headed Hebrew Union College for several years. Jacqueline Mesmaeker was a Belgian artist who worked in plastic, which is, indeed, a messy medium. Richard Kerr was a songwriter whose work was performed by singers such as Dionne Warwick and Barry Manilow (e.g. “Mandy.) Mort Engelbert was the advance man for Walter Mondale’s 1984 presidential campaign and Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. Andre Braugher was a television actor, best known for appearing in Homicide: Life on the Streets ad Brooklyn Nine-Nine. William G. Connolly co-authored The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage. Lee Redmond held the world record for longest fingernails on both hands (roughly 30 inches). Bob Johnson was a member of Steeleye Span. Colin Burgess was the original drummer for AC/DC. Amp Fiddler was a member of Parliament/Funkadelic. Irwin Cohen was the real estate developer responsible for Chelsea Market in New York. Ryan Minor played baseball for the Baltimore Orioles and started in place of Cal Ripken, Jr., breaking Ripken’s 2632 game streak. Ruth Seymour managed KCRW, a PBS station in Santa Monica, California and was responsible for, among other things, a lot of Jewish programming. Richard Bowes was a science fiction writer. Herbert Kohl was a co-founder of Kohl’s Department stores and owned the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team. Herman Raucher wrote Summer of ’42. Maurice Hines was an actor, dancer, and choreographer. Cindy Morgan was an actress, best known for appearing in Tron and Caddyshack. Tom Wilkinson was an actor, best known for appearing in The Full Monty and Michael Clayton. Shecky Greene was a comedian, who performed in Las Vegas for many years. Cale Yarborough was a stock car driver. Tall Ross played rhythm guitar for Funkadelic. Bridget Dobson was a soap opera writer.

Frank Ryan was a football player for several teams, including the Redskins, and also earned a Ph.D. in mathematics and became an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University during his playing career. Jack O’Connell wrote noir crime fiction. Avi Zamir headed the Mossad from 1968 through 1974. Joseph Lelyveld was a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, who was the executive editor of the New York Times from 1994 to 2001. Sarah Rice was an actress who originated the role of Johanna in Sweeney Todd. Joan Acocella was a dance critic for The New Yorker. Edward Jay Epstein was an investigative journalist and political science professor who wrote about conspiracy theories. Terry Bisson and Howard Waldrop were science fiction writers. Bill Hayes sang “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” and became a soap opera actor. Jo-El Sonnier performed Cajun music. Tom Shales wrote about television for the Washington Post. Joyce Randolph played Trixie on The Honeymooners. Laurie Johnson wrote television and film music. Mary Weiss was the lead singer for the Shangri-Las, most famous for the song “Leader of the Pack.” Norman Jewison directed numerous movies, including In the Heat of the Night, Fiddler on the Roof. and Moonstruck. Frank Farian was behind Milli Vanilli and Boney M. Carl Andre was a minimalist sculptor.

Norman Lear was a television producer. All in the Family was revolutionary for its treatment of controversial topics and Lear followed it with other important TV shows such as Maude and The Jeffersons.

Ryan O’Neal was an actor, who starred in such movies as Love Story, Barry Lyndon, and Paper Moon.

Dan Greenberg was a humor writer, best known for How to Be a Jewish Mother, a book my mother thought was very funny. He was also Nora Ephron’s first husband.

Robert Solow was an economist who won the Nobel Prize in 1987, He scored me 21 ghoul pool points.

Tom Smothers was a comedian and musician, who performed with his brother, Dick. My family had all of their records and we watched their TV show regularly. He also performed as Yo-yo Man.

Niklaus Wirth was a computer scientist who won the Turing Award in 1984 and, among other things, created the Pascal computer language. There’s a funny story about him involving how people pronounced his name. He was Swiss and his compatriots pronounced his name “Nik-lous Virt” while Americans tended to say “Nickles Worth.” As he said, the Swiss called him by name and the Americans called him by value.

Glynis Johns was an actress whose roles included the mother in Mary Poppins and Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, winning a Tony for the latter. Stephen Sondheim wrote the song “A Little Night Music” specifically to accommodate her limited vocal range.

David Soul was an actor, probably best known for playing Hutch in Starsky & Hutch. But I remember him better from Here Come the Brides which we always use to run home to watch because of Bobby Sherman. Ah, the crushes of a 10 year old girl!

Bud Harrelson was a shortstop for the Mets for the Mets from 1965 through 1977. He was my mother’s favorite baseball player. He later became a coach and manager and part owner of the Long Island Ducks. He was my first ghoul pool score of 2024, earning me 18 points.

Peter Schickele was best known to most people as the “discoverer” of P. D. Q. Bach, though he did write serious compositions under his own name. He brought a lot of people to classical music with his humor and I have fond memories of listening to such pieces as “Eine Kleine Nichtmusic” and “The 1712 Overture.”

Charles Osgood was a television news anchor and radio commentator. He also wrote a couple of books of light verse on news subjects and I have fond memories of both Nothing Could Be Finer Than a Crisis That is Minor in the Morning and There’s Nothing That I Wouldn’t Do If You Would Be My POSSLQ. He was also known for his tag line, “See you on the radio.”

Melanie was a singer, known for such songs as “Brand New Key” and “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain.”

Jimy Williams managed the Boston Red Sox from 1997 through 2001.

Non-celebrity Death Watch: Mark Baird was a former colleague. We worked closely together for a couple of years and had a running inside joke regarding his desire to go to Belize and mine to go to Mozambique. He was a nice guy, very devoted to his daughters, and a pleasure to be around. He died suddenly of a blood clot, possibly related to recent hip replacement surgery. (I’m also biased because he once called me a national asset.)

Linda Goodman was a storyteller. I got to know her fairly well when we were both on the board of the Virginia Storytelling Alliance at the same time. Her death was no surprise, as she’d been dealing with Parkinson’s disease and dementia for a while, but it is still sad.

Non-human Death Watch: The Jewish Center of Island Park (now the South Shore Jewish Center) was the synagogue I grew up in. My father was active in the Men’s Club, headed the building committee when they added an extension / social hall / ballroom, and edited the newsletter for several years. My grandfather was the cantor for High Holiday services for many years. The shul has been dying for several years, largely due to demographic shifts and exacerbated by Hurricane Sandy. So they’re now seeking to sell the building. I’m buying the memorial plaques for my grandparents and my father.

I know I’m supposed to view all synagogues in the Diaspora as temporary, but it’s still sad. I have a lot of memories from there. Sigh.


Obit Poems: I never got around to writing these up to enter them in the Invitational, largely because I decided they weren’t good enough to be worth entering. But I can inflict them on you.

Tom Terrific was not a reliever
The ’69 Mets left it to Seaver

Al Jaffee always drew the Fold-In
Now, alas, he’s just a moldin’

Normal Busy Life: I went to a Chavurah brunch on New Year’s Day. I’ve had meetings for several of my usual activities, e.g. a couple of genealogy related things, a Grimm Keepers discussion of “The Little Red Hen” (a particularly weird story), planning for some storytelling events, crafts groups, book clubs (which I’m now up to three of), playing board games on-line, a Travelers’ Century Club meeting, etc.

No wonder I keep falling behind!

Important Local News: Oakton High School, which is just up the street from my house, won Metallica’s Marching Band Competition. There are various groups from the school who put on fund raising car washes and I would definitely stop if they were doing one.

Weather: We got about 4 inches of snow on January 15th and another 5 on January 19. There were also several insanely cold days. And then we had a couple of days in the 60’s and it even got up to 72 on Friday. Fortunately,it looks like normal weather for the near future. That is, lows in the low 30’s and high in the mid-40’s.

National Gallery of Art: I leveraged off having an event to go to in the city last Monday night to go to see a couple of museum exhibits during the day on Monday. My friend, Jane, met me for lunch at Teaism and part of the museumage. Because we were running early, we had time to check out the 19th century French art first, which included pieces by several impressionists and post-impressionists, including Degas, Monet, Van Gogh, and Gauguin.

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We managed to kill enough time there to rush through some coffee before going on the docent tour of their current exhibit of photos by Dorothea Lange. The docent talked some about Lange’s life and then talked in depth about some of the photos. Because she had time to discuss only a few of them, I think I need to go back and spend three or so hours looking at all of them.

This one, of a stenographer, struck me for the repairs to the woman’s stockings.

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The most heartbreaking photo, in my opinion, was this one of a store that had been owned by Japanese-Americans. Note that I’d once had a boss who spent part of his childhood at one of the relocation camps that are such a shameful part of American history.

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Jane was museumed out at that point, so she left, while I went over to the East Building to see the Mark Rothko on Paper exhibit. I’d gained a much greater appreciation for Rothko when I went to the museum dedicated to him in Daugavpils, Latvia nearly five years ago. I do, however, prefer his earlier works, such as “Undersea Cabaret.”

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I always think the more familiar style of his paintings would make great designs for rugs.

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Since I was there, I also looked at some of the rest of the modern art in the East Building. That included this wonderful case of pies by Claes Oldenburg.

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“The Flag is Bleeding” is part of Faith Ringgold’s The American People Series. She remains one of my favorite artists.

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No Accident: The primary reason I’d gone into the city was to go to a screening of a documentary titled “No Accident,” about the lawsuit against the August 2017 Charlottesville rioters. It was in the Congressional auditorium at the Capitol.

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There were three senators who introduced the film - Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, and Cory Booker. I thought that Senator Kaine spoke particularly well.

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As for the documentary, I found it very interesting. Roberta “Robbie” Kaplan and Karen Dunn led a team that successfully proved that the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville was planned. It was chilling - and, of course, the most frightening part is that most of the groups involved are still out there. By the way, Kaplan also represented E, Jean Carroll in her defamation lawsuits against Donald Trump.

Other Stuff: I still have to write about - a theatre outing and a Loser Party, (including a good recipe) - but I want to get this posted now because I have to leave the house early in the morning.
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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.

Patchwork

Dec. 1st, 2023 07:49 pm
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Celebrity Death Watch: Bill Rice was a country music singer and songwriter. Robert Brustein was a theatre critic. Ado Ibrahim was the Ohinoyi of Ebiraland, which is some sort of Nigerian traditional ruler. Frank “Hondo” Howard played outfield and first base for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Washington Senators (who became the Texas Rangers). Tyler Christopher was a soap opera actor. Linda Horseman wrote books about law, women, and social issues, including one about Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ken Mattingly was an astronaut, who flew on Apollo 16 and a couple of space shuttle missions. Oleg Protopopov was a champion pairs skater. Dick Drago was a relief pitcher, who played for several teams including the Red Sox.

Betty Reardon was a leader in peace education. Gord Smith was a sculptor. Simon Sze invented the floating=gate MOSFET. Bob Knight was a basketball coach. Don Walsh was an oceanographer. Michael Bishop was a science fiction writer. Maryanne Trump Barry was a judge and the sister of a famous grifter. Betty Rollin wrote memoirs about cancer. Radcliffe Bailey was a prominent mixed-media artist. George “Funky” Brown played drums for Kool & the Gang. Suzanne Shepherd was an actress, known largely for playing older women. Herbert Gold was a novelist who was considered adjacent to the beat poets. Mars Williams played saxophone for the Psychedelic Furs among other bands. Ann Rachlin wrote stories about classical music, among other things. Linda Salzman Sagan drew the illustration for the plaque on the Pioneer spacecraft. Jean Knight sang “Mr. Big Stuff.” Charles Peters was the founder and editor-in-chief of the Washington Monthly. Steve Jurczyk was a NASA administrator. Elliot Silverstein was a film director. Ron Hodges was a catcher for the New York Mets. Les Maguire performed with Gerry and the Pacemakers. Tim Dorsey wrote a series of novels about a vigilante anti-hero. Frances Sternhagen was an actress, primarily in theatre. Mary L. Cleave was a shuttle astronaut. Charlie Munger was the vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. Julius W. Becton, Jr. directed FEMA from 1985 to 1989.


Matthew Perry was an actor, best known for playing Chandler on Friends.

Frank Borman was an astronaut. He commanded Apollo-8, which was the first mission to orbit the moon. Later on, he became an executive for Eastern Airlines.

A. S. Byatt was a novelist, most famous for Possession. I hadn’t realized until looking at her obituary that she was Margaret Drabble’s sister. Her death also finally got me to stop confusing her with V. S. Naipaul, which whom she had pretty much nothing in common other than the use of two initials.

You cannot possibly need me to tell you who Rosalynn Carter was. In addition to marrying Jimmy Carter, she put a lot of effort into activism relating to mental health. And, of course, both of the Carters were active in charities, including the Carter Center and Habitat for Humanity. I don’t expect Jimmy to last long without her.

Marty Krofft was a puppeteer who, along with his brother, Sid, was responsible for such TV series as H. R. Pufnstuff.

John Nichols was a novelist, known for The Sterile Cuckoo and The Milagro Beanfield War.

Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State and national security advisor under Nixon and Ford. He was known for “shuttle diplomacy,” during the Yom Kippur War. On the plus side, he fostered U.S. relations with China and detente with Russia. But he was also responsible for the bombing of Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War. as well as supporting right wing dictators in South America. He should never have been given the Nobel Peace Prize, but that’s true of the majority of those who have won it.

Shane MacGowan was the lead singer of The Pogues. He was also a songwriter, best known for "Fairytale of New York."

Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. At the time of her appointment in 1981, there was no women’s restroom near the Courtroom. She was generally conservative (by the standards of the time), usually siding with William Rehnquist, but tended to make narrow decisions on issues like aborton and the role of religion in public life. By the standards of certain current justices, she would appear very liberal due to her respect for precedent. She was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 8 points.

Non-celebrity Death Watch: Anne Giotta was my friend, Kathleen’s, mother. She was a lively woman, who continued to be active and engaged in her nineties.

Clint Weathers was known as ZenRhino to pople on TinyTIM, a MUD I hung out on from time to time. I was privileged to meet him (and eat his cooking). I particularly remember a recipe of his that started with telling you to turn off the smoke detector. I recommend reading his obituary, which includes a lovely poem he wrote.

A Left-over Photograph: I never posted this picture of a car I saw in the parking lot at McKay’s Used Books earlier in November. It amused and scared me in equal measures.

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Grimm Keepers: Our most recent discussion was of “The Mouse, The Bird, and the Sausage.” I am, apparently, the only person in the group who has collections of songs from Broadside Magazine, since that’s where I originally knew this story from. We had an interesting discussion of other related stories, most of which are the ones where husband and wife exchange responsibilities. The weird part of the Grimm version is that the three creatures (if you can call a sausage a creature) all have fixed roles, instead of taking turns at doing the various jobs. At any rate, it’s always an interesting discussion.

Thanksgiving: I had a very low-key Thanksgiving this year. I cooked a mildly restive meal (salmon with wild rice and succotash) and curled up in bed with a Dick Francis novel for most of the evening.

Library of Congress: [personal profile] mallorys_camera was in town and we managed to get together to go to the Library of Congress on Friday, after a little confusion on my part as to which day we were talking about getting together. Fortunately, my friend, Teri, who works there was in town and offered to meet us there and show us around. I’ve been there a bunch of times but I still learned some new things. And I got my reader’s card, which is something I’ve intended to do for ages but hadn’t gotten around to. We visited the Gershwin room (George’s piano!), the Whittall Pavilion (where the Stradivari live, when not being played), the Grand Hall (whence the painting of Minerva in this photo) and the overlook of the Main Reading Room. Afterwards we went to a nearby Starbucks for hot beverages and more conversation. It was a very nice afternoon, with lots of lively conversation.

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The Medicare Saga Concludes: The person I talked to at Social Security who told me she was messaging the local office was successful in moving things along and I finally, after two months, got the approval and, a few days later, my benefits verification letter with my Medicare ID number. It;s amazing how much stress one incompetent employee can cause.

There was a minor kerfuffle regarding my 2024 retiree medical benefits because the people who write our open enrollment brochure could not have been more confusing about some changes, creating a minor panic, but the info from the the organization they outsource some of that to was much clearer and all is good.

Along those lines, I can now catch up on some medical things. I was able to refill some prescriptions before my upcoming trip. And I got my COVID booster and flu shot. I’ll get the RSV vaccine and the updated pneumonia vaccine when I’m back from vacation, as well as scheduling a mammogram and bone density test. I also need to start the process of arranging cataract surgery and do a routine appointment with my doctor, but that will all be in January.

YIVO Talk: YIVO had a zoom talk about the new podcast (well, actually, season 3 of a series, but with a different focus) from the Fortunoff Archive called Remembering Vilna. The previous two seasons of the series had been focused on individual people, while this was focused on the city of Vilna (i.e. Vilnius, Lithuania, which was my grandfather’s birthplace) via interviews with several people who survived the Shoah there. The most interesting part was when they played excerpts from the interviews. I’m going to have to find time to listen to the podcast, but it may be a while.

Virginia Quilt Museum: I drove out to Harrisonburg to go to the Virginia Quilt Museum on Tuesday. I’m not particularly fond of driving on I-=81, which tends to have too many large trucks, but the traffic wasn’t bad. However, it was quite windy, which is annoying when you drive a little car like mine.

Anyway, the main reason I wanted to go was because they had advertised an exhibit connecting historical quilts to Beatles’ songs. The connections proved to be very tenuous. For example, the colors of one quilt were supposed to remind you of “Yellow Submarine,” while another was titled “Strawberry Fields.” Fortunately, the other exhibits were better. I was particularly taken with one titled “Bearing Witness: Civil War Story Quilts by Lesley Riley.” This consisted of a series of quilts using digitally enhanced 160+ year old photographs. There are several of Civil War nurses, including Clara Barton, as well as some of soldiers. It’s all very impressive.

Another excellent collection was titled “Rock, Paper, and Stone” and has quilts made by local women capturing the textures of stones in a stormy sea, bands of malachite, ammonite geodes, and petroglyphs. There are also things like a quilt capturing New Year’s resolutions by members of the local community, another one including messages from people who served in the military during Operation Desert Storm, and lots of sewing machines and notions.

They allow you to take photos but tell you not to post them on social media, due to copyright concerns. So you’ll have to go see for yourself. But I can show you a picture of this small piece that I bought in the gift shop.

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Shameless Self Promotion: I’m part of a Halloween show on Monday night, October 30th from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. EDT. You can find details and register at the Artists Standing Strong Together website It’s free, but donations are gladly accepted.

Celebrity Death Watch: James M. Hoge was a journalist and publisher, best known as the editor of Foreign Affairs. Katherine Anderson sang with The Marvelettes. Evelyn Fox Keller was a physicist and went on to write about gender and science. Terry Kirkman performed with The Association and wrote their hit song “Cherish.” Barry Olivier founded the Berkeley Folk Music Festival. Burkey Belser designed the nutrition facts label. Matteo Messina Denaro was the head of the Italian Mafia. Pat Arrowsmith co-founded the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Theresa Kuruor was the first lady of Ghana from 2001 to 2009. I met and shook hands with her husband, John Kufuor, when I was in Ghana in 2006. Thomas Gambino was the caporegime of the Gambino crime family. Loyal Jones was an Appalachian folklorist. Burt Young was a character actor, best known for playing Paulie Pennino in the Rocky franchise. Herschel Savage was a porno actor. Buck Trent was a country musician who appeared on Hee Haw. Steven Lutwak wrote the score of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. Martin Goetz held the first patent ever issued for software. Mark Goddard played Major Don West on Lost in Space, which was the first television series I ever saw in color. (We went over to a neighbor’s house to watch it, before we got a color TV of our own.) Rudolph Isley was one of the founding members of the Isley Brothers. Phyllis Coates played Lois Lane in the first season of the television series Adventures of Superman. Lara Parker played Angelique on Dark Shadows. Louise Gluck was a Pulitzer Prize winning poet and Nobel laureate. Piper Laurie was an actress whose roles included Carrie’s mother in the movie version of Carrie. Suzanne Somers was an actress, best known for playing Chrissie on Three’s Company. Joanna Merlin originated the role of Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway. Don Laughlin was a gambling entrepreneur and the town of Laughlin, Nevada is named after him. Lee Elliot Berk was the president of Berklee College of Music, which was originally Schillinger house but was renamed for him by his father in 1954. Richard Roundtree was an actor, best known for playing Shaft. Robert Irwin was an installation artist. Richard Moll played the bailiff on Night Court

David McCallum played Ilya Kuryakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and Ducky Mallard in NCIS, as well as many other television and film roles. He also recorded four albums of instrumental music in the 1960’s and narrated spoken word recordings of literary stories.

Brooks Robinson played third base for the Baltimore Orioles. His record of 2870 career games at third base remains the most game played by any player in major league history at a single position. He is best known for his skill as a defensive player. He also played a significant role in developing the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball and, specifically, the York Revolution.

Diane Feinstein was a long-serving senator from California. She’d come into political prominence as the mayor of San Francisco after the assassination of George Moscone and appeared to be particularly effective in that role. She broke a lot of glass ceilings for women in politics and I really wish she’d left office as her health declined instead of sticking it out until her death.

Tim Wakefield pitched for the Red Sox for 17 years. He is the all-time leader in innings pitched by a Red Sox pitcher. It’s probably worth noting that being a knuckleballer contributed to his longevity. He died of brain cancer at the young age of 57.

Dick Butkus played football for the Chicago Bears for 8 years, followed by a successful career as an actor and television pitchman. I think people of my generation will always associate him with Miller Lite.

Non-Celebrity Death Watch: Kek Robien died last week. I met her over 20 years ago, when we were both on a tour of Papua New Guinea and we stayed in touch via holiday cards and Facebook, as well as meeting for dinner in Chicago. She was over 90, so the news wasn’t terribly surprising. But I admired her for staying active and traveling for most of those years.

I also heard of the deaths of two people I grew up with. Matt McDermott was a year younger than me and lived next door while I was a kid. And Danny Goodman was a year older than me and was very friendly with my brother.

The Medicare Saga: I finally managed to successfully get into my Social Security account and change my password and, most importantly, update my phone number for two-factor authentication. I also discovered that they still haven’t finished reviewing my medicare application. It isn’t at all clear why, since it says that is normally takes 2 to 4 weeks and they started the review on September 22nd. Unless, maybe they are counting from when I brought in the documents they asked for (e.g. my birth certificate), which was October 2nd. At that time, the guy I worked with said it would take about one week. Yes, I am very frustrated and stressed over this.

The Tell-Tale Heart: Last Thursday night, my friend Cindy and I went to see Synetic Theatre’s production of The Tell-Tale Heart. This is a theatre that specializes in movement-based shows, sort of a cross between mime and ballet. This production also had a lot of narration and weird music. And, for some reason I can’t explain, vultures, including one on stilts. (That is, dancers dressed as vultures. Not actual birds.) I thought it was possible I’d forgotten something about Poe’s story, but I did go and re-read it and, no, there’s not even a crow or raven there. It was all very pretty, but too weird and too far from the source material for me.

Bazaar by Jose Andres: Before a concert on Friday night, my friend Kathleen and I had dinner at Bazaar by Jose Andres, which is in the Waldorf Astoria. (Which, by the way, I kept thinking was the Ritz Carlton.) It was a very extravagant meal. This is the sort of place with a lot of small dishes, many of them just one or two bites. My favorite was something called “Neptune’s Pillows” which was spicy tuna on some sort of sesame toast thing. There was a very interesting dish of brussels sprouts with grapes and apricots and lemon foam that looked like ice on top of it. There was also coconut rice and onion soup and tomato bread. I know Kathleen got a crab louie cone and a plate of different type of ham, and a taco which had gold leaf and caviar in it. There’s probably something else I’ve forgotten. The food and the service were exquisite, but it was quite pricy.

Randy Rainbow For President: The reason we were downtown on Friday night was to see Randy Rainbow’s show. For those who are somehow unfamiliar with him, he does parody songs on political themes, often based on show tunes. He’s very funny. I enjoyed the show, though I thought it was a bit longer than it needed to be.

Baseball: I don’t really care who wins the World Series this year. I feel sorry for the Phillies having had their collapse - and that was after Bryce Harper stole home in NLCS Game 5.

As for what really matters in baseball (namely, the Grand Unified Theory of Politics, Economics, and the American League East), I was pleased to see that the BoSox have given Craig Breslow the Chief of Baseball Operations job. The guy is smart - with a degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale. He was accepted to NYU Medical School but has postponed that a few times already, so I doubt that medicine is really his future career. I hope he’ll find them some depth in the pitching line-up.

To Be Continued: This is long enough for now, so I’ll put a write-up of my trip to Boston last weekend in a separate entry.
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Celebrity Death Watch: Dick Biondi was a disc jockey who is claimed to be the first AM radio deejay to play several famous rock stars, including the Beatles. Sanjay Mitter was a control theory professor in the EECS department at MIT. Evelyn Boyd Granville was the second African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from an American university (specifically, Yale) and did important research on computing.

Frank Field was a TV meteorologist. Susan Love was a surgeon, best known for writing a book about breasts. George Tickner played guitar for Journey and Furious Bandersnatch. Judith Liebman was the only woman to become president of the Operations Research Society of America. Benno C. Schmidt, Jr. was the president of Yale University from 1986 to 1992 and later became the chairman of the Board of Trusties of the City University of New York. Tom Adam was a warlord in the Central African Republic. Carlin Glynn won a Tony award for performing in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. James Reston Jr. was a journalist, novelist, and playwright. Pamela Blair originated the role of Val in A Chorus Line, in which she sang the song “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three.” Inga Swenson was an actress, best known for playing Gretchen Kraus on Benson. Alice K. Ladas wrote about the G-spot. Paul Reubens was an actor who played the role of Pee-wee Herman.

Sir Michael Boyd was a theatre director who oversaw the revitalization the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Walter Charles was a Broadway actor. Mark Margolis was a character actor best known for playing Hector Salamanca in Breaking Bad. Boniface Alexandre was the provisional president of Haiti from 2004 to 2006. John Gosling played keyboards for The Kinks. William Friedkin directed several movies, including The French Connection and The Exorcist. Jerry Moss cofounded A&M Records. Renata Scotto was an operatic soprano, whose name I know only because of its frequent appearance in crossword puzzles. Al Quie was the governor of Minnesota from 1979 to 1983. Maxie Baughan was a football player. James Burke was the first manager of the Ranger program (which photographed the moon from space probes), making him a pioneer of America’s space program. John Warnock co-founded Adobe. Bob Feldman wrote the song “My Boyfriend’s Back.” Yevgeny Progozhin was a mercenary, who co-founded the Wagner Group. Pat Corrales was the first Major League Baseball manager of Mexican American descent. Joe the Plumber was a right wing political commentator. Don Sundqvist was the governor of Tennessee from 1995-2003.

Dennis Austin co-created Powerpoint, doing untold harm to business productivity. Gary Wright was a singer-songwriter, best known for “Dream Weaver.” Lisa Lyon was a bodybuilder and modeled for Robert Maplethorpe. Gita Mehta wrote interesting books about India. I remember reading Karma Cola and Snakes and Ladders many years ago. Billy Miller was a soap opera actor. Michael McGrath was a Tony-award winning actor.


Lowell Weicker was a senator from 1971-1989 and the governor of Connecticut from 1991-1995. He had been a Republican as a senator but formed a third party (“A Connecticut Party”) for his gubernatorial campaign. He held a number of apparently contradictory positions (e.g. having been on the board of directors of a tobacco lobby and of a non-ptisan health policy research organization). He was also one of the first Republicans to call for Richard Nixon’s resignation. Overall, one of the more interesting politicians of his time.

Alan Arkin was an actor, who received a number of awards for his roles in movies like Little Miss Sunshine and Argo, as well as having won a Tony award for his role in the play Enter Laughing.

Milan Kundera was a Czech novelist, most famous for The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Kevin Mitnick was a computer hacker who later became a security consultant.

Tony Bennett was a singer of pop music and jazz. He is best known for “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” and is also notable for his late in life collaboration with Lady Gaga. He was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 13 points.

Randy Meisner was a waist and vocalist for The Eagles and Poco. He also wrote the song “Take It to the Limit.”

Sinead O’Connor was an Irish singer and songwriter, who was controversial for her political activism, most notably for tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II to protest against abuse in the Catholic Church.

Sixto Rodriguez was a singer-songwriter, far better known in South Africa than in the U.S. There’s an excellent documentary about him, Searching for Sugar Man. Interestingly, Clarence Avant, who founded Sussex Records and may have cheated Rodriguez out of royalties, died just days after he did.

Robbie Robertson was the lead guitarist for The Band and wrote such songs as “The Weight” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

Tom Jones was the lyricist who collaborated with Harvey Schmidt on several musicals, including The Fantasticks, 110 in the Shade, and I Do, I Do. I’d had him on my ghoul pool list a few years ago, but not this year.

James L. Buckley was a U.S. Senator from New York from 1971-1977, elected as a member of the Conservative Party. He was the oldest living former senator at the time of his death. I had him on my ghoul pool list and he earned me 16 points.

Nick Hitchon was a physicist but the real reason anyone has heard of him was his participation in the 7 Up series of documentaries. He was on my ghoul pool list and got me 14 points.

Bob Barker hosted The Price is Right for many many many years. He was an advocate for animals, but was also a serial sexual abuser. He was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 15 points.

Bill Richardson was the governor of New Mexico from 2003-2011. He was my choice in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, but was out of it by the time things got to Virginia. In recent years, he played a major role in freeing political prisoners. He was a diplomat in the truest sense of the word.

Jimmy Buffett was that rare musician who almost everyone liked. I was fortunate enough to see him perform live once. He was also an entertaining writer and an excellent businessman. Have a margarita in his memory.

Steve Harwell was the lead singer for Smash Mouth. I’d seen a news story that he was on his death bed and did a quick ghoul pool substitution, giving me a whopping 32 points and putting me (briefly, alas) at the top of the score board.

Fernando Botero was a painter and sculptor. He’s best known for his work depicting fat people and fat cats. I think I first encountered one of his sculptures in Yerevan, Armenia and saw several more of his artworks in Barcelona.


Non-Celebrity Death Watch:I caught up on the monthly newsletter from my former employer. The obituaries from the past few months included a few people I knew fairly well - Bob Leatherman, Jim Gidney, Les DeLong (who I worked with on an INCOSE committee several years ago) and, most significantly, Roberta Gleiter. Roberta was a powerful voice for women in engineering and was, in fact, the President of the Society of Women Engineers around 2000ish. After that, she founded the Global Institute for Technology and Engineering. She and I worked together for several years and she was always a pleasure to hang out with. I’ll miss her.


Errands: I had a lot of catching up to do at home. This was a mixture of boring and frustrating and stressful. For example, I had to renew the registration for my car. This was actually easy to do on-line, but that didn’t stop me from having a minor panic attack the day before it was due because I couldn’t remember that I’d actually done it.

Renewing my driver’s license was more of a hassle. I had to go to my eye doctor to get the vision test because I always have trouble with the machines. If I’d been smart, I’d have realized I could renew a full year before the license expired, which would have been right after I got new glasses. Anyway, I am good to drive, but I will have to have cataract surgery in the coming months. This is not a surprise. There’s a part of me that is looking forward to it.

The catch is that I’m in the process of transitioning to medicare. This is more complicated than it should be, for a number of reasons. The bottom line is that I should have started the process two months before my 65th birthday, rather than a week before. And coordinating things with the retiree medical people from my company is also stressful. They had previously told me that they would send me something 60 days before my eligibility, but, no, they just called me with incomplete information. And then I had trouble with the social security website and ended up having to call them. That meant spending ages on hold, followed by a lengthy phone conversation, which only resulted in a phone appointment which is this Friday. Oy. Now, it looks like I’ve gotten a bill from the people who handle the payment processing, but it doesn’t recognize that I’d been using their autopay option. I may have to actually call them, which is annoying.

My other source of stress was that I found an envelope relating to my real estate property taxes, but couldn’t find the actual tax statement. So I wasn’t sure if I did or didn’t pay them already. Why, yes, this motivates me to clean off my dining room table. And my sofa. And the other places that mail I may not have dealt with accumulates. Ah, wait. It was due in late July and I just verified that I paid it before I went to Ireland.

Some Socializing: I went out to dinner one night with a few people from FlyerTalk. NightHawk in Pentagon City has decent food and beer, but an annoying interface to their ordering system. At least, I was able to pull up the menu on my iPhone, which a couple of people couldn’t. It was also kind of noisy. But it was good to get out and it’s always fun to talk about travel.

It had been a long time since I’d been to that part of town, but I ended up over there again less than a week later. A college friend was in town and we went out to dinner at Lebanese Taverna. All of the food we got was good and I was even able to take some home to have for lunch the next day. It was good to catch up with him and talk about what various people we knew back in the day were up to.

I’d also gone to a movie with Cindy. And gone to knitting group. And to an on-line story swap. And to one of my genealogy groups, one of my book clubs, and my Grimm folk tales discussion group.

Baseball: Somewhat on the spur of the moment, I drove down to Fredericksburg to see the Fredericksburg Nationals (the Single A affiliate of the Washington Nationals) get slaughtered by the Lynchburg Hillcats. The ballpark is a huge improvement over the one the Potomac Nationals used in Woodbridge, though the concessions were so-so. Also, I tried their special beer, the Slugging’ Gus blackberry blonde ale, but I didn’t much like it. I stayed down there overnight.

Two Things I Will Write About Separately: LoserFest was in Philadelphia this year and is worth its own entry. And I went to a (virtual) organizing event, which may prove useful in the decluttering (and associated de-stressing).

Happy 5784: Finally, this past weekend was Rosh Hashanah. I ended up going to zoom services, because I felt a little under the weather. That’s not very satisfying, but I just couldn’t get myself moving.

I also called my brother, mostly to make sure he’s still alive. Let’s just say he is continuing his usual patterns of driving me crazy. Which is not something I will write about publicly.
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Celebrity Death Watch: Cynthia Weil was a songwriter who, along with her husband, Barry Mann, was responsible for a lot of popular songs, such as “You’ve Lost That Loving’ Feelin’” and “On Broadway.” Roger Squires was a prolific crossword compiler, who used the pseudonym Rufus in The Guardian and set Monday puzzles for the Daily Telegraph. Michael Batayeh was an actor, best known for appearing in Breaking Bad. Ronald L. Baker was a folklorist who wrote extensively about place names in the American midwest as well as collecting midwestern humorous folk tales. Bob Bolin pitched for the San Francisco Giants and, later on, the Red Sox. Byron Barton wrote and illustrated children’s books. George Winston was a pianist, mostly noted for new age music. Norma Hunt owned the Kansas City Chiefs football team. Roger Craig was pitcher and later, as a manager led the 1989 San Francisco Giants to a National League championship. Francoise Gilot was an artist and was Pablo Picasso’s partner from 1943 to 1953. The Iron Sheik was an Iranian-born professional wrestler. Wade William Goodwyn was the national desk correspondent for NPR. Julie Garwood was a romance novelist. Firouz Naderi was the program manager of NASA’s Mars exploration mission at JPL and later became the director for Solar System Exploration. Roger Payne was a biologist who recorded humpback whale songs. Treat Williams was an actor, who was notable for playing Berger in the film version of Hair. Carol Higgins Clark was a mystery writer who followed in the footsteps of her mother Mary Higgins Clark, with whom she coauthored several novels. Cormac McCarthy was a novelist, primarily of violent Westerns. Christy Digham was a singer with the Irish group Aslan. Robert Gottlieb was the editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and The New Yorker, as well as being on the board of directors of the New York City Ballet. Luisa Gander was the first lady of Puerto Rico from 2005 to 2009. Donald Triplett was the first person diagnosed with autism. Glenda Jackson was a movie actress. Paxton Whitehead was an actor who appeared on Broadway, as well as in movies and television shows. Gus Newport was the mayor of Berkeley, California during the time I lived there, though I remember nothing about him. Gregory Klinishov was a co-creator of the Russian hydrogen bomb. Teresa Taylor played drums for the Butthole Surfers. Dick Hall pitched for the Baltimore Orioles, as well as other teams. Isabel de Costa Ferriera was the first lady of East Timor from 2012 through 2017. Max Morath was a ragtime pianist. Frederic Forrest was an actor, noted for playing opposite Bette Midler in The Rose.


Robert Hanssen was an FBI investigator who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the U.S. for over 20 years. He was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. The park where he was arrested is only about 2.5 miles from my home.

Astrid Gilberto was a samba and bossa nova singer. She recorded with Stan Getz and Antonio Carlos Jobim, but is best known for her hit recording of “The Girl From Ipanema.”

Pat Robertson was a televangelist and Republican politician. He founded the Christian Broadcasting Network and Regent University and played a significant role in turning the Republican party toward Christian conservative ideology.

Ted Kaczynski was the Unabomber, a mathematician who isolated himself and set out on a terror campaign with several bombings, which he claimed were to bring attention to environmental issues. Two of those bombings were at Berkeley during my time there, by the way.

Silvio Berlusconi was an Italian media tycoon who became a three-time prime minister.

Henry Petroski was a cvil engineering professor who wrote several books about industrial design and the history of common objects. His book To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design is a good read as is The Pencil.

Daniel Ellsberg was the whistleblower who released The Pentagon Papers, classified documents about U.S. decisions regarding the Vietnam War, parts of which were published by the New York Times and the Washington Post. He earned me 10 ghoul pool points.

Sheldon Harnick was one of the greatest lyricists to write for musical theatre. The shows he worked on with Jerry Bock include Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello!, She Loves Me, The Rothschilds, and The Apple Tree. But he also had several other collaborators. I also recommend his early song, “The Boston Beguine,” from New Faces of 1952. I met him a few times, since he often went to the York Theatre, and he was always amiable. Even though he was 99, I was surprised by his death, since he always seemed so vigorous.

John Goodenough was the oldest person ever to win a Nobel Prize, having won the Chemistry Nobel at the age of 97. He was responsible for the development of lithium ion battery technology. He was on my ghoul pool list, earning me 22 points, which puts me in second place for now.

Non-Celebrity Death Watch: Elden Carnahan was a stalwart of the Loser Community. In fact, he was pretty much the founder of the Loser community, having started up the regular brunches and the nrars.org website. He had been diagnosed with glioblastoma about a year ago, so his death was no surprise. I’ll still miss his unique sense of humor and his dedication to bringing people together. Also, the origins of our regular on-line sessions of (mostly) codenames have their origin in a games night he started with members of his family.

The Enigmatist: I went with a few friends to see The Enigmatist at The Kennedy Center on Saturday. I was excited to see this come to D.C. because several of my NPL friends had seen and enjoyed it in New York. Anyway, Squonk from NPL organized the outing and got the tickets. My friends, Cindy and Teri, came along. Cindy is very much not a puzzle person and, when she saw that we had to solve some puzzles to get in, she thought she would hate the show. But I got her through those and helped her understand them. There were also some puzzles throughout the show and Teri even got selected to give the answer to one of them. Anyway, David Kwong has created a unique mixture of magic, humor, and puzzles for a unique and very entertaining show. I admit that I have absolutely no idea how several of his magic tricks worked. Highly recommended for those who can get to it (and, if you aren’t local, go see it if he comes to your area).

JGSGW Meeting: This month’s meeting was about Shul Records America, which is attempting to identify where genealogical records from American synagogues can be found. It isn’t digitizing records itself, just pointing to what archives hold them. Right now it doesn’t look to be of a lot of immediate utility to me, but there may be some opportunities to get involved in some of their projects.

Money, Money: Between having bought a few plane tickets, insurance for two trips, and various other travel-related things, my bill for the credit card I use for travel expenses was more than twice what it normally is. And I still have to pay the balance for my December trip, as well as needing to buy two more plane tickets (one of which might end up on a different card, because it will probably be on American). I’ll have the costs of several hotel nights, too. Sheesh, I also have a New York trip in August. I have the money, but I basically spent two months of pension payments on travel last month. Good thing my short term savings account has the equivalent of about two years of income in it. Whew!
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Shameless Self Promotion: I will be telling stories at the Washington Folk Festival on Sunday June 4th at 5:30 p.m. The festival is at Glen Echo Park and is free. There’s going to be plenty of other things to go to there - storytelling, yes, but also music and dance and crafts. And, of course, the famous Glen Echo Carousel.

Celebrity Death Watch: Hodding Carter III was the spokesperson for the State Department during the Carter administration. Harry Bentley Bradley designed cars for Hot Wheels. Gloria Molina was a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Garoar Cortes founded The Icelandic Opera. Doyle Brunson was a Hall of Fame poker player. Robert Lucas got a Nobel Prize in Economics. Marlin Hagge co-founded the LPGA. “Superstar” Billy Graham was a professional wrestler. Andy Rourke was the bassist for The Smiths. Nicholas Gray owned Gray’s Papaya, a famous hot dog place in New York City. Pete Brown was a lyricist, whose work included lyrics for “Sunshine of Your Love” and “White Room.” Martin Amis was a novelist, best known for Time’s Arrow. Ed Ames was a singer and actor, known for playing Mingo on Daniel Boone. Chas Newby briefly played bass with The Beatles. James Lewis sang with Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Robert Zimmer was a mathematician and president of the University of Chicago for 15 years. Sheldon Reynolds played guitar for Commodors and for Earth, Wind, & Fire. George Maharis played Buz Murdock on the TV series Route 66, as well as modeling nude in the second issue of Playgirl magazine. Bill Lee was a jazz musician and film composer, as well as the father of Spike Lee. Claudia Rosett was a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and the only print journalist to witness the Tiananmen Square massacre. Milt Larsen created The Magic Castle. Alexander Dreyfoos, Jr. was a businessman and philanthropist who donated the money to MIT to build the Stata Center, aka the ugliest building in Cambridge. Mike Young was an outfielder for the Baltimore Orioles. Robin Wagner won three Tony Awards for set design. Harvey Pitt chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission in the early 2000’s. Gershon Edelsten headed the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Beni Brak, and was, thus, a major leader in Lithuanian Jewish Orthodoxy.

John Dunning was a writer, primarily of mysteries, though he also wrote a couple of books about old-time radio. His mystery series featuring Cliff Laneway, a bookseller, was quite entertaining. Check out Booked to Die and/or The Bookman’s Wake if you like detective fiction and have ever wanted to own a used bookstore.

Tina Turner was an eight-time Grammy winner. She overcame an abusive relationship with her first husband, Ike Turner, and went on to a very successful solo career.

Non-Celebrity Death Watch: Laura Beasley was a wonderful storyteller and a dear friend. I first met her in the 1990’s at the Southern California Story Swapping Festival, which she came to regularly with her son, Theo, and we saw each other every now and then through the years. I’ll miss her.

Don’t Analyze This Dream: I had a postcard from some organization (possibly google) saying they wouldn’t spam me. But, in the same batch of mail, I had the same postcard, only in Spanish.

You May Analyze This Dream: I was in some sort of competition (maybe writing>) I lost to a woman named Ella Siempre.

My interpretation is that I probably need to scale back on how much time I spend studying Spanish on Duolingo.


Alex Padilla: I went to a dinner with Senator Alex Padilla on Tuesday night, put on by the MIT Club of DC. It is always good to have intelligent conversation (with other attendees). His talk was mostly about his path from a mechanical engineering degree and a short career in the aerospace industry to a political career. He was entertaining and articulate. His major focus was on problem-solving in both contexts.

Travel Planning: I have three international trips coming up in the near-term, as well as one later in the year. I also have plans for two domestic trips. And I have plans for a few more things. None of this helps with my household decluttering activities.
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I was trying to catch-up on what I did during the rest of April before going on a vacation. Obviously, I didn’t succeed in doing that, so I am writing this now that I am back from my trip.

Celebrity Death Watch: Ed Koren was a cartoonist for The New Yorker. Charles Stanley was a televangelist. Barry Humphries was an Australian comedian, best known for his portrayal of Dame Edna Everage. Robert Forrest-Webb was a British writer who wrote a book with the intriguing title And to My Nephew Albert I Leave the Island What I Won off Fatty Hagan in a Poker Game. Carolyn Bruant Donham accused Emmett Till of whistling at and/or touching her, leading to his lynching. Ralph Humphrey was the drummer for The Mothers of Invention. Pamela Turnure was Jackie Kennedy’s press secretary. Tim Bachman played guitar for Bachman-Turner Overdrive. LeRoy Carhart was one of the few physicians who continued performing late term abortions after the murder of George Tiller. Vincent Stewart directed the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2015-2017. Mike Shannon played for the Saint Louis Cardinals in the 1960’s. Ralph Boston was an Olypmic champion long jumper. Newton Minnow was the FCC Chairman in the early 1960’s and is famous for calling television a vast wasteland. Sean Keane played fiddle for The Chieftains. Don January was a PGA champion golfer. Heather Armstrong was a blogger, known as Dooce, mostly famous for losing her job for blogging about her coworkers and company and then becoming one of the first successful mommy bloggers. Jacklyn Zeman was a soap opera actress.Chris Strachwitz founded Arhoolie Records, a major specialist in roots and folk music.


Rick Riordan was the mayor of Los Angeles from 1993-2001. He was a Republican but he went on to back Democrat Antonio Villarigosa in the 2005 general election. He was also well known for owning the Original Pantry Cafe downtown and Gladstone’s in Malibu.

I hope you don’t need me to tell you about Harry Belafonte. He popularized Calypso music in the United States, but was equally significant as a civil rights activist.

Harold Kushner was a reconstructionist rabbi and is best known for his books, such as When Bad Things Happen to Good People.

Jerry Springer hosted a tabloid television show, as well as having been the mayor of Cincinnati in the late 1970’s.

Gordon Lightfoot was a singer-songwriter. I particularly remember his songs “If You Could Read My Mind” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

Vida Blue was a pitching phenom for the Oakland A’s in the early 1970’s. I particularly remember him as a nemesis against the Mets in the 1973 World Series.

Storyteller Death Watch: Michael Parent died last week. It wasn’t a big surprise, as he had been dealing with Parkinson’s Disease for some time. I first saw him perform back when I lived in Los Angeles and I found his stories of his French-Canadian heritage warm and enjoyable. He was also a kind and generous man and I have a particularly fond memory of him seeking me out at the National Storytelling Conference in Richmond and his coming to see me tell my Jeopardy story there. I am glad that our mutual friend, Katy, was able to be with him in his final moments.

Non-celebrity Death Watch: I just heard that Faith Klein died on April 11th. I knew her from the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, where she managed the genealogy library at Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria. She was in her late 80’s and led a rich and productive life.

I knew Charles Kunz from FlyerTalk and saw him at numerous events over the past 12 or so years, most recently in February in Tucson. He and I shared several interests besides travel, such as atrocious puns and baseball. I was completely shocked to learn he took his life in mid-April. I thought he seemed happy with his wife and daughter. I guess you never know what demons someone is wrestling.


Angels in America: I saw Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches at Arena Stage on April 21st. For those unfamiliar with this play, it is a chronicle of the early years of the AIDS crisis, told primarily through the eyes of a few people. Louis is a Jewish man whose mother has just been buried and who is in denial about the failing condition of his partner, Prior Walter. Joe Pitt is a Mormon man, married to a woman with a drug problem. He is in denial about his homosexual feelings and works for the closeted politico Roy Cohn. The script is interesting, with more humor than one would expect given the subject matter. The performances were quite good, with Edward Gero as Roy Cohn being particularly notable. I had debated seeing it mostly because I have some issues with Tony Kushner and, indeed, I found the depiction of the rabbi at the funeral at the beginning to be somewhat offensive. But I’m glad I did go.

Hexagon: On April 22nd, I braved a horrible rainstorm to drive to darkest Maryland to see this year’s Hexagon show. This is political satire and their annual show is a long-standing Washington tradition. The theme this year was The Sedition Edition and songs included “Mine is Bigger Than Yours” (with Trump. Biden, Pence, and Santos singing about the size of their piles of classified documents), “Pickleball U.S.A.” (to the tune of “Surfin’ USA, about nude pickleball in Florida), “AARP” (to the tune of “YMCA”) and so on. Some of my favorite jokes included:


  • I got a Life Alert bracelet. It’s set to go off if I get a life.

  • Conservatives want to get rid of taxes. Liberals want to get rid of Texas.

  • Donald Trump was just indicted for tearing off a mattress tag in 1997.

  • What do Winnie the Pooh and Alexander the Great have in common?

    They have the same middle name!

  • 95% of all electric cars ever sold are still on the road. The other 5% made it home.



National Museum of African American History and Culture: On April 23rd I went to the National Museum of African American History and Culture with an old internet friend. Sharon and I didn’t pin down exactly where we knew each other from, other than it would have been somewhere on Usenet back in the late 1980’s. But we did get along just fine in person. She’s a digital nomad these days, largely for political reasons, and was in D.C. for a little while. We only had enough time to cover maybe 80% of the History Galleries, and none of the Culture and Community Galleries. We thought the information was interesting, though it wasn’t particularly well laid out. For example, most of the text was placed low enough to require people to crowd in to read it. And there should have been arrows showing the best flow through the galleries, as we had to backtrack a few times. Still, it was worth a few hours. Afterwards, we met up with her partner and had lunch at the Elephant and Castle.

iPhone Battery Replacement: On April 24th, I got my iPhone battery replaced. It hadn’t been holding a charge well for a while and I thought it best to have that taken care of before going on vacation. It wasn’t too painful, but it took about a half hour longer than they’d said it would. The main thing I wanted to mention was that the tech who worked with me is deaf and he used a phone line which connected him to a sign language interpreter. He signed and she talked to me. Then I talked to her and she signed to him. I thought this was fabulous - a great example of how to accommodate a worker with a disability.

Grimm Keepers: The April discussion was on The Singing Bone. There was a lot to think about. But my main takeaway was that this theme of magical objects (bones or reeds or whatever) revealing a secret, often a murder, is surprisingly common. And I think it might be interesting to play with the idea of an orchestra of such instruments. Yes, I am weird.

NYPL - Yiddish New York in the 1900’s: This was a lecture put on by the New York Public Library. It mostly had to do with the Yiddish Daily Forward and the rent strike of 1917-1918. It was fairly interesting, but a bit too brief.

JGSGW Meeting: On Sunday April 30th, there was a hybrid meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Washington. I would normally have driven to Rockville for it, but the weather was crappy and I had another meeting later that afternoon (kind of a post mortem on the Women’s Storytelling Festival, i.e. what worked and what didn’t and what we want to change for next year). Jennifer Mendelssohn gave an excellent talk on DNA and how to get around some of the problems associated with endogamy. As usual, there is more that I need to find time to work on.


Still to Come: April prompts, my Kentucky Derby cruise, things I’ve done since I got back
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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.

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

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

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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.

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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.
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Celebrity Death Watch: Andrew J. McKenna was the chairman of McDonald’s. Elena Banchini was an Olympic skier. Rene-Samuel Sirat was the chief rabbi of France in the 1980’s. David Jude Jolicoeur, known as Trugoy the Dove, was a third of the hip hop group De La Soul. Huey “Piano” Smith wrote the song “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu.” David Ringmaster was a mathematician who, among other things, analyzed puzzles such as Rubik’s cube. Robert Geddes was an architect. Marshall “Eddie” Conway was a Black Panther party leader. Jerry Jarrett was a wrestler. Charley Ferguson played football with the Buffalo Bills in the 1960’s. Catherine McArdle Kelleher was an expert on international security policy. Paul Berg won a Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research on recombinant DNA. Tim McCarver was a catcher, primarily for the St. Louis Cardinals, and later became a sports announcer. Simone Edwards played basketball for the Seattle Storm. Stella Stevens was an actress and Playboy playmate. Gerald Fried wrote music for film and television scores. Rebecca Blank was an economist. Yoshihisa Okumura developed technology for cellphone networks. Thomas Donahue was a labor leader. Red McCombs founded iHeart Media and owned the San Antonio Spurs and Minnesota Vikings. Richard Belzer was an actor and comedian, best known for playing John Munch on Homicide: Life on the Street. Bruce Barthel was the bassist for Country Joe and the Fish. Tony Earl was the governor of Wisconsin from 1983 to 1987, James Abourezk was the first Arab-American U.S. senator. Bob Richards was a pole vaulter who became the first athlete to appear on the front of the Wheaties box. Betty Boothroyd was the first woman to be speaker of the UK House of Commons. Just Fontaine was a French soccer star.

Burt Bacharach was a songwriter who, along with Hal David, wrote a lot of pop music. Some of his biggest hits include “This Guy’s in Love With You,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” and “Close to You.” His work appeared on the soundtracks of many major films and his songs were recorded by over 1000 singers.

Ted Lerner owned the Washington Nationals and a lot of Washington area real estate. He was also a significant philanthropist, supporting a number of arts, educational, and Jewish charities. In 2015, Forbes magazine wrote that he was the richest person in Maryland.

Raquel Welch was an actress and sex symbol. Among her most famous movies were One Million Years B.C. and Fantastic Voyage.

David Oreck was in the vacuum cleaner business. He earned me 13 ghoul pool (1 for his place on the list and a 12 point uniqueness bonus).

Barbara Bosson was an actress, best known for playing Faye Furillo on Hill Street Blues.

Weather: The weather here has been all over the place. It was close to 80 on Thursday but cold and windy on Saturday, with snow flurries. At least no snow stuck here. The best thing I read was a comparison to Mother Nature drawing Powerball numbers. I just want it to be spring already. Although, actually, no, since every warm day puts the trees to having sex outside and me to sneezing.

King Thrushbeard: I belong to a discussion group re: the Grimm Fairy Tales. This past Wednesday we talked about King Thrushbeard, a story about two unlikeable people. The princess is a nasty, insulting bully and he is gaslighting her to teach her a lesson. So I was challenged by one of the other people in the group (who knows me fairly well) to find a different way to deal with her. My immediate thought was that she would do very well as a stand-up comic. I despise insult comedy, but at least it would put her natural talents to work. As for King Thrushbeard, who is really a prince, not a king at all, I fear that he is unredeemable. He might make a rather nice victim in a murder mystery, however. After hearing that he rode his horse through her wares in the market when she was starting to have some success making money, any sensible jury would deem whatever she did to him as justifiable. And, by the way, would it really have killed the Grimms to give her the dignity of having an actual name?

The Lifespan of a Fact: I saw this play at the Keegan Theatre on Friday night. This is apparently based on a real incident in which an essay about the suicide of a teenager in Las Vegas was pulled by Harper’s Magazine in 2003, but a fact-checked version was later published by The Believer in 2010. The story revolves around the fact-checking and the question of what liberties with the truth are and aren’t acceptable. The fact-checker, Jim Fingal (played by Ivan Carlo) is overly eager and obsessive - and, frankly, annoying. The essayist, John D’Agata (played by Colin Smith) doesn’t necessarily care about the facts. The editor, played by Sheri S. Herren, tries to mediate things, and seems on the edge of a nervous breakdown through most of this.

The play raises some good questions about the difference between truth and facts. That’s highly relevant to me since my usual tagline about the storytelling I do is that all of my stories are true, whether or not they happened that way. Unfortunately, there isn’t a strong resolution at the end. So, while I found the play interesting, I was not really satisfied by it.

Rubber Ducky Day Storytelling: I was part of a humorous storytelling show on Saturday for Rubber Ducky Day. There was a great mix of material. I adapted a story about things my father told me and their consequences for this purpose, including an episode (not entirely factual) about creating a magic spell to bring rubber bath toys to life. I really did write down “witchcraft” as one of my hobbies on my 9th grade English teacher’s “getting to know you form” and she really did make me give a talk on that subject to the class. But, no, we did not (alas) actually have such a distinction as “most likely to move to California,” no matter how many times I have used that line. My point is that we should have. Anyway, it went well and I got plenty of laughs and great comments in the chat.

Golden Girls - The Laughs Continue: Cindy and I went to see this show at the Warner Theater on Sunday. Before the show, we had lunch at the Elephant and Castle, which is pretty much the only reasonably priced restaurant near there. The food is fairly good, but the service, which has often been a problem there, was atrocious. Anyway, there were two things I hadn’t known when we bought the tickets. 1) Cindy had never actually seen an episode of The Golden Girls so I had to explain who the characters were to her (and, especially, who played each one) and 2) it’s a drag show. I thought the performers nailed the roles, especially Adam Graber as Rose (the Betty White role). The humor is, not surprisingly, very raunchy, particularly since part of the premise is that Blanche and Rose have created a sex app for senior citizens. But for me, the funniest material had to do with references to the actresses who played the various roles. For example, at one point, Blanche says something like “Rose is going to outlive all of us.” And, of course, Betty White did live several years past the other three. They also gave Rose a line in which she says she dreamed she was on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. My very favorite joke had Dorothy (who had been played by Bea Arthur) questioning whether to pursue a show biz career because “I’d die of stage fright. Maybe not die, just be maimed.” I had to explain to Cindy that Bea Arthur had won a Tony for Best Featured Actress for playing Vera Charles in the original production of Mame. Based on the mix of laughs and groans, most of the audience got it.

Anyway, it was a funny show and worth seeing.
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I am very far behind on things, but here’s a bit of a catch-up. My trip to Tucson this past weekend will get its own post.

First, a reminder from the Shameless Self-Promotion Department. You can get tickets to the on-line Fractured Fairy Tales show I am part of tomorrow night at the Better Said Than Done website until February 12th and will get a month to watch the recording if you can’t make it live. The story I am going to be telling is one of my most popular, so you don’t want to miss this!

Celebrity Death Watch: Charles Kimbrough was an actor, who got his start on Broadway but is probably best known for playing Jim Dial on Murphy Brown. Wally Campo was an actor, whose work included narrating the original (non-musical) movie Little Shop of Horrors. Carl Hahn was the chairman of Volkswagen. Jonathan Raban was a travel writer. Sal Bando was a Hall of Fame baseball player. Ted Bell was a suspense novelist. Victor Navasky was a magazine novelist, best known for writing about the Hollywood blacklist. Top Topham was a guitarist for The Yardbirds. Tom Verlaine was the lead guitarist and singer for the band Television. Bob Born was the president of Just Born, the candy company responsible for Peeps (invented by his father) and Hot Tamales. Bobby Hull was a Hall of Fame hockey player with the Chicago Blackhawks and other teams. Charles Silverstein wrote The Joy of Gay Sex. Charlie Thomas sang with The Drifters. Pervez Musharraf was the president of Pakistan from 2001-2008. David Harris was an anti-Vietnam war activist and was married to Joan Baez for 7 years.

David Crosby was a singer and songwriter. I know I went to a CSN concert at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley somewhere around 1982 or so, but I don’t remember the actual details.

Cindy Williams played Shirley in the TV show Laverne and Shirley, as well as appearing in several movies.

Lisa Loring played Wednesday Addams on The Addams Family.

Barrett Strong was a singer and songwriter. The songs he co-wrote with Norman Whitfield include several of the greatest Motown hits, such as “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “Just My Imagination.”

Paco Rabanne was a fashion designer. He was well-known for modernistic designs, including the costumes for the movie Barbarella, but I particularly remember his men’s fragrance.

Storyteller Death Watch: Tom Weakley was a storyteller from Vermont. I was privileged to see him perform a couple of times. He had a wonderful story about the origins of the word "Yankee." And his version of The Two Pickpockets included the lovely detail of a pickpocket going over the border to Canada but having to steal 25% more to break even.

Ingrid Nixon and Shackleton: I forgot to mention last time that I’d gone to Ingrid Nixon’s virtual storytelling show about Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance expedition. As someone with a long-standing interest in polar exploration, I thought she did a good job of telling the story and emphasizing his leadership. She also included a song that some of the men had written about Frank Wild (who was left to manage the group on Elephant Island while Shackleton went with 5 other men to South Georgia to seek rescue). Overall, it made for a very entertaining evening.

I still think, however, that Douglas Mawson’s story is a better one for sheer ability to survive. For those who are not familiar with it, both of his companions died, he lost half his sled, had to climb out of a crevasse he fell into, and made it back to his hut just in time to see his ship pulling out, forcing him to spend another winter on his own.

Jewish Barbados: I went to a virtual talk last Tuesday about Jewish Barbados. The speaker, Neal Rechtman, was an American who moved to Barbados when Trump was elected. He said he chose Barbados after looking for somewhere in the Caribbean that had both a synagogue and a bridge club. Anyway, much of the talk was focused on the Nidra Israel Synagogue, which was first built in 1664, but rebuilt in 1834 after a major hurricane. The early community consisted of Sephardic Jews who left Recife, Brazil in 1654 when the Portuguese captured it from the Dutch and brought the Inquisition. There were approximately 300 settlers who came on three ships of the Dutch East India Company, out of 44 ships. (Another 40+ ships went to other places, including Charleston, South Carolina, New York, and Amsterdam.) Oliver Cromwell allowed them to come to the British colony because his wars were financed by Jewish bankers in Amsterdam. The Jewish community jumpstarted the sugar industry and those ships brought the equipment needed for sugar cane processing, as well as slaves. The 1831 hurricane destroyed the synagogue and, while the 50 remaining families rebuilt the synagogue, the community dwindled rapidly and only 2 Jews were left by 1921. The synagogue became a law library and was rescued from destruction in the 1980’s, when it was turned over to the Barbados National Trust. The synagogue and cemetery were restored completely by 1987, using the original architecture’s drawings and records, along with money raised by the descendants of Ashkenazi Jews who fled the Nazis in the 1930’s.

The other interesting story he told had to do with why Rabbi Hayim Isaac Carregal’s portrait hangs at the Sterling Library at Yale. In short, Rabbi Carregal taught Hebrew to Ezra Stiles, the Protestant minister who became president of Yale in the
1780’s.


Things Disappear: I spent an hour searching for the headphone adapter for my phone, with no success. Of course, it turned out to be in pocketbook all along.

I have still not, however, found out what happened to a metal rail from a hanging file folder which flew off somewhere when I opened the folder. It must be somewhere in my bedroom, but it has become completely invisible.

Sigh: The cruise I was supposed to take in April has been canceled. I am still sorting out my options.
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Moving on to 2023, my trip to New Bedford last weekend deserves its own entry. As does the MIT Mystery Hunt, which was this weekend. But I have done a few other things.


Celebrity Death Watch: Terry Hall was the lead singer of The Specials, a ska group I liked quite a lot back in the 1980’s. Franco Harris played football for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Thom Bell was a songwriter, best known for “The Rubberband Man.” Joyce Meskis owned The Tattered Cover, an excellent bookstore in Denver. Vivienne Westwood was a fashion designer. Anita Pointer sang with the Pointer Sisters.

Fred White played drums for Earth, Wind & Fire. Edith Lank wrote a syndicated column giving real estate advice. Buster Corley cofounded Dave & Buster’s. Suzy McKee Charkas was a writer, primarily of fantasy. Walter Cunningham was an Apollo 7 astronaut. Casey Hayden was a civil rights activist. Arthur Duncan was a tap dancer who became the first African-American to appear regularly on a weekly television show. Russell Banks was a novelist. Slim Newton was an Australian singer-songwriter. Bernard Kalb covered international affairs for the New York Times. Charles Simic was a poet. Blake Hounsell wrote about politics for several publications, including the New York Times and Politico. Jeff Beck was a rock guitarist, starting with The Yardbirds. Lisa Marie Presley was the daughter of Elvis and a singer-songwriter in her own right. Paul Johnson wrote extensively about history. Robbie Bachman was the drummer for Bachman-Turner Overdrive. Robbie Knievel followed in his father, Evel’s, footsteps as a motorcycle daredevil. Gina Lollobrigida was a film actress. Constantine II was the last King of Greece.

Pele was the first big celebrity soccer player. I remember him fondly from his days playing for the New York Cosmos. He pretty much single-handedly raised the profile of soccer in the U.S. - and that was after an outstanding career playing in Brazil, including three World Cup championships in 1958, 1962, and 1970.

Ian Tyson was a singer (with his wife, Sylvia) and songwriter, best known for “Four Strong Winds.”

Barbara Walters was the first major female television journalist and had a career of over 50 years. She was particular notable as an interviewer, particularly of political figures.

Pope Benedict XVI was the pope from 2205-2013, when he resigned and became “pope emeritus.” That was the first papal resignation since 1415.

Fay Weldon was a feminist author. She was best known for The Life and Loves of a She-Devil. I read it years ago and remember it being a powerful tale of envy and revenge.

Naomi Replansky wrote poetry about women’s lives. She lived to 104, which is impressive. She earned me 32 ghoul pool points.

Frank Thomas played for the original Mets.

Ghoul Pool: Since the lists have been published now, I can reveal my list. Note that the ordering determines how many points you get if that person dies, with a 12 point bonus for uniqueness. You get to refill that slot.

20 Naomi Replansky (who died, giving me 32 points). I backfilled with Agnes Keleti
19 Michael Tilson Thomas
18 Yayoi Kusama
17 Caren Marsh Doll
16 Lee Adams
15 Bob Barker
14 Sam Nujoma
13 Tony Bennett
12 Jimmy Carter
11 Al Jaffee
10 John Goodenough
9 Robert Solow
8 Sandra Day O’Connor
7 Jiro Ono
6 Mel Brooks
5 Shannon Doherty
4 James L. Buckley
3 Bud Harrelson
2 W. Nicholas Hitchon
1 David Oreck

Don’t Analyze This Dream: I was cleaning my ears with a Q-tip (and, yes, I know you are not supposed to do that). Grey ashes kept coming out of my right ear. But swabbing my left ear was normal.

Winter Lantern Festival: Cindy and I had made plans to go to this light exhibit at Tyson’s Corner in late December, but she got stuck in upstate New York due to a combination of weather and the Southwest Airlines meltdown. So we ended up going on New Year’s Day. It was definitely worth going to. Here are a few photos - just a small sample of the spectacle.

They had feathered headbands with flashing lights to wear. They were supposed to be for children, but they let us take them, too.

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Polar bears live in the Arctic and penguins in the Antarctic, but they lived together here.

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There were a lot of Tweety Birds. I have no idea why.

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Here’s the aquarium.

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This was my favorite feature. Don’t feed the plants! (Click through to flickr to play the video.)

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Grimmkeepers' Storytelling Show: Grimkeepers is a discussion group about the Grimm fairy tales. There were 7 tellers, all of whom told folk tales, not all from Grimm. My favorite was Marilyn Mcphie’s use of wordplay about fiber in her version of “The Spindle, The Shuttle, and The Needle.”

Schmigadoon!: I got three months of Apple TV free from activating the iPad I got as a retirement gift. I don’t have a lot of time to watch things,, but I had heard good things about Schmigadoon! A musical parody is right up my alley and I did, indeed, enjoy watching this. Sure, it’s a little bit predictable, but that is pretty much necessary for parody to work. I understand that there’s a second season in the works (to be called Schmicago) and I might have to pay for a month or so of Apple TV to watch it.

I am also open to suggestions of other things I might like watching.

Annoyances: I had a fraud incident on a credit card the day after I had activated it. When I called the bank, they said the card had been used physically at a Target store in Maryland, which sounds very odd to me, suggesting an inside job. Fortunately, they were able to overnight me the replacement, since this was the card I wanted to use for hotel room on the New Bedford trip.

Even more annoying, the fire alarm in my condo complex went off around 6 a.m. both yesterday and today. I suspect an idiot neighbor, something of which I unfortunately have no shortage.

Local Politics: We had a special election on Tuesday to backfill our Delegate. The House of Delegates is the lower house of the Virginia legislature. Mark Keam, who had been our delegate, resigned in the fall to take a position with the Biden administration. I am pleased that the candidate I supported, Holly Siebold, won the election. I think she’s going to do great things for us in Richmond.
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I’ve been in rather a blur of social activity since I got back. But let’s do first things first.

Celebrity Death Watch: Robert Clary was an actor, best known for playing Corporal LeBeau on Hogan’s Heroes, though he got his start in the musical revue “New Faces of 1952.” Carol Leigh was an activist who focused on sex workers. Fred Brooks wrote the book The Mythical Man-Month. Greg Bear and Ray Nelson were science fiction writers. June Campbell was the fashion reporter who created the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. Jay Pasachoff was an astronomer who is believed to have seen more solar eclipses than anyone else. Jean-Marie Straub was a film director. Wilko Johnson played guitar for Dr. Feelgood. Ray Oldenburg studied urban sociology and popularized the term “third place.” Bernadette Mayer was a poet. Sheila Vogel-Coupe was the oldest sex worker in the United Kingdom and had apparently started her career as an escort at the age of 81. Louise Tobin was a jazz singer. Christine McVie was a keyboardist and singer, as well as songwriter, for Fleetwood Mac.

Gaylord Perry was a pitcher, primarily for the San Francisco Giants. Quentin Oliver Lee was an operatic baritone, best known for playing the time role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. Dominique Lapierre wrote Is Paris Burning? Dick Enthoven owned Nando’s. Bob McGrath played the human character Bob Johnson on Sesame Street. Jim Stewart cofounded Stax Records. Jay Goldberg was a lawyer who represented a lot of famous people, including Donald Trump, Johnny Cash, Mick Jagger, and Bono. Roddy Jackson was a rockabilly performer. Lee Lorenz was a cartoonist and editor for The New Yorker. Jean-Louis Bourgeois was an expert on mud brick architecture and worked both in the American southwest and in Djenne, Mali. Ruth Madoc played Fruma Sarah in the 1971 film version of Fiddler o the Roof. Herbert Deutsch co-invented the Moog Synthesizer. Grant Wahl was a sports journalist. Paul Silas played basketball for the Boston Celtics and the Seattle SuperSonics before going on to coach for the Charlotte Hornets. Georgia Holt was an actress and singer best known as the mother of Cher. Dame Beryl Grey was a ballerina. Abigail Kinoiki Kekaulike Kawananakoa claimed to be the last remaining Hawaiian royal princess. Frances Hesselbein was the CEO of the Girl Scouts starting in the mid-1970’s and changed their focus away from homemaker type activities, Wolf Erlbruch wrote German children’s books. Stuart Margolin was an actor, best known for playing Angel Martin in The Rockford Files. Curt Simmons was a pitcher, primarily for the Phillies. Steven “tWitch” Boss was a dancer and actor. Belinda Douglas-Scot-Montagu was commissioned to work on an embroidery for the 900th anniversary of the New Forest. Dino Danelli played drums for The Rascals.

Ned Rorem was a Pulitzer Prize winning composer. I have to admit that I knew his name mostly from crossword puzzles. But he earned me 27 ghoul pool points (15 for his position on my list, plus 12 for uniqueness).

Irene Cara was a singer and actress, best known for the song “Flashdance … What a Feeling.”

Kirstie Alley was an actress, best known for playing Rebecca Howe on Cheers.

Joseph Kromelis was a homeless man and sometime street vendor in Chicago who was known as “Walking Man.” He was the victim of an arson attack while he slept under a bridge in May 2022. People suck.

FlyerTalk Dinner: Last Friday night, I went out to dinner with a few friends from FlyerTalk at Open Road in Rosslyn. The food and beer were both very good and the service was okay. (I had the Tropic Thunder IPA and their tacos.) The prices were a bit on the high side, though we got the happy hour prices on the drinks and the entrees were big enough for two meals. Overall, I’d recommend it and I’d be happy to try their Merrifield location (which is closer to my house, though the Rosslyn one is right across the street from the metro, so is reasonably convenient). I should also note that Rosslyn looks to have been cleaned up quite a bit since the last time I was there, which was ages ago.

Chocolate Tasting: Last Saturday, Cindy and I went to a chocolate tasting at River-Sea Chocolates in Chantilly. The place was a little hard to find, since their sign is not visible from the parking lot. But we did figure it out and were in plenty of time. We watched a few videos about chocolate growing, processing, and shipping, then tasted 5 different chocolates. The first two were dark chocolates - one from Thailand, one from Brazil. While they had similar cacao percentages, they tasted very different. Then there were two milk chocolates - one plain and one one with salted caramel. Finally, there was a white chocolate with gingerbread spices. The Thailand and the salted caramel milk chocolate were my favorites. We also got a little tour of their factory, seeing all the machines.

I also liked that their products are ethically sourced. For example, they check that the beans are all grown organically and that no child labor is involved. They even ship their beans by sailboats, to prevent the environmental impact of containerized cargo ships.

I bought several chocolate bars (as did Cindy) and highly recommend this place to people who like good chocolate. I thought I knew a lot about chocolate, but I did learn more and I will definitely be shopping there again.

Voices Swap: Last Saturday night was the monthly Voices in the Glen story swap. I got there late, because I had taken a nap and forgotten to turn on my alarm clock. At least I was on time to hear Margaret tell Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” which is always a delight. I told a very brief version of La Segua, a Costa Rican horror story, in honor of my recent vacation.

Loser Brunch: Sunday was a Loser brunch at Lena’s in Alexandria. We had three tables full of people, scattered throughout the venue, which was slightly awkward, but we were able to get up and mingle. I got a margarita pizza (very good) and a drink called a Venus de Milo, which had campari, white peach, proseco, and grenadine, and was very tasty. Service was slow and there were some mistakes, but it was very busy, so it was forgivable.

This is rather burying the lede, but some of you already know that the WaPo killed the Style Invitational (along with the Sunday Magazine section and some other stuff). What you may not know is that Pat (the Empress) and her predecessor (Gene Weingarten, aka the Czar) are giving it a new life (alas, without prizes) on substack. They are hoping to get people to pay $5 a month or $50 a year, but you can sign up to read for free if you just want to read. Go to The Gene Pool and join.

Cookie Exchange and Dinner: I did a holiday cookie exchange with a bunch of puzzle folks again this year. We simplified things by having centralized receiving points for each city with multiple participants. The DC folks met up on Monday night to have dinner at Rasika West End (good Indian food) and distribute cookies. There was also lively conversation involved. By the way, my contribution was maple cinnamon stars, which are basically ordinary sugar cookies with cinnamon and maple extract added, cut into star shapes and decorated with gold sprinkles. Here’s a picture:

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Also, I met up briefly today (Sunday the 18th) with the guy who received our cookies from the out of towners to get the rest of the ones he had. We still have one person who hasn’t done his share yet.

Post Office: I mailed off the rest of my cookies on Tuesday morning. The Merrifield Post Office is very efficient and it didn’t take long. I didn’t think I’d need another post office trip, but I discovered that some of the holiday cards I had required extra postage, so I made another excursion on Friday morning, this time to the Oakton Post Office because I had a couple of other errands to run in that direction. Things were slower there, since it’s much smaller and has fewer people working. Still, it gave me an opportunity to do my good deed for the month, since I always have a baggie full of pens and pencils in my pocketbook and was able to lend a pen to two people who needed to fill out customs forms. Note to self: check the box next time I buy cards to make sure they just require normal postage.

MIT Club of DC Holiday Party: Wednesday night was the MIT Club of DC holiday party, which was at a law office in Georgetown. The food (heavy hors d’oeuvres) was pretty tasty, but the drink assortment was weird, with lots of wine, sodas, and a bottle of Ketel One vodka. (I stuck to ginger ale, by the way.) I had lots of interesting conversation, some with people I knew before (e.g. someone I used to work with) and some with people I hadn’t met before. The possibility of a storytelling event for the club got mentioned.

TCC Webinar: Today there was a Travelers’ Century Club virtual explorations seminar about festivals. There were three speakers, who covered Guerewol in Niger, Naadam in Mongolia, and Punakha Drubchan in Bhutan. I’ve been to Naadam in Tuva (and the so-called “little” Naadam in Mongolia, which paled in comparison), but both the other two looked interesting. There was also good conversation in the breakout room for the Gurewol Festival afterwards.

Condo Association Holiday Party: Tonight was the annual condo association holiday party. There was fairly good attendance. I sampled several of the hot hors d’oeuvres including some very nice cheese puffs. And I had a glass of wine. I talked with a few neighbors but didn’t stay for long. I went back up to my condo and lit my Chanukah candles and now I am about to play board games over zoom.

Chanukah: I lit the first candle tonight. Chappy Chanukah!

Last Week

Nov. 11th, 2022 10:19 pm
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Celebrity Death Watch: Thomas Cahill wrote several books about history, including How the Irish Saved Civilization. Charles Duncan, Jr. was the U.S. Secretary of Energy from 1979 to 1981. Robert Gordon was a rockabilly singer. John Jay Osborne wrote The Paper Chase. Charley Trippi was a Hall of Fame football player. Ron Masak was an actor, best known for playing Sheriff Metzler on Murder, She Wrote. Leslie Jordan was an actor and writer. Mike Davis wrote about urban life, with City of Quartz (about Los Angeles) a notable example. Julie Powell wrote Julie & Julia. Gael Greene was the food critic for New York Magazine for over 30 years. Geraldine Hunt was an R&B singer. D. H. Peligro played drums for the Dead Kennedys and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Mike Fanning played football for the L.A. Rams for seven seasons. Samuel Katz was one of the developers of the measles vaccine. George Booth was a cartoonist, whose work often appeared in The New Yorker. Ray Guy was the first punter to be inducted into the football Hall of Fame. Bill Sheffield was the governor of Alaska from 1982 to 1986. Aaron Carter was a teen idol in the 1990’s. Jeff Cook was one of the founders of Alabama (the country band, not the state). Lee Bontecou was a sculptor. Gallagher was a comedian, best known for a shtick involving smashing watermelons.

Both of Carly Simon’s sisters died within a day of one another. Joanna Simon was an opera singer, while Lucy Simon was a folk singer who went on to write the lovely score for the Broadway musical The Secret Garden.

Ash Carter was the U.S. Secretary of Defense from 2015-2017. He had been the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics for two years before that and was, effectively, my customer great-great-grandboss in that role. I vaguely remember that he sent out fewer memos and definitely had fewer all-hands meetings than his successors did. At ay rate, he was a smart man and a devoted public servant.

Jerry Lee Lewis was a singer and pianist, who stirred up controversy by marrying his 13-year-old cousin. His songs, like “Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On” were high energy and defined an era.

Friends Death Watch: Josephine Quinones died on November 5th at the age of 95. She was a mainstay of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and Lollapuzzoola, along with her daughter, Christine, and her son, Ric. She was a warm and lovely person and I am glad I had the opportunity to know her.


Beisbol: Once the Source of All Evil in the Universe was defeated, I didn’t really care much about the postseason. I am okay with the Astros having won the World Series, despite the 2017 cheating scandal. My logic is that the most important players to their win (e.g. Yordan Alvarez) were not part of the team then. And, of course, Dusty Baker was not managing the team then.

Liana Finck: I went to a (virtual) talk by graphic novelist Liana Finck last Wednesday. I had really enjoyed her book, based on A Bintel Brief (A Bundle of Letters), which was an advice column in the Yiddish newspaper, the Jewish Daily Forward. Her new book is Let There Be Light and is based on the biblical book of Genesis. The twist is that she imagines G-d as a young girl. I particularly liked her take on the Garden of Eden, where she imagines Eve being tempted not by a snake but by Lilith. (In Jewish tradition, Lilith was Adam’s first wife.) Anyway, it sounds like a book I’d like to get. I also found her discussion of her influences, which include Roz Chast and Sol Sternberg, to be interesting.

Cox Farms Fall Festival: Last Thursday my friend, Frances, and I went to Cox Farms in Centerville for their Fall Festival. I had originally texted a few friends to ask about going on the weekend, but Frances pointed out it was half-price on Thursday and, therefore, twice as much fun. We started out with going on a hayride - something I hadn’t done since I was about 10 years old. It gave us a pretty good tour of the sprawling property, which has a number of silly features, like dinosaurs and ghosts and pumpkins. And aliens.


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The main reason I wanted to go to Cox Farms in the first place was Foamhenge. This model of Stonehenge is made out of styrofoam and used to be out near Natural Bridge in the Shenandoah Valley, but was moved to Cox Farms some time ago. It’s about what you’d expect. As silly henge models go, I think Carhenge in Nebraska is better, but this was worth a look.

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We tasted some apple cider, then went to The Forest. There are sculptures that have to do with a lot of different classic children’s stories. You can help Little Bo Peep find her sheep, for example, and go to the house of the Three Bears. The three little pigs were safely inside a sturdy house, but the Big Bad Wolf lurked outside.

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There is also a unicorn.

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There were real farm animals (including cows, sheep, and pigs). And the Cornundrum, which had various rooms (like the Pharaoh’s tomb), a place where you were supposed to count aliens, a room full of (artificial) bugs, etc. I would have preferred an actual corn maze. There are various slides, but those are entirely for children. And there is plenty of junk food, as well as a farm market, which had cider and donuts. Your admission included a pumpkin to take home, which I passed on, since I am lazy enough to prefer my pumpkins to come nicely ready to use in a can. Anyway, it was entertaining enough for a couple of hours.


Leading Jewish Minds: MIT Hillel has a regular series of talks by Jewish professors. This one (last Friday) was by Paul Osterman o Free Agents or Company People: What Will Work Look Like?. While he discussed long-term changes in how work is organized (including increased inequality, declines in union membership, and automation), he mostly focused on the changes in the relationship between employers and employees. He didn’t really talk about remote work, but was focused on three categories of workers - standard employees, freelancers, and contractors, The latter range from the low end (cleaning services and security guards) to the high end (computer programmers and professionals like adjunct faculty). Gig workers make up very small numbers. Overall, he said that freelancers are satisfied, but contractors are often treated poorly. What he discussed was pretty much entirely within the private sector, however, and he didn’t discuss government contractors, who (in my experience) rarely want to be actual government employees. He also mentioned the need for policies to address standards and training. Overall, it was an interesting talk, but decidedly a work in progress.

Intergenerational Storytelling: To follow up on my previous post, my storytelling event last Friday night went well. I was pleased to see several people I knew among the attendees. I thought everyone told well and I got positive feedback. I should also note that I was particularly delighted by Laura’s twist on a selkie story, transported from the Irish tradition to Florida.

Still to Come: I have several other things still to write about, including:

  • Genealogy stuff, including IAJGS presentations and a surprising record that I am skeptical about
  • Last weekend, which I spent in the Shenandoah Valley
  • Politics
  • Concert going
  • Language learning
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Celebrity Death Watch: James Wright was the president of Dartmouth College from 1998 to 2009. Dick Ellsworth was a pitcher, primarily for the Cubs. Michael Callan originated the role of Riff in West Side Story on Broadway. Charles Sherrod was a civil rights activist. Mary Adelia McLeod was the first female bishop of an Episcopal diocese. Lucious Jackson played basketball for the Philadelphia 76ers. James McDivitt was an astronaut who flew on Gemini 4 and Apollo 9. Jan Rabson was a voice actor who played the role of Leisure Suit Larry, among many others. Robbie Coltrane was an actor who got a lot of attention as Hagrid in the Harry Potter movies. Noel Duggan was an Irish musician who was part of Clannad (and was, by the way, Enya’s uncle). Benjamin Civiletti was Jimmy Carter’s last attorney general. Alan Halsey was a poet who managed The Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye for 18 years. Carmen Callil co-founded the magazine Spare Rib and founded Virago Press, which publishes feminist works, including books by such authors as Margaret Atwood, Adrienne Rich, and Naomi Wolf.


You can’t possibly need me to tell you who Angela Lansbury was. She was such an iconic actress, whose career spanned film, stage (5 Tony awards, plus a special one for lifetime achievement!), and television. This Interview with the New York Times was recorded in 2010, under the condition that it not be released until after her death.

Bruce Sutter was a relief pitcher for the Saint Louis Cardinals. He was the first pitcher to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame without having ever started a game. He was also a pioneer of the split-finger fastball. Overall, he was one of those rare players who actually changed the sport.


Family Death Watch: I recently learned that my distant cousin, Aharon Schwartzbard, died in August of 2021. I’d never met him in person but we were connected on FaceBook. I guess it’s another reminder that I’m part of the older generation.


Faraday Prize Lecture: The Royal Society gives out the annual Faraday Prize to a scientist who excels in communicating to the general public. The winner gives a public lecture, which was available on-line. This year’s went to neuroscientist Professor Sophie Scott, whose lecture was titled Funny, peculiar? The Science of Laughter. Here are a few of the highlights:

  • She talked a lot about laughter in other animals, including apes and rats (who, apparently enjoy being tickled. Who knew?)
  • Laughter is associated with play. All animals play when juvenile.
  • In terms of the rib cage, laughter is prioritized over breathing, so laughter is literally trying to kill you.
  • Contagious laughter is a learned behavior and may be unique to humans. You are 30 times more likely to laugh if other people are around.
  • We all laugh more than we think we do. (As someone who laughs a lot, I find this slightly frightening.)
  • Laughter serves to de-stress situations.
  • There are no convincing examples of humor in wild animals, though they do laugh.
  • Humans are th only animals that produce emotional tears.


Overall, this was a fascinating and entertaining lecture. You can find a recording of it here


Book Club: My book club met Wednesday night and we talked about The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Overall, pretty much everybody liked the book and we had a good conversation about whether or not we’d want to have a similar experience of seeing how things would have turned out had we made other choices in the past. I admit to some curiosity about some decisions I made, but I don’t have regrets associated with them.


Storytelling: The Musical: On Thursday night, I watched Better Said Than Done’s virtual storytelling show. Storytelling: The Musical. The gimmick was that each of the six tellers had (primarily original) songs interspersed in their stories. Ed Stivender’s material was largely excerpted from his show (and book), Raised Catholic, Can You Tell? It was entertaining, but felt a little bit long. Gwendolyn Napier told a story about taking herself out to dinner and meeting a man who she fell in love with. Norm Brecke did songs based on “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” and “The Three Little Pigs.” Lona Bartlett told about the songs she sang to her children and the struggle to find ones that weren’t full of death. Alton Chung talked about a community theatre production of Into the Woods. Saving the best for last, Anne Rutherford had a very funny version of The Princess and the Pea, somewhat along the lines of Once Upon a Mattress. All in all, it was a fun show.


Jonathan Richman: It is apparently Bostonian month at the Lincoln Theatre in D.C. I went to see Jonathan Richman on Friday night and will be seeing the Dropkick Murphys next week. Because it was open seating, I made a point of getting there early (after grabbing a quick bowl of vegan chili at Ben’s Chili Bowl, which is an iconic DC place) and ended up having a great, far-ranging conversation with a couple of other people who were there early. As usual, Jonathan was brilliant. He did several songs that drew on works by Rumi, including “He Gave Us the Wine to Taste.” There was a great mix of old and new, ranging from “That Summer Feeling” and “Dancing at the Lesbian Bar” (which had everybody singing along - and wishing we could dance along) to “Everybody Loves Dolly,” “People Are Shameless,” and an instrumental piece called “Guitar in Orange, Drums in Pale Purple.” I was particularly pleased to hear “The Fenway,” which I hadn’t heard in ages. And everyone enjoyed singing along to “Cold Pizza.” All in all, a great show, full of child-like sincerity and laughter.


Once On This Island: On Saturday afternoon, I went to see the Constellation Theatre Company’s production of Once On This Island at the Source Theatre. While I do own the original cast recording of this musical, I hadn’t listened to it in a long time and I admit I didn’t really know much about the show. I was very pleasantly surprised. The basic plot involves a French Caribbean island that is divided into two worlds, primarily along racial lines. A poor peasant girl rescues a member of the rich beauxhommes after he crashes his car and decides her fate is to save him. She offers her life to the god of death, in exchange for his. Throughout, the gods influence what happens, for better or worse. The story is interesting and the music is effective in moving it along and telling the audience how the characters feel. I was hooked right from the beginning, with the Afro-Caribbean beats of “We Dance.” I will definitely be listening to the cast recording more often!

After the show, we stopped by Ice Cream Jubilee, where I had a scoop of their maple rye pecan ice cream. I got home in time to eat a somewhat healthier supper and go to the monthly Voices in the Glen story swap, where I inflicted my seasonal story “Lyle and the Ghost” on my friends.


And now I am pretty much caught up.
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Last week, one of my friends commented that I was the busiest retired person he knew. I do a lot of things, but I also waste a lot of time and am kind of annoyed with myself over how much stuff I have not been getting done. I definitely need to spend more time on housework. And I need to cook real food and get more exercise. Sitting down to write this catch-up is at least something I can check off my to-do list, which is back up around CVS-receipt length.

Celebrity Death Watch: David Foreman was an environmental extremist who co-founded Earth First! Hilary Mantel wrote historical fiction about Oliver Cromwell, including Wolf Hall. Louise Fletcher was an actress who was most famous for playing Nurse Ratched in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Rita Gardner was an actress who originated the role of Luisa in The Fantasticks. Pharaoh Sanders was a jazz saxophonist. James Florio was the governor of New Jersey in the early 1990’s (and in the U.S. House of Representatives before that). Coolio was a rapper. Stephanie Dabney was a ballerina with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and was particularly famous for performing the role of The Firebird. Jim Lisbet wrote mysteries and poetry. Bill PLante was a long time senior White House correspondent for CBS News. Sachsen Littlefeather rejected an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando. Audrey Evans cofounded the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Hector Lopez played baseball and went on to become the first black manager of a AAA minor league team. Al Primo created Eyewitness News. Tiffany Jackson was a basketball player whose career included three WNBA teams and 7 years with Maccabi Ashdod in Israel. Charles Fuller was a playwright, best known for A Soldier’s Play. Peter Robinson wrote detective novels. Lenny Lipton wrote the lyrics to “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” Judy Tenuta was a comedian. Jody Miller was a country singer whose signature song was “Queen of the House,” the comeback to Roger Miller’s “King of the Road.” Ivy Jo Hunter was a Motown songwriter, notable for cowriting “Dancing in the Streets” with Marvin Gaye and Mickey Stevenson. Robert I. Toll cofounded the housing developers Toll Brothers. Grace Gluck was an arts journalist.


Kevin Locke was a Lakota storyteller, flautist, and hoop dancer. He received a number of awards (primarily for music) and was a significant keeper of traditional culture.

Loretta Lynn was a country singer-songwriter and the subject of the movie Coal MIner’s Daughter. She won three Grammy awards.


LJ/DW Death Watch: I learned the other day that Howard Stateman, known on LiveJournal and Dreamwidth as howeird, died last week. He’d had numerous health issues recently and had had surgery in September, so it is not entirely surprising. I assume his sisters will be sorting out his estate. I hope his cat, Spook, and his aquarium fish are being well cared for.

Baseball: While I am on the subject of death, the New York Mets had been my one bright spot in a bleak baseball year. I will spend the post-season cheering for my second favorite team, namely whoever is playing the Yankees. (At the moment, that is the Guardians, who also have the plus of being managed by Terry “Tito” Francona, who led my BoSox to their 2004 and 2007 World Series titles.)

Yom Kippur: Yom Kippur was Wednesday. I did zoom services again, which is not really satisfying. But it did let me sleep later. I did fast, but, overall, I was not very into it this year.

Spaghetti and Matzoh Balls: This is a short film by Rena Strober, which I saw via an on-line screening from the Union for Reform Judaism, with a talk-back afterwards. The short version of the story is that she used to sing at a restaurant in New York called Rao’s. It was a mob hangout and one night one guy objected to her singing and someone else shot and killed him. This ended up in her reconnecting to some aspects of her Jewish upbringing. She wrote and performed a one-person show about this. The movie is based on but not identical to this. It’s an interesting story, with a lot of warmth and a surprising amount of humor, and I’m glad I saw it.

Thursday: Thursday was a completely insane day for me. I had my Global Entry renewal interview in the morning. It took me 45 minutes or so each way on the Metro to get downtown to the Reagan Building, but the actual interview took about 5 minutes. Anyway, I got the acceptance email less than an hour after I got home, even though they told me it would take up to 72 hours. I should get the new card in the mail within a week or two.

My Grimm discussion group is normally on Wednesdays, but moved to Thursday because of Yom Kippur. This session was about the Gold Children, which is an amalgamation of various folk tale tropes. We had an interesting discussion, particularly regarding the ability of children made completely out of gold to move around perfectly normally. As I pointed out, gold is pretty malleable.

That was followed immediately by another zoom meeting. That one was training for the Capital Jewish Food Festival, where I was volunteering on Sunday.

And, then, in the evening I went with my friend Cindy to see Ichabod at Creative Cauldron. We had dinner beforehand at Pizzeria Orso, which is right up the street. The mushroom and olive pizza was good. Their pizza crust is excellent. I also had tiramisu gelato for dessert.

Ichabod: This was a new musical, obviously based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Matthew Conner had a previous attempt at musicalizing this story, but The Hollow, which I saw at Signature Theatre in 2011 was a failure. This reworking (with book by Stephen Gregory Smith) was better, but I still didn’t care much for most of the music. It stuck fairly closely to what I remember of the story, but the music was meh. I might have liked the opening number (“Invocation”) but neither of us could understand the lyrics. I did like two songs - “Clippety, Cloppety” (in which Bram Bones tells the story of the headless horseman) and “Midnight Ride” (which tells the part where Ichabod Crane disappears). But I didn’t think the more romantic pieces worked particularly well. The performers were fine - especially Colum Goelbacker as Ichabod and Bobby Libby as Brom, but the whole thing just didn’t work well for me. I’d have more to say, but they don’t have printed programs and I accidentally deleted the electronic one. I tried to find a link to it on their website but failed. Grr.

Guys and Dolls: As you may have heard me say before, I consider Guys and Dolls to be the best musical of all time. It’s got a witty book, great music, and lively choreography. There was a production of it at the Kennedy Center, as part of the Broadway Center Stage series, which I saw on Friday night. While this was a scaled down production, the cast was, decidedly not scaled down. James Monroe Iglehardt, who played Nathan Detroit, has made numerous Broadway appearances, including winning a Tony for playing the Genie in Aladdin. Jessie Mueller, who played Miss Adelaide, won a Tony for playing Carole King in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, as well as originating the role of Jenna in Waitress (among other Broadway roles). Sky Masterson was played by Steven Pasquale who was in the recent CSC production of Assassins. And Sarah Brown was played by Philip Soo, who is most famous for playing Eliza Schuyler in Hamilton. By the way, Pasquale and Soo are married in real life, so it’s particularly nice seeing the chemistry between them. The most unconventional bit of casting was Rachel Dratch (of SNL fame and who I recently saw in POTUS) as Big Jule. I want to note the choreography for “Luck Be a Lady Tonight,” in particular, which was exciting and impressive. Anyway, it was an extremely enjoyable evening. And, by the way, the Kennedy Center has actual printed programs available. This is a very limited run (10 performances only), so if you want to see it, get your tickets now for this coming weekend.

By the way, I had dinner before the show at Bandoola Bowl, a new Burmese place in Western Market (a food hall in Foggy Bottom). I got a ginger salad with tofu and lemon dressing, which was absolutely delicious. I will definitely eat there again. Also, the weather was particularly nice, making for an especially enjoyable walk over to the KenCen.

Capital Jewish Food Festival: As I mentioned above, I volunteered at this festival on Sunday. It was the first time they were doing it and things were a bit chaotic. I was assigned to check IDs and give out wristbands (green for over 21, blue otherwise). I was on the first shift (10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.) and we pretty much ran out of green wristbands. In retrospect, it would have made sense to have wristbands only for people who were over 21. Volunteers got t-shirts and 3 tasting tickets. By the time my shift finished, several of the vendors had run out of the tasting samples, though there was still plenty of food for sale at most of the vendors. I did get samples of things like bagel chips with lox spread (and a salmon salad from another vendor. I’ve forgotten what my third sample was.) And I bought a turkey sandwich with cole slaw from Corned Beef King for lunch. Anyway, it was definitely crossed so I’d say the event was a success. Also, Michael Twitty gave an interesting talk. One disappointment was that there were only a few kosher-certified vendors.

Murder Mystery Weekend: No, I haven’t gone to one, but I’ve sort of decided I’d like to. I see a few companies that run them but, if anyone I know has done one, I’d love recommendations. Ideally, the venue should be either academic or country house / hotel (not urban). It should be friendly for a single attendee, since none of my friends are likely to want to go along for this. I’m looking for a weekend (Friday night through Sunday brunch looks typical). And I’d like it to be in (in order of preference) Ireland, the UK, or southern U.S.

Any suggestions?
fauxklore: (Default)
I am, as usual, behind on everything. Sigh.

Celebrity Death Watch: Marilyn Loden coined the term “glass ceiling.” Lamont Dozier wrote and/or produced a lot of Motown hits. Darryl Hunt played bass guitar for The Pogues. Olivia Newton-John was a singer and actress. Raymond Briggs wrote and illustrated British children’s books. Richard Caruso founded Integra LifeSciences, a successful manufacturer of artificial skin. Robyn Griggs acted in soap operas as a young adult. David Kay led American weapons inspection efforts in Iraq. Clayton Jacobson II developed the jet ski. John Wockenfuss played baseball, primarily for the Detroit Tigers. Tom Weisskopf was a golfer who won several PGA championships own the 1970’s. Jerry Allison was the drummer for The Crickets and wrote several songs, including “That’ll Be the Day” and “Peggy Sue.” Esther Cooper Jackson was a civil rights activist. Len Dawson was a football player, primarily for the Kansas City Chiefs. Kurt Gottfried cofounded the Union of Concerned Scientists. Roland Messier was the White House executive pastry chef from 1980 to 2004. Robert LuPone originated the role of Zach in A Chorus Line on Broadway and co-founded the MCC Theater, but was never as well known as his sister, Patti. Peter Eckersley was a cyber security activist. Frank Drake was an astronomer. Peter Straub wrote horror novels. Moon Landrieu was the mayor of New Orleans for most of the 1970’s. Earl J. Silbert was the first prosecutor in the Watergate case. Tina Ramirez founded Ballet Hispanico. Bernard Shaw was the lead news anchor for CNN for over 20 years. Rommy Hunt Revson invented the scrunchie. Lance Mackey was a four-time Iditarod champion. James Polshek was an architect, whose work included the Clinton Presidential Center and the Newseum. Lowry Mars co-founded Clear Channel Communications. Ramsey Lewis was a jazz pianist and composer. Ken Starr was a lawyer, probably best known for writing the Starr Report which led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Roxanne Lowit was a fashion photographer. Jean-Luc Goddard was a film director. Fred Franzia made cheap wine. Irene Pappas was an actress, probably best known for playing the widow in the film version of Zorba the Greek. Liam Holden was the last person sentenced to death in the UK, though his sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment and his conviction was overturned later in response to revelations about the torture used to extract his confession to killing a British soldier in Northern Ireland. Brian Binnie was one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, built by Scaled Composites. Nick Holonyak invented the red LED.


Norah Vincent died in early July, but her death was not publicly announced until mid-August. She was most famous for her book Salf-Made Man, in which she described her experiences living as a man for 18 months.

David McCullough was a historian. He won the Pulitzer prize for his books about Harry S Truman and John Adams.

Marc Lapadula taught film studies at Yale University. He also lectured as part of One Day University and I’d been to a couple of his lectures about significant American movies.

Anne Heche was an actress who died in a rather spectacular traffic accident. She was probably at least as well known for her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres. I was able to use one of my ghoul pool trades for her, so she earned me 32 points (including the 12 point uniqueness bonus, which really only worked due to some convenient timing on the trade).

Barry Boehm was the founding director of the Center for Systems and Software Engineeringg at USC. He was something of a fixture in software engineering and systems engineering circles, and did important work on cost modeling, models for software development, and systems engineering processes. I scribbled down various words of wisdom from him at numerous conferences over the years, including, “the standards have been tailored so much that the suit has become a vest.”

Lily Renee was a comic book artist. She escaped from Nazi-occupied Austria to England as a teenager, before coming to the United States and becoming one of the first women in the comics industry. She was also the subject of a book by Trina Robbins which revived interest in her career. She earned me 25 ghoul pool points, which includes the 12 point uniqueness bonus.

I hope you don’t really need me to tell you who Mikhail Gorbachev was. He presided over the break-up of the Soviet Union peacefully and got the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

Barbara Ehrenreich was a nonfiction writer, specializing in social issues. Her most famous book was Nickel and Dimed, which discusses trying to live on minimum wage jobs. I have been hearing the term “toxic positivity” quite a lot lately and a lot of her writing touches on that subject.

Marsha Hunt was pretty much the last actress of her generation left when she died at age 104. Her career was cut short by McCarthyism, leading her to become an activist. She earned me 14 ghoul pool points.

You really really don’t need me to tell you who Queen Elizabeth II was. For people of my generation, she was the one British monarch throughout our lives. I think the most interesting thing about her was her World War II service as a driver and mechanic. Whatever one might think of the monarchy, she fulfilled her role with dignity and grace. She earned me 20 ghoul pool points.

Non-Celebrity Death Watch: I only learned a week or so ago that Mort Rau died at the end of July. I knew him as spaceman on flyer talk and got to spend time with him at a few FT events, including OzFest. We had a mutual professional interest in space systems so had plenty to talk about. He was a nice guy and I’m sorry to see him join the ranks of FTers who’ve flown off into the sunset.

Baseball: I know the season isn’t actually over, but the Mets are the only team I follow who are still in it. The Nats were particularly pathetic, even worse than the Royals. (I follow the Royals because a guy from my home town used to pitch for them.) And I can’t even think about my Red Sox without distress, though they haven’t actually been eliminated from the wild card race yet.

National Book Festival: I spent the afternoon of September 3rd volunteering at the National Book Festival. They were a bit disorganized this year, sending out the info for the zoom training sessions rather last minute. And I got my email with my volunteer assignment early in the morning the day before the festival. That assignment turned out to be program distribution. I was stationed at the L Street South entrance to the Convention Center. People were surprisingly enthusiastic in their gratitude for being handed a program. Some people (mostly men) were astonished that the program was free. (As was the entire festival.) I was mostly able to direct people to where they wanted to go, but I did misdirect one person (in fact, one of my neighbors!) because it was still early and I had forgotten that, for some ungodly reason, the convention center map has north on the left. Standing for 5 hours was tiring, but I’m still glad I did it and I’ll do it again in future years, schedule permitting.

My Birthday / Storytelling Workshop: I’d had an early birthday celebration on the Friday night before my birthday, in the form of going out to my favorite Thai restaurant (Elephant Jumps in Falls Church) with a friend. Then on Sunday September 4th, I turned 64. I celebrated by going to a storytelling workshop (over zoom), having to do with tall tales and liars’ contests. Bi Lepp was the perfect person to lead this and it was a fun afternoon.

Getting Rid of Books: I made a used bookstore run on Friday the 9th, getting rid of 59 books and bringing home only 13 with my trade credit. (I still have 30 odd dollars of trade credit, however.) The next day I drove to Baltimore and donated 77 books to The Book Thing. There are still too many books in my house.

JGSGW: Tyler Ainbinder gave a very interesting talk about Jewish Immigrants in Urban America. He talked about several things that I hadn’t already known. For example, the Statue of Liberty was funded by French radicals who were protesting the monarchy. 1 in 100 immigrants were turned away at Ellis Island, generally for health reasons. When you see pictures of people climbing the stairs to the hall, that was a test to make sure their lungs and legs were healthy. One thing that struck most of us as weird was that immigrants had to answer that they did not have a job that they were going to. This was because of a concern that they would have accepted low pay, which would take jobs away from people already in America. I’ll take Things I Wouldn’t Have Imagined for $600, Alex.

The Usual: My usual routine includes lots of other things over zoom. I have a once a month session on Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) research discussion with JGSGW, for which I am the primary Subject Matter Expert. I go to a crafts group on Thursdays, which provides for time to work on projects (an on-going cross-stitch in my case) and good conversation, always including books. The discussion group on Grimm’s Fairy Tales started up again with “The Handless Maiden,” a story that poses a number of difficulties. And I play games (mostly Code Names) with friends several nights a week. As I like to say, I am retired from work, not from life.

FT Dinner: I had dinner a week ago with a couple of Flyertalk people at Farmers Fishers Bakers in Georgetown. The restaurant is at Washington Harbor, which is always a bit of a pain in the neck since, while it isn’t terribly far from the Foggy Bottom metro station, part of the route is rather pedestrian unfriendly. Anyway, I had a nice cocktail called a Southside, which had gin, lemon, mint, and clementine bitters. My seared tuna was just okay, as it was a little overcooked. I also had coffee ice cream for dessert, which was fine. The service was so-so, which is my usual experience at Founding Farmers affiliated restaurants. But the conversation (primarily about travel) was good and that’s the important thing.

No Place To Go: I saw this musical at Signature Theatre this past Thursday. It was written in 2012 and is somewhat dated given the rise in remote work, but the premise is that an “information refiner,” who is a “permanent part-time worker” has to decide whether or not to relocate when his employer announces they are moving - to Mars. It’s reasonably amusing and the music (played by a three-man band) was enjoyable. I was particularly impressed by Ben Boker, who played the saxophone at the performance I was at. But the whole thing works largely because Bobby Smith, who is well-known to all regular Signature attendees, is excellent. There are some ver funny moments, such as the song “Aging Middle Class Parents,” in which he considers moving in with his (or his wife’s) parents as a way to avoid moving. There’s also a running joke in which the last sandwich left in the conference room cries out to be eaten. There’s also a poignant song, “The Mighty Mench [sic],” which tells the story of a former employee who died. The key message is that people get more out of work than just a paycheck. Overall, this isn’t essential, but it was an enjoyable hour and a half.

The Color Purple: I was back at Signature on Saturday afternoon to see their production of The Color Purple. I’ve seen this show before (a touring production st the Kennedy Center) and thought it was just okay. But Signature made it outstanding, largely due to some excellent performances. I knew I was in for a treat when I saw that Nova Payton, one of the best actresses in the DC area, was starring as Celie. I was also very impressed by French Davis as Sofia and Danielle J. Summons as Shug Avery. There was also great choreography - especially for the song “African Homeland.” There are major holes in the book. I find Mister’s reformation completely impossible to believe, for example. But the show was both entertaining and moving. This type of performance is why I’m a long-time subscriber to Signature Theatre.

Story Swap: We had the monthly Voices in the Glen story swap on Saturday night. People are gearing up for Halloween. Myself included, as I did my first telling of a Russian folk tale (The Coffin Lid) that is, essentially, a vampire story. I also particularly enjoyed hearing a few stories from The Devil’s Storybook by Natalie Babbitt.

Bernstein’s MASS: On Sunday, a friend and I went to see Leonard Bernstein’s MASS at the Kennedy Center. This was commissioned by Jackie Kennedy for the opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971. Before the performance, we had lunch at the KC Cafe (overpriced and unexciting, but convenient) and checked out the new exhibit about JFK in the Gallery on the Terrace level.

As for the theatrical work (and it is theatrical, incorporating dance with the wide ranging music), it is very much a product of its turbulent times, which actually makes it relevant in these turbulent times. I’d only heard excerpts before, so was not entirely prepared for the complexity of the complete piece. I was glad for the supertitles (which translated the gist of the Latin mass portions, as well as English texts, which were sung clearly enough that I didn’t need the supertitles for them for the most part). Will Liverman gave an excellent performance as the Celebrant, which is a demanding role, given the emotional intensity of the piece, especially the Fraction. James Gaffigan conducted the orchestra and was less showy than some other conductors I’ve seen over the years (including Leonard Bernstein himself). I’d say my favorite section is the Credo, in which various members of the congregation sing about their conflicting beliefs. I’ll also note that the most memorable lyric is “half of the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election; half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction,” which was a gift from Paul Simon to Bernstein. (The primary lyricist was Stephen Schwartz.) At any rate, this was definitely worth seeing and it made me feel privileged to have access to the cultural life here.

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