fauxklore

Celebrity Death Watch: Patricia Elliott won a Tony award for playing Countess Charlotte in A Little Night Music on Broadway. Lemmy Kilmister founded Motorhead. John "Brad" Bradbury was the drummer for the ska group, The Specials. Meadowlark Lemon was the most famous player for the Harlem Globetrotters

Dave Henderson played baseball. While he was only with the Red Sox for one season, he hit a critical home run in Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS, which kept the Sox in the running and let them, eventually, get to the World Series that year.

I want to especially highlight Scottish singer / songwriter Andy M. Stewart. Apparently, he had been quite ill for some time and was paralyzed after failed spinal surgery. At least he didn't have the galloping bollickitis. (Before you ask, it's a lyric reference.) Anyway, I saw him perform at least a couple of times with Silly Wizard, as well as during his later tours with Manus Lunny and Gerry O’Beirne. I loved both his voice and the wit of his songs. When I first heard "The Queen of Argyll" (on one of the Silly Wizard albums), I played it about a dozen times in a row. (I still think "the swan was in her movement" is a brilliant line.) I really need to go out to listen to Celtic music more.

Good For the Jews: This is a music / comedy duo who do a show every Christmas eve at Jammin’ Java. It makes a good outing for the NoVa Chavurah. I’d gone a couple of years ago and went again this year. They didn’t have a lot of new material, but there was some. And it was fun hearing some of their older stuff again, e.g. "They Tried to Kill Us, We Survived, Let’s Eat," "Going Down to Boca," "Reuben the Hook-Nosed Reindeer," etc. And there was a Steven Wright style Pesach joke I thought was brilliant. Some of the humor is a bit crude, but we are earthy folks after all.

The cutest thing was after the show when David (one of the guys in the duo) talked with a woman from our group he had sort of flirted with and sort of picked on during the show. It turned out that she thought her family might live near his, but he couldn’t remember the name of the development in Florida they’re in. So he called his mother – and then put our friend on the phone with Mom.

Afterwards, we went over to Amphora (a nearby diner) for desserts. (Or, I suppose, non-desserts, as some people got stuff like appetizers or breakfast items.) I realize they were very busy, but the service was truly atrocious. Slow is one thing, but forgetting to bring items (or bringing the wrong item) is another. And I have a particular dislike of waiters who auction off items.

Jewish Christmas: I did the traditional movie and Chinese food thing. For the movie, I chose Spotlight which was superb. I will say more about it when I do my quarterly movie review.

As for the Chinese food, that was a Chavurah dinner outing to East Chateau. Which is conveniently close to my place and has very good food, though the service is slow (and they also tend to auction off the food, which is a real problem when one person at the table can’t remember what she ordered). Still, there was good food and good conversation and that’s pretty much all one can hope for at this sort of thing.

The Rest of the Weekend: I had grand plans for achieving organizational nirvana. I did get rid of a few odds and ends. I got about halfway through the annual desk drawer clean out. And I actually read the entire Sunday Washington Post by the end of Sunday.

But there is much much more to go. Sigh.

I did a lot of entertaining things in the past week. I've already written about my trip to Niagara Falls last weekend. Here is a wrap-up of other things:

Amazing Race: None of the teams really pissed me off, though I did notice a lot of cluelessness, starting with nobody being able to pronounce "Accra" correctly (or "cedi" for that matter. The currency of Ghana is usually pronounced with a long "e" so it sounds like "CD.") I didn't care much for the sunglass sale challenge. It did strike me that nobody really caught on that bargaining is the norm in that sort of market and started out asking for a higher price. I was glad that they had the coffins as an option, since the fantasy coffins are one of the truly unusual things about Ghanaian culture. I was surprised to see them miss the other unusual thing as none of the businesses they went to had names with religious references. In the end, it seemed to come down largely to taxi drivers, which is disappointing but probably realistic.

The Social Network: Because of my bruised foot, I thought it best not to go to dance class on Tuesday night. I had a free movie ticket from a refund offer and used it to see The Social Network. My understanding is that the film exaggerated how much of a jerk Mark Zuckerberg is, but it makes a better story that way. At any rate, I thought the movie was very good, with some genuinely funny material.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo: The Trocks were at the Kennedy Center this week and I went Wednesday night. Burly men dancing en pointe always makes for an amusing evening. It works because they are good dancers, able to keep in control of the parody. But I will note that they are really doing pretty much the same shtick (e.g. "Swan Lake" with exaggerated pantomime) as they have been doing for some 30 odd years.

Elon Gold: I went to see Elon Gold's show "Half Jewish, Half Very Jewish" at Sixth & I Synagogue on Thursday night. I'd say he is funnier than Jackie Mason (who I admit I don't much care for) but not as funny as Avi Hoffman. Some of his jokes are rather dated. For example, he has a bit on the differences between Israelis and Jews which includes lines like "Israelis return fire. Jews return merchandise." He talks about his father teaching in the South Bronx. "What does he teach? Schvartzes." On the plus side, he had some very funny material about every rabbinic sermon, which he used in a routine about a rabbi doing stand-up comedy. And his demonstration of how his cantor can drag out "Baruch Ata ..." into 30 minutes was spot on.

Other stuff: We have an annual security orientation at work. They give us something for showing up (which is kind of odd, as going is mandatory). In the past, the gimmes have included things like flashlights and a beach bag. This year, it was a fleece blanket. Yes, I now own an official corporate security blanket.

This weekend: I have no plans. There's an Octoberfest party at my condo complex tomorrow night, but that is low pressure. I have already spent a lot of time catching up on reading and sleeping.