fauxklore

Don’t Analyze This Dream: I was sharing a condo with the friends I play Codenames with several times a week. For some reason, one of them had set up some sort of puzzle / game / competition in the public areas of the condo (i.e. everywhere except the bedrooms and bathrooms). This involved various figurines and plushies, e.g. a ceramic snake with a tiny little Winnie the Pooh nest to it. One of these arrangements had a note suggesting that the contest would start in April.

The Devil’s Tree: There is consensus among my friends that the particular source of the vast clouds of pollen irritating all of us right now is that insidious monstrosity known as the Bradford Pear. These invasive trees are pure evil for other reasons - crowding out native plants, creating vast thickets of thorns, hosting non-native insects, and having weak branches prone to breaking off and obstructing paths and roads. But their greatest evil is their insistence on having sex outdoors, releasing highly allergenic pollen which, not coincidentally, smells like semen. Oddly, almost all of us who are allergic to this substance find it especially troublesome in our left eyes. Nobody has been able to explain this particular phenomenon. Weird but true.

Purim: Among the things I didn’t get around to writing about was Purim, which fell on Saint Patrick’s Day this year, leading to two excuses for drunkenness. (One of the things we do on Purim is get so drunk we can’t tell Haman - the villain - from Mordechai, the hero.) I actually limited myself to a couple of shots of amarula. I did also tune in to a virtual Purim Party but on by Jewish Gen, with a genealogy themed game of Family Feud, which featured a lot of confusion over the actual rules of the game. Even more fun was the Purim Cabaret put on by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, hosted by the always adorable Adam B. Shapiro and with a wide range of Yiddish songs and skits, plus the recipe for a special cocktail, the Hava Tequila, which is essentially a Tequila Sunrise with Manischevitz wine instead of grenadine.

Written in Stone: This is a set of four operas which I saw at the Kennedy Center last Monday. The first one was Chantal by Alicia Hall Moran and Jason Moran. That had to do with a surveyor assessing the condition of a monument and reflecting on what monuments are. I have to admit that this piece didn’t work at all for me. The libretto felt repetitive and I didn't care for the music.

The second opera was Rise with music by Kamala Sankaram and Libretto by A.M. Homes. The story involves a young girl who gets lost in the Capital Rotunda. There’s some humor as she searches for a bathroom and is aided by a powerful woman who is more interested in showing her the sites than addressing that need. After that situation is resolved, she reflects on the lack of any statues that resemble her, which leads, eventually, to the Portrait Monument of three women involved in the fight for women’s suffrage.

The third opera was, by far, my favorite. it all falls down has music by Carlos Simon and a libretto by Marc Bamuthi Joseph. I loved the music and I thought the story of a young man, slated to take over leadership of a black church from his father, who reveals that he is gay, resulting in division between the church members (including his father) and culminating in the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage was interesting and thoughtful.

The final piece was The Rift with music by Huang Ruo and libretto by David Henry Hwang, who is, of course, famous for his plays, including M. Butterfly. This had to do with the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial and the controversies about its design. I thought it was most effective when it dealt with the effect of the finished monument on visitors to it. Including Robert McNamara as a character (as well as architect and monument designer Maya Lin) was also interesting. But I wasn’t crazy about most of the music.

Overall, this wasn’t particularly my sort of thing, but I was glad I saw it and I would look out for other work by Carlos Simon.

Michael Tilson Thomas: I was back at the Kennedy Center on Friday night to see Michael Tilson Thomas conduct the National Symphony Orchestra. I think I’d only seen him conduct the orchestra for the San Francisco Ballet previously, and I particularly enjoyed his introductions to the three pieces the orchestra performed. Those were interesting and informative and I felt that they really enhanced the performances for me.

First up was Angels by Carl Ruggles. This is a short piece (about 4 minutes long) and MTT talked about Ruggles, who was not a likeable man and about angels more generally. He pointed out that classical paintings show hell at the bottom and heaven, with angels, at the top, with musicians at all levels. However, the musicians at the top have the most pained expressions because they have discovered that G-d likes dissonance. And, indeed, the piece was fairly dissonant, but still interesting.

The second piece was MTT’s own composition, Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind. This is based on a poem by Carl Sandburg, which MTT described as “a honky-tonk Ozyymandias. He read the poem during his introduction. There were also supertitles for the parts of the composition during which the poem was sung. And those were interesting for the use of fonts to enhance the words. I found this piece enthralling.

The final piece was the most familiar one - Aaron Copeland’s Appalachian Spring. Even here, there was something new, as MTT included a section that is usually omitted, in which a fire and brimstone preacher appears to caution a young couple about what lies ahead for them. That section definitely put a different tone to the piece as it returns to the variations on the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts.

All in all, this was a wonderful evening of American music and was definitely worth going to.

Crafts Fair: On Saturday, I went to the Capital Arts and Crafts Festival at the Dulles Expo Center with two friends. They were both designated as shopping discouragers and the only non-consumable I bought was a pin, which I insist was to honor the memory of Madeline Albright. I also bought some chocolate and some honey. And it was fun browsing and discussing potential purchases with both of them.

Still to Come: I still need to write up the Women’s Storytelling Festival and my trip to Boston (which was in between the two visits to the Kennedy Center). And I am behind on various other things.

Celebrity Death Watch: Jonathan Bush was a banker and the brother of George H.W. Bush. Paul Van Doren co-founded Vans. Leigh Perkins expanded Orris into a major mail order retailer, mostly of fishing and outdoors gear. Spencer Silver co-invented Post-it Notes. Pete duPont served two terms as governor of Delaware. Art Gensler founded the world’s largest architectural firm, whose work included the terminals at San Francisco International Airport. Lester Wolff was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Long Island. Norman Lloyd was an actor and notable for continuing to work until he was 100 years old. (He was 106 when he died.) Jim Klobuchar was a journalist and father of Amy. Richard Rubinstein was a rabbi who defended the Moonies on the grounds of anti-Communism. Patsy Bruce wrote country songs, such as “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.” Terence Riley was the chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art. Douglass Mossman was an actor, best known for appearing in Hawaii Five-O. Charles Grodin was a prolific actor, comedian, and talk show host. Paul Mooney was a comedian. and wrote for a number of other black comedians. Alex Dobkin was a folk singer. Roman Kent was the president of the International Auschwitz Committee. Dewayne Blackwell wrote “Friends in Low Places,” among other songs. Samuel E. Wright voiced Sebastian in Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Anna Halprin was a post-modern choreographer. Jerome Hellman was a film producer who won an Oscar for Midnight Cowboy. Mary Beth Edelson was one of the first generation of feminist artists and is best known for “Some Living American Women Artists / Last Supper.”

Eric Carle wrote and illustrated The Very Hungry Caterpillar and several other children’s books. He is also notable for founding a museum of picture book art. Another author/illustrator of children’s books, Lois Ehlers, best known for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom died a couple of days later.

John Warner spent 30 years as a Republican senator from Virginia and had earlier been the Secretary of the Navy. He was also Elizabeth Taylor’s sixth husband. Despite having been a Republican, in more recent years, he endorsed a number of Democrats, both for the Senate and the Presidency.

B. J. Thomas was a pop singer. Some of the songs he was well-known for include “Hooked on a Feeling,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” “I Just Can’t Help Believing,” and “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song.”

Gavin McLeod played Murray on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and was the captain on The Love Boat.

I don’t normally mention animal deaths, but Bo, the Obama family dog, was prominent enough that I think he deserves a note. I don’t think many Americans had heard of a Portuguese water dog, a supposedly hypo-allergenic breed, before the Obamas got him for their daughters.

Errata: I made a minor addition to the Island Hopping entry. I had completely neglected Jones Beach. And Fire Island, which I might have gone to.

Cool Baseball Trivia: On Friday May 21st, Seattle back-up catcher Jose Godoy made his major league debut, becoming the 20,000th player in major league baseball history. (The Mariners got slaughtered by the Padres, however, losing 16-1.)

Blight Flight: I watched this short play by Iyona Blake on-line a couple of weeks ago. I know her work primarily as a singer and actor, who has made numerous appearances at Signature Theatre and Creative Cauldron. The play involves a white woman trying to befriend the black woman being forced out of the house next door by rising prices in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. The black woman makes her question her assumptions, but the two connect at the end via a song. It was a challenging story and I’d like to see it developed into a full-length production mostly because I was left with a lot of questions about both women.

Don’t Analyze This Dream: I drove into the German embassy - literally, into the building. I pulled up next to a guard who told me to get out of the car and then took my temperature with a forehead thermometer. Another guard came over, walked around me, shook his head, but did not tell me what to do or where to go. At that point, three women came in, one of whom resembles someone I slightly know. They were given some papers by another guard and went into a door. I waited a while, all of the guards wandered away, and I decided I should go through that same door. The three women were gone. Just outside the door, I saw a small table with stacks of vaccination certificates. I walked over to a window where a guy told me I didn’t have to do anything but take a seat at a table and wait. He also invited me to an upcoming Valentine’s Day party at the embassy. While I was waiting, someone said they had gotten the number 30, which seemed to be a bad thing. The three women came back in, carrying clipboards with yellow papers. I don’t remember anything happening after that point.

This Way Lies Madness: I finally achieved Queen Bee in the New York Times Spelling Bee (a daily word puzzle). Not just once, but every day for a week or so and several times since. I have decided, however, that pursuing that every day is just too obsessive, especially on days when there are 60+ words to find. I did admittedly do it today, but there were only 39 words.

Retirement Gift: I got the retirement gift catalog from Circle-A and chose an iPad. The other possibility was an Apple watch, but I have really small wrists and thought I would find it awkward. It came on Friday but I haven’t set it up yet. I think the current offerings (which also include things like cookware and jewelry),are better than what people years ago complained about. Twenty some odd years ago,, they gave out mostly clocks, with only an engraved bowl as a non-time oriented option.

Art Fair: I went to the Old Town Art Fair in Alexandria a couple of weeks ago. I attempted to find someone to come along to be a shopping discourager, but none of my friends were interested and available. As a result, I bought a few things - a robot sculpture from Cheri Kudzu’s Bitti Bots, a brooch made from watch parts, and a book called Goodbye, Penguins, which has a rather Gorey-esque sensibility. I like some works of urban surrealism by a guy named Ralph Rankin, but he was horribly rude to me when I asked for his card, so I will never buy anything from him.

Renwick Gallery: I went to the Renwick Gallery a week and a half ago with one of the women from my crafts group. Mostly, we went to look at the Renwick Invitational, which had installations from four artists. Rowland Ricketts had a large piece made of squares of indigo-dyed fabric. He apparently grows the indigo himself. That installation also had music in the background. Lauren Fensterstock’s piece was titled “The totality of time lusters the dusk.” It was a complex mosaic piece made of glass, crystals, beads, paper, hematite, etc. and, while I thought it was interesting, it was too hard to see the whole thing at some time. Debora Moore had several pieces that involved glass flower petals blown directly onto wood and concrete bases. Finally, Timothy Horn had large pieces based on historic jewelry, as well as an interesting carriage made out of rock sugar. After looking at that exhibit, we went upstairs to look at the permanent exhibit. Janet Echelon’s 1.8 is one of the highlights, with a fiber netting that changes colors in response to lighting. My favorite, however, was Skeins by Mariska Karasz. Overall, it was a nice couple of hours.

Immigrant Food: After the museum, I had lunch at Immigrant Food, which is more or less around the corner. I had their equivalent of a banh mi, which was quite tasty. (The person I went with wanted to rush home, as she is caring for her husband who is in treatment for cancer.)

Good News: I got my blood tested a few days ago. And all of the numbers on the iron panel were within normal range. So I just need to continue taking oral supplements.

Crossposts: https://fauxklore.livejournal.com/491776.html

Celebrity Death Watch: Isamu Akasaki was a physicist who worked on LEDs. Tony Pola was the drummer for Beasts of Bourbon. Arthur Kopit was a playwright who wrote the book for the musical Nine and is best known for the play Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad. B.B. Dickerson played bass for Eric Burden and War. Simon Bainbridge was a composer who set poems by Primo Levi to music. Paul Ritter was an actor, best known for the tv series Friday Night Dinner. Joey Hummel ghost-wrote over 70 Wonder Woman comic books in the 1940’s. Hans Kueng was a theologian. Albee Hastings was a Congressman from Florida. Howard Weizmann was a lawyer with a lot of famous Hollywood clients. John Naisbitt was a futurologist, whose book Megatrends was on the New York Times bestseller list for two years. DMX was a rapper and earned me 19 ghoul pool points. Ramsey Clark was Attorney General of the U.S. under LBJ. Rusty Young was one of the lead members of Poco. Bernie Madoff made off with a lot of other people’s money. Felix Silla was best known for playing Cousin Itt on The Addams Family. Helen McCrory was a British actress. Barry Mason wrote the song “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” among other things. Charles Geschke co-founded Adobe. Black Rob and Shock G were rappers. Jim Steinman wrote, among other songs, “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Tempest Storm was a burlesque star. Idriss Deby was the president of Chad, whose assassination should have gotten more news coverage. Joe Long played bass for The Four Seasons. Dan Kaminsky was a computer security researcher. Billie Hayes played Mammy Yokum in the Broadway musical, Lil’ Abner, but is better known for playing Witchiepoo on H. R. Pufnstuf. Eli Broad made a lot of money as a real estate developer and became a philanthropist, expanding the arts in Los Angeles and funding the Broad Institute for medical research at MIT. Bobby Unser won the Indy 500 three times. Yitzhak Arad directed Yad Vashem (a Holocaust memorial / museum in Jerusalem) for 20 or so years. Lloyd Pe=rice was an R&B singer. Lucinda Franks was the first woman to win a Pulitzer for national reporting. Geoff Crowther wrote for Lonely Planet.

Frank Jacobs was one of that usual gang of idiots, i.e. a writer for Mad. In particular, he wrote a lot of song and poetry parodies.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was Queen Elizabeth II’s consort. He earned me 20 ghoul pool points.

Walter Mondale was Vice President under Jimmy Carter and lost the 1984 Presidential race.

Michael Collins flew the Apollo 11 command module, while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon.

Olympia Dukakis was an actress, best known for Moonstruck, as well as playing Anna Madrigal in Tales of the City.

Non-celebrity Death Watch: Marvin Moskowitz died of COVID-19 in January. He and I had dated briefly in the 1980’s in Los Angeles and reconnected on Facebook. I lost saw him a couple of years ago, when we went to the Museum of Jurassic Technology together during my layover in L.A. on the way to Tahiti. He almost certainly contracted the virus from unmasked people on public transit. I am furious.

Both Merrilee Palansch and her husband, Bob, died abut a week apart in January. She was a talented storyteller and he was a great supporter of her storytelling, as well as a musician in his own right. They also collaborated over 60 or so years of marriage in performances, activism, and raising their family.

I knew Michael Loo from flyer talk. We had dinner together during some of his trips to Washington, D.C. and mine to New York. He was kind and generous and a fine violist. I particularly admired his efforts to continue traveling over the years, despite health challenges.

I hope to experience less loss during the rest of the year.

Non-human Death Watch: Amphora in Vienna closed in mid-January. This was a huge family restaurant, open 24 hours a day, and was the place everyone here went to, often after something like a concert at Jammin’ Java. Their Herndon diner is still open, but is considerably less convenient for me.

Don’t Analyze This Dream: I was at an airport and panicking because I couldn’t find my mask. Then I discovered I had a white paper mask in my pocketbook, but I couldn’t figure out how to put it on.

Mental Health: A few weeks ago, I went to a William Barton Rogers Society talk that had to do with student mental health services at MIT. While the talk was generally encouraging, one of the speakers kept talking about “the stigma of mental health.” Er, I know that she meant the stigma of mental health treatment, but I still found that annoying.

Leading Jewish Minds at MIT: This is a series that has gone virtual, which lets me attend. Over the past months, I’ve been to a couple of talks. One was by Jay Kayser about Modernism. His chief argument was that there isn’t a common language for understanding modern arts and everything depends on Easter eggs. My opinion is that’s a lazy position. It may take more effort but it is still possible to understand, say, that the key word in the title of Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase” is “descending” and that makes the painting about motion.

This week, there was a talk by David Autor about “The Faltering Escalator of Urban Opportunity.” This really came out of a study on the future of work. His key point was that the jobs that exist now often did not exist in the past and that this has led to increased inequality.

Ahhhscars: My friend, Paul, and I have gone a few times to the California State Society Ahhhscars party, which is a nice excuse to get dressed up, dance, have fancy food and cocktails, and have photos taken with Oscars-themed props. This year it was virtual and started with a trivia contest. Fortunately, most of the questions were not about movies, though there was a picture round which had to do with vampire movies. It turns out that Paul was really good at identifying those. I have seen a lot of vampire movies but have a terrible visual memory, so was pretty useless. (I was better at the other sorts of questions). Anyway, we were on the winning team. (And the other team was the one that had a congressman on it.) As for the other activities, both of us failed to correctly predict the Best Picture winner. I did enjoy some of the snacks they sent (cheese popcorn, sparkling wine, Oscar-shaped cookies) and gave away others. An in-person party would, of course, have been more fun, but this was still fun.

New Garbage Disposal: I don’t think I mentioned that I finally got my garbage disposal replaced. I have learned that if you google what something should cost, you can expect to pay 2-3 times that amount. I am okay with that as I am not interested in doing much beyond changing lightbulbs myself. At any rate, the new one is remarkably quiet. Next big household project is probably getting the ceiling lamp in my bedroom replaced, largely as part of my quest to get rid of things that have unique lightbulbs.

Earworm: For some reason, Jonathan Richman's "Here Come the Martian Martians" popped into my head the other day. And I can't get rid of it. At least it's a song I like.