fauxklore | Entries tagged with ghoul pool

I am fairly sure this is the latest I have ever done a year in review. Let’s just say that I’ve been crazy busy. Anyway, here we go in the same format I’ve used for several years now.

The worst thing that happened in 2024 was the whole fiasco with the HVAC leak in late June / early July. Which turned out to be due to a blockage from a line in a unit above mine, so didn’t involve as much money as it might have, but it was still very stressful.

Beyond that, there was also some medical stuff. Having cataract surgery was actually a really good thing. It was quite miraculous the morning after the first eye was done when I could read titles of books across the bedroom without putting on my glasses. (The second eye also went well, but that was a less dramatic change.) The knee issues that I had later in the year were also a big deal. Let’s just say I have good days and I have bad days. Getting old sucks.

Books: I read only 36 books in 2024, which is pathetically few for me. That was 14 non-fiction books and 22 fiction books. Favorites were Sleeping With the Fishes by Mary Janice Davidson, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, Sounds Like Titanic by Jessica Chiccehotto Hindman, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, and a couple of Dick Francis mysteries. The worst book I read during the year was The Naked Face by Sidney Sheldon, a suspense novel full of racism and homophobia.

I didn’t manage any used bookstore runs over the year, though I did give away 4 books. I have at least 60 waiting to go out.

I belonged to three book clubs, one of which has disbanded.

As for book-related events, I went to the Moby Dick Marathon in San Francisco in October and even read one chapter (Chapter 8, The Pulpit).

Ghoul Pool: I finished 6th out of 14 players with a final score of 117 points. People I scored on were Jimmy Carter, Daniel J. Evans (unique), Shannon Doherty, Janis Paige, Jean Malaurie (unique), Bud Harrelson (unique), and Faith Ringgold (unique).

Travel: My only international trip of the year was to Portugal (Porto and Lisbon) and the Azores in May / June. But I had plenty of domestic travel. I went to New York City in late January / early February. Then to Salt Lake City in late February / early March for Roots Tech. The total solar eclipse took me to Bruceville, Texas (near Dallas) in April, including an Israeli dance camp. Also in April, I had an overnight trip to Richmond for the Virginia Storytelling Alliance gathering. In May I went to Colorado for RhinoStock (a memorial for a friend) and also had a quick trip to Indianapolis to go to a baseball game, which unfortunately got rained out. I flew back to Dallas in July for the National Puzzlers League con, adding on a train trip to Oklahoma City to go to a baseball game. In August, I went to a Jewish genealogy convention in Philadelphia, and added in a couple of days in New York City for Lollapuzzoola (and theatre going, of course). And in October, I made a quick trip to San Francisco for their Moby Dick Marathon.

Genealogy: I’ve continued mentoring members of my local Jewish genealogy society on Lithuanian Jewish genealogy. As I’ve probably mentioned before, when I was starting to do genealogy research, other people helped me, so I feel happy to be able to help other people.

In February, I went to Roots Tech, which is a large genealogy conference held annually in Salt Lake City. The most interesting thing there was the presentation on using DNA from an old envelope - amazing, but not ready for the general public yet. I also went to the IAJGS convention in Philadelphia in August, at which I finally got to meet a cousin in person, as well as doing some volunteering.

Baseball: As I mentioned above, I had a failed attempt to go to a minor league game in Indianapolis (damn rain!) but a more successful game experience in Oklahoma City in July.

Culture: I went to 10 musicals and one non-musical play. My favorites for the year were Tick … Tick .. Boom at the Kennedy Center, Harmony on Broadway, Soft Power at Signature Theatre, and Suffs on Broadway.

I saw 7 movies in theaters and two on airplanes. Favorites were Next Goal Wins, Shari and Lamb Chop, and My Penguin Friend.

Storytelling: I performed in a Better Said Than Done show in February and emceed at the Women’s Storytelling Festival in March. I told a story at the Artists Standing Strong Together New Year’s Eve storytelling show. I went to several local story swaps (some in person, some over zoom), as well as zoom story swaps in Los Angeles and in Ottawa, Canada. I saw a friend’s storytelling show as part of Artomatic. And I participated in several discussions of Grimm fairy tales.

Museums and Art: I went to an exhibit of Dorothea Lange’s photos at the National Gallery of Art with a friend (and looked at some other art in the museum afterwards). I saw a Judy Chicago retrospective at the New Museum in New York City. I went to much of Artomatic. And I went to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas and the American Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City.

During my trip to Portugal, I went to a stained glass museum in Porto, the Museo Nacional de Azulejo (National Tile Museum) and Oceanario (aquarium) in Lisbon, and the Museum of Myths and Legends in Sintra.

Other Stuff:

I participated in Lollapuzzoola (a crossword contest) in August. I played board games, sometimes with the National Puzzlers’ League, sometimes with people I know from the loser community. I also went to other loser events, including a few parties and a couple of brunches.

I went to Kochavim, an Israeli folk dance weekend (in association with the eclipse).

I did a tour of M&S Schmalburg’s fabric flower factory (via the New York Adventure Club).

I attended a few lectures in the Leading Jewish Minds at MIT series (over zoom). And I went to a reception for MIT president Sally Kornbluth.

I’ve probably forgotten something or other among this, but it was a weird and stressful year. And I think that compared to normal people, I still did a lot of things.

Goals: So how did I do on my 2024 goals? Frankly, not very well. I did not circumnavigate the globe going westward, though I did map out about half of a general plan for doing it, so I’ll give myself a 5% on that goal. I didn’t make it to any national parks. I also did nothing about cleaning out my saved files of genealogy emails. I read 37 books out of my goal of 80, so I get only 45% there. I did make some progress on organizing my bedroom, but I don’t have a good metric for that. I’ll estimate that I accomplished about 50%. I finished just about 2/3 of one afghan (out of a goal to finish 3 afghans) so I’ll give myself 22% on that goal. I still haven’t found my parents’ slides. I made it to one AAA ballpark (Oklahoma City), and had an attempt at going to a game in Indianapolis, which got rained out. So I’lll get 25% on my goal of 4 AAA ballparks. I did fairly well on exercise the first part of the year, but my knee injury meant that I did very little from August on, so I’ll give myself a 60%.

So, overall, I’ll give myself a rather pathetic 23% for the year.

Which brings me to goals for 2025:

Circumnavigate the globe going westward. I think I have a plan for somewhere in the October / November time frame.
Go to at least 4 minor league baseball games.
Finish 4 crafts projects.
Read 80 books, with a stretch goal of 100.
Finish going through my parents’ photographs and slides.
Revisit / update my life list.
Organize genealogy files.
Go to at least 3 national parks.
Learn to read Hangul (Korean writing system).
Sort through cassette tapes.

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.

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

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

Here’s the aquarium.

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

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.

Here is what I’ve been up to over the past month. Aside from something of a fit of organizational mania, which I am still somewhat in the throes of, so I am not ready to write about it yet.

Celebrity Death Watch: John Moriarty was a conductor, primarily of operas. Calvin Simon sang with Parliament-Funkadelic. R. Dean Taylor wrote the song “Indiana Wants Me.” Bobby Harrison was a drummer and singer for Procul Harum. Michael Lang co-created Woodstock. Bob Saget was a comedian and actor. Jean Maheu was the president of the Centre Pompidou for most of the 1980’s. Dwayne Hickman was an actor, best known for The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Don Maynard was a hall of fame football player. Aura Herzog was the first lady of Israel from 1983 to 1993. Clyde Bellecouret co-founded the American Indian Movement. Ronnie Spector was the lead singer of The Ronettes. everett Lee was a violinist and the first African-American to conduct a Broadway musical. Sonny Turner was the lead singer of The Platters. Terry Teachout was the drama critic for the Wall Street Journal for many years. Fred Paris wrote the song “In the Still of the Night.” Israel Dressner was a rabbi and civil rights activist who marched with Martin Luther King. Rick Cook was a science fiction writer. Carol Speed was an actress who appeared in several blaxploitation movies. Yvette Mimieux was a film and television actress, best known for The Time Machine. Peter Robbins was the first actor to voice Charlie Brown. Dick Halligan was a founding member of Blood, Sweat & Tears. Louie Anderson was a comedian, actor, and host of Family Feud. Don Wilson played guitar for The Ventures. Thich Nhat Hanh was a Buddhist monk who wrote books about mindfulness. Sheldon Silver was a corrupt New York politician, which may be redundant. Morgan Stevens was a television actor. Bud Brown was the acting Secretary of Commerce under Ronald Reagan.

Charles Njonjo was a Kenyan politician. He had been on my ghoul pool list a few years ago and I somehow or other had forgotten about him, despite his being a centenarian.

Marilyn Bergman was (along with her husband, Alan) a prolific lyricist, whose songs included “The Way We Were,”“The Windmills of Your Mind,” and the theme song for the television show Maude. The Bergmans won four Emmys, three Oscars, and two Grammys - but no Tonys.

Meat Loaf was a pop singer and actor. He was particularly popular in the late 1970’s. One of my suitemates in college played :Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” frequently. Let’s just sa that my tastes in music were edgier.

Ghoul Pool List: Since I mentioned a ghoul pool failure above, here is my list for this year.

20. Queen Elizabeth II
19. Bob Barker
18. Carmen Herrera
17. Anne Hutchinson Guest
16. Naomi Replanski
15. Ned Rorem
14. Marsha Hunt
13. Lily Renee
12. Caren Marsh Doll
11. James Lovelock
10. Lee Adams
9. Roger Angell
8. Jimmy Carter
7. Sam Nujoma
6. Shannon Doherty
5. Rachel Robinson
4. George Leitmann
3. W. Nicholas Hitchon
2. Al Jaffee
1. James L. Buckley

Non-Celebrity Death Watch: George Moy was a regular at local MIT Club activities. He was always friendly and full of advice, especially about financial matters.

I worked with Rod Barfield for a number of years. He was partially responsible for my transferring from the Engineering Group to a program office

Clark Weissman co-founded the California Traditional Music Society and was responsible for many folk music, dance, and storytelling events in the Los Angeles area and beyond.

Rent: I saw Rent at Signature Theatre a few weeks ago. It’s not one of my favorite musicals, though I don’t dislike it. But Signature always does a good job and this was no exception. In particular, Josh Dawson was excellent as Collins, as was Katie Mariko Murray as Maureen. I particularly liked how they staged Maureen’s performance art number, “Over the Moon,” which provided some needed comic relief. I still think the show is something of a period piece nowadays, given that HIV is no longer the death sentence it was. And, of course, the battle against gentrification has been pretty much lost.

The Paradox of Choice: I went to a discussion group sponsored by a local library about the paradox of choice. There’s a book with that title by Barry Schwartz that I consider one of the biggest influences on my thinking. The basic point is that having too many choices makes decisions harder. The examples the facilitator of this discussion used ranged from deciding on an ice cream flavor to what to wear to making investments. My personal experience goes back to my travels across eastern and southern Africa in 1998. Most of the time, the only cereal we could buy was corn flakes. Once in a while, there were also Rice Krispies. Once I was in South Africa, there were more choices, but still nothing comparable to American (and UK) supermarkets. So, when I got home, I often found myself nearly paralyzed in the cereal aisle. (Nowadays, I have a rotation of maybe four cereals and just ignore the existence of anything else.) At any rate, I find that it reduces my stress to limit the options when I am making decisions.

Loser Holiday Party: Last Saturday night was the annual holiday party for the Loser community, i.e. devotees of the Washington Post Sty;e Invitational. It was a smaller group than usual (under 30 people, I think). Still, many of my friends were there and there was good food, good conversation, and the traditional sing-along to parody songs.

Sam & Dede or My Dinner With Andre the Giant: Last Sunday, a friend and I went to see this play by Gino Dilorio, largely because the title was intriguing. Apparently, the playwright Samuel Beckett used to drive children to school in France, including Andre (nicknamed Dede). There’s no reason to believe they met again in later life, but the idea provides for some amusing dialogues as Andre can’t understand why Sam’s uncertainty about everything he does. It wasn’t a brilliant play, but it was diverting enough. And, of course, it is good to support live theatre, especially smaller companies like the Washington Stage Guild.

DNA Discussion: Today I went to a webinar about DNA for genealogy. The first speaker was very focused on the basics (which are familiar to me), while the others got deeply technical. Overall, I’m not sure how valuable it was, but it is something I keep intending to spend more time on.

Hot Toddies, Redux: I’ve continued my Friday night cocktail experiments. You might recall that for Week 1, I did a basic hot toddy with rum, lemon juice, honey, cinnamon, and hot water, which was okay, but a bit bland. For week 2, I used maple syrup instead of the honey, added allspice, and used slightly less water, which was more satisfactory. For week 3, I went back to honey, but replaced the hot water with ginger tea (and left out the other spices, thinking the ginger flavor would be enough on its own, That was particularly delicious. For week 4, I tried yet another variant, using maple syrup again, with black tea (specifically, Darjeeling) and cinnamon. I think the week 3 version is the winner. For February, I intend to go on to other winter cocktails.

Ghoul Pool: Lists are now published so I can reveal mine. Note that the number next to each name reveals how many points that person is worth. There is also a 12 point bonus for a unique pick. When someone dies, you get to reload that slot. You also get two trades during the year, which is useful if you hear about somebody going into hospice or the like.

20. Kirk Douglas
19. Harry Reid
18. Sultan Qaboos
17. Olivia de Haviland
16. John "Sonny" Franzese
15. Alex Trebek
14. Beverly Cleary
13. Jean Erdman
12. Naomi Replansky
11. Freeman Dyson
10. Jimmy Carter
9. Ned Rorem
8, Al Jaffee
7, Rachel Robinson
6. Lee Adams
5. James L. Buckley
4. Neddy Smith
3. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
2. Jiro Ono
1. Stirling Moss

Note that Sultan Qaboos has died and I reloaded the number 18 slot with John Lewis. I am currently in 2nd place, as another player not only had Sultan Qaboos in the number 20 slot but scored on another person on his list.

MIT Mystery Hunt: I participated this year, remotely, as part of Halibut That Bass. I didn’t have a lot of time to devote to it and being remote poses a lot of limitations, especially as my power (and, hence, internet) went out for a while. I had a few contributions here and there. There was one puzzle (Old West Revue) that was right up my alley, but I didn’t have time to do more than get a start on. (It had to do with movie quotes transliterated into different scripts. Since I can read Cyrillic, Greek, and Hebrew fairly easily, I figured out what was going on. I really do need to learn to read Arabic someday. Indian languages, alas, I have no clue on.) There was another puzzle (Arts and Witchcraft) that involved crocheting a hat, which someone else did, but we failed miserably at figuring out how to extract the answer. And reading the solution, I doubt we’d have ever figured it out.

It was fun, but I think I’d have been happier had I been able to be there in person. Hopefully, next year.

Household Stuff: I did manage to get various household things done over the weekend. But I really need to unshovel the living room, given that I am hosting a story swap in three weeks.

Crossposts: https://fauxklore.livejournal.com/466417.html

2019 was another stressful year, with too many things I wanted to do and too little energy to do a lot of them. The big issue was all the change going on at work, combined with a period that held a lot of last minute business travel, which was simply exhausting. I did, however, manage to replace my car, which was somewhat emotionally traumatic, but the right thing to do.

Books: I read a mere 34 books this year, though that included a fair number of long books and does not count travel guides. Favorites included Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, Silent Honor by Danielle Steele, A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline, The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris, and Sweet and Low by Rich Cohen. Books I disliked included Leave It to the Toff by John Creasey and A Marriage Made in Woodstock by Cathie Pelletier.

I never managed a used bookstore run this year, so I have a lot of books to get rid of. Probably on the order of 150 books ready to go, once I get my act together.

I should also list two other things in this category – a talk by Alexander McCall Smith and volunteering at the National Book Festival.

Volksmarch: Absolutely nothing, though I did manage to buy new walking shoes.

Travel: I had three international trips over the year – El Salvador in February, French Polynesia (Bora Bora and Tahiti, plus an eclipse cruise which called in Moorea but otherwise was all at sea) in June/July and my December trip to the United Arab Emirates (specifically Dubai) and Oman.

I had business trips to Colorado Springs, Los Angeles (a couple of times), and the Bay Area (a couple of times). As for personal travel, I made the annual pilgrimage to Stamford, Connecticut for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and went to Boulder, Colorado for the NPL Convention and to the Bay Area (specifically, Fremont) for the National Storytelling Conference). I went to New York 3 times and to Philadelphia for a genealogy society excursion and to El Paso for a minor league baseball game.

I also went to a few Travelers’ Century Club luncheons. And several embassy events. Then there were the travel shows in both D.C. and New York.

Puzzles: I continued to be middle of the pack. I was particularly disappointed in my performance at Lollapuzzoola (43.4 percentile) because of a fiasco in Puzzle 4 costing me a lot. On the plus side, I solved cleanly at the Indie 500 and finished in the 57th percentile there. I finished in the 70th percentile at the ACPT, though I had a dumb error on Puzzle 6, costing me a clean solve.

As for RockOn (the NPL con), I had a lot of fun. The people who did the walk-around puzzle I brought seemed to enjoy it. My particular highlights were: 1) getting a puzzle that had to do with an obscure place I’ve been to and 2) getting to know some people better who I hadn’t really interacted with much before.

Ghoul Pool: I did quite well this year, finishing 4th place (out of 21) with 206 points. More significantly, 11 of my initial 20 picks died. Those were Kathleen Blanco, Leah Bracknell, Tim Conway, Herman Wouk, Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, Johnny Clegg, Ken Nordine, Jerry Herman, Russell Baker, Robert Mugabe, and John Paul Stevens. Reloads who I scored on were Ivan Milat, Holly Clegg, Michael Sleggs, and Denise Nickerson. I should be able to reveal my picks for 2020 some time next week.

Genealogy: The biggest thing is that I got to meet a couple of cousins in person, including one on my Bruskin line. I have not, however, had nearly as much time as I’d like to for research.

Baseball: The El Paso Chihuahuas game I went to in April was the only game I actually made it to in person this year. But the Washington Nationals won the World Series and that makes up for a lot of schedule conflicts keeping me from ballparks.

Culture: If I counted correctly, I saw 7 plays, 17 musicals, 1 ballet, and 1 opera. Favorites included Assassins at Signature Theatre, Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish in New York, Falsettos at the Kennedy Center, Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity at Signature Theatre, Hands on a Hardbody at Keegan Theatre, and Come From Away in New York. I also enjoyed two staged readings at the National Academy of Sciences (Ada and the Engine and Defying Gravity). By the way, I counted those among the plays. I also went to a Cirque du Soleil show, 2 concerts, and Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.

I went to One Day University 3 times, one of which included a short film festival. I saw 12 movies, of which my favorites included RBG, Free Solo, and Green Book.

As for storytelling, I went to only a few story swaps, but I performed in 5 Better Said Than Done shows and 3 other shows. And I went to several performances by other people.

Goals:I had 9 goals for 2019. I’ll give myself a 30% on finishing shredding and filing household paperwork. But 0% on organizing genealogy files, organizing yarn, and organizing photos. I get 68% on my reading goal, 10% on my workout goal, 40% on bringing lunch to work, and 80% on eating fruit daily. It looks like I only managed to enter the Style Invitational twice, so I get 50% on that goal. Summing that all up, I’ll give myself a 30% on the year. It could be worse.

As for 2020 goals, I am largely focused on getting ready for retirement. (I am planning on October 1st.) So here are a few thoughts, in somewhat random order:

Update my household technology (personal cell phone, television, etc.)
Develop a budget for living within my retirement income
Enroll in Smithsonian Certificate Program in Art History
Finish organizing (shredding or filing, as appropriate) household paperwork
Get at least 200 books out of my condo
Learn at least 6 folk tales
Enter the Style Invitational at least 4 times
Read at least 52 books

Crossposts: https://fauxklore.livejournal.com/465246.html

Celebrity Death Watch: Harris Wofford was a politician and civil rights activist. Maxine Brown was a country singer. Kaye Ballard was an actress and singer, best known for The Mothers-in-=Law on television in the 1960’s. Jonas Mekas was a film director. Diana Athill was a literary editor and memoirist. Meshulam Riklis was a businessman of the sort that gives Wall Street a bad name, but is better known for having married (and later divorced) Pia Zadora. Florence Knoll designed modern furniture, largely for offices. Fatima Ali competed on cooking-oriented reality TV. Michel Legrand was a composer, best known for the song "The Windmills of Your Mind" from The Thomas Crown Affair. Jumani Johansson claimed to be the illegitimate son of Malawi’s long-time president, Hastings Banda. Peter Magowan co-owned the San Francisco Giants. Rosemary Bryant Mariner was the first woman to fly jets for the Navy and the first to command a military aviation squadron. Patricia McBride Lousada (who is not the same person as Patricia McBride) was a founding member of New York City Ballet and a protége of George Balanchine and Merce Cunningham.

Oliver Mtukudzi was a Zimbabwean guitarist and cultural icon. I was privileged to see him perform in 2012 at the Lowell Folk Festival.

Russell Baker was one of my favorite writers. He wrote more columns for the New York Times than anyone else and won two Pulitzer prizes, including the first ever giver to a humorist. The other was for his memoir, Growing Up. He also scored me 15 ghoul pool points. (I’ve backfilled with Harry Reid.)

Errata: I didn’t watch someone die per se, but I did witness a suicide. I was in Prague, walking across the Charles Bridge to the Old Town after visiting the castle. A guy climbed up on a railing and leapt off. He landed on a plaza below, not in the river. I had nightmares the rest of the time I was in Prague and for about a week after I left.

New York State of Mind: I may be swamped at work, but I had made plans for a weekend in New York, so I took off Friday and took the train up. The excuse was a get-together, vaguely organized by some Travelers’ Cwntury Club folks, focused on the New York Times Travel Show. The hotel price (at the Doubletree on West 40th) was particularly good. One of my friends wanted to come, too, so we made some dinner and theatre plans. The catch came when she broke her ankle while on vacation. She decided to come anyway. The travel show could have been a huge issue, but it turns out that one can borrow a wheelchair (for free!) at the Javits Center and I was willing to push her around. We also had to use taxis and Lyft to get around, instead of just walking, but so be it. I’ve had experience with a broken ankle myself and it’s not like it was fun for her.

I figured out why the hotel was so cheap, by the way. Aside from the annoyingness of having to rearrange furniture (in this case, moving the desk) to close the curtains (a fairly common hotel problem) and absurdly slow elevators, the heat in my room was entirely inadequate. I finally got the room temperature up to something humanly tolerable by turning up the heat to 87 and putting it on high fan. The hotel restaurant (where we had breakfast with the group that had arranged the get-together) was pretty dreadful, with bland food and slow service. The really egregious problem came Saturday night, when we came back and they weren’t letting guests in the main door and two of the four elevators were reserved for their roof-top bar. They relented with my friend due to her broken leg, but I had to shove past them, with them threatening to call security, to get in. If two people are together, you should let both of them in, assholes. The two redeeming things were that the room was pretty well sound-proofed and the bellhop, with whom we had stored luggage on Sunday, was very helpful, offering us bottles of water and opening up a wider door so my friend could manage more easily.

But I was only in the hotel to sleep and I have experienced worse in my time There is a much better Doubletree on W. 36th, by the way.

Restaurants: On Friday night, we ate at Barbetta, suggested by another friend. This is the oldest Italian restaurant in New York and is quite formal. Some people might think that’s stuffy, but it was fine with us. Their prix fixe menu is normally $58, but because it was restaurant week, it was $43 for the three course meal. (The a la carte menu was also available.) I should have asked about prices for drinks, however, as they charged me $30 for a Campari and soda. Anyway, I got beet salad, paillard of chicken with fennel, and pears baked in red wine (something I actually had a craving for recently and am too lazy to make). All of it was quite good. The service was attentive, without being intrusive. And it was quiet enough to carry on a conversation.

On Saturday night, we went to the Third Avenue location of P. J. Clarke’s. This is another really old place and we chose it largely due to proximity to the theatre we were going to. The food is not very exciting (I had chicken pot pie), but they have a good beer list. The table we were initially seated at was by a window and there was a draft, but they moved us. It’s noisier than I’d have liked, but it was fine for what it is. Given my friend’s limited mobility, it was a good choice.

Come From Away: Friday night’s theatre excursion was to see Come From Away, which I’d been wanting to see for ages. It had done a pre-Broadway run at Ford’s Theatre but I never managed to make it work with my schedule. Anyway, for those who are not familiar with it, it tells the story of the diversion of 38 planes to Gander, Newfoundland on 9/11 and the relationships that developed between the townspeople and the plane people. Some of the stories are composites, but several are of individual people – a woman from New York who was worried about her firefighter son, the first female captain of a commercial airline, etc. I mention those two in particular, because they were among the more moving stories. The music is suitable for Newfoundland, too, with its Celtic influences. This is a true ensemble piece, not least because the various actors all play multiple parts.

There are a couple of things I can quibble with. For one, during the song "Prayer," an Orthodox rabbi talks to a Jewish townsman who has been separated from his heritage since he was snet as a refugee from the Shoah and they sing "Oseh Shalom." While the melody is a very familiar one now, it was actually written by Nurit Hirsch for the 1969 Hasidic Song Festival, so a man who hasn’t had any Jewish exposure since he was a child in the 1940’s wouldn’t know it.

Later on, some of the plane people get screeched in, becoming honorary Newfoundlanders. This involves drinking Screech rum and kissing a cod. They all balk at the latter, but as someone who has experienced this ceremony itself, the rum is far worse than the cod.

Anyway, those are minor nits and did nothing to take away from how much I enjoyed this show. I would definitely be willing to see it again. Though I would bring a lot more Kleenex with me. Do go see it if you have the chance.

Cramelina: On Saturday night, we went to see Carmelina as part of York Theatre’s Musicals in Mufti series. I have seen a number of productions there, although it was my second choice for the evening. My first choice was The Book of Merman but my friend had assumed I had meant The Book of Mormon and vetoed the idea since she’s seen that. I should have explained the parody version, but this was fine with me as I think York always does a great job.

Anyway, Carmelina was by Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner, with additional lyrics by Barry Harmon and book by Joseph Stein. It is based on the movie Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell, though many of you are more likely to recognize the plot from Mama Mia. Carmelina, who lives in a small Italian village, made up a dead American war hero, Eddie Campbell, who she claimed was the father of her daughter, Gia. She had actually slept with three different American soldiers and has been extracting money from all three for 16 years. Old fashioned, indeed, as nowadays, they'd insist on DNA testing. All is fine until there’s a reunion of the American soldiers who served in that area. There is also a café owner, Vittorio, who has been mooning after her.

I should explain that the Mufti series involves minimal staging and actors are often still carrying their scripts. This was exactly the sort of show which the format is well suited for, since it doesn’t involve big production numbers. What it does have is a lovely score and a witty book. It flopped in 1979 (only 17 performances) because it was perceived as old fashioned, but I really loved it. The notable songs include "It’s Time for a Love Song," "Someone in April," "One More Walk Around the Garden," and "The Image of Me." It was also well-performed, with Andrea Burns as Carmelina, Anne Nathan as her maid, Rosa, and Joey Sorge as Vittorio. All in all, a delightful evening.

By the way, Burton Lane’s widow and his stepdaughter were there, sitting right next to my friend (who got moved to the front row because of her leg). And John Kander came over to talk to Mrs. Lane during intermission. I was proud of myself for refraining from swooning fan girl behavior.

Travel Show: Since the travel show was the ostensible reason for the trip, I should probably say something about it. I had gotten a deal for admission from one of the exhibitors – free ticket for one day, $5 plus service fee for the second day. On Saturday, we mostly went around the exhibit hall, collecting brochures and swag. I like to look at travel brochures for destinations I plan to travel to on my own, just to get itinerary ideas. I did also get some info on a couple of specific destinations I’m interested in. (I have booked at least three trips I found out about at either the New York or DC travel shows in the past.) We did also go over to the Ask the Experts area and talked to people about travel insurance and about Bolivia.

On Sunday, we went to a presentation on the Camino del Santiago. Then we went ot hear Pauline Frommer talk about up and coming destinations and new travel planning tools and such. And we went to a couple of other Ask the Experts tables to find out about gadgets and about what to do when things go wrong.

All in all, it was a good weekend, though tiring. I slept pretty much through from Newark to Baltimore on the train home.

Crossposts: https://fauxklore.livejournal.com/446319.html

Celebrity Death Watch 2018: Peter Masterson wrote The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Norman Gimbel was a lyricist, best known for "The Girl From Ipanema" and "Killing Me Softly With His Song." Raven Wilkinson was the first African-American woman to dance for a major classical ballet company (the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo). Donald Moffat was a character actor who won a couple of Tony awards. Paddy Ashdown headed the British Liberal Democrats. Liza Redfield was the first woman to be the full-time conductor of a Broadway pit orchestra (for The Music Man). Wendy Beckett, better known as Sister Wendy, was a nun who became famous as an art historian and critic. Herb Ellis was an actor who co-created Dragnet. Roy Glauber was a Nobel-prize winning physicist. Sono Osato was the first American and the first person of Japanese ancestry to perform with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Lawrence Roberts led the team that created the ARPANET, which made him the founding father of the internet. Nancy Roman was an astronomer who planned the development of the Hubble Space Telescope. Seydou Dadian Kouyate wrote the lyrics to the national anthem of Mali. Amos Oz was an Israeli novelist. Dame June Whitfield was an English actress, best known for appearing in Absolutely Fabulous and for playing Miss Marple on a radio series. Brian Garfield wrote Westerns and mysteries. Dean Ford wrote that one-hit-wonder "Reflections of My Life" for his group, Marmalade.

Jane Langton wrote children’s books and mystery novels. Her Homer Kelly mysteries were literate and witty, with a strong sense of place (largely New England) and charming line drawings. I particularly recommend Natural Enemy (as long as you aren’t an arachnophobe) and The Escher Twist

Larry Eisenberg was a biomedical engineer and science fiction writer. But his bigger claim to fame was in the form of letters to the New York Times, in which his news commentary was in the form of limericks.

Celebrity Death Watch – 2019: Pegi Morton Young was a singer-songwriter and the first wife of Neil Young. Larry Weinberg was a real estate developer and owner of the Portland Trail Blazers. Gene Okerlund was a wrestling announcer. Bob Einstein was an actor known for Curb Your Enthusiasm and for portraying Super Dave Osborne. Daryl Dragon was the Captain in the Captain & Tenille. Jerry Buchek played baseball for the Cardinals and the Mets. Herb Kelleher co-founded Southwest Airlines. Sylvia Chase was a news anchor and journalist. Harold Brown was the Secretary of Defense from 1977-1981 (under Jimmy Carter). Eric Haydock was the bassist for The Hollies. Moshe Arens was the Israeli Minister of Defense for a few terms, as well as being an aeronautical engineer.

Celebrity Death Watch: The lists for this year are officially published so I can reveal my selections for who I think will die in 2019. (The numbers are how many points I’ll get if that person dies.)

20. Kathleen Blanco
19. Leah Bracknell
18. Tim Conway
17. Kirk Douglas
16. Herman Wouk
15. Olivia de Haviland
14. Stirling Moss
13. Jean Erdman
12. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings
11. Al Jaffee
10. Beverly Cleary
9. Jean Kennedy Smith
8. Johnny Clegg
7. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
6. Ken Nordine
5. Jerry Herman
4. Jimmy Carter
3. Russell Baker
2. Robert Mugabe
1. John Paul Stevens

Don’t Analyze This Dream – Part 1: A man was wearing a bright blue sequined suit and standing in the doorway of a metro train. The person sitting next to me commented on the conservatism of my clothing (maroon sweater, grey skirt) and pointed to a woman wearing a red sequined dress and white fur wrap.

Don’t Analyze This Dream – Part 2: A stack of my books were on the night stand at a friend’s house. I reached for what I thought was a poetry book at the bottom of the stack,intending to read a poem or two before going to bed, but it turned out to be a copy of Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror.

Tone Rangers / Impitched: I was pretty exhausted on Friday night, but I still forced myself out of the house and went to Jammin’ Java (conveniently near my house) to see one of my favorite local a capella groups, The Tone Rangers. They had a guest group with them called Impitched, who I thought were fine musically, but whose choreography was weak. The Tone Rangers were as good as ever, with some of my favorite songs, e.g. their arrangements of "Southern Cross" (which is one of my favorite songs of all time), "Helen," and, of course, their most famous piece, "Wild Thing" (which starts out as Gregorian chant). They also continue to be very funny, in general. My favorite joke of the night was about how, with the success of The Crown on Netflix and Victoria on PBS, Amazon Prime is coming out with a confusing series about cops in New Jersey. It’ll be called The Crown Victoria. Overall, it was a great show and I felt energized within the first 10 minutes of it.

TCC Luncheon: Saturday was a Travelers’ Century Club luncheon. There was a huge turnout, which has the downside of making it harder to mingle. There was lots of great conversation. What other group of people is there where having been to 108 countries and territories puts you on the low side? And it is fun to both give and receive travel advice.

Housework: It is remarkable how long housework takes and how much energy it saps.

Crossposts: https://fauxklore.livejournal.com/443667.html

2018 was fairly stressful, largely due to a work situation that appears to be resolving itself. And, of course, the state of the world didn't help.

Books: I read 40 books, which is probably the fewest since I learned how to read. Also, surprisingly, only 6 were non-fiction. This is a little misleading in that I don’t count guidebooks, which end up being most of what I read when I’m traveling. My logic for not counting them is that I rarely read them cover to cover.

Favorites were Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See, Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon, and Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde.

The book I hated the most was Murder By Sacrilege by D. R. Meredith.

I really need to do a used bookstore run. I’m not even sure how many books I have ready to go out.

Volksmarch: I did three events – in New Orleans, Atlantic City, and Charleston, West Virginia. The latter was a State Capital walk. I should get back into focusing on special programs, but first I need to resolve some issues with my right foot.

Travel: I started the year out in Singapore. My last trip of the year was to the U.S. Virgin Islands (St. Thomas and St. John) which is only semi-international, involving a dependency of the U.S., not a separate country. My major trip of the year was my family roots trip to Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus (plus a part of a day in Zurich), which was incredible.

Domestic trips included business trips to Colorado Springs and to Layton, Utah. Personal travel was to New Orleans, Stamford (Connecticut, for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament), Atlantic City,New York (4 times, including a Brooklyn Cyclones game), Portland (Oregon), Rhode Island (mostly for a PawSox game), Memphis (Redbirds game), Milwaukee (Wisconsin for the National Puzzlers’ League con), Frederick (Maryland, for Loserfest. It counts because I did stay overnight), Richmond (Virginia – and, again, staying overnight makes it count), and Charleston (West Virginia). It seems unlikely, but it appears that I had an entire year without going to California.

Puzzles: This was pretty much a middle of the pack year. I ended up in the 62nd percentile at the ACPT, the 39th percentile at the Indie 500, and 55.7th percentile at Lollapuzzoola. Annoyingly, I didn’t solve cleanly at any of them.

I also had a good time (as always) at the NPL con. That included bringing along a hand-out puzzle, which I think went over reasonably well. I am planning for a walk-around puzzle for the 2019 con, since it’s in Boulder, Colorado, a city I have spent a lot of time in.

Ghoul Poul: I didn’t do particularly well in my second year. I finished 14th out of 20 participants, with 70 points. The people I scored with were Prince Henrik, Barbara Bush, John McCain, and George HW Bush.

Genealogy: I did the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks project, which got me writing about a few family stories, but didn’t really drive much research. I did, however, get in touch with a few unknown cousins (two from the FAINSTEIN family, one from the KHAIKEL / MEDINTS family) and made some progress on the GOLDWASSER family (my maternal grandfather’s mother’s side).

Baseball: I only made it to one Major League game this year – Red Sox at Nats on the Fourth of July. But it was a good year since: 1)I got to three minor league games (Memphis, Pawtucket, and Coney Island) and 2)my BoSox won the World Series.

Culture: If I counted correctly, I went to 16 musicals, 2 operas and 14 plays. My favorite musicals were Dave at Arena Stage and Me and My Girl at Encores in New York. My favorite plays were Heisenberg and 4380 Nights at Signature Theatre and Becoming Di. Ruth and Treyf at Theatre J. I also went to one ballet, one Cirque du Soleil shows, and 6 concerts. The most significant of the latter was seeing Jonathan Richman at the 9:30 Club. I had wanted to see him live for ages, so I was really glad to have the opportunity.

I went to One Day University 5 times. And I saw 16 movies, of which my favorites included What We Do in the Shadows, The Shape of Water. and Bathtubs Over Broadway

There was also a bunch of storytelling in there, some with me on stage and more with me in the audience.

Goals: I had six goals for 2018. So how did I score? I got about halfway through 2 afghans, so that gives me 33% on the goal to finish three. I did nothing about organizing photos, though I did find out about scanning resources at the library. I read 40 books, including 1 poetry book, so I I get 77% and 33% for that goal. I think I entered the Style Invitational twice, so will give myself 33% there. I did 3 Volksmarch events, so get 50% there. And I think I got through roughly 65% of catching up on household paperwork. I figure that gives me somewhere around a 40% on the year, which is not terrible, but not wonderful, either.

So what about goals for 2019?

Finish shredding and filing household paperwork.
Organize my genealogy files, both physical and electronic.
Organize my yarn stash. Ideally this would include using up at least 25% of the yarn. While I am at it, I also need to organize knitting needles and crochet hooks and the like.
Organize photos. Yes, really.
Read at least 52 books.
Enter the Style Invitational at least 4 times.
Do a 20 minute or longer workout at least 3 times a week.
Bring lunch to work at least twice a week.
Eat fruit every day.

Crossposts: https://fauxklore.livejournal.com/443622.html

Celebrity Death Watch: Anna Mae Hays was the 13th chief of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and the first woman in the U.S. armed forces to become a general officer. France Gall wa a French singer. Doreen Tracey was one of the original Mouseketeers. Keith Jackson was a sportscaster, particularly known for college football. Dan Gurney was a race car driver and is credited with creating the tradition of spraying champagne on the podium after the race. Dolores O’Riordan was the lead singer of The Cranberries. Edwin Hawkins was a gospel musician, best known for "Oh Happy Day." Jo Jo White played basketball, largely for the Celtics. Jessica Falkholt was an Australian soap opera actress. Her greatest significance is that she’s the first person anybody scored on in this year’s ghoul pool.

Joe Frank was a radio personality. I used to listen to his show, Work in Progress, on KCRW when I lived in Los Angeles. He was always interesting and, often, quite funny. There is apparently a documentary about him scheduled to be released this year.

Ghoul Pool – 2018: Speaking of ghoul pool (a contest to predict what famous people will die in the next year), the entry lists are now out of the beginning of the game embargo, so I can reveal mine. Note that the number indicates how many points a person is worth and you get an extra 12 points for uniqueness, i.e. being the only participant to have someone on your list.

20. I.M. Pei
19. Robert Mugabe
18. Ed Kranepool
17. Honor Blackman
16. Beverly Cleary
15. Dervla Murphy
14. John McCain
13. Johnny Clegg
12. Al Jaffe
11. Herman Wouk
10. Jimmy Carter
9. Javier Perez de Cuellar
8. John Paul Stevens
7. Tom Jones (the lyricist, not the Welsh singer)
6. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
5. Norman Lloyd
4. Jerry Herman
3. Olivia de Haviland
2. Sheldon Harnick
1. Sara Paretsky

The Pajama Game: Looking back, I realized I never wrote about the production of The Pajama Game at Arena Stage, which I saw just before leaving for my vacation. It’s a problematic show to modern sensibilities. I’m tempted to retitle it to something like "Sexual Harassment at the Sleep-Tite Factory." I also find a lot of the lyrics to be full of cheap, amateurish rhymes ("A new town is a blue town…")

But – and this is a huge redeeming factor – there is fabulous choreography. I was particularly pleased to see that Donna McKechnie, who played Mabel, still has it at age 74. (I saw her as Cassie in A Chorus Line back in the 1970’s!) The most striking dance moves, though, came from Blakely Slaybaugh as Prez (the union president).

I do prefer the modern sensibilities and deplore the sexism. But I also miss the days when people broke out into spectacular dance moves with little provocation. In fact, I often wish that people in real life would spontaneously broke into song and dance. It would certainly liven up many a design review.

Losers’ Post-Holiday Party: Getting back to the present time, Saturday night was the annual post-holiday party for the Style Invitational Losers. As usual with potlucks, I have a long debate with myself over what to bring. Someday I will use up the spring roll wrappers that I bought way too many of because I misunderstood the package labeling. But this time, I went for quick and easy in the form of stuffed mushrooms. You just take baby bella mushroom caps, arrange them on a baking pan. Fill each cap with some alouette (or similar) cheese. Dip the cheese-stuffed end in panko (Japanese bread crumbs). Bake at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes or so.

As for the party itself, it was conveniently metro-accessible. Or, conveniently if the Red Line weren’t running only half-hourly over the weekend, so I got there later than I intended. Still, I was in time to get food and, more importantly, in time for the sing-along, which is always a highlight of these things. Throw in lots of intelligent conversation, both with people I already knew and those I hadn’t met before, and it was a good time.

One Day University: On Sunday, I went to One Day University. This time out, it was at the Lansburgh Theatre and consisted of two lectures. The first was The Presidential Library given by Joseph Luzzi of Bard College. I had actually heard Luzzi lecture (on a different literature topic) previously and he’s quite a dynamic speaker. He posed a few general questions about the relationship between reading and ability to be an effective leader. He discussed several presidents in depth, focusing on what they read. George Washington, for example, used Cato as a model of manhood. He also collected etiquette books. Thomas Jefferson read pretty much everything. Lincoln was, of course, an autodidact. As a counterexample, Warren Harding’s reading was limited to things like Rules of Poker. Buchanan and Fillmore supposedly both read a lot, but neither was much of a leader. Grant didn’t get mentioned, but I find it hard to imagine him reading much of anything beyond the labels on liquor bottles. (Apparently, he got in trouble at West Point for spending his time reading James Fenimore Cooper, instead of his textbooks.)

Luzzi compiled an American Library List that included some obvious authors (Locke, Rousseau) and works (Plutarch’s Lives, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The Bible). He also recommended things like Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address and Ben Franklin’s autobiography. Fictional works which got mentioned included Great Expectations and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Didn’t any presidents appreciate the real Great American Novel – namely Moby Dick?

Anyway, Luzzi’s conclusion was, essentially, that good readers make good leaders. He made four points to support this: 1) reading fundamentally suggests a person knows he doesn’t know everything, 2) readers are curious, 3) reading supports collaboration, and 4) reading puts one in another’s shoes. As a self-confessed biblioholic, I tend to agree.

The second speaker was Mark Lapadusa of Yale University, speaking on How to Watch Movies Like a Film Professor. He started out by pointing out that this applies to seeing a movie repeatedly and, for first viewing, one should just enjoy it for what it is. Then he showed various film clips and talked about aspects of them. The films he discussed were Casablance, Citizen Kane, Psycho, Dr. Strangelove, and The Godfather (Both I and II). That’s a pretty wide assortment of styles and subject matter. He touched on one subject that I have a long-standing interest in, namely film music, specifically in the case of the shower scene from Psycho. If he’d had time for questions, I might have asked him more about that.

I was also a little disappointed that he didn’t talk about source material. For example, The Godfather is one of a handful of movies that is generally considered far more successful than the novel it is based on. Casablanca was based on an unsuccessful play. What makes a film adaptation successful and why do so many movies based on bestsellers fail either by being too true to the novel or not true enough?

I had a chance to discuss the lectures a bit more after. I had gotten into a conversation with a woman named Ann before the program. We ended up sitting together in the auditorium and decided to go out to lunch (at China Chilcano – tasty Peruvian / Asian fusion food) afterwards. It was nice to have the opportunity to digest some of what I’ve heard. All in all, an excellent way to spend part of a day.

Murder Was Her Hobby: I took advantage of being in the city to go to the Renwick Gallery and see their exhibit of the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death by Frances Glessner Lee. This is a series of miniature rooms depicting what may or may not be murder scenes. They were built to be a teaching tool for forensic science and are incredibly detailed. Apparently, Lee even made underwear for the dead bodies. Because they are still used for teaching, the exhibit does not include solutions to the cases. There were a few where I thought I had a good idea of what had happened, but I was completely puzzled by the majority of them. So much for all the hours I’ve spent reading murder mysteries!

The craftsmanship is amazing and the exhibit included flashlights to allow for closer examination of the crime scenes. However, there wasn’t very much thought given to the flow through the room, so one was stuck standing and waiting for people to move for long stretches of time. It would have been better to set things up so people moved only in one direction through the exhibit. And it would have been much better to limit the number of people allowed in at a time. Even with these annoyances, it was worth seeing the exhibit and I’m glad I took the time to.

Crossposts: https://fauxklore.livejournal.com/401827.html

Celebrity Death Watch: Charles J. Colgan was a long-time member of the Virginia senate and founded Colgan Air. Mario Soares served as President and Prime Minister of Portugal for a couple of decades. Nat Hentoff wrote for The Village Voice and The Wall Street Journal, primarily about jazz music and politics. Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani served a couple of terms as the President of Iran. Clare Hollingworth was the British journalist who broke the news of the outbreak of World War II.

Sister Frances Carr was one of the last three Shakers. There are now only two members of the sect at Sabbathday Lake in Maine. I have a long-standing interest in the Shakers (and other 19th century Utopian communities), who I admire for their philosophy of "hands to work, hearts to G-d." Their combination of egalitarianism, craftsmanship, and innovation is intriguing and their music is a huge influence on American folk music in general.

Om Puri was an Indian actor, who also appeared in a number of British and American movies, e.g. East is East. I am highlighting him because I had actually thought of putting him on my ghoul pool list, but didn’t because I thought he had died a couple of years ago. I should have googled him to check. Oh, well.

For the record, my list of people I predict will die in 2017 is:
20. Buzz Aldrin
19. June Foray
18. Beverly Cleary
17. Robert Mugabe
16. Gord Downie
15. Irwin Corey
14. Shannon Doherty
13. Valerie Harper
12. Tommy Chong
11. Frank Langella
10. John Cullum
9. Tommy Tune
8. Queen Elizabeth II
7. Javier Perez de Cuellar
6. Jimmy Carter
5. Dick Van Dyke
4. Sidney Poitier
3 James L. Buckley
2. Birch Bayh
1. John Paul Stevens

Titanic: I went to see Titanic at Signature Theatre on Saturday. Because of the snow, I used metro plus bus, which worked well enough, especially since I was lucky enough to not have to wait for the bus at all.

As for the show, the performances were excellent. I want to particularly note Sam Ludwig as the stoker, Frederick Barrett, who gets a couple of great songs – one comparing working on the ship to working as a coal miner and one proposing (over the wireless) to his girl back home. Tracy Lynn Olvera was also notable as a social-climbing second class passenger. I also thought Katie McManus was very good as the forthright third class Irish immigrant, Kate McGowan.

The show is grand and the second act (after the iceberg) is moving. But, there are both too many and too few subplots. It’s hard to care about characters when you’re switching between lots of them with each song. Unfortunately, I don’t see a way around that without making the show 4 hours long. I also have to admit that I didn’t really care for most of the score, which was rather more operatic than my tastes. There were exceptions, e.g. "The Proposal / The Night Was Alive" and the lively "Ladies Maid." I also want to note that Yeston apparently believed the myth that the band played "Autumn" while the ship sank (which is, I suppose, better than the "Nearer My G-d to Thee" myth), while historians now claim the actual hymn played was "Oughten."

By the way, every attendee gets a boarding card describing a passenger. I got Mr. William Cruthers Dulles, a 39 year-old first class passenger. They provide a web page to look up the fate of your alter ego. He died in the sinking.

JGSGW Meeting: I was really interested in the topic for Sunday’s meeting of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, which had to do with how to get reluctant relatives interested in talking with you. How interested? Well, when I went out to drive to darkest Maryland for it, I found my car had a flat tire and I paid for a taxi to get there. (I got a ride home from friends.) I’m not convinced it was worth it. I did pick up a few tips, but most of the talk was stuff I already knew.

And, sigh, I still have to find time to get the tire replaced.

Hidden Figures: Finally, last night I went to see Hidden Figures, the current movie about African-American women who worked as computers for NASA, performing mathematical computations in the early days of the space program. The story is a compelling one, involving three women doing their very best to make things happen, despite all the obstacles (both racial and gender) thrown in their paths. It’s not a word I use often, but I found it inspiring and highly recommend seeing it.