fauxklore

I had intended to go to the crafts fair at the Dulles Expo Center yesterday or today but was too busy trying to do things at home to manage that. And I have a commitment tomorrow, so no crafts fair for me this year. The Dulles Expo Center is closing so no more for that venue for me. (In case anybody wondered, it’s being replaced by an Ikea.) It’s not like I really need more jewelry and I’m well stocked up on local honey.

I did make it down to my condo complex holiday party tonight for a little while. They had the usual heavy hors d’oeuvres, which were okay. The best things they had were a decent malbec and lots of chocolate covered strawberries. It seemed less crowded than usual, but I had gone right at the beginning and didn’t stay long because i had a story swap to go to over zoom.

I told a brief Chanukah in Chelm story. Jane told “Prince Rooster,” which is a story I also tell. John told a story in India involving a young girl and a tiger. The highlight was (as usual for this time of year) Margaret telling “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by Dylan Thomas.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks. So what else is new?

First, the gentleman with whom I’m conducting the world’s longest running brief meaningless fling was here. Most of his visit is not for public consumption. But we did go to Signature Theatre to see their production of Sweeney Todd. We had dinner beforehand at Carlyle Grand Cafe. Their pecan crusted trout was delicious. As for the show, he had never seen it before and enjoyed it. I’ve seen a few productions of it before (including on Broadway in 1980) and I thought the performances were very good. I was particularly impressed by Bryonha Marie as Mrs. Lovett, who came across as truly demented. However, I disliked the set. They had meathooks, from which they hung various things - bird cages, for example, but worst of all, two rows of body bags. One thing I did like is that they included some of the music that is often omitted, e.g. Judge Turpin’s rendition of “Johanna” and Beadle Bramford’s performance of “Parlor Songs.” Overall, it was a nice night out.

By the way, I think it’s really sweet when old people (a category in which I include us) hold hands in public.

I had two Fourth of July events to go to. The first was a chavurah get together. It was supposed to be a barbecue outdoors, but it was very hot and humid, so we ate inside. I brought hummus and pita chips, but nobody ate them. (Mostly, the chicken and corn on the cob got eaten and some of the cookies.)

After that I went over to my friend Kathleen’s place in Crystal City. Her balcony overlooks the Potomac (and DCA) so is a good place for watching fireworks. Part of her building blocked the view of the fireworks on the National Mall, but we could see fireworks from 30 or so other places. Also, we played a few rounds of Blank Slate, which was fun. It was a fun evening, though the traffic coming home was terrible.

And Saturday, I went to see the touring company of the revival of 1776 at the Kennedy Center with Cindy. This production features “a company of artists who identify as female, trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming.” For the most part, the script appeared unchanged, but it’s not like I have it memorized. The fundamental problem I had with this show is that 1776 is one of the rare musicals for which the book is good but the score is so-so, with amateurish lyrics. Sherman Edwards never wrote another musical and the world is better for that. There are two songs I like. They did fine with “Mama Look Sharp.” “Molasses to Rum to Slaves” will never be entirely satisfying to me without John Cullum playing Edward Rutledge. (Admittedly, I would pay good money to watch John Collum open a supermarket, so I may be biased.) Overall, I thought the show was just okay.

Afterwards, Cindy and I went to meet up with a flyertalk friend of mine at Pisco y Nazca. This is an excellent Peruvian restaurant. I drank a classico chicano, which was delicious and refreshing. As for food, I ate ceviche dos temperaturas which consisted of marinated fish with choclo (a type of corn with large kernels) and sweet potatoes in a spicy sauce. That was also quite tasty. The others also seemed to enjoy their food. We had lively conversation, mostly travel related.

Now I am in minor panic mode regarding upcoming travels. I’ll be fine, but there are always last minute things to get done.

Here is a quick final catch-up before I leave on vacation. American Airlines has already pissed me off, by the way, but that’s hardly news. Since I saved a ton of money by burning up some Advantage miles, I will kvetch only in an undertone.

Election: I was relatively satisfied with the election results. My district was no surprise at all. As I have said before, we are so blue that we are practically indigo, and the incumbent Gerry Connelly was re-elected by a large margin. The more important races in Virginia resulted in Jennifer Wexton and Abigail Spanberger retaining their seats. Alas, Elaine Luria lost her seat, largely due to redistricting, with much of the Eastern shore moved into VA 2 and large swaths of the Hampton Roads area moved out.

Pierre Bensusan: Some time in the early 1980’s I was randomly flipping radio dials and heard an NPR program playing “La Bistrangue,” a French-Canadian dance I know from my years of folk dancing. So I started listening to that show and a couple of other Celtic music shows, resulting in my hearing some music by a French guitarist named Pierre Bensusan. It turned out that he was going to be performing at the Julia Morgan Theatre, which was quite close to where I lived in Berkeley. In short, between his records and seeing him live, he became pretty much my favorite living musician. I’ve seen him perform at least 20 times, probably more.

Well, obviously, he wasn’t touring during the pandemic. (And it turned out that he had a health crisis of his own in there, though he didn’t provide any details about that.) But he went back on the road recently and one of his last concerts on his America tour was at Jammin’ Java, which is just up the road from where I live. Astonishingly, I had no schedule conflicts, so of course I was there. And, of course, he was brilliant. (And, of course, I bought his latest CD.) His English is so much better than it was 40 years ago, too. The best story he told had to do with how he ended up playing guitar on a song recorded by Donny Osmond, who I had a brief crush on somewhere around the Partridge Family days.

I always feel privileged to have access to so much great live music nearby.

Stereo Mystery: Thinking about listening to records in that apartment in Berkeley reminds me that somebody had given me a stereo system. I can’t for the life of me remember the circumstances behind that. It’s possible that it was left behind by the first housemate I had there. I’m fairly sure that stereo system did not come with me when I moved to Los Angeles, however, and I have no idea what became of it.

Thanksgiving: Because I am overwhelmed and life is chaotic, I just did Thanksgiving dinner for myself. I made roasted turkey breast, wild rice with onions and mushrooms (I was going to add pecans, but forgot to), tahini-glazed carrots, and succotash. I had salad with lemon-basil vinaigrette as a starter and apple-cranberry crumble for dessert. I have a lot of leftovers in the freezer. (Well, not any salad. And the succotash started out from frozen to begin with.) Among the many things I am thankful for is having a decent-sized freezer!


Duolingo: I started doing Duollngo in an attempt to learn a bit more Spanish before my upcoming trip. Their way of gamifying language learning certainly makes it easier to study. I’m currently in the middle of Unit 22, out of 207. I will note that their explanations of a few things don’t quite work for me, some of which reflects on problems with the English language, e.g. the dozens of different meanings of “excuse me,” making me unsure when to use “perdon” vs. “disculpe.” I also find that they have some inconsistency in identifying typos vs. actual mistakes, though that probably works in my favor as often as it works against me. Finally, I’m noticing that I am way more competitive than I realized, as I end up spending a lot of time making sure I stay at the top of my current league. That will probably taper off once I make it through all of the achievement levels. Anyway, I’m having fun with it.


Story Swaps: Last Saturday night was the monthly Voices in the Glen swap. I told my story “Dites-la en Huit Langues,” which has to do with how a universal phrasebook I bought at a used book stall at a fair in New Hampshire ruined my life by leading me to attempt to learn several languages. And just now I went to a zoom story swap put on by Community Storytellers in Los Angeles, where I told a folktale from Afghanistan about a lion who didn’t know how to read.

I have a number of things to write about (so what else is new) but let’s start with festive food.

On those occasions when I spend Thanksgiving at home, it’s an excuse to cook a rare multi-course meal. This year I started with a green salad with lemon basill vinaigrette dressing.

For the main course, I roasted a turkey breast. This is easy - you just mix olive oil with seasonings (a little paprika, oregano, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, except I was out of thyme and didn’t have time to go out to the store for more). You rub that under the skin of the turkey breast and then rub more on the skin. Then roast the whole thing in a 375 degree oven until a meat thermometer inserted in the thickest part reads 165 degrees. (It took a little over 2 hours.)

I wanted to go with Indiian (as in East Indian, not Native American) flavors for the side dishes. One of those was a potato casserole with spinach and chick peas, that is intended to be sort of like the filling of a samosa. It’s seasoned with garam masala and amchur (mango powder). and chilis. It wasn’t as spicy as I’d hoped and I’ve been remedying that as I heat up the leftovers.

My other side dish was going to be butternut squash theron. But the recipe called for coconut and, when I took the bag of shredded dried coconut out of the pantry, I discovered it had weevils! Despite one friend who suggested that just adds extra protein, er, no, I don’t do insects. So I just tossed the squash with olive oil, cumin, black pepper, and cinnamon and roasted it until tender.


I was also going to bake carrot bread, but that also calls for coconut, so I just skipped it. It’s not like I needed more food.

Here’s a picture of the plated turkey and sides:




I poured some shiraz to drink with that, which worked well.

For dessert, I had apple-cranberry crumble:




That came out a bit sweeter than I intended, probably because I used sugar bee apples instead of the granny smith apples I would usually have used. It was still good.


I’ve been eating leftovers ever since. Though I’ve now used up the leftovers I put in the refrigerator and can hold off eating those in the freezer for a few weeks, while I eat other stuff.


On top of that, Chanukah started last night. I’ve gone with boughten potato latkes this year, since I don’t feel like grating onions. (Grating potatoes is fine, but onions get painful quickly. No wonder my mother used to make me and my brother do those.) also bought a box of sufganiot, i.e. doughnuts from Astro Doughnuts and Fried Chicken in Falls Church. The challenge is trying to make them last eight days. I fear I am going to fail at that.





The undecorated ones are creme brûlée. The ones with powdered sugar and chocolate gelt on top are filled with jelly. Everything is tasty.


I’ve made plans for my next round of ProLon in a couple f weeks.

This post is a mixture of a few things, but the common bond is synagogues.


Yom Kippur: For Yom Kippur, I “attended” services put on my Shirat HaNefesh. Their cantor is a friend of a friend and it turns out that I had me their rabbi a couple of times, though she was conducting services elsewhere. Their zoom set-up worked reasonably well, with the cantor (and, in some cases, other speakers) visible in one window and the text of the service scrolling in the main window. I’d characterize the service as more or less Reconstructionist. I could have lived without the sporadic guitar music and some other less traditional elements, but it was okay under the circumstances. One thing I did like a lot was that they had various congregants talk about sections of the service. In particular, I thought that having an EMT talk about life and death was appropriate. Also, they used Ishay Ribo’s Seder HaAvoda for that part of the service (which has to do with the high priest’s Temple service), which is a great piece of music, (They played his recording for that.) I could have drifted off, but I think they skipped the Martyrology, which is fine with me. I was, alas, disappointed in the lack of the priestly blessing.

Bottom line is that it was fine under the circumstances, but not really quite what I was looking for. I suspect I need to go to an Orthodox shut to get the level of tradition I want.


Grandpa: As I’ve mentioned before, my paternal grandfather was a cantor and there were some years he was hired to do the High Holiday services at our shul. I had this realization this year, when I was thinking about him, that, since he was born in 1906, he would have been 62 (the age I am now) in 1968. Which is when I was 10 years old. I tend to think of him as being much older. I’m not sure that means anything, but it’s interesting.


Synagogue Art and Architecture: In October, the Orange County (California) Jewish Community Scholar Program had a three part lecture series on synagogue architecture with Samuel Gruber, who is a well-known expert on the subject. I’m not sure where I heard about this - somewhere on Facebook, I assume - but it was right up my alley. The lectures are actually available on YouTube, including a bonus lecture (a continuation of Lecture 2) because Dr. Gruber was ambitious in how much material he intended to cover.

Lecture 1 had to do with Great Synagogues of the World. A key point was the multiple uses of the synagogue, which include a house of meeting (Beit Knesset), house of prayer (Beit Tefillah), and house of study (Beit Madras) and, in early times, also included use as a hostel. (I believe that is not necessarily limited to early times, as there are folktales where people sleep in the synagogue of a town they are visiting.) Dr. Gruber listed a lot of historic synagogues in places ranging from Alexandria, Egypt to Vilnius, Lithuania, from Sydney, Australia to Fez, Morocco. One interesting feature was what he called the “bipolar” plan, in which the bimah (reading desk) is at one end and the aron kodesh (ark where the Torah scrolls are kept) is at the other, with seating along the sides. Another interesting seating arrangement was in the Kehila Kenosha Yeshen (Old Synagogue) in Ionian, Greece, where seats faced outside, as well as inside. He also noted that painted synagogues were the norm in Eastern Europe. As for synagogue exteriors, he discussed the rise of the Moorish style in the 19th century.

Lecture 2 was titled Arise and Build: American Synagogues and Jewish Identity. It was interesting to learn that there was not, in general, any resistance to synagogue building in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. The dominant arrangement of interiors of those earlier synagogues was the “bipolar” one and the “theatre” style came later. Some of the synagogues were originally churches (and, of course, some synagogue buildings later became churches). As a result, there are some with stained glass derived from Christian Bible pictures. There were a variety of architectural styles, including Greek revival, Federal, and Egyptian revival. The biggest development in interiors was the rise of the Reform movement, which replaced the women’s balcony with an organ loft (and, in some cases, a choir loft). In the mid-19th Century, the Romanesque Revival style became popular with Central European congregations,, while the Gothic style was popular with German congregations. Almost none of the Gothic style synagogues are used as such now, however. The Moorish style became popular under the Reform leader Isaac Meir Weiss, who envisioned a “Jewish Alhambra.” By the 1880’s, all of these styles merged, with the Moorish dominating and that style (notable for having two towers, often topped with cupolas) was adopted by Orthodox congregations, too.

What made these synagogue buildings uniquely American was the eclectic mix, which also included styles from other American civic buildings, e.g. town halls. Dr. Gruber also noted that “Americans like change.” But the Moorish style predominated, with horseshoe arches, cupolas, and arabesque decorations. Eastern European congregations favored painted interiors, some of which still exist, with scenes of Zodiac signs (“mazole” in Hebrew) and Holy Land landscapers dominating. However, another common style, particularly in rural areas, was the vernacular wooden synagogue, derived from a common form in Poland and Lithuania. This was a rectangular building with a gabled roof. Those also often had elaborate paintings and carved arks. He showed several pictures of a mural from a shul in Burlington, Vermont. The building became an apartment building, but the mural was intact and has been conserved.

Lecture 3 was focused on Modernism. Dr. Gruber noted that we tend to think of modernism as dating from the 1930’s, but “yesterday’s modernism is today’s tradition.” In the late 19th century, classicism was considered modern, especially among the Reform movement. The 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago was a major influence and the so-called White City was picked up by the City Beautiful movement. However, he noted, that Shearith Israel in New York (aka the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue) had always been classical because its architect, Arnold W. Brunner, thought that was appropriate based on excavations in Palestine. What also arose during the early 20th century period was the Jewish Center movement, with synagogues also hosting classrooms, gyms, and even a swimming pool. However, few of those buildings survived the depression. Other modern features that arose were domes (applied to all styles, starting in the early 20th century), art nouveau, and art deco. Orthodox synagogues came to favor the stripped down International style. By the 1950’s classroom wings became as important as the sanctuary. Under the influence of Percival Goodman, a lot of synagogues came to resemble high schools.

The trend now is for smaller, more flexible spaces. This is true even at Orthodox synagogues. There is also a trend to use natural materials and art made by congregants. The lifespan of American synagogue buildings is typically 20-40 years. Finally, Dr. Gruber suggested that you should view photographing a synagogue as if you are the last person ever to see it.

Overall, this was an excellent lecture series and I am glad I stumbled upon it. It was very information dense, with lots of photos of specific synagogues and information about architects, so what I wrote above is a very brief summary. The Community Scholar Program has a lot of other lectures recorded and I intend to watch some of them when I have time.


Three Specific Synagogues: I have attended some High Holiday services at Sixth and I Synagogue in Washington, D.C. which is interesting for having been successfully restored and revitalized in 2004, after having become a church when Congregation Adas Israel moved to the Cleveland Park area in Northwest D.C. (where it remains) in the late 1940’s. It is also a major cultural center with an active program of lectures and concerts in normal times.


The Vilna Shul on Beacon Hill in Boston has, alas, become more or less a museum and cultural center, but has not had an active congregation since 1985. My understanding is that it was pretty much the victim of urban renewal, which destroyed the Jewish community in that part of Boston. I went to High Holiday services there (along with a few friends) during my undergraduate years. It was obviously struggling since, without the four or so young men from MIT who went there, they would have been unable to have a minyan even on Yom Kippur. I liked the connection to my Litvak heritage (my grandfather was born in Vilna, after all), though apparently the building had been altered enough as not to completely reflect that, with the wall murals having been painted over to a bland American beige. While I was sad about this, somebody once reminded me that we are supposed to think of all synagogues in galut (i.e. exile, the Diaspora) as temporary).


Finally, the synagogue I grew up going to was the Jewish Center of Island Park, aka Congregation Beth Emeth. It merged with another congregation some years ago and became the South Shore Jewish Center. I was last there in 2014, when my mother died, and found that they were no longer using the main sanctuary upstairs because too many members of an aging congregation couldn’t handle the stairs. Anyway, it occurs to me that I don’t know much about when the building was erected, as it was already there when we moved to town in 1961. The congregation was apparently founded somewhere around 1950ish (I have seen both 1948 and 1952). I was growing up during a time of rapid growth and there was an expansion added, which was used as a social hall for bar mitzvahs (and, presumably, weddings, though I have to admit not knowing of any). It was also used for services on the High Holidays. I think it was built in the late 1960’s. I should actually know, since my father (who was a civil engineer) chaired the building committee, but my memory is fuzzy on the details. Anyway, in light of Sam Gruber’s lecture series, it would be interesting to spend some time documenting its history - and the history of suburban Long Island synagogues more generally. Because, you know, I don’t have enough projects to spend time on.

I posted a song on facebook for each night of Chanukah. Here’s the full collection for you to listen to during the last few hours of the eighth day. I was aiming for a wide variety and had fun selecting which ones to use.

Enjoy!

( behind a cut due to length )

Celebrity Death Watch: The only death that crossed my radar this time out was that of Shimon Peres. He served a couple of terms as Prime Minister of Israel, as well as holding several other prominent political jobs there, notably Foreign Minister. I’d say his most significant accomplishment was the peace treaty with Jordan. But he also deserves a lot of credit for Israel being as much of a technologically advanced nation as it is. He also wrote poetry, but I am loathe to list that as an accomplishment for any politician after having heard praise for Stalin’s poetry at his house museum in Georgia.

Baseball: The Red Sox clinched the American League East. Yay! I am also reasonably pleased that the Nationals won the National League East. As for the wild card slots, I’d kind of like to see Detroit pull things out and beat out Toronto, just because the Tigers have some appealing history.

Quarterly Movies: Well, make that "movie," singular. The only movie I saw over the past few months was Seven Psychopaths. I chose it because it was written and directed by Martin McDonagh. Like pretty much all of McDonagh’s work, it is weird and violent, but funny. At any rate, it held my attention.

The Quarterly Goal Update: I didn’t make much of an attempt over the past few months, largely because I’ve been so swamped at work. My email inbox at work is ridiculous – back up over 6000 items. The only other thing I’ve made any actual progress on is dealing with papers, having handled about 2/3 of what had migrated to the bedroom floor.

Speaking of Paperwork: I went to pay my county property tax bill for my car on-line. And I discovered that they had changed my address to some address in a town I’d never heard of that isn’t even in the same county. I called and got it changed back, but the point is that they should notify people when there is an address change so they can verify that they did it. (Apparently, someone did it by phone and the clerk typed in the wrong property number.) The whole thing was bizarre and the security implications are scary.

New Years Rosh Hashanah is Monday and Tuesday, so let me pass along my wishes for a happy, healthy 5777. I will also pass along wishes for a happy fiscal year 2017 for all of my friends who have some sort of U.S. government affiliations.

Two, two, two new years in one.

Last Week’s Entertainment: I went to see a documentary (Famous Nathan about Nathan Handwerker and his hot dog emporium) at the DCJCC Tuesday night. I’ll have more to say about that when I do my quarterly movie wrap-up.

Then, on Wednesday night, I went to the opening show of the new season of The Grapevine, which has moved more conveniently to Busboys and Poets in Takoma. I’d comment on it still being in darkest Maryland, but actually it is on the DC side of the line. And, most importantly, it’s easily metroable. There were two storytellers, followed by an open mike. The first teller was Shirleta Settles, who I had not heard of before. She did a folk tale, with excellent voices and strong singing, and was very animated and entertaining. She was followed by Jon Spelman, who did a couple of excerpts from The Prostate Diaries. One of those was quite timely since it had to do with his experiences on the Camino del Santiago, which fossilfreakca had just started on. He did a good job of making the excerpts make sense while telling something less than half of the whole piece. As for the open mike, I told "Two Foolish Old People," a badly mistitled Mongolian story.

Speaking of Storytelling: I am part of the Better Said Than Done fundraiser for the Reston Nature Center this coming Saturday night (September 19th). The show is at 8 p.m. and doors open at 7:30. We had rehearsal on Sunday afternoon and the show (which has a theme of "Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire") is going to be hot, hot, hot! You should come if you are anywhere in the general vicinity.

Rosh Hashanah: I went to services at Shoreshim in Reston. Overall, I’d say I’m looking for something more traditional. In particular, I would have preferred a more complete Torah reading , rather than just the first Aliyah. I also prefer not to have musical instruments (though I can actually make an argument for including them) and very much prefer not having microphones (though that is a losing cause for the most part). On the plus side, the drosh (sermon) was both brief and relevant and the shofar blowing set a high standard.

I Despair for Our Future: The internet is exploding today with the story of Ahmed Mohammed, a 9th-grader in Irving, Texas, who was hauled off from school in handcuffs because a teacher and some cops were too dumb to be able to tell that his homemade clock wasn’t anything like a bomb. I’m proposing supporting him with a Bring Your Clock to Work Day.

At the same time, there’s an 11-year-old kid in Virginia who is serving out a year suspension (having to go to some special school as a result) for having what someone believed looked like a marijuana leaf in his backpack. Except it was actually a Japanese maple leaf. He (or someone else) may have joked that it was pot, but sheesh.

I suspect that if I were a kid nowadays, I’d end up in juvie over something similarly dumb.

I had planned to crochet a whole bunch of little snowflakes and enclose them with my Christmas cards this year. For people in warm climates, they would be a nice way to have a white Christmas. For people in cold climates, they would be snow that did not have to be shoveled. These would also be accompanied by a long chatty but not bragful letter. And, of course, it would have all been mailed in time for the cards to arrive yesterday or today.

I am slightly more than halfway through writing Christmas cards. The first batch got mailed yesterday and the second batch this morning. There are no crocheted snowflakes. Nor is there an annual letter.

I did, however, write a line or two on every card, instead of just signing my name. That counts for something, right?

This is the new holiday story I told on Saturday night. I will remind you that all the stories I tell are true, but they didn't all happen exactly that way.