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Here’s an attempt at getting all caught up before doing too many things again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My other comment is that I wonder how many of the students pushing divestment from everything associated with Israel are using iPhones or used Waze to find routes to campuses, Do any of them use RSA public key encryption? How many of them eat cherry tomatoes or have websites using wix.com?
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I’ve been fairly busy over the past few weeks. The biggest thing was the Women’s Storytelling Festival, which deserves its own entry. In the meantime, you can still buy a virtual ticket through April 1st and listen to 16 hours of recorded stories. Go to the WSF ticketing page.

In terms of other stuff I’ve been doing, here is what I can decipher from what I scribbled on my calendar and notebooks.

Leading Jewish Minds at MIT: Emily Pollock gave a talk on Continuities, Contradictions, and Carmina Burana: The Problem of Carl Orff. The short version of the problem with Carl Orff is that he used nationalistic language to get his teachings (primarily about pedagogy and primitivism) accepted. He was interested in the medieval, ancient Greek, and Baroque pasts, which led to him using simplified, repetitive rhythms, for example. As a result he did things like write music to replace Mendelssohn’s for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. His best known work is, of course, Carmina Burana, which is a scenic cantata (not an opera) and was based on medieval Latin poems. It premiered in Frankfurt in 1937.

That led to the question of whether or not music is political. Professor Pollock noted that, while his music was praised by Hitler, Orff was not a member of the Nazi party. The nuances have to do with historiography, i.e. how we tell the tory and music as a cultural phenomenon. She didn’t have any real answers to this. Orff is played in Israel, while Wagner is, in general, not.

Incidentally, in talking about other German music of the time, Pollock talked a little about Winfried Zillig's opera, Das Opfer, which has to do with the fatal Terra Nova expedition of 1912, during which Robert Falcon Scott and 4 of his companions died on their return from the South Pole. (By the way, the opera apparently does not include Evans, who died earlier than the others.) The intriguing part of this is that the chorus is dressed as killer penguins, who surround Oates and perform a victory dance as he walks into the storm to die. I have not actually heard this opera, but I do think the world needs more music with evil penguins gloating about human deaths.

MIT Presidential Tour: Sally Kornbluth, who has been the president of MIT for about a year, has been doing several trips to meet with alumni (and other community members) and it was Washington, DC’s turn on March 7th. This started out with drinks and hors d’oeuvres for Leadership Circle members (which has to do with how much you donate). The room where that was held was a bit awkwardly shaped, making it a bit hard to mingle, though I did have a few interesting conversations. Then we moved to the general reception area, where they had several food stations, as well as a photo booth and a 3-D printer making coasters. I liked the photo they got of me.

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Eventually (after more eating and socializing), we were herded into a conference room for President Kornbluth’s talk. Well, actually, she was interviewed by Annalisa Weigel, who is a member of the MIT Corporation (and a big name in the aerospace world). I was glad they started off with the elephant in the room. Namely, we’d had an opportunity to write in questions beforehand and I am pretty sure I am not the only person who asked about safety of students in light of the Palestinian situation. I thought she had a reasonable reply, mostly focused on enforcing existing rules re: campus protests. There was a lot of stuff about how MIT will address other little issues, like climate change, before getting to some more frivolous subjects, e.g. her hobbies, which include a capella singing and making felted flowers. Eventually, we went back into the main room for coffee and dessert (which included chocolate-dipped strawberries). There was also more swag, e.g. ballcaps and tote bags. All in all, it was a nice evening out.

Book Clubs: R.E.A.D. discussed Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland, which is a novel based on the life of Clara Driscoll, who designed almost all of the famous Tiffany lamps. Crones and Tomes discussed The Thread Collectors by Shauna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman. (You might recall that R.E.A.D. had done that book previously. I did not reread it, since it had been recent enough that I remembered the gist of it.) I should probably also mention that I took some time out from the Women’s Storytelling Festival to call into the TCC Book Club for our discussion of The Places In Between by Rory Stewart, which is about his walk across Afghanistan.

Medical appointment: The last of the catch-up on medical appointments was pretty routine. Mostly, I got the updated pneumonia vaccine that they give to old folks, as well as the final Hepatitis B booster and the RSV vaccine.

Artomatic: I leveraged off being in the vicinity already (for my medical appointment) to go to opening day of Artomatic. This is an art show (including visual art and performance art and films and pretty much anything, since it’s unjuried). On the way there, I stopped at Call My Mother for lunch and, while I know it’s popular, I still find it disappointing and a crime against bageldom.

Anyway, I started at the top floor and worked my way down, managing to look at about half of the displays at Artomatic before fading out. I did take a break to look at a couple of short movies, the best of which was a cartoon about a support group for cats, which resulted in all of the cats moving in with an elderly woman.

This is called “Pink Compass, True North" and is by Sarah Jane Rodman.

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Unfortunately, I didn’t capture the name and artist for this sculpture, but I admired the balance and the use of shapes and colors.

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This painting by Giovanni Zelaya is called “The Dream is Alive” and depicts Mae Jemison, Sally Ride, and Ellen Ochoa.

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There was also a whole wall of little paintings and what looked like refrigerator magnets. depicting books with titles like “Everything I don’t like is WOKE: A book for basic dickheads” and “How to talk to your dog about The Fall of Constantinople.”

I need to get back and see the other three (maybe four) floors of art. One of my friends is doing a storytelling show there, so I hope to get there for that.

Other Stuff: The Saturday before the Women’s Storytelling Festival, we had a Voices in the Glen story swap. I told “Clever Greta,” which is a Grimm story and quite suitable for women’s history month. That Sunday, we had our annual business meeting. And the Sunday after the festival, the Better Said Than Done board had a postmortem of the festival.

We’ve also had three Grimm Keepers meetings because one had had to be postponed due to conflict. “The Children of the Two Kings” is one of the weirder stories, which is saying a lot since my immediate reaction to most of the stories is that they’re really strange. What made it weird is that, while several things are similar to incidents in other stories (e.g. impossible tasks that have to be done for the prince to marry the princess), there’s a recurring image in it involving the use of glass tools, which nobody had any reasonable explanation for. Our discussion of “The Little Donkey” has inspired me to think of trying to do something with the idea of a support group for people who have been turned into animals (or, who were born as animals, but became human.) Finally, we just talked about “The Turnip,” which needs a certain amount of fleshing out to be satisfactory, but I think I could make it tellable. By the way, this is not the same as the Russian story about the giant turnip that takes several people working together to get out of the ground. It’s a tale of sibling rivalry and revenge.

Also, I’ve played board games several times, including managing to make it to NPL Game Night the past three weeks. I had a stupid accident this past Thursday in which I tripped over a concrete parking stop in a supermarket parking lot, ending up with various bruises, including a black eye. At least, so far as I can tell, I didn’t break anything. And, I went to see the William Shatner movie. You Can Call Me Bill with my friend, Kim, this past Sunday, which was interesting but decidedly not what I was expecting.

I still need to do a lot more housework. And do my taxes, the hardest part of which is always finding all of the statements I need.
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Sorry for the long delay in writing. I’ve been distracted by trying, not very successfully, to get caught up on stuff at home. I’ve also been getting ready for an upcoming storytelling show (live only and sold out, so I’ll spare you the shameless self promotion this time).


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

No wonder I keep falling behind!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Patchwork

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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After getting home from Boston, I had a couple of my usual activities.

Standing Meetings: Our Brothers Grimm discussion was about “The Blue Light,” which I was unfamiliar with until getting ready for our meeting. We had our usual good discussion about the relationships to other stories and the implications of different versions. I’m not sure if it’s a story I would tell or not.

My needles and crafts group was having one of our in-person meetings and I drove to darkest Maryland for that. There was the usual annoying roadwork on the Beltway, which made it take twice as long as it should have. On the plus side, there was lots of fall color in Bethesda.

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Another plus was getting to meet our hostess’s new kitten, who is adorable. And so soft.

Museum of Failure: On Saturday, Cindy and I went to the Museum of Failure, which is a temporary installation in Georgetown. Cindy had a bit of a failure finding the entrance to the building and had to call me for directions.

There are several sections to the museum, but the exhibits all raise the question of just what makes something a failure. Some of the things they show were actually good products, but did not win out over their rivals commercially. For example, most experts would say the Betamax was technically superior to VHS, but it was more expensive and didn’t capture the market share.

Another example is this device, which was wildly successful in France. It was called the Minitel and was a terminal that enabled people to do things like check stock prices, make travel reservations, do their banking, and search for porn before the world wide web. It was very popular - and kept the French from getting onto the internet for about a decade.

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One I would argue wasn’t a failure was the Iridium phone. This was the first system that was truly world-wide, enabling telephone access at latitudes out of reach of geosynchronous satellites. (Molniya orbits do allow northern polar access, but not southern.) I once volunteered on an archaeological dig in Fiji and one of the people on our team used his iridium phone all the time to call his family. Besides, they had the coolest ads ever, with a San tribesman in the Kalahari, dressed in a loincloth, and carrying his bow and a quiver of arrows in one hand and his iridium phone in the other.

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There were lots of transportation related failures - the Edsel, the Delorian, the Segway (which is used a lot for tours and security staff), and grass skis. The reel of commercials for these things was a lot of fun.

Another section had lots of toys. We talked about ones we or our neighbors had had, like lawn darts. I also remember “growing up Skipper,” who grew boobs when you turned her arm. Which brings me to the porno room that included things like this magazine cover:

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There was a whole section on food and drink. In addition to things like a wall of odd oreo flavors, there were familiar things like New Coke and Crystal Pepsi.

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Other exhibits had to do with Donald Trump and with Washington, D.C. (including the failure of the Metro to have a station in Georgetown and the failures of the Washington Football Team.) There were also medical failures, e.g. thalidomide. Both of us also remembered Ayds candy (a diet aid), which was pretty successful until the AIDS epidemic.

My absolute favorite item was the hula chair. This was intended for you to be able to get exercise while sitting at work. You probably have to click through to flickr to watch the panic on my face as I try to figure out how to turn the damn thing off.

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Overall, I thought it was a pretty entertaining morning.

Avenue Q: On Sunday I drove to Reston to see the Reston Community Players production of Avenue Q. A woman I know from storytelling circles was playing one of the Bad Idea Bears. Anyway, it’s a show I’ve seen before, and, while some aspects are a bit dated, it’s still very funny.

Halloween Show: Our spooky story show was Monday night and went well. My contribution was a Russian vampire story, collected by Aleksandr Afanasyev in the Tambov Oblast. Overall, there was a wide range of stories from the different tellers and, wow, there’s a lot of creepy stuff out there.

The Borscht Belt: On Tuesday, I went to a zoom lecture about the Jewish Catskills. What I hadn’t actually known was that what I think of as the Catskills were actually another mountain range called the Shawangunk Mountains. I also learned that the Hudson River actually flows for another 100 miles under the Atlantic after reaching New York City. There was a lot of somewhat random information about the development of the Jewish resorts, which were mostly founded in reaction to the segregated policies of the other existing resorts in the “real” Catskills. I was also reminded of the term “populuxe” for the style of architecture of the resorts. It was an interesting talk, but there were a lot of digressions from the primary subject and, while it had been advertised as an hour and a half, it ended up being almost two and a half hours.

Did You Know?: If you eat a Reese’s White Chocolate Peanut Butter Ghost while drinking coffee, your coffee will taste like marshmallow. This was an accidental discovery yesterday morning and it took me a minute to realize what had happened since it was coffee from a different roaster the my usual one. I assume this works with non-ghost shaped white chocolate peanut butter cups, too. (I had the ghost shaped ones because I’d bought them for Halloween, but didn’t get any trick or treaters. So, obviously, I had no choice but to eat them myself.) Not that I’m sure why one would want one’s coffee to taste like marshmallow. One of my biggest rules in life is that coffee IS a flavor and should, therefore, not come in flavors.
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One other thing I should have included in the previous post re: Israel has to do with the claim that Jews (and, specifically, Ashkenazi Jews) are not indigenous to Israel. This claim has been definitively discredited by DNA analysis. There is, essentially, no difference in DNA among various Jewish groups, with the possible exception of Ethiopian and Indian (Cochin and Beta Israel) Jews, though the latter two groups do show some evidence of ancient paternal Jewish descent. There is also substantial genetic overlap between Jews and other Levantine groups, including Palestinian Arabs, Lebanese, Bedouin, and Druze populations.

I made a few attempts to find a good segue into what I wanted to say about the personal side of what’s going on in Israel right now. And I failed. So let me just say a few things.

A few weeks ago, I started obsessing about my father’s nightmares. The thing is, I don’t actually remember him having nightmares. I mean, I sort of do, and I sort of know he must have and I have vague memories that may have been fever dreams, a remnant of the malaria he had contracted in a DP camp after the war. I think a lot about all the stories I never heard because Dad didn’t want to traumatize us. So I never know what are real memories and what are things I’ve read about the Kovno Ghtto and Dachau. I don’t know why I started thinking about Dad’s nightmares, but it feels prescient in light of the Hamas pogrom.

I don’t know if generational trauma sank into my DNA or if that even makes any sense. I do know my American-born mother had a large family, while my Shoah-survivor father had his father and an uncle in Israel. (Even at that, my maternal grandfather, who'd studied at a yeshiva in Petah Tikva and ended up in Havana in the 1920's because one of his brothers knew someone there who'd teach him a more marketable trade than being a rabbi, had a sister who’d survived Auschwitz.) I’ve always known it could happen here.

So a week and a half ago, I couldn’t sleep. I was able to get in touch with various relatives in Israel and verify that they’re safe for now, but they’re still worried. (In one case, I have a cousin whose son-in-law, who is a doctor, has been called up.) The operative words there are “for now.”

And I see people marching and chanting anti-Semitic slogans and, yes, it could happen here. I’m reminded of a man I knew 40-odd years ago (Australian-Israeli, living in Montreal), who ended a sentence like that by saying “which is why you shouldn’t be surprised if you see me parachuting into Lebanon.” (Er, no, not something I am planning on.) And I’m not okay.

I don’t think I can ever be okay.
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I’ve got several things to write about, but I feel like I have to start with saying some things about Israel. There is a lot of significant misinformation out there about both history and demographics, which I think is important background to understanding what is going on now. I’ll write a more personal entry a little later on.

1. Despite the destructions of the first and second temples and the associated exiles, there have always been Jews who remained in the land of Israel. Prior to roughly the fourth century CE, Jews were the demographic majority in the region. After a series of invasions, expulsions, and massacres, the Jewish population reached a low of of a little under 1% of the population (roughly 2000 people) in the 1690’s. The numbers varied significantly by city over the years. For example, in 1850, about 25% of the population of Jerusalem was Jewish, while under half was Muslim, with the rest Christian (primarily Eastern Orthodox). But 64% of the population of Tiberius was Jewish and just under half of the population of Safed was Jewish. In a 1905 census of Jerusalem, nearly 60% of the Jews living there had been born there. (This is complicated, however, by who was actually included in the census. Compare to recent U.S. census discussions about counting non-citizens and imagine the dying days of the Ottoman empire.)

2. While large numbers of Ashkenazi Jews did immigrate to the region starting in roughly 1880, the majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrachim or Sephardim (who Israel lumps together for demographic purposes). In addition, Israel categorizes all European Jews as Ashkenazim, while, say, Bulgarian Jews are overwhelmingly Sephardic and there are other groups like Greek Romaniote Jews. It’s complicated. But the point is that characterizing Israeli Jews as European is largely inaccurate. The expulsion of Jews from the Arabic world after the partition of the Palestinian mandate was a major factor in this. There are some significant implications of the demographics. In general, the Ashkenazi community tends to be more secular and more liberal than the Sephardi communities. (Note that, like everything in Israel, the demographics are complicated. The younger generations have a lot more intermarriage between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, which are not reflected well in the statistics.)

3. About 20% of Israeli citizens are Palestinian Arabs. They are primarily descendants of people who did not leave during the partition and subsequent war. There are socioeconomic issues relating to them and their treatment, but many of them are successful and there are a small number of members of the Knesset who are members of the Arabic parties. Somewhat ironically, Israeli Arabs have the lowest rate of anti-Jewish attitudes in the Middle East (according to a Pew Research global poll.) There are also several non-Jewish ethnic minorities, e.g. the Druze (many of whom choose to serve in the Israeli military), the Adyghe (Circassians), who are a predominantly Islamic group from the Caucasus region, and Bedouins. I’d argue that the latter are the group to whom one might most accurately apply the term “apartheid,” but that’s not really a factor in the current situation re: Israel and Hamas. They aren’t exactly treated well in the rest of the region. I’d compare the situation of the Bedouins to that of, say, the Irish travelers. In general, nomadic groups are hugely discriminated against in the modern world.

4. I’ve sen some people claim that the Jews who emigrated to the land of Israel prior to Partition were welcomed by the local Arab community with open arms. This is decidedly ahistoric and entirely ignorant. If there were any open arms, they were holding swords and knives. Some of the larger massacres of Jews in mandatory Palestine include the Jaffa riots of May 1921, the Buraq uprising of 1929 (which includes the Hebron massacre), the labor strike revolt of 1936, the Tiberius pogrom of 1938, etc.

5. Re: Gaza, it was created as a refugee camp by Egypt, back in the 1950’s. In general, the Palestinian Arab community has been manipulated by various Arab states since Partition and used as a political pawn by them, including their expulsion from both Egypt and Jordan. There is no real reason why the money that’s gone to arming Gaza with thousands of rockets to fire at Israel and building tunnels couldn’t have gone to building beach resorts that would attract tourists from the rest of the Arab world. (FWIW, Saudi women really love Dubai because they can wear jeans in the shopping malls and hang out on the beach in clothes that would get them arrested at home.)

6. Which brings us to Hamas. Hamas was founded as the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. Their original charter, issued in August 1988, was a particularly vile anti-Semitic document, which quotes largely from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Russian fraud of the early 20th century which propagated the idea of a global Jewish conspiracy. If you can think of any anti-Semitic canard, it’s in there. (It’s also got very problematic things to say about the role of women and several other groups, but that’s an aside.) More broadly, the Muslim Brotherhood has published Holocaust denial and regrets that the Nazis were unsuccessful in their genocide.

Hamas won an election in Gaza in 2006, largely because of corruption within the PLO. They haven’t had an election since. (Neither has Fatah, the political arm of the PLO, which rules the West Bank.) So it’s not completely accurate to say that the current population of Gaza elected Hamas. Nor have they elected anyone else.

At any rate, in 2010 the Hamas leader said that the Hamas Charter was “no longer relevant, but can’t be changed for internal reasons.” One may interpret that however you like. Hamas leader Khaled Marshal wrote a new charter in 2017 which claims they reject the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious, or sectarian grounds. However, they also state that “the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage.” That is fundamentally untrue. Restrictions applied to Jews under medieval Arab rule included restriction to segregated quarters, wearing distinctive clothing (who do you think invented the yellow badge?), and public subservience to Muslims. Under Almohad rule in North Africa starting in 1130 CE, there were forcible conversions of Jews (and Christians) to Islam and executions of those who refused to convert. To give a another example, there were outbreaks of blood libel (primarily in Syria and Egypt) throughout the 19th century. And then there was active collaboration between the Nazis and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, resulting in multiple pogroms between 1937 and 1945.

7. So where does Hamas get its money? Qatar provides a lot of money (as much as $30 million a month at times) but that is a rather complicated situation and appears to be primarily paying for electricity and direct support to poor families. Iran gives Hamas roughly $100 million a year. And they’re the big player this time out (despite their denials) because they’re terrified of the implications to them if Israel and Saudi Arabia normalize relations. And economics is at least as much a factor in this mess as religion is. There are success stories in the Middle East (largely the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel) and there are abject failures (Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinians). As a bit of an aside, I’ve always found it interesting that in the post World War I era, the British managed to get control over all of the places which had oil, while the French mandatory territories were basket cases. (My theory of colonoiasm starts with noting that former Portuguese colonies are, in general, basket cases. Former French colonies are basket cases with good bread and good coffee.)

So what does all of this mean? The basic conclusion is that it’s complicated and it’s a mess. But every Jew everywhere in the world should feel threatened. And, despite what idiots like Bernie Sanders might think, they’re going to go after him, too.
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I was trying to catch-up on what I did during the rest of April before going on a vacation. Obviously, I didn’t succeed in doing that, so I am writing this now that I am back from my trip.

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

    They have the same middle name!

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



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

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

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

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

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


Still to Come: April prompts, my Kentucky Derby cruise, things I’ve done since I got back
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I finished a couple of things in the past couple of days, so it seems like a good time to catch up here.

Celebrity Death Watch: Royston Ellis wrote travel guides, particularly for south Asia (e.g. India and Sri Lanka) and rail travel. Charle Harrington Elster was one of the original hosts of A Way With Words. Leon Hughes was the last surviving member of The Coasters. Wayne Shorter was a jazz saxophonist. Tom Sizemore was an actor, best known for starring in Saving Private Ryan. Judith Heumann was a disability rights activist. Gary Rossington was the lead guitarist for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Ian Falconer wrote and illustrated the Olivia series of children’s books. Robert Blake was an actor, about equally well-known for playing Baretta and for being accused of murdering his second wife. Raphael Mechoulam was the chemist who (with Y. Gaoni) isolated THC from cannabis. Masatoshi Ito was the founder of Ito-Yokado which owns over 10,00 7-11 stores, as well as being a franchisee for several other brands in Japan. John Jakes wrote epic novels, including North and South. Dick Fosbury was a high jumper who invented the style of jumping known as the Fosbury flop. Jim Gordon was the drummer for Derek and the Dominos, wrote the song “Layla,” and later murdered his mother. Joe Peptone was a first baseman for the Source of All Evil in the Universe. Pat Schroeder was one of the most prominent women in Congress for over 20 years. Stuart Hodes danced with Martha Graham. Sean Burns was the administrator of Tristan da Cunha for many years. Fuzzy Haskins was one of the founding members of Parliament-Funkadelic. John Jenrette was a congressman from South Carolina, best known for being involved in the Abscam scandal. Lance Reddick was an actor, best known for his roles in The Wire, Bosch, and John Wick. K.C. Constantine was a mystery writer. Jerry Green was the only sportswriter to cover each of first 56 Super Bowl games. Keith Reid was a songwriter and lyricist, most famous for Procul Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” Dan Ben-Amos was a folklorist, who studied Jewish folklore among other subjects. D. M. Thomas was a writer, best known for the novel The White Hotel. Howie Kane sang with Jay and the Americans. Virginia Norwood designed satellite imaging systems, leading to her being called the “mother of Landsat.”

Klaus Tuber created the game “Settlers of Catan.” Kwame Brathwaite was a photojournalist and popularized the phrase “Black is Beautiful.” Seymour Stein co-founded Sire Records. Judy Farrell played Nurse Able on M*A*S*H. Roy McGrath was a former chief of staff to the governor of Maryland, who failed to show up for his trial for various corruption charges, leading to a manhunt and his death from a gunshot, though whether by the FBI or his own hand is unclear. Craig Breedlove was a five-time land speed record holder. Leon Levine founded Family Dollar. Hobie Landrith was a catcher and the first person to sign a contract with the New York Mets. Nora Forster was a music promoter, probably more famous as Johnny Rotten’s wife. Ben Ferencz was a prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials. Ian Bairson was a member of The Alan Parsons Project. Pierre Lacotte was a ballet dancer and known for helping Rudolf Nureyev defect to the U.S. Meir Shalev was an Israeli writer. Ed Koren was a cartoonist whose work appeared frequently in The New Yorker.

Robert Haimer was a singer and songwriter, half of Barnes & Barnes and known for writing the song “Fish Heads,” which got a lot of airplay from Dr. Demento.

Chaim Topol was an Israeli actor, best known for playing Tevye in the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof.

Jesus Alou was an outfielder who played for a number of teams, including the Giants and the Astros. His younger brother, Matty, died in 2011, but the oldest of the Alou brothers, Felipe, who was the first Dominican to play regularly in the major leagues, is still alive.

Napoleon XIV was best known for the novelty song “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!”

Willis Reed played for the New York Knicks from 1964 through 1974 and went on to coach for several teams.

Gordon Moore co-founded Intel and was famous for Moore’s Law, which states that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles about every two years.

Mark Russell performed his unique style of political satire on regular PBS specials, as well as live. I was fortunate enough to be able to see him perform at Ford’s Theatre several years ago.

Mimi Sheraton was the food critic for the New York Times for many years. She also wrote several books, including From My Mother’s Kitchen and The Bialy Eaters.

Harry Lorayne was a memory expert. I once commented on The Memory Book as having been written by “Jerry Lucas and some author,” which may give you an idea of how effective I found his techniques.

Anne Perry was a mystery writer. She was several years into that career when the story came out that she had been convicted of murder as a teenager. It’s a complex story, involving what appears to have been an obsessive relationship with the friend whose mother she helped kill.

Al Jaffee was one of the greatest humorists of the 20th century. He invented two features for MAD Magazine - “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” and the fold-in. My Dad bought MAD regularly, allegedly for my brother and me, but we noticed that the fold-in was always done already by the time we got it. He also had an interesting family history, being dragged back and forth between the U.S. and Zarasai, Lithuania by his parents because his mother was unable to adjust to American life. He lived to 102 and credited his sense of humor for his longevity. Also, he earned me 23 ghoul pool points.

Mary Quant was a fashion designer, known for inflicting miniskirts and hot pants on society. And, yes, I wore those back in the day.


Puzzle Community Death Watch: Marc Spraragen, known within the National Puzzlers’ League as Marcus Asparagus, died suddenly of a ruptured aortic aneurysm. He was smart and kind and I always looked forward to seeing him at the NPL con. He was highly devoted to his family - his wife, Pauline, and their three-year-old son, Zachary. Such a huge loss to our community.

Ari Shapiro: The last Monday of March, I went to Ari Shapiro’s book launch event at Sixth & I Synagogue. He was interviewed by Audie Cornish. He had some interesting things to say about storytelling in the context of journalism and the value of encouraging people to tell their stories. Also, a storytelling friend, Cricket, was there, and it turns out she went to college with Ari’s father.

The Eleventh Plague: My friend, Teri, works at the Library of Congress and let me know about Jeremy Brown’s talk about Jews and Pandemics. Some of the things he talked about were the threat of execution for anyone violating quarantines in the Roman ghetto and exactly how a pandemic was defined by the rabbis. For example, only deaths by people who earned a living were counted, but deaths of animals and of non-Jews were included. It was an interesting talk and the library had various books and other reference documents on display.

Pacific Overtures: Pacific Overtures is my favorite Sondheim score, for a number of reasons. In particular, I think “A Bowler Hat” is an excellent example of how to use a song to illuminate character. “Chrysanthemum Tea” has my favorite Sondheim rhyme in “it’s an herb that’s superb for disturbances at sea.” I think “Please Hello!” is a great rebuttal to those who think of Sondheim primarily as a lyricist, since it takes a lot of musical talent to produce such on-the-mark pastiches of different musical styles. Sondheim’s own favorite of his songs was “Someone in a Tree.” Signature Theatre’s production was brilliant, as I expected, with excellent use of puppets and taiko drumming. Jason Ma was very impressive as the Reciter. All in all, it was a fabulous evening of theatre.

ACPT: The first weekend of April (and the Friday night before) was the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The ACPT deserves its own entry, which I will try to get to soon.

Grimm Keepers: Our story for the most recent meeting was “The Nightingale and the Blindworm.” This is a particularly short story, which is only in the first edition and not later Grimm collections. The gist of it is that those animals had one eye each and the nightingale asked to borrow the blindworm’s eye for a party, but refused to return it afterwards. This got us talking about other stories with similar themes, e.g. an African dilemma tale about a couple who find eyes and have to decide who to give the last one to.

Pesach: I had a hard time finding a lot of Pesach food this year. Many years, I drive to the Baltimore suburbs, but I had too much going on this year. And most of my local stores didn’t have certain things I usually look for. For example, nowhere had kosher for Passover jam. So I ate a lot of matzoh with cream cheese, borscht, chremslach (matzoh meal pancakes), and fruit and was bored.

Ballet - Anna Karenina: Last Friday (April 7th) I went to see the Joffrey Ballet production of Anna Karenina at The Kennedy Center. Cindy and I had some miscommunication, so I had an extra ticket, which my friend, Teri, took. None of the three of us had ever read the book, so we were somewhat lost. At intermission, I did read the synopsis, but it didn’t help quite enough. For example, I never understood what the scene in Parliament where Anna’s husband rails against immigrants, had to do with anything else. Still, the dancing was impressive.

Afterwards, we walked over to The Reach (the newish extension to the Kennedy Center) and looked at some of the River Run exhibit there. The theme is largely environmental, so, for example, there is this scu[pture made out of plastic pulled from rivers.

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

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

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All in all, it was a nice afternoon, even if we didn’t completely understand the ballet.

Story Swap: The Voices in the Glen monthly story swap was last weekend. We had a small group, but an enjoyable evening. I told a Tuvan story about “How the Camel Lost Its Beauty.” I’d been thinking of it because it has some elements that are similar to those in “The Nightingale and the Blindworm.” It had been a long time since I’d told it, but I pretty much remembered it.

Crones and Tomes: This months book was The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. This was about her experiences when her husband died and her daughter was hospitalized in a coma for several months. I thought it was a good read but a lot of people had problems with her level of privilege that let her pull in impressive doctors for her daughter.

Counted Cross Stitch Project: I’ve been working on this counted cross-stitch project for two years and a few months and I finally finished it at my crafts group on Thursday afternoon. I still have to get it framed, of course.

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It was designed by Saifhon Borisuthipandit and I bought the kit in Bangkok in 2008. I can, of course, see all my mistakes, but I assume nobody else will notice them.

Taxes: I finished my taxes Thursday night. As usual, what takes time is finding all of the documents I need. The one thing that I had a hard time finding was how much I paid in property tax for my car. In the end, I had to look on the county tax administration website. I ended up having to pay a few hundred bucks because I’d owned shares in an American Depository Receipt which delisted itself from the New York Stock Exchange, triggering capital gains. It was kind of a pain to find my cost basis because I’d owned the shares for nearly 30 years. Anyway, it’s done.

Storytelling - The Musical: To continue the busy Thursday, I attended a virtual storytelling show. Carol Moore emceed and there were 6 tellers. Natalie Jones had a cute story about show piglets (as in “there’s no piglets, like show piglets”) putting on a production of “The Three Little Pigs.” Paul Strickland had a story about an enchanted apple tree with a cursed knife stuck in it. Mo Reynolds told a version of the folk tale “The Sword of Wood.” She was followed by Jack Scheer explaining his magic iPod. Jessica Robinson’s contribution had to do with her mother’s love of singing. And Sam Payne closed out the night with a story about going to church dances as a teenager. All in all, it was a very enjoyable evening and a nice way to transition out of my busy day to a more relaxed evening.
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Someday I will remember how long it takes me to write up posts on multi-day events.

This past week was Yiddish New York, which was done as a hybrid conference this year. The lectures were entirely on-line, while music / concerts were live-streamed. As is typical of this sort of thing, I didn’t have time for nearly everything I wanted to see, but the recorded sessions will be available until mid-February, so I should be able to catch up some.

I went to all four sessions of Vayberishe Zabababones: The Forgotten Rituals and Minhagim of Eastern European Jewish Women presented by Annie Cohen. (Note: “minhagim” is Hebrew and Yiddish for “customs.”) She discussed several types of women’s religious roles, ranging from prayers to midwifery and more. For example, women created religious objects like the curtains around the Torah ark and the gartel (belt) wrapped around the Torah scroll. The major emphasis was on life events, e.g. birth, marriage, and death, all of which are points of transition. She talked a lot about people making a distinction between folk practices and formal religion.

Some of the rituals she talked about were really interesting. One was the “plague wedding,” which was a wedding (often between a poor bride and groom) held to ward off disease. Instead of the normal white chuppah (wedding canopy), a black chuppah was used. Apparently there was at least one example of a plague wedding being held in the context of COVID.

She talked at more length about measuring graves (or entire cemeteries), which was done with string, which was then used to make candles. This was done either during the month of Elul (the month before Rosh Hashanah) or at times of crisis. The idea was a mixture of calling on the dead to intervene on behalf of the living and setting boundaries. Apparently this practice goes back to the 12th century and was practiced at least through the 19th century.

Another major role was the "zagerin,” a female prayer leader. She knew how to read Hebrew and could translate to Yiddish, as well as call out prayers for other women to follow. There was a certain expectation that she would capture the emotional connection to prayer. She also worked with people visiting cemeteries and her first question to them would be “with tears or without,” which would influence how much money people should give her for her prayers.

Another role was healing, including acting as a midwife. Various healing practices were used, including passing an egg over the sick person, the cemetery measuring that was already mentioned, and placing grass from the cemetery at the head of a sick person. There was some discussion about whether Jewish law allows communication with he dead, but there was also a comment that the more Jewish texts forbid a practice, the more common that practice is.

Overall, this was a really interesting series of talks. I also watched a related 15 minute video, “di Zagerin,” (i.e. The woman Prayer Leader) which has to do with a woman who is angrily yelling that all the success the other women in town have is due to her efforts, but she has nothing. She vows to pray only for their downfall and for revenge. Her grandson is trying to soothe her, but fails.


There were related lectures on Reenchanting American Judaism: The Search for Ashkenazi WOmen’s Folk Magic & Ritual and Its Modern Day Potential by Rokhl Lafrissen. I only went to the first of those (on Sunday) because there was another talk I wanted to hear at the same time on Monday. One of her major points was that, in general, American Judaism is in harmony with American values, with an emphasis on the synagogue and life cycle events and tends to be hostile to the supernatural.

She talked about “The Curious Case of the Dybbuk Box,” which was the subject of two movies (and possibly some newspaper articles) around 2001. The story has to do with an antique dealer in Oregon and is a typical haunted object story. One movie was a Hollywood production (“Possession”) but the other is an Indian movie set in Mauritius, called “Dybbuk Box: The Curse is Real.”

In general, she divided folk magic and folk ritual into a few categories - divination, communication with the dead, and magical protection / healing rituals. One particular divination practice she discussed was the Chabad practice of choosing a random passage from the Rebbe’s letters in answer to a question or problem, i.e. bibliomancy. There is apparently at least one website that will do this for you. She also talked about a blog about “Jewitches,” i.e. Jewish women who also practice witchcraft.


The final talk I went to on Sunday was Off the Derekh by Malky Goldman. This is a term that refers to formerly religious people leaving (primarily) Chasidic communities. The lecture was in Yiddish, so I only followed about a third of it. She talked about her background, growing up in a Chasidic family before coming to Boro Park (part of Brooklyn), where she learned English to be able to deal with stores and doctors. She went on to study art at Hunter College. The biggest step into American culture was realizing it was okay to be an individual. If I followed this correctly, her husband is a scientist and basketball player. When she married him, she had to choose everything. She changed how she dressed and got involved with acting, which she said gave her inner child a good feeling. At the same time. she had to deal with her family, who took a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy towards her, just telling other people that she was “in Manhattan.” She also had to fight for individuality with other people who assume everyone who is Off the Derek is the same. Overall, this was an interesting talk, or at least what I understood of it.


There were several music performances. The only one I listened to in real time was by Kateryna Ostrovsky, a Ukrainian Jew based in Hamburg, Germany, who performed a mix of songs, including some Brazilian ones. She was accompanied by Leandro Pellegrino on guitar. Pleasant enough, but nothing revolutionary. I will go back and listen to some of the other music segments, however.


I listened two talks by Vivi Lachs that had to do with the Jewish East End of London. The first of those was Where’s the Goy in the London Music Hall. Yiddish music halls were generally small venues, e.g. the back rooms of pubs. The audiences were almost entirely working class. While there were attempts to put on more serious theatre, those were not successful. The word “goy” to refer to a non-Jew was rarely used and, when used, was considered neither positive nor negative. Instead there were references to people like the Russian tsar, old retired men in Victoria Park, coal men, gamblers, and British police. There were a lot of songs with references to pogroms, Russia, and the tsar. Other songs had to do with London streets, e.g. a woman complaining that her British husband beats her or a man complaining about police enforcing vagrancy laws. (There were also Jewish gangs, by the way.) Other song topics included politics and sexual relationships. The best part of the presentation was her singing a few of the songs.

The other talk by Vivi Lachs I went to was Where’s the Goy on the London Yiddish Stage. She mostly focused on fictional slice-of-life newspaper stories, rather than actual plays. A lot of these seemed to have to do with conflict between new immigrants and the more established Anglo-Jewish community. For example, the Anglo-Jewish community supported the World War I draft, but few immigrants signed up until the draft became compulsory in 1916.


Amanda Miryem-Khaya Siegel gave a talk on Women on the Yiddish Stage. This is related to a publication and translation project that is not just about actresses, but also writers, directors, choreographers, etc. The work, done along with Dr. Alysa Quint started with a summer conference on Women, the City, and Yiddish Theater in 2016 and has progressed to include a collection of scholarly articles and translations of plays by women. Some of the performers who were discussed included Sophia Karp, who was the first woman to join the Yiddish theater and was forced to marry another member of the troupe to be considered respectable, Regina Prager who was mostly an opera singer, and Bertha Kalich, who was the first Jew to perform on the stage of the Romanian National Theatre and the first woman to perform Hamlet on the English stage. There was also a mention of an article (maybe a book) about women in the Lithuanian Yiddish Theatre in Kovno, which I should probably look for given thats where my roots are.

A very different presentation was Am Yisroel High: The Story of Jews and Cannabis by Eddy Portnoy. (This is a pun on the phrase “Am Yisroel Chai,” which means “the people of Israel live.”) This was related to a current exhibit at YIVO in New York at the Center for Jewish History Building. For those who are not familiar with YIVO, it was founded in Lithuania and moved to New York in 1940 and is sort of the Ashkenazi Jewish equivalent of the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress. Some of the things the exhibit discusses are documents relating to cannabis, e.g. a 1911 novel titled “Hashish,” the entry for “hemp” in the Yiddish Encyclopedic Dictionary, and various historic texts, including some found in the Cairo Gneza (a repository of Jewish religious books buried in a cemetery). Hashish was generally accepted by both Jews and Muslims in North Africa and some people think cannabis may be the “aromatic cane” used in making the fragrant mixture used for anointing and for burning in incense. Some of the people who were regular cannabis users include the revisionist Leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the poet Alan Ginsburg, and the astronomer Carl Sagan. Rafael Meshalem at Hebrew University was one of the first people to research medical marijuana and isolated both THC and CBD. Another point he made was that Jews often got involved in risky (i.e. illegal) businesses because of restrictions that kept them out of the legitimate economy. I was amused that he included not just cannabis and alcohol in this, but also comic books! This was an interesting talk and I might check out the exhibit the next time I am in New York, even though I have no intention of using cannabis.


One area of particular interest to me is novelty songs so I really enjoyed Uri Schreter’s talk on Micky Katz: Yinglish Comedy and the Continuity of Klezmer. For those who don’t recognize the name, Mickey Katz did a number of shows and records incorporating Yiddish and a broken English dialect into American music, but is probably best known these days as the father of Joel Gray. He played the clarinet in swing bands and started performing with Spike Jones in 1946, leading him to move to Los Angeles. Before that he had published a book of Yinglish parodies with stories like “Little Red Rosenberg” and “Yoshki and the Beanstalk.” He went out on his own in 1947, doing klezmerized versions of American songs. Some examples include “The Baby, the Bubbe, and You,” clearly based on “Bibbidy-Bobbidi-Boo. (“Bubbe” is Yiddish for “grandmother, by the way.) He also did shows like Borscht Capades. Anyway, the best part of this presentation was listening to all the clips. His work was played frequently in my house when I was growing up (though not as much as Allen Sherman) so I have fond memories of songs like “The Purple Kishke Eater,” “Duvid Crockett,” and “16 Tons of Delicatessen.” I liked the description of him as “the hyphen in the middle of American-Jewish culture.” However, he was controversial and some people were embarrassed by his dialect comedy and thought he was too crass.


Mickey Katz was also one of the people discussed in a talk by Miriam Isaacs on Language in Yiddish Vaudeville and Radio. Note that this talk was almost entirely in Yiddish, but was fairly easy for me to follow. But before him, she talked about the Rechnitzer Rejects who did songs like “Mein Boro Park” to the tune of “New York, New York” and “Balabustas” to the “Ghostbusters” theme. (A balabusta is basically a perfect housewife.) Other people who were mentioned include Sophie Tucker and Eli Basse. There were also diversions into subjects like what is called the “gefilte fish divide” and other differences between Litvaks and Galitzianers, e.g. Litvaks make money while Galitzianers make children. This was, again, fun mostly for the music clips.


The final presentation I went to was Yiddish Songs of Drunkenness by Bob Rothstein. Most of the folk songs he talked about are either sung by drunkards or about drinking, while Slavic folk songs often deal with people dealing with drunks. One interesting thing he mentioned was that in 1863 Russian Empire laws changed from tavern leases to state monopolies on taverns, which some people disliked because Jewish tavern keepers gave credit, while the government didn’t. The only song I particularly noted was one about a drunkard’s testament in which he wants to be buried with liquor.

Overall, there was a lot of interesting material here. And there are still several talks (and music performances) I want to go back and watch/listen to the recordings of. Definitely worth my time (and the conference fee.)
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Last week, one of my friends commented that I was the busiest retired person he knew. I do a lot of things, but I also waste a lot of time and am kind of annoyed with myself over how much stuff I have not been getting done. I definitely need to spend more time on housework. And I need to cook real food and get more exercise. Sitting down to write this catch-up is at least something I can check off my to-do list, which is back up around CVS-receipt length.

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Any suggestions?
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So what did I do during the second half of September? There was a certain amount of life maintenance (e.g. getting my car serviced, trying (not very successfully) to get some decluttering done, eye doctor appointment, travel planning). But I did actually go to a few things.

Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story: I went to see this musical at Theater J largely because I like klezmer music. The show (performed by members of a Halifax-based theatre troupe) tells the story of Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s immigrant ancestors. Chaya’s family left Romania for Russia and her husband died along the way. Chaim's family was all killed in a pogrom in Romania. They meet at the immigration center in Halifax and end up together in Montreal. They’re not very happily married, but they do manage to build a life - and a family. Their story is mostly narrated by The Wanderer, played by Ben Caplan (who co-wrote the songs.)

I had mixed feelings about the show. I did like a lot of the music. But I thought there was too much gratuitous profanity. And, while there were hints of hostility from “old stock” Canadians towards the immigrants, this wasn’t explored in enough depth. The most moving parts of the script were Chaim;s flashbacks to the discovery of his family after the pogrom. Overall, I’d say this was interesting, but unsatisfying.


Cumberland: Back in late April, my friend, Cindy, had gotten us half-price tickets (via Living Social) for the Potomac Eagle excursion train in Romney, West Virginia. The nearest place with what she thought were acceptable accommodations was Cumberland, Maryland (which also has an excursion train - as well as being served by Amtrak) so we met there last Friday at lunchtime. Cindy is a morning person, while I am a night owl, so I was happy to leave her to an early morning drive to Fallingwater, while I left my house at a much more civilized hour. Anyway, after lunch, we walked around Cumberland. The most dramatic building is the Emmanuel Episcopal Church, which is located on the site of the former Fort Cumberland. It is said to have Tiffany windows, as well as tunnels associated with the Underground Railroad, though the building was closed so we were unable to investigate further.

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Another interesting building is the Allegheny County Courthouse.

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The most famous building in Cumberland is probably George Washington’s Headquarters (from the French and Indian War). There’s a button you can press to hear about Washington’s activities there.

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A building of particular interest to me was Congregation B;er Chayim, which is the oldest synagogue in continuous use in Maryland.

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There are a number of other attractive buildings in the historic center, but the town seemed fairly faded, with a lot of closed businesses. Of course, we were there on Friday, so it might be livelier on the actual weekend. We did also walk a little bit on the C&O Canal Towpath, which terminates there and connects to the Great Allegheny Passage. This is a popular route for bicycle trips, as you can ride all the way from Washington, D.C. to Pittsburgh.

Potomac Eagle: As I mentioned, the purpose of our trip was to take the Potomac Eagle train. They only do the full-day trip from Romney,to Petersburg, West Virginia (and back) on the last Saturday of the month. There are three levels of dining cars, but they sell out far in advance, so we were just in the regular passenger car.Here I am nestled (well, sprawled) into my seat.

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The route follows the south branch of the Potomac River. Much of the scenery along the way is farmland, with historic sites along the way. Here, for example, is Sycamore Dale, which was the Civil War headquarters of General Lew Wallace, who is probably best known as the author of the novel, Ben Hur.

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One of the more interesting parts of the trip is what is called The Trough, which is a good area for seeing bald eagles.

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There’s an open car called “the gondola” which is opened up for passengers for the journey through the trough. Because we were in standard class, we got to do this on the way back. I saw at least 4 eagles flying, but was not fast enough to photograph them.

Anyway, we got to Petersburg (a bit late, because there was a PBS crew filming the trip for a special to air next summer), where there was a woman dressed as Civil War spy, Belle Boyd, to greet us.

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There was also a guy dressed as Sasquatch, but they stopped him from taking photos with people by the time I got off the train. I did later get a photo of him at his car before he took off his costume. Here he is combing his hair in the car mirror.

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We had booked a free tour to Fort Mulligan, which is a Civil War battleground. It would have been worth a couple of hours to read all of the signs along the self-guided tour, but we had only about 40 minutes there.
We did have a local guide who said that, when he was growing up in Petersburg, nobody talked about the local Civil War history. Anyway, here’s an obligatory cannon photograph.

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And here’s a photo of an officer’s quarters.

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We also had some time to walk around near the train station. There was a place that sold moonshine and a lot of people went to taste it, but that holds no interest for me. (Plus, it was very crowded.) The souvenir shop next to the depot was full of annoyingly scented stuff, and I had to get out after just a few minutes so as not to choke. Eventually we got back on the train and headed back to Romney.

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Cows have the right of way!

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Also, the state of West Virginia has planted corn for the local wildlife. In some places, the corn was as high as Miriam’s eye.

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Overall, I thought the trip was worth doing, but it made for a long day. I’d also suggest you bring your own food. We bought lunch from their snack bar, which was overpriced and unexciting. I’ll also note that they offer “meal bundles,: which are actually priced higher than the individual items that comprise them. For example, a hot dog is $5, chips are $2 and soda is $3 (so $10 total), while the bundle containing those three items is $12! I told Cindy that was a tax on people who can’t do arithmetic.

I drove home on Sunday morning, while Cindy went to Shanksville, Pennsylvania to see the Flight 93 Memorial (which I’d been to last year). All in all, it was a pretty good weekend.

TCC Meeting: I got back in time to go to a meeting of the Travelers’ Century Club. There were several people there for the first time, as well as people I’ve met before. I enjoyed the usual conversation about places to go. There was also a lot of discussion about language learning.

Rosh Hashanah: I had intended to go to services in person, but I slept late enough that I went to Fabrangen’s on-line services instead. That's less satisfactory in many ways, mostly because I find it harder to concentrate with all the distractions in my house. I’ll make more of an effort to get up early on Yom Kippur.
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On Tuesday May 17th, I went to the Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice. I’d heard about this from one of the Jewish Facebook groups I follow, probably the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA), but maybe Svivah, both of which were among the 100+ sponsors of the event. (The National Council of Jewish Women was the chief organizer.) At ay rate, I liked the idea of a pro-choice event under Jewish auspices, so signed up.

The weather was excellent. The rally was held at what is apparently called Union Square, which is next to the Reflecting Pool in front of the Capitol. When I got there, they had several tables where you could get tote bags, t-shirts, signs, and bottled water. Choosing a sign was a bit tricky. I was tempted by “Thou Shalt Not Steal My Rights,” but, in the end, decided to go with “People of All Religions and No Religion Have Abortions.” Here I am ready to rally:

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I will admit that I was a bit nervous about the event. The intersection of anti-abortion right wingers and anti-Semitic right-wingers is significant - and both of those groups are prone to violence. Beyond a couple of police cars on Third St SW, I didn’t see any significant security presence. But, so far as I could tell, things stayed peaceful. (I later heard there were 3 or 4 Chasidic men counter protesting near the entrance, but I didn’t hear about anything else.)

There were a large number of speakers. That started with a couple of politicos. Senator Richard Blumenthal (of Connecticut) talked about the Women’s Health Protection Act. Other speakers included a number of Congresscritters - Carolyn Maloney, Andy Levin, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jan Schakowsky, Judy Chu, and Haley Stevens. There were (of course) a number of rabbis, from all denominations - including Orthodox. Rabba Sara Hurwitz, the founder of Yeshivat Maharat, emphasized compassion and Rabbi Dov Linzer, who I thought was a particularly effective speaker, emphasized that halacha (Jewish law) clearly believes life begins at birth.


Clergy from other religions also spoke, as did several people who told their personal abortion stories. The speaker who got the loudest applause was Heather Booth, who found the Jane Collective back in the pre-Roe days in Chicago, which helped women get safe abortions. The other big deal was that the National Council of Jewish Women announced a fund for abortion access, the first time they are collecting money to directly help women seeking abortion care, including help with medical and travel expenses.


Overall, I was glad I went. I was, however, uncomfortable with a couple of speakers who said they were proud to have had abortions. I recognize this as shorthand for being proud of what they were able to accomplish as a result (which can cover a wide range of medical, social, and economic circumstances) but it still sounds like awkward phrasing.
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One quick follow-up. It turns out that the experience of starting to dream before falling asleep is not actually uncommon. It’s called hypnagogic hallucination and about 70% of people experience it. I am less unique than I thought.


Celebrity Death Watch: Steve Wilhite invented the GIF (and still managed to pronounce it incorrectly). Ralph Terry was a pitcher who spent several seasons with the Source of All Evil in the Universe. Peter Bowles played Guthrie Featherstone in the Rumpole of the Bailey TV series. Scotty Mitchell was a television actor, who often appeared on game shows, as well as having recurring roles on a couple of sitcoms. Winfield Scott Jr. was an Air Force general and superintendent of the Air Force Academy in the mid-1980’s. John Roach led the development of the TRS-80 microcomputer. Kip Hawley directed the TSA from 2005 to 2009. Charles Boyd was a combat pilot in the Air Force and was the only Vietnam War POW to reach 4-star rank in the military. Edward Johnson III ran Fidelity Investments from the 1970’s on. Taylor Hawkins was the drummer of the Foo Fighters. Kathryn Hays was an actress, best known for appearing in As the World Turns for almost 40 years. Bobby Hendricks sang with The Drifters. Cat Pause was a fat studies activist. Bethany Campbell wrote romance novels. Patricia MacLachlan wrote Sarah, Plain and Tall.

C.W. McCall was a country singer, best known for the song, “Convoy.” Estelle Harris played George Constanza’s mother on Seinfeld and voiced Mrs. Potato Head in the Toy Story movies. Sidney Altman won a Nobel Prize in chemistry for his studies of RNA. Nehemiah Persoff was an actor whose roles included the father in Yentl. Bobby Rydell was a pop singer who played the role of Hugo in the movie version of Bye Bye Birdie. Mimi Reinhardt was Oskar Schindler’s secretary. Gilbert Gottfried was a comedian whose shtick included a really annoying voice. Mike Bossy played hockey for the New York Islanders. Liz Sheridan played Jerry’s mother on Seinfeld. Wendy Rieger was a news anchor in D.C. Barbara Hall was a British crossword constructor and puzzles editor for the Sunday Times. Cynthia Plaster Caster was a groupie who went on to create plaster casts of famous men’s erect penises. Guy Lafleur was a Hall of Fame hockey player. Mike Summer played football for the Washington Redskins. Susan Jacks sang the song “Which Way You Goin’ Billy?” Andrew Woolfolk played saxoophone with Earth, Wind & Fire. David Birney was an actor who is probably best known for the TV series Bridget Loves Bernie but also performed in a lot of serious theatre on Broadway. David Walden contributed to the development of ARPANET. Neal Adams was a comic book artist. Joanna Barnes was an actress whose movie credits included Auntie Mame and The Parent Trap. Naomi Judd was a country singer/songwriter.

Regine was a singer and nightclub owner. Jerry verDorn was a soap opera actor. Rick Parnell was the drummer for Spinal Tap. Norman Mineta was the Secretary of Transportation in the 2000’s. Mary Fuller was a sculptor. Midge Decter was a neoconservative, probably best known as the wife of Norman Podhoretz. Randy Weaver was a survivalist and the key figure in the Ruby Ridge siege. Robert McFarlane was the National Security Advisor under Ronald Reagan and a key figure in the Iran-Contra Affair. Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan was the president of the United Arab Emirates. Ben Roy Mottelson won the Nobel prize in physics for his work on the geometry of atomic nuclei. Vangelis was a musician and composer, whose work for films included Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner. Bob Neuwirth wrote the song “Mercedes Benz.” Rosmarie Trapp was one of the Von Trapp Family Singers.

Madeleine Albright was the first woman to be the U.S. Secretary of State. She was also famous for her collection of brooches, which I once saw at the Smithsonian.

Ann Hutchinson Guest was an expert on dance notation. She lived to the age of 103 and earned me 29 ghoul pool points.

Robert Morse was an actor. He won a Tonyin 1962 for playing J. Pierrepont Finch in How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying and another in 1989 for the one-man play Tru about Truman Capote. He later appeared in the TV series Mad Men. I believed in him.

Orrin Hatch was a Republican Senator from Utah for 42 years. He also wrote and recorded Christian music.

Roger Angell wrote about baseball, primarily for the New Yorker, for about 75 years. Saying that is like saying that Herman Melville wrote about whaling. He was eloquent and insightful, a true poet laureate of the sport. He earned me 21 ghoul pool points.


Non-celebrity Death Watch: Ernest Cravalho was an MIT professor of Mechanical Engineering. I don’t remember if I had him for Thermodynamics, but I am fairly sure we used a textbook he had co-written. He died in April 2021 but I only just learned of his death a couple of weeks ago.

Suzy Pietras-Smith kept an on-line journal at https://www.mutteringfool.com. I met her only once and briefly (at Journalcon several years ago.) She wrote well - not surprisingly, as she was a professional journalist. She had been in the hospital for well over a year, so her death was not a total surprise, but still sad.

I knew Patricia Hansen from FlyerTalk (where she went by the handle, Lili). She was a lively person and a good traveler and I always enjoyed seeing her at FT Dos.

Don’t Analyze This Dream: I worked in the offices of a large corporation. There was some sort of invasion by armed intruders. I locked myself in my office, but somehow I could see what was going on. Several people ran down a hallway to try to escape, but even though they were wearing hazmat suits, they got trapped in a hallway and mowed down. Two women started running in that direction but got away and ran into an office catty corner from mine and, like me, were able to see things happening. The intruders were mostly in a big open room downstairs and were trapped there, where they were killed, so all three of us survived.

Yemandja: I saw this show (play? opera?) at the Kennedy Center a couple of weeks ago. I went to see it largely because of Angelique Kiddo’s involvement. In addition to co-writing the music (with Jean Hebrail), she played the title role. Yemandja is the Yoruba goddess of water and healing. She has a running conflict with Oro, the god of wind. The story involves the influence of these spirits on a girl named Omulola as she tries to rescue her uncle from the slave trade. This is made more complicated because her fiancé , Olajuwon, is the son of the slave trader, De Salta. Throughout all of this, music is used to influence events and, eventually, provide healing. Overall, it was an interesting show and worth seeing.

Maryland Sheep ad Wool Festival: The first weekend of May brought the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, which is, essentially, a cross between a county fair and the world’s largest yarn shop. I met up with a few friends there, but mostly shopped on my own. I did not buy any sheep and confined my purchases to two books - one on sock architecture and one called What Would Madame DeFarge Knit? because how could I resist that title? I also bought a gradient yarn kit - several skeins in a blue, green, and purple color way called “They’ll Be Writing Songs About This.” That will eventually get turned into a shawlette.

Re-Boosted: I got my second COVID booster last Monday, I had gotten Pfizer previously and opted for Moderna this time because there is some evidence that mixing the vaccines might give more protection. I did have more side effects (arm soreness, headache, fatigue, mild nausea) but nothing intolerable.

Leading Jewish Minds - Daniel Jackson on Software: MIT Hillel has a series called Leading Jewish Minds at MIT and the most recent speaker was Daniel Jackson. His talk was on software and why it does and does’t work well. A lot of what he said had to do with user interfaces. But the broader question was what the key concept is that makes a technology useful. He was worth interesting and entertaining and I plan to check out his blog in the future.

Story Swap: The monthly Voices in the Glen story swap was last Saturday night. I told a story from Azerbaijan that I had heard from my guide when I was in Sheki. There was also a story about - and a lot of discussion about - pigeons.

Genealogy Meetings: I went to two genealogy talks over the past week. One was on Immigration and Naturalization correspondence files, which had a lot of information, but I need to go back through the slides to see how useful it is. The other was on tracing ancestors before they had surnames. That one seemed less useful, because almost all of the sources the speaker talked about were from southern Germany and Galicia.

Lunar Eclipse: I had looked forward to the lunar eclipse / blood moon of Sunday night. But, alas, the weather here in Northern Virginia did not cooperate. Damn clouds.

White House Webinar on Jews and Baseball: This was, apparently, an event for Jewish Ameriican Heritage Month. The moderator was Chanan Weissman, who is the White House liaison to the Jewish community. The speakers were baseball historian John Thorn, former player Shawn Green, Justine Siegal (the first woman to coach a professional baseball team), and Misha Halperin from the Museum of American Jewish History. Overall, this was entertaining, but I can’t say that I learned anything new out of it. Well, one thing - Shawn Green is still astonishingly good-looking I suspect that wasn’t the message the event was intended to get out. (The real subtext was that baseball was viewed by Jewish immigrants as a means to Americanization. In fact, Thorn said he learned to read English from the backs of baseball cards.)

Abortion Rights Rally: I went to the Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice on Tuesday. That deserves its own post, which I will try to write in the next couple of days.
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Don’t Analyze This Dream: I was sharing a condo with the friends I play Codenames with several times a week. For some reason, one of them had set up some sort of puzzle / game / competition in the public areas of the condo (i.e. everywhere except the bedrooms and bathrooms). This involved various figurines and plushies, e.g. a ceramic snake with a tiny little Winnie the Pooh nest to it. One of these arrangements had a note suggesting that the contest would start in April.

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


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


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

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

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


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


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


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

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

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


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


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


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


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

LJ and DW: I am planning to continue posting to both sites. If you are concerned about the future of LiveJournal, feel free to add me on Dreamwidth (under the same name). There are things I like and dislike about both platforms, by the way, but that is neither here nor there under the current circumstances.

Ink!: I got ink in the Style Invitational contest for fictoids about the financial world. My entry (which got merged with another person’s similar one) had to do with the Susan B. Anthony dollar being 82% the size of the Eisenhower dollar that preceded it.

Jewish Mustard: I went to a talk about Jewish mustard on Tuesday. The speaker was Barry Levenson, director of the National Mustard Museum I went to the Museum when it was still in Mount Horeb, Wisconsin, but it has moved to larger quarters in Middleton, Wisconsin. It;s an amusing place and he was an entertaining speaker. Mostly, he recommended specific mustards to eat with various Jewish foods, e.g. mustard with dill to accompany lox (smoked salmon) or horseradish mustard to go with gefilte fish. Despite his suggestions, I am not going to start putting even the fruitiest of mustards on my cheesecake.

Sistine Chapel Exhibition: I probably would not have gone to this on my own, but one of my friends wanted to go and, as she’s been having a rough time lately for several reasons, I thought it would be good for her to get out. The exhibit is set up in an unleased retail space in Tyson’s Corner Center, which is a large shopping mall not far from where I live. Basically, they have large reproductions of the panels from the Sistine Chapel ceiling, with explanatory plaques. The plaques are set up on easels, so they are not at eye level, and are, therefore, rather difficult to read for those of us who wear bifocals. More egregiously, the panels are not arranged in any particular order. They’re numbered, but they are not arranged in numerical order. That led to a lot of frustration as people were trying to find the next one in sequence. I suppose some people wouldn’t care if they see them out of order, but I am way too compulsive to do that. The advertising had led me to think there would be some immersive aspect (like the Van Gogh exhibit had), but that was not the case. They did show a few informative videos in the final room. Anyway, it was quite crowded and, between the crowds and the chaos, I was very disappointed.

We retreated to Coastal Flats (a good seafood restaurant in the mall) for lunch. After that, I did walk more around the mall, just to get some more steps in on a chilly day. It was more crowded than I’d prefer, but better than being cold.

Fairy Tale Variations - Little Red Riding Hood: Stories with Spirit did one of their Fairy Tale Variations storytelling shows on Saturday night. This one was based on Little Red Riding Hood. There were a couple of stories that portrayed her as a healer and mender. There was one in which grandmother and the wolf were long-time friends. My favorite of the stories was Cooper Braun’s version, which drew on Norse mythology.

Iolanthe: On Sunday afternoon, I drove to darkest Maryland (well, okay, Rockville) to see the Victorian Lyric Opera company production of Iolanthe which is my favorite Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. I love the political humor of it and there are several songs I end up humming for days after listening to it. They did quite a good job. I will note that Claudia Finsaas who played Phyllis is extremely tall and towered over almost all the rest of the cast, which looked a bit odd. (But she did have an excellent voice). There was also some particularly clever costuming.

Jewish Magic: This morning I went to a very interesting lecture by Yoel Finkelman on Jewish magic. The talk was part of Jewish Book Week and included a lot of discussion about amulets, including documents with texts directly appealing to demons to stay away and bowls with incantations intended to trap demons. He talked about contradictions in the Torah about what type of magic is permitted. There is also a concept of letters being the building blocks of creation, which led to instructions on how to make a golem (a Frankenstein-like creature made from clay. Bu the way "golem" is also the modern Hebrew word for "robot.") He also talked about the differences between magic and technology. (In short , if it works, it’s technology.) Finally, he talked about Kav Hayashor (which translates as The Straight Measure) which contains a story about the demons who live in the basement of a house and cause trouble for the homeowners because they claim to have a deed to the basement. So the Rabbinical court has to get involved in this supernatural real estate dispute. I found the whole talk fascinating and wished it had been more than an hour long.

Shameless Self-Promotion: Don’t forget to get tickets for the Women’s Storytelling Festival. We’ll be performing live at Old Town Hall in Fairfax, Virginia on March 18-20th, but it is being live streamed so you can watch from anywhere. And you get access to the videos for an entire month.
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I have, as usual, been busy. I don’t really know how not to be.

Celebrity Death Watch: Howard Hesseman was an actor, most famous for playing Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP in Cincinnati. Art Cooley co-founded the Environmental Defense Fund. Jeff Innes pitched for the New York Mets. Norma Waterson sang folk music with her family. Robin Herman was the first female sports journalist for The New York Times. Lani Forbes wrote young adult fiction. Mickey Bass was a jazz bassist - and that was his actual surname at birth. Jason Epstein was the editorial director of Random House for about 20 years and, more significantly, founded The New York Review of Books. Todd Gitlin was a sociologist, who wrote about (among other things) the Sixties. George Crumb was a Pulitzer Prize winning composer. Ian McDonald was a founding member of the bands King Crimson and Foreigner. Jeremy Giambi played baseball, primarily for the Oakland A’s, but was overshadowed by his brother, Jason. Betty Davis was a soul singer. Henry Danton was a ballet dancer. Ivan Reitman directed a number of movies, including Ghostbusters. Valerie Boyd wrote a biography of Zora Neale Hurston. Gail Halvorsen was an Air Force pilot, most famous for dropping candy to children during the Berlin airlift. Martin Tolchin was a cofounder of the D.C. newspapers The Hill and Politico. Stephanie Selby wrote A Very Young Dacer.

Lars Eighner wrote the book Travels with Lizbeth about his experiences being homeless. It’s an interesting work and made me more sympathetic towards street people, though I disagreed with his decision to prioritize staying with his dog over being housed. (Then again, I am a cat person.)

Herbert Benson was a cardiologist who studied the effects of meditation and prayer on the body. I heard him give a talk at MIT Hillel back in my undergraduate days. His book The Relaxation Response was a bestseller in the late 1970’s. While his research showed no significant beneficial effect of prayer on patients with coronary bypass surgery, there may be something to his ideas about the benefits of relaxation since he lived to 86.

Ashley Bryan was an author and illustrator of children’s books. I saw a wonderful exhibit of his work at the High Museum in Atlanta in 2017. He was, alas, on my backup list for the ghoul pool, so no points.

Nancy Berg was an actress who had a 5 minute a night TV show in New York in the 1950’s called Count Sheep with Nancy Berg. which, apparently involved her pretending to go to sleep as animated sheep jumped over a fence. There are, alas, apparently no recordings of this show available.

Carmen Herrera was an abstract painter. She wasn’t really discovered until she was nearly 90 years old, but enjoyed a fair amount of success in the next 16 years. (Yes, she lived to 106!) There is, in fact, an exhibit of her work coming up at the Lisson Gallery in New York in May. She earned me 30 ghoul point points - 18 for her position on my list and 12 for uniqueness.

P. J. O’Rourke was a humorist, probably best known for his books Parliament of Whores and Holidays in Hell and his libertarian politics. I had deeply mixed feelings about his work. I laughed, but felt bad about what I laughed at.

Institutional Death Watch: I realized the Capital Steps had stopped performing during the pandemic, but had not quite grasped that they actually folded and are not coming back. Their political satire was such a Washington institution that it's hard to imagine that they're really gone.

Bindaas: Before going to the Kennedy Center last Friday night, I tried Bindaas, a well-reviewed restaurant specializing in Indian street food, for an early dinner. Because it was Friday night, I had a cocktail - in this case, something called Fool’s Gold, that has rum, citrus soda, and various spices (cardamom, coriander, fennel seed, mac, and saffron). It was a bit too earthy for my taste, frankly, and I wouldn’t get it again.

4DB018F1-595F-4A22-9E90-5FD66951B545

As for food, I had samosas and vegetable korma, both of which were fine, but I can get better at half the price at a number of places closer to home. I would probably be willing to eat there again, but would order different things.

Fran Leibowitz: The reason I was at the Kennedy Center was to go to a talk by Fran Leibowitz. This started with her being interviewed by Ari Shapiro, who is still my biggest celebrity crush. (I mean the man looks like the groom doll on a wedding cake. And, yeah, he is young enough to be my son and is married to another man, so it’s entirely fantasy.) Anyway, the most memorable part of that was what he called Celebrity Lightning Round, in which he named various people and asked her for a brief anecdote about each of them. The most interesting tidbit there was that Toni Morrison didn’t eat pizza. The interview segment was followed by questions from the audience. There was a major failure there, in that they didn’t have microphones for the audience members to use. Fran did try to repeat the questions, but there were several she couldn’t hear all or part of. And some of the questions were truly inane. Still, she lived up to her witty and curmudgeonly brand. I thought she was spot on regarding New York, since the main thing I love about it (and other major cities) is that I can always find something there that I didn’t know existed. I do, however, disagree with her about algebra. Not learning mathematics cuts you out from a huge number of professions. But, beyond that, math provides discipline in thinking. Still, overall, I enjoyed her talk and was glad I went.

By the way, in an odd coincidence, someone I know was sitting right in front of me. I run into people I know at the KenCen all the time, but they are usually not sitting quite so close.

Don’t Analyze This Dream: I don’t remember much of this dream, but the key detail was that I was wearing non-matching shoes. I thought I was wearing a pair of sloggers (open toed garden clogs, which is what I put on to go take out the trash or bring in the mail). I didn’t understand why the one on my right foot kept slipping until someone else pointed out that I was wearing a sandal with the back strap unfastened,

Anthony Mordecai Tsvi Russell I went to Anthony Mordecai Tsvi Russell’s virtual talk on what he learned from Paul Robeson. I first encountered Russell as part of a concert I’d gone to because one of the other performers was Mark Glanville. He completely blew me away and I’ve been interested in his mix of African-American and Jewish material since. (Russell is a gay African-American Jew by choice, who is married to a Reform rabbi and specializes in singing Yiddish music.) It’s not surprising for Paul Robeson, whose voice his is somewhat similar to, to attract his attention. Anyway, he talked about moving from the Bay Area to Norfolk, Virginia as a child and being exposed to racist low expectations in school. He’s obviously a very smart (and well-spoken) man and used Robeson’s words to highlight the need to end white superiority and to talk about the role of performance. I particularly liked some of the Robeson quotes he used to emphasize those points:

In America, the most absurd results can be produced, not merely by prejudice itself, but by respect for prejudice.

and

It is not enough for one to be able to do it. I want everyone to have the chance.

and, especially,

I perform what I want to see in the world.

All in all, it was a good presentation, though I’d have liked to hear more of Russell’s singing.

Jewish Dublin: This talk, by Alexander Joseph Vard, was part of a series on various Jewish communities and was broader than just Dublin, also touching on Jews in Cork and Belfast. It was mostly historical and emphasized Jewish support for Irish nationalism. However, Ireland was not always quite so kind to Jews, with incidents including the cover-up of the murders of Jews by two members of the Irish Army and Ireland’s failure to take in Jewish refugees during World War II. The talk was worth an hour of my time.

Science Through Story: This talk by Sara J. ElShafie was part of an MIT Alumni Forum series focused on climate change. I have some issues with people who seek out storytellers by approaching film studios but we live in corrupt times and the use of the term “storytelling” to refer to all narrative (instead of oral presentation) is common enough that fighting it is probably a lost cause. Despite that annoyance, and allowing for the limitations of an hour-long talk over zoom,I thought her ideas about communication were mostly valid. I did wish she had an example that was deeper than a few versions of a single slide. I may get in touch with her later on to bring up some of these issues.

Living Room Archaeology: I have been engaging in a lot of sorting and shredding and so on. I think it is safe to get rid of things like a couple of Italian train tickets from 2014, for example. I cannot, however, figure out why I wrote “Burn Before ..” at the bottom of a to-do list from some time late last year.
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I am way behind. So what else is new?

Let’s start the catch-up with Yiddish New York, which occupied pretty much all of the last week of December. Things started on Saturday night of December 25th with a concert and, while I thought I’d scribbled some notes about it, I must have scribbled them either on paper that has teleported to another dimension and/or in invisible ink. The only specific thing I remember is that somebody was playing the cymbalon (a sort of dulcimer-like instrument), which led me to google that and discover that they may not be too expensive, but, no, I will NOT buy one. Anyway, klezmer music is enjoyable, but I didn’t have anything particular to say about that event.

Sunday:

Sunday started with a lecture on Humor in Yiddish Proverbs. Bob Rothstein was knowledgeable, but not really a good speaker, as he spoke in what I refer to as “uh-um-ese,” which is grating to listen to. Still, I was amused by many of the proverbs he discussed, so it was entertaining. Some of the best ones included:


  • He has as much sense as there are mezuzahs in a church.

  • G-d, give me help, but, if not, I have a sister in America.

  • They are in love - he with himself, she with herself.

  • The only tailor who doesn’t steal material is the mohel.


I should also note that there are a lot of proverbs that equate cantors with fools, which I found surprising since my grandfather was a cantor and no fool. Well, except when it came to women, but that’s another story.

After that I went to hear Itzik Gotterman interview Lilli Rosen on the subject of Off the Derech which is a term used to refer to formerly Orthodox Jews. (And, most specifically, former Hasidim, though I think it can also apply to non-Chasidic haredim.) Rosen, who is transgender, left at puberty, but went back and joined Chabad, married, and left again in their 30’s. At 28, they had gone to law school, which was acceptable within the community. Discussions about religion with colleagues at their law firm were what led to leaving for good and getting involved in Yiddish theatre. Now they mostly consult for television programs. It was an interesting talk, though not really relatable for me.

The Sunday lunchtime concert was by Gica Loaning and Michael Alpert and featured a mixture of Yiddish and Scottish music.

After that I went to a program about Yiddish singing, called Chestnuts and Childhood, which mostly had to do with singing familiar songs. The person leading it had somebody who didn’t know each song learn it. Since they were doing familiar songs (starting with Oyfn Pripetchik), I don’t know how much value this had for me, and I skipped the later sessions in this series.

I’ve already written about the movies I watched as part of the film festival aspect of the conference, so I won’t repeat that.

Monday:

I started Monday with the first half of a talk on Ashkenazi Family Names. Binyamin Schaechter lectured almost entirely in Yiddish, but I was pretty much able to follow his talk, which centered on categories of names. The Monday lecture talked about Matronymic names (e.g. Rifkind, which is derived from the name Rivka), Patronymic names (e.g. Abramowitz from Abraham), Descriptive names (e.g. Kurtz meaning short, or, to bring my genealogy into it Schwartzbard meaning “black beard”), and Occupational names / metonyms (including Nadel, which means needle, for a tailor.) My one complaint is that he showed slides with some names on them and then talked about a lot more names in each category that weren’t on the slide.

The lunchtime concert was by Bob Cohen and Jake Shulmen-Ment, who performed music (primarily instrumental) collected in Romania.

The next talk I listened to was Wexology by Michael Wex, who is well-known as the author of Born to Kvetch. His talk was very entertaining, but a bit rambling. Some of the things he talked about were:


  • Hebrew could sometimes be used in a pejorative way. For example, actors in Yiddish are actioren but if you want to imply that they are bad actors you could use the Hebrew plural and call them actiorim.

  • He talked at length about the expression hock mir night kein chainik which literally means “don’t bang on my teapot,” but is used to tell somebody not to talk nonsense. He pointed out that the lid of a teakettle makes more noise the less water is in it, which is a really good explanation.

  • He had a long semi-rant on the subject of the phrase lign in drerd und baken beygel which literally means “lying in the ground and baking bagels” and is something you might say as a curse. You can also use it as a way to say things aren’t going so well for you. Not only is it hot as hell, but everybody else around you is dead so there’s nobody to sell them to. He equated this to a Yiddish version of the myth of Sisyphus.

  • He suggested “heartburn rampant on a bed of cholent” as the Israeli flag. (Cholent is a stew of beans and meat that is traditionally eaten on Shabbat, when you’re not allowed to cook. It’s mostly cooked beforehand and kept warm on a stove or in an oven - or, nowadays, in a crockpot.)

  • There are some Yiddish terms that come from Biblical references. For example, “kiss me where the Jews rested” refers to setting up camp at Takhat (pronounced “b’tuchus” in Ashkenazi Hebrew) so the phrase means “kiss my ass.” Also, “asher yutzer” is Hebrew for toilet paper, from the blessing people say after using the toilet.





Tuesday:

The first program I went to on Tuesday was Memories of the Yiddish Kitchen. The preponderance of recipes discussed were for sweets, e.g. mandelbrot, rugelach, and hamentaschen (including a note that the yeast pastry version declined in popularity after the introduction of baking powder in the 20th century, even though the yeast kind are infinitely better). Other dishes talked about were chopped liver, gefilte fish, borscht, pierogi, and stuffed cabbage. I was particularly interested in the discussion of “farmer’s chop suey,” a dish I haven’t had in years, which consists of various chopped vegetable (cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes, scallions) mixed with sour cream.

That was followed by the second half of Ashkenazi Family Names. The categories that got added in this half were Names referring to lineage (e.g. Cohen, Levi), Acronyms and Abbreviations (e.g. Katz = kohen tzaddik, meaning righteous priest), Geographic names / Toponyms (e.g. Wiener from Vienna, Berlinsky from Berlin, but not Moskowitz, which refers to the name Mosko, a form of Moshe, not to Moscow), House signs (famously Rothschild = red shield), and Fanciful / Ornamental / Wealthy names (e.g. Diamant = diamond or Golden, as well as prefixes like Hoff and suffixes like berg or feld).

The lunchtime concert was Susi Evans and Silvia Csaranko from Hanover, Germany performing pieces from the Klezmer Archive of tunes from Ukraine.

Next was the second part of Wexology. This time, Michael Wex, talked a lot about which Yiddish words might be offensive and which are especially polite.

  • The etymology of certain words used to refer to non-Jews can be offensive. For example, sheigetz” (a derisive term for a non-Jewish man) comes from the Hebrew word “shkotz,” meaning “reptile.” (“Shiksa” has the same root, but is also used in other languages, notably Polish, to refer to a slut.)

  • He also talked about how to refer to people respectfully, mostly by using the third person. So instead of asking, say, “can you tell me X,” you can say, “Can the Jew tell me …”

  • Some euphemisms have become more objectionable than they were intended to weaken. “Achar” means “a person I prefer not to mention,” so “dover achar” should mean that you prefer not to talk about that. Instead it is used to refer to things like sodomy.

  • ”Chad gadya,” which is the song that ends the Passover seder is slang for both “rear end” (from that usage), but also for jail because the Polish slang for jail is “chauza,” which literally means goat.



Wednesday:

The first presentation I went to on Wednesday was The Richtige Mikado: Poconos to MGM which had to do with a version of the Gilbert and Sullivan musical developed at Camp Tamiment in the Poconos in 1938. There was a later Hollywood version written in 1942 and both scripts are available. Camp Tamiment was a resort for adults, drawing a lot of singles, especially NYU and City College students. Apparently Jerry Bock (of Broadway Bock and Harnick fame) called it “the Club Med of Bushkill Falls.") Anyway, this was not a full production of The Mikado, but was a set of skits and was not related to the 1950’s Yiddish Mikado, which was recorded. Some of the people involved were Max Liebman (who later did a lot of television revues, including Your Show of Shows), Sylvia Fine, and Danny Kaye. Anyway, this was my favorite presentation of the whole conference, largely because it included a read-through of the script(s) by Eve Sicular and Allen Lewis Rickman. . For example, the song “Titwillow” became “tit gornit,” which means “doing nothing.” In the Tamiment version, it referred to politics (e.g. Neville Chamberlain), while the Hollywood version used it to make fun of Samuel Goldwyn.

After that, I went to a presentation on Yiddish Folklore: Questions and Inspirations. This included a short story (and associated play) by the speaker, Rokhl Kafrissen, which had to do with a woman who did a silent Shabbos in memory of her late husband. There were also discussions of traditions about demons and about Nittel Nacht (Hasidic customs associated with Christmas eve, including refraining from Torah study and, instead, playing cards.) But the main thing that I got out of that session was the formation of a mailing list to talk about Yiddish folklore.

The lunchtime concert was by Susan Watts and Rob Curto and consisted of compositions from a collection called Soul Songs, which is intended to inspire women to perform klezmer music. After that, I went to a talkback about on one of the movies I’d watched.


Thursday:

I started Thursday with a talk by Miriam Isaacs on Chronicle of the Yiddish Stage: Zalman Zylbercweig’s Leksicon which was a 7 volume project that included biographies, photographs, and Yizkor books (i.e. memorial books). One thing I hadn’t known is that there had been unions in the Yiddish theatre in New York - and had been actor’s unions in Poland, too. The chronicles were like a Who’s Who and people paid to be included.

The final presentation I went to was on How to Suppress Yiddish Women’s Writing by Faith Nomi Jones. This was based on Joanna Russ’s How to Suppress Women’s Writing, with additions to refer to specific issues for Yiddish writers. For example, women who worked for Yiddish newspapers were relegated to answering reader’s letters or writing for the women’s pages, but not allowed to do real journalism. Women were also not allowed to go unescorted to various cafes were writers mingled. Interestingly, it was more common in Yiddish literature for men to use female pseudonyms than vice versa. This was an excellent talk and I particularly appreciated the inclusion of suggestions on how to fight back, e.g. by challenging instructors to include Yiddish literature by women and to point out assumptions when they occur.


Summary:

I didn’t make it to any of the evening programs, largely because I was mentally satiated by about 5 in the afternoon. But, overall, I thought this was worth my time and I felt that I learned a fair amount. I need to think about how much time I should spend studying Yiddish. And maybe I should look into buying a cymbelon.
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This has been a frustrating day. I did succeed at finding a COVID testing appointment for Wednesday morning, which is better than Friday afternoon, but it took me a couple of hours of searching. The most irritating part of that is that a drugstore very close to my house claimed that they had some appointments available, but there was nothing at all for at least a week. And you can’t find that out until you have entered a whole lot of information. Couple that with searching multiple sites to look for appointments and I was annoyed. It would be much better if they set up a centralized system with the county health department.


Aside from that, I spent pretty much all day on various zoom calls. Part of that was for Yiddish New York, which was mostly enjoyable. I will write more about that when it is over. I also tried to attend a Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington meeting, but had problems with their zoom. When I rebooted my computer and tried to get back in, apparently nobody was monitoring the waiting room, so I gave up. (The other zoom sessions were for my mystery hunt team and for the friends I play board games with.)
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First, to follow up from yesterday, the Persian market in Tyson’s did, indeed, have both unshelled unsalted pistachios and dried rose petals. So I am ready to implement Miriam’s Middle Eastern bakery!

Chanukah ended at sunset tonight. During the holiday, I posted a Chanukah song to Facebook each night, as I’ve done for the past few years. My aim is to publicize new or lesser known songs. And to avoid Adam Sandler’s song. Here’s what I used this year:


Night 1 was a chorus singing a Yiddish song about a father singing the blessings over the Chanukah candles. It was arranged by Zalman Mlotek:




For the second night, this is a new song by Robert Ebner-Statt. It would be stronger without the references to some Christmas things, but it is represents a typically American view of Chanukah.




Night 3 took us to this song by Oneg Shemesh, an Israeli who now lives in West Hempstead, New York, where I went to high school. I liked the lively beat. Not a song to sit still while listening to.




For Night 4, I did the obligatory a cappella song. There are several a cappella Jewish music groups. This year, 613’s West Side Story medley dominated the scene. So I went with the Maccabeats instead.



Night 5 featured a tango!



For Night 6, I went with a favorite Hebrew song about driving away darkness. There are lots of versions of this, but I wanted to feature some women performing and the use of Middle Eastern instruments.




Night 7 took me in yet another direction. For those who are not familiar with Stephen Page, he was one of the founding members of (and a major songwriter for) Barenaked Ladies.




Finally, for the 8th night, I went with a song from Yossi Desser’s album of Chanukah carols, which is based on how many familiar Christmas songs were by Jewish composers. I have mixed feelings about the idea, but it is interesting.




As a special bonus, somebody might live somewhere remote enough that they haven’t heard the song I referenced above (by the a cappella group, 613) at least 613 times already. So here it is.

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