fauxklore

I started off 2025 with a lot of routine activities, e.g. playing Code Names (our favorite board game) over zoom with friends, the Grimm folktales discussion group, and my needlework group.

There was a Travelers’ Century Club meeting in early January, at which I happened to be sitting next to someone who was from the town where I went to high school (My home town still doesn’t have its own high school.) In February, there was an excellent Virtual Explorations presentation on Cybersecurity for Travelers, preceded by the Book Club discussion on A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks.

I was only able to go to part of Paul Joskow’s talk on Climate Change Policy in MIT Hillel’s Leading Jewish Minds series. The talks are recorded, but it is hard finding time to go back and watch recordings.

I made it to the February Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington meeting (over zoom), which focused on the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This was basically preparation for the upcoming IAJGS conference in Fort Wayne in August.

American Opera Initiative: My first excursion to the Kennedy Center this year was to see the annual American Opera Initiative, which consists of three 20-minute operas. The first one was Tati by composer Kyle Brenn and Librettist Lex Brown. The plot had to do with three people - an activist running from a criminal charge, a pregnant marine biologist who is the activist’s partner, and the investor who was responsible for the bioengineered blue whale the three of them are living in. The problem is that the whale is dying. The premise kept my interest and the music seemed to fit the theme well, so I thought this was fairly successful.

The second opera was Cry, Wolf by composer JL Marlor and librettist Clare Fuyuko Bierman. The plot had to do with a college student who wants a girlfriend. His brother is visiting and the two of them are influenced by an incel to be lone wolves. This was effectively creepy, particularly when they ended with a chorus of howling.

The final opera was Mud Girl by composer Omar Jajimi and librettist Christine Evans. The story has to do with two homeless women - one middle-aged (Maude) and one much younger (River) - who live under a bridge in a post-apocalyptic world. River creates an AI creature (named Poly) out of plastic trash. The gimmick was that Poly was played by 2 singers. This got the best reviews of the three, but I liked it the least. All three of the operas were dystopian, but this one had the least subtlety to it.

Stupid Accident: Early in February, I was meeting a friend who was visiting from out of town. We were going to have lunch at Immigrant Foods and go to Planet Word, which is an excellent museum about language. On the way there, after a detour because I was wrong about what street the museum is on, I face planted after tripping on a curb. I wasn’t seriously injured, but I sure looked beaten up. We did have a nice lunch and an even nicer chat, but I skipped the museum part.

Schmigadoon: In February, the Kennedy Center had a live version of Schmigadoon, which had been a 6 part series on Apple TV+. Since I am a hopeless musical theatre geek, of course I loved the series. Which meant that I had to see this on stage. Overall, it was reasonably true to the TV series, although Josh was played by Alex Brightman who, unlike Keegan-Michael Key who played the part on TV, is white. That meant that the interracial aspect of Josh’s relationship with Melissa (played by Sara Chase) was missing. There were also a few added songs. There are inherent differences between watching the show all in one piece versus over several weeks, so it felt a bit exhausting. But it was still a fun evening.

I've been trying to get caught up on writing here, but I seem to have misplaced my attention span. I finally decided it was best to just write what I could and if that means a slow and not terribly interesting catch-up, so be it.

I played board games (over zoom) with friends at least once. Probably more than once, but I lost track of things.My other standing meetings include my needlework group (over zoom, every other week), my monthly Lithuanian Jewish genealogy mentoring meeting, my Crones and Tomes book club, some planning activities for the Women’s Storytelling Festival, and my Brothers Grimm discussion group, which can mostly be summed up “what a weird story.”

Because our birthdays are only a few days apart (and a few years), Cindy and I have gotten into the habit of going out to dinner to celebrate them. We’ve pretty much settled on going to Elephant Jumps, which is a very good Thai restaurant in Falls Church. There’s some value in having our rituals.

As far as entertainment goes, I already mentioned the movie My Penguin Friend. I also went to Signature Theatre to see the musical Soft Power. This is a very complex show, which is based on a real incident in which David Henry Hwang was attacked on the street. It also goes into Hillary Clinton’s electoral loss and U.S. relations with China more broadly. It was both funny and provocative and definitely worth seeing.

And that's pretty much all I did in September.

I've just been: a)stressed and overwhelmed, b)out of town, c) back to overwhelmed, though coping better.

I have lots of catching up to do.

Errata: I made a correction to my last entry, to add in a movie I had forgotten to include. Short version is that I liked Next Goal Wins, Taika Waititi’s movie about the American Samoa football (I.e.) soccer team.

Annoying meme: I have several friends who post cute pictures of cats surrounded by flowers, with the caption “beautiful plants bloom in my garden.” Come on. We all know that, no matter how adorable the cats may be, they will really be spending their time in the garden digging up the plants and eating things that are likely to result in vet visits.

Still to Come:

I'm trying to get caught up in the next few days. Here's what you have to look forward to.

I had more condo trauma, which I will put in a separate (locked) entry.
I have a couple of sets of monthly prompts to write up.
A few social events
The National Puzzlers’ League Convention in Dallas, plus an add-on trip before con.
Decluttering and a potential long term plan
Planning for IAJGS conference

My post-Portugal life has been busy and a bit stressful.

Bionic Miriam, Phase 1: I had cataract surgery on my right eye about two weeks after I got home. My friend, Kathleen, drove me to and from the ambulatory surgery center. I had a bit of a wait while they asked me a lot of questions, often more than once (by different people). I know I was awake, but the only thing I really remember was that I saw Escher-like tessellations against a background of changing colors as the surgeon was using the laser to destroy the cataract. I didn’t feel any significant pain, just a little bit of scratchiness. I spent most of the afternoon and evening sleeping on and off. In the morning, when I took off the eye shield, I was astonished to see clearly out of the operated eye. That is, I could read the titles of books on the top of the stacks on the floor without putting my glasses on. Anyway, the surgeon had left me a voicemail that everything went well and that was confirmed at my follow-up appointment the morning after the surgery.

In the meantime, there are lots of eyedrops and I’m still under restrictions about not lifting anything over 30 lb and not bending over. Fortunately, my friend Kim came over to help me with the laundry, since I wouldn’t have been able to get it from washer to dryer and from dryer to the back of the sofa without bending.

Other Stuff I’ve Done: I had my usual meetings - the monthly Litvak genealogy mentoring session, two Needles and Crafts zoom get-togethers (which includes people working on their projects and book discussions), a Better Said Than Done board meeting to work on casting for next year’s Women’s Storytelling Festival, the monthly Voices in the Glen story swap (at which I told “Ida Black,” a ghost story involving an actual tombstone that I photographed in Maine some years ago), a Grimm Keepers discussion of “One Eye, Two Eyes, and Three Eyes,” and a Loser Brunch at a Mexican restaurant in D.C. Re: the latter, I should note that my preferences for variations of that cuisine in the U.S. is New Mexican (e.g. Santa Fe), California second, and Tex-Mex third, with the mid-Atlantic region about 199th, just above New England. I missed a second Grimm Keepers meeting (re: Snow White) because I badly needed a nap. Oh, there was also a JGSGW meeting with a talk about some complicated immigration situations in the post-World War I era.

I also had a couple of book club meetings. Crones and Tomes discussed Remarkably Bright Creatures which was enjoyable. And the TCC Book Club discussed Blood River: the Terrifying Journey Through the World’s Most Dangerous Country . I’ll write about both of these (and other books in my quarterly update, which should get done in a little over a week.

I had a routine dentist appointment. My dentist retired (largely because of her back problems) and I’m not sure how I feel about her replacement.

Finally, I played board games over zoom at least 4 times. (I might have missed writing one down on my calendar.) Er, yes, I do keep busy.

Still to Write About: Home annoyingness. Travel planning. Why is decluttering so bloody hard? A couple of sets of blog prompts. The quarterly update.

I do actually do things when I’m home sometimes.

Whoops: Stories About Mistakes: I was part of this Better Said Than Done storytelling show at Clare and Don’s Beach Shack in Falls Church. The show was sold out, but that is mostly because it’s a tiny place. The show was wonderful. I was telling a new story about my terrible sense of direction. And, given the theme, it was appropriate that I left out two prime examples of this. The more notorious example among many of my friends has to do with the time I couldn’t find the rental car return at La Guardia Airport, so I drove to the airport terminal and followed an Avis bus. The other one involves why GPS does not actually help. Still, I got plenty of laughs with what I did remember to include. (By the way, I told the story again at the Voices in the Glen story swap this weekend and did better with it, though it still needs more refinement.)

I also got a photo of myself that I don't actually hate.

The Usual Stuff: Knitting Group. A Grimm Keepers discussion of The White Bride and the Black Bride, which Tim informed us is based partly on a story about Bertha Broadfoot, the mother of Charlemagne. My Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) mentoring session, in which I was able to help a couple of people with South African records. My on-line needles and crafts group. Two nights of playing board games. The afore mentioned Voices in the Glen story swap. The Crones and Tomes book club discussion of Lessons in Chemistry which the group was strongly divided about. (For the record, I loved it.)

Lots of Yarn: Last Monday, I went over to my friend, Kim’s, house to help her go through her yarn stash, which proved to be much larger than she thought it was. I explained to her how to calculate if she had enough of a given yarn for a pattern, which needs to be based on yardage of a skein, not weight. And I ended up taking four huge bags home, some of which I will use, but much of which I will give away.

By the way, going over to other people’s houses makes me feel better about my level of clutter at home.

Mindplay: Sunday night, Cindy and I went to see Mindplay at Arena Stage. This is a very weird one man show by Vinny DePonto that is a mixture of mentalism and his personal story about dealing with his grandfather’s dementia, which got him interested in how memory work. Much of the show involves audience participation. Before the show, everyone is asked to fill out a slip of paper with a question on it and put it into an envelope on which they write their first name, last initial, and seat number. We verified that we did not have the same question, though I don’t know how many different questions there are. The show opens with a phone ringing on the stage and a person coming up to answer it and relay things to the audience. When I saw a review of a previous production (in Los Angeles), it suggested that the person who did this was randomly chosen from the audience, but a slip in the program we got suggested it was the stage manager and gave her biography. She seemed to be unprepared for things that happened, but maybe she’s just a good actress. Anyway, much of the show consisted of DePonto’s interactions with random people in the audience and I was definitely in the “please don’t call on me” mode. He started with throwing balloons into the audience - and his first attempt at choosing someone that way was a failure since the person who caught the marked balloon clearly didn’t speak English well and he had to ask them to throw the balloon to someone else. He asked some questions and then had that person pop the balloon and reveal a paper inside that had exactly the answers they’d given. I found that to be a definite “how did he do that? moment.

There were other audience interactions that were along the same lines, where he asked someone a question and appeared to have predicted their answer. He also talked about memory and introduced the concept of a memory palace, which I was familiar with from the excellent book Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer. Incidentally, I have some issues with that technique because visual memory is much weaker for me than other sensory modes. For example, I am sitting in my living room right now and I cannot tell you what color my carpet is without looking. At any rate, he demonstrated his memory techniques by having a few audience members lead him to mnemonics for state capitals - and, apparently, couldn’t remember one of them, though I suspect (partly based on something at the end of the show) that this failure may have been contrived. It was more impressive that he could recite a random section from the complete works of Shakespeare verbatim. Incidentally, I was mildly annoyed that he mispronounced the word “mnemonic” as if it were “pneumonic.”

That was entertaining enough, but some of his other audience interactions made me uncomfortable. He said up front that he would not make any of the people he invited up on the stage uncomfortable or embarrassed, but I cringed at some of the things he elicited from them. He brought one woman to tears by getting her to talk about her deceased godmother. And, cringiest of all, had another woman talk about peeing her pants in public when she was small.

There were also a lot of complicated interactions with the set, which I don’t feel capable of describing. Overall, I was mostly entertained, but I hesitate to recommend this because of the cringe factor. And, of course, you can’t really know what to expect because so much depends on the audience members who get pulled on stage at any given performance.

WTF, Facebook: I was attempting to comment on a post about Samoa to note that, according to T-Mobil’s website, they do offer unlimited texting and data at 256 kbps in Samoa with many of their plans, but that American Samoa is not one of the 215 countries they include. And Facebook took down that comment as being against their community standards on spam because “it looks like you tried to get likes, follows, shares or video views in a misleading way.” Huh?

Nielsen: I might not have opened this envelope, but I could see two dollar bills through the window in it. It turned out to be asking for an adult resident to fill out a brief survey in exchange for a $5 gift card. It’s not a lot of money, obviously, but it only took a few minutes and I got paid right away. I chose an Amazon gift card, on the grounds that there is always something I could use there.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

I think this will get me caught up on everything up until this month.

I’ve been using the same format for my year in review entries for several years now. It seems to work. Note that I took off the Volksmarch category this time since it’s been a couple of years since I managed to actually do anything there.

2023 started out stressful with mail being stolen, including a check which was washed and used fraudulently and a credit card which had to be replaced. It all got resolved, but I could have lived without the stress. There was a lot of stress later in the year, with the incompetence of the person at the local Social Security office who sat on my Medicare application for over two months without doing anything. That took way too many phone calls to get resolved. And, of course, there was the whole Middle East situation to make 2023 the Age of Anxiety.

Fortunately, things were otherwise good during the year.

Books: I read 53 books over the year. 39 of those were fiction, 3 were poetry, and the rest were nonfiction. Only 3 were rereads.

Favorites included Our Ancestors Did Not Breathe This Air (a poetry collection by Muslim women at MIT), Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozu Adichie, The Ghostwriter by Alessandra Torre, and The Caxton Private Lending Library and Book Depository by John Connolly. I also read 6 novels by Dick Francis, whose books provide a reliable antidote to ones in which not enough happens to keep me satisfied. Favorite non-fiction was The Best Strangers in the World by Ari Shapiro. Least favorite book was Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.

I got rid of 39 books and have at least another 33 ready to go out.

In addition to my longstanding book club (called READ for Read, Enjoy, And Discuss), I joined another book club, Crones and Tomes, which was started by a friend from the puzzle world.

Other book events included the Moby Dick Marathon in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which was an amazing experience, and a talk by Ari Shapiro at Sixth and I.

Ghoul Pool: I finished 4th out of 14 players, with 220 points. People I scored on were Naomi Replanski, Steve Harrell, Bob Barker, Tony Bennett, Al Jaffee, John Goodenough, Robert Solow, Daniel Ellsberg, Sandra Day O’Connor, James L. Buckley, W. Nicholas Hitchon, and David Oreck.

Travel: In January, I went to New Bedford, Massachusetts for the Moby Dick Marathon. In February, I went to Tucson, which included going to Saguaro National Park and Biosphere 2, as well as winning some money at a casino. March included a trip to New York City to go to the symphony and the theatre and visit with a high school friend. April’s travel was to Connecticut for the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

In May I took a river cruise, which included going to the Kentucky Derby. The Derby arrangements were kind of a fiasco, but the stops at various small towns were a lot more interesting than I expected.

June took me to Svalbard, which featured amazing scenery, though the wildlife (or, more accurately, lack thereof) was disappointing. This was somewhere I’d wanted to go to forever, so I am glad to have had the opportunity.

In July, I went to Montreal for the NPL con. That also included eating a lot of Montreal Jewish food and following in the footsteps of Leonard Cohen. Later in the month, I leveraged off a genealogy conference in London to take a trip to Ireland (including a day trip to Belfast) and the Isle of Man. That included fulfilling a life list item by having a beer at the South Pole Inn in Anascaul. After the conference, I did a few more things in London, including side trips to Canterbury and to Ipswich and Sutton Hoo. Soon after I got back, I took a quick trip to New York City for Lollapuzzoola and theatre going.

LoserFest was in Philadelphia in September. Highlights included the Masonic Temple and the Magic Gardens.

In October, I took a quick trip to San Antonio for the annular solar eclipse, which was awesome. While I was there, I also did a day trip to the Hill Country, where I saw several sites associated with Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as visiting the town of Fredericksburg. Later in the month I went to Boston, mostly to go to a concert by Jonathan Richman.

I’m not sure if taking a day trip to Harrisonburg, Virginia in November counts as travel. But my trip to French Polynesia (Austral Islands and Aranui cruise to the Marquesas) definitely does.

Virtual travel talks I went to included one on Jewish Barbados and a few Travelers’ Century Club zoom sessions. There were also a few in-person TCC meetings.

Puzzles: I participated once again in the MIT Mystery Hunt as part of Halibut That Bass. I think the team worked particularly well together, but we had some issues with the way the hunt was structured, which resulted in our seeing only about half of the puzzles.

I was disappointed in my performance in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. I finished solidly in the middle of the pack and I wasn’t surprised to have trouble with Puzzle 5, but I left a blank square in Puzzle 3, which was sheer carelessness. I did worse at Lollapuzzoola 16 in August, because I failed to completely read parts of some clues in Puzzle 5 there. I blame jet lag from my trip just before that event.

As I mentioned above, I went to the National Puzzlers’ League Con in Montreal. Highlights included a couple of games by Cute Mage, as well as Rasa’s over the weekend cryptic.

Genealogy: I continued to volunteer as the Subject Matter Expert for a Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington Litvak Special Interest Group. I also went to several JGSGW virtual meetings. And, of course, I went to the IAJGS conference in London at the end of July / beginning of August. Aside from several interesting talks, the highlight of that was meeting a distant cousin.

Baseball: I went to a little bit of a Nationals game in May, but it got rained out. In September I went to the new Texas Rangers stadium (Globe Life Field), putting me back at having been to a game at every Major League Ballpark. I also went to two minor league ballparks to see the Aberdeen Ironbirds and the Fredericksburg Nationals.

Culture: I’m not a big television watcher but I kept Apple TV+ long enough to watch Schmigadoon and Schmicago, both of which were tremendous fun for musical theatre geeks like me.

In terms of movies, I saw 18 overall, 4 of which were in theaters, with the rest on airplanes. Favorites were A Man Called Otto, In the Heights, Blackberry, Cocaine Bear, Searching for Sugar Man, Barbie, and Remembering Gene Wilder. Most disappointing was Weird: The Al Yancovic Story.

I went to 5 Gilbert and Sullivan operettas at the G&S International Festival in England, with the best production being of Ruddigore. I went to two other operas, both by Jeanine Tesori (Blue and Grounded). I also saw two ballets and one modern dance performance, with the ballet of The Crucible being the most satisfying. As far as classical music goes, I saw the National Symphony Orchestra twice and was privileged to see Michael Tilson Thomas conduct the New York Philharmonic. The only popular music concert I went to was one by Jonathan Richman, who is always wonderful.

I saw 14 plays and 9 musicals, assuming I counted correctly. Favorite plays were All Things Equal (about Ruth Bader Ginsburg), The Lifespan of a Fact at Keegan Theatre, Selling Kabul at Signature Theatre, and The Pillowman, which is a Martin McDonagh play I saw in London. I also loved The Enigmatist, which is a mixture of comedy. magic, and puzzles and, hence, I consider sui generis. Top musicals were In the Heights at Next Stop Theatre Company, Signature Theatre’s production of Pacific Overtures. and Shucked and Kimberly Akimbo on Broadway.

Storytelling: I went to several storytelling shows, including one by my Grimmkeepers group. I performed in two shows for Artists Standing Strong Together, and also told at the C&O Canal Visitor Center with Voices in the Glen, at the Washington Folk Festival, and in a Better Said Than Done show at the Stagecoach Theatre. Some other shows I particularly enjoyed were Ingrid Nixon’s show about Shackleton and several of the performances at the National Storytelling Festival. And, of course, the Women’s Storytelling Festival (which I also emceed at) os always a highlight of the year.

On a rather different note, the Grimmkeepers discussions about the Grimm fairy tales continue to be enlightening and enriching.

Museums and Art: I went to 32 museums over the year. Highlights included the New Bedford Glass Museum, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, two exhibitions of miniatures (the Mini Time Machine Museum in Tucson and the Small is Beautiful exhibit in New York), the MIT Museum, the Virginia Quilt Museum, and the Museum of Failure. I also really enjoyed seeing the Book of Kells, the Manx Museum, and Sutton Hoo during my travels in July. My absolute favorite for the year was the Museum of Broadway.

Other Stuff: On New Year’s Day, my friend, Cindy, and I went to the Winter Lantern Festival at Tyson’s, which was impressive.

I went to various Loser events, including the post-Post Loser Party, the Flushes, LoserFest. I should probably count Poetry and Punchlines (a poetry reading associated with Light, which is a magazine of light verse) as a Loser event, too.

My crafting group changed to meeting on-line every other Thursday and in person at one members house on the weeks in between. I make it when I can. Similarly, I occasionally managed to get to my other (mostly) knitting group, which meets at the police station twice a month.

I went to a virtual organizing conference in September, which was moderately useful.

I played board games a few times a week, when I was home. Yes, sometimes I was home.

Goals: So how did I do on my 2023 goals? I went through maybe 10% of the photos from my parents and realized I have no idea where I put the slides, so I’ll give myself a 10% there. I did go to some sort of lecture or other formal educational event, either in person or on-line, every month, so I get 100% there. I get full credit (i.e. 100%) for taking 4 international trips. I finished only 1 craft project, so only get 33% there, though I did make progress on two others. I read 53 books, out of a goal of 75, so get 71% there. I get 100% credit for going to three new (to me) ballparks. I made it to at least one museum each month so get 100% on that goal. I only went to one national park, so get 33% on that goal. And I averaged significantly less than a half hour every day on housework, so I’ll give myself 10% there. Averaging things out, I’ll give myself a 62% on the year, which is not great but not terrible either.

Which brings me to goals for 2024:

Circumnavigate the globe going westward. The backstory is that way back in 2000, I did an eastward circumnavigation, from Los Angeles to Russia via Germany by plane, overland through Siberia to Mongolia and to China, and back to Los Angeles by plane. I’ve got ideas for how I want to do the westward circle.
Go to at least 3 national parks.
Clean out my saved files of genealogy related emails.
Read 80 books with a stretch goal of 125.
Finish organizing my bedroom.
Finish 3 afghans.
Find and sort through my parents’ slides.
Go to games at at least 4 AAA ballparks.
Exercise for at least 20 minutes at least 3 times a week, with a stretch goal of at least 30 minutes at least 4 times a week.

Español: Estoy estudiando español con Duolingo para mas de 365 días. Yo lo disfruto mucho. Pero todavía no sabe muchas palabras. Porque mi vocabulario es tan poco, no entiendo todas las conversaciones que oi en el tren, por example. Leo mejor que yo escucho, y entiendo la mayoría de los avisos veo. Me parece que es una buena idea para viajar a Guatemala y practicar allí.

In other words: I feel like I’ve made a fair amount of progress on understanding Spanish, but my vocabulary is limited and my grammar is weak. I don’t really understand when one should use which form of the past tense and I am completely mystified by the subjunctive. The main thing I try to bear in mind is that my goal is to be able to make myself understood and that doesn’t really require proper good grammar. I can certainly manage to read ads in Spanish reasonably well and I can understand about 1/3 to 1/2 of the conversations I overhear (on the train, for example).

Pantry Archaeology: I was looking for where my baking powder had gotten to this morning, since I want to do some baking today. It turned out to be exactly where it was supposed to be. But the idea of looking for it triggered a pantry clean-out and I found five items which I’ve listed on buy nothing. Two of those are things that I bought for one recipe which I later decided not to make. Two were things I tried but didn’t care for. The last one is the funniest one. It’s a small jar of sour salt (citric acid) that I brought home from my mother’s house when we were cleaning it out after she died just about 9 years ago. It had never been opened and, in fact, it may have actually been bought by my grandmother or one of my great-aunts and never opened by them. I was once explaining this to a fellow storyteller, which led to a discussion of family relics and their possible folkloric significance.

I’m giving the Buy Nothing folks until the weekend, after which I’ll toss anything that isn’t claimed.

By the way, I am keeping a list of things I give away, to encourage further dishoarderly conduct.

Medicare: Still waiting. I called the Social Security office on Friday and, after waiting on hold nearly an hour, the person I spoke to said, “oh, it normally takes two months and I don’t see any issues so you should get your medicare card any day now.” In other words, the guy at the office who made the copies of my birth certificate and passport over a month lied to me when he told me it should take just about a week. Aargh.

Speaking of Customer Service Failures: I have a trip coming up in December for which I have been working with a travel agent in Canada for complicated reasons, related to the person I am traveling with. Anyway, she was supposed to send the rest of the vouchers in late October, so I sent her an email the other day asking when I would get them. And I got back an email that she is out of her office indefinitely. I did contact the colleague who that email referred me to, who basically told me that she’ll talk to her about it. This has reminded me of why I normally prefer making my own travel arrangements.

Ah, good, I just got an email from her that told me it would be a month before the trip, Which is not for a few days. She is checking.

Favorite Next Door Poat of the Week: “Is this fox carrying a soccer ball? Why?”

Other Stuff I Did in the Past Week: I only made it to the first half hour or so of the READ Book Club, because it conflicted with the Litvak Genealogy group that I’m the subject matter expert for. My life is a schedule conflict.

I played code names on line with friends three times. It's good for practicing my bickering skills. How can I possibly have friends who think "The Cask of Amontillado" is a Sherlock Holmes story? (And one of those friends saw me drink a glass of amontillado just a couple of weeks ago!)

I went to both of my crafting groups. One was virtual on Thursday and the other was in person yesterday. I am making progress on my Tunisian crochet afghan but need to put in a lot more time if I really want to finish it this year.

The group I didn’t go with to see the annular eclipse had a briefing on their observing results. It would have been a great trip, but it didn’t work out. And my San Antonio trip worked out fine, as well as being much less expensive.

First, a bit of shameless self-promotion:

Saturday night (tomorrow!) I’m part of a storytelling show at The Stagecoach Theatre in Ashburn, Virginia. The theme is Wild West and stories about frontiers. It’s being live-streamed, so you don’t have to be local to attend. Tickets and more information are at
the theatre’s website.

Speaking of which, did you know that Mr. Spock had 3 ears?
There was the back left ear, the back right ear, and the final front ear.

I’m also going to be part of a Halloween show on Monday October 30th. More details on that to follow.

So, let’s see, what I have done over the past couple of weeks?

Globe Life Field: I’m now back to having gone to a game at every major league ballpark. The coolest part of this is that, when I posted to the Ballpark Chasers Facebook group to ask about transportation options, a women there (Jenn, which must stand for Jenn-erous) offered to pick me up and take me with her and her daughter! My flight into DFW was delayed by weather and I then had to deal with the confusion of getting to the Hyatt, which is a short walk from Terminal C, but lacking in signage until you’re halfway there. Apparently driving there is equally confusing. But we got to the game in plenty of time.

We walked around before the game, including Texas Live, a busy entertainment district. I had to have a photo with Nolan Ryan’s statue, since I remember his days as a relief pitcher with the Mets.

Here’s the obligatory clock photo.

And the obligatory picture of the field.

Overall, I’d say it was a middle of the road ballpark. I understand the weather problem in Texas, but baseball is not intended to be an indoor sport. And the weather was perfectly comfortable, so there was really no excuse not to have the roof open. I also thought that the concessions were rather weak, emphasizing quantity over quality. Blue Bell ice cream is a good nod to local tastes, at least.

As for the game, at least the people around me were actually paying attention to the game and talking about baseball, instead of texting everyone in creation telling them how cool they were to be at a game. (That was my experience at the previous Rangers’ ballpark.) I do wish that more people sang along to “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” however. And I really wish the Rangers hadn’t beaten up so badly on my Red Sox, who lost in a 15-4 rout.

After the game, we walked up to the Rangers Hall of Fame plaques, so I could take this picture. I knew my father had a namesake who was a sportscaster, but I was still amused.

My trip home went smoothly. My next baseball focus will probably be on going to all the AAA ballparks. I also want to go to next year’s season opener in Seoul. I need to research how to get tickets for that.

NSO Gala: I went to the 2023 season opening gala of the National Symphony Orchestra. I just went to the concert part, but it was fun seeing people dressed to the nines for the reception beforehand. The reason I braved the rain to go was that the main feature was Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Before that, there were short works by Gioachino Rossini, Edward Elgar, and Carlos Simon. Simon’s piece, Fate Now Conquers was intended as an homage to Beethoven - essentially, a response to his Seventh Symphony. It was also interesting to see him come out for a bow at the end. Wow, is he young!

As for Pictures at an Exhibition, they did the Ravel orchestration. I actually prefer the solo piano version, but I realize that’s a slightly eccentric preference. At any rate, it’s one of my favorite pieces, largely because it is so evocative of how I react to walking around art exhibitions. I don’t think Mussorgsky knew what a great suite of music it was and I have this imaginary conversation in my head in which Rimsky-Korsakov tells him it’s a masterpiece and, when Mussorgsky protests, Rimsky-Korsakov says, “oh, don’t be so modest, Modest.”

The Medicare Saga: My phone appointment with the Social Security people was a little stressful, since they called about 15 minutes late. And, midway through, the fire alarm in my condo complex went off. I was able to get through the call by going out to my car for it, but it was stressful. And I still have to go down to their office to provide them with some documentation. Er, no, I am not going to put my birth certificate and such in the mail. My appointment for that is Monday. That may get seriously screwed up if the government shuts down.

On the plus side, I got the benefit payments site working for me, though it took nearly 40 minutes on the phone, roughly 30 minutes of which were trying to persuade the person I was talking to that I was getting an error message when I tried to reset my password. Eventually, she tried it herself and she realized she needed to transfer me to the person who could send me an email to reset it.

I also succeeded in creating an account with a company they’ve now contracted with that has something to do with Medicare open enrollment. But, fundamentally, I still need to get my medicare card in order to move forward.

Other stuff: Other things I’ve done included Yom Kippur services, one of my book clubs, and a Travelers’ Century Club meeting.

Also, a friend posted a copy of this wonderful painting by Phil Lockwood on Facebook.

The Office at Night. It’s an amazing homage to Edward Hopper. I see new details every time I look at it.

Celebrity Death Watch: Dick Biondi was a disc jockey who is claimed to be the first AM radio deejay to play several famous rock stars, including the Beatles. Sanjay Mitter was a control theory professor in the EECS department at MIT. Evelyn Boyd Granville was the second African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics from an American university (specifically, Yale) and did important research on computing.

Frank Field was a TV meteorologist. Susan Love was a surgeon, best known for writing a book about breasts. George Tickner played guitar for Journey and Furious Bandersnatch. Judith Liebman was the only woman to become president of the Operations Research Society of America. Benno C. Schmidt, Jr. was the president of Yale University from 1986 to 1992 and later became the chairman of the Board of Trusties of the City University of New York. Tom Adam was a warlord in the Central African Republic. Carlin Glynn won a Tony award for performing in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. James Reston Jr. was a journalist, novelist, and playwright. Pamela Blair originated the role of Val in A Chorus Line, in which she sang the song “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three.” Inga Swenson was an actress, best known for playing Gretchen Kraus on Benson. Alice K. Ladas wrote about the G-spot. Paul Reubens was an actor who played the role of Pee-wee Herman.

Sir Michael Boyd was a theatre director who oversaw the revitalization the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Walter Charles was a Broadway actor. Mark Margolis was a character actor best known for playing Hector Salamanca in Breaking Bad. Boniface Alexandre was the provisional president of Haiti from 2004 to 2006. John Gosling played keyboards for The Kinks. William Friedkin directed several movies, including The French Connection and The Exorcist. Jerry Moss cofounded A&M Records. Renata Scotto was an operatic soprano, whose name I know only because of its frequent appearance in crossword puzzles. Al Quie was the governor of Minnesota from 1979 to 1983. Maxie Baughan was a football player. James Burke was the first manager of the Ranger program (which photographed the moon from space probes), making him a pioneer of America’s space program. John Warnock co-founded Adobe. Bob Feldman wrote the song “My Boyfriend’s Back.” Yevgeny Progozhin was a mercenary, who co-founded the Wagner Group. Pat Corrales was the first Major League Baseball manager of Mexican American descent. Joe the Plumber was a right wing political commentator. Don Sundqvist was the governor of Tennessee from 1995-2003.

Dennis Austin co-created Powerpoint, doing untold harm to business productivity. Gary Wright was a singer-songwriter, best known for “Dream Weaver.” Lisa Lyon was a bodybuilder and modeled for Robert Maplethorpe. Gita Mehta wrote interesting books about India. I remember reading Karma Cola and Snakes and Ladders many years ago. Billy Miller was a soap opera actor. Michael McGrath was a Tony-award winning actor.

Lowell Weicker was a senator from 1971-1989 and the governor of Connecticut from 1991-1995. He had been a Republican as a senator but formed a third party (“A Connecticut Party”) for his gubernatorial campaign. He held a number of apparently contradictory positions (e.g. having been on the board of directors of a tobacco lobby and of a non-ptisan health policy research organization). He was also one of the first Republicans to call for Richard Nixon’s resignation. Overall, one of the more interesting politicians of his time.

Alan Arkin was an actor, who received a number of awards for his roles in movies like Little Miss Sunshine and Argo, as well as having won a Tony award for his role in the play Enter Laughing.

Milan Kundera was a Czech novelist, most famous for The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Kevin Mitnick was a computer hacker who later became a security consultant.

Tony Bennett was a singer of pop music and jazz. He is best known for “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” and is also notable for his late in life collaboration with Lady Gaga. He was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 13 points.

Randy Meisner was a waist and vocalist for The Eagles and Poco. He also wrote the song “Take It to the Limit.”

Sinead O’Connor was an Irish singer and songwriter, who was controversial for her political activism, most notably for tearing up a photo of Pope John Paul II to protest against abuse in the Catholic Church.

Sixto Rodriguez was a singer-songwriter, far better known in South Africa than in the U.S. There’s an excellent documentary about him, Searching for Sugar Man. Interestingly, Clarence Avant, who founded Sussex Records and may have cheated Rodriguez out of royalties, died just days after he did.

Robbie Robertson was the lead guitarist for The Band and wrote such songs as “The Weight” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

Tom Jones was the lyricist who collaborated with Harvey Schmidt on several musicals, including The Fantasticks, 110 in the Shade, and I Do, I Do. I’d had him on my ghoul pool list a few years ago, but not this year.

James L. Buckley was a U.S. Senator from New York from 1971-1977, elected as a member of the Conservative Party. He was the oldest living former senator at the time of his death. I had him on my ghoul pool list and he earned me 16 points.

Nick Hitchon was a physicist but the real reason anyone has heard of him was his participation in the 7 Up series of documentaries. He was on my ghoul pool list and got me 14 points.

Bob Barker hosted The Price is Right for many many many years. He was an advocate for animals, but was also a serial sexual abuser. He was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 15 points.

Bill Richardson was the governor of New Mexico from 2003-2011. He was my choice in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, but was out of it by the time things got to Virginia. In recent years, he played a major role in freeing political prisoners. He was a diplomat in the truest sense of the word.

Jimmy Buffett was that rare musician who almost everyone liked. I was fortunate enough to see him perform live once. He was also an entertaining writer and an excellent businessman. Have a margarita in his memory.

Steve Harwell was the lead singer for Smash Mouth. I’d seen a news story that he was on his death bed and did a quick ghoul pool substitution, giving me a whopping 32 points and putting me (briefly, alas) at the top of the score board.

Fernando Botero was a painter and sculptor. He’s best known for his work depicting fat people and fat cats. I think I first encountered one of his sculptures in Yerevan, Armenia and saw several more of his artworks in Barcelona.

Non-Celebrity Death Watch:I caught up on the monthly newsletter from my former employer. The obituaries from the past few months included a few people I knew fairly well - Bob Leatherman, Jim Gidney, Les DeLong (who I worked with on an INCOSE committee several years ago) and, most significantly, Roberta Gleiter. Roberta was a powerful voice for women in engineering and was, in fact, the President of the Society of Women Engineers around 2000ish. After that, she founded the Global Institute for Technology and Engineering. She and I worked together for several years and she was always a pleasure to hang out with. I’ll miss her.

Errands: I had a lot of catching up to do at home. This was a mixture of boring and frustrating and stressful. For example, I had to renew the registration for my car. This was actually easy to do on-line, but that didn’t stop me from having a minor panic attack the day before it was due because I couldn’t remember that I’d actually done it.

Renewing my driver’s license was more of a hassle. I had to go to my eye doctor to get the vision test because I always have trouble with the machines. If I’d been smart, I’d have realized I could renew a full year before the license expired, which would have been right after I got new glasses. Anyway, I am good to drive, but I will have to have cataract surgery in the coming months. This is not a surprise. There’s a part of me that is looking forward to it.

The catch is that I’m in the process of transitioning to medicare. This is more complicated than it should be, for a number of reasons. The bottom line is that I should have started the process two months before my 65th birthday, rather than a week before. And coordinating things with the retiree medical people from my company is also stressful. They had previously told me that they would send me something 60 days before my eligibility, but, no, they just called me with incomplete information. And then I had trouble with the social security website and ended up having to call them. That meant spending ages on hold, followed by a lengthy phone conversation, which only resulted in a phone appointment which is this Friday. Oy. Now, it looks like I’ve gotten a bill from the people who handle the payment processing, but it doesn’t recognize that I’d been using their autopay option. I may have to actually call them, which is annoying.

My other source of stress was that I found an envelope relating to my real estate property taxes, but couldn’t find the actual tax statement. So I wasn’t sure if I did or didn’t pay them already. Why, yes, this motivates me to clean off my dining room table. And my sofa. And the other places that mail I may not have dealt with accumulates. Ah, wait. It was due in late July and I just verified that I paid it before I went to Ireland.

Some Socializing: I went out to dinner one night with a few people from FlyerTalk. NightHawk in Pentagon City has decent food and beer, but an annoying interface to their ordering system. At least, I was able to pull up the menu on my iPhone, which a couple of people couldn’t. It was also kind of noisy. But it was good to get out and it’s always fun to talk about travel.

It had been a long time since I’d been to that part of town, but I ended up over there again less than a week later. A college friend was in town and we went out to dinner at Lebanese Taverna. All of the food we got was good and I was even able to take some home to have for lunch the next day. It was good to catch up with him and talk about what various people we knew back in the day were up to.

I’d also gone to a movie with Cindy. And gone to knitting group. And to an on-line story swap. And to one of my genealogy groups, one of my book clubs, and my Grimm folk tales discussion group.

Baseball: Somewhat on the spur of the moment, I drove down to Fredericksburg to see the Fredericksburg Nationals (the Single A affiliate of the Washington Nationals) get slaughtered by the Lynchburg Hillcats. The ballpark is a huge improvement over the one the Potomac Nationals used in Woodbridge, though the concessions were so-so. Also, I tried their special beer, the Slugging’ Gus blackberry blonde ale, but I didn’t much like it. I stayed down there overnight.

Two Things I Will Write About Separately: LoserFest was in Philadelphia this year and is worth its own entry. And I went to a (virtual) organizing event, which may prove useful in the decluttering (and associated de-stressing).

Happy 5784: Finally, this past weekend was Rosh Hashanah. I ended up going to zoom services, because I felt a little under the weather. That’s not very satisfying, but I just couldn’t get myself moving.

I also called my brother, mostly to make sure he’s still alive. Let’s just say he is continuing his usual patterns of driving me crazy. Which is not something I will write about publicly.

I am very far behind on things, but here’s a bit of a catch-up. My trip to Tucson this past weekend will get its own post.

First, a reminder from the Shameless Self-Promotion Department. You can get tickets to the on-line Fractured Fairy Tales show I am part of tomorrow night at the Better Said Than Done website until February 12th and will get a month to watch the recording if you can’t make it live. The story I am going to be telling is one of my most popular, so you don’t want to miss this!

Celebrity Death Watch: Charles Kimbrough was an actor, who got his start on Broadway but is probably best known for playing Jim Dial on Murphy Brown. Wally Campo was an actor, whose work included narrating the original (non-musical) movie Little Shop of Horrors. Carl Hahn was the chairman of Volkswagen. Jonathan Raban was a travel writer. Sal Bando was a Hall of Fame baseball player. Ted Bell was a suspense novelist. Victor Navasky was a magazine novelist, best known for writing about the Hollywood blacklist. Top Topham was a guitarist for The Yardbirds. Tom Verlaine was the lead guitarist and singer for the band Television. Bob Born was the president of Just Born, the candy company responsible for Peeps (invented by his father) and Hot Tamales. Bobby Hull was a Hall of Fame hockey player with the Chicago Blackhawks and other teams. Charles Silverstein wrote The Joy of Gay Sex. Charlie Thomas sang with The Drifters. Pervez Musharraf was the president of Pakistan from 2001-2008. David Harris was an anti-Vietnam war activist and was married to Joan Baez for 7 years.

David Crosby was a singer and songwriter. I know I went to a CSN concert at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley somewhere around 1982 or so, but I don’t remember the actual details.

Cindy Williams played Shirley in the TV show Laverne and Shirley, as well as appearing in several movies.

Lisa Loring played Wednesday Addams on The Addams Family.

Barrett Strong was a singer and songwriter. The songs he co-wrote with Norman Whitfield include several of the greatest Motown hits, such as “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “Just My Imagination.”

Paco Rabanne was a fashion designer. He was well-known for modernistic designs, including the costumes for the movie Barbarella, but I particularly remember his men’s fragrance.

Storyteller Death Watch: Tom Weakley was a storyteller from Vermont. I was privileged to see him perform a couple of times. He had a wonderful story about the origins of the word "Yankee." And his version of The Two Pickpockets included the lovely detail of a pickpocket going over the border to Canada but having to steal 25% more to break even.

Ingrid Nixon and Shackleton: I forgot to mention last time that I’d gone to Ingrid Nixon’s virtual storytelling show about Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance expedition. As someone with a long-standing interest in polar exploration, I thought she did a good job of telling the story and emphasizing his leadership. She also included a song that some of the men had written about Frank Wild (who was left to manage the group on Elephant Island while Shackleton went with 5 other men to South Georgia to seek rescue). Overall, it made for a very entertaining evening.

I still think, however, that Douglas Mawson’s story is a better one for sheer ability to survive. For those who are not familiar with it, both of his companions died, he lost half his sled, had to climb out of a crevasse he fell into, and made it back to his hut just in time to see his ship pulling out, forcing him to spend another winter on his own.

Jewish Barbados: I went to a virtual talk last Tuesday about Jewish Barbados. The speaker, Neal Rechtman, was an American who moved to Barbados when Trump was elected. He said he chose Barbados after looking for somewhere in the Caribbean that had both a synagogue and a bridge club. Anyway, much of the talk was focused on the Nidra Israel Synagogue, which was first built in 1664, but rebuilt in 1834 after a major hurricane. The early community consisted of Sephardic Jews who left Recife, Brazil in 1654 when the Portuguese captured it from the Dutch and brought the Inquisition. There were approximately 300 settlers who came on three ships of the Dutch East India Company, out of 44 ships. (Another 40+ ships went to other places, including Charleston, South Carolina, New York, and Amsterdam.) Oliver Cromwell allowed them to come to the British colony because his wars were financed by Jewish bankers in Amsterdam. The Jewish community jumpstarted the sugar industry and those ships brought the equipment needed for sugar cane processing, as well as slaves. The 1831 hurricane destroyed the synagogue and, while the 50 remaining families rebuilt the synagogue, the community dwindled rapidly and only 2 Jews were left by 1921. The synagogue became a law library and was rescued from destruction in the 1980’s, when it was turned over to the Barbados National Trust. The synagogue and cemetery were restored completely by 1987, using the original architecture’s drawings and records, along with money raised by the descendants of Ashkenazi Jews who fled the Nazis in the 1930’s.

The other interesting story he told had to do with why Rabbi Hayim Isaac Carregal’s portrait hangs at the Sterling Library at Yale. In short, Rabbi Carregal taught Hebrew to Ezra Stiles, the Protestant minister who became president of Yale in the
1780’s.

Things Disappear: I spent an hour searching for the headphone adapter for my phone, with no success. Of course, it turned out to be in pocketbook all along.

I have still not, however, found out what happened to a metal rail from a hanging file folder which flew off somewhere when I opened the folder. It must be somewhere in my bedroom, but it has become completely invisible.

Sigh: The cruise I was supposed to take in April has been canceled. I am still sorting out my options.

Here’s a run-down on other things I’ve done so far this month, focused on the good things. (I’ll save the stressful stuff for another post, which will probably be a non-public one.) But first, an announcement of an upcoming event

Shameless Self-Promotion: I am going to be part of a show of an on-line storytelling show of Fractured Fairy Tales on Thursday February 9th at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Tickets and more information are available here. If you can’t make it live, it will be recorded and you can watch the replay.

Routine: I have a lot of standing meetings. Book Club is every 6 weeks. My Lithuanian Jewish genealogy mentoring session is monthly. I have a standing crafting get-together every Thursday afternoon. And I play board games with a couple of different groups regularly. I have another book club starting up, too.

Three Genealogy Things: I went to a genealogy talk last week specifically for grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Since both my father and grandfather were survivors (of the Kaunas Ghetto and Dachau), I qualify as both a 2G and 3G. I don’t think I really learned anything new from the talk, but they sent out a good list of resources.

I submitted a proposal for a talk about Telling Family Stories at the IAJGS conference in London. I have no idea whether or not it will be accepted. I plan to go to the conference anyway, since it has been way too long since I have been to London.

And I got a reply from a cousin who I contacted a couple of years ago. Now I need to get back to her. I am hoping she has some info about my grandfather’s mother’s family.

Two Jews Walk Into a War: I went with my friend Cindy to this play at Theatre J last weekend, i.e. a week ago Saturday. The play is very loosely based on the actual story of the last two Jews in Afghanistan, who loathed each other. I am reasonably sure that neither of them was descended from a concentration camp survivor, however, since the Soviet Jews who came to Afghanistan in the 1930’s and 1940’s were from Central Asia. And they certainly would not have spoken any Yiddish. Nor was the klezmer music played between scenes at all appropriate. I can’t imagine why they didn’t even try to find something mizrahi to use.

On the plus side, much of the play was funny, albeit a bit cruder than I’d have preferred. The biggest plus was the actors. Bobby Smith and Sasha Olinick both gave excellent performances.

Bit of historical trivia is that after Ishaq Levin died and Zablon Simintov emigrated to Israel, it turned out that a distant cousin of Simintov’s, Tova Morandi was still living in Afghanistan. But she left (to Albania!) a month after he did.

Museum of Illusions: On Friday, Cindy and I went to the pop-up Museum of Illusions in downtown D.C. A lot of the exhibits are familiar optical illusions, e.g. things where two lines look different lengths but are the same or staring at something makes it seem to move and so on. But there are some fun interactive exhibits. You really need someone else there to take pictures of you playing with them.

For example, here is a picture taken from a short distance:

But, if the picture is taken from the right spot (marked on the floor), I turn into Edith Ann:

In some cases, you have to manipulate the photo, e.g. by rotating it to get the effect, as in this one:

And here I am, just beside myself because I’m playing cards with untrustworthy sorts:

Overall, it was a fun way to spend about 45 minutes, but it was pricy and rather more crowded than was optimal. The museum is there until late March if you want to check it out for yourself.

Post-Post Loser Party: This past Saturday night (i.e. a couple of days ago) was the annual Style Invitational Loser post-Holiday party. The WaPo may have dropped us, but Loserdom lives on and we’re continuing on Gene Weingarten’s substack page. There were about 75 people there and we ate and mingled before the obligatory sing-along of loser-written songs. Usually there’s a certain amount of topical (i.e. mostly political) humor in the songs, but this year’s were all focused on the Post having canceled the contest. Overall, I had a pretty good time.

Two Minor Triumphs: I got Redactle #287 in 1 guess. That falls in the category of things that are unlikely to happen ever again.

And, yesterday, I reached #1 in the Diamond League on Duolingo. So I’ve gotten all of the achievements except the ones for playing consecutive games. That satisfied my competitive spirit since I can reach that remaining achievement independent of what anyone else does.

Another busy year, with more in-person activities. The low point of the year came in late June when I got COVID and had to get my air conditioning system replaced. But most of the year was pretty good.

Books: I read 47 books this year, 27 of which were fiction. Seven were rereads.

Favorites included Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Last Summer at the Golden Hotel by Elizabeth Friesland, The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon. My overall favorite for the year was In Xanadu by William Dalrymple. Least favorites were House of Joy by Joanne Winters and Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, as well as various pop psych books that were part of a box I’d gotten years ago from a neighbor of my mother’s.

I got rid of at least 133 books. I have several more set to go out. I may do a used bookstore run next week.

Also, I went to see Randy Rainbow on his book tour. I listened to an on-line talk by Liana Frick about her new graphic novel. And I volunteered at the National Book Festival.

Volksmarch: Nothing and I am disappointed in myself over that. I have bought new walking shoes, which should help motivate me some.

Ghoul Pool: I finished fourth (out of 16 players) with 250 points. People I scored on were Queen Elizabeth II, Anne Heche, Pele, Carmen Herrera, Anne Hutchinson Guest, Ned Rorem, Marsha Hunt, Lily Renee, James Lovelock, Roger Angell, and Deborah James.

Travel: I went to New York (to go to an opera and to see an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum) and Philadelphia (for the Jasper Johns retrospective) in February. In March, I went to Boston mostly for a combination of a concert, museum going, and friend visiting. I spent a few days in New York in April (on my way home from the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Connecticut) for cabaret and theatre going and museum going. I took another trip to New York in May / June for museum going, baseball, and theatre going. In June I went to Alaska, where I went to both Kenai Fjords National Park and Denali National Park - and, alas, caught COVID. In July, I went to Nashville for the National Puzzlers’ League Convention and then to Niagara Falls for Loserfest. I had another trip to New York in August for Lollapuzzola and theatre-going. In September, I went to Cumberland, Maryland and Romney, West Virginia to take the Potomac Eagle train. In November, I went to the Shenandoah Valley for a storytelling event and some tourism, including Shenandoah National Park, as well as to a knitting retreat in Ocean City, Maryland. November / December included a Road Scholar trip to Costa Rica.

I also went to a few Travelers’ Century Club events, a happy hour with the Circumnavigator’s Club, and a few on-line talks about travel.

Puzzles: I did the MIT Mystery Hunt again (virtually), which was a bit overwhelming even the third time around. The National Puzzlers’ League Convention in Nashville was also tremendous fun. Since things have started to come back to happening in person, I went to both the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament and Lollapuzzola. I was disappointed in how I did on the former. but was happy to solve cleanly at the latter.

And, of course, I have a long list of puzzles I do every day.

Genealogy: I didn’t have any huge research breakthroughs this year, but I did learn about several resources I need to spend time with. I made it to several talks and, in particular, participated in the IAJGS conference. But the biggest thing I did this year was mentoring members of my local Jewish genealogy society on Lithuanian research.

Baseball: I went to two major league games - one at home (Mets at Nationals) and one in New York (Phillies at Mets), I also went to games at four minor league ballparks. Those were Staten Island Ferry Hawks, Buffalo Bisons, Rochester Red Wings, and Syracuse Mets.

Culture: I went to 15 plays, 15 musicals, and 3 operas. A few of these were on-line but most were in person. A few favorites were We Now Declare You To Be a Terrorist at Roundhouse Theatre, Catch Me If You Can at Arena Stage, Once on This Island at Constellation Theatre, She Loves Me at Signature Theatre, and Guys and Dolls at the Kennedy Center. I also saw Come From Away again in New York and it was just as wonderful as before.

I went to 9 concerts. My favorites of those were Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, Jonathan Richman at the Lincoln Theatre, and Ari Shapiro’s cabaret show at 54 Below in New York. I also enjoyed the DC Cabaret Network show in the Capital Fringe Festival.

I saw 10 movies, all but two in theaters. Favorites were The Automat, Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song, The Banshees of Inisherin, and The Menu.

As for storytelling, I performed in the Women’s Storytelling Festival, the Washington Folk Festival, Beyond Barbarella: The Future is Female, and an ASST Intergenerational Storytelling evening. I also went to a lot of story swaps, including those from our local group, Voices in the Glen, and swaps put on by Community Storytellers in Los Angeles and San Diego Storytellers. (That is one positive of zoom - I can see old friends.) I went to a couple of in-person Better Said Than Done shows, including one by Andy Offutt Irwin. I watched several shows on-line, e.g. Elizabeth Ellis at The Grapevine. And I went to a couple of workshops on-line. And, oh, yeah, let’s not forget the Allegheny Highlands Storytelling Festival. I also wet to several meetings of a Kamishibai (Japanese paper theatre) special interest group.

Museums and Art:

I went to 14 museums and exhibits over the past year. Some of the things I particularly liked were Fragile Ecosystems by Mulyana at the Sapar Contemporary Gallery in Tribeca (in New York City), the second half of the Jasper Johns retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (note that I’d seen the other half of it at the Whitney in New York in 2021), The Great Animal Orchestra at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, Pixelbloom at Artechouse, the Faith Ringgold retrospective at the New Museum in New York, and the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.

I was very disappointed in the touring Sistine Chapel exhibition. And, while I liked the Yayoi Kunama exhibit at the Hirshorn Museum, it was pretty small and only took a half hour to go through.

Other Stuff:

I got one ink blot in the Style Invitational.
I went to several lectures on Jewish topics, including some in the Leading Jewish Minds at MIT series, a talk on Jewish magic, a talk on Jewish mustard, a talk on Jews and baseball, and Yiddish New York.
My friend, Frances, and I went to the Fall Festival at Cox Farms.
I went to miscellaneous other lectures, including one on the Paradox of Choice, an interview with Fran Lebowitz at the Kennedy Center, and the Faraday Prize lecture on-line.
I went to a chocolate tasting with my friend, Cindy. I also went out to dinner with various friends several times.
I participated in the Jewish Rally for Abortion Rights.
I did the open house tour at the Mormon Temple.
I went (virtually) to the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s annual mock trial.
Played board games (either with people I know from the Loser community or with NPL folks) frequently.

Goals:

So how did I do on my 2022 goals? I took 12 trips, while my goal had been 10, so I scored 100%. I only finished a bit over 5/6 of one embroidery project (versus my goal of finishing 2), so I get 42% there. I didn’t finish any afghans (though I did do a little work on a couple of them), so score 0% on that goal. I also didn’t do anything about organizing photos on my computer. I went through all of the non-crafts magazines around the house, so I’ll give myself 100%. I learned 3 new folktales (though I doubt I will tell one of them again) but I didn’t create a new personal story. However, I did create a science fiction story for a show. So I’m going to give myself an 85% on that goal. I didn’t really organize my yarn stash, though I did get rid of a few things I decided I wouldn’t use. I’ll give myself just 5% there. I read 47 books out of my goal of 75, so score 63%. And I didn’t start language study until November, but I did an average of about 10 hours a week. So if I figure on that being 80 hours and compare it to my goal of 2 hours per week, I’ll count that as 77%,

Adding all of that up, I’ll give myself a 41% on the year. That’s rather meh, but better than nothing.

Which brings me to goals for 2023:

Go through all of the photos and slides from my parents. I hope to be able to get rid of about 3/4 of them.
Do some formal educational every month. Things that count towards this are taking actual classes (e.g. there is an interesting adult education program in Arlington) or going to lectures (e.g. those put on by Profs and Pints). Both in-person and virtual activities count, but reading does not.
Take at least 4 international trips.
Finish at least three crafts projects.
Read at least 75 books, with a stretch goal of 100.
Go to at least three new ballparks.
Go to at least one museum exhibition each month.
Go to at least 3 national parks.
Spend at least a half hour every day on housework.

I’ve been in rather a blur of social activity since I got back. But let’s do first things first.

Celebrity Death Watch: Robert Clary was an actor, best known for playing Corporal LeBeau on Hogan’s Heroes, though he got his start in the musical revue “New Faces of 1952.” Carol Leigh was an activist who focused on sex workers. Fred Brooks wrote the book The Mythical Man-Month. Greg Bear and Ray Nelson were science fiction writers. June Campbell was the fashion reporter who created the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. Jay Pasachoff was an astronomer who is believed to have seen more solar eclipses than anyone else. Jean-Marie Straub was a film director. Wilko Johnson played guitar for Dr. Feelgood. Ray Oldenburg studied urban sociology and popularized the term “third place.” Bernadette Mayer was a poet. Sheila Vogel-Coupe was the oldest sex worker in the United Kingdom and had apparently started her career as an escort at the age of 81. Louise Tobin was a jazz singer. Christine McVie was a keyboardist and singer, as well as songwriter, for Fleetwood Mac.

Gaylord Perry was a pitcher, primarily for the San Francisco Giants. Quentin Oliver Lee was an operatic baritone, best known for playing the time role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. Dominique Lapierre wrote Is Paris Burning? Dick Enthoven owned Nando’s. Bob McGrath played the human character Bob Johnson on Sesame Street. Jim Stewart cofounded Stax Records. Jay Goldberg was a lawyer who represented a lot of famous people, including Donald Trump, Johnny Cash, Mick Jagger, and Bono. Roddy Jackson was a rockabilly performer. Lee Lorenz was a cartoonist and editor for The New Yorker. Jean-Louis Bourgeois was an expert on mud brick architecture and worked both in the American southwest and in Djenne, Mali. Ruth Madoc played Fruma Sarah in the 1971 film version of Fiddler o the Roof. Herbert Deutsch co-invented the Moog Synthesizer. Grant Wahl was a sports journalist. Paul Silas played basketball for the Boston Celtics and the Seattle SuperSonics before going on to coach for the Charlotte Hornets. Georgia Holt was an actress and singer best known as the mother of Cher. Dame Beryl Grey was a ballerina. Abigail Kinoiki Kekaulike Kawananakoa claimed to be the last remaining Hawaiian royal princess. Frances Hesselbein was the CEO of the Girl Scouts starting in the mid-1970’s and changed their focus away from homemaker type activities, Wolf Erlbruch wrote German children’s books. Stuart Margolin was an actor, best known for playing Angel Martin in The Rockford Files. Curt Simmons was a pitcher, primarily for the Phillies. Steven “tWitch” Boss was a dancer and actor. Belinda Douglas-Scot-Montagu was commissioned to work on an embroidery for the 900th anniversary of the New Forest. Dino Danelli played drums for The Rascals.

Ned Rorem was a Pulitzer Prize winning composer. I have to admit that I knew his name mostly from crossword puzzles. But he earned me 27 ghoul pool points (15 for his position on my list, plus 12 for uniqueness).

Irene Cara was a singer and actress, best known for the song “Flashdance … What a Feeling.”

Kirstie Alley was an actress, best known for playing Rebecca Howe on Cheers.

Joseph Kromelis was a homeless man and sometime street vendor in Chicago who was known as “Walking Man.” He was the victim of an arson attack while he slept under a bridge in May 2022. People suck.

FlyerTalk Dinner: Last Friday night, I went out to dinner with a few friends from FlyerTalk at Open Road in Rosslyn. The food and beer were both very good and the service was okay. (I had the Tropic Thunder IPA and their tacos.) The prices were a bit on the high side, though we got the happy hour prices on the drinks and the entrees were big enough for two meals. Overall, I’d recommend it and I’d be happy to try their Merrifield location (which is closer to my house, though the Rosslyn one is right across the street from the metro, so is reasonably convenient). I should also note that Rosslyn looks to have been cleaned up quite a bit since the last time I was there, which was ages ago.

Chocolate Tasting: Last Saturday, Cindy and I went to a chocolate tasting at River-Sea Chocolates in Chantilly. The place was a little hard to find, since their sign is not visible from the parking lot. But we did figure it out and were in plenty of time. We watched a few videos about chocolate growing, processing, and shipping, then tasted 5 different chocolates. The first two were dark chocolates - one from Thailand, one from Brazil. While they had similar cacao percentages, they tasted very different. Then there were two milk chocolates - one plain and one one with salted caramel. Finally, there was a white chocolate with gingerbread spices. The Thailand and the salted caramel milk chocolate were my favorites. We also got a little tour of their factory, seeing all the machines.

I also liked that their products are ethically sourced. For example, they check that the beans are all grown organically and that no child labor is involved. They even ship their beans by sailboats, to prevent the environmental impact of containerized cargo ships.

I bought several chocolate bars (as did Cindy) and highly recommend this place to people who like good chocolate. I thought I knew a lot about chocolate, but I did learn more and I will definitely be shopping there again.

Voices Swap: Last Saturday night was the monthly Voices in the Glen story swap. I got there late, because I had taken a nap and forgotten to turn on my alarm clock. At least I was on time to hear Margaret tell Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” which is always a delight. I told a very brief version of La Segua, a Costa Rican horror story, in honor of my recent vacation.

Loser Brunch: Sunday was a Loser brunch at Lena’s in Alexandria. We had three tables full of people, scattered throughout the venue, which was slightly awkward, but we were able to get up and mingle. I got a margarita pizza (very good) and a drink called a Venus de Milo, which had campari, white peach, proseco, and grenadine, and was very tasty. Service was slow and there were some mistakes, but it was very busy, so it was forgivable.

This is rather burying the lede, but some of you already know that the WaPo killed the Style Invitational (along with the Sunday Magazine section and some other stuff). What you may not know is that Pat (the Empress) and her predecessor (Gene Weingarten, aka the Czar) are giving it a new life (alas, without prizes) on substack. They are hoping to get people to pay $5 a month or $50 a year, but you can sign up to read for free if you just want to read. Go to The Gene Pool and join.

Cookie Exchange and Dinner: I did a holiday cookie exchange with a bunch of puzzle folks again this year. We simplified things by having centralized receiving points for each city with multiple participants. The DC folks met up on Monday night to have dinner at Rasika West End (good Indian food) and distribute cookies. There was also lively conversation involved. By the way, my contribution was maple cinnamon stars, which are basically ordinary sugar cookies with cinnamon and maple extract added, cut into star shapes and decorated with gold sprinkles. Here’s a picture:

Also, I met up briefly today (Sunday the 18th) with the guy who received our cookies from the out of towners to get the rest of the ones he had. We still have one person who hasn’t done his share yet.

Post Office: I mailed off the rest of my cookies on Tuesday morning. The Merrifield Post Office is very efficient and it didn’t take long. I didn’t think I’d need another post office trip, but I discovered that some of the holiday cards I had required extra postage, so I made another excursion on Friday morning, this time to the Oakton Post Office because I had a couple of other errands to run in that direction. Things were slower there, since it’s much smaller and has fewer people working. Still, it gave me an opportunity to do my good deed for the month, since I always have a baggie full of pens and pencils in my pocketbook and was able to lend a pen to two people who needed to fill out customs forms. Note to self: check the box next time I buy cards to make sure they just require normal postage.

MIT Club of DC Holiday Party: Wednesday night was the MIT Club of DC holiday party, which was at a law office in Georgetown. The food (heavy hors d’oeuvres) was pretty tasty, but the drink assortment was weird, with lots of wine, sodas, and a bottle of Ketel One vodka. (I stuck to ginger ale, by the way.) I had lots of interesting conversation, some with people I knew before (e.g. someone I used to work with) and some with people I hadn’t met before. The possibility of a storytelling event for the club got mentioned.

TCC Webinar: Today there was a Travelers’ Century Club virtual explorations seminar about festivals. There were three speakers, who covered Guerewol in Niger, Naadam in Mongolia, and Punakha Drubchan in Bhutan. I’ve been to Naadam in Tuva (and the so-called “little” Naadam in Mongolia, which paled in comparison), but both the other two looked interesting. There was also good conversation in the breakout room for the Gurewol Festival afterwards.

Condo Association Holiday Party: Tonight was the annual condo association holiday party. There was fairly good attendance. I sampled several of the hot hors d’oeuvres including some very nice cheese puffs. And I had a glass of wine. I talked with a few neighbors but didn’t stay for long. I went back up to my condo and lit my Chanukah candles and now I am about to play board games over zoom.

Chanukah: I lit the first candle tonight. Chappy Chanukah!

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.

Another interesting building is the Allegheny County Courthouse.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Cows have the right of way!

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.

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.

Being home doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing things, of course.

Pat (the Style Invitational Empress) and her husband, Mark, usher at Arena Stage and had gotten four free tickets for American Prophet there as a result. I ended up going with Kathleen, Cindy, and a friend of another friend. The show is a musical about Frederick Douglass. It was interesting and well-acted, with Cornelius Smith, Jr. quite convincing in the lead role. As for the music, I particularly liked the song “Brother” and the use of the traditional “Wade in the Water.” Overall, it was well-worth seeing.

A few days later, I went to see the Folger Theatre production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the National Building Museum. They had built a theatre within the museum for this. There was also a walk-through set outside the theatre area.

We also had time to browse the museum shop before the show. This is, in my opinion, the best museum shop in DC, but I resisted temptation. As for the play, the production was somewhat streamlined and emphasized the humor in it. I particularly liked Jacob Ming-Trent as Bottom. But the seats (at least the ones we had) were extremely uncomfortable.

A few nights later, I was at Nationals Park for a different sort of entertainment. No, not baseball, but a concert. Specifically Lady Gaga. It was chaos getting in, since they didn’t open the gates until half an hour after they said they would (which was 2 hours later than when they’d originally said) so I was waiting in line on Half Street in the heat for ages. And she started the concert almost 2 hours later than had been advertised. Still, she put on a good show. We were up on the third tier (which used to have a view of the Capitol but now has a view of a lot of new buildings and a few construction cranes to put up more buildings) so we had a great view of the stage. Or, at least, the jumbotron. That felt more like watching a movie than like being at a concert, frankly. I have a lot of respect for her both as a musician and as a person and I enjoyed the spectacle. But I really prefer more intimate settings to arena concerts.

Anyway, she did a lot of familiar songs and some unfamiliar ones. Here’s “Poker Face.”

I really liked the hat she wore for “Shallow.”

The final entertainment event I went to recently (well, aside from seeing a movie, which I will write about in my next quarterly update) was seeing a one-man show called My Son, the Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy at Theatre J. I think I’d seen an excerpt from this on-line and it seemed right up my alley. Indeed it was. Brad Zimmerman had a mixture of Jewish jokes (many of them familiar, but so what?) and personal stories, largely about his relationship with his parents. I’m not sure how this would play to an audience that doesn’t consist of older Jews, but it played well for me and I’m glad I went. (A friend who went to a later performance also enjoyed it.)

Which reminds me of one of my favorite Jewish jokes: Did you hear they’re making a talking doll of my mother? You pull the string and it says, “what? Again with the string?”

Other things I’ve done recently (all over zoom) include a book club meeting, crafts group, a story swap, and countless games of codenames. This past week was the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies conference. That merits its own entry. And, in a little while, I am heading up to New York for the weekend.

Er, yes, I am busy.

After I got back from New York, I was mostly focused on getting two things done: 1) taxes and 2) preparation for Passover. I did accomplish both of those, though not without a lot of whining. I have less to say than I normally would about Passover, because I went to both seders over zoom this year. Sigh.

Fortunately, I had various distractions to keep me from going completely crazy.

We Declare You a Terorist …: My friend Cindy had a discount offer for this play, which was part of a new play series at Round House Theatre in Bethesda. I had not quite realized that the performance we were going to was the very first ever of this play and that was definitely not obvious from the performances. The story involves the 2002 siege of the Dubrovska Theater in Moscow by Chechen terrorists (including several of the women known as “black widows.”) I vaguely remembered this incident, but didn’t know much about it. The Russian government pumped in a gas that rendered everyone unconscious, then shot the Chechens. Unfortunately, about a quarter of the hostages also died from the side effects of the gas.

The play actually is actually focused on The Writer, i.e. the playwright, who has been caught trying to sneak into Chechnya and is being interrogated by an officer of the FSB (the successor to the KGB). There are flashbacks, shown via projections, in which he remembers the relationships he developed during the siege. One was with one of the black widows; the other, with a teenager who had been attending the play with her parents. All four characters are interesting and more complex than they seem at first. The projections were handled with the two actresses in a movie theatre off-stage, but interacting in real time with The Writer, by the way. That worked better than I would have expected from that description. Overall, this was an intriguing play and I am glad that I got to see it. (And, of course, it is timely in light of the Ukraine war.)

By the way, we had dinner before the play at Q by Peter Chang. I had some very tasty noodles with lamb, while Cindy got a chicken dish that she said was too spicy for her, even though she had asked for “medium.” We wouldd probably go there again but request the food be mild.

Baseball: My first live baseball game of the season was the second game for the Nationals, who were playing the Mets. I had chosen that game instead of opening day because it was Stephen Strasburg bobblehead giveaway day. It was very strange seeing Max Scherzer pitching for the Mets. (By the way, I have divided loyalties on this match-up, since I grew up a Mets fan, but feel obliged to root for the Nats while living here.) I am also annoyed by the designated hitter rule having been imposed on the National League. The bottom line is thet the Nats pitching was pretty bad. There was also a brawl after a Nats pitcher beaned a Mets batter. I should also note that there were two young women sitting in front of me who were primarily focused on discussing the upcoming wedding of one of them (who was apparently there with her parents). That and gossiping about various people they knew and talking about the bad behavior of the bride-to-be’s dog and pretty much everything but the game. It was annoying and distracting. Sigh.

By the way, four people were shot (fortunately, none fatally) right over by Nats Park the next night. That’s pretty scary.

Anyway, while I am on the subject of baseball, this season is depressing. Not only are the Nats doing terribly, so are my Red Sox. And the Royals (who I have a soft spot in my heart for because a guy from my home town used to pitch for them). And, of course, with the Source of All Evil in the Universe in first, the Grand Unified Theory of Politics, Economics, and the American League East explains why things are so miserable in the world right now.

STC Mock Trial: Every year, the Shakespeare Theatre Company puts on a mock trial, with the case based on something from a Shakespeare play and various DC luminaries participating. This year’s was also live-streamed, making it much easier to watch. The case was called “Much Ado About Margaret” and based on Much Ado About Nothing. The specific question was whether Margaret had defamed Hero by posing as her in her wedding dress, thus convincing Claudio that Hero was unfaithful to him. The presiding judge was Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, with Debra Katz (known for representing workplace whistleblowers) representing Hero and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff representing Margaret. The whole thing was reasonably amusing. And, by the way, Emhoff revealed that Kamala Harris is better at Wordle than he is. (But he lost the case.)

Randy Rainbow Book Tour: Randy Rainbow has been doing a number of events to promote his memoir and I went with another friend (Kathleen) to one at Sixth and I Synagogue. In this case, he was interviewed by CNN reporter Dana Bash. She had him read several anecdotes from the book. I was particularly interested to hear about his friendship with Stephen Sondheim. They also played one of his videos. Overall, he was funny and it was enjoyable.

By the way, since the event was during Passover, we were rather constrained with respect to dinner. Fortunately, Zaytinya had a few things on their menu that I considered acceptable to eat. But, boy is it hard to go there and not have any of their bread.

Circumnavigators Happy Hour: The acting president of the Circumnavigators Club had invited members of the Travelers’ Century Club to join them at a happy hour. There were a few people there who I know from TCC, including a BBC reporter who had profiled us back in 2017. Anyway, there was lots of good travel conversation and I ended up staying longer than I’d expected to. But it also reminded me how much I miss traveling.

Artechouse: I had not actually been to Artechouse before, though I had always heard good things about it. So I was happy to accompany Cindy to their current immersive experience, which is called Pixelbloom. This is focused on springtime and cherry blossoms (and other flowers) and includes both a main exhibit that takes 20 or so minutes to watch and a few side exhibits.

Note that you apparently have to click the pictures to view the videos on flickr.

There are two side rooms with other exhibits. One ends up letting you appear to be part of the picture.

My favorite part was an area where your footsteps caused beehives (complete with bees) to form and dissolve. Because they dissolve when you move away, it was really hard to get decent pictures but this brief video (again, you will need to click through to flickr) gives you the general idea.

Mormon Temple Open House: Cindy had also gotten a parking pass to go to the open house at the LDS Temple in Kensington, Maryland. Normally, people who are not members cannot go into the Temple, but they had deconsecrated it for renovations and are doing this open house until it is reconsecrated. Since I have a long-standing interest in religious architecture, I thought this was a good opportunity.

Of course, I’ve seen the outside several times.

They also have a very nice fountain surrounded by a lot of tulips.

Everybody had to put on some covers on their shoes before going inside. We thought you weren’t supposed to take photos inside, but a lot of people were, so we went ahead. This is the Baptistry, which is where baptisms are performed. That includes baptisms on behalf of deceased ancestors. There are sculptures of oxen supporting the font. Also, the painting in the background is fairly typical of the style of painting throughout the temple. One thing about those paintings is that they show almost entirely white people, though there were two of black women with children near the end of the tour route. There was also a room off to the side where there were sets of what I assume is the famous Mormon underwear.

We went on to see Dressing Rooms where people change to white clothing worn in the temple, the Brides Room where a bride waits before her sealing ceremony, and Instruction Rooms (essentially small auditoriums) where people go periodically to watch audiovisual presentations about their religious obligations and covenants. The Celestial Room is supposed to symbolize heaven and be a place for quiet contemplation, but I thought it had the ambience of a hotel lobby (probably a Marriott, at that). The Sealing Rooms are where marriages and other sealing ceremonies take place. (For example, I know a Mormon woman who, with her husband, adopted three children and they had them selaed to her and her husband.) This is supposed to be eternal. I asked one what happens if someone is widowed and remarries, but didn’t get a coherent answer.

Overall, this was interesting and worth seeing, especially since it’s pretty much a once in a lifetime opportunity. I should also note that the Washington Temple (which is really in Kensington, Maryland) is the third largest, behind Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. Also, I had expected a bit of a hard sell, but they really weren’t pushy, just providing information.

Weekday Brunch: Kathleen had house guests from Israel (a Style Invitational Loser and her wife) and asked me to join them for a late breakfast on a weekday before they left. So we went to Bob and Edith’s Diner in Crystal City, which is pretty much your standard diner. My veggie omelet and English muffin were fine. It was surprisingly busy for a Thursday morning. It;s always good to get out of the house.

Other Stuff: Other things I did in April included a couple of story swaps, various phone calls re: planning for storytelling events, and a couple of genealogy meetings and presentations. And, of course, lots of evenings playing games (mostly Code Names) over zoom. There was also way too much time spent working on decluttering, but that requires a separate entry.

Celebrity Death Watch: Lindsey Perlman was an actress, primarily on soap operas. David Boggs co-invented Ethernet. Gary Brooker was the lead singer of Procol Harum. Charlie Taylor was a Hall of Fame football player for the Washington Redskins. The Amazing Johnathan was a magician and stand-up comedian. Judith Pipher was an astrophysicist who pioneered the use of indium antinomide (InSb, pronounced “insby”) for infrared detection. Sheila Benson was the film critic for the Los Angeles Times during the 1980’s. Dick Versace was a basketball coach and sportscaster. Andy Remic wrote science fiction. Richard C. Blum was a businessman who was married to former Senator Dianne Feinstein. Veronica Carlson was an actress in horror movies. Kenneth Ellerbe was the Washington, D.C. fire chief. Mary Coombs was the first female commercial computer programmer. Ike Delock pitched for the Red Sox in the 1950’s. Authorine Lucy was the first African-American to attend the University of Alabama. Johnny Brown played the building superintendent on the sitcom Good Times. Walter Mears was a journalist for Associated Press. Tim Considine was an actor who played Spin in Spin and Marty and Frank Hardy in The Hardy Boys. Mitchell Ryan played Burke Devlin on Dark Shadows. Yuriko Kikuchi was a dancer and choreographer. Emilio Delgado played Luis on Sesame Street. Pete St. John was an Irish singer-songwriter. Traci Braxton was an R&B singer. Donald Pinkel developed a cure for childhood leukemia. Sally Schmitt cofounded the French Laundry, a very upscale restaurant in the Napa Valley.

Paul Farmer cofounded Partners in Health, which built clinics in various places in the developing world, e.g. Haiti and Rwanda. He was truly a revolutionary, pioneering programs to address, for example, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in Haiti, Peru, and Russia. Tracy Kidder’s book Mountains Beyond Mountains tells (part of) his story. (I first learned about Farmer from Kidder’s book Strength in What Remains which has to do with one of the people he mentored.) A lot of people talk about changing the world. Paul Farmer was someone who really did.

Charles Entenmann brought Entenmann’s bakery products to supermarkets. Entenmann’s was a staple of my household when I was growing up. We always had their donuts and coffee cake. I particularly liked their cream cheese cake which is, alas, no longer made.

Sally Kellerman played Hot Lips Houlihan in the movie M*A*S*H. She was replaced by Loretta Swit for the TV series.

William Hurt appeared in numerous movies, including Altered States and Body Heat. He was nominated for Oscars several times and won one for best actor for Kiss of the Spider Woman.

MIT Death Watch: Larry Young died back in August, but I just learned that. He was an aero/astro professor who specialized in the impact of sensory systems on spaceflight. He taught part of a biomedical engineering class I took as an undergraduate. That class was memorable for our getting to do various lab experiments involving visual-vestibular interaction. I particularly remember a helicopter simulator in which seeing a projection of moving stripes convinced people the simulator was rotating, even though we knew perfectly well it was completely still.

Daphne’s Dive: I saw this play at Signature Theatre a week ago Wednesday. It was written by Quiara Alegria Hudes, who is probably best known for writing the book for Lin Manuel Miranda’s musical In the Heights. Anyway, the story involves a group of people who hang out at the titular bar. Daphne owns the bar and adopts a young girl named Ruby, who has been badly abused, though we don’t learn some of the details until the end. The other characters include her sister, Inez, her politically-connected brother-in-law, Acosta, an artist named Pablo who uses other people’s trash as inspiration, a gentle biker named Rey, and a performance artist named Jenn. The play is somewhat about Ruby growing up, but more about the relationships between the characters, who form an intentional community. Think of it as a sort of LatinX Cheers. I like character-based humor, so I really enjoyed seeing the evolution of these people over the 20 or so year span of the play.

Dinner and Cake: This was a reading of a new play, also done by Signature Theatre (on Monday night). While there was a live audience, I watched the livestream instead. The story, by Tuyet Thi Pham, has to do with a young woman who is hired to translate during a dinner in which an American couple is meeting their daughter-in-law’s Vietnamese parents. Let’s just say that the American couple are pretty clueless, down to not having learned how to pronounce the daughter-in-law’s name correctly. (And, really, Thuy is a pretty common Vietnamese name.) The most interesting aspect of the play is that the first part has the words spoken by the Vietnamese couple in both Vietnamese and English. The second part has supertitles for the English translations. And the final part is untranslated, though it is not difficult to get the gist of what is really said vs. what Mylinnh says they said. I thought it was interesting and I’d like to see a full staging of it some day.

Masala Art: I went to Arena Stage on Friday night and had dinner with two friends at Masala Art, an Indian restaurant near there beforehand. I got a drink called a Belgravia, which the menu claimed had Tanqueray gin, cucumber, ginger, and elderflower. Frankly, the cucumber completely dominated the flavor, which is the least interesting of those ingredients. As for food, I generally stick to vegetarian dishes at Indian restaurants and had something called baingan mirch ka salan, which is baby eggplant and jalapeños in a peanut and sesame sauce. It was okay, but not as spicy as I expected. It came with rice. We also got naan, which was the best part of the meal. There is better Indian food for less money at other places, but it was convenient.

Catch Me If You Can: We were at Arena Stage to see Catch Me If You Can, a musical adaptation of the movie about Frank Abnegale, Jr., a con man who impersonated an aircraft pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer. The play is focused on two things - the impact his parents (especially his father) had on him and the relationship between him and the FBI agent who is trying to catch him. The creative team was Terrence McNally (book), Marc Shaiman (music and lyrics) and Scott Whittman (lyrics) with choreography by Alejo Vetti and costume by Alejo Vetti. I don’t normally mention costumes, but these were pretty notable, starting with Mondrian-inspired ones that set the era, and continuing through clothes with a money theme, and reaching the pinnacle with a Pan Am plane. The choreography was also over the top. As for the music, it wouldn’t make my list of great musical scores, but was nicely jazzy and the lyrics were reasonably witty. (By the way, Shaiman and Whittman are probably best known for Hairspray.) Both Christian Thompson (as Frank Abnegale, Jr.) and Nehal Joshi (as Special Agent Carl Hanratty) were excellent. Overall, it was an enjoyable show and worth going to Southwest D.C. for.

Other Stuff: I’ve also spent lots of time on genealogy, storytelling (including going to a couple of virtual swaps), and board games. I am still in the depths of living room archaeology, which has turned up things like an iTunes gift card that I must have gotten at a Yankee swap at a holiday party at work. Or, on second thought, it might have been a birthday present from a friend. And I saw the movie, Cyrano, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2021 year in review

The pandemic put a damper on the year, again, though I did manage a little bit of domestic travel. Breaking a rib in August also put a damper on things, but I recovered in a reasonable amount of time.My real life may have been constrained, but my virtual life was pretty busy.

Books:I read 37 books, 24 of which were fiction. Favorites for the year were The Great Alone by Kristen Hannah, Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky, One Day by Gene Weingarten, and several books by Alexander McCall Smith. My favorite books of the year were The Bees by Laline Paull and Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder. Books I disliked were The Pigskin Rabbi by Willard Manus, The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, and Normal People by Sally Rooney.

I got rid of 28 books. I have plenty more ready to go. Maybe I will even manage a used bookstore run this week.

I also went to two virtual presentations that were part of the National Book Festival - one on book structures and one on crossword puzzles. And I toured the New York Society Library (in person) in November.

Volksmarch: No and I really have no excuse. I have done plenty of shorter (1-3 mile) walks around my neighborhood, however.

Ghoul Pool: I finished 9th, which is solidly middle of the pack with 128 points. The people I scored on were Prince Philip. Beverly Cleary, Renee Simonot, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gilbert Seltzer, Neal Edward Smith, DMX, and Bob Dole.

Travel: No international travel, alas. But I did manage some domestic travel. In June, I went to Philadelphia to see the Soutine exhibit at the Barnes Foundation and go to the Flower Show, to Boston to get together with a few friends and go to a WooSox game, and to Portland, Oregon for a little bit of the Art and Soul Retreat. In August I did a driving trip around south central Pennsylvania and flew to Chicago to get together with friends, go to a Cubs game, and take a day trip to Indiana Dunes National Park. I had another day trip to Gettysburg in late October. In November, I went to Mystic, Connecticut and to New York City for friend-visiting, the Jasper Johns exhibit at the Whitney, and theatre binging. That adds up to 7 trips, which isn’t too shabby under the circumstances, but is still less than I would have liked.

I am not sure how to count these , but I went to some on-line travel presentations, including a few virtual tours from the New York Adventure Club and talks about various destinations from the Travelers’ Century Club. We had an actual in-person TCC meeting, too, which was wonderful.

Puzzles: I did the MIT Mystery Hunt for the second time. Which was virtual (as will this year’s be). I didn’t feel completely useless. The bigger event was the National Puzzlers’ League convention which happened live and in person, right here in Washington, D.C. It was smaller than usual, but was still a lot of fun. And I enjoyed being able to provide some local expertise. I did not do any crossword tournaments because I just don’t enjoy doing them virtually. Hopefully things can happen in person again this year.

Genealogy: I went to the (virtual) International Association of Jewish Genealogy Societies (IAJGS) conference in August and particularly enjoyed mentoring a few people on Lithuanian research. I also listened to a (very) few presentations from Roots Tech. I also went to a few other on-line talks, primarily with Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington. I did not, alas, manage to do much research and/or organizing.

Baseball: As mentioned above, I went to check out the new AAA Red Sox affiliate in Worcester (known as the WooSox) in June and to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field in August. I also went to two Nationals games. The BoSox provided their usual mix of elation and stress.

Culture: I saw 2 plays and 4 musicals in person. I particularly enjoyed Remember This: The Jan Karski Story at the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Having Our Say at Creative Cauldron, and Baby at Out of the Box Theatre in New York. I only went to one in-person concert, which was a very enjoyable cabaret show by Alan Cumming and Ari Shapiro. The other in-person event I went to was the Maryland Renaissance Festival. On-line concerts included Carole King, John McCutcheon, and Christine Lavin. There were also a couple of Sondheim related on-line events, including a retrospective about Assassins. I went to a couple of virtual talks about musicals. And I saw one opera on-line.

I saw 10 movies, including 2 in theaters. My favorites of the year were West Side Story, Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, and When Tango Meets Klezmer.

As for storytelling, I told stories at various virtual events, including a Valentine’s Day show for a friend’s church, a midsummer show by Voices in the Glen, the National Storytelling Network Conference, and the New Year’s Eve Storytelling Blow-out. More excitingly, I performed at two in-person Better Said Than Done shows. (There is nothing like a live audience.) I attended the Women’s Storytelling Festival (which I also worked at, including emceeing the story swap) and the National Storytelling Festival (both on-line) as well as at least 8 on-line shows and one on-line workshop. I also went to over a dozen story swaps, including several non-local ones, which is the saving grace of zoom events.

I need to add a category for art. In addition to the Soutine and Johns exhibits mentioned above (and the Art and Soul retreat), I went to a couple of exhibits of light sculptures, an art fair in Alexandria, and a reception for a Rockwell painting at the Women’s Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. I also went to an exhibit at the Renwick and toured Glenstone with my alumni club. Then there was the Immersive Van Gogh event. And I did an Ugly Architecture tour in Chicago. More significantly, I finished the Smithsonian certificate program in World Art History. Someday I might even write about that.

Other stuff:

I went to various on-line talks on subjects ranging from vampires in Jewish mysticism to the history of chocolate.
I’ve been going to an on-line needles and crafts group run by the library a friend works at. This has enabled me to get more than halfway through a cross stitch piece I bought in Bangkok in 2008.
I went to a few talks at (virtual) Balticon.
I got interviewed for 2 podcast episodes and 1 radio show.
I played a huge number of games of Code Names (and a lot fewer other board games) on-line with a group of friends.
I got one more honorable mention in the Style Invitational.
I went to Yiddish New York (virtually), which I also still need to write about.

Goals:

So how did I do on my goals from last year? I had 8 goals. I hoped to get 200 books out of my house, but only managed to get 28 out. So that goal got 14%. I did enter the Style Invitational 6 times, so got 100% there. I finished the Smithsonian certificate program in World Art History so got another 100%. I didn’t get things out of my storage locker because: a) I need to clear a place to put them and b) I have no idea where I put the key to the storage locker, so get a 0% there. I had no progress (so also 0%) on goals to organize my genealogy files and my craft supplies. I’d hoped to read 52 books, but only read 37, so get a 71% there. I did get 4 new stories into tellable form, so get 100% on that goal. That gives me a little over 48% on the year, which is, alas, about typical for how I do on these things.

Which brings me to goals for 2022:

Take at least 10 trips.
Finish at least 2 embroidery or needlepoint projects.
Finish knitting or crocheting at least 2 afghans.
Organize all the photographs on my computer.
Finish going through all the magazines I have lying around.
Create at least 1 new personal story and learn at least 3 new to me folktales.
Organize my yarn stash.
Read at least 75 books.
Spend at least 2 hours a week on language study.

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Entries tagged with life in general

January / February 2025 Doings

Getting Back to September

I Haven't Disappeared

Eye, I, Ay

Back to Real Life

How Does That Catch-Up Thing Go Again?

2023 - Year in Review

A Fairly Routine Week

Getting Caught Up Here

A Non-travel Catch-up

On the Home Front

Catchety-Uppity

2022 - Year in Review

Mostly Holiday Stuff

And the Rest of September - Including a Train Trip

Since I've Been Back - Entertainment Edition

Catchup - The Rest of April

Mostly Theatre

What Else I've Been Up To

2021 - Year in Review