fauxklore

I got back from LoserFest on Sunday afternoon and on Tuesday afternoon I was off to New York for a few days. The official reason for my trip was the premiere of a Yiddish opera. But, me being me, I also had to throw in three musicals and a museum excursion.

When I got to New York, I walked over to my hotel. I had planned to go down to Little Italy for the San Gennaro festival. But it was drizzly and I was tired and, as much as I have fond memories of eating zeppoli at the Feast in my home town, I just wasn’t really in the mood for greasy overpriced food. I did stick to the Italian theme and got cheap pizza. For what it’s worth, $1 Pizza now costs $1.50 a slice, but they haven’t changed the name. (It does also cost extra to add toppings. I like my pizza with mushrooms and black olives, by the way.) It was perfectly adequate and filling, allowing me to collapse happily with a book.

On Wednesday, I had plans for seeing two Broadway shows. I didn’t really do anything touristy in the morning because I had a bit of storytelling business to attend to and I wanted to get further on with a book club book I was in the middle of. After getting a smoothie for lunch, I went to the first of the two shows I had tickets for - the matinee performance of Maybe Happy Ending. For those who are unfamiliar with the story, the premise sounds really strange. Two decommissioned helperbots (i.e. robots that act as domestic companions to people) live across the hall from each other in a complex for retired helperbots. Claire’s charger fails, leading her to beg to borrow Oliver’s charger. This eventually leads them to a relationship. Oliver believes that his former owner, James, will come for him some day, but when Claire expresses a desire to go to Jeju Island (where James now lives) to see the fireflies there, Oliver joins her on a road trip. I thought the show was really sweet and I liked the jazz music used throughout it. I also thought the issues it raised about whether robots can feel the same emotions as humans and the ethics of robot to human relationships were handled well. Overall, this is a clever and original musical and well worth seeing. As an aside, the bio of HwaBoon in the “who’s who in the cast” section of the program is almost certainly the best cast bio I have ever read in a theatre program. Highly recommended.

My evening theatre excursion was Heathers the Musical. I liked the movie it was based on and I have nothing against dark and violent musicals. Unfortunately this show has a fan base of shrieking teenagers who were never taught proper audience behavior. The constant screaming at any mildly amusing line and loud stomping of feet really detracted from the show. That’s a pity because there is some good material and some fine performances. In particular, Erin Morton was excellent as Martha. File this under shows I won’t go to see again, along with Wicked and Six for similar reasons.

I had a bit of shopping I wanted to do on Thursday during the day. An excursion to a dance wear store didn’t yield a brown unitard, but did yield a long-sleeved white leotard that can be died to the correct color for my costuming purposes. And I have a reliable source of tights in pretty much any color I might want. I still need a bunny tail and ears and an apron which I can cross-stitch. But I have a few months before I need this to be done. I could have bought the ears at a costume store one of my friends had mentioned, but the store was more crowded than I wanted to deal with.

I should also note that I’d never noticed the upside-down A in the Herald Square signs before. One of my Facebook friends solved the mystery. That A represents the shape of Herald Square which is really more of a triangle with extended legs.



Anyway, the actual purpose of the trip had been to see the opera The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language at YIVO. I had enough time to check out a few exhibits, including one about people who rescued Yiddish books in Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania) during World War II and one on Jewish artists in Lithuania. The latter, alas, failed to mention any of my artistic cousins. As for the opera, it’s based on the true story of Yudel Mark’s attempt to write a complete dictionary of the Yiddish language, despite the insistence of Max Weinreich that it wasn’t essential to capture every Yiddish word. The conflict between the two men was interesting and provided some opportunity for comedy. I didn’t find the music particularly memorable, but the performances were good and I was glad I’d had the opportunity to see it.

By the way, on the way back to my hotel, I stopped at Aubi & Ramsa, which specializes in liquor-infused ice cream. I got the Old Fashioned, made with Woodford Reserve bourbon and Cointreau. It was very tasty and the place gives new meaning to the term “ice cream bar.”



I’d decided I should use Friday to go to a museum I’d never been to before. Several of my friends were enthusing over the recently renovated Frick Collection. The only place you can take pictures inside it is the courtyard.



For the most part, I found the decorative arts, e.g. the wallpaper and ceilings, to be more impressive than the actual art collection. But I generally prefer modern art to old masters. I will say that they have a nice app that lets you look up info on the endless array of portraits of rich people, shepherdesses, and/or rich women dressed up as shepherdesses. (The biblical scenes are a bit better or, at least, less fluffy.) I’m glad I went to see it, but there are other museums in New York which I prefer. I will also note that their cafe is one of the few places remaining anywhere that serves a Caesar salad with actual anchovies on it.

I decided to spend some time in the afternoon strolling around Central Park. Back in high school, I went to a Saturday science program at Columbia University, which is where I met my 10th grade boyfriend. We had classes in the morning and periodic afternoon special lectures. On the Saturday afternoons when we didn’t have a lecture, he and I would often go to Central Park. My funniest memory of that was that we had an obligatory stop at a store that sold telephones, which he collected. Even 50ish years later, that’s still my major mental association with Central Park. That store is, of course, long gone. So I settled for looking at people playing with remote controlled yachts on the lake and listening to various street musicians. I also had to take a photo of the Alice in Wonderland statue.



I had bought a ticket to see the musical This Is Not a Drill at York Theatre on Friday evening. I realized that the Upper East Side branch of Pastrami Queen is just a few blocks from there, so I decided to fulfill my periodic need for Jewish deli food. I got my standard order - a tongue sandwich, pickles, kasha knish, and Doctor Brown’s diet cream soda. It was delicious.



By the way, I posted that photo to the Save the Deli Facebook group and got over 300 likes for it! Plus, of course (and alas), people telling me I was doing it wrong because the rye bread is unseeded and I prefer tongue to pastrami and I like cream soda, not cel-ray. But most of the comments were positive.

As for This Is Not a Drill, the premise is that a group of people are at a resort in Hawaii when there’s an announcement over the radio about a North Korean ballistic missile alert. This is based on an actual event in 2018, by the way. Since this is musical theatre, all of the people at the resort have relationship issues, which they resolve in song during the 38 minutes between the announcement and the revelation that yes, actually, it was a drill. I liked a lot of the music and the performers were good. But I thought the story was rather thin and predictable.

I took a train home early on Saturday. I ended up calling into my travel book club from the food court at Union Station shortly after I got to D.C., then took the metro home. I finished off my theatre binging on Sunday with Damn Yankees at Arena Stage, but I already wrote about that. (Short version: it’s wonderful and you should go see it if you’re local-ish.)

I first became aware of the Balkan Heritage Society and their archaeological field schools several years ago, when I was browsing various listings of volunteer and field school opportunities on-line and saw a workshop they were offering on photographing Roman mosaics. I didn’t do anything about it at the time since I couldn’t have made it fit my schedule. But I would continue to browse their offerings every few years.

Being retired helps a lot with schedule flexibility and this time I saw they were offering a workshop on textile conservation, which would fit in nicely with my crafts interests. I was all set to register for that, but then I got invited to do my travel talk at my MIT reunion and - poof! My life is a schedule conflict! But I noticed that there was also a workshop on paper conservation that was a couple of weeks later. Since: a) that would fit my schedule and b) I do play with paper crafts (particularly bookbinding, but I’ve also made paper and done plenty of surface design, e.g. marbling, over the years), I thought that would be worth doing. So I signed up, and began devoting some time to figuring out how to get to Zakynthos, Greece, where the workshop would be held. I also tried to make a dent in the somewhat intimidating reading list they provided.

For those who don’t know (which is the vast majority of Americans), Zakynthos is in the Ionian Islands, off the west coast of Greece. There are flights there from a number of European cities and the least expensive route I could find involved flying to Athens and then going there by bus / ferry. Since I’d been to Athens before (way back in 2004, for the Olympics), I just spent a night there. I flew over via FRA, which is one of my least favorite airports, but it worked okay. I spent one night at the Hotel Mirabello, which is conveniently located near Omonia Square. The staff was friendly and helpful and there were plenty of reasonably priced restaurants nearby. I didn’t write down the name of the place I ate at, but I had a reasonably good moussaka. In the morning, the hotel had a particularly good breakfast buffet, by the way, with hot options that even included spanakopita. I would consider staying there again if I had some reason to be in Athens.

In the morning, I took a taxi to the Kifissos bus station, which is large and chaotic. By the way, buying my ticket on-line had been a bit stressful, because KTEL (the major bus company) apparently sells tickets on the route I needed only a couple of weeks in advance. Still, I had been able to get a ticket to Nea Manolada, which proved to take about an hour longer than Rome 2 Rio had claimed it would. It turned out that this was just a stop on the side of a road, not an actual bus terminal. There was a South African woman who was also heading to Kyllini Port for a ferry (in her case, to Kefalonia, which is the next island north) and we walked across the street to a kiosk where the proprietor called us a cab. I stayed overnight at the Glarentza Hotel, which was a short walk to the port and was reasonably nice. I had time to walk around the port a bit both that afternoon and the next morning, before boarding the 1 p.m. ferry to Zakynthos.

Our accommodations were at the Hotel Yria, which is decently central. However, the rooms are on the small side and the breakfast is just adequate. I was sharing a room with a young woman from France, by the way. This is probably a good place to note that most of the group were 20ish, i.e. young enough to be my grandchildren. Only four of us were there just for the paper conservation program, while the majority had been doing a three week program that included one week each of textiles, metal, and paper. Despite the age gap, I found them generally thoughtful and interesting people. (There were a couple of other older people, but I’m reasonably sure I was the oldest. Well, someone has to be.)

Anyway, the program started on a Monday morning and I’d arrived on Sunday. That evening I went with a couple of the other people to Solomos Square (the central square of Zante Town) to see an event called Giostra of Zakynthos, which was a sort of medieval parade, followed by a jousting tournament. It was colorful and interesting, but uncomfortably crowded. Note that there were groups from several countries - including Scotland!









I wasn’t able to get close enough to the jousting to get any pictures worth sharing of the horses and the riders, who included a young boy. Eventually, I decided I should go find something to eat. There is no shortage of restaurants in the area and I got a tasty supper before returning to the hotel and going to bed.

The workshop itself began on Monday after breakfast. We met our instructor, Dr. Nikolas Sarris (and his dog, Jimmy) and were transported in a minibus to Ionian University. The first day started with a couple of lectures (history of paper, causes of deterioration of paper) and a presentation about documentation of paper objects, before we set out to document the paper objects that had been distributed for us to work on. I had a 12-page set of what were essentially census records from 1959. There were extensive tears and cuts on the front cover, and folded edges and stains on every page, as well as rusted staples (which later on proved to be small nails / pins, not staples) and writing on the front and back covers.

We started out with a few conservation treatments and I brushed and vacuumed it. Later on, I would spend time cleaning with various tools, e.g. vulcanized latex sponges and patching with hollytex, which is a sort of paper made of non woven polyester. One of the other people in the workshop referred to it as “magic paper.” Here is a picture of the document with the pins removed and some cleaning done.



The edges of the front cover were patched but you can still see a lot of writing and stains.



Anyway, we continued to work on our documents during the subsequent days. There were some other types of (mostly Japanese) paper used in patching paper. We also spent time on humidifying and flattening paper. Our lab work was mixed in with lectures. We did have morning and afternoon coffee breaks and a lunch hour, where we ate at the student canteen, which was okay. I’d estimate that we were doing lab work maybe 6 hours a day. By the way, we had been told to bring lab coats, which gave me an excuse to dig out this personalized one, which I’d been given several years ago when I went to an event at the United Airlines catering facility in Denver.



On Thursday morning we had a field trip to the General Archives and the Historic Public Library of Zakynthos. There were lots of historic photos, many of them related to the 1953 magnitude 7.2 earthquake, which caused extensive damage throughout the southern Ionian islands. (By the way, there were a couple of smaller earthquakes at the end of my time on Zakynthos, the larger of which was magnitude 4.1. Having lived in California for 22 years, that didn’t even wake me up.)



There were also a couple of cases of dolls.



And, of course, there were shelves and shelves of books, many of which had significant damage, including tunnels from being insect eaten. Nikolas also talked about storage of books / documents. The next day, we made the most basic storage enclosures, essentially just folders.



Friday night, most of us went out to a fancy dinner at a restaurant called Manoo. You can get surprisingly good sushi in Greece (and, less surprisingly, a good gin and tonic). We bade goodbye to the people who were leaving on Saturday. The four of us who were left had the weekend free. I was fairly lazy, with some reading and puzzles to catch up on, but I did spend some time at the Byzantine Museum, which has a lovely collection. Here are a few examples.











On Monday, we were back to lectures and workshops. By the way, since we were down to 4 people, we went to and from the University in Nikolas’s car. We started learning about wet cleaning techniques and stain removal, including the use of suction tables. The rest of the week continued with paper deacification, paper sizing, removal of adhesive tape, and more advanced paper repair techniques. I’ll spare you the pictures of paper immersed in various chemical solutions. A local man had heard that there was a book conservator teaching our class and brought Nikolas some documents to look at and he had us work on them, too. I spent a fair amount of time cleaning and repairing this, for example.



On Thursday morning we went to see the Church of Agios Dionysios, followed by the Ecclesiastical Museum of the Holy Monastery of St. Dionysios. The church was elaborately decorated outside.



Inside, the architecture felt typical of Orthodox Christian churches I’ve seen, with an ornate iconostasis.



The museum had a lot of books on display, including some very old ones.



The workshop finished on Friday, which we spent making boxes to protect books. We also visited another room at the University, which had a nitrogen hypoxia chamber for killing insects. We also got our certificates for completing the course.

While I’d taken bus and ferry to Zakynthos from mainland Greece, I had opted to fly back to Athens. Sky Express was a new airline for me and I found their service reasonably good. Here’s an aerial photo of Zakynthos.




I stayed at the convenient but very pricy Sofitel Athens Airport overnight before my flights home on Swiss (via Zurich), which went smoothly. Airport hotels are always a good idea when you have an early morning (6:55 a.m.) flight.


Overall, I think the workshop was interesting and worth my time. I don’t expect to do much with what I learned, though you never know what may come in handy. I also enjoyed getting to know the other students, who generally made me feel more optimistic about young people nowadays. What more could I ask for?

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other Stuff:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which brings me to goals for 2025:

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

Big-D Con was this year’s National Puzzlers’ league Convention, held in Dallas. Since I generally try to leverage off things I’m already planning to do to add on other odds and ends I want to do, I decided to take an excursion to Oklahoma City before the con to check off anotherAAA ballpark. So I flew into Dallas late on Sunday (after The Flushies) and stayed overnight in Fort Worth. A flight delay led to me taking an expensive Lyft from the airport because I didn’t want to wait for the train from the airport which only runs once an hour. Then the hotel (a Hampton Inn in downtown Fort Worth) had some computer system slowdown and it took nearly half an hour to check in. If someone suggests I should have checked in on-line earlier, that wouldn’t have helped since there was someone waiting at the desk who’d done that, and he had a longer wait than I did.

On Monday, I had breakfast, read for a while, had a phone meeting, and then took a walk around the area. It was just a short walk since I’ve been to Fort Worth before. And, as is typical, not a lot of things were open on a Monday. I meandered over to JFK plaza, which has a lot of photos and a statue.



Eventually, I made my way over to the train station. This has some local train services (TEXRail and Trinity Railway Express), Greyhound buses, and a local bus system. More importantly for my purposes, it also has two Amtrak lines. I was there specifically to take the Hearland Flyer, which runs between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City.



This isn’t exactly one of the great train stations of the world. But it does have a Subway and some vending machines so you can get a snack if you need one. And you can sit and read while you wait for the train. So it served its purpose.

Most of the seating is on the upper level of a few metroliner cars, so pretty basic but adequate. The trip is about 4 hours and is reasonably scenic, so what more do I need? An actual dining car (like they have on real long-distance trains) might have been nice, but I can survive on Kind Bars for surprisingly long.

So what does Oklahoma look like? From a moving train, it's a bit blurry. Also, there were plants getting in my way a lot.









I will leave my mental soundtrack during the trip to your imagination. The Oklahoma City station is right at the entrance to Bricktown, which is the touristy entertainment part of the city. Lots of hotels, restaurants, bars - and the ballpark. There’s also a trolley that can take you around most of downtown Oklahoma City.



I should note that I’d been to Oklahoma City before and seen a fair amount then. So I chose a somewhat more eccentric site as my major daytime tourist activity. Namely, the American Banjo Museum.



Some of the more interesting displays included banjoes belonging to famous people.





Beyond that, there were displays on the history (and evolution) of the banjo, on various banjo manufacturers, on clothing worn by banjo players, etc. etc. Whenever I started wondering about something, there would be a display about it. For example, I noticed a dearth of female banjo players and - poof! - there was a whole section about women and banjoes. I had only recently learned of the existence of an instrument called the banjolele (a cross between a banjo and an ukulele and no, I don’t know why, but banjoes appear to breed rather prolifically with other stringed instruments) and there was a whole section about these banjo hybrids. However, while they had a gift shop with banjo recordings and banjo sheet music, and various other odds and ends, they did not appear to sell actual banjos.

As I said before, the main reason for the trip was to go to another AAA ballpark. There is some actual baseball history in Oklahoma City, which is reflected in statues (and placard displays inside the ballpark) of Jim Thorpe, Mickey Mantle, and Johmmy Bench. More recent players included in their hall of fame include Dave Roberts, Ryne Sandberg, Rusty Staub, and Jerry Grote.

The Oklahoma City Baseball Club is between cute names, so that’s the name you get. They were playing the El Paso Chihuahuas. For some ungodly reason they had their normal mascots dressed in chihuahua costumes. At least they kept the little games and such between innings short.

My summary of the ballpark is that it is nice enough but the attendance was poor, possibly because it was a weeknight. The concessions were uninteresting, with pizza the only vegetarian option and very little variety. And dammit, dipping dots are not ice cream. The lack of fan enthusiasm extended to the failure of almost all of the attendees to stand up for the 7th inning stretch. They played “Oklahoma” after “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” which should also have garnered some enthusiasm - but didn’t. When I rule the world, failure to sing along will be punishable by installation of brain implants that play “We Will Rock You” (my least favorite song of all time) 24/7. Maybe mixed in with the score of Spring Awakening.

By the way, the home team lost, which didn't exactly improve the spirit of the fans. (There was a group of about 8 Chihuahuas fans sitting near me. I'm not sure whether they were cheering their team or all the beer they consumed,)

Anyway, here are a couple of ballpark photos.





In the morning, I walked back to the train station and returned to Fort Worth. On arrival, I had a quick lunch, then took the Trinity Railway Express train to the Victory Station, where I transferred to the DART Orange Line tram to downtown Dallas. It was a short walk to the Adolphus Hotel, where the NPL Con was being held. Details in the next post.

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.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When it turns to autumn, I want to be in New England. So I flew up to Boston the Saturday before last (i.e. the 21st). I’d been a bit concerned about stormy weather that day. But my flight was fine, albeit a bit more turbulent than is optimal. (And I actually like turbulence.) Prices were high and hotel availability was low, presumably due to it being Head of the Charles weekend. (This is a huge regatta.) So I ended up staying at The Row Hotel on Assembly Row. This is on the Orange Line, and it’s a short walk both from the T and from lots of restaurants (and outlet stores) so it was reasonably convenient. The hotel is actually quite nice. By the way, the “assembly” in the name of the area refers to the former Ford assembly plant, where they built Edsels.


MIT Museum: MIT moved their museum from Mass Ave to Kendall Square (adjacent to campus) about a year ago. Being an MIT alum gets one free admission, which is nice. I started with the MIT Collection, which has roughly a hundred objects from throughout the history of the Institute. Each item has a number and you can type it into a terminal and look up info about it.Here, for example, are some prototypes for the Boston arm. This was one of the earliest robotic prostheses that was controlled by the body's nervous system. It’s significant because it was what got me interested in majoring in mechanical engineering.



Another fun set of objects is the Women of NASA lego kit.



There were a lot of exhibits about various hacks at MIT, like the police car on the roof of the Great Dome and the balloon reading “MIT” that was inflated at the Harvard-Yale football game, but I didn’t get pictures there.

Another large area had to do with AI and included several interactive exhibits. One that I spent some time with showed video clips and asked you to guess whether or not they were altered. I found that a lot of them went by too fast for me to look closely at the hands and the lighting to tell.

The other area on the top floor had sculptures by two artists. I didn’t get a good picture of “Whale” by Andy Cavaatorta. But here’s “Machine With Abandoned Doll” by Arthur Ganson:



This kinetic sculpture was even more fun, at least if you like automata (as I do). You may have to click through to flickr to see the video.



Much of the second floor had to do with genetics. My favorite exhibit there was on a “Mermaid De-extinction Project,” complete with a video from a company called Siren Genomics. There was another fun one that had to with a vending machine for angels, so you could figure out for yourself how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. These reminded me of the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, which is one of my favorite places in the world.

All in all, I spent about 5 hours at the museum.


Jonathan Richman at the Somerville Theatre: The major excuse for the trip had been going with my friend, Ron, to see Jonathan Richman perform at the Somerville Theatre on Sunday night. We had dinner beforehand at a Tibetan restaurant up the street. The venue is pretty nice and, most importantly, the sound quality was excellent. He did a mixture of old and new material. Some of the older material included “Pablo Picasso,” “New England,” “Dancing in the Lesbian Bar,” and “The Fenway.” Newer pieces included “Me and Her and the Beach” and “Cold Pizza.” There were, of course, songs in various languages, a journey into Rumi and Kabir, and a dash of reggaeton. He’s always fun to watch and he’s a performer who is very much himself, with digressions and dance breaks and all. I’ve seen him live four times now and I never get tired of him. By the way, Ron had not seen him live before, though he was somewhat familiar with his music. He also enjoyed the show.

Arnold Arboretum: On Monday, Ron and I went to the Arnold Arboretum, expecting to see lots of fall color. Another part of my motivation for going there was that I hadn’t been there since some time in the late 1970’s. There was some color, but it wasn’t quite as brilliant as I’d hoped for. But, see for yourself.



This was my favorite photo of the day, because of the reflections in the water.



The brightest colors were found with what is apparently staghorn sumac. I have to trust other people’s identification of plants, since I can just barely tell a weeping willow from a rosebush.



Dinner at Nostos: All in all, it was a good trip. I flew back early on Tuesday, which gave me plenty of time for a long nap before going out to dinner at Nostos, a Greek restaurant in Tyson’s Corner, with a group of people form Flyertalk, The food was good (I got moussaka) and the conversation was lively.

I have more catching up to do, but housework beckons.

Lollapuzzoola was on Saturday, but I actually went up to New York on Thursday. That gave me four opportunities for theatre going (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoon), as well as time to do something on Friday during the day.

I chose Some Like It Hot for my first show of this Broadway binge. It’s been a long time since I saw the movie, but I think they stayed fairly true to it. Except, they added a racial aspect (by making Jerry / Daphne black), because you can’t make it just about cross-dressing in this day and age. This is still a bit problematic since it isn’t as if San Diego was actually integrated in 1937, and certainly not at the Hotel del Coronado. When Jerry proclaims that being Daphne let him find his true self, that’s all fine - but he’s still black and still going to experience racism. Still, the score is nicely jazzy and the dancing is wonderful, so it made for an entertaining evening.

By the way, I had googled ice cream places in New York and had seem excellent reviews for Amorino on 8th Avenue at 45th. This is very convenient for theatre going and, given that it was hot out, I couldn’t resist. I tried the blood orange and lemon basil sorbets on that visit, and both were delicious and refreshing. I’d say they were comparable to my experience at Bertillon in Paris, which is extremely high praise.

I hadn’t made any specific plans for Friday, but I happened to see a Facebook ad for the Small Is Beautiful exhibit, which looked interesting. So I made my way downtown to check it out.

There’s a mildly annoying audio tour, as well as a bit of a scavenger hunt. But the real point is to look at a wide range of miniatures by several different artists. Here are a few examples.

You probably thought that raisins were made from grapes, but what if it’s the other way around?



This is Candy Beach by Miniam. It’s 1:87 scale. Of course, either the polar bears moved south or the penguins moved north or one or the other is suffering from bipolar disorder.



An early mobile phone by Frank Kunert.



This piece by Vincent Bal was one of my favorites.



This is part of something called the 1,000 Feathers Project by NV Illustrations. It’s less than an inch across.



The incredible thing about this origami piece by Juho Konkkolais that it was made from one piece of paper, with no cuts or tears, just folds.



All in all, it was an interesting exhibit and was worth about two hours.

Since I was already downtown, I walked over to Yonah Shimmel’s and had a kasha knish for lunch. Which was not nearly as good as they used to be, but better than nothing. Then I walked down to The Mysterious Bookshop and might have spent a little bit of money there. I made my way back uptown and rested for a little bit before theatre binge installment #2.

That was Just Like Us, Alex Edelman’s one-man show about his experience as a Jew going to a white supremacist meeting. I’d wanted to see this show since I first heard of it and, since it was closing the next night, this was my opportunity. A lot of his humor has to do with his family and growing up in Boston. My favorite joke was “I grew up in a particularly racist part of Boston. It’s called … Boston.” Anyway, there are more serious questions there about whether or not Ashkenazi Jews can be considered white. Overall, I thought it was an entertaining show, though the narrative structure could have been stronger.

I’ve already written about Lollapuzzoola. I licked my wounds and headed off to indulge in theatre binge, part #3, which was Good Night, Oscar. Apparently Oscar Levant really was let out of a mental hospital for a few hours in order to appear on the Jack Paar show. Sean Hayes gave a remarkable performance as Levant, including a stunning rendition of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. (Hayes was a classically trained pianist before becoming an actor. And it's a piece of music I love even without its mental association with United Airlines.)

I also want to note two other things:

1) I did not immediately recognize the name of playwright Doug Wright, but he wrote several other fine works, including I Am My Own Wife and the book for the interesting but underrated musical Hands on a Hardbody.

2) Lighting is not something I usually pay a lot of attention to, but it was used particularly effectively here in the scenes where Levant is wrestling with his mixed feelings about Gershwin.

I just spent some time Sunday walking around midtown Manhattan. In the afternoon, I had tickets for the fourth and final installment of my theatre binge. That was Shucked, which is an extremely silly but riotously funny musical. The premise is that there’s a small isolated community that is entirely based on corn, until the crop fails. One girl, named Maizy, sets out to get help and, in Tampa, finds a fake podiatrist when she sees an ad for a corn doctor. There’s a long history of shows in which a grifter comes to a small town and both saves the town and redeems himself (think The Music Man or 110 in the Shade) and this fits the pattern. But the jokes are so corny (come on, you know I had to say that) that the audience just can’t resist getting caught up in the fun. Plus there’s a powerhouse performance from Alex Newell as Lulu. Overall, this was a lot of fun.

Finally, I went back to Amerino and tried their signature cone, which gets you three flavors of gelato, sculpted into petals of a flower. Here, the outer layer is inimitable (chocolate hazelnut), the middle is strawberry, and the innermost is dark chocolate. It was delicious.



My trip home went smoothly. Catching up from being away a lot, not so much, but that is something I’ll write about soon.

Moving on to last week, it was still pretty busy.

Apple Technology for Jewish Genealogy: I go to a monthly meeting for Jewish genealogists using Apple tech. This month we ended up talking mostly about AI. It hadn’t really occurred to me, but there may be some real potential for using some of the AI engines out there for translating documents. My to-do list re: genealogy keeps getting longer, but my have-done list remains stagnant.

Grimm Keepers: Our story this session was “All Kinds of Fur.” It’s got some creepy elements (involving incest, for example). But it also provides a good opportunity for discussion of some folktale tropes and some mythological bases for this, going back to Sumerian legend. (Marc wrote a note in the chat that read, “Jack and Jill climbed up the ziggurat to fetch a pail of daughter.) Tim has done extensive research on this story, which definitely helped the discussion. This group remains a valuable activity for me.

Needles and Crafts: My weekly crafting get-together continues, also. Basically, we talk about crafts and books and what have you while working on our various crafting projects. In my case, I am currently working on a Tunisian crochet afghan. If it weren’t for that group, I’d never get any needlework done.

All Things Equal: Cindy and I went to see this one-woman play, subtitled “The Life & Trials of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” The play was written by Rupert Holmes. Michelle Azar played the title role ably, with several projections and film clips. It really felt like RBG herself was actually talking to the audience. The aspect of the play that interested me the most (probably because I wasn’t as familiar with it) was her repeated mentions of Erwin Griswold as her foil. As the dean of Harvard Law School, he’d asked her how she justified taking the place of a man - and he went on to swear her in to her Supreme Court seat. There was also an excellent sequence of her dissents as the court moved to the right. I do think Ginsburg made a huge mistake in not resigning during the Obama administration, which she attributed (in the play) to her confidence that Hillary Clinton would become the next president and pick her successor. But, anyway, the play (which was only one night) was worth seeing.

Incidentally, we ate at Ben’s Next Door beforehand. This is the more upscale adjunct to Ben’s Chili Bowl (which is the logical place to eat if you are going to the Lincoln Theatre and has good vegetarian chili.) The food and drink were good, but it was earsplittingly noisy. So I won’t be back there.

The Flushies: Saturday was The Flushies, the annual party / award ceremony for the (formerly Style) Invitational. The Washington Post may have killed the Invitational but it lives on (via Gene Weingarten’s substack page) and there were probably about 70 (maybe more?) losers there. Lots of interesting conversation, seeing people I knew and meeting some I didn’t, plus the usual sing-along to parody songs, and so on. My contribution to the potluck was quesadillas, by the way, because they’re quick and easy to make. All in all, it was a nice afternoon.

PixelBloom: On Sunday morning, Cindy and I went to Artechouse for PixelBloom. This is their annual tribute to D.C.’s cherry blossoms and this year’s edition was butterfly themed. There’s a 22 minute immersive presentation and two side rooms with interactive exhibits. For example, you can color butterfly wings and move your arms to flap the wings.



Another exhibit was called Blooming Strings. In this one, there was a row of transparent panels with branches and flower buds on them. As you walked back and forth, the flowers bloomed and butterflies appeared and flew around. There was also music playing. Here’s a short video. (I think you have to click through to flickr to play the video.)



And here’s a video clip from the main presentation, which we actually watched all the way through twice because it was so relaxing.



There was other interactive exhibits, that I haven’t written about because they’re harder to explain. Anyway, the whole thing was fun and was worth an hour or so.


JGSGW: Sunday afternoon’s Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Washington meeting had a talk on Jews of Northern Virginia. It was focused on the earliest congregations in the region, most of which were in Alexandria. It also covered Jewish-owned businesses. It’s not particularly relevant to my genealogical research, but it was still worth going to.

The back story on my vacation goes to 2019, when I was browsing through the Road Scholar catalogue and saw a Spring 2020 program involving the Kentucky Derby The itinerary included visits to horse farms and other behind the scenes things before the race, followed by the Derby itself. I signed up for it - and, well, you all know about 2020. Anyway, they decided not to do it later on, so I used the credit from the cancelled program to go to Costa Rica late last year. But I had gotten the idea of going to the Kentucky Derby into my head.

I tend to browse travel-related websites a lot and I had been curious about Mississippi River paddlewheel boat cruises for a while. When I was looking at the website for American Queen Voyages, I saw that they had a Kentucky Derby cruise on the American Countess, which is a former gambling boat converted to a fairly luxurious steamboat for river cruises. I called up and the 2022 cruise was already sold out. But by booking early I got a slightly less outrageous price on the 2023 cruise. I should note that the Derby package is actually an add-on to the cruise, so the whole thing is absurdly expensive. But, hey, big event and an excuse to wear an outrageous hat - well, why not?


( Monday 1 May - pre boarding )

( Tuesday 2 May - Keeneland Excursion and Boarding )

( Wednesday 3 May - Louisville Sightseeing, Great Steamboat Race )

( Thursday 4 May - Madison, Indiana )

( Friday 5 May - Brandenburg, Kentucky )

( Saturday May 6 - Derby Day! I Got the Horse Right Here )

( Sunday May 7 - River Cruising )

( Monday May 8 - Augusta, Kentucky )

( Tuesday May 9 - Cincinnati )

To summarize, the American Countess was comfortable enough and the trip was mostly relaxing. The food wasn’t particularly exciting, but there was a decent variety (e.g. there were always vegetarian options for each course). Alcohol was included, but the bartender was terrible and the couple of times I tried the special drink of the day I was disappointed with excessive doses of simple syrup, so I mostly stuck to a glass of wine with dinner. The included excursions (e.g. the hop-on / hop-off bus tours) were good, with enough time to explore a few cute little towns. The premium excursions, however, were not good value. And, in particular, both the Keeneland tour and (especially) the Derby package were fiascos.

There’s a part of me that would still like to do a paddlewheeler down the Mississippi, but I would probably look into doing so on American Cruse Lines (which is the other company that does similar cruises) instead.