fauxklore

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.

My flight from Nashville to Washington Dulles was fine and I got there about 10:30 in the morning. The tricky thing was that I was flying to Toronto at 10:30 at night. So I didn’t really have significant time at home. I was worried about my flight being cancelled, since they were predicting thunderstorms in Toronto, but everything went smoothly. Canada has an app called ArriveCan which you use to upload your COVID vaccination certificate and your travel plans. Having done that meant that all I had to do when we arrived was scan my passport at a kiosk and get a receipt with photo. I did stop to use an ATM at the airport and had a bit of a wait for a taxi, but I was at my hotel in downtown Toronto less than an hour after my plane touched down. (Had it been earlier in the day, I’d have taken the train. But I was tired and not sure how often the trains would be running, if at all.)

So why Toronto? Actually, I was heading to Niagara Falls, Ontario for LoserFest. Losers are followers of / participants in the Washington Post Style Invitational, which is a humor contest that’s had a community grow up around it. There’s an active FaceBook group and there are brunches roughly monthly, for example. And every so often (ideally, annually, but less often in practice), there is an out of town gathering, called LoserFest. I’d been to past ones in Pittsburgh and in Frederick, Maryland and always had a good time. I’m also friendly with the chief planner of the event, Kyle, who is officially the LoserFest Pope, as well as several other people who planned to attend. In the end, there were 11 of us - plus one more person who joined us for events on the New York side of the falls.

But first, I had several hours in Toronto. I caught up on sleep, had a late brunch, and took a longish walk around downtown. I had contemplated going to something called Little Canada, but it is pricy and their website suggested that their definition of “Canada” is pretty much limited to “Ontario and a couple of acres of Quebec.” And most of the museums I might want to go to (e.g. the Textile Museum) are closed on Mondays. In the late afternoon, I took Megabus to Niagara Falls and a taxi to the hotel. Kyle selected the Niagara Falls Marriott Fallsview Hotel and Spa, though only 5 of us actually stayed there. When I got up to my room, I discovered that the hotel was, indeed, very accurately named.

We had a late dinner at Turtle Jack’s (across the street from our hotel), after which I went back to staring out my hotel room window.

The next three days were completely packed with the events on Kyle’s “Fungenda.” This was a detailed spreadsheet with a lot of activity, all of which was optional. A few items had been prepaid. On Tuesday, we started out taking the incline railway down to the Table Rock Center to redeem the Adventure Pass tickets we had bought in advance, which took some time. The first activity we did was the Journey Behind the Falls. You get a rain poncho, then take an elevator down and walk through several tunnels that provide views of the falls.

Here I am, making good use of the poncho, on the outside platform that’s at the end of one of the passages.

There’s a tourist bus system called the WeGo and tickets for that were included in our Adventure passes. We took the WeGo up to a restaurant called The Secret Garden for lunch. I’d had a large breakfast, so just got a berry smoothie for lunch. After lunch, we walked through some gardens, before strolling over to the boarding area for the Voyage to the Falls boat tour. This is, essentially, the same as the Maid of the Mist that goes from the New York side. This time, you get a pink poncho. The spray is forceful enough that at least your hair is likely to get wet anyway.

The next item on the Fungenda was a self-guided tour at the Power Station. I skipped this because I was in need of a bit of introvert time. I walked in the Queen Victoria Gardens for a while, then climbed up the hill to the Fallsview Casino, where I slightly enriched the Canadian economy. I still managed to have time for a short nap before we went to dinner at Taco N Tequila. That was the biggest failure of our trip as they were out of several menu items, had excessively loud music, and had surly service.

After dinner, some of us went up to Clifton Hill, which is a large amusement park area. It was a bit of a wait to get on the Sky Wheel, which is an observation wheel. Unfortunately, we were still in line when the nightly fireworks over the falls went off, so we got a view of the machinery of the ride instead. When we did finally get to go, we did enjoy the ride, especially when we could see the falls lit up in a pride rainbow.

Wednesday started with breakfast at the Flying Saucer Restaurant, which has been around for 50 years.

The interior decor continues the theme.

The menu is pretty standard diner fare. I got blueberry pancakes which were pretty good. After eating, we went to Bird Kingdom. There’s a history museum first and an area with turtles before you get to the birds. There were lots of different birds to look at, including various parrots and macaws and these scarlet ibises.

But the best part was lorikeet feeding. Here, Ann and I are holding little cups of nectar and the lorikeets are enjoying lapping it up. (This was a rare occasion when I actually paid for a photo at a tourist attraction, by the way.)

Our next stop was White Water Walk. An elevator takes you to the bottom of the Niagara Gorge and there is a boardwalk that runs along the Niagara River, affording views of the rapids.

That was followed by Maple Leaf Place, which offers a number of opportunities to shop for souvenirs. We also had lunch at their food court. After that, we went to the Whirlpool Aero Car, a gondola style vehicle which travels on a cable across the river and back. It wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be.

For a number of reasons, we ended up with some free time at this point. Which I used to catch up on exciting things like reading FaceBook and staring out my hotel room window at the falls some more. Our evening activities were one of the highlights of our trip - a three part experience conducted by SeeSight Tours. It started with a brief van tour of the area, on our way from the hotel to the Niagara Falls Power Station, where we saw their interactive light show, “Currents: Niagara’s Power Transformed.” This is similar to the immersive shows that are all the rage now and was enjoyable, though I thought it was a little longer than it needed to be. (Click through to Flickr see the video.)

Next came a three course dinner at the Table Rock House restaurant, overlooking the falls. I enjoyed the tempura vegetables, chicken, and chocolate cheesecake. (We had to take the desserts to go, because of the third part of our evening adventure. So I actually ate the cheesecake in my hotel room as a midnight snack.) I also had one of their signature cocktails - the very tasty Niagara Parks Power Station, which consisted of spiced rum, blue curaçao, pineapple juice, and ginger beer,

To close out the evening, we were taken to the Illumination Tower which controls the lighting of the falls.

There are separate controls for the American / Bridal Veil Falls and the Horseshoe Falls.

One press of a button on the tablet - and voila! Now the falls are green!

This was so much fun! Also, being at the Illumination Tower gave us a great vantage point for the nightly fireworks. (Again, you can click through to Flickr to see rhe video.)

We each got a certificate saying we’d lit up the falls and then were taken back to the hotel. I ate my cheesecake and went to bed happy.

On Thursday, most of us went across to the New York side of the falls. We also met up with another Loser there. This was the one day where we had less than stellar weather. During a heavier downpour, we took refuge in the gift shop for the Maid of the Mist. When the rain stopped, we stopped for a group photo. Kyle and Mike are in the back, with (from left to right), Pat (the empress of the Style Invitational), Kathleen, Sharon, Sarah, and Mark (the Royal Consort) in front. I don’t know where Ann and Jonathan were. Ed and Doug had stayed in Canada. I was taking the photo, obviously.

Then we took the trolley over to the stop for the Cave of the Winds. This was another amazing experience. You watch a short movie about the falls, then take an elevator down to the walkway. There is no longer any actual cave access, but the paths take you very close to the falls (and, along the way, a lot of nesting gulls.) Despite the yellow ponchos they give you, you do get quite wet. The worst of that was how wet my feet got. But the views were amazing and this was definitely another highlight of the trip.

We had been advised that border crossing traffic was heavier than normal due to a holiday weekend, so we went back to Canada earlier than planned. We stopped at the hotel for people to change clothes (ah, dry socks!) and then had lunch before going to our next stop.

The Butterfly Conservatory is pretty typical of that sort of thing - a screened in area with lots of butterflies flying free. One of them tried to abduct me! Or maybe it just wanted to eat my hat.

A few people walked around various parts of the surrounding botanical gardens. Then we drove over to Niagara on the Lake. We didn’t have any actual plan there, so I resorted to my usual method of travel planning - namely, a quick look at Atlas Obscura. (We did drive around some first, looking at fancy houses and shops that sell things people don’t actually need.) Eventually, we stopped at The Living Water Wayside Chapel, which is notable for being extremely small.

There was also a shop next to it, with fresh fruit and junk food and souvenirs. Then we came back to the hotel and had free time until our farewell dinner at Morton’s. I had horseradish-crusted salmon, with caramel bread pudding for dessert. That was tasty, but really too much food. (And expensive.)

Friday was a travel day. I’ll write about that (and the next few days) in another post. Overall, it was a fun few days, even with all the logistic hassles of herding Losers. I’m looking forward to the next LoserFest whenever that happens.

I keep meaning to post here and not getting around to it. Here’s an update.

Celebrity Death Watch: Carola Eisenberg died in March at the age of 103. She was the Dean of Students at MIT during at least part of my undergraduate days and was the first woman to hold that position. Adlai Stevenson III was a senator from Illinois through the 1970’s. Edward Barnes co-created Blue Peter. Neddy Smith was an Australian criminal, who I’d had on my ghoul pool list a couple of years ago but given up on. Art Metrano was an actor who appeared in the Police Academy movies. Audrey Haine was a pitcher and Joan Berger was an infielder in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Abigail Guzman was the founder of the Shining Path terrorist group in Peru. Don Collier was an actor in television westerns. Ida Nudel was an activist who was instrumental in freeing Soviet Jews. Norm MacDonald was an actor and comedian. Reuben Klamer invented board games, including The Game of Life. George Ferencz was a theatre director. Penny Harrington was the first woman to head a major police department in the U.S. (in Portland, Oregon). Clive Sinclair was pioneer in electronics, including personal computers. Jane Powell acted in a lot of MGM musicals. Ronald Probstein was a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, who did a lot of research on hydrodynamics and spacecraft reentry. Sarah Dash sang as part of Labelle. Melvin Van Peeble was a filmmaker, actor, and director. Peter Palmer played Li’l Abner on Broadway. Al Harrington was an actor, best known for appearing in Hawaii Five-O. Willie Garson was an actor known for appearing in Sex and the City. Jay Sandwich was a television director who won four Emmys. Roger Michell was a film director, whose work included Notting Hill. Pee Wee Ellis was a saxophonist. Bobby Zarem was a publicist for people ranging from Dustin Hoffman to Cher. Michael Tylo was a soap opera actor. Lonnie Smith was a jazz musician. George Frayne, better known as Commander Cody, was a pioneer ion alt-country music. Lars Vilks was a sculptor who founded his own micro country, Ladonia, due to a property dispute over the location of some of his work.

Willard Scott was best known as a TV weatherman. He had also been the creator of Ronald McDonald, but the company decided they wanted to use a thinner man as their mascot.

Harold Franklin was the first black student at Auburn University. The university removed everyone else from a wing of his dorm to prevent contact with him and refused to grant him his degree by creating various pretexts to refuse to accept his thesis. It took until 2001 before they acknowledged his having been their first black student, even though he enrolled in 1964. They finally granted his master’s degree in 2020 after he had retired from an academic career at other universities.

Anthony Hewish was a radio astronomer who won a Nobel prize. He is widely reviled for having appropriated the work of his graduate student, Jocelyn Bell, who discovered pulsars.

Rabbi Moshe Tendler was an expert on Jewish medical ethics. His writings on the subject of organ transplantation (which include discussion of the concept of brain death) have been very influential in the Orthodox Jewish world.

Tommy Kirk was a child actor in Disney films, including Old Yeller and The Shaggy Dog. His later career was, alas, destroyed by drug addiction.

Health Update: I think my rib is as close to fully healed as I’m going to be able to tell. However, I wrenched my left wrist painfully last week. How? I was just trying to open a a plastic bottle of Coke Zero. See, I knew soda was bad for me. (I eventually had to resort to using pliers.)

Rosh Hashanah Leftover: I forgot to mention that I had seen a video (about cooking fish) that mentioned five traditional foods for Rosh Hashanah. These are apparently based on having Aramaic names which sound similar to words in accompanying blessings. These are zucchini, black-eyed peas, leeks, Swiss chard, and dates. I wonder if this is the source of the Southern U.S. tradition of eating black-eyed peas for the (secular) new year. Also, Ashkenazim (i.e. Eastern European Jews) added carrots to the list, presumably because of availability.Of course, a better known tradition is to eat the head of a fish or a sheep. If you’re a vegetarian, you can just have a head of lettuce!

National Book Festival: The National Book Festival was the last week or so of September and was mostly virtual. I watched two presentations. One, on book construction (i.e. book structures and bookbinding) was mediocre, but might be of more interest to people less familiar with the topic. The other was about crossword puzzles and featured Will Shortz (of course) and Adrianne Raphel. They were entertaining and there was some fun crossword trivia included. I need to find time to go back and see what other presentations I want to watch.

Aptonym: The founder of Epik, the web host of choice for neoNazis and other right-wing lunatics is named Rob Monster. And that is, apparently, his real name.

Korean Food: I went out to dinner a few nights ago with a friend who I hadn’t seen in a while. We went to ChiMC, which is a Korean place near where I live, chosen for interestingness, outdoor seating, and easy parking. She got their signature fried chicken, but I am not so keen on fried chicken, so I opted for something called tteobokki, which consists of fish cakes and cylindrical rice cakes, in a spicy sauce. It was pretty good, assuming you like spicy food, but the texture of the rice cakes was a bit weird.

Mock Jury: I spent a day in a hotel conference room being a mock juror. I can’t write about any of the details, but it was interesting and I walked away with $200. I’d do it again. I’ve filled out an info form with another company that does what sound like similar focus groups. (And I felt like Susan Dennis who seems to do lots of focus groups.)

Speaking of Finding Time: The National Storytelling Festival is going on right now. But I have two things I need to finish by October 5th, so I won’t be watching any of it until at least Wednesday. Plus, of course, baseball is another distraction, what with my Red Sox facing the Source of All Evil in the Universe in the Wild Card playoff on Tuesday. I went to Saturday’s game at Nats Park, by the way, which was exciting, but in a way that I am sure was not good for my blood pressure. Fortunately, the BoSox pulled it out, but the eighth inning was decidedly scary. And why did Alex Cora leave Austin Davis in for the ninth? Admittedly, that led to the rare sight of a pitcher being deliberately walked (and then advancing to second base, a place he probably hadn’t seen since high school) but he raised the stress level in the bottom of the ninth by giving up a two run homer.

A Follow-up re: the Flushies: You can hear me interviewed on the You’re Invited podcast. The little segment where Mike talked with me starts just about 07:34, but if you listen to whole show, you can get an idea of what my social life is like. And, as a bonus, this is a photo of the shirt I was wearing (which is part of what we talked about):