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I have actually done a bunch of things since late March. Looking back, I actually wrote about more of it than I thought I had (e.g. board games and some storytelling related things, including Grimm Keepers). So here’s an attempt to get up to date on everything except the Israeli Dance camp I went to in association with the eclipse, which deserves its own entry.

Storytelling: I went to an on-line story swap held by a group in Ottawa. I really enjoyed it, especially a ballad performed by one of the members. I told my original fairy tale, “The Three Sisters,” which went over well. All in all, it was a lot of fun and I plan to go again, schedule permitting.

Book Clubs: Crones and Tomes had an interesting discussion of Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. This was a rare case where I’d seen the movie before reading the book, though I found them pretty much the same. I liked the main character, Kiya, and hated the people who didn’t try to do anything to help her. I did have to suspend a lot of disbelief. Overall, I thought the book was worth reading, but I didn’t love it.

READ was supposed to discuss Sounds Like Titanic by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman last night, but the leader had issues with zoom, so we postponed a week. I loved most of this book, so I’m interested in hearing what other people thought of it.

FIOS Upgrade: Verizon sent out a notice that they were switching our FIOS service to an updated version. I got the upgrade installed a week ago. It took maybe an hour and a half and so far things seem more stable. (It’s hard to tell if it’s faster.) And the price is lower than it had been, with a five year price freeze.

Taxes: The other major adulting activity was doing my taxes. It is always a pain in the neck to find all of the paperwork I need. Due to having to do some searching, it took about twice the amount of time that TurboTax estimated, but it’s done, which is the important thing. Along with my annual resolution to do a better job of keeping track of everything.

Little Shop of Horrors: Since I was feeling a bit caught up on stuff at home, I bought a last minute ticket to go to the Saturday matinee of Little Shop of Horrors at Ford’s Theatre. This is a show I like more than I should, but, really, how can you go wrong with doo-wop music and a carnivorous plant? It wasn’t the best production of this show I’ve ever seen, partly because of sound and lighting issues. The performances were generally good, but (and I know this is unfair), I thought Derrick D. Truby, Jr. looked way too old as Seymour, who’s supposed to be maybe 20 years old but looks about 40. Still, it’s a fun show and was worth a couple of hours.

Nick Baskerville at Artomatic: After the show, I walked over to Foggy Bottom to see a bit more of what I hadn’t gotten to at Artomatic the previous time I was there. The only thing I took a picture of was this exhibit, called Wear Scene.

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Eventually it was time for Nick Baskerville’s storytelling show about African-American Firefighters.

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Nick told an interesting mix of stories, including true stories and a tall tale about a legendary woman. He was relaxed and entertaining and I enjoyed his performance. If you want to see this, he’s got one performance, on April 27th. And it’s free!

Adulting - Still to Go: The insurance company I’ve used for my auto and homeowner’s insurance for years is pulling out of the Virginia marketplace, so I need to start shopping around for a replacement.

I also need to make a bunch of travel arrangements. But, first, I’m going away for (part of) the weekend. And I have to finish getting ready for Pesach. Plus, of course, the rest of catching up here.
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I finished a couple of things in the past couple of days, so it seems like a good time to catch up here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Storytelling - The Musical: To continue the busy Thursday, I attended a virtual storytelling show. Carol Moore emceed and there were 6 tellers. Natalie Jones had a cute story about show piglets (as in “there’s no piglets, like show piglets”) putting on a production of “The Three Little Pigs.” Paul Strickland had a story about an enchanted apple tree with a cursed knife stuck in it. Mo Reynolds told a version of the folk tale “The Sword of Wood.” She was followed by Jack Scheer explaining his magic iPod. Jessica Robinson’s contribution had to do with her mother’s love of singing. And Sam Payne closed out the night with a story about going to church dances as a teenager. All in all, it was a very enjoyable evening and a nice way to transition out of my busy day to a more relaxed evening.
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Celebrity Death Watch: Linda Hopkins was a blues singer and actress. Dorothy Mengering was David Letterman’s mother and appeared on his show. J. Geils led an eponymous band. To paraphrase their most famous song, Death Stinks. Charlie Murphy was a comedian and actor – and less famous than his brother, Eddie. Bob Taylor was an internet pioneer, including playing major roles at ARPA, Xerox PARC, and DEC. Bruce Langhorne was a folk musician and, allegedly, the inspiration for Bob Dylan’s "Mr. Tambourine Man." Sylvia Moy was a songwriter, who wrote a number of Motown songs. Clifton James was an actor who played a lot of Southern sheriffs, despite being a native New Yorker. Dan Rooney chaired the Pittsburgh Steelers and later became U.S. ambassador to Ireland. Patricia McKissak wrote children’s books, including several biographies of African Americans. Sheila Abdus-Salaam was the first black woman to serve on the New York Court of Appeals. Apparently, she committed suicide, and there is a family history that may have played a role in that.

Sniffle, Cough: I thought it was just the absurdly high pollen count of this time of year, but actually succumbed to a cold. That meant that: a) I ended up skipping the second Passover seder, and b) I got nothing done at home. Except using a ridiculous number of tissues. Sigh. (I am mostly over it now. Well, except for my annual wish for the trees to have sex indoors.)

MIT Better World Event: This involved a reception and talks at the Newseum on Thursday night. Due to it being during Passover, I had to stick to drinking sparkling water and eating raw veggies (and some fruit for dessert), which was a bit disappointing. But the talks were interesting, particularly one by John Urshel, a math grad student who is probably better known for being a linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens. And I saw some people I have not seen in years – literally, as one of those was someone I lived on the same floor as when I was a freshman, over 40 years ago. And I worked on a research project with her husband around 1978.

Taxes: I use Turbo Tax, which is not, in general, too painful. I did a pretty good job of putting all of the relevant paperwork in one place. But I still had to mail in one paper form, due to having sold some stock. Reminder: even mild annoyances are annoying.

You May Interpret These Dreams: In one recent dream, I was moving stacks of books around in my living room. In another (this one, during Passover), I was licking the chocolate glaze off a donut.
fauxklore: (storyteller doll)
Yes, this is one of those catch-up entries. I know. Deal with it.

Celebrity Death Watch: Lots of people died while I was away – and since I got back. Malcolm Fraser was a former Prime Minister of Australia. Lee Kuan Yew was the founder of Singapore. Robert Schuller built a glass house of worship, aka the Crystal Cathedral. Cynthia Lennon was John Lennon’s first wife. Sarah Brady was an anti-gun activist. Gary Dahl invented the pet rock. Tom Koch was a humorist who invented Mad Magazine’s game, 43-Man Squamish. Naomi Wilzig owned the World’s Erotic Art Museum in Miami. Stan Freberg was a parodist. Gunter Grass was a German novelist, best known for The Tin Drum.

There are two people I want to highlight in particular. John Renbourn was a British folk singer. He was probably best known as part of Pentangle, but I particularly like his solo albums, especially A Maid in Bedlam. And Al Rosen was a baseball player, whose career was cut short by injury, preventing him from joining Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg, and Lou Boudreau as the Jewish contingent at Cooperstown.

Taxes: I finally finished my taxes this weekend. Most of the delay was due to not being able to find a couple of pieces of paper. The mortgage interest statement was actually in plain view on my dining room table. The last charity receipt was more or less where I thought I’d put it, which still meant a few hours of searching.

I used to be so much more organized and I can be again.

Embassy of Estonia: The night before I left on vacation, I went to a dinner and talk at the Embassy of Estonia. The ambassador was a fairly interesting speaker, focusing on the country’s economic position. However, he went on rather long given that the audience was standing. (There were a handful of chairs, which were occupied primarily by people who really needed them. And a few people sat on the stairs. But the rest of us shifted uncomfortably.) The food was pretty good, with a pretty wide range and especially notable desserts, e.g. excellent strudel. One disappointment was that they didn’t have any Estonian wines or beers – only American ones.

More Vacation Details: I’d bought a ticket from EWR to OSL largely on the basis of price. When I see cheap airfares to somewhere that I might conceivably go to (i.e. anywhere that is not an active war zone and, ideally, somewhere I haven’t been to before), I buy first, think later. I actually knew what I wanted to do in Norway – namely, take the Hurtigruten up the coast and see two specific things in Oslo (the Fram, which is the ship Amundsen took to the Antarctic) and Munch’s The Scream. I was hoping for some aurora, too.

I am pleased to say that I accomplished all that I intended, plus a few other things.

Future Vacation Plans – Your Chance to Help: I cashed in some miles for a trip to South America in November, that partly involves some genealogical research and will also address two life list items. Since I need to connect in Panama City, I built in a day and a half there, which should enable me to see Panama La Vieja (i.e. the old city) and the Canal, including the Frank Gehry designed Museum of Biodiversity. I will probably use the hop-on / hop-off bus to do most of that. Given that, does anybody have any hotel recommendations? Keep in mind that: 1) I prefer boutique hotels and local charm to large modern chains, 2) convenience of location (including things like proximity to restaurants) is a high priority, and 3) safety is always a top priority.

You Can Also Advise Me About Books: I am in the middle of reading The Brethren by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong. This is about the Supreme Court under Warren Burger. I am finding it surprisingly interesting. So I am interested in any recommendations anyone might have for more recent books focused on the Supremes.

Mini-Rant 1 - Politics: I expect to spent the next 19 months – and at least 4 years after that, holding my nose.

Mini-Rant 2 - Free Range Children: Apparently the Montgomery County police picked up the two Meitiv children again, 2 ½ blocks from their home, and kept them for hours, despite telling them they were just going to give them a ride home. If I were the parents, I would be charging the police with kidnapping. And don’t give me any crap about the world having changed and gotten more dangerous. Almost all child abductions involve non-custodial parents. In fact, the crime rate now is lower than when I was growing up in the 1960’s.

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