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I Am Back and Trying to Catch Up
May. 12th, 2023 06:55 pmI was trying to catch-up on what I did during the rest of April before going on a vacation. Obviously, I didn’t succeed in doing that, so I am writing this now that I am back from my trip.
Celebrity Death Watch: Ed Koren was a cartoonist for The New Yorker. Charles Stanley was a televangelist. Barry Humphries was an Australian comedian, best known for his portrayal of Dame Edna Everage. Robert Forrest-Webb was a British writer who wrote a book with the intriguing title And to My Nephew Albert I Leave the Island What I Won off Fatty Hagan in a Poker Game. Carolyn Bruant Donham accused Emmett Till of whistling at and/or touching her, leading to his lynching. Ralph Humphrey was the drummer for The Mothers of Invention. Pamela Turnure was Jackie Kennedy’s press secretary. Tim Bachman played guitar for Bachman-Turner Overdrive. LeRoy Carhart was one of the few physicians who continued performing late term abortions after the murder of George Tiller. Vincent Stewart directed the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2015-2017. Mike Shannon played for the Saint Louis Cardinals in the 1960’s. Ralph Boston was an Olypmic champion long jumper. Newton Minnow was the FCC Chairman in the early 1960’s and is famous for calling television a vast wasteland. Sean Keane played fiddle for The Chieftains. Don January was a PGA champion golfer. Heather Armstrong was a blogger, known as Dooce, mostly famous for losing her job for blogging about her coworkers and company and then becoming one of the first successful mommy bloggers. Jacklyn Zeman was a soap opera actress.Chris Strachwitz founded Arhoolie Records, a major specialist in roots and folk music.
Rick Riordan was the mayor of Los Angeles from 1993-2001. He was a Republican but he went on to back Democrat Antonio Villarigosa in the 2005 general election. He was also well known for owning the Original Pantry Cafe downtown and Gladstone’s in Malibu.
I hope you don’t need me to tell you about Harry Belafonte. He popularized Calypso music in the United States, but was equally significant as a civil rights activist.
Harold Kushner was a reconstructionist rabbi and is best known for his books, such as When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Jerry Springer hosted a tabloid television show, as well as having been the mayor of Cincinnati in the late 1970’s.
Gordon Lightfoot was a singer-songwriter. I particularly remember his songs “If You Could Read My Mind” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
Vida Blue was a pitching phenom for the Oakland A’s in the early 1970’s. I particularly remember him as a nemesis against the Mets in the 1973 World Series.
Storyteller Death Watch: Michael Parent died last week. It wasn’t a big surprise, as he had been dealing with Parkinson’s Disease for some time. I first saw him perform back when I lived in Los Angeles and I found his stories of his French-Canadian heritage warm and enjoyable. He was also a kind and generous man and I have a particularly fond memory of him seeking me out at the National Storytelling Conference in Richmond and his coming to see me tell my Jeopardy story there. I am glad that our mutual friend, Katy, was able to be with him in his final moments.
Non-celebrity Death Watch: I just heard that Faith Klein died on April 11th. I knew her from the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, where she managed the genealogy library at Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria. She was in her late 80’s and led a rich and productive life.
I knew Charles Kunz from FlyerTalk and saw him at numerous events over the past 12 or so years, most recently in February in Tucson. He and I shared several interests besides travel, such as atrocious puns and baseball. I was completely shocked to learn he took his life in mid-April. I thought he seemed happy with his wife and daughter. I guess you never know what demons someone is wrestling.
Angels in America: I saw Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches at Arena Stage on April 21st. For those unfamiliar with this play, it is a chronicle of the early years of the AIDS crisis, told primarily through the eyes of a few people. Louis is a Jewish man whose mother has just been buried and who is in denial about the failing condition of his partner, Prior Walter. Joe Pitt is a Mormon man, married to a woman with a drug problem. He is in denial about his homosexual feelings and works for the closeted politico Roy Cohn. The script is interesting, with more humor than one would expect given the subject matter. The performances were quite good, with Edward Gero as Roy Cohn being particularly notable. I had debated seeing it mostly because I have some issues with Tony Kushner and, indeed, I found the depiction of the rabbi at the funeral at the beginning to be somewhat offensive. But I’m glad I did go.
Hexagon: On April 22nd, I braved a horrible rainstorm to drive to darkest Maryland to see this year’s Hexagon show. This is political satire and their annual show is a long-standing Washington tradition. The theme this year was The Sedition Edition and songs included “Mine is Bigger Than Yours” (with Trump. Biden, Pence, and Santos singing about the size of their piles of classified documents), “Pickleball U.S.A.” (to the tune of “Surfin’ USA, about nude pickleball in Florida), “AARP” (to the tune of “YMCA”) and so on. Some of my favorite jokes included:
National Museum of African American History and Culture: On April 23rd I went to the National Museum of African American History and Culture with an old internet friend. Sharon and I didn’t pin down exactly where we knew each other from, other than it would have been somewhere on Usenet back in the late 1980’s. But we did get along just fine in person. She’s a digital nomad these days, largely for political reasons, and was in D.C. for a little while. We only had enough time to cover maybe 80% of the History Galleries, and none of the Culture and Community Galleries. We thought the information was interesting, though it wasn’t particularly well laid out. For example, most of the text was placed low enough to require people to crowd in to read it. And there should have been arrows showing the best flow through the galleries, as we had to backtrack a few times. Still, it was worth a few hours. Afterwards, we met up with her partner and had lunch at the Elephant and Castle.
iPhone Battery Replacement: On April 24th, I got my iPhone battery replaced. It hadn’t been holding a charge well for a while and I thought it best to have that taken care of before going on vacation. It wasn’t too painful, but it took about a half hour longer than they’d said it would. The main thing I wanted to mention was that the tech who worked with me is deaf and he used a phone line which connected him to a sign language interpreter. He signed and she talked to me. Then I talked to her and she signed to him. I thought this was fabulous - a great example of how to accommodate a worker with a disability.
Grimm Keepers: The April discussion was on The Singing Bone. There was a lot to think about. But my main takeaway was that this theme of magical objects (bones or reeds or whatever) revealing a secret, often a murder, is surprisingly common. And I think it might be interesting to play with the idea of an orchestra of such instruments. Yes, I am weird.
NYPL - Yiddish New York in the 1900’s: This was a lecture put on by the New York Public Library. It mostly had to do with the Yiddish Daily Forward and the rent strike of 1917-1918. It was fairly interesting, but a bit too brief.
JGSGW Meeting: On Sunday April 30th, there was a hybrid meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Washington. I would normally have driven to Rockville for it, but the weather was crappy and I had another meeting later that afternoon (kind of a post mortem on the Women’s Storytelling Festival, i.e. what worked and what didn’t and what we want to change for next year). Jennifer Mendelssohn gave an excellent talk on DNA and how to get around some of the problems associated with endogamy. As usual, there is more that I need to find time to work on.
Still to Come: April prompts, my Kentucky Derby cruise, things I’ve done since I got back
Celebrity Death Watch: Ed Koren was a cartoonist for The New Yorker. Charles Stanley was a televangelist. Barry Humphries was an Australian comedian, best known for his portrayal of Dame Edna Everage. Robert Forrest-Webb was a British writer who wrote a book with the intriguing title And to My Nephew Albert I Leave the Island What I Won off Fatty Hagan in a Poker Game. Carolyn Bruant Donham accused Emmett Till of whistling at and/or touching her, leading to his lynching. Ralph Humphrey was the drummer for The Mothers of Invention. Pamela Turnure was Jackie Kennedy’s press secretary. Tim Bachman played guitar for Bachman-Turner Overdrive. LeRoy Carhart was one of the few physicians who continued performing late term abortions after the murder of George Tiller. Vincent Stewart directed the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2015-2017. Mike Shannon played for the Saint Louis Cardinals in the 1960’s. Ralph Boston was an Olypmic champion long jumper. Newton Minnow was the FCC Chairman in the early 1960’s and is famous for calling television a vast wasteland. Sean Keane played fiddle for The Chieftains. Don January was a PGA champion golfer. Heather Armstrong was a blogger, known as Dooce, mostly famous for losing her job for blogging about her coworkers and company and then becoming one of the first successful mommy bloggers. Jacklyn Zeman was a soap opera actress.Chris Strachwitz founded Arhoolie Records, a major specialist in roots and folk music.
Rick Riordan was the mayor of Los Angeles from 1993-2001. He was a Republican but he went on to back Democrat Antonio Villarigosa in the 2005 general election. He was also well known for owning the Original Pantry Cafe downtown and Gladstone’s in Malibu.
I hope you don’t need me to tell you about Harry Belafonte. He popularized Calypso music in the United States, but was equally significant as a civil rights activist.
Harold Kushner was a reconstructionist rabbi and is best known for his books, such as When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Jerry Springer hosted a tabloid television show, as well as having been the mayor of Cincinnati in the late 1970’s.
Gordon Lightfoot was a singer-songwriter. I particularly remember his songs “If You Could Read My Mind” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
Vida Blue was a pitching phenom for the Oakland A’s in the early 1970’s. I particularly remember him as a nemesis against the Mets in the 1973 World Series.
Storyteller Death Watch: Michael Parent died last week. It wasn’t a big surprise, as he had been dealing with Parkinson’s Disease for some time. I first saw him perform back when I lived in Los Angeles and I found his stories of his French-Canadian heritage warm and enjoyable. He was also a kind and generous man and I have a particularly fond memory of him seeking me out at the National Storytelling Conference in Richmond and his coming to see me tell my Jeopardy story there. I am glad that our mutual friend, Katy, was able to be with him in his final moments.
Non-celebrity Death Watch: I just heard that Faith Klein died on April 11th. I knew her from the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, where she managed the genealogy library at Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria. She was in her late 80’s and led a rich and productive life.
I knew Charles Kunz from FlyerTalk and saw him at numerous events over the past 12 or so years, most recently in February in Tucson. He and I shared several interests besides travel, such as atrocious puns and baseball. I was completely shocked to learn he took his life in mid-April. I thought he seemed happy with his wife and daughter. I guess you never know what demons someone is wrestling.
Angels in America: I saw Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches at Arena Stage on April 21st. For those unfamiliar with this play, it is a chronicle of the early years of the AIDS crisis, told primarily through the eyes of a few people. Louis is a Jewish man whose mother has just been buried and who is in denial about the failing condition of his partner, Prior Walter. Joe Pitt is a Mormon man, married to a woman with a drug problem. He is in denial about his homosexual feelings and works for the closeted politico Roy Cohn. The script is interesting, with more humor than one would expect given the subject matter. The performances were quite good, with Edward Gero as Roy Cohn being particularly notable. I had debated seeing it mostly because I have some issues with Tony Kushner and, indeed, I found the depiction of the rabbi at the funeral at the beginning to be somewhat offensive. But I’m glad I did go.
Hexagon: On April 22nd, I braved a horrible rainstorm to drive to darkest Maryland to see this year’s Hexagon show. This is political satire and their annual show is a long-standing Washington tradition. The theme this year was The Sedition Edition and songs included “Mine is Bigger Than Yours” (with Trump. Biden, Pence, and Santos singing about the size of their piles of classified documents), “Pickleball U.S.A.” (to the tune of “Surfin’ USA, about nude pickleball in Florida), “AARP” (to the tune of “YMCA”) and so on. Some of my favorite jokes included:
- I got a Life Alert bracelet. It’s set to go off if I get a life.
- Conservatives want to get rid of taxes. Liberals want to get rid of Texas.
- Donald Trump was just indicted for tearing off a mattress tag in 1997.
- What do Winnie the Pooh and Alexander the Great have in common?
They have the same middle name! - 95% of all electric cars ever sold are still on the road. The other 5% made it home.
National Museum of African American History and Culture: On April 23rd I went to the National Museum of African American History and Culture with an old internet friend. Sharon and I didn’t pin down exactly where we knew each other from, other than it would have been somewhere on Usenet back in the late 1980’s. But we did get along just fine in person. She’s a digital nomad these days, largely for political reasons, and was in D.C. for a little while. We only had enough time to cover maybe 80% of the History Galleries, and none of the Culture and Community Galleries. We thought the information was interesting, though it wasn’t particularly well laid out. For example, most of the text was placed low enough to require people to crowd in to read it. And there should have been arrows showing the best flow through the galleries, as we had to backtrack a few times. Still, it was worth a few hours. Afterwards, we met up with her partner and had lunch at the Elephant and Castle.
iPhone Battery Replacement: On April 24th, I got my iPhone battery replaced. It hadn’t been holding a charge well for a while and I thought it best to have that taken care of before going on vacation. It wasn’t too painful, but it took about a half hour longer than they’d said it would. The main thing I wanted to mention was that the tech who worked with me is deaf and he used a phone line which connected him to a sign language interpreter. He signed and she talked to me. Then I talked to her and she signed to him. I thought this was fabulous - a great example of how to accommodate a worker with a disability.
Grimm Keepers: The April discussion was on The Singing Bone. There was a lot to think about. But my main takeaway was that this theme of magical objects (bones or reeds or whatever) revealing a secret, often a murder, is surprisingly common. And I think it might be interesting to play with the idea of an orchestra of such instruments. Yes, I am weird.
NYPL - Yiddish New York in the 1900’s: This was a lecture put on by the New York Public Library. It mostly had to do with the Yiddish Daily Forward and the rent strike of 1917-1918. It was fairly interesting, but a bit too brief.
JGSGW Meeting: On Sunday April 30th, there was a hybrid meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Washington. I would normally have driven to Rockville for it, but the weather was crappy and I had another meeting later that afternoon (kind of a post mortem on the Women’s Storytelling Festival, i.e. what worked and what didn’t and what we want to change for next year). Jennifer Mendelssohn gave an excellent talk on DNA and how to get around some of the problems associated with endogamy. As usual, there is more that I need to find time to work on.
Still to Come: April prompts, my Kentucky Derby cruise, things I’ve done since I got back
