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I May Have Done a Few Things
May. 16th, 2024 10:06 pmI already wrote about RhinoStock. So what else has been going on in May?
I had my usual Jewish genealogy mentoring session on the first Wednesday of the month. It was pretty productive because I was able to help someone find some of her ancestors in the 1897 All Russia Census.
I went to Ottawa Storytellers for the second time. It’s really a nice group of people and I especially like that they have a couple who do ballads. For what it’s worth, I told “Berel the Baker,” which is my most popular Chelm story.
We had a Grimm Keepers meeting to talk about The Three Ravens. Actually, the number of ravens varies depending on which version you look at. There are a lot of Grimm stories involving people (usually brothers) who get turned into birds and having to get rescued by a sister. In this case, the sister loses the chicken bone she is supposed to use to get into the glass mountains where her raven brothers live and cuts off a finger instead. My comment was, “well, haven’t you ever heard of a skeleton key?” Also, it might actually be fun to imagine a Grimm aviary.
Over the weekend, I went to two movies as part of the JxJ Festival. This is what used to be two separate Jewish festivals - one for films and one for music. Saturday night was The Catskills in Bethesda, which was a bit of a pain because of Metro track work and local road work walking from the metro to the theatre. Despite that, I did enjoy this documentary. I particularly liked that they included material about bungalow colonies, as well as the resort hotels. And they didn’t focus excessively on the Borscht Belt comedians at the resorts. The scenery they showed was quite attractive, too. Overall, it brought back some good memories. We didn’t go for the whole summer, though my grandparents did have a bungalow at Rabinowitz’s Bungalow Colony in Parksville. But we did go for long weekends every now and then to various hotels. I remember playing miniature golf and pinball with other teenagers and rowing on the lake at the Homowack.
On Sunday, I went to see Shari and Lamb Chop which was at the Smithsonian American History Museum. Someone had asked Mallory Lewis (Shari’s daughter) if Lamb Chop was at the Smithsonian and she explained that the Smithsonian only has retired puppets, but Lamb Chop still has an active career. (One of the museum staff members did say they are getting a Lamb Chop puppet next year.) Anyway, the movie was both informative and entertaining. For example, I’d had no idea that Shari’s father had been the official magician of New York City, using the name Peter Pan the Magic Man. They emphasized that she did use her puppets as a way to communicate, not only to entertain, with Mr. Bearly a means to discuss relationship issues with her husband, Jeremy Tarcher. But really the main point was how amazingly talented Shari Lewis was, e.g. being able to voice two puppets (Lamb Chop and Charlie Horse) while also singing. And, of course, Lamb Chop was just delightful. At one point late in her career, Shari learned Japanese. When she toured Japan, people would come up to her and say, “Lamb Chop speaks very good Japanese. You, not so much.” I’ll have to see if I can get this movie on DVD to play at the annual Shari Lewis Memorial Lamb Chop Dinner, which I host during National Ventriloquism Week. (Yes, really.) By the way, another ventriloquist was particularly big in our family. My mother had known Paul Winchell while she was growing up and one of my favorite family photos is of her, as a teenager, at Jerry Mahoney’s birthday party.
Incidentally, I knew a guy in college who was a ventriloquist. His roommates started tossing his dummy around in their dorm room one night, and he got hit in the eye. They took him to the infirmary and he explained, "a dummy hit me in the eye." And the nurse told him that name calling wasn't going to help. (This is an absolutely true story.)
As for this week, my Crones and Tomes book club met on Monday night to talk about Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner. I think most of us liked the book, though some aspects of it were pretty gut wrenching. The idea of using food as a basis for a memoir was appealing, though it would never work for me since my mother just wasn’t really interested in food. (She would have happily eaten boiled chicken for supper every night of her life.) Anyway, it was an interesting book and an interesting discussion.
On Tuesday afternoon, I flew to Indianapolis. I had a ticket to a minor league baseball game. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and the game was postponed. Oh, well, the best laid plans of mice and Miriam ... I can use the ticket for another game, but I have to figure out when I can get back to Indianapolis. On the plus side, I ran into a former colleague on the plane. And I had a particularly delicious Asian chicken salad for dinner, (I flew back on Wednesday morning. Yes, that is pretty ridiculous.)
And tonight was playing Code Names with friends over zoom.
I’ve also made good progress on making travel arrangements, both for the trip I am leaving for on Monday and for a trip in July. I still have planning for August to put in place.
I had my usual Jewish genealogy mentoring session on the first Wednesday of the month. It was pretty productive because I was able to help someone find some of her ancestors in the 1897 All Russia Census.
I went to Ottawa Storytellers for the second time. It’s really a nice group of people and I especially like that they have a couple who do ballads. For what it’s worth, I told “Berel the Baker,” which is my most popular Chelm story.
We had a Grimm Keepers meeting to talk about The Three Ravens. Actually, the number of ravens varies depending on which version you look at. There are a lot of Grimm stories involving people (usually brothers) who get turned into birds and having to get rescued by a sister. In this case, the sister loses the chicken bone she is supposed to use to get into the glass mountains where her raven brothers live and cuts off a finger instead. My comment was, “well, haven’t you ever heard of a skeleton key?” Also, it might actually be fun to imagine a Grimm aviary.
Over the weekend, I went to two movies as part of the JxJ Festival. This is what used to be two separate Jewish festivals - one for films and one for music. Saturday night was The Catskills in Bethesda, which was a bit of a pain because of Metro track work and local road work walking from the metro to the theatre. Despite that, I did enjoy this documentary. I particularly liked that they included material about bungalow colonies, as well as the resort hotels. And they didn’t focus excessively on the Borscht Belt comedians at the resorts. The scenery they showed was quite attractive, too. Overall, it brought back some good memories. We didn’t go for the whole summer, though my grandparents did have a bungalow at Rabinowitz’s Bungalow Colony in Parksville. But we did go for long weekends every now and then to various hotels. I remember playing miniature golf and pinball with other teenagers and rowing on the lake at the Homowack.
On Sunday, I went to see Shari and Lamb Chop which was at the Smithsonian American History Museum. Someone had asked Mallory Lewis (Shari’s daughter) if Lamb Chop was at the Smithsonian and she explained that the Smithsonian only has retired puppets, but Lamb Chop still has an active career. (One of the museum staff members did say they are getting a Lamb Chop puppet next year.) Anyway, the movie was both informative and entertaining. For example, I’d had no idea that Shari’s father had been the official magician of New York City, using the name Peter Pan the Magic Man. They emphasized that she did use her puppets as a way to communicate, not only to entertain, with Mr. Bearly a means to discuss relationship issues with her husband, Jeremy Tarcher. But really the main point was how amazingly talented Shari Lewis was, e.g. being able to voice two puppets (Lamb Chop and Charlie Horse) while also singing. And, of course, Lamb Chop was just delightful. At one point late in her career, Shari learned Japanese. When she toured Japan, people would come up to her and say, “Lamb Chop speaks very good Japanese. You, not so much.” I’ll have to see if I can get this movie on DVD to play at the annual Shari Lewis Memorial Lamb Chop Dinner, which I host during National Ventriloquism Week. (Yes, really.) By the way, another ventriloquist was particularly big in our family. My mother had known Paul Winchell while she was growing up and one of my favorite family photos is of her, as a teenager, at Jerry Mahoney’s birthday party.
Incidentally, I knew a guy in college who was a ventriloquist. His roommates started tossing his dummy around in their dorm room one night, and he got hit in the eye. They took him to the infirmary and he explained, "a dummy hit me in the eye." And the nurse told him that name calling wasn't going to help. (This is an absolutely true story.)
As for this week, my Crones and Tomes book club met on Monday night to talk about Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner. I think most of us liked the book, though some aspects of it were pretty gut wrenching. The idea of using food as a basis for a memoir was appealing, though it would never work for me since my mother just wasn’t really interested in food. (She would have happily eaten boiled chicken for supper every night of her life.) Anyway, it was an interesting book and an interesting discussion.
On Tuesday afternoon, I flew to Indianapolis. I had a ticket to a minor league baseball game. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and the game was postponed. Oh, well, the best laid plans of mice and Miriam ... I can use the ticket for another game, but I have to figure out when I can get back to Indianapolis. On the plus side, I ran into a former colleague on the plane. And I had a particularly delicious Asian chicken salad for dinner, (I flew back on Wednesday morning. Yes, that is pretty ridiculous.)
And tonight was playing Code Names with friends over zoom.
I’ve also made good progress on making travel arrangements, both for the trip I am leaving for on Monday and for a trip in July. I still have planning for August to put in place.
