fauxklore | Entries tagged with volunteering

Last week, one of my friends commented that I was the busiest retired person he knew. I do a lot of things, but I also waste a lot of time and am kind of annoyed with myself over how much stuff I have not been getting done. I definitely need to spend more time on housework. And I need to cook real food and get more exercise. Sitting down to write this catch-up is at least something I can check off my to-do list, which is back up around CVS-receipt length.

Celebrity Death Watch: David Foreman was an environmental extremist who co-founded Earth First! Hilary Mantel wrote historical fiction about Oliver Cromwell, including Wolf Hall. Louise Fletcher was an actress who was most famous for playing Nurse Ratched in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Rita Gardner was an actress who originated the role of Luisa in The Fantasticks. Pharaoh Sanders was a jazz saxophonist. James Florio was the governor of New Jersey in the early 1990’s (and in the U.S. House of Representatives before that). Coolio was a rapper. Stephanie Dabney was a ballerina with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and was particularly famous for performing the role of The Firebird. Jim Lisbet wrote mysteries and poetry. Bill PLante was a long time senior White House correspondent for CBS News. Sachsen Littlefeather rejected an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando. Audrey Evans cofounded the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Hector Lopez played baseball and went on to become the first black manager of a AAA minor league team. Al Primo created Eyewitness News. Tiffany Jackson was a basketball player whose career included three WNBA teams and 7 years with Maccabi Ashdod in Israel. Charles Fuller was a playwright, best known for A Soldier’s Play. Peter Robinson wrote detective novels. Lenny Lipton wrote the lyrics to “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” Judy Tenuta was a comedian. Jody Miller was a country singer whose signature song was “Queen of the House,” the comeback to Roger Miller’s “King of the Road.” Ivy Jo Hunter was a Motown songwriter, notable for cowriting “Dancing in the Streets” with Marvin Gaye and Mickey Stevenson. Robert I. Toll cofounded the housing developers Toll Brothers. Grace Gluck was an arts journalist.

Kevin Locke was a Lakota storyteller, flautist, and hoop dancer. He received a number of awards (primarily for music) and was a significant keeper of traditional culture.

Loretta Lynn was a country singer-songwriter and the subject of the movie Coal MIner’s Daughter. She won three Grammy awards.

LJ/DW Death Watch: I learned the other day that Howard Stateman, known on LiveJournal and Dreamwidth as howeird, died last week. He’d had numerous health issues recently and had had surgery in September, so it is not entirely surprising. I assume his sisters will be sorting out his estate. I hope his cat, Spook, and his aquarium fish are being well cared for.

Baseball: While I am on the subject of death, the New York Mets had been my one bright spot in a bleak baseball year. I will spend the post-season cheering for my second favorite team, namely whoever is playing the Yankees. (At the moment, that is the Guardians, who also have the plus of being managed by Terry “Tito” Francona, who led my BoSox to their 2004 and 2007 World Series titles.)

Yom Kippur: Yom Kippur was Wednesday. I did zoom services again, which is not really satisfying. But it did let me sleep later. I did fast, but, overall, I was not very into it this year.

Spaghetti and Matzoh Balls: This is a short film by Rena Strober, which I saw via an on-line screening from the Union for Reform Judaism, with a talk-back afterwards. The short version of the story is that she used to sing at a restaurant in New York called Rao’s. It was a mob hangout and one night one guy objected to her singing and someone else shot and killed him. This ended up in her reconnecting to some aspects of her Jewish upbringing. She wrote and performed a one-person show about this. The movie is based on but not identical to this. It’s an interesting story, with a lot of warmth and a surprising amount of humor, and I’m glad I saw it.

Thursday: Thursday was a completely insane day for me. I had my Global Entry renewal interview in the morning. It took me 45 minutes or so each way on the Metro to get downtown to the Reagan Building, but the actual interview took about 5 minutes. Anyway, I got the acceptance email less than an hour after I got home, even though they told me it would take up to 72 hours. I should get the new card in the mail within a week or two.

My Grimm discussion group is normally on Wednesdays, but moved to Thursday because of Yom Kippur. This session was about the Gold Children, which is an amalgamation of various folk tale tropes. We had an interesting discussion, particularly regarding the ability of children made completely out of gold to move around perfectly normally. As I pointed out, gold is pretty malleable.

That was followed immediately by another zoom meeting. That one was training for the Capital Jewish Food Festival, where I was volunteering on Sunday.

And, then, in the evening I went with my friend Cindy to see Ichabod at Creative Cauldron. We had dinner beforehand at Pizzeria Orso, which is right up the street. The mushroom and olive pizza was good. Their pizza crust is excellent. I also had tiramisu gelato for dessert.

Ichabod: This was a new musical, obviously based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Matthew Conner had a previous attempt at musicalizing this story, but The Hollow, which I saw at Signature Theatre in 2011 was a failure. This reworking (with book by Stephen Gregory Smith) was better, but I still didn’t care much for most of the music. It stuck fairly closely to what I remember of the story, but the music was meh. I might have liked the opening number (“Invocation”) but neither of us could understand the lyrics. I did like two songs - “Clippety, Cloppety” (in which Bram Bones tells the story of the headless horseman) and “Midnight Ride” (which tells the part where Ichabod Crane disappears). But I didn’t think the more romantic pieces worked particularly well. The performers were fine - especially Colum Goelbacker as Ichabod and Bobby Libby as Brom, but the whole thing just didn’t work well for me. I’d have more to say, but they don’t have printed programs and I accidentally deleted the electronic one. I tried to find a link to it on their website but failed. Grr.

Guys and Dolls: As you may have heard me say before, I consider Guys and Dolls to be the best musical of all time. It’s got a witty book, great music, and lively choreography. There was a production of it at the Kennedy Center, as part of the Broadway Center Stage series, which I saw on Friday night. While this was a scaled down production, the cast was, decidedly not scaled down. James Monroe Iglehardt, who played Nathan Detroit, has made numerous Broadway appearances, including winning a Tony for playing the Genie in Aladdin. Jessie Mueller, who played Miss Adelaide, won a Tony for playing Carole King in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, as well as originating the role of Jenna in Waitress (among other Broadway roles). Sky Masterson was played by Steven Pasquale who was in the recent CSC production of Assassins. And Sarah Brown was played by Philip Soo, who is most famous for playing Eliza Schuyler in Hamilton. By the way, Pasquale and Soo are married in real life, so it’s particularly nice seeing the chemistry between them. The most unconventional bit of casting was Rachel Dratch (of SNL fame and who I recently saw in POTUS) as Big Jule. I want to note the choreography for “Luck Be a Lady Tonight,” in particular, which was exciting and impressive. Anyway, it was an extremely enjoyable evening. And, by the way, the Kennedy Center has actual printed programs available. This is a very limited run (10 performances only), so if you want to see it, get your tickets now for this coming weekend.

By the way, I had dinner before the show at Bandoola Bowl, a new Burmese place in Western Market (a food hall in Foggy Bottom). I got a ginger salad with tofu and lemon dressing, which was absolutely delicious. I will definitely eat there again. Also, the weather was particularly nice, making for an especially enjoyable walk over to the KenCen.

Capital Jewish Food Festival: As I mentioned above, I volunteered at this festival on Sunday. It was the first time they were doing it and things were a bit chaotic. I was assigned to check IDs and give out wristbands (green for over 21, blue otherwise). I was on the first shift (10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.) and we pretty much ran out of green wristbands. In retrospect, it would have made sense to have wristbands only for people who were over 21. Volunteers got t-shirts and 3 tasting tickets. By the time my shift finished, several of the vendors had run out of the tasting samples, though there was still plenty of food for sale at most of the vendors. I did get samples of things like bagel chips with lox spread (and a salmon salad from another vendor. I’ve forgotten what my third sample was.) And I bought a turkey sandwich with cole slaw from Corned Beef King for lunch. Anyway, it was definitely crossed so I’d say the event was a success. Also, Michael Twitty gave an interesting talk. One disappointment was that there were only a few kosher-certified vendors.

Murder Mystery Weekend: No, I haven’t gone to one, but I’ve sort of decided I’d like to. I see a few companies that run them but, if anyone I know has done one, I’d love recommendations. Ideally, the venue should be either academic or country house / hotel (not urban). It should be friendly for a single attendee, since none of my friends are likely to want to go along for this. I’m looking for a weekend (Friday night through Sunday brunch looks typical). And I’d like it to be in (in order of preference) Ireland, the UK, or southern U.S.

Any suggestions?

I am, as usual, behind on everything. Sigh.

Celebrity Death Watch: Marilyn Loden coined the term “glass ceiling.” Lamont Dozier wrote and/or produced a lot of Motown hits. Darryl Hunt played bass guitar for The Pogues. Olivia Newton-John was a singer and actress. Raymond Briggs wrote and illustrated British children’s books. Richard Caruso founded Integra LifeSciences, a successful manufacturer of artificial skin. Robyn Griggs acted in soap operas as a young adult. David Kay led American weapons inspection efforts in Iraq. Clayton Jacobson II developed the jet ski. John Wockenfuss played baseball, primarily for the Detroit Tigers. Tom Weisskopf was a golfer who won several PGA championships own the 1970’s. Jerry Allison was the drummer for The Crickets and wrote several songs, including “That’ll Be the Day” and “Peggy Sue.” Esther Cooper Jackson was a civil rights activist. Len Dawson was a football player, primarily for the Kansas City Chiefs. Kurt Gottfried cofounded the Union of Concerned Scientists. Roland Messier was the White House executive pastry chef from 1980 to 2004. Robert LuPone originated the role of Zach in A Chorus Line on Broadway and co-founded the MCC Theater, but was never as well known as his sister, Patti. Peter Eckersley was a cyber security activist. Frank Drake was an astronomer. Peter Straub wrote horror novels. Moon Landrieu was the mayor of New Orleans for most of the 1970’s. Earl J. Silbert was the first prosecutor in the Watergate case. Tina Ramirez founded Ballet Hispanico. Bernard Shaw was the lead news anchor for CNN for over 20 years. Rommy Hunt Revson invented the scrunchie. Lance Mackey was a four-time Iditarod champion. James Polshek was an architect, whose work included the Clinton Presidential Center and the Newseum. Lowry Mars co-founded Clear Channel Communications. Ramsey Lewis was a jazz pianist and composer. Ken Starr was a lawyer, probably best known for writing the Starr Report which led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Roxanne Lowit was a fashion photographer. Jean-Luc Goddard was a film director. Fred Franzia made cheap wine. Irene Pappas was an actress, probably best known for playing the widow in the film version of Zorba the Greek. Liam Holden was the last person sentenced to death in the UK, though his sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment and his conviction was overturned later in response to revelations about the torture used to extract his confession to killing a British soldier in Northern Ireland. Brian Binnie was one of the test pilots for SpaceShipOne, built by Scaled Composites. Nick Holonyak invented the red LED.

Norah Vincent died in early July, but her death was not publicly announced until mid-August. She was most famous for her book Salf-Made Man, in which she described her experiences living as a man for 18 months.

David McCullough was a historian. He won the Pulitzer prize for his books about Harry S Truman and John Adams.

Marc Lapadula taught film studies at Yale University. He also lectured as part of One Day University and I’d been to a couple of his lectures about significant American movies.

Anne Heche was an actress who died in a rather spectacular traffic accident. She was probably at least as well known for her relationship with Ellen DeGeneres. I was able to use one of my ghoul pool trades for her, so she earned me 32 points (including the 12 point uniqueness bonus, which really only worked due to some convenient timing on the trade).

Barry Boehm was the founding director of the Center for Systems and Software Engineeringg at USC. He was something of a fixture in software engineering and systems engineering circles, and did important work on cost modeling, models for software development, and systems engineering processes. I scribbled down various words of wisdom from him at numerous conferences over the years, including, “the standards have been tailored so much that the suit has become a vest.”

Lily Renee was a comic book artist. She escaped from Nazi-occupied Austria to England as a teenager, before coming to the United States and becoming one of the first women in the comics industry. She was also the subject of a book by Trina Robbins which revived interest in her career. She earned me 25 ghoul pool points, which includes the 12 point uniqueness bonus.

I hope you don’t really need me to tell you who Mikhail Gorbachev was. He presided over the break-up of the Soviet Union peacefully and got the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

Barbara Ehrenreich was a nonfiction writer, specializing in social issues. Her most famous book was Nickel and Dimed, which discusses trying to live on minimum wage jobs. I have been hearing the term “toxic positivity” quite a lot lately and a lot of her writing touches on that subject.

Marsha Hunt was pretty much the last actress of her generation left when she died at age 104. Her career was cut short by McCarthyism, leading her to become an activist. She earned me 14 ghoul pool points.

You really really don’t need me to tell you who Queen Elizabeth II was. For people of my generation, she was the one British monarch throughout our lives. I think the most interesting thing about her was her World War II service as a driver and mechanic. Whatever one might think of the monarchy, she fulfilled her role with dignity and grace. She earned me 20 ghoul pool points.

Non-Celebrity Death Watch: I only learned a week or so ago that Mort Rau died at the end of July. I knew him as spaceman on flyer talk and got to spend time with him at a few FT events, including OzFest. We had a mutual professional interest in space systems so had plenty to talk about. He was a nice guy and I’m sorry to see him join the ranks of FTers who’ve flown off into the sunset.

Baseball: I know the season isn’t actually over, but the Mets are the only team I follow who are still in it. The Nats were particularly pathetic, even worse than the Royals. (I follow the Royals because a guy from my home town used to pitch for them.) And I can’t even think about my Red Sox without distress, though they haven’t actually been eliminated from the wild card race yet.

National Book Festival: I spent the afternoon of September 3rd volunteering at the National Book Festival. They were a bit disorganized this year, sending out the info for the zoom training sessions rather last minute. And I got my email with my volunteer assignment early in the morning the day before the festival. That assignment turned out to be program distribution. I was stationed at the L Street South entrance to the Convention Center. People were surprisingly enthusiastic in their gratitude for being handed a program. Some people (mostly men) were astonished that the program was free. (As was the entire festival.) I was mostly able to direct people to where they wanted to go, but I did misdirect one person (in fact, one of my neighbors!) because it was still early and I had forgotten that, for some ungodly reason, the convention center map has north on the left. Standing for 5 hours was tiring, but I’m still glad I did it and I’ll do it again in future years, schedule permitting.

My Birthday / Storytelling Workshop: I’d had an early birthday celebration on the Friday night before my birthday, in the form of going out to my favorite Thai restaurant (Elephant Jumps in Falls Church) with a friend. Then on Sunday September 4th, I turned 64. I celebrated by going to a storytelling workshop (over zoom), having to do with tall tales and liars’ contests. Bi Lepp was the perfect person to lead this and it was a fun afternoon.

Getting Rid of Books: I made a used bookstore run on Friday the 9th, getting rid of 59 books and bringing home only 13 with my trade credit. (I still have 30 odd dollars of trade credit, however.) The next day I drove to Baltimore and donated 77 books to The Book Thing. There are still too many books in my house.

JGSGW: Tyler Ainbinder gave a very interesting talk about Jewish Immigrants in Urban America. He talked about several things that I hadn’t already known. For example, the Statue of Liberty was funded by French radicals who were protesting the monarchy. 1 in 100 immigrants were turned away at Ellis Island, generally for health reasons. When you see pictures of people climbing the stairs to the hall, that was a test to make sure their lungs and legs were healthy. One thing that struck most of us as weird was that immigrants had to answer that they did not have a job that they were going to. This was because of a concern that they would have accepted low pay, which would take jobs away from people already in America. I’ll take Things I Wouldn’t Have Imagined for $600, Alex.

The Usual: My usual routine includes lots of other things over zoom. I have a once a month session on Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) research discussion with JGSGW, for which I am the primary Subject Matter Expert. I go to a crafts group on Thursdays, which provides for time to work on projects (an on-going cross-stitch in my case) and good conversation, always including books. The discussion group on Grimm’s Fairy Tales started up again with “The Handless Maiden,” a story that poses a number of difficulties. And I play games (mostly Code Names) with friends several nights a week. As I like to say, I am retired from work, not from life.

FT Dinner: I had dinner a week ago with a couple of Flyertalk people at Farmers Fishers Bakers in Georgetown. The restaurant is at Washington Harbor, which is always a bit of a pain in the neck since, while it isn’t terribly far from the Foggy Bottom metro station, part of the route is rather pedestrian unfriendly. Anyway, I had a nice cocktail called a Southside, which had gin, lemon, mint, and clementine bitters. My seared tuna was just okay, as it was a little overcooked. I also had coffee ice cream for dessert, which was fine. The service was so-so, which is my usual experience at Founding Farmers affiliated restaurants. But the conversation (primarily about travel) was good and that’s the important thing.

No Place To Go: I saw this musical at Signature Theatre this past Thursday. It was written in 2012 and is somewhat dated given the rise in remote work, but the premise is that an “information refiner,” who is a “permanent part-time worker” has to decide whether or not to relocate when his employer announces they are moving - to Mars. It’s reasonably amusing and the music (played by a three-man band) was enjoyable. I was particularly impressed by Ben Boker, who played the saxophone at the performance I was at. But the whole thing works largely because Bobby Smith, who is well-known to all regular Signature attendees, is excellent. There are some ver funny moments, such as the song “Aging Middle Class Parents,” in which he considers moving in with his (or his wife’s) parents as a way to avoid moving. There’s also a running joke in which the last sandwich left in the conference room cries out to be eaten. There’s also a poignant song, “The Mighty Mench [sic],” which tells the story of a former employee who died. The key message is that people get more out of work than just a paycheck. Overall, this isn’t essential, but it was an enjoyable hour and a half.

The Color Purple: I was back at Signature on Saturday afternoon to see their production of The Color Purple. I’ve seen this show before (a touring production st the Kennedy Center) and thought it was just okay. But Signature made it outstanding, largely due to some excellent performances. I knew I was in for a treat when I saw that Nova Payton, one of the best actresses in the DC area, was starring as Celie. I was also very impressed by French Davis as Sofia and Danielle J. Summons as Shug Avery. There was also great choreography - especially for the song “African Homeland.” There are major holes in the book. I find Mister’s reformation completely impossible to believe, for example. But the show was both entertaining and moving. This type of performance is why I’m a long-time subscriber to Signature Theatre.

Story Swap: We had the monthly Voices in the Glen story swap on Saturday night. People are gearing up for Halloween. Myself included, as I did my first telling of a Russian folk tale (The Coffin Lid) that is, essentially, a vampire story. I also particularly enjoyed hearing a few stories from The Devil’s Storybook by Natalie Babbitt.

Bernstein’s MASS: On Sunday, a friend and I went to see Leonard Bernstein’s MASS at the Kennedy Center. This was commissioned by Jackie Kennedy for the opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971. Before the performance, we had lunch at the KC Cafe (overpriced and unexciting, but convenient) and checked out the new exhibit about JFK in the Gallery on the Terrace level.

As for the theatrical work (and it is theatrical, incorporating dance with the wide ranging music), it is very much a product of its turbulent times, which actually makes it relevant in these turbulent times. I’d only heard excerpts before, so was not entirely prepared for the complexity of the complete piece. I was glad for the supertitles (which translated the gist of the Latin mass portions, as well as English texts, which were sung clearly enough that I didn’t need the supertitles for them for the most part). Will Liverman gave an excellent performance as the Celebrant, which is a demanding role, given the emotional intensity of the piece, especially the Fraction. James Gaffigan conducted the orchestra and was less showy than some other conductors I’ve seen over the years (including Leonard Bernstein himself). I’d say my favorite section is the Credo, in which various members of the congregation sing about their conflicting beliefs. I’ll also note that the most memorable lyric is “half of the people are stoned and the other half are waiting for the next election; half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction,” which was a gift from Paul Simon to Bernstein. (The primary lyricist was Stephen Schwartz.) At any rate, this was definitely worth seeing and it made me feel privileged to have access to the cultural life here.

Celebrity Death Watch: Larry Siegel wrote TV and movie parodies for Mad Magazine. David Koch funded right wing political causes. Clora Bryant was a jazz trumpeter. Mitch Podolak co-founded the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Vince Naimoli founded the Tampa Bay Rays. Isabel Toledo was a fashion designer, who designed dresses for Michelle Obama among others. Jessi Combs was a race car driver and television presenter. Frances Crowe was a peace activist (and on my back-up ghoul pool list, alas.) Brad Linaweaver was a science fiction writer. Valerie Harper was an actress, most famous for playing the title role in the TV series, Rhoda. (She was also someone I had considered for the ghoul pool, but so it goes.)

Heritage Brewing: I had dinner with flyer talk friends last Wednesday night at Heritage Brewing in Clarendon. The food I had (a turkey burger and salad) was okay, but nothing special. The beer, however, was quite good. I got a flight of their own brews (i.e. four 3 oz glasses). I particularly liked the Revolution (an amber ale) and American Expedition (a ginger wheat ale). I was less impressed with the other two beers I had, to the extent of not remembering what they were, though I am fairly sure at least one was an IPA because I always get IPAs. The atmosphere was cozy and the conversation (largely about travel) was good, too. Overall, a nice evening out.

Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me: Thursday night, a friend and I went to Wolf Trap to see a taping of the NPR show Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. There were some issues at the beginning of the evening with the sound system, which were mostly resolved after the intro jokes, which, alas, don’t end up on the actual broadcast. You can, by the way, hear that broadcast at Wait Wait for August 31, 2019. The panelists were Negin Farsad, Peter Grosz, and Faith Salle, none of whom I was particularly familiar with. (Hosts Peter Sagal and Bill Kurtis are, of course quite familiar.) The guest was chef Jose Andres, whose restaurants include some of my favorites in the D.C. area (Zaytinya, China Chilcano, Jaleo, etc.) and who is also significant for his humanitarian efforts feeding victims of natural disasters. His English is a little hard to understand, but wasn’t a huge barrier. (I should note that we had been reseated by that segment to a part of the pavilion with better sound.) Overall, it was a fun evening.

National Book Festival: I volunteered at the National Book Festival again this year. That also involved spending a couple of hours on Tuesday evening at the training session. My actual shift was Saturday afternoon, from 12:30 to 5:30. I was a Hall Chaperone, which means I stood around with an "Ask Me" sign attempting to answer questions. I was on the lower level and stood near the escalator into Hall B, which meant that I answered about a hundred times more questions than the other hall chaperones in the area, who weren’t quite as visible. (I think it’s more fun if you are busy, so this was a deliberate choice.)

The most common questions were where to find book sales (since the sign for that area was obscured by a pillar) and where to find the two children’s stages. A lot of people needed to be directed to where specific authors were signing, as the line numbers were only on the app and not on the printed program. Also (and this is not news) the Convention Center maps suck. My most interesting observation was that all of the people who asked about the Veteran’s History Project (which was at one of the Library of Congress exhibit areas) were African-American women. Also, there were several people who had no idea what there was to do on the exhibit floor. I told them about the exhibitors and the book sales and the Parade of States and the stages. Overall, it was fun, but exhausting as I was on my feet for the whole time.

The Rest of the Long Weekend: I had good intentions re: housework, but was too tired to get through nearly as much as I had hoped to. I did, however, get some critical errands done and managed to read most of the Sunday Washington Post. I also partly caught up on puzzles, but I am still a couple of weeks behind. I got out of the house every day – Sunday to do a quick grocery run and Monday for a rehearsal for an upcoming storytelling show. Apparently, "oak tag" is very much a regionalism as none of the other people there knew what it was. (For those who don’t know, it is thinner than poster board and the color of manila folders. It was a mainstay of my school days.)

Now I am busy with work and real life. Yesterday involved a dentist appointment (getting two old fillings replaced plus prep for a crown). And today is my birthday.

Crossposts: https://fauxklore.livejournal.com/459351.html

Celebrity Death Watch: Cecil Taylor was a jazz pianist. Isao Takahata was a film director and producer and co-founder of Studio Ghibli. Eric Bristow was a hall-of-fame darts player. Donald McKayle was a Tony-award winning choreographer. Chuck McCann was an actor, including being the voice of the Cocoa Puff’s Cuckoo Bird. Daniel Akaka was the first person of native Hawaiian ancestry to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Soon-Tek Oh was an actor, most famous for voicing a character in Mulan. But his greater significance was in theatre. He played Tamate (yes, a woman) in the original Broadway production of Pacific Overtures. And, most importantly, he was one of the founders of East West Players, which has provided a lot of theatre opportunities for Asian-Americans, both as performers and writers / producers.

Baseball: The Red Sox are off to a great start, having won all their games after an opening day loss. Tonight, they start a three-game series against the Source of All Evil in the Universe. Yeah, I know, it’s only April, but I do love my Bosox. (I am, however, always worried about their bullpen.)

By the way, I don’t pay as much attention to the National League, since they don’t control the state of the world in the same way, but the Mets are also off to a great start.

Don’t Interpret This Dream: I was standing with some other people next to a river and it was really windy. Somebody said, "since we’re in Arkansas, we should go and visit the Gales."

Note: When I am awake, I know the difference between Kansas and Arkansas.

Speaking of Dreams: I read something recently that suggested that having dreams is a good indicator of the quality of your sleep. I don’t think I sleep particularly well, but I do dream regularly. Most mornings, I remember one or two dreams, though I tend to forget them within a half hour of waking up unless I either make a point of remembering bizarre aspects. Or, of course, write them down.

USA Science and Engineering Festival: I spent Saturday afternoon volunteering at the USA Science and Engineering Festival at the Convention Center. My assignment was as a Social Media Coordinator, which meant that I was positioned next to a large backdrop with a picture of a diver and a shark and encouraged people to take photos in front of it and hashtag them appropriately. In practice, much of my time was spent on two other things – directing people to various areas and keeping people from stealing the props we had for their pictures. The signs did not make it obvious that you had to walk through Hall D to get Hall E, where the Ocean area and NASA’s exhibit were. And there were a lot of people who wanted to meet a robot down in Hall B, which was downstairs. The staff member for our area yelled at us that we weren’t an info booth, but we were actually in exactly the right place to be one, since we were just outside the entrance to Halls D and E. (The official info booth was deep in Hall D.) And providing information was listed as one of the responsibilities on the sheet we had gotten when signing up.)

As for the props, we had things like silly glasses, a cut-out of a snorkel, an octopus, and so on. We also had signs people could hold up. The most popular one was one saying "Seas the Day." We also got several takers for "Feeling Fin-Tastic," including two little boys named Finn. Overall, it was reasonably fun, though I was exhausted by the end of the five-hour shift. I’m an ambivert and that’s a pretty good stretch of extrovert time.

I had only a little time to walk through the exhibits, so I don’t have anything to say about them. It was very crowded, which is a good thing. I should also note that my company did not have an exhibit. They have in past years, so that was disappointing to me.

JGSGW: There was a double meeting on Sunday for the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington. I wasn’t particularly interested in the afternoon session (on crypto-Jews) but I went to the morning section on genetic genealogy. I’ve found DNA testing to be a source of frustration, largely due to Ashkenazi endogamy. That is, coming from a population where cousins married, our relationships look closer than they are. While non-Jews end up with a couple of hundred matches, Ashkenazim end up with thousands. I don’t really have 18,000 cousins. At any rate, the speaker did a good job on the basics and explained the various tests well. I think my next step might be to upgrade my brother’s results, but there are also other family members I should get tested. As always, I really need to get more organized.

Crossposts: https://fauxklore.livejournal.com/411343.html

I had a rather hectic week. (So what else is new?)

One Day University: Saturday was One Day University. This time they did it at Lisner Auditorium, which is a good choice as the seats are reasonable comfortable and it’s easy to get to by metro.

The first speaker was Stephen Kotkin of Princeton, His talk was on American Foreign Policy: Where Are We Headed? He had a strong emphasis on the role of economic considerations, starting with the Clinton-era theory that as other nations got wealthier, they would become more like us. He focused on Iran, Russia, and China. His major points were that Iran is constrained by the Sunni-Shia conflict and the potential for Kurdistan to be a disruptive force in the Middle East. In short, he concluded that it shouldn’t be a priority. As for Russia, he said we can’t ignore it, but we overfocus on it. China, however, is an economic powerhouse and we should prioritize remaining competitive with it. The way to do that is to invest in infrastructure and scientific competitiveness. While he was an entertaining speaker, I thought his graphics were terrible. I also wish he had talked more about emerging nations. When someone asked a question about India, for example, his answer was entirely focused on their role as a buffer against China. I was also concerned that he made it all about economics and ignored moral questions, e.g. the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So I found his talk interesting but not entirely convincing.

The second speaker was Jacob Appel from Brown University on Ethical Dilemmas and Modern Medicine: Questions Nobody Wants to Ask.. He summed the issue up with two questions: 1) When do people have a right to healthcare that society refuses to give them? And 2) When can people refuse care that society wants to give them? Then he talked about several examples. Issues include the cost of treatment, quality of life, chance of recovery, whether or not the reasons somebody gives for their decision should matter, and how long-held someone’s beliefs are. My personal bias is to go with somebody’s stated wishes, whether or not I agree with them, but that’s easier said in theory than in practice. At any rate, I thought his talk was very interesting and the highlight of the day for me.

The third speaker was Carol Berkin, who is retired from Baruch College. Her talk was on What The Founding Fathers Were Really Like (and what we can still learn from them today). I have a quibble with her definition of founding fathers, as she focused entirely on the people who were at the Constitutional Convention. That leaves out a number of people who were important to independence, even if they may not have shaped the later form the United States took. But within her framework, the people she singled out as particularly notable were Benjamin Franklin, James Wilson, Robert Morris, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, and (partly) James Madison. She had quite a lot to say about Gouverneur Morris, though I’d be somewhat more convinced had she pronounced his name correctly. At any rate, her key point was that most of the men at the Constitutional Convention were fairly ordinary, albeit rich. Still, 5 or 6 geniuses out of 55 delegates seems remarkable to me. Do we have anybody of that intellectual caliber in Congress nowadays? She was a good speaker, but I found her unconvincing, overall.

There was a break for lunch, during which I walked over to a Korean dumpling place I’d been meaning to try. Since when is it socially acceptable for somebody to occupy one of 6 seats at a restaurant while eating their own food out of a Tupperware? The food was just okay, by the way, so, for future reference, I would probably go to Beefsteak or Roti instead. Or maybe try one of the food trucks that were lined up around the corner.

The last speaker of the day was Anna Celenza from Georgetown University, speaking on The History of Jazz: America’s Greatest Original Art Form. This was the talk I was looking forward to the most. Perhaps it was the post-lunch haze or perhaps it was overly high expectations, but I was disappointed. She had some good points about the role of technology (specifically, recording, including piano rolls) in th spread of jazz She touched on several interesting topics (e.g. the racial divide in jazz, the role of agents) and ignored others (orchestration, role of women). Overall, her approach reminded me of my high school history teacher who spent months on the French revolution, 2 days on World War I, and one day on everything since.

Volunteer Training: Sunday saw me back in the city for a training session for the upcoming U.S. Science and Engineering Festival. The training was fairly painless. By the way, I think I was one of a handful of volunteers there who was not accompanied by school children. (I think the minimum age for volunteers is 13, but some of those kids looked younger to me.)

Work and Snow: We got a spring snowstorm on Wednesday. That meant the second day of my two-day meeting this week turned into a telecon. If I’m going to work from home, that’s probably the best sort of work to have. I was even able to reorganize my scarf drawer while listening to one of the presentations.

I was also busy because I had to cover a meeting for my boss and draft inputs for a semi-annual report. When I tell people that I go to meetings and write email for a living, I am only half in jest.

A Minor Ambition: Just once, I would like to finish reading the Sunday Washington Post on Sunday.

Now I am ready to search my house for a bag of pencils that I hope the other dimensional beings have returned. And to pack for my excursion to Connecticut for the ACPT.

Crossposts: https://fauxklore.livejournal.com/408631.html

Here is the rest of the catch-up stuff.

Celebrity Death Watch: Louise Hay was a motivational author. Richard Anderson was an actor, best known for portraying the boss of bionic people. Hedley Jones was a Jamaican musician, who also designed and built the first traffic lights in the country (among other technical accomplishments). Shelly Berman was a stand-up comedian and actor. Walter Becker was one of the founders of Steely Dan. John Ashberry was a poet.

Take Me Out to the Ball Games: I got back on a Thursday and went to Nationals games (vs. the Mets) on both Friday night and Sunday afternoon. The Friday night game started out with some pathetic pitching on the part of young A. J. Cole. He did settle down, some, but the Nats never got very far against Jacob deGrom. Things did get exciting at the end, but the Mets kept their lead.

Sunday was Jewish Community Day and I went with some friends from my chavurah. There had been a special ticket price, which also included a ballcap with Nationals written in Hebrew! This is now my favorite ballcap, even ahead of the one from the Leones del Escogido. There were also tastings of various foods from a kosher caterer. As for the game, Asdrubal Cabrera hit a 3-run homer for the Mets in the first. The Nats proved to be really good at stranding men on base, though they did make things close. And it all came to down to Edwin Jackson getting thrown out at the plate at the end for them to lose.

Apparently, my wearing Nats gear brings luck to the Mets.

Vacation Stories: In between the two ball games, there was a Saturday night and a Better Said Than Done show, with a vacation theme. I told my story "M.D., Ph.D., G.R.E.A.T." which involves our family trip to Expo ’67 in Montreal, my parents’ failure to stop at any of the intriguing tourist traps along the way, and how I finally found satisfaction on another trip years later. The audience was responsive and I think it went well.
You can judge for yourself. Here’s the video.

Don’t Analyze This Dream, Part 1: There was a very important work matter, which I had to discuss with Bob Kaplan, even though he was in the hospital. Alexander Craig insisted that he and I talk with Bob, who was wearing blue pajamas and had just had surgery. We were then going to follow up with the Delaware group. Note that none of these are names of people or organizations I have any association with.

Don’t Analyze This Dream, Part 2: My home was invaded by a group of juggalos. Well, 4 of them stood outside and waited, while the one with the full clown makeup went inside, wielding an inflatable baseball bat.

District Dumplings: This past Thursday night I went out to dinner with a couple of friends who were in town. They chose District Dumplings in the Mosaic District. It was disappointing. The chicken and basil dumplings were good, but the others were bland. And, even though we ordered our dumplings steamed, they gave us fried. If you are over that way, Brine is a much better choice of a place to eat. Oh, well, the company and the conversation were good.

The National Book Festival: I volunteered at the National Book Festival this year, which was held this past Saturday. It’s the sort of volunteer task I can do – with a commitment measured in hours on one day (plus a couple of hours for a training session). I was a Hall Chaperone, which basically meant that I stood on the L Street Bridge at the top of the Grand Staircase with an "Ask Me" sign and directed people to other places in the Convention Center.

You’d think that sign would invite smartass questions, but there were only a few. Mostly people were asking how to get to the main stage (on the 3rd floor) or to the Metro. My favorite conversation was with the guy who said, "you look like you would like someone to ask you a question," to which I replied, "I would be delighted to be asked a question." (Alas, he just asked one of the usual ones.) Anyway, it was reasonably fun and I ran into several people I knew. I would volunteer there again if my schedule works.

Crossposts: https://fauxklore.livejournal.com/392368.html

I had an incredibly busy week (mostly preparing a briefing for a high muckety-muck), followed by an incredibly busy weekend. Much of that activity had to do with the
USA Science and Engineering Festival.

There had been a previous, smaller event in San Diego, but this was the first national event. Apparently, there were satellite events in several cities, but the festival on the National Mall was the culmination of the festvities. There were 1500 exhibitors and over 75 performers, so the whole thing was pretty big. I'd volunteered in response to an email from the MIT Club of Washington and was assigned to work at the info booth in the Mellon Auditorium. I should note that when I signed up, I checked the boxes for Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon, assuming I would be assigned to one of those times, but they signed me up for both. Several other people commented on this, so it would help to clarify this for future events.

I got down there fairly early Saturday and checked in at the Command Center. Then I walked over to the Mellon Auditorium where the security guards checked my ID and told me to go to the third floor. As it turned out, they were confused - the third floor was where Lockheed Martin was checking in their volunteers. I went back downstairs and found where the information booth was. We had some scrambling to do to set things up before the festival opened.

Once the festival opened, it became clear that the lay-out of things did not make a lot of sense. The auditorium security funneled people a particular way, so the info booth was actually on their way out, not their way in. We sent people over to stand near the entrance to hand out maps. But all of this could have been solved easily by switching locations of the info booth and the t-shirt sales booth. Again, this is stuff to know for the future.

The actual work was not too bad. The most common questions were predictable things - people wanting to find the restrooms or the shuttle bus stops or the exhibits out on Wilson Plaza. In the latter case, the map was partially at fault, since it made it look like there was an exhit from the back of the auditorium building, which there isn't. Early on, we had a few exhibitors who complained about not getting people to their exhibits, so we did a little pushing. We had also been told to push the "Meet the Scientists" talks, which were in a room at the very back of the building, but that turned out not to be a problem. I went over there to hear Marc Abrahams of The Annals of Improbable Research and his talk was SRO, as was the talk before his.

There were sone questions that were harder to answer. We didn't have an alphabetic list by title of exhibit, so we had to do a lot of scanning (or, in some cases, radio calls to other info booths) to find out where a few specific exhibits were. A couple of people thought that the people who wrote blurbs for the insert in the Thursday Washington Post (e.g. Norm Augustine) were actually speaking at the festival, so were looking for non-existant talks. The resource list told us where things like hardware stores and Starbucks were, but did not give locations of nearby ATMs. (I know the city well enough that I could point them to banks on Pennsylvania Avenue, but some of the other people at the booth were stumped.) Our biggest gap had to do with stamps and stickers that attendees could get on their maps. Some booths were giving out prizes for getting certain stamps, but we weren't given any information at all about those. We did find out about a couple of them, but it was frustrating not to know more. But, overall, these were pretty minor glitches and we were able to be reasonably helpful.

The questions I liked were things like parents looking for activities suitable for children of particular ages (which we did have a list of). My favorite of the day was the young woman who said she wanted to be a meteorologist and asked what booths to go to. Fortunately, I knew exactly where the American Meteorological Society booth was and pointed her there.

My two longer breaks during the day were used to hear the Marc Abrahams talk and to take a couple of things over to the Lost and Found. The latter was partly an excuse to see the exhibits out on Wilson Plaza, Pennsylvania Avenue, and Freedom Plaza, though there wasn't enough time to really do much at most of them. The Improbable Research talk was short and entertaining. It was mostly a summary of the Ig Nobel prizes, with a nice note about the recent Nobelist who had previously won an Ig Nobel. At the end, there was a demo of the bra that converts into two emergency face masks.

I went back on Sunday with a friend who I hadn't seen for a while. Since I could only spend a couple of hours, she brought along another friend and I discovered that going to this sort of thing with a kindergarden teacher can be pretty entertaining. We pretty much wandered the exhibits on the National Mall. We did make a point of stopping off at my company's booth, which had a couple of satellite models, comic books and tangram kits to give out, and an infrared camera. (People could get their photos, but there was aline and it is hardly a novelty for me.) The best exhibit we went to was the Laser Haunted House, which had various laser demos. To be seasonal, many of those involved skulls and other creepy things.

Overall, I think the festival did a great job and I hope it happens again.