FIGMO's Follies

Scraps of Paper: I have a bad habit of scribbling mysterious notes to myself on any handy piece of paper. This is, in general, evidence of why I got C’s in penmanship in elementary school. Here are a couple of things I managed to decipher.

“Art mirrors the audience, not the teller.” The context is obviously storytelling, but I have no idea who said this and/or who they were quoting. I do, however, think it’s an accurate statement.

I think this is something that got mentioned during High Holiday services. Kafka wrote a story about a leopard that entered a synagogue and roared before leaving town. Three weeks later, the leopard’s roar had become part of the liturgy.

Celebrity Death Watch: Note that I am trying not to fall behind because I am going on vacation soon and would rather have less to catch up on.

Samantha Eggar was an actress who appeared in such movies as Doctor Doolittle, as well as several horror movies. Yang Chen-Ning was a Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist. Sam Rivers was the bassist for Limp Bizkit. Anthony Jackson is credited with the development of the modern six-string bass. Jackie Ferrara was a sculptor. Sirikit was the queen consort of Thailand from 1950 to 2016. J. William Middendorf was the Secretary of the Navy in the mid-1970’s. Hamilton Smith won a Nobel Pize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on restriction enzymes. Prunella Scales was an actress, best known for playing Sybil in Fawlty Towers. Alison Knowles was an artist whose work defies my descriptive abilities.

Susan Stamberg was an NPR journalist. She co-hosted All Things Considered for 14 years. She also hosted Weekend Edition Sunday from 1987 to 1989, introducing the Sunday puzzle and bringing the Car Talk hosts to the attention of all. She was considered one of the founding mothers of National Public Radio and interviewed too many prominent people for me to attempt to list them.

June Lockhart was an actress, best known for playing TV mothers, in Lassie and Lost in Space. She was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 4 points.

Things I’ve Been Doing - Medical: I finally got in to see my dentist, which I’d been postponing mostly because my schedule has been chaotic. They’ve gotten a new sort of x-ray machine which is much quicker. I also got around to getting my flu shot and this year’s COVID vaccine. My arm was particularly sore this time around. It also probably didn’t help that I was sleep deprived because I’d been woken up at 2 a.m. by a helicopter circling over I-66.

Things I’ve Been Doing - Travel Related:I went to a Travelers’ Century Club luncheon. One person had a horrific story about breaking his hip on a trip to Surinam and having to be evacuated by canoe. There was also a guest speaker who gave an interesting presentation on travel medicine.

I’ve finally gotten all my travel arrangements set up for my upcoming vacation. I do still have a couple of chores related to that to get through. Plus, of course, little details like packing.

I’ve also got three other trips to make arrangements for.

Storytelling: The Washington Folk Festival went well, though the storytelling tent was a bit closer to one of the music tents than I would have preferred. At least the morris dancers weren’t right next to us. (They’re cute, but they’re noisy.)



I also had time to look at some of the art exhibits in another of the pavilions.





My set was titled Spare Change and consisted of stories about transformation. I explained that characters in folk tales are always turning into something and that, on my way to the festival, I had turned into a parking lot. The stories I told included an Albanian story that has the particularly charming detail of the main character being forced to collect back taxes from the snakes in a church, a Mongolian story about a camel, The Neglected Princess (an original story, which started out when I was reading about the decline in frog populations in an article in Smithsonian Magazine), and The Princess Who Turned Into a Flower Pot, which I’d learned years ago from a friend and had told at my brother’s wedding to his first wife. I thought it went very well. And I also enjoyed listening to stories by several other tellers.

I made it to the Scary Stories swap at Quince Orchard Library the other night. The drive up was mildly annoying, since there is always roadwork on the inner loop of the beltway. The really horrible drive was going home, because the state of Maryland decided it made sense to close 3 out of 4 lanes of the outer loop of the beltway for roadwork. Not that there was any actual evidence of anybody doing any roadwork. I find it mildly terrifying to be driving my little car with so many huge trucks surrounding me, knowing that if there were an accident involving one of them I would almost certainly not survive it. Fortunately nothing happened beyond it taking me two hours for what should be a 45 minute drive. At any rate, there was a good mix of stories. I told “Ida Black,” which has to do with a woman getting revenge on the man who had her hanged for witchcraft. Some other highlights included Jennifer’s rendition of “Mr. Fox” and a story about an adoptive mother confronted with a vampire baby.

By the way, somewhat related to “Mr. Fox,” our Brothers Grimm discussion group talked about The Murder Castle, which is a rather unsatisfying version of the same theme, with the added detail of a female assistant and the confusion about whose two sisters had previously been murdered (the assistant’s or the would-be victims.) It’s no wonder that story didn’t make it into later versions.

Voting: I did early voting a week ago. The really challenging decision this time was what to do about the Virginia Attorney General race. The Democratic candidate (Jay Jones) said terrible things that can be interpreted as advocating for political violence. But the Republican party is, in general, behaving in repugnant ways. Jason Miyares is anti-abortion and pro-death penalty and opposes gender-affirming care. I considered abstaining but held my nose and voted for Jones. I was much more enthusiastic about the gubernatorial race because I think Abigail Spanberger is an excellent candidate. I’m also a big fan of my delegate (Holly Siebold), who is running for reelection.

Loser Brunch: I drove to Frederick, Maryland for a Loser Brunch at The Wine Kitchen this past Sunday. The drive up wasn’t too bad so I got there early enough to have a look around a craft market along Carroll Creek. I couldn’t resist temptation when I saw Blind Date With a Book. The idea is that the books are wrapped up, so you don’t know what book you’re buying, but they tell you what genre it is, as well as what year and what its rating is on goodreads. Kathleen took a picture of me holding up my purchase.



As for its contents, the book proved to be The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, which I had read recently but didn’t actually own. It also came with an eye mask, a tea bag, 2 bookmarks and 3 stickers. Such a charming purchase!

Re: the actual brunch, the potato and mushroom hash I got was pretty good. (I went with the vegan option because I don’t like fried eggs.) The coffee, however, was excellent. It is apparently from Dublin Roasters, which is local to Frederick. But the real point of these things is the company, not the food, and, while there were only six of us, the conversation was lively. Overall, it made for a nice morning / early afternoon.

I got back from LoserFest on Sunday afternoon and on Tuesday afternoon I was off to New York for a few days. The official reason for my trip was the premiere of a Yiddish opera. But, me being me, I also had to throw in three musicals and a museum excursion.

When I got to New York, I walked over to my hotel. I had planned to go down to Little Italy for the San Gennaro festival. But it was drizzly and I was tired and, as much as I have fond memories of eating zeppoli at the Feast in my home town, I just wasn’t really in the mood for greasy overpriced food. I did stick to the Italian theme and got cheap pizza. For what it’s worth, $1 Pizza now costs $1.50 a slice, but they haven’t changed the name. (It does also cost extra to add toppings. I like my pizza with mushrooms and black olives, by the way.) It was perfectly adequate and filling, allowing me to collapse happily with a book.

On Wednesday, I had plans for seeing two Broadway shows. I didn’t really do anything touristy in the morning because I had a bit of storytelling business to attend to and I wanted to get further on with a book club book I was in the middle of. After getting a smoothie for lunch, I went to the first of the two shows I had tickets for - the matinee performance of Maybe Happy Ending. For those who are unfamiliar with the story, the premise sounds really strange. Two decommissioned helperbots (i.e. robots that act as domestic companions to people) live across the hall from each other in a complex for retired helperbots. Claire’s charger fails, leading her to beg to borrow Oliver’s charger. This eventually leads them to a relationship. Oliver believes that his former owner, James, will come for him some day, but when Claire expresses a desire to go to Jeju Island (where James now lives) to see the fireflies there, Oliver joins her on a road trip. I thought the show was really sweet and I liked the jazz music used throughout it. I also thought the issues it raised about whether robots can feel the same emotions as humans and the ethics of robot to human relationships were handled well. Overall, this is a clever and original musical and well worth seeing. As an aside, the bio of HwaBoon in the “who’s who in the cast” section of the program is almost certainly the best cast bio I have ever read in a theatre program. Highly recommended.

My evening theatre excursion was Heathers the Musical. I liked the movie it was based on and I have nothing against dark and violent musicals. Unfortunately this show has a fan base of shrieking teenagers who were never taught proper audience behavior. The constant screaming at any mildly amusing line and loud stomping of feet really detracted from the show. That’s a pity because there is some good material and some fine performances. In particular, Erin Morton was excellent as Martha. File this under shows I won’t go to see again, along with Wicked and Six for similar reasons.

I had a bit of shopping I wanted to do on Thursday during the day. An excursion to a dance wear store didn’t yield a brown unitard, but did yield a long-sleeved white leotard that can be died to the correct color for my costuming purposes. And I have a reliable source of tights in pretty much any color I might want. I still need a bunny tail and ears and an apron which I can cross-stitch. But I have a few months before I need this to be done. I could have bought the ears at a costume store one of my friends had mentioned, but the store was more crowded than I wanted to deal with.

I should also note that I’d never noticed the upside-down A in the Herald Square signs before. One of my Facebook friends solved the mystery. That A represents the shape of Herald Square which is really more of a triangle with extended legs.



Anyway, the actual purpose of the trip had been to see the opera The Great Dictionary of the Yiddish Language at YIVO. I had enough time to check out a few exhibits, including one about people who rescued Yiddish books in Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania) during World War II and one on Jewish artists in Lithuania. The latter, alas, failed to mention any of my artistic cousins. As for the opera, it’s based on the true story of Yudel Mark’s attempt to write a complete dictionary of the Yiddish language, despite the insistence of Max Weinreich that it wasn’t essential to capture every Yiddish word. The conflict between the two men was interesting and provided some opportunity for comedy. I didn’t find the music particularly memorable, but the performances were good and I was glad I’d had the opportunity to see it.

By the way, on the way back to my hotel, I stopped at Aubi & Ramsa, which specializes in liquor-infused ice cream. I got the Old Fashioned, made with Woodford Reserve bourbon and Cointreau. It was very tasty and the place gives new meaning to the term “ice cream bar.”



I’d decided I should use Friday to go to a museum I’d never been to before. Several of my friends were enthusing over the recently renovated Frick Collection. The only place you can take pictures inside it is the courtyard.



For the most part, I found the decorative arts, e.g. the wallpaper and ceilings, to be more impressive than the actual art collection. But I generally prefer modern art to old masters. I will say that they have a nice app that lets you look up info on the endless array of portraits of rich people, shepherdesses, and/or rich women dressed up as shepherdesses. (The biblical scenes are a bit better or, at least, less fluffy.) I’m glad I went to see it, but there are other museums in New York which I prefer. I will also note that their cafe is one of the few places remaining anywhere that serves a Caesar salad with actual anchovies on it.

I decided to spend some time in the afternoon strolling around Central Park. Back in high school, I went to a Saturday science program at Columbia University, which is where I met my 10th grade boyfriend. We had classes in the morning and periodic afternoon special lectures. On the Saturday afternoons when we didn’t have a lecture, he and I would often go to Central Park. My funniest memory of that was that we had an obligatory stop at a store that sold telephones, which he collected. Even 50ish years later, that’s still my major mental association with Central Park. That store is, of course, long gone. So I settled for looking at people playing with remote controlled yachts on the lake and listening to various street musicians. I also had to take a photo of the Alice in Wonderland statue.



I had bought a ticket to see the musical This Is Not a Drill at York Theatre on Friday evening. I realized that the Upper East Side branch of Pastrami Queen is just a few blocks from there, so I decided to fulfill my periodic need for Jewish deli food. I got my standard order - a tongue sandwich, pickles, kasha knish, and Doctor Brown’s diet cream soda. It was delicious.



By the way, I posted that photo to the Save the Deli Facebook group and got over 300 likes for it! Plus, of course (and alas), people telling me I was doing it wrong because the rye bread is unseeded and I prefer tongue to pastrami and I like cream soda, not cel-ray. But most of the comments were positive.

As for This Is Not a Drill, the premise is that a group of people are at a resort in Hawaii when there’s an announcement over the radio about a North Korean ballistic missile alert. This is based on an actual event in 2018, by the way. Since this is musical theatre, all of the people at the resort have relationship issues, which they resolve in song during the 38 minutes between the announcement and the revelation that yes, actually, it was a drill. I liked a lot of the music and the performers were good. But I thought the story was rather thin and predictable.

I took a train home early on Saturday. I ended up calling into my travel book club from the food court at Union Station shortly after I got to D.C., then took the metro home. I finished off my theatre binging on Sunday with Damn Yankees at Arena Stage, but I already wrote about that. (Short version: it’s wonderful and you should go see it if you’re local-ish.)

The first of the two trips I took in September was to South Carolina for LoserFest Grand Strand. For those who are unfamiliar with the Loser community, it’s essentially people who are involved with what used to be the Washington Post Style Invitational, which now has its afterlife via Gene Weingarten’s substack page, as well as a couple of related Facebook groups. There’s a lot more information on The Not Ready for the Algonquin Roundtable Society website. There are a number of Loser social events, with brunches roughly monthly and a couple of big parties a year (a post-holiday party around January and the Flushies award ceremony around June). Every year or two, a group of Losers get together to go somewhere for what is called LoserFest. I first went to one in Pittsburgh and have since been to Frederick (Maryland), Niagara Falls, and Philadelphia. My schedule worked out to enable me to go to this year’s LoserFest in the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina area.

Why there? Well, a long time Loser, Kathleen, moved to Surfside Beach a while back and lobbied for it. The primary organizer (known as the LoserFest pope), Kyle, published a “Fungenda,” and people signed up for which events they wanted to go to, including various meals and sightseeing events. He’s very good at finding things to do and I also appreciate that everything is optional.

Anyway, I flew down on Wednesday, early in the afternoon. It was easy to pick up my rental car and a short drive to my hotel, though it was a bit challenging to actually find the front desk since my GPS had outdated directions. (I’d gotten a good deal at the Grand Palms Resort, where am entire 2 bedroom villa cost slightly less than a room at the Holiday Inn.) I had time to settle in and take a short nap before going to Kathleen’s house for an informal dinner. She’s got a lovely little place, with a plant-filled backyard. There were probably a dozen or so of us there and we had the usual lively conversation, while nibbling on various goodies.

We had originally been scheduled to do a dolphin watching cruise on Friday morning, but the weather forecast was unfavorable so it got switched to Thursday morning. We had an excellent breakfast beforehand at the Golden Egg before driving to the Crazy Sister Marina, where we boarded a RIB (rigid inflatable boat). We saw a lot of dolphins, including some leaping right in front of us. Alas, I failed at dolphin photography, which is not surprising since every time I’ve been whale watching I’ve mostly gotten pictures of where whales were. It was really awesome watching them and an excellent start to the day.

Then we drove north to Myrtle Beach, where we had lunch at Margaritaville. That was followed by the Myrtle Beach Pinball Museum, which was fun, even though pretty much all the pinball machines were after my time. I thought the Munsters themed one was the most interesting machine, but most of them were fun.

From there, we went to Ripley’s Aquarium. This was a bit pricy for its small size, but they did have some interesting exhibits, starting with African penguins.



There were plenty of assorted fish, including at least one robotic one. There were also a lot of jellyfish. And sharks. They didn’t have any leafy sea dragons (my favorites at any aquarium that has them), but they did have weedy sea dragons.



And there was an axolotl, a creature I’ve been mildly obsessed with since I learned about it via a crossword puzzle.



That, of course, had me singing The Axolotl Song for days.

We finished the day with dinner at 42nd Street Bar and Grill. The food was good, but rather pricy.

On Friday, we started the day with breakfast at Blue Sky Restaurant. I suggested the Myrtle Beach Art Museum as a substitute for the dolphin cruise which had gotten shifted to Thursday. The museum proved to be small, but very good. There were two exhibits. The upstairs gallery had enhanced cyanotypes by Cora Ennis Morris.



The downstairs gallery was more to my taste, with an exhibition of winners of the Artfields competition. This piece by Brent Afford is titled Remember This as a Time of Day and pays homage to cast iron skillets.



The intriguing thing about this portrait by Stefanie Glen is that it was drawn in one continuous line.



I think most of us really liked Consume by Mike + Patz Fowle.



My very favorite piece was Mexicans in Canada, by Amira Hanafi. This is an interactive exhibit, which you can stop by touching the television screen. You can also start and stop the on-line version to see how clever it is.

We drove up to Brookgreen Gardens, a former rice plantation, where we started with a lovely lunch at the Austin Harvest Restaurant. After eating, we had a docent tour. Unfortunately, the docent started out by standing in one place and talking for over 20 minutes. We assumed he’d seen all the grey hair in front of him and thought we wouldn’t want to walk. But, actually, standing in one place is harder on most of us than walking.

It wouldn’t be South Carolina without a live oak allee and Spanish moss.



The main thing to see is the collection of American figurative sculpture, which is huge and impressive.



Our next stop was at Atalaya Castle. It would have been helpful if the directions had mentioned that the actual entrance is marked as Huntington Beach State Park, instead of claiming that it was “just across the street” from Brookgreen Gardens. The only sign that actually says “Atalaya Castle” is some ways down the state park road.

The castle was built as the winter home of philanthropist Archer Milton Huntington and his wife, sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington. Frankly, I wasn’t particularly impressed with it. Apparently, they kept bears, horses, monkey, and a leopard in enclosures within the castle, which might have made it more interesting.





I was feeling rather grumpy. And the Red Sox were playing the Source of All Evil in the Universe, so I decided to skip out on dinner at the Gulfstream Cafe in favor of takeout food and watching the ballgame. Which, alas, my Bosox lost.

We had breakfast on Saturday at Johnny D’s Waffles, which had the advantage of being particularly close to my hotel. Then we went back to Brookgreen Gardens, where we did the Creek Excursion. This is a lovely and peaceful boat trip along the creeks of the property.



After that, some of the group went to the zoo, but I’m a lions and tigers and bears (oh, my!) kind of gal and don’t feel the need to look at non-predators. The plan to have lunch at a barbecue restaurant followed by miniature golf and shopping for tacky souvenirs also failed to do anything for me. But Brookgreen had a Gullah Geechee Junkanoo Festival going on and music and dance and, especially, storytelling are very much my sort of thing. So I listened to a singer and a storyteller who had an Anansi story. Then I checked out the art exhibit and sampled jollof rice and delicious pound cake. There are also several recordings which you can listen to which feature local people of Gullah descent talking about their lives.

I finished the day by strolling around more of the gardens and looking at more sculptures. Here’s an interesting one relating to the Pledge of Allegiance.



There was a brief downpour, which started ironically just as I reached Rainey Plaza. I took refuge in the gift shop, but didn’t see anything I wanted. I drove back to my hotel and rested for a while before heading back down o Murrell’s Inlet for dinner at Dead Dog Saloon. We were rather crowded together and the food was just okay, but the atmosphere was fun, with lots of 1970’s music.

My travel home the next day went smoothly.
All in all, it was a fun trip with a lot of interesting activities and, more importantly, fun people (which is really the point of it) and I look forward to the next LoserFest. (I’ve been lobbying for New Orleans, by the way.)