James Simon

was a German Jewish textile merchant, who luckily died before the rise of the Nazis, and thought he was part of Berlin society in general. He was the brains, inspiration and initial money behind the Museum Island complex in Berlin.

One more example of you know what.

This is the last posting of 2006. Wait for improved postings next year.

Important Addresses in Washington DC

(holes will be filled)

23rd and Wyoming (Syrian Embassy): William Howard Taft
2314 Wyoming: Warren Harding
2300 S Street (Burma Embassy): Herbert Hoover
2131 R Street (Mali Embassy): FDR
3726 Connecticut: Truman
46 Connecticut: Truman
Wyoming Apts (Connecticut and Columbia): Eisenhower
2580 16th St (Dorechester): Kennedy
N Street: Kennedy
1910 Kalorama: LBJ
4921 30th Street: LBG (1942-1961)
4040 51st: LBJ
Broadmoor Apts (Connecticut and Quebec): Nixon
4801 Tilden: Nixon
1333 F St: Madison

4936 30th: J. Edgar Hoover
Q & Connecticut (Anchorage): Sam Rayburn
2340 Wyoming: Harlon Stone
23rd and California: Louis Brandeis
2330 California: Casper Weinberger
Ontario Apartments: Chester Nimitz
Ontario Apartments: Douglas McArthur
2301 Connecticut: McGovern, Tom Clark, Alban Barkely, Lena Horne

What happened to "Thank you, Madame #5"?

It is listed as one of the songs in Arena Stage's production of "She Loves Me", Act II, Scene 4, but it was skipped. I was looking forward to it, because my two favorite male characters in the play, Sipos and Arpad (a/k/a Lazlo) were singing. But it was not to be.

I was pretty well bored during the first act of this very polished performance of Bock and Harnick's musical about two people who work together and hate each other, each of whom as a mysterious lover with him they have only a relationship through letters, who eventually discover they have been writing to each other, and that they really do love each other. Pretty silly, you must admit.

Set in Budapest of the 1930s (who knows why), I thought the book was as shallow as can be, but during the second act, and starting with highly comic antics from the head waiter at a "romantic cafe", the play picked up until I was smiling and clapping at the end.

There were no weak links in the cast, but I particularly enjoyed J. Fred Shiffman as the head waiter (a once scene role), and Jim Corti as Ladislav Sipos. The pit orchestra was also excellent.

The only song I know is "She Loves Me", and I liked some of the novelty songs very much.

Saddam Hussein

was executed last night. At the time that millions of Moslems are in Mecca. Seems to me that may be the wrong combination of events. We will see what happens between now and tomorrow, which is Eid, the last day of the pilgrimmage.

Epictetus ($1.00)

Epictetus was an ancient Greek philosopher, who said (in Greek, I assume): People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.

Sounds good to me.

This was quoted in a short biographical piece about Samuel Johnson, who kept going despite what was probably Tourette Syndrome. The article talks about cognitive behavior therapists and their assistance in helping people avoid what they call "catastrophic thinking". And how they are trying to achieve the attitude of people like Johnson (who spent some time calming his biographer James Boswell, who was prone to catastrophe.

Looking at the article as I write (Smithsonian Magazine), I see two ads. One is for shoes of a size as large as 15EEEEEE, the other for small group travel, which shows a portly smiling 70 something year old sitting on a park bench with a live panda.

I am afraid to look further.

A Lost Paradise

Samuel Chotzinoff was a very smart and clever guy, and he knows it, and it all comes out in his memoirs "A Lost Paradise", which deals with his childhood, before he became a concert pianist, music critic and author. He was born in Vitebsk (as was Marc Chagall) and emigrated to his family (via England) to NYC, where he grew up (with a small detour to Waterbury CT). I assume that his memoirs are 50% accurate and 50% exaggeration, but who cares? They are delightful.

For example, the story of how his mother and father met and married. His mother, the daughter of a local rabbi, had been three times divorced (is that even remotely possible?) and had two daughters. His father was the son of a tailor (the lowest possible occupation, he says, and therefore not favored as a bridegroom), who was widowed with two children. The matchmaker, with the rabbi's agreement, told his mother not to tell his father about her two daughters until after they were married. In fact, she told him (actually, brought the girls home) two months later. He was incensed, the girls traumatized. He wanted out of the marriage, but the rabbi/father convinced him that if he let on that he was hoodwinked, he would be the laughing stock of the town (no, beyond the town) for the rest of his life.

That's just one of the many stories that are very cleverly written, but hard to take without a shaker of salt.

Do I recommend the book?? Absolutely! Without reservation! It is a kick and a half. And, beyond that, every time someone mentions something that happens to them, I seem to think: "Oh, something like that happened to Sam." and I start to laugh. So it is very au currant as well.

(Au currant. Is that correct??)

Thoughts on Gerald Ford

When Ford was a Michigan representative, I viewed him as an ordinary Republican, not worth paying much attention to.

When Spiro Agnew was forced to resign as vice-president, I first realized that someone unelected could be named vice president and perhaps one day become president. I found this outrageous.

When Nixon selected Ford, I feared the worst. I viewed Ford as an ordinary Republican, not worth paying much attention to.

When I learned that Ford went to Yale Law School, I was in disbelief.

When Ford pardoned Nixon, I was again outraged. But my outrage only lasted about one day, because I determined that this was the right thing to do, to let the country get back to business. Then, my respect for Ford grew a bit.

When Chevy Chase parodied Ford as a president who could not walk and chew gum at the same time, I found it not particularly funny, and not particularly fair.

I can't say that I enjoyed listening to Ford speak, but compared to his successor, Jimmy Carter, who seemed very creepy to me on a personal level, Ford was just fine.

I remember his WIN buttons (whip inflation now), and didn't think them too hokey.

I voted for Carter, because I thought it was time for the Democrats to get back in office, but not because I was afraid of what would happen had Ford won the election.

Every time Ford went into the hospital recently, I knew he would get out. I had faith in his immortality.

Last night, to honor Jerry Ford, I walked my clothes to the laundry, and chewed gum at the same time.

I know whom I forgot (1 cent)

and it certainly was not purposeful. I forgot Molly and Suresh!!!!

Also I forgot to thank Michael B. for his terrific dinner party.

St. Louis (38 cents)

The past four days in St. Louis were a treat, helping to celebrate Donna's birthday, and enjoying the hospitality of Michael and Pat.

A good time was had, with Donna, Ed, Alison, Sam, Richard, Jackie, Lauren, Julie, Bob, Simone, Michael B., Pat M., Brigid, Ken, Phyllis, Nora, Ted, Carol, Fran, Peggy, Michael H., Pat H., Stuart, Betsy, Meg, Jerry, and Harriet. And whom did I forget?

All those friends and relatives we rarely see. It's like leading a double life.

Novel (8 cents)

"Novel" is an 18 scene play (about 1 1/3 hours) by young American playwright Anna Ziegler that was given a reading at Theater J last night, as the first of a series of Monday night readings of plays by young American Jewish authors. There were ten actors, and ten in the audience.

This is an excellent play, I believe, about a 60 year (or so) old scientist, one year after the death of his wife, feeling that his career has been a waste, his treatment of his wife during the year she was dying from ovarian cancer insufficient, and his relationship with his two children strained. He is in Baltimore getting read to make a presentation at a conference. He is there with one of his best friends. Another conference is going on where people who hold world records are getting together: the girl who hiccupped the longest, the girl who has been scorned by the most men, the boy with the longest childhood, the man with the most near death experiences. He meets some of the attendees.

He tells his friend to go to dinner without him, that he needs to work on his presentation, but instead he is working on a novel (or the novel is working on him), and characters from the conference next door, as well as from childhood and his most recent past, waft in and out of his consciousness, sometimes being watched by him, and sometimes talking to him, or arguing with him.

The novel is not finished, his sense of frustration and futility increases.

The play is well crafted, and the flow of the dialogue between the real and (we suppose) imagained characters is seemless. The actors, who included daughter Hannah, did an excellent job.

I hope that Novel has a successful future. It is hard to see how it would miss.

A Very Good Dinner and one that was OK

A very good dinner at the Heritage of India restaurant on Connecticut Avenue. Goa fish curry, made with fresh grouper, with flavored rice and broccoli; ma ki dal (black dal); and ras malai for dessert, along with an espresso.

An OK dinner at the New Big Wong in Chinatown: sauteed watercress, duck and vegetables (bean sprouts, mushrooms, bok choy, carrots and more), and Hunan tofu. Each dish was beautiful. Nothing tasted bad, but the taste of each dish was a bit understated. No tang. Little personality. Should you ignore the New Big Wong? No, not at all. Just don't go for a spicy food experience.

I Wish I Heard More (2 cents)

I am walking up 16th Street. A young man is walking towards me in the opposite direction, talking on a cell phone. His voice carries as he comes near me, as we cross paths. It weakens as we separate, until I hear it no more.

This is what I hear:

"Well if a had a real job, you know what I mean, like you do, it would be different. But I don't, so I started this day trading. [gap while other person talks] Well, compared to my violin job......."

One Hundred Years Ago ($2.01)

It all depends on your prospective:

Take Violet Bonham Carter, for example, in her Churchill biography:

"It was a time of booming trade, of great prosperity and wealth in which the pageant of London society took place year after year in a setting of traditional dignity and beauty. The great houses -- Devonshire, Dorchester, Grosvenor, Stafford and Lansdowne House -- had not yet been converted into museums, hotels and flats, and there we danced through the long summer nights till dawn. The great country houses still flourished in their glory and on their lawns in the green shade of trees the art of human intercourse was exquisitely practiced by men and women not yet enslaved by household cares and chores who stil had time to read, to talk, to listen and to think."

Nice, huh?

But Samuel Chotzinoff, in his memoirs "A Lost Paradise" did not see it that way from his perspective as a young boy newly arrived in America:

"The world was most probably the same for everybody. We knew that rich people had more rooms, better food and clothing, and easier lives than the poor; but we had no reason to believe that their lot was otherwise different, or that they were exempt from what we believed to be the universal afflictions. On the visible world, half of which we knew first hand, and the other have of which we could only imagine, there were, for us, certain unchangeable phenomena: children were dirty and were obliged to scratch their heads; mothers were unkempt and slatternly; everybody, old and young, had teeth pulled regularly, so that middle-aged and old people had few, if any teeth; a great many children died young; everybody slept in underwear; parents always quarreled; mothers were generally indulgent to their children, but fathers either kept aloof or were brutal to them. And, of course, everyone over fourteen years of age was employed in gainful labor."

Name That River! And When Was This Taken? ($15.45)

  

Bob Barker

Bob Barker's original name was, apparently, Bob Barker.

The death of Georgia Gibbs

Probably most of you don't remember Her Nibbs, Georgia Gibbs, but she was a very popular singer when I was growing up. I had assumed she had died 40 years ago, but it turned out that it was just the other day, and she was only 87. Not that that is young, but I had assumed she was much older, perhaps since she apparently stopped singing for her supper when she was in her 40s. I also saw in the newspaper this morning that host Bob Barker turned 83, which makes him just four years younger than Georgia Gibbs. Mind boggling (at least for a second or two)

Also, I learned that Georgia Gibbs' real name was Frieda Lipschutz.

I wonder what Bob Barker's is.

Elevator Courtesy

I get on the elevator at the parking garage level with two other persons, who get off at the lobby. I am now alone, about to go to the ninth floor.

Across the way, I see a man holding what appears to be two weeks worth of newspapers, which is he balancing gingerly as he tries to push the elevator up button.

He looks my way, and I waive him towards me. He smiles and slowly and carefully walks in my direction.

The elevator door is about to close, he and I both know, but I give him a reassuring "don't worry" look, and put my hand on the "open door" button.

My glasses are in my pocket.

Unfortunately, the button that I am holding in so diligently is the "close door", not the "open door" button. I don't know that. The man with the newspapers does not know that.

He comes my way getting closer to the door, still smiling his "thank you very much smile" as the door closes in his face.

Light Reading (ten cents)

Every now and then you need some light reading. I chose "Hearse of a Different Color" by Tim Cockey largely because, first, I liked the title, and second, I liked the first chapter. It is a comic/mystery set in Baltimore during a very cold winter season, and the hero is the undertaker at whose funeral parlor Helen's body showed up during Dr. Kingman's funeral. This was enough to convince the undertaker (known as Hitch) to solve the crime.

Great literature? no.
Will it be read in 100 years? no.

Is it fun? Yes.

Pretty much fun, although like with most such books, there are times when you wonder why you are spending your time reading it, and at 317 pages, it seemed at least 100 pages too long. And, you begin to lose interest in the characters, the undertaker, his aunt, his weathergirl girl friend, the dead doctor, the dead doctor's wife, the dead doctor's soon to be dead son, the dead doctor's brother, the murdered girl, the murdered girl's sister, the ex-wife and her parents, the dog Alcatraz, the murdered lawyer and his equally murdered wife, and so forth, and so on.

It is a little too manipulative, perhaps. But it was fun. Am I going to read its prequel, "The Hearse You Came in On"? Probably not. But maybe.

Who is Ruth Duckworth?

Ruth Duckworth (formerly Ruth Windmoeller) is an 87 year old sculptor who lives in Chicago and who is the subject of a 90+ piece exhibit at the Renwick Gallery. The show closes in mid-January.

I went to see it the other day not expecting much, but in fact found myself a Ruth Duckworth fan. She works primarily with two kinds of clay, one of which is a hard stone clay, the other a porcelain clay. I am not certain of her techniques, but believe that both are handshaped and neither are chiseled.

The pieces are untitled (with only a few exceptions). They are only semi-representational. Many have a primitive aspect to them, remininding you of African or Oceanic traditional pieces. They vary in size from small table top pieces, to a few that would not fit in your house. They vary in tone (gray to browns), they have rounded sides for the most part. Some hang on the wall.

As an extra, there is a movie about her that shows continually. I sat through about 20 minutes of it, but was not there at the beginning, and did not stick around. It is a very good movie, both about her and about her sculpture.

I recommend that you go see the show. (I don't recommend that you buy the book for sale at the gift shop on her work; that would set you back $70.)

Win Some, Lose Some

We went to see our third movie in the Washington Jewish Film Festival last night, "El Cantor", a French movie about an American cousin who returns to Le Havre to see his reclusive father, the son of a renowned cantor, who gave up music after Auschwitz. But there is much more to the movie than that. Or should I say, much less. None of the characters, the returning son (a weird guy in his 50s), his meek dentist cousin, the dentist's severe Berliner wife (whose psychoanalysist father just died), the "tropical Jew" chanteuse, the father of the returnee, seem real or consistent or credible. We just did not like this movie.

Luckily, it was preceded by a surprisingly good dinner at Cafe Deluxe (the movie was at Bethesda Landmark) of lamb shank and sea bass, and was taking place as the Capitals were beating Ottawa 6-2, for their fourth victory in a row.

As to "El Cantor", all I can say is:

Go, Caps.

Who would have guessed?

Someone brought in some candy to the office with a label that said Toffee a l'Erable.

What could that be, I asked? Arabian toffee? (that made sense) Horrible toffee? (possible, but unlikely they would advertise it)

It turns out that it means maple toffee.

Who would have guessed that?

I bet that even people fluent in French don't know that word!

But now you (and I) do.

"Sasai"

Another night, another Jewish film festival movie, this one a documentary about an 21 year old Ethiopian Jewish man In Israel, who learns that his "parents" are his foster parents, that his "aunt" (who died) was his mother, and that his father (who did not marry his mother because he was drafted into the Ethiopian army) was still in Ethiopia. It is a story of the boy and father meeting for the first time, and about everyone's reaction.

The upshot? Believe it or not, Ethiopians are people, too.

(By the way, this is an important message).

Nice movie.

Taxis (2 cents)

I used to take taxis all the time.

Now I never take them.

Will someone please tell me what happened?

Emma Lazarus

"Emma Lazarus" is a new book by Elizabeth Shor about, you guessed it, Emma Lazarus. It is part of the Nextbook/Schocken series.

What did I know about Emma Lazarus before I read the book (or more accurately before I heard Elizabeth Shor lecture recently)? I knew that she wrote the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free......". That's it. That is all I knew.

What did I assume? I think I assume that she was a radical Jewish New Yorker, sort of an Emma Goldman. You know, you see one Emma, you've seen them all?

I did not know that she was a member of a very old and distinguished Sephardic Jewish family who could trace American roots to the 17th century, that she had plenty of money, and that she was educated and worldly and sophisticated. I did not know that she was close to Ralph Waldo Emerson and a friend her his daughter's, as well as of Nathaniel Hawthorne's, or that she knew William and Henry James, and even William Morris. That she was a very well published poet, and playwright and essayist.

I did not know that she never married (and that when she died, I am not sure that any of her five sisters had married), and that she died of Hodgkins Disease at a young age (nor that her physician was Dr. Hodgkins himself).

I did not know that she was a secular Jew, who became very interested in the rights of refugees, and in the possibility of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Before Herzl. And that she was very controversial. And that she did not seem to mind at all.

I did not know that, although her poem was selected for the Statue of Liberty (the poem perhaps being less controversial at the time that the statue itself), that she did not live long enough to see it in place.

I did not know that she was an absolutely fascinating and brilliant individual who, as Shor suggests, was way ahead of her time.

Who Killed Walter Benjamin?

That really is not the question. A better question is "Why Did Walter Benjamin die?"

Walter Benjamin, German/French/Jewish intellectual died in Port Bou, Spain, in September 1940, on his way from Vichy France to the United States (via Spain and Portugal). That much we know. But....

did he die of natural causes (he was in poor health and on an arduous journey), or

was he poisoned by Gestapo forces quartered in Port Bou, or collaborating Spanish Falangists, or

did he swallow the morphine tablets he was carrying and commit suicide?

These are the questions. Along with "does it really matter now"?

Forgetting this final question, it should be noted that from 1940 until very recently, Walter Benjamin's suicide was a given. But its only evidence is a suicide note reported by a companion, who said that she was unable to produce the note. Those who were there (we are talking 65 years ago) seem to doubt the suicide story. Some say that his lingering condition was not consistent with overdosing on morphine. Some say that as a suicide, he would not have been buried in a Catholic cemetery. Some say that the town's preferable doctor was out of town the day Benjamin got sick and he was replaced by a physician who was a fascist and German collaborator.

A documentary movie on the subject ("Who Killed Walter Benjamin?") was produced in Spain in 2005. It has been shown only sporadically, but it made the Jewish Film Festival and we saw it Sunday afternoon. I thought it was a terrific movie, not because it reached a conclusion, but because it took the point of view of a journalist, or investigator, trying to get to the bottom of the story, interviewing witnesses, their children, Port Bou residents today, scholars, and so forth, each with a somewhat different view of the situation.

It seems that nothing will ever been known definitively. But, after all, it was 1940 and this is 2006.

But what about the Litvinenko affair of 2006? Will we ever know what happened here??

Skriker

Skriker. Spike her. Strike her funny or sad or frightful. Insightful of beans. Beings. Human beings. Seeings. Fleeings. Flings and things. No kings or queens or jacks or aces. Faces. Places. In tech. Don't spec. Expect. Expectorate. Ration. Passion. Expression of things unseen.

If you have not seen Skriker at the Warehouse Theater, Caryl Churchill's play, you will have no idea what I just said. If you have, you will have no idea what I said. That's the play.

Fairies, demons, goblins, visions, angels, devils, gnomes, knolls, trolls. Name them if you can.

They used to be important and influential. Now they just hang around bumping into each other trying to figure out how they fit into the scheme of things. How they can still have an impact. And an impact they can have, but they can't seem to control the results. Brownian motion of unwordly beings.

Or, no. They don't exist at all. Two sisters see them, at different times, at the same time, differently, similarly. Mental illness? Genetic defect? DNA, say?

Not certain. Striker. Spike her. Striker funny or said or frightful. Insightful of beans..........

Congratulations, Hannah

A Worthless Question (2 cents)

Who was the literalist who convinced Pumpernickels to add the word "Each" after the words: "Hot Dogs: $2.50" on a sign over the counter?

What's In a Name?

There is a new proposal to rename the Washington Convention Center in honor and memory of the first home rule mayor of the city, Walter Washington. It is under active discussion, I understand.

If the proposal is adopted, the new name for the Washington Convention Center will be, I assume, the Washington Convention Center.

Not sure that I like the sound of that.