Weekend Plus One

[jducoeur]

A diary entry, since it was a busy weekend worth some thoughts while I remember them.


Saturday was Suit Day. Mind, I am not a suit and tie person -- I don't pull the things out often at all. So this day was truly exceptional: my little suitcase was full, because I needed my suit for the morning, and the tux for the evening.

In the morning, we were down in Hartford for tpau's bat mitzvah. This was really pretty fascinating, I have to say. I've been to a fair number of bar/bat mitzvahs before, but I think they were all in Reform temples, with a lot of English. This was a good deal more conservative, and *very* Hebrew-heavy, with just a bit of leavening of English, and instructions from the Rabbi to now flip to page 306. (Those of us who didn't know the liturgy were page-flipping frantically as it bounced around.)

Of course, I don't actually read Hebrew aside from scattered words, but I treated it as I always do, as a fun exercise in on-the-fly decryption. I know just enough of the alphabet to be able to kind of keep up, synchronizing on the frequent "adonai"s and "asher"s that were common enough for me to use them as keyframes when I got lost. None of which helps my reading comprehension much, but bit by bit over the years I'm beginning to internalize the letter-to-sound correlations, which is the very first step in literacy.

I was impressed by the congregation. The synagogue was quite large, and by the time we got into the main body of the morning it was respectably full. (The mitzvah service had 13 people in the class, so it started earlier than usual since it would necessarily run long.) For non-high-holy-days, it was quite a turnout, and a large fraction of the people there seemed very into it -- the bits that were read by the congregation were loud, with many people following smoothly along in the (bloody fast) Hebrew. And despite the *enormous* reception hall -- big enough for a Coronation -- it was totally mobbed when we broke for breakfast. It's clearly one of those good congregations that has successfully engaged the community and really drawn people in.


Following that, it was north to the evening's Eastern Star function. (With a brief detour into a lovely little local book sale along the way.) The OES thing turned out to be in an un-air-conditioned hall, which was bad news: we were still in the leading edge of Tropical Thingy Hanna, and to call the air "swampy" would be to insult the Everglades. Fortunately, someone was on the ball, and we found a little folding fan at each seat for dinner: without that, I'm sure someone would have gone down from the heat. Even with it, packing 140 into a medium-sized lodge room was a bit dicey; the Powers That Be chose to put sanity ahead of protocol, opened the doors (which are usually all closed during rituals), and encouraged the guys to remove their tux jackets. So nobody died, and the heat encouraged everyone to go a little quicker than usual, so we got through in only about 2.5 hours. (Which for a big Eastern Star shindig is pretty fast.)

The drive home was entertaining. I've driven through heavier rain, but never for two hours like that. It was a lot like driving through medium-grade snow: not terrifying, but requiring very close attention every step of the way. Fortunately, while the rain was intense, the wind wasn't bad, so the car was pretty stable.


The highlight of Monday (that's the "plus one") was the Tufts Activity Fair. I went over in garb to help the Science Fiction Society, which is trying to get a borough back off the ground there. I helped attract attention, and answered the more in-depth questions about the SCA when they came up. (In general, I'm trying to step back from being the front-line person at activity fairs, in favor of having the people without grey hair do so instead.)

This was a blast -- one of those reminders of why I enjoy activity fairs so much. Unlike last year (when they had to put the club president into a Darth Vader mask and go shake people down until they signed up), this time we got a pile of sign-ups just from being there. We were the official Geek Table: besides the SFS/SCA, we were sharing the table with the Strategic Gaming Society, and also had a sign-up sheet for the nascent Anime Club. (Towards the end of the day, the girls who are forming the Anime Club came by in their matching Anime School Girl outfits and did a performance of the main-title dance from the anime they were dressed as -- a fine perk for those of us working the table.) So basically, all geeks gravitated straight to our table, and signed lots of sheets.

I have to say, I'm really liking this group: they remind me a lot of Fenmere back in my day. When we didn't have freshmen to talk to, I got to talk to them about the various geekly pursuits in the area, including Arisia, Intercon, the Marathon, and so on. They're the kind of folks who get into all this stuff, but haven't had the contacts in the geek community to *find* all of it. So I'm helping them connect with it, and generally discover a bit more of what's available off-campus. I'm hoping we see more of them...

Comments

[querldox.livejournal.com]

D'you know if the Tufts SF group knows about the Harvard SF club? I know there's been some interaction between HRSFA and MITSFS, but don't recall seeing anything in HRSFA mailing list traffic about Tufts.

Btw, Vegas is not looking favorably at the post-Brady Patriots. One oddsmaker was quoted as saying the Pats were now 50-1 to win the Super Bowl, and another now picks the Bills to win the division (which seems to me out of left field; I would've expected the Jets to get moved up there if anyone).

[jducoeur]

D'you know if the Tufts SF group knows about the Harvard SF club?

Somewhat, at least -- I gather they attended Vericon last year. But keep in mind that the Tufts group is very small and new, and a tad shy: it's quite possible that HRSFA simply hasn't noticed them yet. I'm hoping to encourage them to meet other local groups, though (frankly, it might help the occasional movement to get Duncharloch back off the ground again).

Vegas is not looking favorably at the post-Brady Patriots

Oh, I'm not surprised. 50-1 seems a bit long to me, but my personal odds are only 10-1 or so, and I'm biased. But I think they've still got a good shot at the post-season, whereas some of the sportcasters make it sound like they are Doomed Doomed Doomed...

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm impressed that you made any attempt to follow the Hebrew at all. The page-flipping is common even with those like me who do read the letters and understand a smattering of the Hebrew in context. And you'll find that the more orthodox the congregation, the faster they go. I attribute that to a couple of factors. Greater orthodoxy, of course, places more importance on getting all the words in -- think of a legal disclaimer in a radio ad. I also recall from my youth a sort of ego-boo competition that went on among some of the, um, pillars of the congregation: "I know this so well I can recite the entire prayer in 6.3 seconds", that sort of thing. A bunch of old men all mumbling at different rates, back when we went to the "old schul" %^). It had a certain charm, but it surely wasn't easy to follow.

[jducoeur]

And you'll find that the more orthodox the congregation, the faster they go.

Yeah, that matches what I observed. The members of the mitzvah class were, on average, reading at something like the speed I'm used to: not crawling, but at a speed that I could follow along with. But it took me the first third of the service to realize that the reason I was having so much trouble following the cantor and rabbis was that they were reading at something like twice the speed I'm used to seeing...

[jducoeur]

Oh, I didn't mention the bit that *really* threw me off: the liturgy switched from out-loud to silent prayer, apparently at random, repeatedly. It seems to be one of those things that the members of the congregation just knew about and expected, but damned if I could spot any pattern indicating the switches in the book. So periodically, everything would just go quiet, and apparently pick up again a couple of paragraphs later...

[cellio]

That threw me when I first encountered it too. Some prayer books have a mark of some sort at the point where the leader picks it up again out loud, so you can scan ahead for those if you need to.

And yeah, it's not well-defined, mostly. If you remember a longer stretch of silent (or "by yourself"; it probably involved mumbling), that was probably the Amidah, the "standing" prayer, which is first said individually and then repeated by the leader (usually). And you just have to know that we're now going back 40 pages for the repitition.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Thank you for going to the Tufts demo! I know you're trying to step back from that stuff, but for whatever reason they just don't seem to connect with me.

[jducoeur]

Actually, at this point I'm past at least the worst of the burnout: in particular, I'm looking for more variety. I'm still rather burned out with dance practice, but getting out and doing other stuff is proving helpful. And there are few things I enjoy more than hanging out with an energetic borough...

Speaking of suits...

[new-man.livejournal.com]

As you may recall, you gave a tailcoat to missminadances a while back. Now suitably decorated with rhinestones, she uses it in some of her numbers. At dress rehearsal on Sunday, she did some move and there was a little clattering sound and something fell from the coat – not surprising, it happens all the time. Buttons, rhinestones, etc. come lose from costumes. It's the way of the world.

After the number we were cleaning up and discovered that it was a small 10-sided die. When I looked puzzled, she said "Remember who's coat this used to be..." and all became clear.

Re: Speaking of suits...

[jducoeur]

Now suitably decorated with rhinestones, she uses it in some of her numbers.

I *so* need to see one of those numbers -- it sounds lovely. Need to get to more shows...

When I looked puzzled, she said "Remember who's coat this used to be..." and all became clear.

Except to *me* -- remember that I've never done much tabletop, so I actually don't use many of those dice. Now I'm curious why it was there. Possibly from some LARP, I suppose: it's not unusual for GMs to give out dice for combat resolution, and it would be plausible that the last thing I wore it to was a LARP...

Re: Speaking of suits...

[new-man.livejournal.com]

I *so* need to see one of those numbers -- it sounds lovely.

She uses it for one of her standards, "Morität von Mackie Messer" from Die Dreigroschenoper (it's the original lyrics to "Mack the Knife" sung in German).

Need to get to more shows...

We keep having them – and two of the ones in September are even free ;-)

Possibly from some LARP

That was my guess.