Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

S. Epatha Merkerson is 70

Isaac Hawkins Hall

Epatha MerkersonThe actor S. Epatha Merkerson played Lieutenant Anita Van Buren in 390 episodes of the long-running procedural Law and Order, from 1993 to 2010. I thought she was very credible in playing someone who had to deal with some added burdens in the workplace. She talked about the wigs she wore for the show.

I got the sense that Alex Trebek was a big fan of hers when she appeared on Celebrity JEOPARDY in 1999.

But she’s done a lot more. Epatha was nominated for two Tony Awards. She was up for Best Actress In A Play in 2008 for Come Back, Little Sheba, and Best Featured Actress In A Play in 1990 for The Piano Lesson.

I did not know that she was Reba in 16 episodes of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, primarily because I never watched the show. Currently, she plays Sharon Goodwin on Chicago Med, a program I’ve watched exactly once.

Georgetown

What I did see her in was the Freedom Tales episode of Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., which first aired on February 5, 2019. It reran early in 2022.

One of the most significant findings was that an ancestor of Epatha, Patrick Hawkins, was one of 272 people enslaved by the Jesuit priests of what is now Georgetown University who were sold to two planters in Louisiana in 1838. Money was tight for the educational institution. There’s a pretty good Wikipedia page on the subject.

WETA, the PBS station in DC hosted a screening and discussion of the episode. here’s a five-minute clip. Also, read Sister Melannie Svoboda’s blog.

“Despite her success, Merkerson recounted how she had ‘always wanted to know’ where her family came from. When she asked her grandmother to tell her about their ancestors, her grandmother responded, ‘It’s painful. You don’t need to hear any of this.'” This is not an unusual response.

“The ‘inventory’ compiled by the Jesuits for the sale listed the name of every slave. On the list were five of Patrick Hawkins’ relatives, his wife Letty, his son Peter, and his father Isaac. Georgetown recently renamed the Former Jesuit Residence after Isaac Hawkins following student protests over its original name that honored one of the Jesuits involved in the sale.

“Brought to tears, Merkerson responded, ‘They have names…they have names. They’re not just faceless people.'”

Reunion

At the end of the episode, S. Epatha Merkerson attended a reunion of the GU272 Descendants Association. “GU272 is dedicated to preserving the memory, commemorating the lives, and restoring the honor of the GU272 enslaved people sold by the Maryland Province Jesuits in 1838 and those who were enslaved before, during, and after the sale by the Society of Jesus. As Descendants, we commit to reconciling our ancestors’ enslavement, reconnecting families, and renewing ties lost.”

Epatha said on the Finding Your Roots episode that maybe she’ll be able to take courses at Georgetown. Implicit was that she should be able to take them for free.

Swap-Bot Sunday Stealing

assault weapons, peanut butter, the movie Rollover

Swap-botThe  Sunday Stealing this week came from Swap-Bot. These were dubbed by the moderator, Bev, as silly questions. Some of them are just plain weird.

What mythical creature would improve the world most if it existed?

The phoenix could fly around from town to town, helping them to rise from the ashes of fires and the devastation of droughts. Maybe it could work on wind and water damage too.

What inanimate object do you wish you could eliminate from existence?

Assault weapons, such as AK-47s. BTW, I agree with those who have ever been in conversation about these weapons of massive destruction and are seeking to ban them. You call something an AK-47, but it’s an AR-15. So you are chastised that since you don’t know the difference, your opinions don’t matter. What I do know is how either one affects the human body. There’s a video from 60 Minutes from 2018, unfortunately now housed behind the Paramount + paywall, which explains this quite graphically.

What is the weirdest thing you have seen in someone else’s home?

It was actually at my grandmother’s house, I think. A tiny picture of “Jesus”was in a frame, and the eyes seemed to follow you around. It was creepy. The technique is mentioned on this site.

What would be the absolute worst name you could give your child?

Jelly Bean Green

What would be the worst thing for the government to make illegal?

Voting. And sometimes they try.

What are some of the nicknames you have for customers or coworkers?

Not a nickname, but when I was a working librarian, we always said, “We don’t know everything, but we know how to find it.”

Jif

If peanut butter wasn’t called peanut butter, what would it be called?

Toxic paste. My daughter is allergic. When I was young, I used to eat a lot of peanut butter, specifically Jif. I’m convinced I probably ate too much at some point because now I can’t stand it. This has actually been a boon to our family for a couple of reasons. 1) When we’re somewhere with unlabeled cookies, I can take a bite and tell my daughter instantly not to eat them before I spit them out. 2) My wife got Reese’s Pieces that my daughter would receive for trick-or-treating.

What movie would be greatly improved if it was made into a musical?

I’ve thought about this a lot. While I don’t particularly remember the film well, I thought it was TERRIBLE. (While 7 of 9 Rotten Tomatoes critics gave it a positive review, the audience was only 33% positive.) I’m picking Rollover (1981), about which one critic wrote, “Perhaps I might have liked it if I knew what it was all about.”

The plot: “The wife of a murdered petrochemical company chairman and a banker investigating the liquidity of his new bank stumbles upon an international financial scheme that could lead to global economic collapse.” It starred Jane Fonda, during a run of several well-regarded films, and Kris Kristofferson. I believe a scene was filmed at SUNY Albany. Music could only have made it better.

What would be the worst “buy one get one free” sale of all time?

A week in Antarctica in July.

Name game

What is the funniest name you have actually heard used in the real world?

It’s a strange thing. When you hear it over and over again, it’s not so weird. I’m specifically thinking of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who most Hollywood agent types thought he should change. Now, there are so many diverse names, perhaps difficult to pronounce, but people figure it out.

What sport would be the funniest to add a mandatory amount of alcohol to?

People in the stands drinking beer are usually okay. Watching people drinking while performing is not interesting to me.

What would be the coolest animal to scale up to the size of a horse?

All of the examples I thought of were terrifying. A hard PASS.

What set of items could you buy that would make the cashier the most uncomfortable?

I find most cashiers don’t care all that much.

What is something you just recently realized that you are embarrassed you didn’t realize earlier?

Probably the definition or pronunciation of a word, but frankly, I don’t remember (or much care) what it was. And “embarrassed” is a gross exaggeration.

What are some fun and interesting alternatives to war that countries could settle their differences with?

Not necessarily fun, but games of tic-tac-toe with the starter alternating. You succeed when you win ten games in a row. It’d go on forever, so there would be no time to fight.

Lydster: the college semester

Facebook Meet

I take it that my daughter mostly likes her first college semester. Frankly, I feared that her school experience might have been marred because of her delayed start due to COVID. That was my projection based on an experience I had.

Specifically, two days before I went to grad school at the University at Albany in 1979 in Public Administration, I got a small infection in my toe. By the time I had to register for classes, I was in dire pain. Right after I completed the process, I limped over to the infirmary. They put me in bed immediately for the next six days. The staff feared that the infection running up my leg would run up to my heart and kill me.

(This is, BTW, one of the reasons I worried about my wife when she had HER infection in October and why I, long before any of her doctors mentioned it, insisted that she keep her leg elevated.)

The result for me was that I felt behind in my classwork. After a year, I dropped out and instead worked at a comic book store for 8.5 years.

Different

But my daughter was fine. She eventually figured out where the cafeteria was and found her classes. She made a couple of friends in her dorms, and all in all, she’s doing pretty well.

Well, except in one of her courses. The class breaks up into teams of six, and they are supposed to put together a coherent PowerPoint-type presentation with each team member contributing just one or two slides. But one of her colleagues both overproduced and added indefensible opinions. Her team never met when everyone was present.

So I got a text from my daughter asking if we could talk on Facebook Meet. For 2.5 hours, we talked mainly about that topic, and I recommended sources to look at. But we also spoke about the school, her mom’s condition, and people asking about her at church. This was very nice.

Just maybe I miss her a little.

Most awarded songs #6

a library school story

Frankie Lymon

Counting down to the most awarded songs #6. Still more tunes that got awards from the Grammys, the Oscars, Rolling Stone magazine, RIAA, ASCAP, CMA, NPR, and the like.

100. Your Song – Elton John. The first song on the first Elton John album I owned, which I mistakenly thought WAS the first Elton John album because it was eponymously named.
99. You Really Got Me – The Kinks. The early Kinks were a really LOUD band, and this song epitomized that. I don’t think I really appreciated the band until later on.
98. Why Do Fools Fall In Love – Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. This is a very good question! This song was SO infectious it was covered by the Beach Boys, Diana Ross, and even Joni Mitchell.
97. Maybellene – Chuck Berry. His first hit and it redefined rock and roll. Apparently named for the makeup company.
96. I Got You (I Feel Good) – James Brown. Not only was it #1 on the R and B charts for SIX weeks, but it was also the highest-ranked song of his on the pop charts, #3 for three weeks in 1965.
95. Suspicious Minds – Elvis Presley. I always associate this song with Elvis’ big comeback c. 1968.

“Just look over your shoulder”

94. Reach Out I’ll Be There – The Four Tops. Their second #1, on both the R and B, and pop charts, after I Can’t Help Myself. I saw the Four Tops and The Temptations at Heritage Park in Colonie, near Albany in the mid-1980s. It was not a great venue but they were fine anyway.
93. House Of The Rising Sun – The Animals. This is a really old song, at least six decades before it became a #1 hit in 1964.
92. Wake Up Little Susie – The Everly Brothers. I loved this song at the time. In retrospect, I love it even more. It denotes a certain level of innocence. “What are we gonna tell our friends when they say, ‘Ooh, la, la’?”
91. Billie Jean – Michael Jackson. When I was in library school, I had written a paper about how, initially, MTV wasn’t going to show Michael Jackson videos because MJ was too.. “urban” or something. His label, Columbia/Epic, said that if he didn’t get on the platform, the label would yank their OTHER videos from MTV, and MTV capitulated. MTV made Michael, and Michael made MTV. Anyway, my professor was surprised that the facts I stated about this situation, which I thought were rather well known, were actually true. I was a bit bemused by that, and maybe a bit ticked off.

Thankful for a lot of stuff

all y’all

thanks for a lot of stuffI don’t think I do the Thanksgiving thing exceptionally well. I really am thankful for a lot of stuff, but it always feels like I offer the same thing as I said some recent year.

So I will attempt to be as specific as possible, at least this year.

I am thankful…

…that there has been a series of COVID vaccines and treatments, so when my wife, daughter, and I all got COVID at the end of August, it was annoying and a bit uncomfortable. But it wasn’t awful, and certainly not life-threatening for us.

…that my daughter’s late start at college – because of the aforementioned COVID – did not seem to hinder her adjustment

… for all of the people who provided transportation in October, including Dan, Lee, Eric, Deb, Phillip, Jon, and Bruce; especially Bruce

… for all the food assistance, specifically Dan, Tracy, and Miriam

… for all the prayers and well-wishes, too numerous to mention, though I must note Karen and Mark

… for my sisters Leslie and Marcia, who helped me with trying to excavate new insights about our parents, especially our mother

Music!

…for the choir, including Michael, Trevor, Jerry, and even the altos (I jest!), particularly Fiona, and for the opportunity to make a joyful noise

… for Jon and Gene, who put together good programming each week at the Albany Public Library, and for Jon (different Jon), who made me look good with his presentation, which I booked

… for my Wordle buddies, such as David, Matthew, Jeanne, Chas, Andrew, oh, and Carol

… for those many people I’ve gotten to know online, such as Arthur, Kelly, Gus, Erica, Eddie, and even Greg – or gotten to rekindle relationships, including but not limited to Alison, Alberta, and Bill

… for my daughter, who lets me put my librarian skills to work now and then

… for my wife, even though she almost always beats me at Boggle

I could go on. The problem with making a list is that I exclude people like Rebecca, Alex,  Paul, Mary Liz, Glenn, Adam, Tony, my other church friends, and my hearts friends… As Yul Brynner used to say, “et cetera, et cetera.”

Ramblin' with Roger
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