Sunday Stealing Archives - Page 13 of 35

Sunday Stealing: most important

West Side Story

1. What is most important to you?

Holding the door open for someone. I mean that literally, sure, but I also mean it metaphorically. In the law of the conservation of energy, it “can neither be created nor destroyed – only converted from one form of energy to another.” So if the door is already open, it doesn’t require additional energy to keep it open and let others in.

2. Your best trait.

I observe. Then I do stuff to make a situation better, or more often, less bad.

3. A movie that makes you happy.

I haven’t watched it in a very long time, but Young Frankenstein (1974). “Pardon me, boy, is this the Transylvania station?”

4. Something that excites you.

Music excites me because, shockingly often, I play something that I had listened to dozens of times yet I hear something new. Then there are the bits that almost always excite me.

5. Something that worries you.

As a librarian, it’s the proliferation of false information that is becoming less discernable, from AI-generated photos to other deep fakes.

6. Actions you admire.

There are a lot. I’ll pick this fact: The Tony Awards & Carnegie Mellon University Present The 2024 Excellence In Theatre Education Award To CJay Philip Of Baltimore, daughter of my buddy Nell Stokes of Albany.

Annus mirabilis

7. What year has been your best so far?

Maybe in 2023, when I went to France and Las Vegas. Perhaps in 2019, when I quit my job; I mean, retired.

8. Who do you trust?

A few people I met in 1958, 1968, and 1971. There are others.

9. A Song from Your Childhood.

Here are the end credits for the movie West Side Story (1961). When I was a kid and heard that bit at about 4:30, it made me weep. And it still does.

10. What you wore today?

I wear essentially the same thing every day, a shirt, and pants, usually black or navy blue. A hat or cap, depending on the season. Even this past Sunday, when the choir wore T-shirts, I wore a long-sleeved T-shirt underneath to cover my arms, which has splotchiness from vitiligo.

11. A book you are currently reading

The Undertow: Scenes From A Slow Civil War by Jeff Sharlet. After I heard him and others speak in Albany one evening in November 2023, he and I had breakfast the next morning.

12. What do you want less of?

Stupid social media stuff posing as “news.” On CBS Mornings this month, one of their Talk Of The Table segments was of a woman on a social media platform ranting that she would NOT be returning her shopping cart to a collection area because she thought someone would go to her car and snatch her children. My thought: so she doesn’t bring it back. So what? Why should I care and why is CBS spending three minutes on a non-story?

Orange you wondering?

13. A question that needs to be asked.

Is the presumptive Republican candidate for President unhinged? At a rally this month in Las Vegas, he talked about being aboard a hypothetical electric-powered boat. “He posits that the battery would be so heavy that it would cause the craft to sink, and he relates his purported conversation with a knowledgeable mariner about this scenario.”

“I say, ‘What would happen if the boat sank from its weight, and you’re in the boat, and you have this tremendously powerful battery, and the battery’s now underwater, and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there?’

“By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately, do you notice that? Lot of sharks. I watched some guys justifying it today: ‘Well they weren’t really that angry, they bit off the young lady’s leg because of the fact that they were not hungry but they misunderstood who she was.’ These people are crazy. He said, ‘There’s no problem with sharks, they just didn’t really understand a young woman swimming.’ No, really got decimated, and other people, too, a lot of shark attacks.

“So I said, ‘There’s a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards, or here. Do I get electrocuted if the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking? Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted, or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?’ Because I will tell you, he didn’t know the answer.

“He said, ‘You know, nobody’s ever asked me that question.’ I said, ‘I think it’s a good question. I think there’s a lot of electric current coming through that water.’ But you know what I’d do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted? I’ll take electrocution every single time. I’m not getting near the shark. So we’re going to end that, we’re going to end it for boats, we’re going to end it for trucks.”

WHAT? And he’s told a variation on this story before.

Home

14. The best idea you’ve had this week.

I decided NOT to go on a trip next weekend. I’ll be able to see a barbershop quartet this Friday at my church, then to visit with a friend I’ve only known since 1958 on Sunday or Monday.

15. How are you creative?

I was at a choir party this week, and I apparently know the bass vocal to Good Night, Sweetheart by The Spaniels.

Sunday Stealing: afraid of the dark?

cartoons

Here’s another edition of Sunday Stealing.

1. Are you afraid of the dark?

The dark increasingly disorients me. If I had been driving, I’d probably would have had to give it up.

My wife and I stayed in a timeshare in May. Even though I knew the layout of the room, going to the bathroom in the middle of the night was a bit terrifying. I retreated to my side of the bed and got my phone. I didn’t even need the flashlight, just the light from the screen. Before I left the loo, I left the light on and then closed the door. That minimal illumination did not disturb my wife, who is sensitive to being awakened by light when she sleeps.

To that end, I’m Afraid To Come Home in the Dark (1904) by Arthur Collins.

2. Can you curl your tongue?

Yes, in both directions.

3. Can you wiggle your ears?

No, but I’m not distressed by it.

4. Did you ever participate in a talent show?

I wrote about this about eight months ago. When I was in high school, there was a Red Cross training event in Manlius, NY, near Syracuse. At the end of the week, there was a talent show, and somehow, a couple of guys, one a blues guitarist, asked me to play with them. I stood on stage, people expecting me to sing. Instead, I played the comb. The whole thing was about 3 minutes. I got a standing ovation.

Is JEOPARDY a talent show?

5. Do you have any piercings or tattoos?

No. And while I’m more okay with them on other people, I’m unlikely to ever get one unless I reach 100.

Computer loyalty

6. Do you prefer Mac or PC?

It’s not a matter of preference. All of my computers at work were PCs, so that’s what I got at home. Indeed, I never had an Apple phone until 2018 after I lost my previous one. I’ve since replaced that one before I went to France in 2023. BTW, I believe there’s merit to the DOJ’s legal proceedings against Apple.

7. Do you still have your wisdom teeth?

No, I had mine taken out in my early twenties. Not incidentally, my daughter will likely need to get hers taken out this summer. As she has no dental insurance, it will be a costly procedure.

8. Do you watch cartoons?

I often see the Best Animated Shorts that were nominated for Oscars. I’ve seen the films Chicken Run; Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 1 and 2; Coco; Fantastic Mr. Fox; Finding Nemo; Finding Dory; Frozen; Howl’s Moving Castle; The Incredibles; Inside Out; Iron Giant; Isle Of Dogs; Moana; Monsters Inc.; Persepolis; Puss In Boots: The Last Wish; Ratatouille; Shrek 1 and 2; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; Spirited Away; Toy Story 1-4 Up; WALL-E; Wolfwalker; and Zootopia. And those are just the ones I can remember from the last 30 years or so.

Hospitalization

9. Have you ever been hospitalized?

An uncontrollable bloody nose when I was five and a half; the car accident in June 1972 for a day and a half; and sometime in the last 15 years when I thought I was experiencing heart irregularity, but I was okay.

10. Have you had braces?

No.

11. Were you ever a Girl or Boy Scout? (Or a brownie)

No. I was a Cub Scout for about a year. I was terrible at it. But I was very fond of our den mother, Mrs. Lia, and when her son Ray, who was in my den, got married in mid-October 1976, I was pleased to escort her to her seat.

12. What is one food you refuse to eat?

I would not say “refused” as much as I’d rather not eat anchovies.

13. What’s the most expensive item of clothing that you own?

Probably a suit.

14. What’s your favorite foreign food?

Recently, there was a story on CBS News about a South Asian restaurant that prided itself in NOT serving chicken tikka masala, which I thought was cool. Still, I’ll pick that.

15. Who’s your favorite fictional character?

Quite possibly, Peter Parker.

Sunday Stealing: if you like art

the new orange

Another Sunday Stealing.

1. If you like art, who is your favourite artist and why?

I love seeing art. The Clark Art Museum and MASS MoCA are just two venues not so far away. That reminds me that last week I wrote about the Nell Stokes exhibit at the Albany Institute of History and Art being cut short. It is now scheduled to end on December 31, 2024, as initially promised. This is good because I had not had a chance to see it.

I think Rodin sculptures are sexy as all get out and much more so in person than in photos. Speaking of photos, I’d go with Dorothea Lange. As for painters, there are too many to name.

2. If you were able to learn any three skills or talents instantly and with success, what would they be?

Computer repair, typing, and square dancing.

3. If you were to live in Ancient Times, where – in what country – would you want to live in?

Nigeria, probably because I have ancestors there.

4. What is something you’re embarrassed to admit to liking? Whether it be a guilty pleasure show, or unusual hobby, etc.

I’ve given up on guilty pleasures. I mean, I used to collect comic books. I still have comics-related books and Hess trucks.

Worst job

5. What is the worst job you’ve ever had?

I worked in a box factory, but that was only two weeks. Empire Blue Cross was pretty terrible but it was only 13 months. Possibly my last job because it was so often disappointing; it wasn’t terrible all of the time, but most of the last four years were awful, and there were periods before that.

6. What is something that you wanted to do as a child that you would still like to do now?

Be a trial lawyer. I was a sucker for Perry Mason, Judd for the Defense, The Bold Ones: The Lawyers, et al.

7. What do you hate being judged for more than anything else?

Appearance. It seems so shallow.

8. What is your life’s mission?

To make people’s lives suck less.

9. If everyone walked around wearing warning labels, what would yours say?

I have a very long fuse, but I will likely scream at you if I tell you I’m reaching my limit, yet you keep pushing it.

10. At what age did you first feel like you were an adult?

I think it’ll be next year. Or the year after that.

Speak up

11. When did you not speak up, but wish you had?

I actually talked to someone about this in May 2024. In my last job, the organization was taken over for a couple of years around the turn of the millennium by a corrupt yet idiotic political hack named Felix, who eventually was indicted and went to jail for a time.

I was in charge of a committee tasked to hire someone to be a business advisor, which was all done by the book. Then one of the committee members, who I’ll call Holly, said we had to select someone else as well, a person who had not gone through the vetting process. I said I wouldn’t sign off on it, so SHE did.

I didn’t think complaining up the chain would have mattered – the chancellor’s wife worked for Felix. But maybe I should have found a mid-level bureaucrat to complain to, who might have been more isolated from the chain of command. Still, I was so taken aback by Holly’s action that I didn’t remember the name of the mystery candidate, though maybe the bureaucrats could have found the person by their work start date. But the political corruption was so bad at the time that nothing would likely have happened.

12. What is something that makes your skin crawl?

Bad liars. Orange is the new orange.

13. What was the last thing to give you butterflies in your stomach?

Doing a book review.

14. What’s your favorite type of media to work with? (Paint, clay, pens, etc.)

I’m not an artist. But I used to love Play-Doh.

15. What question do you hate answering?

I might have said talking about racism. But one of the comments to a recent post reminded me that people are at different places in their awareness of the phenomenon.

Sunday Stealing: Nell Stokes

strawberry

Before I get to this week’s Sunday Stealing, something hyperlocal, curious, and time-sensitive. There is an exhibit called “Nell Stokes: Stories of an Education Advocate” at the Albany Institute of History and Art, an entity my wife and I have supported financially. The exhibit was mounted by Lacey Wilson on December 19, 2023, and was scheduled to be up until December 2024. (Here’s an interview with Lacey from January.)

However, by chance, Nell, a local treasure, learned on May 19, 2024, that the exhibit will be taken down in a few days (i.e., tomorrow, May 26.) She posted about it on her Facebook page and received questions on why it was being removed five months in when twelve months was promised. She believes, and I agree, that it should stay up as promised until December, and we need to know, if not, why not.

Her request to you is to call Diane Shewchuk at 518.463.4478, Ex 441, and ask the Question.

And now back to our regular quiz

1. Have you ever been stung or bitten by an animal?

I’ve been stung by bees, or probably wasps. While my dog, an Alaskan husky, bit me when I was a kid, it was the fact that my parents (probably my father) thought it was no big deal until Lucky Stubbs bit one of the pastor’s daughters, that really irritated me. Only then he gave him to one of his co-workers who had more property to allow the dog to roam.

2. Do you have a favorite bird? Do you feed the birds at your house or park?

Of the ones I never see: ostriches, penguins. In the I’ve seen them category: blue jays, cardinals, et al. And eagles. Frankly, if it weren’t for neighborhood standards, I’d never mow the lawn so the creatures could forage. BTW, the question reminds me of the song My Conviction from the musical Hair.

Specifically: “There is a peculiar notionThat elegant plumageAnd fine feathersAre not proper for the maleWhen actuallyThat is the way things are in most species”

3. What is the last thing you said to somebody before replying to this email?

To the Daughter: “Take the Zyrtec first.”

I remember sleep

4. How do you get yourself ready to sleep at night?

This probably requires its own blogpost. Short answer: there’s no consistent pattern in terms of when I go to bed, or how long I’m off my computer, or whether I watch television first. Usually, I watch a recorded episode of JEOPARDY, because I get teases on my phone which reveal TMI. I have what they call bad sleep hygiene, and it’s gotten worse in the last several months. I do take a battery of Rx pills and brush my teeth.

5. When was the last time you wrote a proper letter?

“Proper” is an interesting term. I did write a Christmas letter at the end of the year and even snail-mailed it to several people who had sent me cards over the past two or three years.

6. What is the worst injury you have ever sustained?

Our contenders: June 1972 – I was getting out of a car when it was rear-ended. I spent a day and a half in the hospital, then six weeks in physical therapy. 1994 – I tore the left meniscus sliding down a mountain in Utah. 2009 – I broke a rib while on my bicycle, trying to avoid a car. We’ll go with the knee, which troubles me to this day.

7. If you could choose your career based strictly on what you think would be fun instead of your qualifications/salary/etc., what would it be?

I wish I had been a public librarian rather than working in a closed environment.

An alternate Earth

8. You can live on another planet, which one and why?

There’s probably a planet somewhere in the universe that has to have a similar ecosystem as Earth. Maybe the people there haven’t mucked up the environment as much as we have.

9. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Strawberry. There was a place in my college town, New Paltz, where I’d have a sundae, and it’d be strawberry ice cream and strawberry sauce.

10. What do you think of tattoos? Do you have any?

I’ve mellowed on tattoos. From not liking them at all to finding some quite appealing, though usually not the full-body jobs. But I’m never getting one.

11. Are you very active or do you prefer to just relax in your free time?

I don’t have any free time. Some items sit on my to-do list for months while more pressing items muscle their way onto my calendar. This is related to my bad sleep patterns. Maybe when my wife retires.

12. If you could bring back one TV show that was cancelled, which one would you bring back?

There are plenty of shows. But a lot of reboots, even with the same cast, they are lesser efforts. Murphy Brown was a prime example.

No surprise

13. Do you prefer to watch movies in the theater or in the comfort of your own home?

In the cinema. I simply have no patience/discipline to watch a movie at home and watch it in the way it was meant to be viewed, which is straight through.

14. If you opened a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?

First, I would never open a restaurant; it is way too much of a hassle. That said, something like Sabor a Campo, which is “an eat-in buffet, carry-out style restaurant, specializing in value-driven multicultural foods, and set in a relaxed, homey, and familial environment.”

15. What do you think is a common thing that is shared between countries despite language barriers?

Most people just want to be left alone to work, raise and feed their families, with respect, civility, and peace.

I see there’s a new final question:

15. If money were no object what would you do for your next birthday??

Right now, I have no idea. It’s in the middle of my wife’s work year and my daughter’s school year. Under the right circumstances, I’d travel somewhere I’ve never been, maybe Ireland and Nigeria.

Sunday stealing: liturgy of the Word

LOUD

Here’s this week’s Sunday Stealing. I looked at the questions, and many of them seemed very familiar. In fact, look at these answers from two months ago.

But there is something in a lot of church worship called the liturgy, which is “a customary repertoire of ideas, phrases, or observances. The liturgy of the Word consists of Scripture readings, repeated in a three-year cycle. The theory is that as one revisits them, one has new insight.

So I will answer all the questions, even the repeats, but answer them differently.

1. Write about the best decision you ever made. How did you make it? Was it reasoning or gut instinct?

It was moving to the Capital District of New York State in late 1977. As you can tell, it was definitely not reasoning. And it wasn’t gut instinct. It was desperation.

2. What ONE thing would you change about your life? How would your life be different?

I honestly cannot answer this. If I did this, then I wouldn’t have done that. I can think of a good half dozen choices that would have changed my life if I had said, or didn’t say, X. Think the multiverse.

Mom

3. What is the hardest thing you have ever done? Why was it hard for you? What did you learn?

It wasn’t watching my mom die. It was a few minutes before that when I thought she was suffocating to death. I freaked out and rang the nurses, even though she had a DNR. This is a natural devolution of end of life, I learned. Do I need to explain why it was difficult? It’s added to my pool of information for Death Cafe courses I have helped to facilitate. I’ve since embraced the topic of death, learning about death doulas, for instance.

4. What is your greatest hope for your future? What steps can you take to make it happen?

Someday, my wife will retire. I can make oatmeal for us almost every morning.

5. If you can time travel, what will you tell your teenage self?

Not a damn thing because I wouldn’t believe it anyway. If I did believe my Future Self, it would alter what I might have experienced.

6. Write about the most glorious moment in your life so far.

One would be when my church choir performed the Mozart Requiem in March 1985, then a handful of us crashed Albany Pro Musica and performed it on September 11, 2002; afterward, it was the only time I wore a tuxedo to work.

7. What did you struggle most with today?

Time management. the more I NEED to do, the less likely I have the focus to do so,

8. What made you happy today?

Takeout Indian food.

Grandma

9. What did you dislike most about growing up?

The deaths of my paternal grandmother, Agatha Walker in 1964, when I was 11, and my great aunt Adenia Yates in 1966, when I was almost 13. They were great.

10. Write about 3 activities you love the most and why you love them.

Music (singing), music (listening to recordings), and music (hearing live music). Because joy.

11. What has been your best trip so far?

There have been a few. The first best trip as a family was probably a 2008 trip to colonial Williamsburg, pictured above.

12. Write a list of 3 things (physical or personality-wise) you love about yourself, and why they make you unique.

We’re all unique, with specific recollections and skills. Mine tend to be with numbers. I had to exchange some tickets for a musical, and they would cost more. In my head, I figured it out before the person with the calculator could. Math is everywhere. Why? Because it’s useful and fun.

Unfairness ticks me off. Cars that park in crosswalks, making it difficult for pedestrians, who might be blind or have a walker or a shopping cart are selfish jerks. Unfortunately, I’m too civilized to key their cars, But I think about it way too often.

And music. I hear it, even when it’s not playing. I listen for the tones of fire trucks, vacuum cleaners, or chainsaws. Why? Because music. Renée Fleming has edited a new book called Music and Mind, which someone ought to get for me.

Openish book

13. Discuss 3 things you wish others knew about you.

I’ve been writing a blog for 19 years. Whatever I haven’t told you I either don’t think I can share, at least not yet, or I don’t remember anymore.

14. Write about your top 3 personal strengths.

I can be VERY LOUD when I have to be, a useful skill when someone tries to announce amid a noisy room. My go-to: “OYEZ!! OYEZ!”

I observe a great deal, looking for people in certain settings who seem new or shy.

I have that curiosity gene that a good librarian needs. It’s been used in the blog dozens of times per year.

15. Is social media a blessing or a curse?

My general observation is that there’s a LOT of information, too much to keep track of. I saw this post about a woman leaving the reality show Real Housewives of the Potomac. There’s a show called Real Housewives of the Potomac. And it’s been on since 2016?! I spend more time skipping things than reading them.

Occasionally, I will indulge myself by watching three or four reels on Facebook of billiard shots. I love billiards, but I suck at it, so the game interests me.