2015 newsletter
Once again, time for the annual newsletter. I got to see some notable people this year: In January, Hall of Famer Hank Aaron spoke at the LBJ Library emphasizing his civil rights work over his baseball achievements. Robert Reich delivered of the best speeches I heard all year (his film "Inequality for All" was one of the best docs in 2013). I'd seen Penelope Spheeris in 1998, but this time I got a photo with her. She was in town screening all three of her The Decline Of Western Civilization documentaries. (Her best-known film is probably Wayne's World).
It was a thrill to see Judy Blume (in June); I've read twenty-two of her books. Her latest ("In the Unlikely Event") is set in her childhood town of Elizabeth New Jersey (where three planes crashed in an eighty-day period in 1951-52). At that time my family lived in Roselle Park (one block from Elizabeth). Five months later Judy replied to an email I sent. I'd seen John Irving ten years ago and he was just as amazing this year (I've read all but his latest book).
I saw several additional authors whose books I've enjoyed including Dave Zirin, Taylor Branch, H. W. Brands, John Burnett, Colleen Hoover, Lemony Snicket, Amy Stewart (one of the best in-store appearances), David Levithan, Lawrence Wright, and Bill Crider (I've been Facebook friends with Bill for eight years and have now read forty-eight of his books (eight this year). It was nice to finally meet him, though I discovered I'd gotten his autograph back in '98).
As usual, I saw all of the Overheard with Evan Smith tapings (21) and they continue to be a great delight. Two of the democratic presidential candidates (Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley) were on the program (both were great). Other highlights were Salman Kahn, Barney Franks, Cokie Roberts, Taylor Branch, and Robert Reich.
I found about five hundred old family photos (mostly taken by my dad) in two file cabinets. In addition, cousin Jim Wiegley found about two hundred and fifty. We digitized them and I've been posting them on Facebook. One album is at and there's a link at each album to the adjacent albums. So far, I've added over eight hundred family photos, with less than one hundred to go.
I saw fifty-nine former students this year. From 1969-1976 I taught at Jeff Davis Middle School in San Antonio. In July I attended a Sam Houston High School reunion in San Antonio. Ten of the students I taught at Davis had indicated they'd attend (via Facebook), so I thought I might see five or six. I saw TWENTY & got photos with all of them. I saw eighteen more at three McCallum reunions in the summer. I met two more at their workplace & had lunch with four. I got to see two of my favorites this year: sisters Myriam and Catherine Perales
I helped another favorite Dawn Mann set up an interview with KLRU which aired a news story about her Dance Another World program, which she pioneered in AISD. The Statesman published an article about it on Christmas (). The program, which has expanded this year to five elementary schools, teaches English through dance to students with limited English-language skills.
Another favorite, Kerry Wallin, treated me to lunch. After I'd found her on Facebook she sent me a wonderful note: "I've always remembered when you taught us how to make moving characters on those old school computers by using math! Mine was the apple falling out of the tree and the squirrel taking it away! Can't remember much from that long ago, but I remember you and that assignment! That was the first time I really enjoyed math, and it was all because of you being the teacher. You really impacted my life and made me feel I could learn and do it! I have never really been that good at math, but you and my 9th grade math teacher really impacted my life and one English teacher in 9th grade also. I struggled a lot in school; later in 11th grade found out I was dyslexic - numbers, letters and comprehension! Just kind of learned to overcome it in some areas and having great teachers helped!" Shortly after we met, Kerry was assigned (in her capacity as a caregiver) to take care of one of those 9th grade teachers.
I hadn't seen my dear friend Sutton for ten years, so we chatted for over two hours at lunch while she was in town for a few weeks this fall, catching up on things, such as her German husband and her daughter.
The best concerts I attended were by Alash (the Tuvan throat singing group), Sangat (an ensemble of UT music school students and students from the National Academy of Performing Arts in Karachi – (earlier this year I got to see Zia Moyehuddin, who founded the school in 2005 at the invitation of President Musharref)), Shawn Phillips (the 40th time I've seen him – he was the subject of my thesis), Michal Korzistka (a brilliant pianist from Poland), and the Book of Goddesses (a dance performance by Chaski & Psophonia).
As usual I read 365 books this year (the grand total is now 9503 – there are now one hundred and seventy-one authors of whom I've read ten or more books). The best novels were "The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared" (also a delightful movie) and "The Girl Who Saved The King of Sweden" (both by Jonas Jonasson), "Afterworlds" (Scott Westerfeld), "Six Years" (Harlan Coben), "The Eye Of Zoltar" (Jasper Fforde), "The Martian Child" (a moving account of the adoption of a troubled child by a single gay man - which actually happened to the author, Dave Gerrold), "Chomp" (Carl Hiaasen), "Me & Earl & The Dying Girl" (also a delightful movie - Jesse Andrews), "The Highway" (one of four books I read by C J Box), "Zeroes" (Scott Westerfeld), "The English Spy" (Daniel Silva), "Sold" (based on the real girls sold into sexual slavery in India - Patricia McCormick) and "Memory" (Donald Westlake – I've now read thirty-nine of his books – I discovered twenty-nine Westlake books I hadn't read, and have read half of those so far)
As usual, the non-fiction list is longer. "The World of Charles Addams" (Charles Addams), "Being Miss America" (Kate Shindle), "China Wakes" (Kristof Nicholas & Sheryl WuDunn), "The Everything Store" (excellent and very disturbing book on Amazon - Brad Stone), "Act Of Congress" (how Dodd Frank was passed - Robert Kaiser), "True American" (post 9/11 shooting spree - Anand Giridharadas), "So Anyway" (John Cleese), "Harpo Speaks" (brilliant autobiography - Harpo Marx), "The Real All Americans" (the great all-Indian football team at Carlisle one hundred years ago - Sally Jenkins), "Raised Eyebrows: My Years Inside Groucho's House" (Steve Stoliar), "Groucho & Me" (Groucho Marx), "Becoming Richard Pryor" (Scott Saul), "Buddy: The Biography" (Philip Norman), "The Barefoot Lawyer" (a blind human rights protester in China who escaped in spite of impossible conditions - Chen Guangcheng), "By George" (George S. Kaufman - includes his adaptation of HMS Pinafore; excerpts of which are at ), "George S. Kaufman" (Howard Teichmann), "P S Jack Paar" (Jack Paar – the second Tonight show host, before Johnny Carson - I enjoyed all four of his books), "Hi-Ho Steverino" (Steve Allen - the first Tonight show host; I discovered eighteen more of his books this year, which are now on my list), "Without You There Is No Us" (a year teaching children of the North Korean elite - Suki Kim), "A Kim Jong-Il Production" (bio of the megalomanic North Korean leader - Paul Fischer), "North Korea Confidential" (Daniel Tudor & James Pearson), "A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka" (great autobiography - from Ukraine to the U.S., escaping anti-semitism - Lev Golinkin). Two books dealing with the treatment of pigs in the food chain: "The Chain" (Ted Genoways) and "Pig Tales" (Barry Estabrook). "Underground Girls of Kabul" (the need for some Afghan girls to pretend to be boys in that sexist society - Jenny Nordberg), "Dead Wake" (the Lusitania - Erik Larson), "Thieves of State" (Sarah Chayes), "Bad Paper" (debt collectors - Jake Halpern), "Wonder of Wonders" (Fiddler on the Roof - Alisa Solomon), "The Last Train to Crystal City" (WW II internment camp - Jan Jarboe Russell – met her & H.W. Brands took a photo of us), "America's Bitter Pill" (our health care system - Steven Brill), and "Mine Enemy Grows Older" (Alexander King)
I've been listening to the P. G. Wodehouse BBC broadcasts I got in 2014 and have only seventeen hours left (out of about twenty-five days). At the end of the year I downloaded seven hundred and forty-six Jean Shepherd files (best known for the wonderful movie "Christmas Story"); it took ten days to download and another week to process. At twenty-one days, twenty-two hours, I'm sure it'll take well into 2017 to listen to all of them. Late in the year I also started downloading Quote Unquote, which will also take months to listen to (about nine days of programs); the show started in 1976 and is still running. Another program I've been enjoying is I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (described as the antidote to panel games) eight days, twenty hours of programs to listen to) the show started in 1972 and is still running. I've listened to most of the ten days I got of Jack Benny's radio shows. I finished listening to My Word for the second time & am still working my way through Just a Minute for the second time (plus the new broadcasts - the show is still going strong & its chairman, Nicholas Parsons, now 92, has still never missed a broadcast & the show is in its forty-eighth year.)
I bought my Honda Civic Hybrid in 2002 and was starting to have problems with the hybrid battery, so in June I traded it in on a 2015 model. The new one has a video monitor for both backing up and right turns. I've only had to fill up the tank once so far and it's getting 53 mpg so far. Since I got it in 2011 my iPod nano had been replaced four times when the battery wore out. Apple said they would no longer replace it, so I now have a new nano. It's a little bit larger (sadly, it lacks a clip to attach it to my shirt) and is personalized with my name on the back.
My health was, for the most part, good. I walked 5142 miles (14.09 daily average) not driving 90.1% of the year. I strained my Achilles tendon in May and that slowed me down for a while. I was able to get some physical therapy to solve the problem.
The best of the many films I saw (as usual) were documentaries. It was a true delight to see TWO new ones by Frederick Wiseman (still going strong at age 86 - his 41st documentary is in progress in New York City). Both "National Gallery" (the art gallery in London) and "In Jackson Heights" (a diverse neighborhood in Queens NYC) were superb. "Go Grandriders" (a group of men, mostly in their 80s, who rode around the Philippines on motor bikes), "A Fuller Life" (film director Sam Fuller), "Life Itself" (Roger Ebert), "A Path Appears" (based on the book which was on my best of list last year ), "Going Clear" (based on Lawrence Wright's brilliant expose of Scientology), "Limited Partnership" (a fascinating doc on a gay couple who were married in the '70s), "Salt of The Earth" (Wim Wenders' take on Sebastiao Salgado's wonderful photos), "Twinsters" (identical Korean twins, separated at birth, unaware of each other's existence, adopted in France and the U.S., finally meet), and "Invasion" (on the Panama invasion to capture Noriega)
The feature films I enjoyed the most were Shaun the Sheep Movie, Quaker Oaths (a local indie), Donkey Skin (a 1972 Jacques Demy), Paddington, Ned Rifle (Hal Hartley completing his Henry Fool trilogy which started in 1998), Wild Tales (Argentina) The Burglars (France 1972), Run Boy Run (a very moving true story about Polish Jewish boy who survived several years during World War II pretending to be Catholic), Once In A Lifetime (another moving true story about a teacher who took a class of dropouts to win a national competition).
Ken Johnson tried again to film The Waiting Room, but sadly, the problems proved insurmountable. My scenes were filmed (I played God), but just before we were ready to shoot an actor dropped out. I attended two great acting workshops (Jamie Gallagher and Will Wallace). I believed I would have had a role in Will's feature film, Traffic; however, Austin had rain during most of May and June (it's been one of the wettest years in Austin history, almost twice the normal amount) and the Austin scenes were shot and cast in California instead. I had good roles in American Zombie, Emeryville, Street Stories (which now has eight episodes), and The Amazing Martin Landawer. Greenbelt is now online, so you can see me as Leslie & the whole film at
. My casting list (), which I started in 2000, now has over 10,000 subscribers.
I was cast in Professor Isle's Laboratory (Lawrence Wright helped record my scene to help me learn my lines) in the summer () and Girls Drinking in Inappropriate Places in April. The former starts shooting in January and the latter, hopefully sometime in 2016.
Because of all the rain, the flat part of my roof at the back of my home was weakened and Jeff Durawa added a section of tin roofing to protect it. Unfortunately, just before he was finished, we had a heavy rain, which caused a leak and a hole in the ceiling.
Of the twenty-eight plays I saw, more than usual were great ones: The Mountaintop, The Graduate (great to see a staged version of the film), The Philadelphia Story (ditto), The Importance of Being Earnest, When The Rain Stops Falling, Love Valour Compassion, The Norwegians, and I'm Not Rappaport (the third time I've seen it with the same two lead actors, previously in 1989 and 1998; this time they were much closer to the age of their characters).
In 2014 I scanned the twenty-four yearbooks from my years teaching at Lamar Middle School. After the Lamar librarian contacted me by email (after she joined my casting list) I was able to borrow and scan the thirty-two yearbooks from the school library. This year I was able to track down copies of the four missing books: in Denver, Brenham, Houston, and near Thorndale (which I was able to borrow at the 55th McCallum reunion. Of the two dozen attending, thirteen were at Lamar that year: 1956/57). There will be a special event at Lamar this year to celebrate its 60th year. All the albums are on Facebook ()
