Points to Ponder: The profound thoughts of Alex W________g aka Simon DelMonte

 Cannot let the passing of Elie Weisel, perhaps the voice of all those who survived the Holocaust, go unnoted.  He was an excellent writer but more than that represented everyone who came from that hell and made a life.  He was 87.  That is more than seventy more years that his tormentors would have given him.  And he made those years matter.

May his family be comforted among the mourners of Zion.

Tomorrow, the Mets are likely to sign a player named Jose Reyes.  Reyes was arrested for domestic abuse and was suspended for two months. He is a free man mainly because his wife didn't press charges, but it seems clear that he is an abuser.

I hate this.  I don't want him on my team.  I don't want him in baseball.  He has done nothing to show that he's learned anything or changed.  So I am in this odd place now.  I cannot root against the Mets.  There is no way I can do that.  But I really won't feel that badly if they continue to struggle while he is on the team.  And I might abandon my Mets cap for a while.

Am I being a moralist?  Probably.  But sometimes I get that way.  Especially when it comes to things like abuse, and institutionalized sexism. 

Or tell someone you know with PR experience that there is an opening in the communications office of the Jewish Museum.

http://thejewishmuseum.org/careers/position-information/senior-publicist

Darwyn Cooke, comic book writer and artist, died today at the too-young age of 53 from cancer.  He was, by my reckoning, a special and amazing talent who loved what he did and had a gift for faces, layouts, and retro design.  He did the opening montage for Batman Beyond, and spent years working with Bruce Timm on Batman: The Animated Series.  He then made the jump to comics, where he wrote and drew the wonderful Spirit comic, helped redefine Catwoman, and gave us one of the few worthwhile Before Watchmen stories.  And his adaptations of four of Richard Stark's Parker novels were incredible.  No artist was better at capturing the past in all its glory.

I didn't love everything he wrote, but when he was doing the art, even the lesser stories were full of magic, style, and a love of the craft.  He was slated to help with a new series from DC bringing together the classic action heroes of Hanna Barbera, but that is now not to be.  It would have been wonderful.

Rest well, Darwyn, and thanks for everything. 

And what a fun time it was. Spent two days seeing a bit of the city with ladymondegreen as our tour guide, with trips to Casa Loma and the Royal Ontario Museum and a bit of walking about the Yonge-Eglinton neighborhood, where we stayed.  Had some interesting chats with a barista who was curious about filk and a cabbie with classical training as an actor in NYC.

Then it was on to FilkOntario, which was just a lot of fun and generally relaxing.  Batya's Interfilk concert was amazing, Mark Bernstein's Filk Hall of Fame acceptance speech was moving (and his concert was great), and the music was up to its usual standards.  Special shout-outs to Leslie Hudson and the Faithful Sidekicks. I don't know when we will get back to FKO again, since most years it's too close to Passover, but I hope we can manage it again someday.  It was great to see familiar faces as always and great to start making new friends.

Insight of the weekend: filk fandom is slow to buy its albums digitally.  But the performers are fine with that.  In fact, it's cheaper for them and easier.  So if you there is a filk album you like and it's available online, buy it that way.  

And now on towards Passover!!

The Jewish Museum (aka my employer) is looking to fill two posts in its digital marketing office. One is very much a social media and web programming post, the other is more about organizing our many digital assets. Feel free to apply or to circulate to anyone you know who would be a good match.

Digital Asset Manager
http://thejewishmuseum.org/careers/position-information/digital-asset-manager

Digital Marketing Associate
http://thejewishmuseum.org/careers/position-information/digital-marketing-associate

So for years, we have taken the risk of traveling in the winter. To cons across the country and in the UK, to various events with friends and family. Till now, it usually worked out fine. This weekend, our luck ran out, though not too terribly.

The event was the bar mitzvah of Batya's sister number two son. Which meant going to Rochester, NY. In good conditions, the flight is less than an hour. But the weather conspired in interesting ways. Going, there were high winds at LaGuardia. High enough that at 6 pm, we had already been informed that our flight was delayed from 9:40 to midnight. So the good news was we weren't sitting at LGA for an extra three hours. The bad news was still that our flight was really delayed. And then delayed again and again till it didn't leave till 12:50. So late that there was no way anyone at the house we've be staying at would be awake to let us in.

We - "we" being my mom as well as Batya and me - decided to get a hotel room at the airport instead. At least we managed some sleep. (Thankfully, the hotel is literally a two minute walk from the baggage claim.) It was a hassle, and we still didn't get a lot of rest, but it beat having someone at Batya's sister's house let us in at 3 am, followed by us crashing on insufficient couches.

Today - after a weekend that saw the temps drop to 12 below in Rochester - we had a 1:40 flight. That was delayed two hours in leaving because the plane needed some serious de-icing at LaGuardia. And that was then delayed another hour by the same weather conditions in New York and also another de-icing.

Total amount of time delayed going and coming back: close to seven hours, plus an unscheduled night at a hotel. All things considered, it could have been worse, since if our flight home had been cancelled, we could have been stuck in Rochester till Wednesday (due to a snowstorm there). But all these delays are tiring, and stressful, and remind me why I prefer the train.

PS: the bar mitzvah came off fine, though as ever there is no stress quite like that of having a lot of family in one place.

So as I am typing this, Tim Peake, the first Briton to join the ESA astronaut corps, is doing a spacewalk at the space station. Before he joined the ESA, he was in the British Army Air Corps. His rank when he went on reserve? Major.

In other words, he could have easily said:

This is Major Tim to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door

Cool, in more than a few ways.

Planet Earth is blue.

Farewell to a pop culture icon, rock star, actor, and legend.

Even when things are rough, for individuals or for communities, there are always things to be thankful for. Family and friends, fandoms and fics, big things and little. I know what I am thankful for, and hope that you have the chance to give thanks in your own way as well.

One thing I am thankful for is "Alice's Restaurant," Arlo Guthrie's famous story-song. Turns out that the event that inspired the song, at the real Alice's Restaurant, happened fifty years ago today. To mark the anniversary, PBS will be showing a special concert from Arlo tonight. But at noon, I plan to do the more traditional thing and listen to the original. Glad that Arlo is still with us, especially given how young his dad was when he died. Glad he's still having it come around on the guitar.

So it's a Sunday in November. The leaves are turning, the days are shorter, and for most of my life, if I were home, there would be a football game on TV. In fact, there is a humdinger of a game going on right between the Giants and the Saints. I am following it. But I am not watching it.

I am not watching because I decided football is a terrible thing. A terrible thing that I have loved for most of my life, a terrible thing I still pay attention to, but a terrible thing nonetheless. It is a violent sport that makes billions off people trying to hurt each other, and that most likely condemns many who play it to brain damage sooner or later. That so many people watch it every week and don't seem to be bothered by this, that bothers me. That so many people are betting on what individual players are doing as if they are little more than commodities, bothers me. That the people running the sport continue to insist that there is a safe way to play the sport when it seems more and more clear that is a lie, bothers me.

So last fall, I stopped watching. There have been a few times I have ended up someplace where a game is on, and I look at the TV and find myself missing it. But I have not made the conscious choice to watch. I will admit what got me to stop watching was the spate of abuse cases involving football players, but the momentary outrage faded and I began to rethink the whole sport, at all levels. I have not reached the point where I don't care. It might be impossible to be a sports fan in America and not have to sift through tons of football talk and news, so as long as I follow baseball or basketball or any other sport, I probably can't divorce myself entirely. But the TV stays off.

The funny thing is that every time I have told someone this, they have looked at my like I grew a new head. Every time. And not just from people who like the sport. To dismiss football is, I don't know, un-American. But still I refuse to watch. And feel lonely. Ratings are up. Every time there is a new scandal, every time there is a new report about concussions, every time there is something that offends me, the ratings go up. And I keep wondering what is wrong with us.

I am not trying to start a crusade. In the grand scheme of things, this is pretty unimportant. But at the same time, I am sticking with it. And telling people why I have stopped watching. And why I hope someday not to care about it at all.

It would be nice, however, if just once someone told me that I was making sense. I am used to being on the wrong side in a political debate. Even so, I am not used to just how lonely it is.

On Flash, they introduced Jay Garrick and the concept of Earth-2.

The Mets won last night and moved in the championship series.

My fandoms are having a good week.