December 2023

Mike Agranoff  On November 18th Mike took Tina Ross to her first contra dance. She did just fine. She stayed almost the whole night and, and we got a convert. During the intermission his phone rang and it was a next across the street neighbor and she said, "Mike. I'm not home, and evidently you're not home, but another neighbor of ours has called me because he doesn't know your number and he told me it looks like your house is on fire." He called 911 and told the operator exactly what happened and "I don't know my house is on fire. I just got this third hand report."  He got transferred to 2 other 911 operators and got to one who was able to call out the fire department in his area. During this time, he got a text from Sandy, the across the street neighbor that the third neighbor said, oh, it what it turns out that a fourth neighbor of his had built a bonfire in the backyard and from the third neighbor's point of view it looked like the fire was inside his house. So, he thought that was a little exciting.

Peggy Karr has chronic lime disease and it of stays at bay pretty much. but it has been really bad the last 6 to 8 weeks. But the good news is that she finally made an appointment with an orthopedic because she was having a really hard time walking and she wasn't getting better. Of course, 2 days before she got to the appointment, she started to get better and of course when showed up at the doctor's, he told her "You have arthritis." She said that she knows she has arthritis, but she couldn't walk, and he just kind of shrugged the shoulders and the reason she ended up there was because the Lyme doctor was concerned that it continued on for so long and hadn't cleared up. So now it was the line it's now clearing up and she can walk again and she's hoping to be there on Friday for Open Stage because she missed it so much while she wasn't been able to walk.

Tina Ross said she feels like, although we did NERFA,  there's been a period of time that she has a feeling of missing Folk Project. Folk Project membership is just such a great feeling, the whole community and what we all do. She just wanted to say that.she's really grateful for this year and having been welcomed and in general to this group and she's just discovered so many things about herself that she didn't know, skills that she had. A couple of singer songwriters  that she had interviewed gave her amazing feedback that they've never been interviewed so in depth, and how wonderful her interview skills were. So all of these things are just really important to her and she's glad that she can offer these things that she never even knew she was able to do.

Loretta Brooks wanted say it's been great getting to know more about the inner workings of the Folk Project, and she just thinks everybody here is so amazing and so far reaching into the future. She had some fun this past month. She was invited to South Brunswick Library to do an origami workshop. Although she was supposed to limit it to 10 and her helper got sick at the last minute, she had 15 people. Somehow she put them in a big table, round table, and  she just kept going around and around the table saying "You're doing great, you're doing great", and most of these people were really spatially wonderfully oriented, so most people were getting it immediately on how to do the folds. She felt she getting better at giving instruction. Then she went up to Plymouth, Massachusetts with her beau, Tony and met her sister.  She added that she buys a ukulele for everybody she meets, so Tony, she and her sister sat down and jammed Thanksgiving Saturday like crazy. Her poor brother-in-law was trying to watch in football game so they had to close the door.

Pamela Zave said that this has been, a very big week for her as she has been working on writing a book for 6 years or so, but especially intensively the last 2 years, and completely finished it this week.She added that it felt she didn't have a life.except for working on this book. She said she was intensely grateful to the Folk Project for making her feel like well she does have a life and you know outside this book and she really looking forward to having time to participate even more. She added that the music has kept her sane a lot of times. When asked, she way that the book was about how internet is put together. She encouraged everyone to buy a copy, whether you can read it or not. She was very serious negotiating with the publisher about not having it be expensive as textbooks and technical books can be hundreds of dollars. That was a really important thing in the contract negotiation so it's going to be a paperback for $40 which these days for a technical book is really cheap. She also added that her wife, Yolanda, had a big weekend too because she has a show at the Chatham Township Hall in Myersville and had the opening on Sunday and they were very pleased that a lot of our friends came by and it was it was really fun.Yolanda was very relieved because she's been planning this, selecting artwork and framing everything for months. She added that, that if you are looking for a holiday gift (maybe for your mother or mother-in-law?) consider “Gardening Can Be Murder” by Marta McDowell.  It is a guidebook to mystery novels with gardens in them—tons of fun to read, and features gorgeous illustrations by Yolanda.

Mark Schaffer reported that  a good friend to a lot of us and member and a fantastic musician, Toby Walker, is moving, this week, to Asheville, North Carolina, and those of us who are friends are going to miss him a lot. 

Sam Edelston At NERFA, Sam's "Anything But Guitars" showcase was a big success. In addition to common instruments like pianos, fiddles, and banjos, he had people playing button accordion, charango, oud, uilleann pipes, nyckelharpa, and vibraphone.  Sam reported that on this date many years ago, he met his wife, Robin.   Next Saturday, Sam and Robin are going to see their child, Teddy, perform at Voices in the Heights, in Brooklyn. (Mike Agranoff mentioned that Teddy was also just booked as a featured artist at the Troubadour for January 26.)  There's a new video game called "Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria," in which songs are an important part of the game. Teddy co-wrote the songs for the game. 

Jean Scully said she and her husband Dave had a very nice Thanksgiving over at Jay [Wilensky] and Marie [Trontell]'s house and son, Von came for dessert. She added that it was really nice and they had some really good food and some really nice music and just had a lovely day. On this coming Sunday, they are driving up to Rhinebeck, New York because a friend of Dave's has a little pied a terre  apartment that they've been letting them use for the last few years for various things and they're getting rid of the apartment and the furnishings. The apartment had the single comfiest chair.  She said it's like if a giant overstuffed chair and a love seat had a baby, that's what this chair would be. It's got an Ottoman and it's big enough for her to actually curl up in like with her feet up under her, and it is just the comfiest thing she has ever sat in and they're giving it to her. This allows them to  finally getting rid of a couch that is so broke that in order to get out of it is "like climbing out of a canoe". She added that only one of them can sit in it, but Dave has his own couch.

Paul Fisher commented that we might have  noticed that he hasn't been around much except on the Zoom stuff for the last couple of months. He had had surgery on his left wrist. They pulled out his trapezium bone and put in a contraption that looks like a swing to hold his thumb up. The surgery and recovery went well enough that  they decided to schedule his right hand for later this month. Buthe reassured us that he  will be coming up for air this weekend at the holiday party and can play again a bit.

Elizabeth Lachowicz  After a lovely Thanksgiving with FP friends Barb & Andy, and others, she drove to her hometown, Chicago, where she will be with family for holidays.  Son, Thomas turns 28 this week and rather spend his birthday with his cousins celebrating their kid's birthday instead of Mom taking him out to dinner. (wink)  She is leaving for Miami Friday and then on a weeklong cruise with her siblings.  Staying in Chicago until mid-late January.    

Todd Dennison had a chance to play with Andrew [Dunn] the other night and  he thought he was great and the concert was a lot of fun. It was wonderful to be able to make music and have Diane [Polledri] and John [Hone] there as well and have Henry [Nerenberg] come out and play and that he is such a big Henry fan. He added that it was such a beautiful place to make music and it was really a special evening. It was a really special evening. It absolutely was. I think we all felt that.  He also wanted to highly recommend a heating company that's been doing work at his house. They're out of Denville called Mako Heating.  He thought that the guys that are working on his home are treating this as if it was their parents' home. He added that they are so meticulous and everything they're doing they're taking long time to do it because they're being so deliberate because, as they said, this is not your traditional house that was just built in the last 50 years. His home from 1888, with no insulation on the first floor or the attic. He said that every time they cut open a wall and they say, "oh, look, this pipe has got a hole in it and we're going to patch this for you".  There was a piece of vent outside that was missing and they went out and bought a piece and put it on. He felt that these guys are really amazing. Now he has to figure out how to tip them because they are really treating his home beautifully.