Among the hills, amidst the critics

When summer meets the rolling, unglaciated hills of Wisconsin, the heat and humidity inextricably rise in the land Frank Lloyd Wright called home. The songbirds sing out and the mosquitoes buzz in their mad bloodthirsty dash at twilight and dawn in Spring Green for as certain as the season is the promise of hundreds of anxious patrons looking forward to the outdoor spectacle of theatre at American Players Theatre (APT).

With such an appropriate acronym, APT continues to mount stellar productions in two theaters - one, a 1,089-seat outdoor amphitheater and the other, an intimate indoor arena of more than 200 seats. With an annual budget of more than $6 million and a dedicated core staff, the company's repertory of as many as nine plays attracts more than 100,000 people to this quaint and sleepy town from June through November.

In recent years, the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA), the professional organization of theatre reviewers, writers and journalists, has held its annual conference in cities like San Francisco, Philadelphia and New Orleans. This summer, however, they have taken to the Wisconsin woods to partner with APT so that its membership could take advantage of five of its offerings: Shakespeare's As You Like It, Eugene Ionesco's Exit the King, Athol Fugard's Blood Knot, George Fuquhar's The Recruiting Officer and Garson Kanin's Born Yesterday.

In addition to the lifeblood of theatre offerings, APT has brought dozens of its own staff and nearby theatre critics, artistic directors, theatre podcasters and designers to inform and inspire ATCA attendees. Among the topics covered were sessions on copyright law, racial equity, period comedy productions and what is happening in the heartland of theatre in America's dairyland.

The beautiful setting of The House on the Rock Resort replete with a Bobby Jones-designed golf course has served as the nexus for ATCA's members to engage in heated debates about the future of the organization and its direction. Members are passionate about the organization, but in these perilous times when traditional journalism has given way to modern means of expression on the Internet and through social media, there are questions that must be posed and the very nature of theatre criticism examined.

That last unthinkable act

We lost two very industrious, highly visible celebrities this past week; two souls who were successful in so many ways.

Spade (via Wikimedia)

Even I knew the value of a Kate Spade handbag. In the world of fashion, her name was one that had secured a place reserved for only the best. Yet, despite the outward appearance of a woman who had made it and who could rest on her laurels for decades, there was something gnawing at her. Family members must have known she was depressed, but no one suspected the depth of her feeling of hopelessness. No one knew she would seek relief from her tortured existence through that last unthinkable act.

And now she is gone.

As for Anthony Bourdain, a man who loved and embraced food and cuisine with a passion that took him to the far reaches of the globe and back, there is disbelief.

Bourdain (Photo by Jessie Wightkin)

How could a man with so much to live for, who gave so many others pleasure from the verve with which he approached the simple act of eating, cast it all aside? Bourdain's job was almost too perfect. He was paid by CNN to travel to the backwater eddies of the planet as well as the most opulent of gustatory galleries to revel in dining and to share his experiences with a starving world of vicarious TV viewers


He was charming and endearing, but he was also demanding. He expected no less than the best that life had to offer and the matter of fact way he shared his experiences, eating his way across the globe established a place for him that few in his industry achieved. But, as he admitted in his book, "Kitchen Confidential," he did have his inner demons, having successfully fought drug addiction and coming back stronger, emerging as an industry leader. He was a champion for the food scene in New Orleans and we loved him for that, too. Despite his success, he was still intensely troubled and filled with such despair that he, too, thought the unthinkable.

And now he is gone.

Williams (Photo via Wikimedia)

When comedian Robin Williams committed suicide in 2014, he did so by hanging as did Spade and Bourdain. Perhaps the most creative comic mind of his generation, Williams brought mirth and laughter to audiences and to his peers for decades. He could bring joy to a small child or happiness to a nonagenarian with his over-the-top frenetic gyrations on stage and delighted millions with his on-screen performances. He created Mork and Mrs. Doubtfire and showed us what a grown-up Peter Pan might look like, imbuing all of his characters with a humanity that made us love him. Yet, despite an Academy Award and fame that brought him financial well-being, he, too, suffered from depression and could only reach for a rope to bring an end to his tortured existence.

And then he was gone.

But in the end, it was not just him.

Lederman (Photo by Alan Smason)

In the week that followed Robin Williams' demise, suicide ideation shot up a whopping 75%. One of those who took his life was my friend, supporter and one of the most beloved of my high school classmates, Louis Lederman. Not many people were more animated than "Louie," the son of Holocaust survivors. How could anyone whose family had endured the horrors of the Nazi era and had clung tenaciously to stay alive simply give up everything? It was as if the Nazis had won. A talented traditional jazz drummer, he organized the Bone Tone band that marched in Mardi Gras parades and was the onetime Boss of the Phunny Phorty Phellows. There were few like Louie.

And then he was gone.

Suicide rates have risen by 30% in the last two decades and health authorities are buckling down, expecting another wave of attempts in these next few days. It is important that we look to signs that might portend one of our loved ones is suffering from the same kind of misguided thinking. The world will not be better served through these cruel and cowardly acts. Cruel because their deaths hurt those they leave behind and cowardly because, rather than confront life, they give in to a solution that fixes nothing and oftentimes makes matters worse.

Please keep an eye out for your loved ones this week. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline number is 1-800-273-8255. Get help to those that need it.

The Iron Lady of New Orleans

When news reached me of the death of Jackie Pressner Gothard on Monday morning, May 21, the very first thing that went through my mind was that it must have been a trick or some sort of fantastic jest to test me. There was no warning. No bulletin rang out in advance preparing me for her sudden disappearance. She was a pillar of the New Orleans community one moment - a woman of indomitable will and gracious Southern charm - and then she was a memory.

But what a memory she leaves behind.

Jackie Gothard at the re-burial of seven Torah scrolls in 2011. 

Jackie Gothard was the consummate cheerleader, the never-say-die, larger-than-life character who, quite literally, saved my synagogue and embodied renewed hope for Jewish New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Jackie was the spirit of the new Congregation Beth Israel, erected phoenix-like on the ashes of more than 100 years of Orthodox Judaism in New Orleans.

It was her life's mission to never let anyone forget the history of Beth Israel or its tragic demise beneath the murky floodwaters from the breached 17th Street Canal following the landfall of the monster storm. She made the decision to bring the lifeless synagogue back from the dead, even while she was an evacuee in Houston and the news out of New Orleans was nothing less than bleak.

That was Jackie. She was always organizing and planning. She made certain that there was only one High Holiday period that the members of the synagogue under whose shadow she had grown up near the heavily Jewish corridor along Dryades Street, would be without a building in which they could assemble, pray and, let us not forget, eat.

Jackie employed her son Eddie, himself a former Beth Israel president, to get on the phone with the Orthodox Union, the United Jewish Communities (now the Jewish Federations of North America) and anybody else who would listen. Beth Israel was coming back, she would tell them. Orthodox services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were planned and executed at a Houston hotel and many bewildered and depressed former New Orleans residents gathered to daven and begin to consider that a move back to the city and Modern Orthodoxy might again be possible.

When the floodwaters had receded and residents were allowed back into the city, Jackie beat a path to the once magnificent structure on Canal Boulevard the synagogue had called home since 1970. She gasped in between tears as she beheld with her own eyes what 10-12 feet of toxic waste laden and sewage-filled floodwaters had done to the exterior and interior of her shul. The Torah scrolls had been rescued famously by an Israeli search and rescue team from ZAKA, a group initially charged with rescue or recovery of bodies. The scrolls had been largely destroyed and were rendered invalid. In some cases, the parchment had been eaten away by whatever microbes and chemicals were in that water. Jackie contacted Becky Hegglund (see page 32, Best of the CCJN SOURCE 5776), a former receptionist who hadn't worked at the synagogue for several years, as soon as she returned home. The synagogue was in ruins, but the Torah scrolls needed to be buried in a reverent fashion, according to Jewish law. Jackie didn't know who else to call. Like so many others who had been charged with a task by Jackie, Becky - a non-Jew - agreed. Jackie gave her the contact number for ZAKA's Rabbi Issac Leider and she arranged to pick up the seven Torah scrolls, dig a four-foot by six-foot plot by herself and deposit them in a makeshift grave. 

Jackie Gothard at the reburial of religous artifacts.

Upon her return home, Jackie renewed her conversations with Reform Congregation Gates of Prayer's (senior) Rabbi Robert Loewy. Out of a gesture of kindness and charity, he offered Jackie and those Orthodox community members an opportunity to re-establish the congregation in the back chapel, a room that by divine coincidence had an aron hakodesh (holy ark) for prayer services. Beth Israel began to meet there and went on to establish a unique partnership with the Reform temple, eventually purchasing land from them and building a new structure there.

Over the course of the several months and years of recovery, Jackie was at the helm of leadership, retrieving religious articles from the old synagogue and overseeing the burial of thousands of prayerbooks, hundreds of prayer shawls and several dozen phylacteries. One of the items she was most proud of saving was the synagogue's giant Chanukiah - the special brass menorah used during the celebration of Chanukah. That menorah was scrubbed and polished to a new luster by Jackie and others who would see it used in a synagogue again. Not only was it used again at Beth Israel, but it was prominently displayed in 2011 at the official White House Chanukah ceremony at which President Barack Obama lit the Chanukah candles. 

The young rabbi who carried that menorah to the White House was none other than Rabbi Uri Topolosky, a visionary figure who, along with his wife Dahlia, were charmed by Jackie on a tour of the old synagogue and decided almost immediately to move to the Crescent City and its tiny Jewish minority from their heavily-Jewish neighborhood in Riverdale, New York. It was Rav Uri, who along with Jackie, became the public face of recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Even while the property was for sale, she constantly gave tours of the old synagogue to groups that wanted to see what destruction the structure had suffered. 

Jackie told the story of her family's kosher delicatessen and other businesses run by Jewish merchants along Dryades Street that became known as "the second Canal Street." Two Orthodox congregations had sprung up there - Beth Israel and Congregation Anshe Sfard - and only a few blocks away was the original location of Temple Sinai, the first synagogue formed under the branch of Reform Judaism.

She never tired of answering questions to the many different groups who inquired as to what Jewish communal life was like in the old days and what was in store for the congregation.

Jackie and others who followed her, including another woman president - Roselle Middleberg Ungar - saw to it that Beth Israel was restored with a magnificent new building that was dedicated on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall seven years later. Over the last five years, Jackie continued to be a mainstay at the synagogue, celebrating her 60th wedding anniversary only a few months ago with close relative and the third woman president, Lee Kansas, looking on proudly. On many a Thursday, she helped others organize and prepare the meal that would be served after Shabbat services on Saturday. 

A tireless force of nature, she never seemed to slow down, bragging on the accomplishments of her grown professional children, her grandchildren and even her great-grandson. That's why her sudden passing is so hard to believe.

On a personal note, I was defeated in 2003 for my run for Congregation Beth Israel president. At the time, I took my defeat hard. There had never been a woman elected before to that office and there were even questions as to whether an Orthodox congregation could have a woman as president. Those doubts were soon erased as Jackie enjoyed the high of celebrating the synagogue's 100th anniversary in 2004 to be followed by that difficult period of recovery from the hurricane.

At the time, I had no way of knowing how lucky I was to have lost. There is little doubt in my mind that I would have been thoroughly unprepared for the many challenges Jackie met and defeated with ease. While I may have lost, Beth Israel, the New Orleans Jewish community and, dare I say, the city of New Orleans all won. It was all because of Jackie and her fierce determination to bring Beth Israel back.

There was no one like Jackie Gothard and there probably never will be.

Todah rabah (thank you very much), Jackie. Todah rabah.

Getting rid of the question mark in social media life

By now, we've all heard of the Facebook scandal in which Cambridge Analytica allegedly mined the social media accounts and profiles intent on influencing the 2016 election for the Republican party. As a result, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and public face, testified to Congress on the extent of what his company had permitted to happen by opening up their Facebook interface application to developers.

©1971 Walt Kelly

Although Zuckerberg has defended his company's actions and now claims to have placed barriers on many of the designs by which profiles were earmarked and data collected on them, the fact is we are our own worst enemies. To quote Walt Kelly's Pogo comical spin on Oliver Perry's terse report: "We have met the enemy and he is us!"

How many times have we been unwittingly tricked into "sharing" a seemingly innocent-looking quiz that boosts our self-esteem when we more than meet its challenge? "Only four percent will be able to name all 50 state capitals," its banner trumpets. "Can you name these Broadway musicals by these simple descriptions?" We've seen them. Taken them. And just as easily shared them on Facebook.

It's then that a small box will appear advising you that if you share this superb score that the application will be able to access your Facebook friends and gain access to information on your profile. So who could it harm, you reason? After all, don't you want everyone to know that you know that Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota and not Pierre?

So, you hit that button and now your friends have been exposed to another dreaded social media disease. That's right. You've just infected your friends and family, who will be targeted for their data too. Nice going.

Every time we share a news story, we are tracked. The New York Times does it. The Washington Post does it. Even liberal thinking Rolling Stone Magazine. They all do it. There is information they embed into those links that allow them to mine your habits, likes and dislikes. So what to do?

Here is a simple way to prevent them from easily tracking your information. It's as easy as asking a question. Or more to the point. It's as easy as knowing a question mark. (What follows is the technical information. If you just want to know the reveal, skip ahead to *.)

All of these articles use basic hypertext markup language or what is commonly known as HTML. It's the language of the Internet and it's not going to go away anytime soon. The Internet defaults to headers that begin with "http://..." or, in those cases where additional security is implemented, "https://..." All browsers from Chrome to Firefox to EDGE know how to interpret these headers and convert the words into numbers and distill them into the binary language of computers, a series of zeroes and ones.

Uniform resource locators are known to computer users as URLs. They are used to find files on your local computers or by browsers to use the Internet to access files on faraway servers that know how to answer your requests. On a local computer the URL might look like this: 

C:\Users\Alan\Documents\Love.docx. 

The URL knows it needs to access the C: drive and that the large folder of Users must first be accessed. Within Users is the Alan profile and the file in question is kept under the Documents folder. The slashes used between each segment allow the computer to refine its search.

On the Internet, though, backslashes are used to help browsers refine their searches. Take a look at this made up URL:

http://www.notreal.com/tenyearsisadecade.html?seehowtheytracku

The first part of the URL lets the browser know it is using hypertext markup language rather than, say, a file sharing protocol like FTP (those start with "ftp://..."). The World Wide Web nomenclature is extraneous these days. Browsers are smart enough to know how to get to a website by the use of its FQDN or fully qualified domain name without the "www" portion. FQDNs are broken down into two parts - the hostname and the domain name.

Domain name servers or DNS information is not unlike a phone book. Rather than go into how it works, let's just state that top level domains (TLD) like .edu, .com or .net identify large groups of servers that constantly share and update information between each other. All universities use the TLD of .edu, for example. So, a computer from tulane.edu easily knows how to reach a server at yale.edu and vice versa. The TLD might be considered a surname. All the other information before it could be considered a first or middle name to identify it further.

*If you've kept up with me so far, it's now time for the big reveal. In the example above, the first part of the URL has all of the information needed to share that article on Facebook:

http://www.notreal.com/tenyearsisadecade.html

Beginning with the "?," all of the other information is used for tracking and is superfluous. I have been sharing articles on Facebook for years by copying the link UP TO the ? and leaving off that trail of tracking code. Perhaps you might consider doing this. 

Also, if you enjoy taking quizzes, let people know your score without sharing it through the application. It's as easy as taking a screenshot and sharing that. (Just don't click that "Share your results" button.)

If you don't know how to take a screenshot, the ways are varied, but simple enough. On a Windows computer, just click the PrtScn button and paste it into a program like Word (or for those older computers Paint). On a Mac computer, use the Command-Shift-3 keys and it will copy to your Desktop. On an iPhone 8 or earlier, briefly click the top right button (used to power on the device) and the Home button at the bottom. Androids take screenshots by holding the volume down and power buttons at once.

By sharing the screenshot, you can get your score out to your friends and family and they can marvel at what a whiz you are and how nice you are not to share their personal data and profile with these unseen entities who want to sell your likes, dislikes, political leanings, sexual preferences, etc. to other companies for their profit.