Mary Hunt who has a couple of newsletters had “7 creative tips for the holidays” today. They were fun parlor games having to do with gifts, such as making the kids scavenger hunt for their presents. There was more, including buying old maps for 10 cents each and using them for wrapping gifts. Personally, I am sorry to see old maps die. There were no tips I would bother with, but, then, I don’t have kids.

The best parlor games I remember from the old days were to watch two chess masters play Kriegspiel (see at the end of this post for a description) with 14-year-old Wylie being referee. Or a great game called Dictionary – each guest takes a word out of the dictionary, writes it on a piece of paper, these are put in a bowl. Guests choose from the bowl and invent a definition for the word they get. Inventive, bizarre, hilarious definitions are what make it fun.

Or to sit together and listen to Flora Foster Jenkins sing opera badly because her wealthy husband used to rent Carnegie Hall for her.

There was also a recording with Anna Russell narrating the plot of the Ring Cycle. A description by a reviewer: Anna Russell's The Ring of the Nibelungs (An Analysis) is not really a parody, since it follows Wagner's story and actually discusses many of the Ring's leitmotifs as academically as she makes them entertaining. However, Russell draws attention to some of the more unusual elements in the plot that people often miss, to the delight of her audience. (She calls Brunnhilde "Siegfried's aunt" - she is actually the half-sister of both his parents.) Well, this description doesn't say how hysterically funny Russell is and she sounds like Miss Marple.

We would also listen to (at that time, new) classical recordings. One was Carmina Burana by Carl Orff. I first heard it when Jay and I were visiting friends on Long Island. Newly married, I was just 24. We sat in their den surrounded by books, listening to this fabulous work. I remember thinking, "I have died and gone to Heaven.” (I grew up in Chicago’s inner city, not knowing people who loved classical music, or words, or thinking.)

Recently, Wylie, the son of this couple (in his 60s now, a sobering thought) came to visit. He had a dot.com company and sold it for a lot of money. His dad is gone now and his stepmother, who was the wife I knew, remarried to Billy Crystal's uncle. But she's 10 years older than me and I am wondering if she survives.

Jay and I would also get invited to the home of Fletcher Pratt and his wife, Inge, a sci fi illustrator. Pratt was a naval historian of some prominence. They owned a 32-room mansion they called “The Ipsy Wipsy Institute” in Highlands, NJ. Their house sat on 2 acres, had a gazebo on an expanse of grass leading down to the Navasink river. There was a narrow spit of land and beyond it, the Atlantic. It was so expensive to heat this place, they only used a few rooms.

Staying there felt like being in an Agatha Christie novel. They gave us a room on the third floor and I have a photo of me on the roof that Jay took (and I can’t @#$%$ find it). There was an enormous bathroom with four doors, each connected to a bedroom. They called the bathroom “Grand Central.” Spending Halloween there was a treat. The mansion burned down some years ago. I will never forget it.
Nearby there was a shopping mall with a huge emporium-like market, the Grand Union, but in this crowd, it was “The Grand Onion.”

And that’s what I miss about the north and times gone by.

xx, Teal

Kriegspiel (German for war game) is a chess variant invented by Henry Michael Temple in 1899[1] ... In this game each player can see their own pieces, but not those of their opponent. For this reason, it is necessary to have a third person (or computer) act as a referee, with full information about the progress of the game. When it is a player's turn he will attempt a move, which the referee will declare to be 'legal' or 'illegal'. If the move is illegal, the player tries again; if it is legal, that move stands. Each player is given information about checks and captures. They may also ask the referee if there are any legal captures with a pawn. Since the position of the opponent's pieces is unknown, Kriegspiel is not a game with perfect information. Chess Kriegspiel derives from a war game which was used in 19th century Germany to train military officers.