RACHEL

27 September 2021

Well, I don't know why I couldn't see comments.  I tried switching from Firefox to Chrome and they come through just fine in Chrome.  I tried "kicking it" (rebooting) but it still won't show comments in Firefox.

I hate it when my computer makes decisions that I don't want it to. Suddenly it has changed the sound that it makes when there is an error or when I unplug the telephone.  The new sound is fine, but I didn't change it; the computer did.

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This is a wedding picture of my friend Rachel and her husband Neil, who were married in two wedding ceremonies (one Jewish and one Hindu) at the start of this month.  We really wanted to go to the wedding, but it was in Georgia and...you know...Covid 'n' all.

Rachel's mother is my friend Gilbert's niece and it seems to me that Rachel was about 4 when Gilbert died.  He had been to Oklahoma to visit the family when she was 3 or so and came home so impressed with how intelligent she was.  One of the last things he did before he died was to build and furnish a doll house for her.  He was so excited about building that house and planned to drive it to Oklahoma, but didn't have the opportunity.

I had met Rachel's mother when she came to San Francisco for a visit and we became good friends.  Shortly after Gilbert died, I flew to Oklahoma to visit the rest of the family and have followed Rachel throughout her life.  Walt and I were at her Bat Mitzvah and I was so sad that Gilbert wasn't around to watch her go through university, with a theater major.  How proud he would have been of her!

And how sad it is that she never really got to know him.

Her senior project was to direct a play that Walt and I flew to Oklahoma to see, along with our good friend Will, who sort of became her foster uncle after Gilbert died.  She came out to San Francisco to visit him and was here for one of our GRUB dinners (the annual dinner we had to celebrate Gilbert's life)

How proud Gilbert would be to read this in her biography:

Rachel completed her Ph.D. with the University of Kansas in 2018, where she taught Acting, Public Speaking as Performance, and a course in comic performance and theory titled, �The Gravity of Humor.� Her long-time interest in transnational collaboration led to her work directing and performing in theatres and live production around the globe for many years, including stints in London, Dublin, Toronto, and New York City. Her academic research and writing lives at the intersections of humor, race, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, transnational, and performance studies, and enjoys writing and publishing in these realms.

Rachel is a Learning Consultant for both universities and corporate organizations, and has been a professor and instructor in a host of universities and colleges since 2011. Most recently, she has been a professor at Columbus State University, where she taught graduate and undergraduate Theatre History and Literature, Introduction to Acting and Directing, Acting II, Script Analysis, Devised Performance, and Dramaturgy. She is a long-time stage director and performer who is passionate about performance as a tool for social change and increased social consciousness.

I so wish Gilbert knew all of this.