Tag Archives: Lynn Ewbank

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In memory of Karen Stuart

Has it really been 28 years since I toured China and it’s archives with the Society of American Archivists?

SAA China Archives Study Tour, 1986.

First row from right, Lynn Ewbank, Karen Stuart, SAA China Archives Study Tour, 1986.

Touring China in 1986 was one of those experiences of a lifetime for me. Karen Stuart, who worked at the Maryland Historical Society before going to the Library of Congress in 1990, was my roommate which was great because Karen had been on the earlier China tour and knew the ropes. Out of those on the trip, Karen is the only one I reconnected with via Facebook.

Karen Stuart kneeling, China, 1986. ©D.L. Ewbank

Karen Stuart kneeling, China, 1986. ©D.L. Ewbank

It broke my heart to learn Karen has passed – a huge loss for the LOC and all of us fortunate to have crossed paths with Karen.

Lynn Ewbank and Karen Stuart on the great wall, 1986. ©D.L. Ewbank

Lynn Ewbank and Karen Stuart on the extremely windy Great Wall, 1986. ©D.L. Ewbank

To cheer myself up in this loss, I try to picture her in heaven laughing with other China trippers who went before her including Smithsonian Archivist, Chinese language expert, and trip leader William “Bill” Moss; sixth Archivist of the United States Dr. Robert M. Warner; NARA Archivist Linda Henry, Karen’s father Mason Stuart, and possibly others whose passing I missed.

Lynn Ewbank, right, China 1986. ©D.L. Ewbank

Lynn Ewbank, right, China 1986. ©D.L. Ewbank

Thanks, Karen and other China trippers, for helping make that trip special. And remember, China trippers, Karen has invited you to our room for an evening of comedic Arkansas/China trip trivia where everyone wins. The prizes are things I don’t want to lug back to the U.S. like that fluffy little panda change purse. (Yes, if you win – and you will – you have to take it!!!) If I’m a little late, sing about the Qufu China Choo-Choo and tell trip stories (like the horribly rainy day Ed Weldon bought us all dry socks – I still have mine!) until I get there!

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Improv

Do you dream of telling stories as funny as those told by Bill Cosby, Ron White, Margaret Cho, or Chelsea Handler?

A brighter bulb. ©iStockphoto/choness

A brighter bulb. ©iStockphoto/choness

Improv can up your laughter factor easily and quickly. And it doesn’t have to break the budget. Whether built on “yes and,” observing patterns, or the use of games, improv teaches tools so powerful they can help the least funny of us grow our funny quotient exponentially. In 2010, I took Intensive Improv 101 at the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles. By the end of the week, our class was able to build improv scenes based on an audience suggestion that prompted one-minute monologues in a class show. I was hooked. That class led to two other UCB improv classes, one on the Harold, and two more intensives at Second City Hollywood where I actually discovered I have a couple of characters lurking inside me.

Can’t make it to LA, Chicago, or New York? Both the UCB and Second City have books that can be your guide: The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual, The Second City Almanac of Improvisation, or Truth in Comedy: The Manual for Improvisation.

Get a book, gather some friends, and before you know it you’re as funny as a monkey’s uncle!

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Do you remember your first…

Everybody remembers their first, their first humorist. (Get your mind our of the gutter!) Today, my heart may swoon over David Sedaris, author of humorous delights like SantaLand Diaries in Holidays on Ice and When You Are Engulfed in Flames. But long before Sedaris, there was Dave Barry whose Homes and Other Black Holes had me rolling on the floor in laugher identifying with frustrations of my own home buying experience. Before Barry, (yes I am a humorist whore!) there was Erma Bombeck. Bombeck was a homemaker whose syndicated commentary on suburban life beginning in the mid-60s captured life as we knew it and humorously. If we can learn to see the humorous side of life as expertly as Bombeck did (as seen in her books like If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits? and The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank, ) life has got to be better.

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Want some humor help? Test the waters at the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop at the University of Dayton.

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The August 2014 StoryDame Methuselism Award goes to…

Joan Rivers, born in 1933 according to Wikipedia. According to We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy, Rivers, who wanted to be an actress, fell into comedy because she could make a little money at night after hitting agents all day in the mid-60s. She was the first woman who was part of “the new confessional wave.” Today the Barnard College graduate hosts the Fashion Police on E! and sells her own line on HSN. Catch Joan on her YouTube series, In Bed With Joan, or read about her in her own words in her newest book, Diary of a Mad Diva.

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