History Detectives

Tonight's mysteries were an animation cel inked by a lady communist, papers detailing the freeing of a New Orleans slave, and a dagger that possibly may have been Mussolini's (Spoiler: it's not!).  

I shall back up.  History Detectives is the love child of Antiques Roadshow and CSI.  It features five "detectives", each of whom are either professor/authors or appraisers/something else.  And people contact them because their grandparent or great uncle or someone had something that may be something.   And the Detectives investigate!  They come back to the owner and say, "Listen to this cool story..." or they say, "Your grandfather probably embellished his Mussolini dagger tale."  

History Detectives also has little filler "Fun facts!" segments.  Tonight had a spot about checking signatures for authenticity.  So if you're interested in forging, here are things to be careful about:

• Check archives for sample penmanship to compare with your document.
• Take special note of t's, i's and loops.
• Look at spacing and slanting.
• See if the pen came up off the paper mid-signature.  This indicates hesitancy and may be a fake.
• Also, use a microscope and infra-red light because everyone has those handy.

Now here is my very own "Fun Facts!" segment: the History Detectives website has games!  I just did a sample case and I am a five-star history detective.  You can also answer questions to see which History Detective you are most like.  I am most like Elyse the appraiser/art historian.   

So what did I learn from tonight's History Detectives?  Forgery takes practice.  Slaves in New Orleans had Sundays off and many freelanced to earn extra money ("Extra money" here means "money"). And I learned that it delights me to no end that the theme is Elvis Costello's "Watching the Detectives".  

Have that song in your head?  You're welcome. 

WETA!

Well, along with moving to a new apartment, work and doing silly things that have kept me from the TV, I am now on a business trip.  For five days, I wander around the convention section of the Gaylord National with a 4"x6" badge around my neck which keeps getting into my free conference food at meal times.  The Gaylord National is in the DC area in the newly named National Harbor in Maryland.  Fancy digs.

Last night at the conference was a free night i.e. mercifully unplanned, non-networking evening.  My colleague scored tickets to see Chess at Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA.  (Fun Theatre Nerd Fact: there's also a Signature Theatre [Company] in New York!)  So car rented, GPS engaged, "One Night in Bangkok" already in a loop in my head.  When we arrived at a gas station (since Hertz thought an eighth of a tank was a great way to send tourists off into the night), I spotted across the street...WETA!  WETA is the Washington area PBS station.  It's home to the PBS News Hour as well as Washington Week...which makes a lot of sense.  And it's been "the production partner of filmmaker Ken Burns for more than twenty years"!  According to Wikipedia!

I almost had my picture taken in front of the Gwen Ifill poster but my friend insisted on the Ken Burns one:

And this one got some looks...mainly because friend was on his back on the sidewalk taking the photo:

What did I learn? Friends are enablers.  And you can't escape PBS!

Photo credit: Skypp Cabanas using my point-and-shoot.