Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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Here are my tasting notes:

Color: bright amber.

Head: moderate, stood up well.

Aroma: banana and peach, with a toasty malt undertone.

Flavor: good balance of fruit and malt flavors, with a hop finish that’s satisfying but not overwhelming.

Technical details (from the brewery’s website):  There are five kinds of malt used. Along with the usual two row barley, there are carapils and caramunich, melanoidin, and chocolate malt. The hops are Cascade, Amarillo, Tettnang, and Northern Brewer. ABV is a moderate 4.8%.

This is a well made, satisfying ale that complemented a tasty sandwich but could be enjoyed by itself. The flavor is complex but well balanced.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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The story begins on VJ Day, August 14, 1945 (this is the date Japan’s unconditional surrender was announced in the U.S.; Japan did not sign surrender documents until September 3, which is now the official VJ Day). Wally Baker and her mother, Stella Wallace Baker (Wally’s full name is Beatrice Wallace Baker) go out into the pandemonium filling even the streets of staid Brooklyn Heights. Stella is taking Wally to the nearby house of Stella’s parents, Waldo and Gigi, who are both physicians, as is Stella. As the day progresses, we are introduced to Waldo’s and Gigi’s housekeeper, Loretta Walker, an African American woman who also serves as Wally’s caretaker, and to Wally’s closest friend, Ham, who is Loretta’s son. We are also, in conversation, made aware of William Niederman, a PhD in mathematics and the college roommate of Stella’s husband and Wally’s father, Rudy, who, at Rudy’s urging by telegram from the South Pacific, becomes a boarder in the spare bedroom of Stella’s and Wally’s apartment “for the duration.” The duration is now over, and Rudy will be coming home to his wife and daughter,

As VJ day draws to a close, Loretta and Wally arrive at Stella’s apartment a little later than planned; there they find Stella dead on the kitchen floor, a suicide.

From this beginning, the story takes us from Wally’s girlhood to young womanhood and, at the close, motherhood. It is a bildungsroman, or novel of growth, but also a todtsroman. It is punctuated by deaths–Stella’s, as well as the death of her first love and fiancé, who is killed by a log falling from a truck as they travel to his parents’ summer house, which sets the stage for Stella’s later, at first reluctant, marriage to Rudy; of Wally’s younger brother Georgie, who succumbs to whooping cough because no penicillin is available, it having been sent overseas for the troops; of Waldo and Gigi; and of an ant queen. It is also shadowed by the fear of death–of Rudy’s, when he is with the Navy in the South Pacific, and of Ham’s, when he enlists in the Army and is sent to Korea. At its close, though, it is a novel of life. Its ending, like that of Peter Wheelwright’s As It Is On Earth, brought to my mind the final sentence of Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: “Be fruitful and multiply.”

Life, both natural, in the form of ants, and imaginary, in the guise of Wonder Woman, pervades the narrative of Wally’s growth and maturation. Ham becomes interested in the ant colonies he found in Waldo’s and Gigi’s back yard, and collects some to form a captive colony inside a fish tank. He communicates his enthusiasm to Wally, who does the same. Gigi takes them to the Museum of Natural History and introduces them to Vernon Somersby, an entomology curator. Somersby is impressed and offers them regular tutelage. He gets Wally onto a team of researchers who are studying how ants communicate, and she makes an important discovery.

Communication, or the lack of it, is the major theme of the novel. Wally regards Stella, who is reticent about her life away from Wally, as a mystery. Bill Niederman is a mysterious figure, engaged in secret war work. A failure of communication between him and Stella, once rectified, sets the action going. Ham is infuriated by Loretta’s late disclosure of his true parentage. Wally is grateful for RADAR (always in all caps), a form of communication of which the initial recipient is unaware but which reveals the recipient’s location to the sender, for keeping her father alive in the war. There’s even a discussion, by Bill Niederman after he returns to teaching math at Rutgers, of the “Traveling Salesman Problem,” which has to do with establishing the most efficient routes of travel or communication.

Wally is a fan of Wonder Woman, perhaps in part because she wonders about her mother, who is something of a wonder. Some time before Stella’s death, when her mother is away, Wally goes into her bedroom and finds, in a box under the bed, “the most remarkable costume [she] had ever seen.” There is a blue sequined cape on which were “long silver triangles plunging from shoulder to hem, like daggers.” Its lining is “electric-blue silk with blood red piping.” Under it is

a matching dress, short with a sequined bodice and more of those spangly silver daggers on a blue field. Under the dress lay a blue and silver headband and a pair of silver high-heeled booties. It was the costume Wally would have conceived for her mother, if her mother was a superhero.

What clinches it is that Wally sees, embroidered in the lining of the cape, Stella’s maiden initials: “S.W.” Wally takes this to mean “Silver Wonder.”

Worlds opened up in Wally’s mind like accordion folds. Long-standing conundrums sorted themselves out…. All those days and nights she was away, too busy for Wally–she’d been striving to make the world safe for her daughter. And the sense of withholding that Wally had sometimes felt, the sense that her mother was keeping something from her, all that made sense now, too….She was Stella Wallace Baker by the light of day, and the Silver Wonder, a shining streak of justice, by night.

My fellow Brooklyn Heights residents will find some interesting history here. Jim Crow was not absent from our neighborhood, as we see when Wally and Ham go to swim in the St. George Hotel’s Olympic size poll, and the woman at the entrance directs Ham to the “colored changing area.” Ham endures a severe beating when he and Wally go down to the still active docks below the Heights and a longshoreman takes offense at his being there with a white girl. Finally, we get to see what it was like for those living on Columbia Heights–including Waldo and Gigi–when Robert Moses’ “Brooklyn and Queens Connecting Highway” (now the BQE) takes away a large chunk of their back yards.

When the World Was Young is published by Random House, New York (2014).

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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Long before there was Led Zeppelin, even before there were Yardbirds, there was Neil Sedaka. Brooklyn born and raised (his father was a cab driver) and trained to play classical piano in Julliard’s preparatory school program, Sedaka found his true love in pop music as a teenager. He and lyricist Howard Greenfield, a boyhood friend, became one of the songwriting teams–along with Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman–who had offices in the Brill Building, a 1931 vintage office building at Broadway and 49th Street with an elaborate art deco entrance (photo). Producers Don Kirshner, George “Shadow” Morton, and Phil Spector also had offices there.
 
Sedaka, like Carole King, was a singer as well as a songwriter. His recording career began in 1957 with “Laura Lee” on the Decca label. His first song to chart was “The Diary,” on RCA, for which he continued to record through the remainder of the 1950s and ’60s. He cracked the top ten in 1959 with “Oh! Carol,” which made it to number nine. In the summer of 1960 “Stairway to Heaven,” which apart from its title bears no relationship to the later Led Zeppelin hit, also reached nine on the hit parade.

I remember “Stairway” fondly because it was one of the songs that I heard many times on the car radio, along with Roy Orbison’s enthralling “Only the Lonely,” the Hollywood Argyles’ hilarious “Alley Oop,” and Ray Peterson’s bathetic “Tell Laura I Love Her,” when my parents and I went from Tampa to visit my mother’s relatives in Pennsylvania and my father’s in Indiana during the summer between my eighth and ninth grade years. I always enjoyed these road trips, and music I heard on them got engraved on my memory. An intriguing feature of “Stairway” is the rising “Bwaaaaah!” sound at the end of each chorus. The musicians credited on the song include Irving Faberman on timpani; this sound is likely produced by pedaling the drum. There’s also a sax bridge by the then almost ubiquitous King Curtis.

Sedaka continued to have hits for RCA through 1961 and ’62, when he reached the top of the chart with “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.” His slow ballad version of that song, released on the Rocket label, reached number eight in 1975, but topped the “easy listening” chart, giving Sedaka the distinction of being the only artist to have topped charts twice with different versions of the same song.

Neil Sedaka will celebrate his 76th birthday tomorrow, March 13, 2015.

Brill Building photo: San Francisco Public Library.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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Last year Coney Island Brewing released “Seas the Day India Pale Lager,” which I tasted and reviewed. Having gotten Overpass, their first India Pale Ale, I couldn’t resist sampling them side by side (see photo above). The first thing that struck me is that, contrary to my expectation, the lager (on the left) is a deeper amber color than the IPA. Please don’t conclude from the photo that the lager produces a much more ample head. Before I poured the brews, I accidentally knocked over the lager bottle, which made it very fizzy. The IPA produced a full, foamy head which had largely collapsed by the time that on the lager had declined to the point where I could finish pouring it. As I did when I reviewed Seas the Day, I paired both brews with a spicy Vietnamese bánh mì sandwich from Hanco’s.

Before this tasting, I tried the Overpass IPA by itself. My notes were: aroma–hops predominate, with floral undertones; flavor: hop bitterness dominant throughout. When I gave my wife a sip, though, her reaction was “Malty!” As the ale warmed in the glass, I got more malt flavor.

For this tasting I let both brews sit on the table for a while so that, when I poured, they were not too far below room temperature. This time I noticed malt flavor at the start in both brews, although the hop bitterness seemed more pronounced at the finish in the lager than in the ale. As it got warmer, the IPA seemed almost toasty. But as I ate the spicy sandwich, I noticed the hop flavor in the ale becoming more pronounced again. The principal difference between the IPA and the IPL was that the latter had more pronounced fruit overtones. This seems odd given that the hop mixture in the IPA includes two varieties–Centennial and Nelson-Sauvin, that are not used in the lager and are said to impart fruit flavors.

I find the Overpass IPA a fine, well crafted example of the style; one that, if not served too chilled, has excellent hop-malt balance. Of the two, I think the Seas the Day IPL is more interesting; but why wouldn’t an unusual brew like an India Pale Lager be so?

Coney Island Brewing has also recently released a 1609 Amber Ale, 1609 being the year Europeans first set foot on what is now Coney Island. I have a bottle, and will be reviewing it soon.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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Truth is, I got nervous when I read this New York Times story. Anything that indicates the Mets are doing something other than concentrating on playing baseball, especially if it smacks of premature triumphalism, puts me on edge. Sort of like Darryl Strawberry’s rap “Chocolate Strawberry.” recorded and released in 1987, just as the Mets were beginning their as yet interminable decline from their 1986 championship.

And the Babe? Thinking about players’ publicity appearances brought to mind a story I read some years ago. It was 1942, and everything had to be about the War Effort. The Babe was to be interviewed on Grantland Rice’s radio show, so one of the questions was how sports could contribute to that effort. Rice had scripted an answer; “Well, Granny, as the Duke of Wellington said, the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.” This was rehearsed several times until it seemed Ruth had it down pat, but when the show went live, he said, “Well, Granny, as Duke Ellington said, the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Elkton.” Asked afterward why the deviation from script, Ruth said he didn’t know Wellington but did know Ellington, and while he’d never been to Eton, he married his first wife in Elkton, and would never forget that place.

Update: already the intra-squad sniping has begun.

Babe Ruth photo: Culver Images via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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Probably because of my emotional state at the time, music I heard often got engraved on my memory. One night the DJ announced what he said was an example of  “Southern white soul,” a song called “Georgia Pines” by a group I’d never heard of called the Candymen. He also  mentioned that the singer’s name was Rodney Justo. The video clip below shows the Candymen performing “Georgia Pines” at Greenwich Village’s famous, and still extant, music venue The Bitter End in 1967:

Despite “Candymen” and “Rodney Justo” sticking in my memory, I didn’t follow them at the time. WBCN didn’t play the song again, at least not when I was listening, and no Candymen albums showed up in the record bins at the Harvard Coop. My principal musical interests at the time were the harder edged British Invasion groups–the Stones, the Who, the Yardbirds–along with Dylan and the country-tinged rock of the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. From the last two I developed passions for, respectively, the “Cosmic American Music” of Gram Parsons and the protean Neil Young.

A few years ago I became Facebook friends with someone I had known in Tampa during my youth, and saw that one of that person’s other friends was a “Rodney Justo.” “Could it be?” I thought. I went to Rodney’s Facebook page and–sho’ nuff! It turned out we had both lived in Tampa and went to rival, though not arch-rival, high schools (I to Robinson; he to Chamberlain). Although I had never met him. I sent a friend request, which he graciously accepted. I learned that, before the Candymen, he had led a group called Rodney and the Mystics, which triggered a vague memory, as I’d probably heard of them during my Tampa years (they shouldn’t be confused with the Mystics who had the 1959 hit “Hushabye; those Mystics came from what is now my adopted home, Brooklyn).  What I didn’t know was that Rodney and the Mystics became the go-to backup band for many established rock stars. Roy Orbison asked Justo to join his backup group, called the Candymen as a reference to Orbison’s song “Candy Man”.  Although their principal commitment was to Orbison, the Candymen also recorded and performed on their own; witness “Georgia Pines.”

After the Candymen, Justo became a founding member of  Atlanta Rhythm Section; the photo at the top of this post is of him while he was with ARS. The video clip below is of a reunited ARS performing “Doraville” live sometime in the not-too-distant past; Justo is the lead singer.

Some years ago Justo left the full time music world and took a job with a beverage distributor because he decided it was more important to be a  successful father than a successful musician. Nevertheless, he still does gigs with Coo Coo Ca Choo, a ’60s-’70s revival band, in the Tampa area.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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Lesley Gore, who died today at 68, is most remembered for her first hit, “It’s My Party (and I’ll Cry If I Want To),” which began a successful collaboration with Quincy Jones as her producer.

She was a Brooklyn native, but her family moved to New Jersey, where she attended the private Dwight School for Girls in Englewood. She was a sixteen year old junior at Dwight when Jones signed her to Mercury Records and she recorded “It’s My Party,” which went to the top of the Billboard pop chart in 1963. Her recording and performing career continued through high school and Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied drama and literature. She later did some acting; the photo above shows her as Catwoman’s sidekick Pussycat in the TV series Batman.

My favorite of her early hits (she continued to record, perform, and write music through much of her later life; her last album, Ever Since, reviewed favorably in The New York Times, was released in 2005) is “You Don’t Own Me,” described as an “empowering, ahead-of-its-time feminist anthem” by Daniel Kreps in Rolling Stone. The video clip above shows her performing it as part of the T.A.M.I. Show in 1964, when she was eighteen.

While “You Don’t Own Me” could be seen as an “answer song” to Joanie Sommers’ 1962 hit “Johnny Get Angry” (“I want a brave man; I want a caveman”), Gore didn’t see it that way, at least not when she recorded it. She thought of it as something a man could have as easily sung to a woman. Like all of Gore’s early songs, it wasn’t written by her. It was written by two men, John Madera and Dave White.

Gore was in college when she first realized that she was a lesbian. She didn’t announce this to the public until 2005, when she was hosting In The Life, a PBS show about LGBT issues. Her death was announced by Lois Sasson, her partner of 33 years.

Addendum: Friend Eliot Wagner has this observation:

While “You Don’t Own Me” was not an answer to any particular song, it responded to an entire era. The late 50s and early 60s were full of songs which instructed women on their role viz a viz men in society: not only “Johnny Get Angry”, which you mentioned, but also “Love and Marriage”, “Wives and Lovers”, and probably the most egregious of the lot, “Bobby’s Girl”. The fact that “You Don’t Own Me” was on the air was a grand signal that even if that era was not over, it would, in fact, soon be history.

It also occurred to me that 1963, the year “You Don’t Own Me” was released, was also the year that Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique was published.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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432 Park Avenue (center in the photo above) claims the title of tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere, and second tallest building (after the new One World Trade Center) in New York City, but if measured by roof height the tallest. It’s described by its architect, Rafael Viñoly, as designed around “the purest geometric form: the square.” Not only is the building’s horizontal cross section a square, but all the windows are squares.  It dominates the midtown skyline with the grace of a colossal headless Pez dispenser, or upraised middle finger (the photo above was taken from Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park). Aaron Betsky admires its “relentlessness”; I demur. Betsky also celebrates how 432 Park “represents the transformation of this and every other city into a place for the wealthy to live and play” as if driving out struggling artists and other relatively impecunious but creative people, and the inexpensive infrastructure that supports them, constitutes progress.

With bad luck, we may be subjected to more Viñoly designs, like 125 Greenwich Street, all of which will end up being pieds a terre for billionaires, with perhaps a few lower floor, smaller apartments going to mere multi-millionaires.

Viñoly discusses his design philosophy in this video. He plays piano well.

The developers of 432 Park are CIM Group and Macklowe Properties. Harry Macklowe is a developer whose company was once fined two million dollars for reckless endangerment resulting from the rapid night-time demolition of two buildings. Macklowe compares 432 Park to the Mona Lisa.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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The Coney Island Brewing Company’s winter seasonal offering is called “The Plunge”, after the Polar Bear Club’s winter swims at Coney Island. With a name like that it should be, well, bracing.

The label says “Belgian-Style Ale with Ginger, Orange Peel and Fennel Seed.” As I’ve mentioned before, I’m leery of brews with additives. To riff on The Lovin’ Spoonful, “All I want is malt, yeast, water, and hops just to set my soul on fire.” Still, despite initial strong doubts, I liked Coney’s summer brew, Tunnel of Love Watermelon Wheat. I found their autumn offering, Freaktoberfest, less pleasing. Pumpkin is not one of my favorite flavors, although the espresso beans added an interesting note.

So, here are my notes on “The Plunge”, which I had with a spicy take out from Curry Heights:

Color: vivid amber (see photo).

Head: ample, but not over-the-top (ditto).

Aroma: fruit and spices, hint of licorice (thanks to the fennel).

Taste: a rich mix of fruit, spice, malt, and a muted hop finish, with a touch of licorice. As the meal progressed and the ale warmed in the glass, the fennel accent became more pronounced, and malt carried through to the finish.

The Plunge went well with the spicy curry, its own spiciness complementing rather than amplifying or fighting that of the food. All in all, a pleasant drink, and one I’ll enjoy again. Would I compare it to a swim in frigid water? To me, it was more of a sitting in front of a fire on a winter’s night kind of beverage. At 6.9 percent ABV, it will warm you up. Technical details are here.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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The ninth annual Brooklyn Book Festival will be on Sunday, September 21 from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m at Borough Hall and Columbus Park (immediately north of Borough Hall). There will be readings by and discussions with writers, readings and activities for children, and books for sale. There’s more information here.

During the coming week and the Monday following the Festival there will be “Bookend” events held in various venues around the Borough. Among these venues are Book Court, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Brooklyn Historical Society, DUMBO Sky, the Powerhouse Arena, Smack Mellon Gallery, St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church, St. Ann’s School, and Vineapple. A full schedule is here.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/70198

Here’s mine. If Tim should read this, he will likely be disappointed by most of my choices being what he calls “‘songs’ that conform to the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus virus.” My descent into old fart-dom has long been underway, and ingrained habits die hard. Still, I’d like to think I’m not beyond having my notion of how music ought to sound stretched a bit. Thanks to Tim, I’ll spend more time listening to the likes of Neu! and Liquid Liquid, though Scott Walker + Sunn O))) is, for me, a difficult stretch (I just listened to “Soused” a second time; it’s starting to grow on me). I will even look back and reconsider Van Halen.

1. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Like a Hurricane. If someone told me I had ten minutes to live, and could choose one piece of music to hear, I’d have a hard few seconds deciding between this and the first movement of Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio.

2. Chuck Berry, Promised Land. I never knew, until I just looked it up, that the tune is based on one of my favorite old-time country songs, Wabash Cannonball. Berry wrote the song in prison in the mid sixties, when L.A. was still the Promised Land. It was also a time when to be young, poor, black, and “stranded in downtown Birmingham” was a scary proposition, but Berry didn’t need to dwell on that; he just got his protagonist outta there, pronto.

3. The Astronauts, Baja. A surf guitar band from Colorado–yes, Colorado–got the sound just right.

4. Mahavishnu Orchestra, Open Country Joy. John McLaughlin and company start softly, building into a lovely opening theme that ends abruptly, followed by a ten second silence, then by a frenetic, sometimes dissonant variation that finally resolves itself into a triumphant restatement of the opening theme.

5. The Ramones, Rockaway Beach. Someone once wrote that the Ramones were New York’s answer to the Beach Boys. Was “Gabba gabba hey!” our “cowabunga”?

6. The Royal Teens, Believe Me. In 1959 I was thirteen and lovesick when I heard this song, announced as a “pick hit of the week” on WDAE in Tampa. I never heard it again on radio, nor did I find it on my occasional searches through bins of 45s in record stores, but every “ooh-wah-ooh,” every tinkling piano note, was indelibly engraved in my memory. Cut to the cusp of the ’70s-’80s. I’m in one of those West Village used vinyl emporia and come across a Royal Teens anthology LP. I bought it and dashed home to my then digs on East 11th to play the song I hadn’t heard in twenty or so years. The tinkling piano is by Bob Gaudio, who later joined Frankie Valli and the other Jersey Boys in the Four Seasons, and wrote several of their hits. According to this excellent bio by Bruce Eder, Al Kooper played guitar with the group in ’59, so may be on this cut.

7. Lou Reed, Coney Island Baby. From doo-wop to an homage to doo-wop. “The glory of love might see you through.” Yeah.

8. Eartha Kitt, Uska Dara. One afternoon when I was seven, and my parents and I were living in half of a thatched roof cottage in rural Hertfordshire, my mom had the radio tuned to BBC and the announcer said, “Now, here’s some Turkish music.” What followed was so hooky that, like “Believe Me” six years later, it got burned onto my mental hard drive–well, not perfectly; the tune I remembered, but not the spoken bridge, nor the sung words, except for the end of the chorus, which sounded to me like “nebrezary on a shoe.” Cut to the Bells of Hell, circa 1978. It’s four on a Saturday or Sunday morning, the place is closing, and Mike McGovern–if you’re a fan of Kinky Friedman’s novels, that McGovern–invites the few serious drinkers left, myself included, to his place for a morning-cap. As we sipped Jameson Mike put on an Eartha Kitt LP and there it was, that song I hadn’t heard since I was seven. I got my own copy soon after.

9. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Take It Inside. The album Hearts of Stone is on my top ten rock albums list; it’s the only one I’ve downloaded wholesale to my iPod. I chose this track for its showing of the group’s versatility, from the Beatle-esque opening phrase, “Try to understand,” leading into Johnny singing over a basic rock backing ensemble, then the entrance of the horns on the chorus. I also love it for its controlled but still white-hot passion.

So far, things were pretty easy. Tim suffered for his list; mine was a breeze. Then it got down to choosing that last number. I had two songs in mind. Both come from the British–one English, the other Scottish–folk-rock tradition. Well, I thought, it’s possible to have a tie for ten. So, I’ve numbered the next two songs “10.”

10. Mike Heron, Warm Heart Pastry.  Mike Heron was a founder of the Scottish acid-folk group Incredible String Band, which I saw in its death throes at the Bottom Line in the mid ’70s, on a tour in which they had expanded to about twenty members, mostly by picking up musicians in every place they performed, including my native city. In 1971 Heron made a solo album, Smiling Men With Bad Reputations. “Warm Heart Pastry” is the one straight-ahead rocker on the album, with a hot backing band credited as “Tommy and the Bijoux.” I later heard or read somewhere that they were The Who, playing under a pseudonym to avoid contractual problems. That proved to be partially true: they were The Who minus Roger Daltrey, but plus John Cale, who also appears on several other cuts on the album.

10. Richard and Linda Thompson, Wall of Death.  She was pregnant, and they were on the verge of marital breakup, when they recorded Shoot Out the Lights, one of the most emotionally harrowing rock albums ever. Richard was previously a guitarist and singer with Fairport Convention. The song has been described as “joyous,” but the underlying tension seems obvious to me.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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As most, if not all, of you know by now, Robin Williams died today. The photo at left, by Photographer’s Mate Airman Milosz Reterski (Navy NewsStand) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, was taken while he was “entertain[ing] the crew of USS Enterprise (CVN 65) during a holiday special hosted by the United Service Organization (USO).” His shirt says “I [heart] New York” in Arabic.

I’m late on this sad news, but my friend, fellow Brooklynite, fellow Episcopalian, and fellow blogger John Wirenius has a very good post, with two superb videos. You can read it here.

Addendum: my friend and erstwhile LeBoeuf, Lamb colleague Richard Cole kindly sent me his personal reminiscence of Robin Williams, originally written for his siblings, which he has generously allowed me to share:

In the late ’70s or so, Mom came down to NYC, where Doug and I took her to the Improv comedy club on her birthday, December 28. After a few comics, a sudden roar greeted the surprise appearance of Robin Williams, and I believe that during his hilarious set while riffing on birthdays, I pointed to Mom and he acknowledged it.

During the last few years, I had numerous private as well as small group discussions and laughs with Robin, mostly at/near 142 Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley, where he often did sets and improv for fun, allowing and encouraging others to shine too. He often sat in back, spurring younger stand ups with his barking laugh. On one such occasion, a couple shyly interrupted our conversation near backstage for a joint photo on their wedding night. Happy to oblige, he told them each: “Pretend to be surprised tonight!”. Only a few months ago, Robin and I walked yakking alone for two blocks to a restaurant after the Tuesday Night comedy show, discussing his Broadway show, NYC apartment and so forth. He headed the table of comics and others, and asked me to sit down next to him. For 45 minutes or an hour, we had coffee, a bite to eat and conversation. He had grown up and lived nearby, and had struggled with everything from heart surgery, depression, substance abuse and domestic challenges, usually working frenetically while remaining accessible and friendly. I saw him do a very edgy, riotous set recently and a couple of generous improv sets with rookies; when asked how he would like to be greeted in heaven, he said he hoped that he would have a front row seat and God would say “Two Jews walk into a bar . . .”. Etc., etc. Many if not most comics seem to have depressive personalities, from which paradoxically the humor explodes — think of Jewish comics in the shadow of the Holocaust. He always leapt easily among standup, improv, comic and dramatic, serious acting, with some great movies that were not meant to evoke any mirth. It may be silly to reminisce through my little lens when he knew thousands of more important people better (everybody knew him and vice versa) but he knew my name and always said hello, and it is a good indication of the manner in which Robin affected so many.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tzVM/~3/SqloaVjvrY0/robin-williams-1951-2014.html

Novelist and Brooklyn Heights resident Elizabeth Gaffney was at the Brooklyn Historical Society yesterday evening to read from her second novel, When the World Was Young, on the date of its publication by Random House. She read two segments of the novel. The first told how a physician forced to give up her career because of injuries, both physical and emotional, suffered because of an auto accident in which her fiance, another physician, was killed, was courted by and married an old friend from her childhood and youth. Ms. Gaffney concluded this segment by saying, “So began a very bad marriage.” The second was from the 1950s youth of that couple’s daughter, Wally Baker, the novel’s protagonist, and told of her going to the St. George Hotel pool with a friend, Ham, who was black, and of the cicerone who guarded the pool entrance directing Ham to the “colored changing area.”

Following the readings, Ms. Gaffney was joined by Marcia Ely, BHS’s Vice President for External Affairs and Programs (on left in photo) for a discussion. Ms. Gaffney did extensive research for her novel at BHS, using its library and archives. Asked what were the most interesting materials she came across in her research, the author said she found maps of Brooklyn Heights and nearby neighborhoods in which each block was coded according to the number of black people who lived there. These maps were to facilitate banks’ practice of “redlining”; that is, to deny mortgages in places where there was a majority of black residents, and to increase rates in others that were seen to be likely to become majority black.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/69173

One thing about historical fiction: if you know anything about the history, there are no spoilers. When I picked up The 13th Apostle, I knew how it would end. Michael Collins would die by an assassin’s bullet. I knew it was because of a dispute that had torn the newborn Irish nation asunder, and that the dispute was over whether to accept the terms of a deal with Britain that would allow six northern counties to remain under the Crown. What I didn’t know was Collins’ role in negotiating that deal, and that he died defending instead of opposing it. What little I knew of Collins made me think he’d have been on the other side: an all-or-nothing-ist  instead of a pragmatist.

In his conduct of the struggle to free Ireland, in which his efforts were essential to bring about the conditions that brought Britain to the truce table, Collins was, as the book tells, a consummate pragmatist. He knew just what needed to be done, and how, to undermine the foundation of  British power. He was also, however, not averse to taking risk, sometimes with respect to his own safety. The lot of being the confidante who sometimes must try to talk sense to Collins falls, in the novel, on a fictional character, Eoin Kavanagh.*

The 13th Apostle is a novel told from two points of view. One is that of Eoin Kavanagh who, at fourteen, was a resident, along with his parents and three younger siblings, in a dreadful Dublin building called The Piles. The misery of his family–he lost a younger brother to diphtheria and his mother shows signs of the tuberculosis that will end her life early–makes him sympathetic to the Feinian cause. On Easter Monday 1916 he gets caught up in the excitement and joins the rebels. A bullet grazes one of his buttocks. Lying with the wounded he draws the attention of Michael Collins and of a nurse, Róisín O’Mahony, four years his senior, who tends to his bleeding bottom. From this inauspicious beginning he has an improbable but not inconceivable career. He becomes Collins’ assistant, adviser, and a supernumerary member of his “Squad” who do the targeted killings necessary to advance the liberation of Ireland. The Squad were called “The Twelve Apostles”; hence, the novel’s title. He marries Róisín, and after Collins’ death they emigrate to New York. He settles in Greenwich Village, takes American citizenship (without losing the Irish, from the viewpoint of its government), gets into politics, is elected to Congress, and becomes a confidante of FDR (as Róisín becomes one of, and a ghostwriter for, Eleanor), but after the assassination of JFK decides to leave his adopted country and return to Ireland. There he’s elected to the Dail (the Irish parliament) and supports the cause of liberating the Six Counties from British rule.

The other viewpoint is that of Eoin’s grandson, Eoin Kavanagh III, called “Johnny Three” because Eoin, pronounced “Owen,” is the Gaelic equivalent to John. He’s a writer, lives in the Village, drinks at the Lion’s Head, and is married to Diane, a Presbyterian who loves him dearly but is often amazed, and sometimes dismayed, by his and his family’s Irish ways. Actually, Diane, along with Róisín, should probably be added as point of view characters, because their observations are vital to the development of the story.

The story begins with old Eoin’s death, in Ireland, at the age of 105. As he was the last surviving veteran of the Easter Rising, as well as a distinguished statesman in his later years, his funeral is a major occasion. Johnny Three and Diane attend, and learn that the old man’s legacy to Johnny included a set of diaries, kept from his participation in the Easter Rising through his years as Collins’ assistant and Squad member, Collins’
death, and its aftermath.

The novel’s narrative shifts between Johnny Three and Diane in 2006, and Eoin from Easter Monday, 1916 to August of 1922, with a few snippets of his later life in America, including a meeting with FDR and Churchill on Christmas Eve, 1941, with the U.S. newly allied with Britain against the Axis. It’s Eoin’s second meeting with Churchill, his first having been during the 1921 treaty negotiations, when he served as Collins’ bodyguard. With a little prompting, Churchill remembers this. Churchill and Collins, on whose head Churchill had once put a ten thousand pound reward, came to respect and like each other as men of action. The 13th Apostle includes a true anecdote featuring Churchill’s rapier wit that I hadn’t known before. I won’t spoil it by repeating it here.

While the shifts in locale and time may sound disorienting, they provide a useful perspective. Johnny knew his grandfather had been a rebel, and an associate of Collins, but didn’t know he had participated in the executions of British agents and their Irish collaborators. Diane found it hard to believe that the man she knew as a stand-in father-in-law (we learn little of Johnny Two, other than that he evidently abandoned his son) was a killer. When we see it from Eoin’s perspective, we find how hard it was for him to square his moral convictions with his duty to Ireland and Collins, even when his first fatal shot is into the head of the man who tortured and killed his father.

I learned much history from reading The 13th Apostle, and got a sense of what it was like to have been in Dublin during the years that the Irish Republic, “a terrible beauty” in Yeats’ words, was born. I also learned the words that must be said to make a perfect act of contrition. This book may yet be my ticket to heaven. 
 _________
*The character of Eoin Kavanagh seemed so realistic to me that I did a web search for the name, just to see if there was someone with that or a similar name who was prominent in the Irish rebellion. I found this article by Owen Kavanagh (“Owen” is an alternative spelling of the Gaelic “Eoin”) giving the results of his research into the involvement of members of the Kavanagh clan in the Easter Rising and subsequent struggle for liberation. He mentions the brothers Michael and William Kavanagh as having participated in the Easter Rising and later in the fight for independence, a Sean Kavanagh as having been Collins’ intelligence officer in Kildare, and a Seamus Kavanagh as having been among the rebels in the General Post Office on Easter, 1916. Owen Kavanagh’s source of information was:

a set of six…CD’s contain[ing] Dublin Castle’s secret surveillance files, known as Personality Files which were compiled by the Special Branch of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP).

His account ends with an “Author’s Note” mentioning the execution of Alan Bell, a bank examiner sent by the British government to ferret out the accounts holding Sinn Fein’s funds to be used in support of the uprising. In The 13th Apostle, the fictional Eoin Kavanagh is part of the team that captures and kills Bell.  In his Note, Owen Kavanagh describes how Constable Harry Kells of the DMP, who earlier had been tracking the Kavanagh brothers, was assigned to try to find Bell’s killers. This brought Kells to the attention of Collins, who had him killed. There’s no indication, however, that any of the Kavanaghs were involved in Bell’s execution. None of the characters in The 13th Apostle is based on any of these Kavanaghs. There is, however, extensive discussion in the novel about the intelligence operations carried out by the RIC and DMP and the files they kept on actual  and suspected rebels, as well as Collins’ ultimately successful effort to gain access to those files.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tzVM/~3/mMhaqxHY9FI/the-13th-apostle-by-dermot-mcevoy.html

Thinking about clothes in books led to my remembering the spate of pop songs about clothes, mostly “novelty” songs but a few straight-ahead rockers and sock hop squeeze ‘n’ shuffles, that crowded the airwaves during the late 1950s and early ’60s. One of the most memorable of these was Marty Robbins’ (photo above) 1957 ballad “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation.”

The clip above is of a 1981 live performance by Robbins, made just a year before the singer’s death.

 In 1956, Carl Perkins recorded “Put Your Cat Clothes On,” though the record was not released until 1970. Perkins refers to “Blue Suede Shoes” in the lyrics, a nod to another song he wrote in 1955 and recorded in January of ’56.

1957 was a big year for songs about clothes. A New Jersey group called the Royal Teens had a hit with “Short Shorts.” The piano player is Bob Gaudio, who would later join Frankie Valli in the Four Seasons and write several of their hits, including “Sherry”.

1957 also gave us “Black Slacks,” by Joe Bennett and the Sparkletones.

1957 was a big year in fashion as well, as couturier Cristobal Balenciega introduced his shape shrouding sack dress. In 1958, Gerry Granahan expressed his displeasure in “No Chemise, Please.”
  In 1959 thirteen year old Dodie Stevens (exactly my age then) hit the charts with “Pink Shoelaces.”

Bryan Hyland made the top ten and Dick Clark’s American Bandstand in 1960 with “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” The modestly dressed woman in high tops who gives the spoken interrogatories is Trudy Packer.

Another 1960 release was the Coasters’ paleo-rap “Shoppin’ for Clothes,” written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who had earlier penned “Hound Dog” for Big Mama Thornton, later covered by Elvis. Coasters member Billy Guy was working with the songwriters, and remembered a similar piece he’d heard on the radio. They searched record stores but couldn’t find it. Later they learned it was “Clothes Line,” written by Kent Harris and recorded by Boogaloo and his Gallant Crew. Harris was then given co-credit for “Shoppin’ for Clothes.”

I’ll close, as did many a school dance, with Bobby Vinton’s 1963 prom belly-rubber “Blue Velvet,” which later inspired a David Lynch movie.

I’ll do a second installment featuring songs from the late 1960s to the present. If anyone can think of clothes-themed songs from the period covered in this post or later, please let me know.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tzVM/~3/O4sVTEYFShE/clothes-in-pop-music-part-1-1955-63.html

As we moved away from the dock, we got a good view of the World War Two veteran aircraft carrier Intrepid.

Heading downriver, we passed the retired, now privately owned fire boat John J. Harvey and the also privately owned lightship Frying Pan. Six years ago I was on a cruise on the tugboat Cornell when we were called on to pull Harvey, then stuck on a mudbank, free. I recorded the incident on video. The large structure behind Frying Pan is the Starrett-Lehigh Building, (Cory & Cory, Yasuo Matsui; 1931), a striking adaptation of some elements of art deco architecture, such as rounded corners, continuous horizontal strip windows, and varying brick colors, to an industrial and warehouse structure.

Continuing down the Hudson, we saw another former government vessel now in private hands, the lightship tender Lilac. Behind her is the Borough of Manhattan Community College and the towers of the Independence Plaza housing complex.

Passing the tip of lower Manhattan we saw a skyline dominated by the new One World Trade Center (David Childs/SOM; completion expected later this year) and the newly opened Four World Trade Center (Fumihiko Maki, 2013). The low, white building on the shoreline below One WTC is City Pier A, built in the 1880s and expanded in 1900 and 1919. It was used at different times for police and fire boats, lay derelict for many years, and is now being rehabilitated as a venue for restaurants.

Looking up the East River, we could see the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, as the sightseeing boat Robert Fulton went by.

We headed through the Buttermilk Channel, which lies between Brooklyn and Governors Island. The retired harbor tanker Mary A. Whalen, purchased and restored by PortSide New York, is docked at a pier on the Brooklyn side. In the background, above Mary’s wheelhouse, is the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Building (Halsey, McCormack and Helmer, 1929), for many years Brooklyn’s tallest.

A double-crested cormorant was perched atop a buoy.

Heading across the harbor, we passed the ferry terminal on Staten Island and the ferry Spirit of America.

Entering the Kill Van Kull, which lies between Staten Island and Bayonne, New Jersey, we passed the tug Brian Nicholas pushing two barges, one loaded and one empty, lashed side-by-side.

The tanker Skopelos was docked on the Bayonne side. In the background, to the right, is a wind turbine; an effort to reduce the demand for the fossil fuel tankers carry.

King Duncan, another tanker, was berthed just beyond Skopelos.

The World War Two veteran destroyer escort U.S.S. Slater was undergoing maintenance at Caddell Dry Dock and Repair Company, Inc. on the Staten Island side. There’s an article about Slater’s stay at Cadell’s, ending with a photo showing her after completion, sporting her bold camouflage, here. Slater is now back in Albany, where she serves as a floating museum.

A short way past Caddell’s we passed under the Bayonne Bridge, which is being raised to allow the gargantuan container ships now going into service to pass under it. The project is being done in stages, so as to keep the bridge open to traffic except during late night hours. Photo by my wife.

After the bridge, we turned into Newark Bay, and passed the outbound container ship MSC Arushi R., escorted by the tug Miriam Moran.

After MSC Arushir came Don Jon Marine’s Caitlin Ann, pushing an empty barge.

Maersk Pittsburgh was docked at Port Elizabeth.

Another Don Jon tug, Mary Alice, was headed up Newark Bay.

Ital Laguna was docked at Maher Terminals, Port Elizabeth. The First Watchung Mountain can be seen in the distance.

Elizabeth McAllister was also heading up the Bay,

Endurance, docked at Port Newark, is a rarity these days; a large civilian cargo ship flying the U.S. flag. She is a RO-RO (Roll On-Roll Off) ship, and is used to transport equipment and supplies to U.S. forces abroad.

Heading back toward the Kill Van Kull, we passed Ellen McAllister. The tug’s low profile suggests she may sometimes be used on inland waterways with low clearances.

MSC Bruxelles was docked at Port Newark.

As we came alongside Maersk Pittsburgh we saw St. Andrews, the tug that had brought the barge from which Pittsburgh was taking on fuel. Note the scrape marks on the ship’s hull.

Another view of the Bayonne Bridge as we headed back toward the Kill Van Kull.

The tug Houma passed us just before we reached the bridge.

We passed the Moran tug fleet’s Staten Island home port. Laura K. Moran and two other tugs were docked there.

A little farther along was the Reinauer dock, where Dean Reinauer and Kristy Ann Reinauer waited for their next assignments.

Traffic was heavy on the Kill Van Kull as we headed out. Ahead of us was Northstar Marine’s barge Northstar 140, towed by Reliable.

Here’s a better view of Reliable as we overtook the tug and her tow.

With the New York City skyline as a background, Bouchard’s B.No.280, escorted by Charles D. McAllister, headed up the Kill Van Kull.

Power behind B.No.280 was supplied by Ellen S. Bouchard.

Then came Manhasset Bay…

…which was easily overtaking Paul Andrew pushing a barge.

We encountered three tugs in succession towing barges “on the hip”; first Brooklyn, …

…then Sassafras, …

…then Gulf Dawn.

We almost overtook MSC Arushi R., which we had passed earlier as we entered Newark Bay, as she left the Kill Van Kull headed for the Narrows and the Atlantic.

As we left the Kill Van Kull and rounded Constable Hook, we passed the Bayonne Golf Club, with its faux lighthouse club building (2006). The Scottish style links were built atop what previously was a waste disposal landfill. 

The container ship Positano, sitting light with no visible cargo, was docked at Bayonne’s Military Ocean Terminal.

Just past Positano was the U.S. Naval Ship Watkins, undergoing maintenance work at the Bayonne Dry Dock & Repair Corporation’s graving dock.

The cruise ship Explorer of the Seas was moored at the Cape Liberty Cruise Port, Bayonne. The Kirby tug Lincoln Sea and a barge were docked at the end of the pier.

After passing Bayonne, we saw the majestic skyline of … Jersey City, with Lady Liberty in the middle.

Hearing a droning noise overhead, I looked up and saw a World War Two vintage B-17 flying by. 

The Colgate Clock, on the Jersey City shoreline, is a memory from my childhood, when I passed it several times on ships leaving from or arriving at New York. The building on which it once sat has been demolished; fortunately, the clock (Seth Thomas, 1924) has been preserved.  We were right on time; our cruse started at 11:00 a.m. and was scheduled to last two hours.

As we approached our dock, I saw kayaks near Intrepid’s stern.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tzVM/~3/_gwLogl8zyo/photos-from-hidden-harbor-tour.html

We’ve received this somewhat cryptic message from Notify NYC:

Notification issued on 7/19/14 at 11:18 AM. The United States Coast Guard reports that a ship in Arthur Kill [red in map] off the coast of Staten Island is offloading various fuel products. As a result, there may be an odor in Staten Island and Brooklyn. Please report natural gas emergencies to 9-1-1.

Could the “fuel products” include liquefied natural gas?

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/68792

World War I also helped to precipitate two revolutions: the Russian and the Irish. British recruitment of Irishmen to fight in the war (see poster image above) was a factor leading to the Easter Rising of 1916. As the rebel song “The Foggy Dew” declared:

Right proudly high in Dublin town
Hung they out a flag of war.
‘Twas better to die ‘neath an Irish sky
Than at Suvla or Sud el Bar.

“Suvla” and “Sud el Bar” were  disastrous amphibious landings on the Turkish coast in which British troops, including many Irish, took terrible casualties. Another verse, not included in the lyrics on the linked post, has the words

‘Twas England bade our wild geese rove
That small nations might be free.

The second line is ironic. One of Britain’s appeals to prospective recruits was to fight for “small nations,” in particular Belgium (again see poster above) that had been or might be invaded and occupied by German troops.  The irony is that Ireland was a “small nation” that wanted to be free, but Britain would not allow it to be. The term “wild geese” in the first line was originally applied to the Irish Jacobite army that was allowed to go to France following the Irish defeat by the army of King William in 1691. It was later used for Irish soldiers who served in the Royal Army in European wars.

“The Green Fields of France,” sung in the clip above by Liam Clancy and Tommy Makem, is one of the saddest songs I know. The name “Willie McBride” suggests Protestant Irish (William is not a popular name among Catholic Irish because of King William’s defeat of the Catholic rebellion in the late seventeenth century). The line “Did the pipes play ‘The Flowers of the Forest’?” at first indicated to me that he served in a Scottish regiment, as “Flowers” is a traditional Scottish lament, but the notes to this YouTube clip say it has become “[t]he traditional lament for the fallen in forces of the British Commonwealth.” So, the song was co-opted, after excising the lines

Sad day for the Order,
What’s happened to the border?
The English, by guile,
For once won the day.

We all live in the world the Great War (I still call it that; the Second World War was vastly more destructive, but the effects of the First include the Second and much more) created. I pray we do not have to see its like again.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tzVM/~3/mC_6SRlfxI4/liam-clancy-and-tommy-makem-green.html

Last week my wife and I, along with a friend, took a tour of some of the more impressive mausoleums in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery. Following the guided tour, about which I’ll be blogging more in the near future, the three of us went to Battle Hill, the highest point in the cemetery grounds (indeed, the highest natural point in Brooklyn. It was the site of an important engagement in the Battle of Brooklyn (sometimes called the Battle of Long Island, as the area in which the fighting took place was not yet part of Brooklyn). The battle was the first engagement of George Washington’s Continental Army against the Royal Army, and was a defeat for the Americans. It could have spelled the end for the young Revolution, but for some heroic rear guard actions, including that at Battle Hill, and a stroke of luck, in the form of bad weather, that allowed what remained of Washington’s forces to retreat from what is now my neighborhood to Manhattan, then to New Jersey, then to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where they endured a harsh winter before re-crossing the Delaware and enjoying their first victories at Trenton and Princeton.

The monument in the photo above is topped by a statue of Minerva,”the Roman goddess of battle and protector of civilization.” She faces toward, and waves to, the Statue of Liberty, which can be seen from Battle Hill. On the face of the base below the statue are the words, “Altar to Liberty.” The mausoleum behind belongs to the family of Charles Higgins, the ink manufacturer who funded the monument.

There is also a Civil War monument (photo above) on Battle Hill.

The plaque on this face of the monument has the words:

Ever remember how much of National Prosperity is due to the brave exertions of the Soldiers who died in the service of their Country.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tzVM/~3/ZKmFW_JSru8/the-monuments-on-battle-hill-green-wood.html

“Raggle Taggle Gypsy” is one of a myriad of variations on the same song found throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and the former British colonies. I also have a version, with the title “Black Jack Davy”, by Scotland’s Incredible String Band. Another, “Black Jack David”, was recorded by Warren Smith, a rockabilly pioneer who was briefly more popular than Elvis. In his book Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock ‘n’ Roll, my erstwhile Bells of Hell and Lion’s Head companion and friend Nick Tosches tells of an interview with Smith in which Nick asked him where he got “Black Jack David.” Smith’s reply was, “I wrote it.” Nick’s next paragraph:

Cut to Athens, fourth century B.C. In his Symposium, Plato refers to an attempt made by Orpheus, mythical poet and son of Oegrus the harper and Muse Calliope, to rescue his wife from the land of the dead. This is the earliest known mention of Orpheus’s wife, Eurydice, and of his adventure in the lower world. It’s also the beginning of “Black Jack David.”

Nick then traces the Greek Orpheus legend* through various developments by the Roman writers Vergil, Ovid, and Boethius. Nick writes, “It was King Alfred’s ninth-century translation of Boethius that ushered the Orpheus myth into medieval Britain.” After this, Nick follows its development into poems and ballads in various parts of the British Isles. He notes a syncretic development in Ireland, where the story melds with pre-existing Celtic legends. Such are the roots of the many songs about the abduction and failed attempt to recover a nobleman’s wife, or sometimes daughter, that include “Back Jack David” and “The Raggle Taggle Gypsy.”

From “The Raggle Taggle Gypsy” Planxty segues into Tabhair dom do lámh, an instrumental featuring Liam O’Flynn (photo at left) on uilleann pipes. This enchanting tune is credited by Bunting in Ancient Music of Ireland to Ruairí Dall Ó Catháin, a chieftain from County Tyrone whose reputation for skill as a harper and composer may be second only to that of the great Turlough O’Carolan. The story behind Tabhair dom do lámh, as told in Ask About Ireland, is that Catháin was traveling in Scotland when a noblewoman, Lady Eglinton**, thinking him to be a simple itinerant musician, demanded that he play a tune. Angered by her effrontery, Catháin refused. When Lady Eglinton learned of his high status, she apologized, and he composed Tabhair dom do lámh for her.

My friend Larry Kirwan’s band Black 47 gives the translation of Tabhair dom do lámh as either “Give me your hand” or “Let’s be friends.” Another source, Donal O’Sullivan, in his Carolan: The Life, Times, and Music of an Irish Harper, quoted by “Sarah” in the comment thread under a post about the tune in The Session, in turn quotes Arthur O’Neill as claiming Catháin’s original title for it was the Latinized Da mihi manum, which also translates as “Give me your hand.” The tune was later used for an Irish rebel song, “White, Orange and Green” (the colors of the Irish flag) which you can hear by Spailpin here. Later, the Wolfe Tones performed it as “Give Me Your Hand,” with lyrics that seem both a simple love song and a plea for reconciliation between the sectarian factions in Northern Ireland; hear it here.

In the first comment in the thread below The Session post, “Zina Lee” includes this:

I’ve read the following regarding this tune: Note that the tune is pentatonic until the final phrase. The mixolydian seventh appears four measures from the end, while the fourth does not appear until the final measure.

Maybe this explains why, when I asked the uilleann piper who played at our wedding if he could play Tabhair dom do lámh, he politely declined, saying it was too difficult.

The musicians in the video above, other than Liam O’Flynn on the pipes, are: Christy Moore on guitar and vocal; Andy Irvine on tenor mandola (I was introduced to Andy by my date following his solo performance at the old Eagle Tavern on West 14th Street in 1989, and later learned that my future wife and her date were there the same evening); and Dónal Lunny on Irish bouzouki (as the linked Wiki tells, Lunny owned the first bouzouki specifically made for use in Irish music; he later became a member of The Bothy Band).
__________

*The Orpheus legend bears an interesting resemblance to the Biblical story of Lot and his wife. In the Orpheus tale, the hero is told that he may lead his wife back to the land of the living so long as, on the way, he does not turn to look at her. He does, and she disappears. In the Bible story, Lot and his wife are allowed to escape the destruction of Sodom on the condition that they not look back toward the doomed city. She does, and is turned to a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:26).

**The linked source spells her name “Eglington”; others spell it “Eglinton,” which I think is correct. There is an Eglinton Castle in North Ayrshire.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tzVM/~3/yC68c8EX6x4/planxty-raggle-taggle-gypsy-tabhair-dom.html

Theater 2020, Brooklyn Heights’ own professional stage company, will present Shakespeare’s King Lear starting next weekend (video after the jump). There will be performances on Friday, May 23 and Saturday, May 24 starting at 8:00 p.m. and on Sunday, May 25 starting at 3:00 p.m. The play will run through the following two weekends (May 30-June 1 and June 6-8) with performances at the same times on the corresponding days. The venue is St. Charles Borromeo Church, 19 Sidney Place. Tickets are $18 and may be purchased in advance by credit card here or with cash at the door (for reservations call 718-624-3614 or e-mail theater2020@gmail.com). From Theater 2020:

You have never seen KING LEAR quite like this. Join us in the amazing interior of the Saint Charles Borromeo Church in Brooklyn Heights for a modern gothic take on one of Shakespeare’s most beloved tragedies. You will be at the center of the action as we explore both the humor (Yes! Humor!) and poignancy of the challenges of the aging body and mind in this timeless story of family greed and failure to communicate. Well known New York Indie Theater actor [and Heights resident] David Fuller stars as King Lear, and Kim Sullivan (Classical Theatre of Harlem) is Gloucester in this 15 member diverse and top notch cast.

Following the play’s run at St. Charles Borromeo, on the weekend of June 13-15, there will be three free outdoor performances, each starting at 7:00 p.m., on Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park. No reservations are required.

See our review of Theater 2020′s production of Candide in February of this year.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/67340

While the Pier 4 beach (photo) and Pier 2, with its athletic facilities (see photo after the jump) have been accessible to the public for several days now, they will both be officially opened this Thursday (May 22) afternoon.

From Brooklyn Bridge Park:

Our program will kick off promptly at 3:30pm with a celebratory ribbon-cutting, followed by clinics and programs on our bocce, shuffleboard, handball and basketball courts.

Pier 2 is the Park’s second active recreation pier, and features five acres of active recreation courts for basketball, handball, shuffleboard and bocce, as well as a full size roller skating rink, swings, picnic tables, restrooms and fitness equipment. Pier 4 Beach is a unique sandy shoreline that allows park visitors to access the East River for non-motorized boating and educational programs.

The ribbon-cutting will take place at the entrance to Pier 2. All are invited to this free event.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/67374

IN WATERMELON SUGAR the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar.Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar

The Tunnel of Love might amuse you….
Richard Thompson, “Wall of Death”

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I was invited to a tasting of Coney Island Brewing Company’s summer seasonal brew, “Tunnel of Love Watermelon Wheat.” You can see it, freshly drawn, in the photo above, sitting on the bar of The Brazen Fox, where the event was held. Before I tasted it, I had Richard Brautigan’s words in mind, and feared I might be getting something akin to alcoholic Hawaiian Punch. I took a sniff–hop aroma prevailed, but with a little hint of fruit–then a swig. Like Richard Thompson said I might be, I was amused. Even pleased. This was beer, not melon juice, though the melon flavor was there, working well with the cascade and citra hops, and with the two row barley malt, malted and unmalted wheat, and dark crystal malt. It’s not something I’d make my everyday beer, but I’d be glad to take it to our roof deck or to a beach on a summer afternoon with some chips and salsa. At 4.8 percent ABV, you can have more than one without fear.

On the way in we were greeted by Sarina Appel, who encouraged me to try Mermaid Pilsner and Seas the Day IPL, both of which I’d previously tasted from bottles (see here and here), on draught. I did, and didn’t taste any major difference from my earlier impressions, other than that the Pilsner seemed a bit more assertively hoppy, and the India Pale Lager perhaps a bit less so, than I remembered.

My wife and I had a delightful and informative conversation with Coney Island’s brewmaster, Jon Carpenter. Actually, my wife got the conversation going, asking Jon about the varieties of yeast used in brewing. Jon is a native Californian and a graduate of U.C. Davis. He has previously worked for L.A.’s Golden Road and for Dogfish Head in Delaware, makers of 90 Minute Imperial IPA (I’ve yet to try their 120 Minute, but must soon; stay tuned). I also had the opportunity to meet Alan Newman, head of Alchemy & Science, Boston Brewing Company’s “craft beer incubator,” which now owns Coney Island Brewing. Alan told me a tale of how he and Steve Hindy, President and co-founder of the Brooklyn Brewery (see my reviews of their brews here and here and here) were at a convention in Las Vegas when the 9/11 attacks occurred and, because all air transport was grounded, bought a van and returned by highway to the East Coast.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tzVM/~3/6mqzfxEFOz4/coney-island-brewing-companys-tunnel-of.html

The movement begins with a sprightly Irish jig tune, the name of which escapes me (perhaps a reader can help) announced on piano, then developed in variations on sax. At 2:40, the piano announces the second theme, based on “Wild Mountain Thyme (Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go?),” picked up by the sax at 3:50. At 4:59, Radnofsky begins a variation at turns happy and mournful, but at 6:00 this gives way to a lively development that resolves back briefly to “Wild Mountain Thyme” at 7:50 before ending joyously.
 
“Wild Mountain Thyme” was a traditional closing song at the Lion’s Head. The video above is of David playing it, and assembled Lion’s Head veterans joining in voice, at the Cornelia Street Cafe two years ago.

Addendum: David offers the following news about future events:

They are presenting an evening of my chamber music, performed by members of the New York Philharmonic,  The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Boston Symphony April 29th. Woody Guthrie’s daughter , Nora Guthrie will also be there to speak about the   formal release of my new CD THIS LAND: Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie, which I conducted with the Colorado Symphony, based on her father’s iconic song, and the evening will be dedicated in memory of Pete Seeger, with whom Amram often collaborated with for the past half century.

The opening event will be April 26th with a screening of Lawrence Kraman’s new documentary film “David Amram:The First 80 Years”.

following the Q.and A. after the screening, there will be an urban hike through the Upper West Side, where I will revisit many of the places where I have collaborated musically over the last  60 years with a great variety of gifted people

We’ll begin our hike by visiting The Lincoln Center itself, where Leonard Bernstein appointed me as the New York Philharmonic’s first-ever composer -in-residence, and go the the park outside near the fountains where i did concerts of every variety for years. 

We’ll go to the old site where  Birdland once stood, as the final remaining landmark from the golden days of 52nd street, where i played with the jazz greats during the 1950s.

We will see some of the Broadway theaters where I composed incidental music for fifteen dramatic productions

We will walk by  Thelonious Monk’s old dwelling (which now is landmarked by the city), where he took me under his wing and mentored me in the early 50s, when i was playing with Charles Mingus at night and studying composition at Manhattan school of /music during the day.

We will take a stroll to the old site where Shakespeare in the Park had their first season, before the Delecourt Theater was built, where Joseph Papp had me as the festival’s first composer and musical director for 12 seasons, where i composed  scores for 30+ productions,

We will visit  the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater where i worked with Arthur Miller and Elia Kazan as their first composer for three years, while the building was being completed and many other venues in the neighborhood  where i conducted free out of doors Symphony concerts, played jazz.folk and world music concerts, performed for peace gatherings, political campaigns, jazz/poetry readings and all kinds of events. 

Programs, photographs, articles and videos of all of these endeavors are now documented in my archive which the Lincoln Center Library has acquired.

 I hope these activities and viewing of the archive itself  will be of value to young people who may come to any of the events this April and then check out the archive.

Hopefully it will make them feel that everyone of us can have a great life if we work hard, stay the course, refuse to accept career councilor’s advice (which is usually to give up pursuing your path before you are even sure what that path is) and just go out start all over every day with renewed energy, share what blessings we have with others, show respect for every person who crosses our path, try to always do better than is expected and ENJOY life!!

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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A few weeks ago I noticed Brooklyn Brewery’s “Dry Irish Stout” on a shelf at my local supermarket. This piqued my curiosity. “Dry” isn’t a word I’ve associated with stout. I decided to get some and compare it to the stout I, and most people, know best: Guinness. I know there are some of you who, seeing the photo above, are saying, “Why do this at home?” Bottled stout isn’t stout as it should be, drawn slowly from a tap. I’ll grant you that. My excuse is that I didn’t have time to go bar-hopping until I found one that had both kinds on tap. Also, my wife needed some bottled stout to use as a marinade for the corned beef we had with cabbage, potatoes, and carrots for our pre-St. Patrick’s supper tonight (see below):

I did the tasting this afternoon. The bottles were kept a little below room temperature until I was ready to pour. Here are the results:

Guinness

Color: very dark brown.

Head: ample and long lasting.

Aroma: malty, with hint of floral.

Taste: black coffee with a hint of caramel; some hop bitterness in the finish.

Brooklyn Dry Irish

Color: dark brown, a slight shade lighter than Guinness.

Head: small, brownish white; collapsed quickly (see photo at top, taken shortly after the Brooklyn stout was poured; the Guinness had been poured earlier). According to the brewery’s website, this stout differs from Guinness and other widely marketed Irish stouts in that no nitrogen is added to enhance the head.

Aroma: floral, with a hint of berries.

Taste: initially tart and fruity; no strong coffee or chocolate taste (my wife, trying it without having had Guinness first, said she tasted chocolate; perhaps my palate was skewed by having just tasted Guinness). A pleasant but subdued hop bitterness at the finish.

The verdict: not a real contest, as these are very different beers. I like them both, and they went equally well with our corned beef repast. Brooklyn Brewery also makes a Black Chocolate Stout that might make for a better head to head (as it were) comparison to Guinness.

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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In my walks across the Brooklyn Bridge and back over the past year or so, I’ve noticed that couples have been writing their names on padlocks and attaching those locks to the fences beside the pedestrian walkway, as shown in the photo above.

Sometimes, a lock displays a  plea instead of an acknowledgement of existing commitment.

Some messages are too long to put on a padlock, so they get written on the bridge itself.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tzVM/~3/P16pJzXDUqM/locks-of-love-on-brooklyn-bridge.html

A couple of weeks ago I tried Coney Island Brewing Company’s “Seas the Day” India Pale Lager. Now I’ve also had their Mermaid Pilsner. It’s good beer.

Pilsner (or Pilsener) is a style of lager–a lager being any beer made with bottom fermenting yeast–that originated in the city of Pilsen, or Plzeň, in what is now the Czech Republic. What distinguishes Pilsner from other lagers is that it is made with lighter colored malts, resulting in a golden, as opposed to a deep amber or brown, color. It usually also has a more pronounced hop flavor than other lagers. Most mass market American beers are made in the Pilsner style. Some, like Budweiser, have a forward hop flavor while others, like Coors, have a more subdued one.

For a food pairing I decided on something less spicy than the bánh mì I had with “Seas the Day.” I chose a “Smokin’ Henry” from our local deli, Lassen & Hennigs. It’s made with smoked turkey, Black Forest ham, cheddar, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and Russian dressing. For a bit of spice, I had some of Trader Joe’s cheddar and horseradish flavored chips on the side.

While I was waiting for my sandwich to be made, I took a look at Lassen & Hennigs’ beer selection, and saw Mermaid Pilsner among their offerings.

The beer has a rich golden color, a shade darker than most American Pilsners, but similar to that of Pilsner Urquell, the original Pilsner from Plzeň. The head was moderate, creamy, and fairly long-lasting. The aroma was hoppy, with slight malt undertones and jasmine-like overtones. The flavor was a well balanced blend of hop bitterness and malt warmth, with a suggestion of spice and a pleasant, melon like finish. The beer worked well with the flavorful food, but would also be enjoyable on its own.

Unlike Czech or German Pilsners, which adhere to a purity law that allows only the use of barley malt, Mermaid Pilsner, like “Seas the Day,”  is made with a combination of malts. There is regular two-row barley malt, the staple of most fine beers, along with Cargill’s “EuroPils,” also made from two-row barley, but with a distinctive “grassy” flavor. There are also two non-barley malts: rye and wheat. It’s the rye that imparts the hint of spiciness.

Mermaid Pilsner takes its name from Mermaid Avenue, one of Coney Island’s main thoroughfares, and from the Mermaid Parade, an annual Coney Island event.

This is a well made and thoroughly enjoyable beer, equal to most and better than many imports and American craft-brewed Pilsners.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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A lot went on at Thursday night’s Brooklyn Heights Association Annual Meeting, much of which is touched on in our “Tale of the Tweets” coverage. I have a few points about the business side of the meeting to expand on. In addition to the awards for “best diner” to Clark Restaurant and to Patricia and John Duffy for their renovation of 265 Hicks Street, there was one to the extended Alperin/Lowe/Sullivan family for their various ventures, including Marissa Alperin Studio on State Street between Columbia Place and Willow Place (a frequent stop for your correspondent when shopping for presents for his wife), clothing store and art gallery Goose Barnacle, kids’ clothing shop Junior Lowe, both on Atlantic Avenue, and the re-opening of the Long Island Bar and Restaurant, also on Atlantic.

A new honor was the Martha Atwater Award, named for the Heights resident, TV producer, wife, and mother tragically killed just over a year ago when an out of control truck hit her on the sidewalk on Clinton Street. The first Martha Atwater honoree was Mary Frost, of the Eagle, who received the award in recognition of her coverage of the battle to keep Long Island College Hospital open. Finally, a “Best New Addition to the Neighborhood” award was given to Ted Zoli, with Brooklyn Bridge Park President Regina Myer accepting on his behalf, for his design of the Squibb Park Pedestrian Bridge.

Clay Shirky (photo above), who holds joint appointments as a professor in New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and as Distinguished Writer in Residence in NYU’s Arthur. L. Carter Journalism Institute, was evidently prepared (he is a former resident of the area) for an audience heavily salted with geezers, like your correspondent. Hence he saw his mission as dispelling any notion that the internet is leading to the End of Civilization as We Know It. But what is it destroying? There are some distinctions that it is seriously eroding, if not ending.

Shirky said he was sure we were all familiar with the Iliad, the classic account of men at arms and warfare, while a photo of the cast of Hogan’s Heroes was projected above him. Similarly, he said, we knew the Odyssey, the prototypical tale of adventure at sea and on unknown islands; this was accompanied by a photo of the Gilligan’s Island cast. He then showed a typical example of internet trivia: someone’s tweet of their fast food breakfast. Next he showed a page of a blog, NeverSeconds, started by a nine year old Scottish schoolgirl, Martha Payne, who would photograph her school “dinners” (lunches to us) and rate them for taste, healthiness, presence or absence of hairs, and other qualities. Her blog went along for some time, and gained fairly wide readership, with no reaction from school officials until it got mentioned in a newspaper. This caused her to be taken out of class and told she could no longer photograph her school meals. Her “Goodbye” post went, as they say, viral, and generated so much protest that the county council reversed its decision, and Martha’s blog, complete with photos, continues. Shirky said this illustrates one of the cultural changes the internet is effecting: an erasing of the professional/amateur distinction. Once, to reach a wide audience quickly, you had to be a professional journalist. Now, thanks to the internet, even an amateur can.

Another distinction being lost is that between public and private – as Shirky discussed in this chat a few years ago with “Switched”:

Shirky noted that tweeting on Twitter is often used as a means of chatting with friends, as oppeosed to e-mail or text messaging, but that it isn’t private, as e-mail or texting is.

As to whether the internet is oblivious to, or drowning out, “serious culture” (like the Iliad or Odyssey), Shirky noted that the printing press was invented in 1450, that the first erotic novel was printed in 1495, but that serious philosophical papers weren’t printed until the 1600s. So, just be patient. (Actiually, the first thing reported to have been printed by Johannes Gutenberg was “a German poem”; after that he produced the first printed Bible. He also printed papal encyclicals, church indulgences, and Latin grammars.)

Since I’ve used Wikipedia as a reference, it’s worth noting an interesting statistic that Shirky used in his presentation. The total person-hours used to produce and edit the entire content of Wikipedia up to a fairly recent date is approximately 100 million, but the total time spent watching TV over the same period of time (I don’t recall if he said, but I’m assuming this is worlwide) is estimated at 200 billion person hours. So, the time used by amateurs to produce an encyclopedia is, in shirky’s words, a “rounding error” compared to couch potato (or stationary bike/treadmill) time.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/65931

India Pale Lager? I’ve long been a fan of India pale ales, or IPAs as they’re usually called. I like their intense hop bitterness balanced, in the best of them, by a rich barley malt flavor. I didn’t know quite what to expect from this lager offering by Coney Island Brewing Company. “India Pale” made me expect big flavor, so I paired it with a Vietnamese bánh mì from Hanco’s, doused with some extra hot sauce.

I poured, and was rewarded with a full, foamy head. The color (photo above) was a golden amber. I took a whiff: the aroma was powerfully hoppy, with some floral notes. My first sip made my taste buds confirm the evidence of my nose. The hops have it! A few bites of the sandwich convinced me it was a good pairing. Still, I thought, while this beer goes well with spicy, flavorful food, is it something I’d want to drink by itself?

After a few minutes, though, the beer started to open up. I began to get some of the “[b]ig citrus and passion fruit aromas” promised on the label and on the brewer’s website. The flavor also became more rounded, with fruit overtones softening the hoppy edge. I realized that I should have taken the beer out of the fridge and poured it a few minutes before tasting.

I checked the ingredients on the website. Five kinds of hops are used: Galena, Warrior, and Simcoe, all of which are considered “bittering” hops; Cascade, which is moderately bitter and gives a floral aroma; and Citra, a fairly new variety that has quickly become popular (with some dissenters) and that accounts for the notes of passion fruit. There are four malts: two row barley (commonly used in the best beers and ales), malted wheat, oats, and biscuit malt (I had to look that up). The last three would, I believe, tone down the flavor of the two row barley, and, set against the assertiveness of the hops, explains the beer’s lack of any noticeable malt flavor or aroma.

On balance, this is a good beer. It would go very well with spicy food like bánh mì, Hunan or Szechuan cuisine, and the more picante of Mexican dishes. At a moderate 4.8 percent alcohol by volume, it shouldn’t get you in trouble too quickly. My preference continues to be for IPAs that balance the hops with malt. Still, I would drink this again, maybe with my next takeout vindaloo curry.

So, what about this Coney Island Brewing Company? Is the beer made on Coney Island? No, it’s brewed upstate, in Clifton Park, just south of Saratoga Springs, by the Shmaltz Brewing Company, makers of He’Brew (“The Chosen Beer”) and other craft beers and ales. In this respect Coney Island Brewing is much like Brooklyn Brewery, which has most of its beer and ale brewed under contract by F.X. Matt in Utica. Coney Island Brewing does have a tiny brewery at 1208 Surf Avenue on Coney Island where small batches of specialty brews are made and sold to the public. The brewing venture is a partnership between Shmaltz and Coney Island USA, a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to “defending the honor of American popular culture.”

Next on my beer tasting agenda is Coney Island Brewing’s Mermaid Pilsner. I’ll be reporting on it soon.

Source: Self-Absorbed Boomer
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