New Year's thank-yous.

I'm a little late with this, but I trust you'll forgive me. Last year at this time I posted a thank-you to everyone I could think of who had, in some way, supported this blog during the previous year. I am now repeating all those thank-yous (so, if you didn't follow the link, please go back, click, and read the linked post) because you all deserve a second round of recognition.

I also need to add some new friends who've been very helpful during 2008 and, I'm sure, will continue to be: Chrissie Brodigan; David Castillo of Blue Barn Pictures; and Eleanor Traubman of Creative Times, one of the principals behind Brooklyn Blogade.

I'd also like to give repeated and special thanks to those of you who've regularly commented on my posts: Archaeopteryx, Brooklyn Beat, Joe Martini, The Lady of a Thousand Nics (even though, for some inexplicable reason, she's yet to add S-AB to her blogroll), Rob Lenihan, The Lone Beader, Sometimes Saintly Nick, and Twiffer (and, of course, Anonymous, whoever s/he may be).

Special thanks for productive links from New York Times City Room, Fucked in Park Slope, and New York Shitty. A blog should be known by the company it keeps.

Mussorgsky/Ravel, "The Great Gate of Kiev".

Last night, my wife and I attended the New York Philharmonic concert at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center. The final piece of the evening was a warhorse beloved by me: Ravel's orchestral arrangement of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. The Philharmonic's rendition, under the direction of Lorin Maazel, was spectacular. I searched YouTube for a clip of the climactic last part of the suite, "The Great Gate of Kiev", to share in a post. I had several options, and chose the one above, by jefflow1986, of an unidentified young Singaporean conductor leading an unidentified orchestra, because the sound and video quality are very good, but mostly because the camera angle shows the conductor so well, and he is spellbinding to watch as he directs the musicians on what we are told is his first effort at conducting this piece. The only defect is that it ends abruptly in the middle of the final note.

Hepzibah the acrophile.

Something in her little feline brain encodes a military maxim: Take the high ground.

Aboard Amtrak's Adirondack, with an R&B soundtrack.

Riding south from Plattsburgh to New York City on Amtrak's Adirondack last Sunday, I was in the rear coach, and noticed a couple standing at the back end of the car. He was using his camera to take a video through the rear window as the train rolled along. I was inspired to do the same, and shot this just south of Westport, New York.



As I was shooting, my iPod played Arthur Alexander's "You Better Move On", which, given that the train had left Plattsburgh about half an hour late, seemed appropriate.



Thanks to jimmytheferret for the Arthur Alexander clip. As we continued southward along the shore of Lake Champlain, I heard this rare Dolly Lyon gem from 1957:



The song's steady rhythm melded well with the tempo of the train's motion, and Ms. Lyon's rich alto voice complemented the Champlain scenery. Thanks to northern soul stalwart breadmaker99 for the clip.

When we stopped at Whitehall, New York, improbable birthplace of the U.S. Navy (my wife, a Massachusetts native, strongly disputes this claim), I decided to shoot another video from the rear window as we departed the station and proceeded through the town.



As we continued southward toward Fort Edward, the iPod carried me back to my law school days with Robert Knight's "Everlasting Love":



A tip of the hat to davepinch1 for the video. South of Fort Edward, we picked up speed as we traversed the flat woodland between the Hudson River and Saratoga Springs. Looking out the window next to my seat, I saw the sky turning magenta. I aimed my camera through the window, but shortly after I pushed the button we passed a stick of freight cars, parked on a siding, that obscured the view. Once past the cars, the sky reappeared, with trees flashing by.



While the train was stopped at the Saratoga station, the iPod played "You Can't Sit Down", a 1963 hit by the Dovells, here capably covered by The Look in a 1982 MTV video posted on YouTube by that group's Dave Edwards:



The Amtrak crew was successful in making up lost time, so we arrived in Albany slightly ahead of schedule, and had almost forty minutes wait time at the Albany/Rensselaer Station. I decided to stretch my legs on the platform; while there, I saw Amtrak train 291, the northbound Ethan Allen Express, on its way from Washington, D.C. to Rutland, Vermont, arriving on schedule at 5:50 P.M.