Liam Clancy, last of the Clancy Brothers.

Though we were both Lion's Head denizens, I never met Liam Clancy. I did meet his brother Paddy, who died eleven years ago, at the Head's bar one afternoon in the 1980s, and even harmonized on a couple of songs with him. Tom, the oldest of the singing Clancys (there were nine siblings), died in 1990, and their singing partner Tommy Makem in 2007. Liam was the last remanant of a group I came to love in 1965, when I got a copy of their record album Recorded Live in Ireland. As announced on his website, Liam died in his native Ireland on Friday.

12/7 update: Liam was buried today. There was a rainbow. Photos and text are here.

New York Senator Diane Savino on marriage equality.

New York state Senator Diane Savino represents parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island. Her measured, well reasoned yet impassioned plea to her colleagues to approve marriage equality for same sex couples, in what I was dismayed to learn was a losing cause, has been well distributed on the web, but I'm compelled, on behalf of my many friends in committed same sex relationships and out of my sense of justice, to add it to my blog. To anyone who might accuse Senator Savino of playing to a gay vote in her district, I can vouch that it is an area that is largely middle class, Roman Catholic or Jewish, and "traditional" in values. Her speech, I believe, is an appeal to the better angels of her constituents' being.

Thanks to Brooklyn Heights Blog reader "Lifer" for giving me the link to Sen. Savino's speech. By following the link to BHB, you may also see the speech by Sen. Daniel Squadron, who represents my district, in favor of the marriage equality bill.

Grace Slick at seventy.

Someone once wrote that Jefferson Starship's Red Octopus was "proof positive that rockers can age gracefully." This photo (thanks again to Michael Simmons) of Grace Slick at seventy bears out that statement. Below is a YouTube clip of Starship doing "Fast Buck Freddie", the opening cut on Octopus, accompanied by a slideshow of photos of a younger, but not necessarily prettier, Grace (thanks to liquidgee13 for the clip):