Self-Absorbed Boomer
"[A] delightfully named blog", (Sewell Chan, New York Times). "[R]elentlessly eclectic", (Gary, Iowa City). Taxing your attention span since 2005.
Sunday, March 16, 2025
Patrick Street: The Humours Of The King Of Ballyhooley
Saturday, March 08, 2025
Two "Tech Sisters": Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) and Admiral Grace Hopper (1906-1992)

I think one can fairly say that Ada Lovelace was the first person ever to glimpse with any clarity what has become a defining phenomenon of our technology and even our civilization: the notion of universal computation.
She would go on to develop the first compiler and to work on the first machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL and other languages. In the 1970s, she advocated for networked computing and for standardization and testing of programming languages, a standard that was adopted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
She retired, as required by regulations, at the age of 60, but was called back to active duty twice, was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1985, and finally retired in 1986, shortly before her 80th birthday. She died on New Year's Day, 1992, at the age of 85. Admiral Hopper is remembered in several ways. The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing has, since 1994, hosted "a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront." Two buildings and a warship have been named for her: Hopper Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy, which houses the Academy's Center for Cybersecurity Studies; Grace Hopper College at Yale; and the Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer USS Hopper. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 by President Barack Obama.
Image of Ada Lovelace: detail of portrait by Margaret Sarah Carpenter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo of Grace Hopper: James S. Davis, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Sunday, February 09, 2025
Chief Justice Robert M. Bell, of the Maryland Court of Appeals, who made Black History twice.
Maryland has enacted laws that abolish the crime of which petitioners were convicted. These laws accord petitioners a right to be served in Hooper's restaurant, and make unlawful conduct like that of Hooper's president and hostess in refusing them service because of their race.***
Maryland follows the universal common law rule that, when the legislature repeals a criminal statute or otherwise removes the State's condemnation from conduct that was formerly deemed criminal, this action requires the dismissal of a pending criminal proceeding charging such conduct. The rule applies to any such proceeding which at the time of the supervening legislation, has not yet reached final disposition in the highest court authorized to review it.****
Accordingly, the Court vacated the judgment of the Maryland Court of Appeals and remanded the case to that court which, upon remand, held that the Baltimore and Maryland public accommodations statutes, along with the subsequently enacted federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, operated only prospectively and therefore could not invalidate the Hooper's sit-in demonstrators' convictions.***** However, this was not the end of the story. As Professor Reynolds notes at the conclusion of his previously cited article:
On December 14, 1964, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, holding that the 1964 Civil Rights Act did indeed abate all pending prosecutions of those who had been arrested for activity that the Act protected. Although Hamm readily appears controlling, the Court of Appeals waited nearly five months to issue an order on April 9, 1965, reversing the convictions and assessing costs against the State, thereby ending the historic case of Bell v. Maryland.******
Just over a year after the Court of Appeals issued its final order in Bell v. Maryland, Robert Mack Bell received the degree Bachelor of Arts in History from Morgan State College. Later that year he matriculated at Harvard Law School, from which he graduated with the degree Juris Doctor in 1969. He then returned to his home town, Baltimore, and was in private law practice for six years.
In 1975, Bell was appointed to the District Court of Maryland, District 1, in Baltimore City and served there until 1980. He was an Associate Judge, Baltimore City Circuit Court, 8th Judicial Circuit, from 1980 to 1984, when he was appointed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. Seven years later he was appointed to the state's highest court and became the chief justice in 1996. He was a member of the Court of Appeals Standing Committee on Rules of practice and Procedure from 1977 to 1982; the Commission to Revise the Annotated Code of Maryland, 1980-82; and the Board of Directors, Judicial Institute of Maryland, 1982-84. In August 2006, Bell was named Chair of the National Center for State Courts' Board of Directors. At the same time, Judge Bell also was named president of the Conference of Chief Justices.*******
In 2013 he reached the mandatory retirement age of seventy for Maryland judges. His career was significant for Black History in two ways. First, he helped to instigate and carry out a sit-in demonstration that led to litigation that clarified the legal status of such non-violent demonstrations. Second, he became the first Black Chief Justice of the Maryland Court of Appeals (now called the Maryland Supreme Court) and, in a delicious bit of irony, thereby became Chief Justice of the very court that had affirmed his conviction in 1962.
In 2008 he made this observation about how he considered the significance of his case:
I think my case has given me that point of reference, and it also makes me appreciate the extent of progress that has been made. And it also made me able to gauge the extent of the progress which has yet to be made. I think, not just about that case, but about that era in that fashion. The unfortunate thing is that younger people don't remember it. They don't know what happened. And therefore you're finding a different kind of attitude and a complacency which I think is more dangerous than anything else. So our job is pretty hard.********
I believe this observation is still relevant in 2025.
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Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Robert Burns' birthday, and my wife's, celebrated thanks to Repast Baroque and Anna O'Connoll
The program was provided by members of Repast Baroque, joined by harpist and soprano Anna O'Connell. In the photo Ms. O'Connell is at the left, with her Celtic harp. Repast members, left to right, are: Sarah Stone, on baroque cello; Gabe Shuford on keyboard (at Repast concerts Gabe plays harpsichord; the space here was too small to fit one); and Stephanie Corwin on bassoon. The festivities began with Ms. O'Connell's spirited reading of Burns' poem, "The Flowers of Edinburgh." This was followed by a number of Burns poems set to music by various composers, which Ms. O'Connell sang in her clarion clear and wide ranging soprano voice. She also performed several pieces by Scottish composers inspired by Burns, solely on harp.
It being Martha's birthday, I was delighted that one of the Burns poems set to music chosen for the program was "My Wife's a Winsome Wee Thing." I don't know if this was inserted on Martha's behalf, but the musicians did break from the Burns performance to lead us all in "Happy Birthday," and a cake was presented. The program continued with a lively "There's Nae Luck About the Hoose," and concluded with "The Parting Kiss" and what is Burns' best known poem, "Auld Lang Syne," in which we all joined.
Repast's next concert will be on Saturday, March 15 at 3:00 PM, at the McKinney Chapel of the First Unitarian Congregational Society, 116 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn, celebrating The Ides of March, at which Sarah, Gabe, and Stephanie will be re-joined by violinist and new mother Natalie Rose Kress and by guest musician Margaret Owens on oboe and recorder. The program will feature music by Handel accompanied by projections of the 1908 silent film Julius Caesar and other early silent films. The concert will be repeated the following day, Sunday, March 16, at 3:00 PM, at the Manhattan Country Day School, 150 West 85th Street.
Sunday, December 29, 2024
Rest in Peace, President Carter

"Carter believed passionately in the capacity of human beings to create civil societies that would contain the beasts in all of us. Civilization would prevail over brutality. Humanity over inhumanity.
Carter was a religious man who lived by this simple civil religion. He not only saw the good in others but he practiced the good. He was far from the best president America has had but he was one of the best and most decent people ever to serve as president."
UPDATE: Sabrina Lippman, CEO of Habitat for Humanity New York City and Westchester County, offers this remembrance:
“New Yorkers and global citizens alike have lost one of our greatest advocates for affordable housing, self-help homeownership, and shelter for all. We add our voices to the chorus around the world celebrating a life well-built.
President Carter’s leadership and commitment to decent, affordable housing was rooted in his faith, belief in family, and an unwavering dedication to the idea that we can create a better life for all by lifting each other up and working together to accomplish our shared goals.
We cannot overstate our appreciation for just how much Habitat for Humanity and the people we’ve served around the world have benefited from the support of President and Mrs. Carter, may they both rest in peace."
Photo: Department of Defense. Department of the Navy. Naval Photographic Center, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Saturday, December 21, 2024
Bing Crosby - Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful) (Visualizer)
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
"I grow old ... I grow old ..."
"I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."
When I was in high school and first read this couplet from T.S. Eliot's (photo) "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" I assumed that a man's having the bottoms of his trousers rolled, or cuffed, was a new fashion trend in 1915, when the poem was written, and that Eliot ascribed to the aging Mr. Prufrock a desire to appear au courant.
This morning a different reason occurred to me as I tucked, or rolled under, the bottoms of my trousers. From my teen years until now I have worn trousers with a thirty inch inseam. However, I now find that instead of the desirable "break" at shoe level, I get an unsightly sprawl. The reason became evident when a doctor measured my stature and found it was five feet seven, down from the five feet ten it had been for most of my life. I had, for some time, noticed that people, especially women, seemed on the average taller than I was used to seeing.
This I now know, is because a loss of stature frequently occurs during aging. According to this article, by losing three inches I've lost the maximum expected amount. I hope that's true.
Perhaps, then, poor J. Alfred had lost an inch or more growing old, and that's why he needed to roll his trousers.
Photo: Thomas Stearns Eliot with his sister and his cousin by Lady Ottoline Morrell.jpg: Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873–1938) derivative work: Octave.H, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Tuesday, December 03, 2024
Donnacha Dennehy's "Land of Winter: I. December" by Alarm Will Sound
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
Marshall Chapman sings Waylon Jennings' "You Asked Me To" with James Burton on guitar.
Tuesday, November 19, 2024
A tour of Dr. Konstantin Frank's vineyards and winery, followed by a paired tasting.
For years there were unsuccessful attempts to grow vinifera vines in New York. This was blamed on the cold climate. The first to succeed was Dr. Konstantin Frank (photo above). A native of Ukraine, Dr. Frank earned his PhD in viticulture (the science of wine) with a thesis on growing vinifera grapes in cold climates. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1951, and in 1958 bought some land near Keuka Lake, one of the Finger Lakes, and planted Riesling, a white vinifera varietal that originated in the relatively cool climate of Germany's Rhine Valley. He made several award winning wines from this first planting, ranging in style from very sweet to dry. He went on to introduce many other vinifera varietals, both red and white, to the Finger Lakes climate and soil, and to make widely praised wines from them. After his death in 1985 his son Willy took over management of the winery, and began making sparkling wines using the French méthode champenoise. He also continued making varieties of still wine his father had been making, although he reduced the number of them from sixty to twelve. Willy died in 2006 and was succeeded by his son, Fred. Fred's daughter, Meaghan, has now assumed much of the management responsibility, so the winery and vineyards have had the attention of four generations of the Frank family.
Dr. Frank was a mentor to many other winemakers in the Finger Lakes and elsewhere. Among these are Jordan Harris of Heron Hill, Morten Hallgren of Ravines Wine Cellars, and Sébastien LeSeurre of Domaine LeSeurre, all of which Martha and I visited when we toured the Finger Lakes wine region in 2021. This year Chris Bennem and Lisa Moore invited us back to Glen Hollow for a long weekend, and arranged for us to take a tour of the Frank winery followed by a paired tasting of selected foods with Frank wines.
On our way to the winery we walked through a vineyard. Here's a close-up of the raw material of winemaking. Here's a view of the vineyard on a hillside overlooking Keuka Lake. These are very old vines that may date back to Dr. Frank's original planting.Photo of Dr. Konstantin Frank, Finger Lakes Wine Country; all others by C. Scales
Saturday, October 26, 2024
Box of Rain (2013 Remaster); remembering Phil Lesh (1940-2024)
Lesh’s bass lines hopped and bubbled and constantly conversed with the guitars of Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. His tone was rounded and unassertive while he eased his way into the counterpoint, almost as if he were thinking aloud. Lesh’s playing was essential to the Dead’s particular gravity-defying lilt, sharing a collective mode of rock momentum that was teasing and probing, never bluntly coercive.
As Pareles also noted:
His bass lines held hints of Bach, jazz, bluegrass, blues, Latin music and far more, as he sought out new interstices each time through a song.
The reference to bluegrass, a style of music I've long enjoyed, intrigued me. According to the Times obituary, Lesh first met Jerry Garcia when Garcia was playing bluegrass banjo at local East Bay nightclubs. The obituary quotes Lesh on hearing Garcia on banjo:
That was my first intimation that music with that kind of directness and simplicity could deliver an aesthetic and emotional payoff comparable to that of the greatest operatic or symphonic works.
Lesh told Garcia he wanted to learn to play bass. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
Monday, October 21, 2024
Goodbye, Mets.
It was not to be. The Mets' regular season record against the Dodgers was 2-4; that also proved to be their record in the National League Championship Series. The Dodgers will now be facing the Yankees in a World Series for the twelfth time, though the first since 1981. Their 1955 Series, when the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, is memorable for me. This time, though, I'll be rooting for the Yankees.
Sunday, September 29, 2024
Kris Kristofferson, 1936-2024
Sunday, September 22, 2024
Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition's "Salon des Refusés" Exhibition features works by Andrea Biggs
The photo above is of our friend and neighbor Andrea Biggs with three of her recent paintings. Top to bottom they are: "Burst of Energy"; "3 Emerging Roses"; and "The Inception." They are part of the Brooklyn Artists Waterfront Coalition's 2024 Salon des Refusés exhibition, which opened yesterday. Many of Andrea's paintings, like these, are based on floral imagery, but depart from pure representation to express vibrancy and dynamism. She also does landscape paintings that show the influence of the nineteenth century Hudson River School artists. One of these, I'm glad to say, hangs on the wall of our living room, along with one of her floral paintings.
The Salon des Refusés exhibition includes works of painting, sculpture, photography, and multimedia by many artists. It is open Saturdays and Sundays from 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM through October 13, at the BWAC Gallery, 481 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York.
Saturday, September 07, 2024
How 'bout those Mets?
The 2024 season started badly for the Mets. At the time, I noted that "most pundits" predicted they would finish fourth in the National League East. Things began to look better as the season progressed, and I was tempted to post some encouraging words, especially when they completed their four game season series with the Yankees with four wins, thereby securing New York City baseball bragging rights, however temporarily. Fans of the Bronx Bombers will remind me that their team has an 81-60 record while the Mets' is 77-64, that the Yanks are a mere half game behind the division leading Orioles, while the Mets are tied for second in the NL East with their often nemeses, the Braves, and are eight games behind the streaking Phillies.
So I've held off posting. With each bit of encouraging news, I've remembered what I posted sixteen years ago, about the Mets' "ability to rouse hopes, then smash them like cheap china." Now, as I write this, the Mets are sitting on an eight game winning streak, which could end in what is now a rain delayed game against the Reds. Last night the Mets prolonged their streak with a 6-4 ten inning win over the Reds in an at home series opener. As so often, there's a dark side to this: second baseman and reliable slugger Jeff McNeil is lost for the season with a wrist injury.
The other bad news is that the Mets now face a challenging schedule until the end of the season. They have seven games against the division leading Phils, three against the Braves, and end the season, as they started it, with three games against the Brewers, the same team that swept them in their season opener.
What can I say now? The best I can anticipate is that the Mets overtake the Braves, finish second in the NL East, get a wild card slot, and Carlos Mendoza is named Manager of the Year. The worst is that they finish third in the division, at least a bit better than pre-season predictions.
Update: it's now a nine game winning streak; the Mets beat the Reds 4-0 today. Also, it looks likely the Mets will go a full game ahead of the Braves, who trail the Blue Jays 6-1 in the bottom of the 6th.
Sunday, September 01, 2024
Woody Guthrie's "Union Maid"
English singer and songwriter Billy Bragg, along with Mike Merenda and Ruthy Ungar (banjo, fiddle, and vocals), Dar Williams (guitar and vocal), and the New York City Labor Chorus do a stirring rendition of Woody Guthrie's labor anthem, "Union Maid." The performance took place on May 3, 2009 at Madison Square Garden, during a concert in honor of Pete Seeger's 90th birthday.
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Willie Mays, 1931-2024
On September 29, 1954 my third grade classmates at the Eglin Air Force Base Elementary School and I were excused from our classrooms early in the afternoon to go to the "cafetorium," where a big black-and-white TV was set up on the stage for us to watch the opening game of the World Series, pitting the New York Giants against the Cleveland Indians. I don't recall having any rooting interest, though I may have favored the Giants since I had been to New York but never to Cleveland (I still haven't, unless you count the airport). One thing remains engraved on my memory from that game: Willie Mays of the Giants making "The Catch" (video above). That was enough to convince me that baseball was something worth watching, and knowing. Thank you, Mr. Mays.
Willie Mays, considered by many the greatest all-around baseball player ever, died today at 93. I can't help adding that he ended his playing career with the Mets, and that his last hit was a run scoring single in game 3 of the 1973 World Series. Joan Whitney Payson, then the Mets' principal owner, had promised that his number would be retired, but she died in 1975 and her promise remained unfulfilled until Old Timers' Day in August of 2022.
Sunday, June 02, 2024
Peter Myers, Octogenarian

Tuesday, May 07, 2024
The "Ode to Joy" from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 - Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus
It was played at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin; it was performed in that city again on Christmas 1989 after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Leonard Bernstein replaced the word “Joy” in the choral finale with “Freedom”; the European Union adopted the symphony’s “Ode to Joy” theme as its anthem.
Nevertheless, Barenboim argues, "[m]usic on its own does not stand for anything except itself," and that the "greatness" of the Ninth "lies in the richness of its contrasts." In this respect, Barenboim states for music what Frank Stella did for visual arts.
The video above is of the climactic "Ode to Joy" finale of the Ninth, performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Chorus, under the direction of Thomas Søndergård.
Saturday, May 04, 2024
Frank Stella, 1936-2024
According to his New York Times obituary:
Mr. Stella, a formalist of Calvinist severity, rejected all attempts to interpret his work. The sense of mystery, he argued, was a matter of “technical, spatial and painterly ambiguities.” In an oft-quoted admonition to critics, he insisted that “what you see is what you see” — a formulation that became the unofficial motto of the minimalist movement.
Despite his early committment to a minimalist aesthetic, his later works, some of which can be seen in the video, are exuberant in color and design. This might be expected of an artist who has cited Caravaggio as an influence.
Friday, May 03, 2024
Of Tom Rush, Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young
"In 1965 I was up in Canada, and there was a friend of mine up there who had just left a rock 'n' roll band (...) he had just newly turned 21, and that meant he was no longer allowed into his favourite haunt, which was kind of a teeny-bopper club and once you're over 21 you couldn't get back in there anymore; so he was really feeling terrible because his girlfriends and everybody that he wanted to hang out with, his band could still go there, you know, but it's one of the things that drove him to become a folk singer was that he couldn't play in this club anymore. 'Cause he was over the hill. (...) So he wrote this song that was called "Oh to live on sugar mountain" which was a lament for his lost youth. (...) And I thought, God, you know, if we get to 21 and there's nothing after that, that's a pretty bleak future, so I wrote a song for him, and for myself just to give me some hope. It's called The Circle Game."
The friend who inspired Mitchell to write "The Circle Game" was Neil Young. It would be some time before the "better dreams and plenty" promised near the song's close came his way. As Einarson tells it, he went through a time of frustration trying to succeed as a folk singer in Toronto, where "Young's career stalled amid stinging criticism of his material." In December of 1965 he traveled to New York and the offices of Elektra Records. He "remains unsure who secured this" but hoped for a full scale studio recording session. Instead, he was sent into the tape library and greeted by Peter K. Siegel, whom I heard discussing his experiences as a producer at Folkways and later at Elektra last November at the Brooklyn Folk Festival. Siegel gave Young what he, quoted by Einarson, described as "this funky old tape recorder" and told him to sing into it.
One of the songs he sang into that tape recorder was "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing." According to Einarson,
"Young identified 'Clancy' as his former Winnipeg high school classmate Ross 'Clancy' Smith. Young described Smith as a 'strange cat'—an aberrant figure tormented by others for singing blithely."
Young did not sing "blithely" for Elektra's tape recorder; consequently, Elektra had no interest in signing him. The clip above is audio of Young singing "Clancy," accompanied only by his acoustic guitar and by piano, at Carnegie Hall in December of 1970. In the five years since his failed Elektra session, he'd had plenty of "practice" to get there. This included his time with Buffalo Springfield (1966-68), which recorded "Clancy," with vocal by Richie Furay instead of Young, and issued it as their first single. It became a local hit in Los Angeles. It was also included in their self-titled first album.
Now, back to Tom Rush. The song that made me a fan of his in the spring of 1968 was his cover of another Joni Mitchell song, "Urge For Going."
The clip above, audio only, is the version I heard on WBCN many times as I sat at my desk, often into the early morning hours, trying to focus on what I needed to know for my forthcoming first year finals. It was springtime in Massachusetts. Why did this song about autumn falling into winter resonate so with me?
For thirteen years, from 1954, when my parents and I returned from our three year sojourn in England, to 1967, I had lived in Florida. We had "seasons" there, but nothing so dramatic as going from a New England winter with the ground covered in snow for months on end to a riotous spring with almost every tree on Cambridge Common in bloom. Perhaps it was this sense of what I had missed that made the melancholy of "Urge For Going" meaningful for me.
Monday, April 22, 2024
Saturday, April 20, 2024
Why is a widely used app named for a tenth century Scandinavian king?
Your smartphone, like mine, likely has the logo at left on it somewhere. I knew that "Bluetooth" was the name given to an ancient Scandinavian king, but had no clue why the app was named for him. Now, thanks to Rick Spilman in The Old Salt Blog, I know the reason.
When asked about the name Bluetooth, I explained that Bluetooth was borrowed from the 10th century, second King of Denmark, King Harald Bluetooth; who was famous for uniting Scandinavia just as we intended to unite the PC and cellular industries with a short-range wireless link.
So, sometime soon, I will raise a glass of Aquavit and toast Harald Bluetooth, who inspired my ability to play WQXR on my stereo sound system from my smartphone.
Sunday, March 31, 2024
Mets swept at home in season opening series
A reason to be upbeat is that so many times I've seen a hot start devolve into a "meh" season. My wife is a Red Sox fan. She believes it's a good sign if the Fenway lads struggle as the season begins. They're 2-2 now, in a three way tie for last in the AL East. I guess she can feel cautiously optimistic, as do I about the Mets.
Saturday, March 16, 2024
Pierce Turner, "Hail Glorious St Patrick"
Pierce Turner is an Irish national treasure. So, what better man to reimagine Hail Glorious St. Patrick. This is a track for the ages. But don't just take it out for the big day -- it will sound great on the other 364 too. I'll be playing it.
Beannechtai na feile Padraig!