Bertrand Russell on growing old.

Bertrand Russell was one of the pre-eminent philosophers of the past century. Although much of his work was devoted to analytical philosophy, particularly to exploring the logical foundations of mathematics, he also wrote and spoke eloquently and with wit about ethical and political matters, and about concerns of everyday life.

As I progress further into my eighth decade of life I, like, I'm sure, many of my contemporaries, spend time reminiscing and sometimes regretting roads not taken. Russell, in his Portraits from Memory and Other Essays, offered this observation:

"Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being."

To my fellow Christians, this may seem perplexing. Loss of individual being doesn't jibe with traditional notions of immortality. It seems, if anything, more like Buddhism. To me, though, the crucial words are "the walls of the ego recede".  I believe this to be central to the message of the Gospels; perhaps best summed up in Luke 17:33. Russell was not a Christian, nor a Buddhist, but to me it seems that in this respect his thinking was in concurrence with both traditions (which, I think, have more in common than many believers in either would care to admit.)

I'm indebted for the Russell quotation to Maria Popova's blog Brain Pickings, which I find a reliable source of thought provoking insights. If you follow the link and scroll down, you can subscribe for free. Maria relies on donations to keep up her very valuable work and, if you would like to help, please follow the link provided on her blog.

The photo (public domain; photographer unknown) is of Russell with his children John (born 1921) and Kate (1923). Judging by the children's appearances, the photo was made in the late 1920s when Russell (born 1872) would have been in his mid-fifties.

The Mariners, handsomest of cargo ships.

In July of 1954, my father, mother, and I boarded the USNS Geiger at Southampton for our return voyage to the U.S. following Dad's three year tour of duty in England. Geiger was one of three--her sisters were Barrett and Upshur--passenger and cargo liners that had been under construction during the early 1950s for American President Lines but, because of the Korean War, had been taken for military service (they were heavily subsidized by the government, which allowed this option). As we boarded Geiger I saw a sleek new cargo ship docked astern of us, also in Military Sea Transport Service livery, with the name Cracker State Mariner. We departed Southampton that afternoon, with Cracker State Mariner still at dock. After a smooth summer crossing, we arrived several days later at the MSTS terminal on Staten Island. As we pulled into our dock, I could see, already docked at the next pier, Cracker State Mariner, which had outpaced Geiger, a new ship herself, across the Atlantic.

The photo above shows Cracker State Mariner after she left government service in 1956 and became part of the American President Lines fleet, renamed President Coolidge, She remained with APL until 1974, when she became Export Defender of American Export Lines. Four years later she reverted to government ownership and to her original name. As breakbulk freighters were quickly going out of style at that time, I suspect she went out of service and was laid up in the government's reserve fleet. In 1992, having survived a respectable 38 years, she went for scrap in India.

Sometime in the mid 1970s I was taking a mid-day stroll around Battery Park, at the southern tip of Manhattan, and saw the Thomas Jefferson, of the Waterman Steamship Corporation, heading outward through the channel between Manhattan and Governors Island. I didn't know it, but this was to be my last view of a Mariner class ship. She was originally Golden Mariner, completed, like Cracker State Mariner, in 1954, but on the opposite coast. Golden Mariner named for California, the Golden State, was built at Bethlehem's San Francisco yard; Cracker State Mariner at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. In 1955 Golden Mariner became part of the Pacific Far East Line fleet, and in 1961 she was renamed California Bear. She was acquired by Waterman and became Thomas Jefferson in 1973, not long before I saw her. She was broken up at Kaohsiung, Republic of China, in 1980.

No doubt I'll get some disagreement with my calling the Mariners the handsomest of cargo ships. There are many rivals, American and foreign. My nominee for runner up in that category is the Victories, the war emergency class that preceded the Mariners and succeeded the "ugly duckling" but much loved Liberties. I've written before about American Victory, one of three surviving members of that class, that is now a floating, and sometimes mobile, museum in my old home city, Tampa.

Photo of President Coolidge ex Cracker State Mariner: Photographer / Collection: Bar, Marius / Boman, J. Robert – Source: Sjöhistoriska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden – (Swedish Maritime Museum), via 7seasvessels.com, from which I got historical information about the ship, as well as about Thomas Jefferson ex Golden Mariner.

Robin Williams, 1951-2014

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.

It's May, and I may post again soon.

Like Anglocat, I've found May, so far, to be a slow month for posting on my blog. My difficulties haven't been caused, like his, by the imminent publication of a novel (I wish!) but rather by press of family business as well as by my duties to Brooklyn Heights Blog. I'm taking from him the YouTube clip above, of Vanessa Redgrave from the 1967 movie version of Camelot, as a way of amusing, and perhaps inspiring, you in the meantime. I will be back soon; like Mr. Dylan in "Maggie's Farm", "I have a head full of ideas that are driving me insane."

Duncan Island departs; Alice Oldendorff returns.

Two weekends ago, as I was walking between Piers 5 and 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, I saw the refrigerated container ship Duncan Island, of the Ecuadorian Line, departing from the nearby Red Hook container port (despite earlier predictions, it has survived). According to Shiptracking, a most helpful tool for ship buffs, she was bound for Antwerp.

Yesterday morning I looked out my kitchen window and saw an old friend heading into the Governors Island Channel toward the East River and her customary dock at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I quickly changed from PJs to exercise clothes and ran out to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade where I got this photo of Alice Oldendorff, accompanied by a McAllister tug. Alice is a particular favorite of Will Van Dorp, publisher of Tugster: a Waterblog, where he once posted another photo I took of Alice heading up the East River. For some reason Shiptracking gives no information about where she came from; I can only surmise that she's bringing her usual cargo of crushed stone from Canada, likely loaded at Halifax.

Christina M. Rau's Brooklyn Bridge video.

As anyone who has followed this blog for some time (and if you have, may Procrastinatus, the god of blogs, shower you with blessings) knows, I walk the Brooklyn Bridge as often as I can, which lately is more days than not. So my curiosity was piqued when I read in her blog that Christina M. Rau, a professor in the English Department at Nassau Community College and the founder of Poets in Nassau, had walked the Bridge and, as she wrote, "at the halfway point, I turned on my FlipCam and got footage of almost everyone crossing." Well, "almost everyone" didn't include me, but it's a great little clip (see above), which Professor Rau appropriately accompanied with the Beastie Boys' "No Sleep Till Brooklyn". You can read about her Bridge adventure on her other blog, Rediscovering Brooklyn: A Local Tour de Force. She also has a post about my neighborhood, Brooklyn Heights, on that same blog here, complete with a peek inside the women's room at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims.

Gina Villalobos, Second Dan, and the Del-Lords: thank you, Eliot Wagner!

Eliot Wagner has a great music blog called Now I've Heard Everything. I had the pleasure of meeting him at last week's Brooklyn Blogfest. Eliot does a periodic (about five or six times a year) podcast, and he gave me a CD of the current edition. When I played it, my initial feeling that Eliot and I are musical soul mates was confirmed. There's not a single cut on it that I don't like, and some that I think are spectacular. There are cuts by artists I've long admired, such as John Hiatt, Graham Parker, Peter Wolf, and Neil Young. What I'm most grateful for, though, is being introduced to some singers and groups of which I had been ignorant.

Californian Gina Villalobos works in the tradition called "alternative country" or "Americana", a genre with roots that extend back into old time country, bluegrass, honky-tonk, blues, rhythm and blues, and rockabilly. Eliot's podcast includes two great cuts of hers: "Why" and "Fooling Around". The clip above is of "What I'd Do", from her 2005 U.K. tour, and courtesy of her ponyvilllalobos channel on YouTube.

Eliot found out about Second Dan while attending a party for bloggers, where he met their lead guitarist. Second Dan is exemplary of the introspective side of the New York indie scene. The cut on Eliot's podcast is "Today", from their new album, Angeline. The clip above is of "Running Out Of Feelings", and is accompanied by an animation that is unsubtly polemical, but nonetheless well done and effective. It's from their seconddan YouTube channel.

I'd heard of the Del-Lords before; they're a band that formed in 1984, founded by Scott Kempner, formerly with the Dictators (and thus a bandmate of my fellow Bells of Hell patron, Handsome Dick Manitoba). They enjoyed their greatest popularity in the late '80s, and broke up in the '90s. They recently re-formed, and have released an EP of new songs, Under Construction, which includes the track on Eliot's podcast, a steady rocker that could fit well in the soundtrack of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, "When the Drugs Kick In" (you can hear it by going to their website). Their style is simple, straight-ahead, loud rock and roll. The clip above shows them covering the Dead Boys' "Sonic Reducer" at Magasinet, Gothenberg, Sweden in 1990, courtesy of bsf006.

Louise Crawford of OTBKB to teach blogging class.

If you're considering starting a blog, or have recently taken up blogging, and live in the New York City area, you may benefit from attending a class to be taught by Louise Crawford, of Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn. It will meet at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange ("BAX"), 421 Fifth Avenue (at 8th Street), in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The class will meet on three successive Wednesdays starting at 7:00 P.M., beginning tomorrow, April 29. The fee for all three sessions is $45.

I regret the short notice, but this is a sterling opportunity for novice or aspiring bloggers. Louise is to blogging what Emeril is to cooking.

Mediocrity, thy name is Mets.

Yeah, it's early. But, trust me, a loss in April counts just as much as a loss in September. I can't add much to what Jon Lewin of Subway Squawkers has to say about the current state of affairs, except that I love it that he grooves on Fibonacci sequences.

I'm posting this now in the hope that the Mets will confound me this evening.

Update: Confound me? Of course not.

Rice 'n' ribs from Augusta, GA in Brooklyn Heights

I saw this van parked on Columbia Heights at Cranberry Street this morning. I took the photo with plans to publish it on Brooklyn Heights Blog, but Homer beat me to the punch with a photo by Mrs. Fink. Nevertheless, I think mine is better, if for no other reason than having the advantage of better lighting.

I love Homer's explanation of the levels of meaning in this scene.

Lisa Swan loves Citi Field.

Lisa Swan, the (may I still use this term without being unforgivably un-P.C.?) distaff side of Subway Squawkers, and, unfortunately, the Yankees' side of same, likes the Mets' new digs. She also takes exception, as do I, to Mets fans booing Oliver Perez over a poor outing. Nevertheless, I'm compelled to point out that Yankee fans are not immune to the booing your own affliction.

Lisa notes that there's a "character greeting area" for Mr. Met (photo at left) at the new stadium, one of several things that, she says, it has in common with Disney World (another being personable employees). This mention of what I consider to be the most inane of baseball team mascots (and that's saying a lot) leads me to suggest that the Mets jettison the lame Meet the Mets as their fight song, in favor of Faut y croire (tr. "Ya gotta believe!") by the late, great French rock band Dolly:



Not only is this a better song (with a stunning lead vocal by Emmanuelle "Manu" Monet), but its adoption by the Mets will, no doubt, assist President Obama's effort to improve relations with our European allies.

S-AB loses a friend: Robert Guskind, 1958-2009

Robert "Bob" Guskind (photo by Hugh Crawford), whose sudden and untimely death yesterday has stunned the Brooklyn blogging community, was one of my first acquaintances in the world of on-line journalism. His blog, Gowanus Lounge (unfortunately not now available on-line, though I understand friends of Bob's are working on restoring it) covered the Brooklyn scene extensively, focusing on issues of land use and development but also ranging into other topics. Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn has provided a transcript of Bob's first post on Gowanus Lounge. Update: Gowanus Lounge is on line again (though it's getting so many hits now that you may have trouble connecting).

I first met Bob at the 2007 Brooklyn Blogfest, when S-AB was just over a year old. After we met, he began to link to S-AB in his "Brooklinks" postings, which proved very helpful in getting new visitors to my blog.

Fellow blogger Miss Heather, of New York Shitty, was with Bob this past Sunday, when they met a woman with a compelling story to tell, which Bob recorded here:



Update: Here are reminiscences by Bob's former colleagues at Curbed.

Zagat's the way it goes.

Last week's New York Times "Dining Out" section featured an article by Frank Bruni with the headline "Restaurants Stop Playing Hard to Get." It begins with the question: "Has a restaurant hugged you lately?" Mr. Bruni bets it has. The reason, of course: the recession.

This strummed a mystic chord of memory going back 35 years, when I had just returned to New York from a two-year Army stint, and bought a copy of Jim Quinn's Word of Mouth: A completely new kind of guide to New York City restaurants--1973 edition, which I keep, despite ninety percent of the restaurants it reviews no longer being in business and its considering a $25 dinner "expensive", simply because it's great fun to read. Perhaps one of the "completely new" aspects of Quinn's book was its willingness to trash the competition. Of Gael Greene's Bite, a contemporaneous restaurant guide, he observed that the author is "a textbook case of social-climbing masochism."* In support of this, he quoted her:

During the arid recession-spooked summer of 1970 there were a few shocking breakdowns in the town's haute conspiracy of snobbisme...Soon some of the town's snob restaurants were a blinding glare of empty white tablecloths. For certain New Yorkers, being wanted is the cruelest blow. We want to go where we are not wanted...the fact that we are not wanted is the surest sign that we are storming a retreat worth wanting.**

Quinn took Greene at her word concerning La Cote Basque, then one of New York's best French restaurants, which he said Greene described as "a snob's idea of a fun restaurant" where "[c]lass lines [are] rigidly drawn."

Forewarned by Gael, I and my dinner companions have dressed to make trouble. I am in a cotton velour suit that looks like it was made of 200 gerbil skins, all stitched together sideways and brushed in the opposite direction. My long-time roomy and a poet of anthology rank are both glittering, braless, in ankle-length dresses that make you gasp when they walk. We are up for stalking out if we get the least bit of shit. We get the best table I have got in an expensive restaurant.

When it came to the most important task of the restaurant reviewer, describing the food, Quinn could deliver. Consider this account of filet mignon at Lutece, once New York's most celebrated French restaurant, and the only place to get an "A" grade from Quinn, who marked on a severe curve:

Filet mignon de boeuf en croute Lutece...is a big piece of tender, tasty filet, delivered rare, but charred dark outside, wrapped in good (if not spectacular) pastry and slathered with an extraordinarily good perigourdine sauce--one of the few in Manhattan that actually tasted of truffles. It comes accompanied by a generous serving of mixed vegetables that seem steamed and sauteed rather than boiled and include oddities like genuine flageolets as well as carrots, celery, and tiny peas.

In describing bad food, Quinn could be quite vivid, as in this conclusion to his review of a steak restaurant near Times Square:

Now dig in. Your grease has cooled enough to give the illusion you're eating vaseline; the steak has been tenderized so thoroughly that it has all the texture and taste of an expensive kid glove--after someone wearing it changed and drained a dirty crankcase. The potato is awash in neatsfoot oil; your garlic bun is slowly expanding, like a dry sponge dropped in a rendering vat. And as a special bonus you won't need to add any salt: the chef sweats on the meat.***

Quinn wasn't the only exponent of the restaurant-review-as-art. Seymour Britchky, an occasional Lion's Head visitor, whose stated qualification for the job was that he "ate three meals a day," wrote a monthly newsletter and compiled an annual anthology, under the title The Restaurants of New York, that lasted from 1976 through 1991. I used to have copies of several of the anthologies; unfortunately, somewhere along the way, they got lost in the shuffle. Like Quinn, Sy could be devastating. In a review of a famous Broadway theater area eatery, he wrote:

Sardi's most famous dish is its cannelloni, cat food wrapped in noodle and welded to the steel ashtray in which it was reheated under its glutinous pink sauce. Makes your mouth parch, doesn't it?

(Quoted in Richard Corliss, "That Old Feeling: Three Reasons to Love New York", Time, July 31, 2004.)

Then came Tim and Nina Zagat, with a splendid idea: let's put together a restaurant guide that's both compact and comprehensive, covering just about any respectable or semi-respectable dining spot in the City in a format that can easily fit a jacket pocket or small handbag. Moreover, let's make it democratic: instead of relying on one or two people's possibly unusual tastes, let's allow anyone who wants to rate a restaurant send us their numerical grade (on a scale of one to 25) for food, service, and decor, then average these. In addition to grades, the reviewers can send us pithy comments, the best of which we'll include in the one sentence "reviews" of each place.

When the Zagat guide first became available, I was delighted. It put lots of information at my fingertips, and I could carry it around in my attache case. Still, I had my Britchky available for more enlightening discussion of a place's qualities, or lack thereof, or sometimes just for the sheer pleasure I took in his prose. The trouble is, Zagat became, as they say, a category killer. When Sy stopped putting out his annual Restaurants of New York in 1991 (he died in 2004), no one tried to carry on his tradition (Quinn's Word of Mouth was, for whatever reason--unfortunately, in my view--a one-off). In an age of short attention spans, three page, discursive, idiosyncratic reviews were out. Of Henry's End, my favorite Brooklyn Heights eatery, Zagat tells us its street and web addresses and phone number, that it scored 24 out of 25 for food, 15 for decor, and 23 for service, and that

"[a]dventurous" types who "love wild game" tout this "quirky" Brooklyn Heights New American where "unique", "savory" meats are paired with an "extensive wine list"; "cozy closet"-size quarters are trumped by "value" pricing and an "exceptional proprietor."

As Mr. P. Pig says, "Th-th-th-that's all, folks." I can't gainsay anything about the ratings (although I might move the service rating up a notch) or the "review," so far as it goes. Henry's End does feature a wild game menu in the fall, and some unusual meats throughout the year. The wine list is "extensive", though not encyclopedic; more importantly, I've found the wines on it unfailingly good. Quarters are tight, but the noise level has become manageable, thanks to acoustic tiles now obscuring a gorgeous tin ceiling (so a few points off for decor; Cafe des Artistes this ain't). Prices are reasonable, by New York standards. Mark, the proprietor, is nothing if not "exceptional": he is--how you say?--a mensch.

But this one sentence write-up is, to begin with, seriously misleading in that it invites the reader to think this is exclusively a "wild game" place. The menu has plenty of beef, veal, pork, chicken, seafood, and pasta dishes. Moreover, it gives no flavor of the food, beyond calling the meats "savory". If I were reviewing Henry's End, I'd make special mention of the soft-shell crabs, available in season, and note that, of the three preparations offered, my favorite is with "Moroccan butter," a sauce with an earthiness and richness that, to my taste, perfectly melds with the delicate sweetness of the crabmeat.

Are there worthy successors to Britchky and Quinn today? There are some encouraging prospects. To begin with, there's the man quoted at the beginning of this post, Frank Bruni, whose reviews can be found in the Times on paper and online, but as yet not in book form. Mr. Bruni's reviews are, however, collected in a Times blog called Diner's Journal. I've just recently begun to explore the realm of food blogs. I surveyed wine blogs first; having found three favorites here (also discusses food), here (also discusses ardent spirits), and here (also discusses love). As for blogs that review restaurants, apart from Diner's Journal I've found (without extensive searching) one, Vittles Vamp, written by a fellow Heights resident I haven't yet met, that strikes me as quite good. The Vamp discusses recipes and ingredients as well as reviewing restaurants, and she seems a promising talent at the latter.

If you know of any other really good websites or blogs that review restaurants, particularly in the New York area, please let me know.

__________

*Social masochism evidently wasn't Ms. Greene's only kind. Her 1978 novel Blue Skies, No Candy, described by Chris Haines in Salon as one third of the Holy Trinity--the others being Erica Jong's Fear of Flying and Judith Krantz's Scruples--of the genre called the "shopping and fucking novel," included this (perhaps slightly paraphrased from memory) description: "His sweat was sharp and tangy; his asshole tasted like apple cider." This was quoted in Spy with the observation, "Ms. Greene is the food editor of New York Magazine."

**During that very "recession-spooked summer" I left my bar exam cram course lecture at Town Hall one evening about eight and walked east through midtown until I found myself in front of La Grenouille, then and now a grand French restaurant. Being hungry and feeling flush, I went in and was promptly ushered to a small table, ordered a beer while I studied the menu, and another to accompany my dinner, received polite and attentive service, and left with my wallet less than $30 (in 1970 dollars, but still a bargain) lighter, tax and tip included.

***I don't identify this place because this review was written at least 35 years ago, and the last time I looked (about two years ago), it was still in business. I've never eaten there, and therefore have no view on the quality of its food which may, for all I know, have improved dramatically since Quinn's visit.

A self-verifying web page.

It's here. (Got it from a link to a commenter on Twiffer's blog.)

Consider also the column of items under "narrow your search" on the right of the page: "About Stupid; Glow Stick; Key Chain; Stress Ball; Gift; Dupont Lighter; Fridge Magnet; Suction Cup; Lighted Ice Cube; Judaica."

Judaica? Has al Qaeda hacked Verizon's search engine?

Another great wine blog.

My neighborhood, Brooklyn Heights, is blessed with three very good wine and spirits shops. My "local", Montague Wines & Sprits, is but a few steps from the door of my apartment building. It's small, but stocks a well-chosen selection, and is managed amiably and knowledgeably by Big Jeff and not-so-big Michael. To the north, at the busy corner of Clark and Henry, is Michael-Towne, where I can sometimes find a former law firm colleague hosting a wine tasting, and can almost always find a chilled bottle of my wife's favorite white, Macon-Lugny "Les Charmes".

To the south, on Atlantic Avenue, is Heights Chateau (picture above from their website), the largest of the three. Here, Judy has been unfailingly helpful in finding good, inexpensive wines from various places, and Dominique guided me to some nice French artisinal reds that fit my budget.

On a recent visit to Heights Chateau, I got to chatting with a pleasant young woman at the checkout, during which I mentioned my admiration for Alice Feiring, and that I'd posted on my blog about her. She told me she also had a blog, and that she would e-mail me the URL. About an hour later I got the link to Elana's blog, So Many Wines...So Little Time. Her recent post on The Brandy Library sparked my interest, as I love good eaux de vie and single malt Scotches (the word "whiskey" derives from the Gaelic usquebach, which translates as "water of life", as does the Danish akavit, which derives from the Latin aqua vitae). Her series of posts about her visit to France, featuring Champagne and Burgundy, are informative and entertaining. Finally, hearty congratulations to Elana for completing the requirements for an advanced certificate in wine from the International Wine Center. I do like it that she resists the usual ways of writing about wine. As she puts it:

They teach you to describe [wine] with typical adjectives: fruit forward, oaky, tannic...but I still tend to tell our customers the following: so good it broke my heart, i want to put a straw in it and just drink, killer juice. Then there are my descriptions of some of my favorite spirits: made me break out into a jig, i love to wear it as perfume, or it's like a symphony (that can be used with wine as well). Sometimes you just have to go with that initial feeling.

Update: Eric Asimov, in his "The Pour" column in today's New York Times, praises California vintners, like John Williams of Frog's Leap, who are producing old school, subtle, balanced wines, as opposed to Parkerillas. I suspect Elana and Alice will join me in cheering Eric's espousal of terroir.

Greater New York: not just for New Yorkers.

Greater New York is a blog, written by Peter Eisenstadt and Rob Snyder (update: David Polonoff is also a contributor), that is concerned with New York City and its environs, but takes into account issues "in the wider world", as exemplified by Peter's thought-provoking essay on Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke. In addition to politics and history, Greater New York considers cultural matters, as in Rob's review of On the Heights, winner of this year's Tony award for Best Musical. As the authors note:

Greater New York is not so much a place on the map as a shared destiny and a common goal that we all hope to reach.

Probably the last commentary on the firing of Willie Randolph.

I went to Google Images to find the perfect Willie photo for this post and, in wonderful serendipity, found it on a most unusual and fascinating sports blog called A Pudge is a Sandwich, from which I filched the image at left. What's fascinating about APIAS is the odd aggregation of teams it covers: "Vols [Tennessee], Cats [Kentucky, not Northwestern or Vermont], Wolverines [Michigan], Cubs, Tigers, A's, 49ers, Bengals, Bears and Mets" (note that the Mets get separated from the rest of the MLB by three NFL teams--does this indicate they were an afterthought?). Perhaps the only thing I can guess from this odd assemblage of rooting interests (as well as their penchant for finding flimsy reasons to include photos of scantily clad, amply bosomed women in their posts) is that the people who put out APIAS are all feisty Appalachian Scotch-Irish lads with a taste for (with the exceptions of Tennessee in football and women's basketball, Kentucky in men's basketball, and Michigan in anything) underdogs.

Anyway, I have little more cogent to say about what will surely go down in Mets history as the Midnight (PDT) Massacre than has been said by Smoothron in APIAS. All I have to add is that I mourn the loss of Willie, inevitable though it had become, because he was a genuine local hero, the first for the Mets since John Franco. He grew up in my beloved, adopted Brooklyn rooting for (as any Brooklyn kid should) the Mets, and can be forgiven for having spent most of his professional career with the hated Yanks. Them's the breaks.

Goodbye, Willie. May you find a new gig, one that will bring you success, soon.

Extry: Smoothron himself drops by (see comments) and leaves the following gem:

Nothing like a top-of-the-10th HR to get Jerry his first win!!

The Mets have impressed me lately with their ability to come back in extra innings, and I'd like to see Manuel have a successful run as interim (maybe permanent, if he's interested) manager. I still don't see a miracle comeback from their miserable start, and will be happy if the Cubbies take the Series this year. Of course, I'm always open to being surprised.

Gotta read this.

Twiffer on elitism.

I've been cogitating about a post on the same topic. It may yet happen. (I know, "Promises, promises... .")

Update: Towards a more colorful vocabulary. Reading the comments on Twiffer's article, I learned that arugula is also called "rocket".

I can't wait for my first opportunity to ask for a rocket, Bartlett pear and gorgonzola salad.

Alice in Wine Blog Land

A while back, someone offered me a taste of a California cabernet sauvignon. My impression was of a suspension of Woo-Woo-Welch's grape jam (without, however, the concord foxiness) fortified by a generous splash of Everclear. I spat and said the first word that came to mind, which was "Parkerilla."

It wasn't Graham Parker, whose album The Parkerilla was a blot on an otherwise distinguished, and still ongoing, rock 'n' roll career, to whom I referred. It was Robert Parker, fellow lawyer turned tastemaker, publisher of The Wine Advocate, author of several wine books, and unquestionably the most powerful person in the world of wine today. In assessing wines, Parker gives the usual "hints of black currants and kippered herring" kind of commentary (Some such commentary makes me think of Humpty Dumpty: "When I use a word...it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."), but also assigns precise numerical grades to each vintage, in effect saying, Red Queen-like, to those scoring less than 90, "Off with their heads!", and thereby playing into the American mania for quantification and score-keeping. Consequently, lots of people do their wine shopping on the basis of Parker ratings, which many stores include in their ads and helpfully display next to each bottle.

Parker's preference for what he calls "hedonistic fruit bombs", that is, wines with overpowering fruitiness and high alcohol, has shaped demand to the extent that many wineries, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, have tailored their technique to produce wines that fit that description and stand fair to get high Parker marks. Because of these wines' massive, chest-thumping quality, I decided to give them the epithet "Parkerilla." As you may have guessed by now, I prefer wines with more--how you say?--nuance. So, I shudder as the Parker juggernaut rolls, apparently inexorably, along.

Fortunately, I have some allies who are waging anti-Parkerilla guerilla. One of them is my Kings County compatriot, Brooklynguy. Another, whom I have just discovered, is Alice Feiring, who puts out the estimable blog Veritas in Vino. Up top on her home page, under the heading "Appellation Feiring", she lets you know where she stands:

I’m looking for the Leon Trotskys, the Philip Roths, the Chaucers and the Edith Whartons of the wine world. I want my wines to tell a good story. I want them natural and most of all, like my dear friends, I want them to speak the truth even if we argue. ...I’m trying to swell the ranks of those who love the differences in each vintage, who abhor homogenization, who want wines that make them smile, think, laugh, and feel sexy.

Ms. Feiring champions the concept of terroir, which, like many French words, is hard to translate neatly into English, but boils down to the notion that a wine's taste should reflect the idiosyncracies of the environment in which it was produced (Again this brings to mind Humpty Dumpty: "When I make a word do a lot of work like that, ...I always pay it extra."). She has taken the battle into the heart of enemy territory, writing an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times titled "California wine? Down the drain", in which she characterizes the bulk of that state's wine as "overblown, over-alcoholed, over-oaked, overpriced and over-manipulated." In other words: Parker-ized to the hilt. This prompted a counter-attack in the same newspaper, in which Matthew DeBord called her a "terroirist" and delivered such gems of wisdom as:

[T]he "terroirists" lambasted California -- which by this time had become the most successful winemaking region in the history of, well, wine -- for imposing a bland style on the rest of the world. America promotes democracy and market capitalism. California promotes wines that don't suck. This cannot stand.

Alice, of course, responded, calling DeBord "the Sean Hannity of the Wine World" and herself a "terroir jihadist." The comment thread following her post, in which she participates, is well worth reading. She offered further commentary in a Q&A format here.

Alice is promoting her new book, The Battle for Wine and Love, or How I Saved the World from Parkerization, and, in furtherance of that, will be at my daughter's favorite after-school hangout, the new Barnes & Noble at 97 Warren Street (corner of Greenwich) in Tribeca, at 7:00 P.M. this coming Monday, June 2. New Yorkers, and anyone else who happens to be in town then, please take note. I'll definitely be there to:

(1) buy the book;

(2) get her to sign it; and

(3) blow her a kiss on the way out.

Subsequent events, including some in mid-June in California (this woman has intestinal fortitude!), are listed on her blog.

Update: I meet Alice! Yes, I was there at the Tribeca B&N at seven sharp yesterday, to find most of the seats already taken. With luck, I found a vacant one at the end of the second row. After a couple of minutes, a woman who looked like Jackie O. when she was a young Jackie Kennedy, but with a nasal piercing, took the podium and introduced Alice, who looks like the fifth grade teacher you had a secret crush on, pretty not in a cover girl fashion, but in a wise yet vulnerable way.

She began by reading several sections of her book. The first was how she discovered wine, when her father's second wife invited her to raid the cellar amassed by her previous husband. The second was about her quest to meet the man who made the Barolo that she took in that raid and with which she fell in love, a quest that failed but in the course of which she learned much about Italy, its wines, and the reasons for their sad decline. The third was about Burgundy and her meeting with Parker. After reading, she invited questions. There was much discussion of new winemaking techniques, especially something called "biodynamics", of which Alice generally approves, but is afraid may become simply a marketing ploy. Asked what wines she particularly enjoys these days, she said she was especially fond of Loire wines, as well as some Côtes du Rhône and some Beaujolais.

When my turn came to have my copy of her book signed, I handed her my blog card, and she said she had read this post, and liked it. She then signed the book, "Thanks so much." I will now put on my shameless shill hat and say, "Buy Alice's book. It's great."

iPod Log 3 -- Xenophilia Edition

My iPod music library includes songs in eleven languages other than English.* The other morning, the iPod went on a xenophiliac binge, playing six foreign language songs in succession. These were:

E Inu Tatou E, the Kingston Trio. First, the bad stuff. These were white frat boys who named their group for the capital of Jamaica because they wanted to cash in on a craze for African-Caribbean calypso music. They affected fake Mexican accents on some of their songs; for example, "Coplas", "En el Agua" and, most famously, "Tijuana Jail" ("SEE-nyor come WEETH me, 'cause I want YOOOO!"). "Coplas Revisited", from their album College Concert, recorded live at UCLA in December, 1961, includes a line that I didn't understand for several years after first hearing it:

Show me a cowboy who rides sidesaddle,
And I'll show you a gay ranchero.

I guess that proves the old saw about California being a cultural bellwether. The good is that the Trio were all talented musicians who, over the course of a decade or so, and with one personnel change (John Stewart replacing Dave Guard in 1961), committed a lot of music to vinyl, much of which was quite good and some of which was superb. Folk purists derided them as inauthentic, middle-class, button-down shirt wearing squares. In truth, they were sometimes guilty of putting a bourgeois gloss on their material. I can't imagine a real working sailors' chantey including lines like "The ragged heavens open up / We sound the jubilation," as they put into their version of "Haul Away, Joe". Their eclecticism was remarkable: among the styles of music they interpreted and were influenced by were the aforementioned calypso, Hawaiian (Bob Shane was born and raised on the Big Island, and Dave Guard spent several years in a prep school in Honolulu), Appalachian and Celtic, Spanish and Mexican, African and blues. They have been credited with creating and nurturing a taste in American audiences for what is now called "world music". To top it all off, from my point of view, I learned from the Wikipedia article linked above that they even had a Mets connection. They learned what became their most-requested song, "Scotch and Soda", a blues-tinged lounge number, from Tom Seaver's parents, when one of them was dating Seaver's sister. "E Inu Tatou E" is an example of their Hawaiian repertoire. I couldn't find a translation of the lyrics, which are credited to George Archer. Some lyrics sources give it the subtitle "Drinking Song", and, on the Live at Newport album, Guard introduces the song and translates the title as "Let's Get Drunk".

Ebben, Ne Andro Lontana, East Village Opera Company. I've mentioned this group and this aria in an earlier iPod log. The aria is from Alfredo Catalini's seldom staged La Wally. At the first EVOC concert I attended, AnnMarie Milazzo introduced her nail-you-to-the-wall rendition by saying, "When you have to marry someone you don't want to, you get really, really mad."

El Preso Numero Nueve, Joan Baez. You also get really, really mad if you're a hard-working hombre who comes home to find his wife in the arms of un amigo desleal--mad enough to commit double murder, then tell the padre, just before you face the firing squad, that you have no fear, and will follow their footsteps through eternity. This is from Joan's auspicious first album, which, to the occasional dismay of my roommate, who called her "the screaming bitch", I listened to on many late evenings during my freshman year at USF.

Elama, Yasser Habeeb. I got this hypnotic, Indian-influenced song off Putumayo's Sahara Lounge. According to the album's notes, Habeeb is a Dubai native who started as a recording engineer and producer, then approached EMI with "Elama" ("Until When"), which became a hit throughout the Arabic-speaking Middle East. The notes give this translation of the lyrics:

Until when will this agony last? / Until when do I have to tolerate this torture when I have not harmed anyone? / The more you make me suffer, the more I am attracted to you / You keep hurting me, but I never complain / Just treat me fairly for once.

You can play a sample here.

Schlittenfahrt, Marlene Dietrich. If you've ever longed to hear the Blue Angel sing "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top" from Oklahoma in German translation, this is it.

Usku Dara, Eartha Kitt. When I was about seven, and we were living in rural Hertfordshire, England, one afternoon my mother and I were listening to BBC radio when the disc jockey said, "And now, here's some Turkish music." What followed was a tune so hooky that it remained caught in my memory until some thirty or so years later when Mike McGovern, a New York Daily News writer who later became known as Kinky Friedman's sidekick in the Kinkster's detective novels, invited several of us who had closed down the Lion's Head to come to his place for a nightcap. He poured us each some whiskey, then put an Eartha Kitt album on his turntable. After a couple of cuts, I was amazed to hear the same exotic tune that had so captivated me as a child. Judge it for yourself (including the two deliciously non sequitur spoken English translations) here:



I'll close with a strong recommendation of another musically-oriented blog, Struts and Frets, by DJStan. His most recent post, on the late New York street musician and Whitmanesque genius Moondog, reminds me of a gaping hole in my music collection: I still don't have The Band's Moondog Matinee.

Erratum: Thanks to DJStan for pointing out an error. In listing the languages represented in my iPod library, I had assumed that "Kol Rina", by the Klezmer Conservatory Band, was sung in Hebrew. In fact, it's in Yiddish, and I've corrected the list accordingly.
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*These are: Arabic, French, Gaelic, German, Hawaiian, Italian, Malagasy, Spanish, Turkish, Yiddish and Zulu. (Breton and Czech are soon to be added.)