What We Did on Our Holidays - Part 2

Our second mini-vacation was to the Glimmerglass Festival, held at the Alice Busch Opera Theater (photo) near Cooperstown, New York. We've attended Glimmerglass together for several years. With our friends Marc and Stuart we rode in Marc's car from Jersey City to Cherry Valley, New York.

There we checked into the Limestone Mansion, where we have stayed now for three summers, enjoying the comfortable rooms and the sumptuous breakfasts prepared by Wolf and Loretta; the latter enjoyed in surroundings like that shown in the photo above.

We arrived mid-afternoon Friday, which gave me time to stroll around Cherry Valley's little "downtown" and discover this "historic" laundromat.

Cherry Valley is about a ten minute drive from the Alice Busch Opera Theater. On Friday evening, we dined on sandwiches and salads from the Festival's outdoor cafe.

We then saw our first opera of the Festival, the world premiere of Blue. It began with a young black man in street clothes alone on the stage. Three policemen emerged from offstage, evoking the possibility of an arrest. Instead, one of the policemen handed the black man a blue shirt and pants. The black man, known throughout only as "The Father" and played by Kenneth Kellogg (photo above, from his website), went offstage and returned in his new blue uniform, and there were handshakes all around.

The Father then married The Mother (Briana Elyse Hunter; photo, from her website) and she became one when a son was born, to great celebration by all, including The Father's police colleagues. All went well until The Son (Aaron Crouch) reached his teens. He was a good student, showing promising talent at art, but he also became involved in demonstrations against police brutality. This  caused a confrontation with The Father, ending with The Father's assurance that he would love The Son, no matter what. Shortly after, The Son was shot dead by one of The Father's fellow policemen, though not one of his friends, while The Son was participating in a demonstration.

The plot then turned to The Father's reaction to this tragedy, told through his interactions with The Reverend (Gordon Hawkins). First he wanted revenge, later he questioned his belief in God. At The Son's funeral, The Mother asked Jesus to take him in his hands as she had asked The Father to take him when he was a newborn. There is a final, poignant scene: a flashback to the family around a table, where The Son announced that his art teacher said he showed great talent, and thought he could get a scholarship to RISD (the Rhode Island School of Design; a highly regarded institution). He then casually mentioned his intention to participate in a peaceful demonstration.

I've described the plot of Blue without mentioning the singing or the orchestral music, both of which were excellent. The music is by Jeanine Tesori and the libretto by Tazewell Thompson, who also directed the performance. The orchestra was conducted by John DeMain.

On Saturday morning we went into Cooperstown and spent some time in Willis Monie Books, a labyrinthine store offering both new and used books at attractive prices. At eight bucks apiece, I couldn't resist Producers versus Capitalists: Constitutional Conflict in Antebellum America, by Tony A. Freyer, University Research Professor of History and Law at the University of Alabama, and The Rosy Future of War (who could resist such a title?) by Philippe Delmas.

We didn't visit Cooperstown's most famous attraction, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, on this trip; we had visited it on an earlier one, and will return someday.

Later we went to the Fenimore Art Museum and viewed the exhibit of photographs by Herb Ritts, who shot photos of many stars of rock, pop. jazz, folk, and blues. The introductory panel featured his photo of Tina Turner.

David Bowie showed up in grungy street clothes, but had a costume for his photo session. Ritts wisely suggested he stay grungy.

Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie had the ability to inflate his cheeks, which assisted his playing. Ritts wanted to get a photo of it, but Gillespie refused. Ritts happened to turn quickly and got this shot.

Ritts got this lovely profile of Joan Baez; yes, that's her own hand.

Little Richard: "A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop, A-wop-bam-boom."

Ritts mostly worked in black and white, but he got this shot of Madonna on the beach at Malibu in color.

On Saturday afternoon we saw our second opera, The Ghosts of Versailles, with music by John Corigliano and libretto by the late William M. Hoffman. Ghosts had its premiere in 1990 at New York City's Metropolitan Opera, and has played at several other venues since. The photo above is of the scrim before the opening of the opera's first act. Several "ghosts" are visible, including Marie Antoinette (Yelena Dyachek) and some courtiers at the right in the photo, and Louis XVI (Peter Morgan) at the left.

The central character in Ghosts is Pierre Beaumarchais (Jonathan Bryan). Beaumarchais had a remarkable life as a watchmaker, playwright, musician, spy, and lover. In Ghosts he is portrayed as being in love with Marie Antoinette, who desperately wanted to be brought back to life. Beaumarchais promised to do this by means of an opera, based on Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, which was itself based on a play written by Beaumarchais. In this opera, Figaro (Ben Schaefer) is to steal a valuable necklace and use it to bribe for Marie Antoinette's release before her execution, after which Beaumarchais would take her to safety in America. "We will live in Philadelphia!" he exclaimed, which evoked laughter from the audience.

Beaumarchais' scheme went awry when, in the opera-within-an-opera, Figaro rebelled and refused to cooperate. All was resolved at the end, when Marie Antoinette decided it is best not to disturb history, but to enjoy her afterlife with Beaumarchais.

Ghosts is long, has many characters, and with its nested operas structure, is complex. At times it made me think of Firesign Theatre's "Further Adventures of Nick Danger". Hoffman inserted bits of humor, such as the "Philadelphia" line and some others that got chuckles from opera buffs. At the close of one particularly chaotic scene a woman wearing a helmet with horns and a breastplate emerged from backstage and proclaimed, "This is not opera. Wagner is opera!"

As with Blue, the singing and the orchestra, here conducted by Joseph Colaneri, were excellent. Ghosts also featured some superb dance performances.
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Glimmerglass always includes one Broadway musical comedy in each summer's roster of performances. This year's selection was Show Boat (Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein, 1927). I'd never seen Show Boat on stage, though I did see the 1951 movie version when I was about six years old. One thing I remember from the movie is William Warfield's rendition of "Ol' Man River." In the Glimmerglass production, it was sung by Justin Hopkins as Joe. I'd rate his performance as equal to Warfield's. In the video clip above, Hopkins sings it accompanied by the Philly Pops. Perhaps the other best known song from Show Boat is "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," sung beautifully at Glimmerglass by Judith Skinner as Queenie.

The plot of Show Boat is probably familiar to most readers, and certainly to fans of Edna Ferber, on whose novel the show is based. There's a sub-plot, certainly controversial in 1927, concerning Mississippi's anti-miscegenation law and the notorious "one drop rule," the latter of which, ironically, saved Julie La Verne (Alyson Cambridge) and Steve Baker (Charles H. Eaton) from imprisonment, though they both had to abandon their leading roles in the boat's itinerant drama.

The main story concerns Magnolia Hawks (Lauren Snouffer), daughter of the boat's captain, Andy Hawks (Lara Teeter), and the riverboat gambler Gaylord Ravenal (Michael Adams) with whom Magnolia fell in love. She and Gaylord replaced Julie and Steve in the show's cast, but when Cap'n Andy's wife (and Magnolia's mother), Parthy Ann Hawks (Klea Blackhurst), opposed their marriage, they left the boat and eloped.

For a time, Gaylord's luck ran well, and they lived in Chicago's elegant Palmer House. Then it turned bad; they got evicted, and Gaylord, in shame, abandoned Magnolia, whom he didn't know was pregnant. Magnolia gave birth to a daughter, Kim, and raised her as a single mother while developing her own career as a cabaret singer. Eventually, she and Ravenal were reunited, he met his daughter for the first time, and presumably all was well thereafter.

Again, the singing and the orchestra, conducted here by James Lowe, were superb.

As always, we were impressed by Glimmerglass' selection of musical offerings and by the quality of the singing and orchestral performances. Our special congratulations to Artistic Director Francesca Zambello.

Some of us had to be back to work on Monday, so, with reluctance, we packed, enjoyed one last Limestone Mansion breakfast, and headed back to New Jersey and New York City. I took the photo above of the countryside just east of Cherry Valley, with Lake Otsego in the background, from the window of Marc's car.

What We Did on Our Holidays - Part 1

I've been on a Fairport Convention kick lately, so I decided to purloin the title of their second album for two pieces on what Martha and I did on our two short holidays ("vacations" in American) this summer.

For our first, we once again enjoyed the hospitality of our friends John and Susan Proctor in their spacious house in the town of Orleans, just past the "elbow" of the Cape Cod peninsula. Their house is a comfortable walk from Skaket Beach (photo above), which is on the bay side of the peninsula.

On our first day, at John's and Susan's suggestion, we visited the French Cable Station Museum. The history behind it is that in 1879, tired of having to route all their transatlantic cable traffic through London, the French laid their own cable from near Brest, on the Brittany peninsula, to St. Pierre, a small island to the south of Newfoundland that is part of Metropolitan France, and extended it from there to Cape Cod. It landed in the town of North Eastham, but because the location there was remote and difficult to access in winter, in 1891 the cable was extended on land to Orleans, just to the south, and the Cable Station (photo above) was built there. No doubt the French were pleased to have it terminate in a place with a French name. 

In 1898, a new cable was laid directly from Brest to Orleans. During World War I General Pershing, commander of American forces in France, used it to communicate with the Army Department in Washington, and in 1927 it brought news of Charles Lindbergh's safe arrival in Paris. During the German occupation of France in World War II, U.S. authorities closed the station for security reasons. It was re-opened in 1952 and remained in operation until 1959.

Because of the constrained size of the cable, it was not capable of transmitting keyed Morse Code dashes and dots it the same way telegraph lines could. Instead, it transmitted variances in voltage, with low voltage representing a dot and high a dash. The equipment an operator would use to translate the voltage variations into conventional Morse Code for forwarding inland is shown above.

As we were leaving the Museum, I noticed that next door was the Addison Art Gallery. I suggested that we go in for a look, and the others readily agreed. I'm glad I did. The Gallery was presenting After Hopper, a series of events commemorating Edward Hopper, who spent many summers and did many paintings on the Cape. As the Gallery's website puts it: " 'After Hopper' celebrates the artists of today who continue to pursue Hopper's path in their own unique ways." Some, like John Murphy are faithful to Hopper's fairly strict representational style. Some, like Marc Kundmann's "Stella in the Morning",  pay homage to Hopper's works; in this case Hopper's "Morning Sun." Others, like Catherine Hess, have a more impressionistic style.

On summer saturdays there's a flea market at Wellfleet's still active drive-in cinema. I bought a copy of George Johnson's Fire in the Mind: Science, Faith, and the Search for Order, which I may read someday, and John Patrick Diggins's The Promise of Pragmatism: Modernism and the Crisis of Knowledge and Authority, which I will read, because it bears upon things on my mind now.

Coming back from one of my daily walks to Skaket Beach, I passed this typical Cape Cod house with an atypical floral display.

On our arrival back in New York City, we were greeted by this sign.

A Catskill weekend.

Last weekend, thanks to the kindness of a neighbor, my wife, daughter, and I were able to spend a relaxing weekend at a house (photo above) in the Beaverkill Valley, between Mongaup and Touch-Me-Not mountains, in New York's Catskill region.

The falls of the Beaverkill.

A small marsh in a meadow.

A chickadee.

A stone fence.

Whitetail deer in the meadow behind the house.

Fungi and moss on a log.

A stone fence, end-on.

Streamside flora.

A view from the hillside.

The kitchen Buddha.

The front porch.

Postscript: Although there was some evidence of the recent transit of Hurricane Sandy through the region, in the form of freshly downed tree limbs and broken trunks, there was also much remaining from last year's Hurricane Irene, which hit the Catskills much harder, as witness the fallen logs below.

Austin-Healey Sprite

I took this photo of an Austin-Healey Sprite Mark II, III or IV--the three models' exteriors are, to me, visually indistinguishable-- in August of 2008, in the Glen Park section of San Francisco. A 1961 Mark II Sprite was my first car. It served me from my sophomore year of high school (I got a Florida driver's license at 16) into my first year of university. I loved it, but traded it for a somewhat larger Sunbeam Alpine because, after an accident caused by someone turning left out of the right-hand lane in front of me, my mother was convinced that the Sprite's smallness made it invisible to other drivers.

The iconic (I once swore off that over-used word, but it is appropriate here) Sprite was the Mark I (so designated only after the Mark II hit the market), sometimes called the "bugeye" or "frogeye":

The first Sprite I saw was on Virginia's Skyline Drive, as my parents and I were returning to Florida after a visit to my mother's relatives in Pennsylvania. We were traveling the constantly curving highway behind a bugeye Sprite with British right hand drive piloted by a man in a tweed Sherlock Holmes hat. The Drive has many parking spaces, or "scenic overlooks", where one may stop and look at vistas of the Shenandoah Valley and mountains beyond. The Sprite driver disdained these, but eventually pulled over to the shoulder of the road and got out, camera in hand. My mother asked why he hadn't stopped at one of the overlooks, and my father answered, "He couldn't waste his time on that, because it had already been seen."

Maine, again.

We made our annual summer visit to Maine a bit late this year. As usual, we stayed with friends in Cape Elizabeth, near Portland, and I took my customary morning walk over the Casco Bay Bridge (for some views from that bridge a couple of summers ago, see here) instead of the Brooklyn Bridge. This year, we made a side trip to Boothbay Harbor.

The afternoon of our arrival, we visited Fort Williams Park and Portland Head Light, the most photographed lighthouse in America (for my views of it from visits four and three years ago, see here and here). While there, I made the shot of a schooner passing between Portland Head and Ram Island Ledge Light, above.

After Fort Williams, we went to Jordan's Farm in Cape Elizabeth to get fresh vegetables for dinner.

The next morning, on my walk to the Casco Bay Bridge, I passed a park in South Portland with this colorful floral display.

The small trawler Daryl Anne was docked at a pier below the Casco Bay Bridge.

Three McAllister tugs were docked at the Portland International Marine Terminal. The city of Portland lies beyond.

A basket of flowers decorates a doorway in South Portland.

A view of Boothbay Harbor.

Skiff, dock, and pigeon, Boothbay Harbor.

Dinner, part one: steamed cherrystone clams.

Dinner, part two: lobster.

Self-absorption to the max.

Yesterday, I was tagged twice on Facebook to perform a task that is being passed around virally on that site, which is to make a list of twenty five "random" facts about yourself, then to pass it on to twenty five friends with the request that they do the same. I usually won't participate in these on-line pyramid schemes, but, indiscreet attention whore that I am, I couldn't resist this one, just as I can't now resist re-posting it here for the benefit of all non-Facebookers. Here 'tis:

1. I was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, a city renowned in vaudeville humor.

2. My nickname among the nurses when I was a newborn was “The Thin Man”.

3. I have ancestral roots that I know of in the following states: Indiana, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, and Missouri.

4. Despite my having two great grandfathers who fought for the Union (and none for the South), my high school faculty awarded me the Jefferson Davis Citizenship Medal of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

5. I began my formal education in a three room schoolhouse in rural Hertfordshire, England. Among the teachers’ comments on my report cards there were: “Writing: has difficulty grasping pencil properly”, “Reading [aloud]: good but monotonous”, “P[hysical] T[raining]: somewhat timid on apparatus”.

6. My sixth grade teacher at Eglin AFB [Florida] Elementary School told my parents I was so physically maladroit that I might never be able to drive a car.

7. Between my junior and senior years of high school, I took flying lessons, culminating in my piloting a Cessna solo.

8. My parents, other relatives and their friends have always called me “Kim”.

9. On two occasions, I tried to learn to play music. In third grade I joined a school band program and tried to play flute; during my senior year of high school I took guitar lessons. Both times I found that I lacked both the dexterity and the discipline to succeed.

10. I wish I could sing better. Sometimes my voice is “on”, and I get compliments. Most of the time, it’s not.

11. I still fantasize about being a rock star.

12. I’m often accused of wanting to have my cake and eat it, too. I usually answer, “Who wouldn’t?”

13. I’ve been in every state of the U.S. except Oregon, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

14. I’ve visited the following foreign countries in the following chronological order of first visit: United Kingdom (I lived there as a child for almost three years, and have since returned several times, visiting Scotland and Wales as well as England), France, Belgium, Holland (for a few minutes, riding across the narrow part near Maastricht), Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Spain, Bermuda, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark (an hour in a transit lounge at the Copenhagen airport), and Mexico.

15. I have a crush on Sigourney Weaver. (My wife knows this, and isn’t worried. Neither is Jim Simpson.)

16. I exhibit some symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (Isn’t calling it a “disorder” almost a contradiction in terms?), such as arranging all the bills in my wallet face forward, right side up, and in ascending order of denomination from front to back. This sometimes annoys people behind me in line at Key Food.

17. Guilty pleasures: Kraft American cheese, Popeye’s chicken and dirty rice, “Believe Me” by the Royal Teens, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

18. Like Mr. Leopold Bloom, I devour with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls (or, as my Massachusetts-born wife calls them, “speah pahts”).

19. In my estimation, any pizza can be improved by adding anchovies. Update: this may not apply to the hot dog and French fry pizza.

20. I dread being asked directions, because I often find myself saying “north” when I mean “south”, “up” for “down”, “right” for “left”, and so on (I call this “directional dyslexia”).

21. I think the most salient fact about me is the tension I feel between conflicting ideals, for example: fealty to tradition versus attraction to novelty, and reverence before mystery versus desire for knowledge.

22. I like some odd painters, such as Ivan Albright and Giorgio de Chirico.

23. I usually dislike being asked what is my favorite anyone or anything, as I seldom have a clear, overriding preference valid for all times and circumstances.

24. Before I die, I would like to tour around the Mediterranean, especially Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, and Morocco. I would also like to follow the route of the Silk Road from Asia Minor to China, and see the cities of Manaus and Salvador in Brazil.

25. I hate the designated hitter rule.

Update: Slate has an interesting analysis of the spread and decay of the "25 things" phenomenon, with an interesting conclusion for anyone planning an attempt at viral online marketing.

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.


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 cadlagh1 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.

California wildlife.

Seals, sea lions, and cormorants; Monterey Bay.

Pelicans, Monterey Bay.

Sea otter, Montery Bay.

Whale spout, Fort Funston.

Whale (humpback?) breaking surface, Fort Funston.

Black-tailed deer, Point Reyes.