Riding Amtrak's Adirondack.

Amtrak's Adirondack runs daily, both ways, between New York City's Penn Station and Montreal. The northbound and southbound trains both leave early in the morning and arrive at their destinations in the evening. This allows passengers to enjoy some impressive scenery along the way. The conductor announced that the train had been named by National Geographic Traveler magazine as having one of the five most scenic routes in the world, which, he noted, put it in the same category as the Orient Express. If only its accomodations were as posh as those on the Direct-Orient, to use (for you persnickety railfans) its proper name. Nevertheless, for Amtrak, this is a pretty good operation. The equipment is standard, i.e. basic aging Amfleet coaches (this route cries for domes; alas, tunnel clearances don't allow them) (Update: According to Trains magazine, a dome car will be added to the train during the fall foliage season, but only for the route between Albany and Montreal, where tunnel clearances are sufficient), but the crew, at least on this run, was top notch. Rating special mention are Pat, the conductor from Albany to points north, whose thirty-eight year career extends back to the days when passenger service on this part of the route was provided by the Delaware & Hudson, and the cafe car attendant, identified by his badge as Mr. Graves, whose limited counter space and food-heating facilities were taxed by a crowded train, but who dealt with the impatient and sometimes cranky passengers with grace and humor.

Subway delays meant I made the Adirondack's 7:45 A.M. departure with seconds to spare, so I was forced to take an aisle seat. Consequently, I wasn't able to get photos of the first stretch of great scenery: the Hudson valley between New York City and Albany. As we approched the Hudson Highlands, the conductor announced that volunteers from the National Park Service would give a narrative about the historical and geological significance of the places we were passing, and that those wishing to hear it should gather at the rear of the cafe car. By the time I got there, all the seats were taken, so I returned to my coach and waited until we reached Albany/Rensselaer, a division point where there's both a crew and engine change, the latter meaning we swapped one GE Genesis type loco for another.
My first visit to this station was in 1970 or '71, when, as a first year associate in a New York City law firm, I was sent to Albany to do research on the legislative history of an obscure tax statute. This was before Amtrak, so the train I rode was operated by Penn Central, then on its last legs. When I got off, I saw across two tracks an A/A pair of Alco PAs in Delaware & Hudson colors, but in livery that was an obvious copy of the Santa Fe's "Warbonnet" scheme (see photo below, by J. Testagrose, which is courtesy of Brent Holt's Exotic Diesel site (the link is to the PA page), sponsored by The Railfan Network.)



I later learned why: D&H's PAs were purchased from Santa Fe, so the paint scheme they bore was basically a matter of putting blue over red. Indeed, I may have seen these same PAs heading AT&SF's Grand Canyon at its terminus when my parents and I visited the Canyon several years before.


The PA is regarded by many railfans as the best looking diesel ever made. To my eye, the Genesis (see left), while not so handsome as the PA, has a similar austere elegance. It's certainly an improvement on the clunky looking FP-40 that preceded it. Its sculptured lines suggest my own favorite of the first generation diesels, the Baldwin "Sharknose" (see photo below, by J. Hunt, again courtesy of Exotic Diesel), minus the nose.














After leaving Albany/Rensellaer station, we crossed the Hudson just north of downtown Albany, then headed west to Schenectady. Following a stop there, we turned north again towards Saratoga. Shortly after, Pat the conductor announced that a National Park Service volunteer would be in the front coach to talk about sights along the way. This time, I was able to find a seat. The volunteer, Dave, was a high school teacher from Schenectady. The first thing he said after I took my seat confirmed what I had suspected, that the abandoned industrial complex we had passed just after leaving Schenectady station was the American Locomotive Works ("Alco"), birthplace of the PA and many other steam and diesel locos.

As we approached Saratoga, Dave talked about the significance of the Revolutionary War battle fought there, in which Benedict Arnold, along with Horatio Gates, got credit for a victory which thwarted the British plan to isolate New England from the colonies to the south. He then discussed theories about Arnold's later turn to treachery, noting that the most plausible was his wife's hatred of their subsequent post at West Point. Arnold had sustained a wound at Saratoga that necessitated the amputation of his right leg, and there is now a monument at the Saratoga Battlefield National Historical Site to that booted leg, the only part of him, as Dave said, that never betrayed the revolutionary cause.


A short time after leaving Saratoga, we re-crossed the Hudson, now running almost west to east after descending soutwestwards from its source in Lake Tear of the Clouds, in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks. What you see in the photo on the right is just the southern part of the river, as the far bank is Rogers Island, a place steeped in the history of the French and Indian War, as well as the ancestral home of the U.S. Army Rangers.

North of Rogers Island our route was parallel to the Champlain Canal, which connected the Hudson with Lake Champlain. This, along with another short canal bypassing rapids on the Richelieu River, through which Lake Champlain drains into the St. Lawrence, enabled watercraft to travel from New York City (or, later, after completion of the Erie Canal, from Buffalo and points on the Great Lakes to the west) to Montreal, or down the St. Lawrence to Quebec City.

As we continued northward, the canal broadened into what seemed a wide river, but was actually the southern part of Lake Champlain. The woods and green pasture on the opposite bank are in Vermont, which, as Dave noted, was not one of the thirteen rebellious colonies. In fact, it was for a time an independent republic.

One of our stops on the west bank of Champlain was Port Henry, where there is a museum commemorating the Lake Champlain & Moriah, a mining railroad that hauled iron ore from a mine to the west to the Champlain shore, where it was loaded onto boats for transport north to Canada or south through the canal to the Hudson or the Erie. Below are photos of the rolling stock on display, which include an Alco freight engine, an ore bogey and a caboose; unfortunately, it was raining at the time I took them, and drops on the coach windows affect the quality of the images (there was no time to detrain there). (Update: for better photos, taken the following summer and winter, see here and here.)

















At Westport, Pat announced that there would be time to get off and stretch our legs or placate our nicotine cravings. This allowed me to get
a shot of the still functional Victorian depot there.

Shortly after Westport, we reached my destination, Plattsburgh. The following afternoon, I got the photo below of the southbound Adirondack arriving at Plattsburgh station. The monument in the background, surmounted by an eagle, commemorates the Revolutionary War capture of Fort Ticonderoga, which lies some seventy miles to the south, and is briefly visible from the train.



Update: for more photos and text from a later journey on the Adirondack, see here For a video showing scenery along the lower Hudson Valley taken from the train, along with an interview of your correspondent by a Wall Street Journal reporter, see here.

Clyde Tombaugh: a distinguished life in astronomy.

The decision by a council of astronomers meeting in Prague to demote Pluto to "dwarf planet" status brings to mind the remarkable man who discovered the little devil some seventy six years ago. Clyde Tombaugh secured his job as an assistant at Harvard's Lowell Observatory on the strength of some sketches of planets he had made based on observations through a home-made telescope. He was only 24 when he compared some photographic plates and noticed a dim object that moved in the manner to be expected of a distant planet. He has ever since been remembered as the discoverer of Pluto, but, as this brief biography points out, made many other contributions to our knowledge of the universe during his long career, including delineating a supercluster of galaxies spanning the sky from Andromeda to Perseus.

Here's hoping that the reclassification of Pluto doesn't dim the memory of this fine man, who died nine years ago at the age of 90.

A Brooklyn blog well worth a visit.

Through the medium of the excellent and useful Brooklyn Heights Blog, I've discovered a unique blog called runs brooklyn/brooklyn runs. It's the baby of one Gary, a fortysomething recent arrival (from New Jersey by way of Iowa) in the Borough of Cherce, who has made it his project to run every block of every street therein. His descriptions of the neighborhoods he runs through are tasty slices of cake, and his superb photographs are the icing.

Good news for the Mets.

It now appears that Tom Glavine will be able to pitch again soon. Nevertheless, it's still an open question whether either he or Pedro Martinez will be in top form for the post-season.

Evening update: Mets survive John Maine's inevitable Dark Night of the Soul (I hope John does, too), coming back from a 7-1 deficit to win 8-7. Nights like tonight, it looks like 1986 again. Nevertheless, I have to agree with Tim Marchman's assessment.

Unfortunately, it appears that, if the Mets do get to the Series, they won't face the same opponent as in '86.

Out of the frying pan ... ?

As seen from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, on the hot, hazy afternoon of July 30, a Saudi ro-ro/container ship sails from the Red Hook terminal. Next stop Jiddah?

An apology to my non-Fray readers.

I know there are one or two of you.

If the last two posts seemed incomprehensible to you, please bear with me. We're about to go back to business as usual.

What's the Fray? Here's a description from a post almost a year ago:

"For anyone reading this who's unfamiliar with the Fray (which I've now referred to in two posts, and certainly will again), there's a good description in Wikipedia, written, I believe, largely by Fray stalwarts Deej and Betty the Crow."

Mets 7, Phillies 2

No, it wasn't a never-ending death spiral, just a phase. Right, topazz?

Oopsnosity

There. That should put this buggy in the fast lane.

A big thank-you to Hipparchia, and a friendly shout to our neighbours up north, with special thanks for your air.

Narrow gauge in Portland, Maine (cont'd).

As noted at the close of my previous post on this subject, Maine's narrow gauge railroads had rails only two feet apart. This, I believe, was the narrowest gauge in common use in the U.S. Below are two tiny engines standing on the same siding as the freight cars shown in the earlier post.



After I took these photos, we began walking back towards the fishermen's wharves to buy some lobsters for our evening meal. We had gone a short way, and were passing a couple going in the opposite direction, when the woman said, "Look! Here comes The Cat." I looked over towards the harbor and saw the big catamaran ferry that runs between Portland and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia entering the mouth of the Fore River.



Having photographed The Cat, I rejoined my wife and our friend to continue our walk to the fish market. However, I saw something out of the corner of my eye that made me excuse myself and go running back toward the railroad museum.

It was old No. 4, a gorgeously preserved 0-4-4 loco, pulling another S.R.& R.L. combine car. A fitting finish to a fine afternoon of train watching.

Sometimes, pessimism works.

Especially when you've gotten to the point of discounting it.

Could Pedro Martinez be like The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay?

After all, 'twas a poem writ in Boston.

Narrow gauge in Portland, Maine.

The State of Maine once had an extensive system of narrow gauge railroads; many of them, as in the Pacific Northwest, serving the logging industry. A small part of this system remains on the north side of Portland, preserved under the aegis of the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Co. and Museum. The MNGRR runs trains from just outside its museum and headquarters north along the Portland waterfront and back. When we arrived last weekend, a train loaded with tourists was about to leave. At the end was this handsome passenger car - caboose combination that formerly served in northern Maine on the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes.

I walked to the front of the train, where I found this small steeple-cab diesel about to be coupled for departure. Note the formidable looking cluster of airhorns on this little engine. We then went into the museum, located in the red brick building in the background at the right. After we had looked at the many exhibits there, we came out to find that the train had departed. On a side track were these well-preserved freight cars. The tanker evidently dates to before the merger of Standard Oil Company of New York ("SOCONY") with Vacuum Oil Company to form the awkwardly named Socony-Vacuum, which later sensibly became Mobil. This later merged with Exxon, the lineal descendent of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, to form Exxon-Mobil. Thus was the work of trust-busters of almost a century ago partially undone.

If you look at the empty track in the foreground, you can get a feel for how narrow it is: only two feet separate the rails.

Continued here.

Postscript to "When good things ... "

The suggestion in Fred Kaplan's Slate article, to which I linked a couple of posts below, that the blanket refusal of the current administration to engage in discussions with the Syrians is dysfunctional, is echoed, and extended to the Iranians, by Richard Holbrooke in this Washington Post column.

Interestingly, Holbrooke's WaPo column was reprinted in the neocon organ, The New York Sun, which is where I first saw it. If Slate and the Sun can agree on something, well, ...

Brooklyn Heights sunset.

Top this, Key West.

The Curse explained.

Back at the All-Star break, I bemoaned the appearance of five Mets on the cover of Sports Illustrated, predicting "dire consequences." My prediction has, so far, been off the mark, much to my delight. Now, with typical acuity, Tim Marchman explains the SI cover curse, in a way that makes me say "D'oh!"

This leads to another question: are the Mets, as the saying goes, the exception that proves the rule? I've never understood that one. How can an exception "prove" a rule?

When good things happen because of bad people.

There's an interesting article by Fred Kaplan in yesterday's Slate that reveals the source of at least much of the information Britain's MI5 relied on to thwart the transatlantic airliner bombing plot as being the Pakistani military intelligence agency. Kaplan also refers to a New Yorker piece by Seymour Hersh, which I somehow missed, that described Syria as a valuable source of information about al-Qaeda in the period following the September 11 attacks. However, this helpful connection was cut after the invasion of Iraq, and a Syrian offer to rein in Hezbollah in return for continued exchanges of intelligence was allowed to expire.

Of course, the government of Bashar Assad wasn't being munificent out of sympathy with this country over the September 11 tragedy. The Baathists who rule Syria, as Kaplan explains, are no friends of al-Qaeda, which is allied with their principal internal opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood. It was simply a case of the enemy of my enemy being, perforce, if not my friend, at least someone with whom I'll cooperate. Similarly, Pervez Musharraf's military regime is, no doubt, less concerned about loss of innocent life than the consequences concerning substantial U.S. and British aid likely to ensue from massive loss of life caused by a plot hatched at least partially in Pakistan.

Kaplan's point is that an excessively Manichaean world view, which he ascribes to the Bush administration, can be unhelpful in coping with real world problems. This is something any fan of noir fiction can appreciate. To put it another way, the real lesson of Munich is not "Don't do deals with bad people", it's "Don't do bad deals with bad people."

Pessimism never works.

That's the slogan on a t-shirt I'm thinking of buying. Yes, I was convinced that the Mets would go to Atlanta carefree and cocky, and leave saddened and swept. I just knew that the Ray Gliers of the world would pound their keyboards, proclaiming the resurgence of the rightful NL East champs and lauding the unsurpassable genius of Schuerholz and Cox.

Well, it kinda went the other way. Yes, Braves fans, I'll grant that your DL resembled the Roll of Honor from the Battle of the Somme while ours was a mere four names, one of whom, Victor Zambrano, arguably constituted addition by subtraction. Nevertheless, it does feel good.

Ah, but the life of a Mets fan has few stretches of unrelieved joy. In the process of moving the road show to Miami, ace setup man Duaner Sanchez boarded a cab that promptly got into a smash-up, separating Sanchez's shoulder. To plug this breach in their bullpen, the Mets gave up Xavier Nady, who has done yeoman service in right field and at the plate. In return, the Pirates gave back to the Mets (who let him go in the off-season) Roberto Hernandez, who comes with a respectable 2.93 ERA and some experience of pitching at Shea, as well as 41 years under his belt. Oh, yes, we also got a starter, Oliver Perez, who had a great season two years ago, has since collapsed, and is optioned to Norfolk.

As for right field, Lastings Milledge will return from the minors to share that space with Endy Chavez, another of the Mets' surprising yeomen of the season. (I can recall seeing Endy's brother, Ender, playing center field for the Brooklyn Cyclones a couple of seasons ago. Endy, Ender. What is it with the name game in Venezuela, the country that also gave us siblings Edgardo and Edgar Alfonso?) Anyway, it looks like we'll get to see this season whether Tim Marchman's misgivings about young Milledge's potential are well founded.

Little Toot goes psychedelic.

While walking along the Battery Park Esplanade, I saw this unusually decorated tug sailing past Ellis Island.

"[T]ruly, deeply, tragically inconvenient."

I've been loath to post about the Middle East. I tell myself this is because I'm no expert, but I know it's really because, whatever opinion one may express on the subject, no matter how apparently anodyne, someone is going to find it mightily offensive. Moral cowardice? I prefer to think it's just that my thoughts on the matter, ill-informed as they may be, are - how you say? - nuanced.

So I'm glad to find a link in Eric Alterman's MSNBC blog to an essay in, of all places, New York magazine, which I dismissed years ago as lightweight fare for superficial yups - a kind of upscale People - that I think I can recommend almost (Okay, I have problems with the first paragraph. I agree that global warming is a serious problem. I'm not sure that any solution "doesn't look that onerous.") unreservedly. It's by Kurt Andersen, and you can find it here.

Walter Benjamin on Proust

"He is filled with the insight that none of us has time to to live the true dramas of the life that we are destined for. This is what ages us -- this and nothing else. The wrinkles and creases on our faces are the registrations of the great passions, vices, insights that called on us; but we, the masters, were not at home."

Illuminations, (Trans. Harry Zohn, Schocken, 1969), 211-212; quoted in Michael D. Jackson, "In the Footsteps of Walter Benjamin", Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Spring, 2006, at p.44.

John Maine pitches a complete game shutout.

Okay, maybe I was wrong.

I'm glad.

But I'm still worried about that series in Atlanta next week.

Postcard from Maine

Portland Head Light was commissioned by President Washington to guide mariners entering Portland harbor, and was put into service in 1791. It remains in use today. Several years ago, it was converted to computer-controlled operation, and the position of lighthouse keeper was eliminated. The handsome keeper's house, to the right of the lighthouse tower in the scene above, is now a museum.

Below is a view of Portland harbor and downtown, taken from the deck of the Saltwater Grill in South Portland, at sundown.

Curses!

Five Mets on the cover of Sports Illustrated!

I foresee dire consequences. And I'm usually right about these things. Dammit!

Whoa, David!

I read somewhere that, before the All-Star Game, David Wright said it was to determine whether the Mets would get home field advantage in the World Series. I'm surprised, to say the least, that the usually circumspect Mr. Wright would be so presumptuous. After all, there are the small matters of (1) winning the division pennant or the wild card, (2) surviving the first round of playoffs and (3) winning the NLCS, to be taken care of before home field advantage in the series (which, in the event, now belongs to the Designated Hitter League) becomes an issue.

Okay, I'll grant that, even at the All-Star break, the likelihood of (1) seems more than 50-50. Still, being a Mets fan accustomed to catastrophe and collapse, I envision, say, Pedro's hip problem being a more than transient thing. I won't be convinced until the magic number reaches zero. (I know, "Ya gotta believe!", and all that. Sorry, Mets, but you've made me a skeptic.)

Meanwhile, Tom Van Riper of Forbes pleases me by including the 1986 Mets in his list of the top ten major league teams of all time, but disappoints me by failing to include the 1962 Mets in his list of the ten worst. He notes that they mananged to lose 120 games "supposedly in a humorous way." Come on, Tom, haven't you ever read Jimmy Breslin's Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? "Supposedly"?

Sox sweep Mets

I'll rerain from complaining, if only to ensure domestic tranquility. After all, the Mets could afford to lose three, and every Sox win is another nail in the Yanks' coffin.

iPod log 2

I had to visit the office this afternoon to take care of some unfinished business, and on the way there and back I heard the following:

1. Otis Redding: "Can't Turn You Loose." From Live in Europe, one of the best live albums, and best R&B albums, ever.

2. Planxty, "As I Roved Out." A folk song on which there are many variations. Am I right in thinking that "the lassie who had the land" is Victoria R.? The last verse seems to confirm it.

3. The Yardbirds with Sonny Boy Williamson, "Pontiac Blues." Choice fruit of one of several collaborations between British bands and great Chicago bluesmen that happened in the late 1960s.

4. Jimmy Cliff, "Sitting in Limbo." From the magnificent The Harder They Come soundtrack.

5. East Village Opera Company, Ebben? Ne Andro Lontana. My wife turned me on to this group, who set opera arias to rock instrumentation and arrangements. If you're heavily invested in how this music ought to sound, you'll probably hate it. I like it.

6. John Stewart, "Never Goin' Back." The final cut on California Bloodlines (see iPod log 1), in which he gives the credits aurally.

7. The Kingston Trio, "Run the Ridges." I told you the iPod can be uncanny at times. Here, it follows John Stewart on his first solo album with John Stewart as lead singer for the Trio, several years before, in a stirring song about two former Confederate soldiers on the outlaw trail.

8. Rod Stewart, "Mandolin Wind." Egad! Another Stewart. This time it's Rod the Mod, from Every Picture Tells a Story, my nominee for Greatest Rock Album Ever.

9. Beausoliel, "Eunice Two Step." I defy you to stay still while listening to this Cajun dance tune par excellence.

10. Dire Straits, "Walk of Life." A sign at Radio City Music Hall tells me Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris are in some sort of collaboration. That bears watching.

11. Blondie, "Sunday Girl." Late '70s post-punk ironists embrace early '60s teen romanticism, with no visible tongues in cheeks.

12. Fairport Convention, "John the Gun." From their Fairport Live album, released in the U.K. as A Moveable Feast, and recorded in London and Sydney during the same 1975 world tour in which I saw them at Carnegie Hall. When the curtain went up, I was surprised to see Sandy Denny, who had left the group several years before, seated in front of a grand piano. A man several rows away yelled "Welcome back!", and Sandy, with crisp British precision, chirped back, "Thenk you!"

13. Paul Butterfield Blues Band, "Spoonful." This racially integrated Chicago group provided my introduction to the blues during my college years.

14. Martha and the Vandellas, "Heat Wave." It was typing speed and telephone manners that got Ms. Reeves her job at Motown Records, but she proved to have other talents.

15. The Beatles, "I Feel Fine." I first heard this blasting from a neighbor's dorm room in the spring of 1965, and it had its intended effect.

16. The Lovin' Spoonful, "Searchin'." NYC guys cover LA R&B. Not bad.

17. Johnny and the Hurricanes, "Red River Rock." Pumping organ, driving guitar. Rock instrumental music at its best. (Someday I'll have to find a download of their "Beatnik Fly.")

18. Toots and the Maytals, "Pressure Drop." Wonderful chugging reggae rhythm.

19. The Byrds, "Time Between." From Younger Than Yesterday, the album on which they started to go seriously country.

20. The Byrds, "You Don't Miss Your Water." From Sweetheart of the Rodeo, the album on which Gram Parsons joined them, they went completely country, and Roger McGuinn had his doubts.

21. Planxty, "Pat Reilly." A cautionary tale about the consequences of having one drink too many in the company of a military recruiter.

22. Bruce Springsteen, "Open All Night." A song in which The Boss describes his native state as "like a lunar landscape."

23. Dr. John, "Iko Iko." "My spyboy an' yo' spyboy, sittin' by the fy-o, my spypoy say to yo' spyboy, gonna set yo' flag on fy-o." Go figure.

24. Planxty, "Merrily Kissed the Quaker." A lively instrumental piece featuring, along with uillean pipes and bodhran, that quintessentially Irish instrument, the bouzouki.

25. Flaco Jimenez, "Marina." A bouncy love song by El Jefe del Norteno squeeze-box.

The final suburb.

A few weeks ago, my wife took a tour of Woodlawn Cemetery, where many of New York's prominent citizens of yore are interred. Woodlawn is in the northern Bronx, next to Van Cortlandt Park, and therefore at the northern edge of New York City. At the time that most of its inhabitants took up residence, however, it was part of New York County (which today consists of Manhattan and a tiny bit of the mainland cut off from Manhattan when the Harlem River's course was changed by blasting to improve navigation) but not part of the City. In other words, it was suburban. A Scarsdale for stiffs, Bronxville for bones, Pelham for the perished.

The day of the tour, the weather gods cooperated by providing a suitably gloomy overcast and light but steady rain. Fortunately, my wife had her camera to record the tour. Here's the group entering the cemetery:



The gravestones, as you might expect, are classical in style and quite elegant. Consider this, which may belong to the family of an early steamboat enterpreneur:



Or this bronze frieze, in a romantic style, of a recumbent youth:



Many of the prominent families have mausoleums. This classical temple houses the remains of the Julliards, remembered principally for their patronage of the great music school that bears their name:



Today, the fashion for elaborate crypts seems gone. Perhaps that's a good thing. Still, Woodlawn is something to behold.

iPod log 1

You've been asking yourselves, "When does the really self-absorbed stuff begin?" Relax. Here we go.

My wife gave me an iPod nano for my 60th birthday. I spent several weeks loading 566 pieces of music onto it. Some early choices were rejected and others added to stay within its 2GB capacity. For now, it holds as nearly as possible (some favorites of mine couldn't be copied off CDs or bought through iTunes) a definitive collection of music I like. I have it set to play in random order, and shuffle the order after each recharge. I've noticed that the iPod seems to have some sort of internal intelligence, choosing pieces to follow others in an order that seems to make sense.

I've decided to keep an occasional log of what my iPod plays as I go to and from work, and to share that log, with some observations on my musical choices, with you, my readers. So, here's my log for Friday, June 23:

1. Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations." It's on there to remind me of the adrenaline rush I got from falling in love many years ago.

2. T. Rex, "Ride a White Swan." What can I say? I'm an Anglophile, and almost as big a Tolkien fan as my daughter. Besides, the song mentions Beltane, a Celtic holiday on which I once gave a particularly wild party during my bachelor Village days. (Had Marc Bolan not died in a car crash, I'm sure he'd be playing some part in the Harry Potter movies.)

3. The Who, "Pinball Wizard." We're really in a late '60s groove here. OK, early '70s -- to me, the '60s didn't end until Nixon resigned, or maybe until the fall of Saigon.

4. Link Wray and the Wray-Men, "Raw-Hide." A break back to the 1950s, and to the pioneer of heavy metal guitar, who figured out how to create reverb using rusty garbage cans.

5. Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, "Footprints in the Snow." Eleven years ago this summer, my wife and I attended a free outdoor concert by Bill Monroe at Damrosch Park, next to Lincoln Center. After several numbers, Bill, then 83, said, "Clap louder, y'all. You want us to be invited back next year, don't you?" Next year, he was gone.

6. John Stewart, "July, You're a Woman." Stewart first came to fame when he replaced Dave Guard in the Kingston Trio. After he left the Trio, he made a magnificent solo album, California Bloodlines. This is one of my favorite cuts from that album. "And I have not been known/ As the saint of San Joaquin,/ And I'd just as soon, right now,/ Pull on over to the side of the road,/ And show you what I mean."

7. Doc Watson, "Wabash Cannonball." I love trains. I love this song. Some serious railfans don't like it because it has the train going lots of places the real Cannonball never even got near. I just enjoy the ride.

8. Grateful Dead, "Friend of the Devil." Rock critics hate this band. Typical rock critic joke: "What did one Deadhead say to the other after they ran out of dope? 'This music sucks!'" I like some of their stuff, even without chemical augmentation.

9. Woody Guthrie, "This Land is Your Land." The Smithsonian/Folkways recording, without the "Commie" verse.

10. Poco, "Here We Go Again." From Crazy Eyes, one of three albums (the others are the Emmylou Harris/Dolly Parton/Linda Ronstadt Trio and U2's The Joshua Tree) said to have been made as memorials to Gram Parsons. (The Stones' "Wild Horses" is a memento vivendi, as it was written and released before Gram's fatal encounter with a speedball.)

11. Bob Marley, "Trench Town Rock." Vintage Marley, before fame and overproduction ruined him. "You reap what you sow."

12. Beach Boys, "I'd Love Just Once to See You." From the underrated Wild Honey album. "When was the last time you baked me a pie?" Splendiferous.

13. The Chieftains, "The Morning Dew." A frequently played fixture on the Bells of Hell's jukebox, and, therefore, part of the soundtrack of many of my Village bachelor evenings.

14. Bruce Springsteen, "Johnny 99." From Nebraska, his dark, acoustic foray into Charlie Starkweather territory.

15. The Contours, "Do You Love Me?" I'll never forget my high school friend, Bill Broach, telling me how, whenever his band got to the line, "Watch me now, hey!", he'd do a rim shot and break his drumstick.

16. Little Feat, "Oh, Atlanta!" I loved this band, and still light a candle for Lowell George every year. A George-less version of the group is doing a free outdoor concert at Battery Park City later this summer. If I can, I'll check it out, but my hopes aren't high.

17. The Who, "Magic Bus." The studio version, which I may decide to replace with the version from Live at Leeds.

18. John Fogerty, "Centerfield." The epitome of American can-do spirit. "Put me in, Coach!"

19. Fotheringay, "Peace in the End." A prayer for peace in Northern Ireland, performed by three Brits, an Aussie and a New York City native. Great harmonies by wife and husband team Sandy Denny and Trevor Lucas. "I've seen them stand at the top of the hill,/ And none of them coming down,/ But who will be the last one to kill,/ And who will be the clown?"

20. George Jones, "I Can't Get Over What Loving You Has Done." He was the unrivaled master of the agony-of-divorce song and the blighted-love-has-driven-me-to-drink song. This is a song of sublime joy, and he did it so well.

21. Dirty Dozen Band, "Li'l Liza Jane." From a Rhino anthology called New Orleans Party Classics. Hot Dixieland with great scat singing.

22. Fairport Convention, "Percy's Song." I discovered this during my last year of law school. I was walking past my classmate John Lovett's dorm room when I first heard Sandy Denny's voice. The door was open, and I called out to John, "Who's that?" "Fairport Convention," he said. There began my many years' love affair with this group, which climaxed with my attendance at their Carnegie Hall concert in 1975. Here, they take a little-known Dylan song -- one that I've never heard Dylan perform -- and turn it into something akin to Anglican chant. Awesome.

23. The Tarriers, "The Banana Boat Song." Long before there was reggae, there was calypso. This is from 1957, when a bunch of white guys from New York did a credible job of singing about loading bunches of bananas. Personal aside -- I met Erik Darling, who was with this group and later with the Rooftop Singers of "Walk Right In" fame, at a party in 1975 (a big year for me musically), and got to harmonize with him to the accompaniment of his twelve string guitar.

24. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, "Flint Hill Special." In 1972, NGDB, a bunch of L.A. hippies, went to Nashville and recorded with some of country's greats, including Roy Acuff, Mother Maybelle Carter, Jimmy Martin, Earl Scruggs, Merle Travis and Doc Watson. The resulting double album, Will the Circle be Unbroken, is breathtaking. This cut, a slashing bluegrass instrumental, features Earl Scruggs on banjo, his son Randy on guitar, Norman Blake on dobro, Vassar Clements on fiddle and Junior Huskey on bass, along with Dirt Band members Jimmie Fadden on harp, Les Thompson on mandolin and Jim Ibbotson on snare.

25. Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps, "Cruisin'." Bad boy rockabilly from Norfolk, VA, about 1957. "Cruisin' for a bruisin' ...".

26. Great Speckled Bird, "Flies in the Bottle." In 1968-69, iconic Canadian folkies Ian and Sylvia joined with some young rock musicians from Ohio and formed a group named for a country music classic. I saw them perform in Boston in the fall of '69, while in the company of a pretty lass from Vancouver whose name, alas, I've forgotten. This cut features a nice vocal by Ian, jazzy in a north-of-the-border kind of way.

Queen Mary 2 again.

Here she is as she appears, while at her berth, from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.

Another New York harbor scene.

On May 31, I took a walk along the promenade at Battery Park City and got this view of the Manhattan Sailing Club's J-24 fleet arrayed in front of the Statue of Liberty.

A Bloomsday survey.

Choose your answer; give your reason:

James Joyce has had a (A) good (B) bad (C) indifferent effect on the course of literature.

My mind is open on this subject. Best response wins my frayed, dog-eared paperback copy of Portrait of the Artist that I read for Humanities 101 at the University of South Florida in 1965 (if I can find it).

Beware the agenbite of inwit.