Thursday, August 13, 2009

Your correspondent finds, to his great surprise, that he's a really cool guy.

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Today's New York Times fashion section includes an article by Guy Trebay that starts with this welcome (to me, at least, if not to Ro...
2 comments:
Monday, August 10, 2009

Elaine Comparone and Queen's Chamber Band play José Bernardo's "Echoes from a Distant Land."

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Several evenings ago, I had the pleasure of dining with Elaine Comparone at Bar Pitti , where she hosted a birthday dinner for an old f...
Thursday, August 06, 2009

Must there be a worm in every Mets apple?

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I've given up watching Mets games this season, so as to maintain "my spiritual well-being, the stability of which [I am here borrow...
Wednesday, August 05, 2009

A customized classic Mini in DUMBO.

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This classic Austin or Morris Mini (the Mini was made under both of the most popular marques of the British Motor Corporation), apparently ...
1 comment:
Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Cat and chamber orchestra: a Lithuanian diversion.

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In the clip above (courtesy of sanmartinfields ) you can see and hear a one movement concerto performed by the Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra ...
Thursday, July 23, 2009

Encouraging words on the way to the Brooklyn Bridge.

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Seen on the top step leading from Cadman Plaza East/Washington Street to the Brooklyn Bridge walkway this morning.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Gail Collins nails the New York Senate.

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In her continuing New York Times dialogue with David Brooks, Ms. Collins has this to say: [Y]ou can’t run a big, complicated country witho...
Sunday, July 19, 2009

Frank McCourt: goodbye to an old friend.

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"Old friend" may be a strong claim. I haven't seen or spoken to Frank, other than on a couple of isolated occasions such as t...
1 comment:
Friday, July 17, 2009

"And that's the way it is ...."

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Will anyone say it with such assurance again? Goodbye, Walter. Image: O'Halloran/Library of Congress [VIA PINGNEWS]. Update: Television...
Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Manohla Dargis on Harry Potter yields a magnificent Alan Rickman simile.

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In her review of the movie Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in today's New York Times , Manohla Dargis writes: [T]he sensational...
Monday, July 13, 2009

Charlie Gracie redux: "Butterfly" (1957)

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Back in April, I posted a video I made of Charlie Gracie doing a song called "I'm All Right" at the Roots of American Musi...
Saturday, July 11, 2009

An almost-perfect baseball night.

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The Mets are breaking my heart yet again, but tonight they gave me a nice tease . Jeff Francouer proved to be an impact player in his first...
Friday, July 10, 2009

Aerospace socialism.

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Back in the day, Ed Koch was a congressman representing the district on Manhattan's East Side that had been John Lindsay's before he...
1 comment:
Monday, July 06, 2009

One of the "best and the brightest" is gone.

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Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy Robert S. McNamara, who died today at 93, may, in President Ken...
1 comment:
Saturday, July 04, 2009

Goh Nakamura performs Simon and Garfunkel's "America"

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Last year I marked the Fourth here by posting a clip of Paul Simon singing "American Tune", which, I noted, had a melody that s...
Monday, June 29, 2009

Yanks sweep Mets at Citi.

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Yuck. An all too familiar story: Mets outhit the opposition, but bring in fewer runs. History is made: Mariano Rivera gets his 500th save ...
3 comments:
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Gehry eclipses Gilbert on the Brooklyn Bridge

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June 7, 2008. On a hazy summer morning, Cass Gilbert's magnificent Woolworth Building, near the 95th anniversary of its completion, ca...
3 comments:
Monday, June 22, 2009

Straight talk on Iran.

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Steve Kornacki has an excellent column in PolitickerNY about why President Obama is right not to utter red-meat rhetoric concerning events...
1 comment:
Wednesday, June 17, 2009

If Charles Darwin had a Facebook page...

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...might it look like this ? The page was developed by Heather Snyder and Anna Heran, of the staff of the Lloyd Library and Museum , Cincinn...
Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Happy Bloomsday.

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I read Portrait of the Artist as a freshman college English assignment, and found it an interesting, if challenging, contrast to the ficti...

News from Tehran

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Thanks to friend Geoff for sending me a link to Tehran24 , which provides photos (the image above is taken from the site), video and text co...
Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

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Thanks, though, to GimpelTheFool for this excellent poem, posted "in memory of BotFer Claude Scales": Barrow Street I will die...
2 comments:
Saturday, June 06, 2009

The Mets are messin' with my mind.

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At the end of April, I was ready to give up on them. Then May brought good play and fortune, and I was beguiled . By the end of the month, ...
1 comment:
Friday, June 05, 2009

Goodbye, Koko Taylor

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The drumbeat of losses from the music world continues with the death, at 80, of Koko Taylor, who reigned for many years as queen of Chicago...

I'm shocked, shocked!

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Downright flabbergasted by the result of this Gallup poll .
Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Marshall Chapman, live in Louisville.

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Marshall Chapman and I go back a ways . Our encounters have been few but fun, certainly for me and I hope for her. She gives great hug. ...
1 comment:
Saturday, May 30, 2009

There's a story here, somewhere.

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Plymouth Street, Brooklyn. Municipal Building, Manhattan.
1 comment:
Sunday, May 24, 2009

The uncle I never met.

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Photo: Tyrone Daily Herald  / Christina Pryor Thomas Jefferson Lane Jr. was my mother's younger, and only, brother. I never knew the...
1 comment:
Sunday, May 17, 2009

Some New York harbor scenes.

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(Click on images below to enlarge.) Queen Mary 2 at her berth in Red Hook, Brooklyn, May 8, 2009, as seen from the Manhattan ramp of the Br...
Thursday, May 14, 2009

"[S]o authentic the pages smell like cheap gin."

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Michael Simmons, on Barney Hoskyns' new Tom Waits biography, in LA Weekly .