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.

Alay Soler pitches a complete game shutout.

OK, I'm beginning to believe in these Mets.

Rove chums, Hevesi bites?

Coverage of the Homeland Security funding flap focuses on allegations of intent to give GOP incumbents in tight races some pork to brag about. There's a more subtle, and to me troubling, interpretation that seems sneakily Rovian. Perhaps the real intent was to cause coastal elites to go berserk, thereby confirming to heartlanders our overwrought sense of entitlement. In other words, to energize the base, not by gratitude but by the much more effective means of resentment.

If so, it seems to be working. Someone was reading choice bits from the tabs on NY1 this morning, and I heard something about ear-to-ear grins in "Podunk America"; and, of course, New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi's howler, in front of a college graduating class, no less, about Chuck Schumer wanting to put a bullet in an unfortunate place, couldn't have been scripted better by Ol' Karl himself.

An aging beauty comes to town.

Last September, I posted about ship watching from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and concluded my essay with a photo of a very pretty and shipshape vessel heading up the Hudson towards the midtown cruise ship terminal. You can find it here. On Sunday, while crossing the Brooklyn Bridge in a cab, I was delighted to see that same ship docked at the Brooklyn cruise terminal. Monday being a holiday, I was free to take my camera to Red Hook to get a closer shot of her, and to try to ascertain her identity.

Here she is, looking fine, despite the addition of two unsightly domes that, no doubt, protect electronic devices of considerable value in enhancing the safety of her passengers and crew. Note the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance.

The gantry next to her bow obscured her name, though I could make out that it started with an "S". When I got home, it took a few minutes on Google to identify her as Saga Ruby, of Saga Holidays, U.K. She began her career as Vistafjord, of Norwegian-American Lines, having been completed in 1973 (her classic lines fooled me in my earlier post into thinking she was ten of fifteen years older) at the great Wallsend shipyard of Swan Hunter.

In her early years at NAL, she may have been among the last ships to maintain a transatlantic liner service, at least during the summer months. She was later acquired by Cunard, which operated her under her original name for several years before renaming her Caronia, after an earlier ship that had the distinction of being the first Cunarder to be purpose-built for cruising. During my first months in New York, in the summer of 1970, I spent many hours studying for the bar exam on the Morton Street Pier, which extends into the Hudson from Greenwich Village. When I looked to the south, I could see the older Caronia (actually the second Cunarder to bear that name) anchored in Upper New York Bay just a couple of miles away. She had left Cunard ownership some time before, and instead of having her original sea-green hull with white superstructure and Cunard's red and black funnel, she was a solid dull white with blue funnel. After a month or so of riding at anchor, she was towed up the Hudson to an unoccupied pier and docked; when her bankrupt owners couldn't pay the fee to keep her there, she suffered the ignominy of being given a parking ticket. In 1974, she was stripped of her fittings, some of which later became decorations at a bar near the Village apartment where I lived in the late '70's. She was then sold to Taiwanese breakers, but ended her days enroute to the blowtorch when she struck a seawall off Guam and broke up in heavy weather.

Saga Ruby, along with her near sister Saga Rose (formerly Sagafjord), has the distinction of being one of the last of the survivors of the liner era still in service. Long may she sail!

Julio for El Duque?

It seems an all so typical Mets trade: an up-and-comer for a veteran with a glittering past, but lately on the skids. Julio, of course, is not Kazmir. Indeed, he was one of those vets-on-the-skids when the Mets acquired him. Lately, though, he'd turned things around, and was becoming a reliable reliever.

Much is made of Hernandez's late season success. Let's hope it continues, and that the Mets prove to be in a position to benefit by it.

Bye, bye Flutie

One of the highlights of college football in 1984 was the victory of Boston College, with quarterback Doug Flutie, over Miami in a regular season game. Today, almost 22 years later, Flutie announced his retirement from professional football at the age of 43.

He will not go down in any NFL record books, or even be remembered as one of that League's heroes. His comparatively short stature and proclivity towards a wide-open, scrambling game made him better suited for Canadian football, and a large, and by far the most active, part of his pro career was spent in the CFL. He spent his last season back at home with the New England Patriots and, on his last play, used a drop kick for a TD conversion. This hadn't been done in the NFL since 1941.

I'll look forward to his next career as a college football analyst and commentator.

In honor of her 75th birthday ...

... here is Shreve, Lamb & Harmon's masterpiece catching the rays of the setting sun.

Ken, I hardly knew ye.

John Kenneth Galbraith died yesterday, at the age of 97. I saw him once, during my law school sojourn in Cambridge, walking across Harvard Yard. There was no doubt; the six foot eight inch frame and angular face were unmistakeable. I read only one book of his cover-to-cover. It wasn't his best-selling critique of post-World War 2 American capitalism, The Affluent Society. Nor was I one of the fifty or so people (in his estimation, according to his obituary in today's New York Times) who read his one book-length attempt (successful, again in his estimation, as well as that of the Times writers) at technical economic analysis, A Theory of Price Control.

The book I did read was The Scotch, a memoir of his coming of age among the farmers of Southern Ontario, of whom his parents were exemplary. I suspect this little book is typical of Galbraith's ostensibly non-economic writings (he has also written three novels and was co-author of a study of Indian art) in that it is laden with implications concerning what used to be called (and what Galbraith might most accurately be described as having taught and written about) "political economy". The one that sticks with me from The Scotch is that a requisite of a liberal political and economic dispensation - using "liberal" in the contemporary American sense of "generous" as well as in the classic European sense of "characterized by individual liberty" - is the ascendancy of people of "substance". By "substance" he didn't mean wealth (though the Calvinist beliefs of these descendants of Scottish Presbyterian emigrants made them see worldly success as indicative of divine grace), but personal integrity.

The Scotch included an anecdote Galbraith told on himself that was illustrative of the local character. He was, he recalled, sitting on a rail fence beside his family's cow pasture. Next to him was "a compact, honey-haired girl" on whom he had a high school crush. As they watched, OAC Pride, a prize bull his father had bought from the Ontario Agricultural College, gave his attention to one of the cows. "I'd like to try that sometime," said young Ken wistfully. "Well," the girl answered," it's your cow."

Marshall Chapman can't be like other girls.

That, as a certain other blonde would say, is a Good Thing.

Yes, Marshall Chapman is a she. Alone among the spate of Marshalls in pop music - Marshall Crenshaw, Eminem and the Marshall Tucker Band come quickly to mind - Ms. Chapman is emphatically female. Emphatically, but not typically - thus the title of what has evolved from over thirty years of music making as her signature song, "Why Can't I Be Like Other Girls?"

She grew up in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where, as the song goes, by second grade she could read and write, but "learnin' to be white was nothin' that I needed to know." A tomboy who loved boys, she learned to sing and play guitar. After high school, she went to Nashville, initially as a student at Vanderbilt University, but where she later joined the many aspirants to stardom in Music City. I'm pretty sure I've been to the "Doubleknit Bar" and probably met the same lout who called out to her, "Hey, little miss, sing one by Kris/ I'll help you make it through the night." A break came when some of her songs began to be recorded by established Nashville artists. Later, she was noticed by the A&R folks for a major record company, who "took me up to New York City," where they "wined me, dined me, signed me and put me on hold."

By the time I first saw her, she was off hold. As best I recall (we're going back almost thirty years here), I was out one weekend night at a local Greenwich Village saloon and ran into my friend Nick Tosches, a brilliant writer - then primarily about country and rock music, but now also an accomplished novelist - in the company of a buxom and pretty woman I hadn't seen before, whom he introduced as Joy Wahl, from Nashville. We had a drink together, and they invited me to come along to see their friend Marshall Chapman at Trax (or was it Traxx?), a trendy music venue on the Upper West Side. Marshall was doing a show featuring songs from her recently released second album, Jaded Virgin. She wore a white jump suit and played a white guitar; her backing band consisted of guys in black playing black instruments. The music was kick-ass, out-of-sight mah-vel-ous.

During a break in the show, Joy described the cover of Jaded Virgin, and said she'd designed a t-shirt based on it. I decided I had to have one, and asked if she'd send it to me. She said she would. As the evening progressed - we hit a couple of spots for drinks after the concert - I got really obnoxious about it, several times begging Joy not to forget to send me the shirt. About a year later, Nick and I were at his apartment for a nightcap after hitting several bars. He decided he wanted to call Joy, but didn't feel up to dialing her number, so he gave it to me and asked me to place the call. When she answered, I said, "Hi, Joy, this is Claude Scales. I'm at Nick's place and he asked me to call you." "Claude," she said, "I promise I'll send you that shirt." A couple of years later, I was in Nashville and, while having a beer at Ruby Tuesday's, looked up Joy in the phone book, called and found her at home. She induced a cringe when her second sentence to me was, "I haven't forgotten about the shirt." So, anyway, I never did get the goddamned shirt. I still love you, Joy.

During that same phone conversation, Joy told me Marshall would be playing the following night at a place called Cantrell's, a converted drive-in restaurant not far from the Vanderbilt campus. As soon as I walked in, I spotted Marshall at the bar - an easy thing, as she stands about six feet tall wearing flats. I walked up to her and introduced myself, telling her I was a friend of Nick's. She greeted me warmly, asked about Nick, and said she hoped I would enjoy the show. I found a seat in the back room, not too far from the stage, and took in a performance that was perhaps even better than the one at Trax. She was doing material from her third album, including such memorable pieces as "Rock 'n' Roll Clothes" and "Runnin' Out in the Night." (No, Marshall, I won't speculate as to what that one's about. I just like the song a lot.) I had to bite my tongue to resist the temptation to make a complete fool of myself by requesting a bouncy, reggae-flavored piece from that same album, called "Don't Make Me Pregnant." (No need to speculate about that one.)

I next saw Marshall about ten years later, when she appeared at the late, lamented Bottom Line in Greenwich Village, where she was part of a group of five or six singer-songwriters who discussed their craft and each sang a song or two. (If I recall correctly, Marshall Crenshaw was also part of this group.) I had since married, and my wife was with me. She enjoyed the show, and I hoped to introduce her to Marshall afterward, but she and the other singers were quickly whisked Elvis-like from the building. After that, work and fatherhood cut into my hanging out in bars and going to rock performances, and I lost track of Marshall for a few years.

A few years ago, I began earnestly replacing my vinyl record collection with CDs. I found one by Marshall that I hadn't heard before, a superb live performance at the Tennessee Women's Prison called It's About Time, but couldn't find any of her earlier albums. A few months back, I entered her name in Google, and was directed to her official website, www.tallgirl.com. Through it, I was able to order CDs of her early albums, as well as another new live album, this one of a performance at the Bitter End on Bleecker Street that I was sorry to have missed because I never knew it was happening.

Checking the website a couple of weeks ago, I saw that Marshall would be visiting New York last weekend, and would be appearing Saturday night at a place called O'Flaherty's on West 46th Street. My wife was taking our daughter and a friend to the New York City Opera's performance of Carmen that night, so I would have to go alone. I got there a little after ten - Marshall was scheduled to go on at eleven - and had a look around. At first I wondered if I could be in the right place, as there seemed not to be any space for a musician to perform. The only open area was a small, sunken room in the back, with some tables and chairs lined up next to one wall, and most of the floor taken up by a pool table that was in lively use.

I had hoped that, in addition to seeing Marshall, I might also encounter Nick, and perhaps Joy, and maybe some other of my old rock critic drinking buddies. But, in circumnavigating the bar, a rectangular island taking up most of the front room, I didn't see a familiar face. I found an empty seat, got an India Pale Ale and waited. About the time I finished my first IPA, I looked to my right and saw, from the rear, a tall, lanky figure crowned with straw-colored hair. I got up and did a second circle of the bar, so that I would approach her from the front. Apart from some subtle smile creases around her eyes and mouth, she looked just as I remembered her. I caught her eye and said, "Hello, Marshall. Do you remember me?" Not surprisingly, since our only face-to-face encounter had been about 25 years ago, she shook her head no. I told her my name, mentioned that encounter, and again invoked my connection to Nick. Her jaw dropped slightly, she smiled, extended her hand and said, "Good to see you!" A short, balding man who had been talking with her when I walked up turned to me and said, "You're Nick Tosches?" "No, just a friend," I replied, but he still gripped my hand eagerly. Seeing that Marshall had business to discuss before her show, I went back to the bar and got another ale.

At eleven, I picked up my glass and went from the bar to the stairway leading down to the sunken pool room, just as Marshall walked in carrying her guitar. She set up her amp and plugged her guitar in while dodging pool cues. I wondered if the game would continue during her performance, but, as she started to tune up, one of the players said, "Let's stop here," and they all put their cues up on the rack. The short bald man, who evidently was the owner or manager of the place, went to the mike and introduced Marshall. Then she began her set.

Hearing her playing solo in this fairly intimate setting was a new and pleasant experience. She was able to impart as much energy and excitement to some of her old, familiar pieces as if she had a band backing her. She also did some songs from her new album, Mellowicious, including one called "Call the Lamas" that grew out of watching three little girls kissing a Buddha-like baby boy while waiting in a supermarket checkout line. She said she got stuck on the last line while writing the song, and woke her husband up, asking him for a four-syllable word to describe the kind of kiss the little fellow imparted. "Transcendental," he replied, then fell back asleep.

After the show, as Marshall was packing up her gear, I went over to her again. "I just wanted to let you know," I said, "that Jaded Virgin is one of my twelve year old daughter's favorite albums." "Well," Marshall said, "she's likely to have an interesting life."

Update: When I wrote this post, there was nothing available on YouTube of Marshall in performance. Here she is with Tim Krekel at the CD launch party for his album Soul Season at Third & Lindsley in Nashville (thanks to almoreschi for the clip):



For another clip of Tim and Marshall doing the same song in a different venue (Louisville's Vernon Club), and more text, see here.

The walk home through Red Hook

This is a postscript to my post on the Queen Mary 2. I mentioned there that her new berth in New York is located in a Brooklyn neighborhood called Red Hook. For many years, the economic focal point of Red Hook was the Erie Basin, an artificial inlet formed by piers and seawalls. My photos of the departing QM2 were taken facing west, toward the Buttermilk Channel. Had I turned around to the east, I would have been facing the piers that form the southern edge of the Erie Basin.

Why Erie? During the nineteenth century, this became the final transshipment point for grain bound overseas; grain from the West that had been shipped across the Great Lakes to Buffalo, loaded onto horse or mule drawn barges and taken via the Erie Canal and Mohawk River to the Hudson at Albany, then transferred to Hudson sailing vessels that brought it to Brooklyn. Here it was unloaded from the Hudson sloops and schooners into elevators that later deposited it into oceangoing square-riggers bound for Europe or other destinations. What made this trade possible was the opening of the Erie Canal.

Red Hook has thus been a busy place for many years. While the canal and riverine grain trade ended long ago, it has remained an active commercial waterfront. For a time, sugar replaced grain as the bulk commodity handled there, this time as an import rather than export. It was also the site of a ship repair facility operated by Todd Shipyards, and a smaller service dock for tugs and barges remains. Below is a photo of part of the Erie Basin as it appears today, taken from the website of the Bridge and Tunnel Club (www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com). The large metal structure is a now derelict sugar silo, and next to the ruined pier in the foreground are the masts of a sunken lightship.

A small container port has operated at the northern edge of Red Hook and along the Columbia Street waterfront for some years, despite the lack of a landside rail connection. A year ago, I got this shot of two small container ships, Maersk Nassau and Industrial Century, docked there.

The continued existence of this cargo operation is threatened by the increase in value of the land it occupies for possible residential development. Nevertheless, Red Hook's continued use as a port seems assured by the addition of the passenger ship terminal at which QM2 now docks.

The inland sections of Red Hook have become an intruiguing variety of building types and uses. Its history is proclaimed by nineteenth century warehouses,

as well as by streets bearing haunting names.

Other interesting nomenclature may reflect a more contemporary mindset:

Buildings along Columbia Street, Red Hook's main commercial thoroughfare, are an odd patchwork. Consider this trio, which likely were identical when built:

The plaster chef holding the list of the day's specials was doing his job well, as the cafe behind me was transacting a lively business.

Walking north out of Red Hook on Columbia, I encountered two very contemporary signs attached to the south wall of a nineteenth century row house. The upper one had reassuring words for those contemplating splitsville.

Returning to my own neighborhood, Brooklyn Heights, I passed Our Lady of Lebanon, a Maronite Catholic cathedral at the corner of Henry and Remsen Streets (see photo at left). I've been told that these ornate metal doors were salvaged from the Normandie, the great French liner that burned and capsized at a Manhattan pier during the early part of World War 2 (see below for a photo, taken from www.ocean-liners.com, of Normandie leaving New York during her brief career as one of the queens of the North Atlantic.)

Scott Crossfield, 1921-2006

Before today, it's safe to say I hadn't seen or heard the name Scott Crossfield, or thought of him, in at least forty five years. But when I was about the age my daughter is now (she's in sixth grade), Crossfield was one of my heroes. He was a test pilot for the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, or NACA (the forerunner of NASA, before anyone was bold enough to put "space" in the name), who, in 1953, had flown a beautiful swept-wing rocket-propelled plane, the D-558-2, at Mach 2, twice the speed of sound. Later, he flew the same craft to a new altitude record. Later still, flying a more advanced plane, the X-15, he became the first to exceed Mach 3.

Yesterday his body was found in the wreckage of his single-engine prop-driven Cessna, the same sort of plane I learned to fly in the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. At 84, he was still flying solo. As with so many airmen, a sudden encounter with bad weather was his nemesis.

Queen Mary 2 visits Brooklyn

Early Saturday morning, we heard the throaty blasts of a great ship's horns coming through a thick fog. It had to be Queen Mary 2, all 150,000 something gross tons of her, coming to dock for the first time at her new berth in Brooklyn. Yes, Brooklyn will now be her terminus on the western side of the Atlantic, from which, during the summer, she will maintain a regular service to Southampton, just as her Cunard Line predecessors did years ago, and in the fall and winter she will set off on cruises to the tropics. I had seen her before, sailing into and out of the Hudson, getting the photograph above of her departing at dusk. I had also seen her tied to the pier at the foot of West 55th Street, almost exactly where, at the age of five and from the observation deck of the Empire State Building, I had seen the old Queen Elizabeth docked during my first visit to New York in 1951. When I saw QM2 docked last year, she was longer than the pier, her stern jutting well into the river - no doubt a dicey situation because of the strain the Hudson's tidal currents put on her mooring lines. So a new place had to be found for her, and the other huge ships being put into cruise service, to tie up in New York. (Some had, to the horror of New Yorkers who care about such things, begun using an extra-long former military pier in Bayonne, New Jersey.) Brooklyn came to the rescue with Pier 12, a disused former breakbulk cargo berth lying at the seaward end and parallel to the Buttermilk Channel, a strait separating Brooklyn from Governor's Island. A new passenger handling facility was built there, and when I read that this would be where QM2 would dock, I realized I was about to realize a childhood dream: to live within sight of where great Cunarders berth.

When the fog cleared, I went across the street to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and looked to the south. I was pleasantly surprised by how close the great ship's berth seemed to be. Knowing QM2 was to sail at 5:00 P.M. , I resolved to walk down to Red Hook, the neighborhood where she docked, in time to photograph her at her berth and as she sailed. That afternoon, I walked and walked, realizing that the ship's enormous bulk had fooled me into thinking she was closer than she really was. After hiking about two and a half miles, I got to the corner of Prince and Conover Streets, where I saw this juxtaposition of QM2's severely raked bow and the distant Statue of Liberty.

The closest view of the ship at dock was from the foot of Wolcott Street. Unfortunately, a high chain-link fence impeded photography, but by extending my zoom lens and slipping it between the links, I was able to get this shot of her magnificent superstructure and funnel:



I realized, however, that this site would not afford a good view of the ship's departure, as buildings behind me obscured the view of the channel to seaward. So, I walked back to Conover Street and headed south. At the foot of Conover, where the land curved around eastwards, I found just what I had hoped for: a public pier - the "Valentino Pier" according to the New York City Parks Department sign - jutting out into the harbor. There was a sizeable crowd already gathered to watch QM2's departure, but I was able to find a vantage point near the end of the pier. Just to my left was a police boat, part of a heavy presence of gendarmarie for this high-profle event.
After a few minutes' waiting, I was rewarded by three blasts of QM2's horns. A short while later, her bow emerged from behind warehouses and a rocky promontory.



As she sailed past, a fireboat in the harbor began to salute her with red, white and blue plumes of water.



As she headed toward the Narrows and the sea, I took one last shot of her stern. Note the crowds gathered by her railings:

Is Florida the new Kentucky?

Hard to think of the Gators as a basketball power. I figured them to blow by George Mason, then wilt in the glare of national championship spotlights. Besides, UCLA has trad-di-SHON, and that, as any sports pundit worth the NaCl will tell you, is what counts in the crunch.

But not this time.

Mets won their opener, too. Of course, I take this as a bad sign. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong, please -- I'm too tired to look it up) that they lost their opening games in '79 and '86.

The Brit villain was right.

An occasional ornament of cowboy movies was the evil Englishman. He had some underhanded scheme to acquire a huge tract of land which, of course, he planned to fence, maybe even graze sheep. Or, perhaps, it was to get his hands on a small tract on which he knew there was gold. He spoke in flowery phrases with a clipped, upper-class accent, and made no effort to conceal his disdain for Yank yokels. At the climactic moment, when the cowboy hero confronted him, pistol drawn, to thwart his crooked designs, the Brit always uttered some comment on his superior intellect or breeding, hoping to so overwhelm the rube as to make him re-holster his gun. It never worked.

One declaration of this ilk sticks in my memory: "The blood of Plantagenet kings flows in my veins." Well, turns out that, if our hero knew about human genetics, he could have answered, "Yup, me too."

Promises, promises ...

Yes, I said the blog was back, then went and neglected it again. I've got my excuses: heavy work schedule, a bout with some nasty virus, and, not least, a certain wistfulness brought on by my impending 60th birthday.

More to come soon. I'm rested (if not tanned) and more or less ready. Stay tuned.