Your correspondent embarks on a voyage and witnesses a rescue.

On Saturday I went to Pier 40 near the west end of Houston Street in Manhattan, there to board the former Lehigh Valley Railroad tug Cornell (see above) for a cruise around New York Harbor sponsored by the Twin Forks Chapter (Long Island) of the National Railway Historical Society. The purpose of this excursion was to view sites where railway traffic became waterborne. Cornell was one of the LV tugs, known as the "Four Aces" (the others were Cornell's sister Lehigh and the larger Hazelton and Wilkes-Barre), that picked up barges loaded with railway cars from LV's eastern terminus at Jersey City and brought them across the harbor to Manhattan, Brooklyn or Queens. There they would either be unloaded and their contents delivered to local consignees or transshipped onto freighters for export, or they would be sent on other railroads for shipment to destinations on Long Island or to the north. A similar service on a smaller scale, between New Jersey and Brooklyn only, is provided today by Cross Harbor Railroad.

When I reached the gangway leading to Cornell's main deck, I saw a sign announcing that she had gone on an emergency mission, but would be back by 11:00 A.M. to pick up passengers for the cruise. Someone on deck beckoned me to come on board, and told me that Cornell had been called on to go up the Hudson about half a mile and try to pull John J. Harvey, a retired New York City fireboat that has been preserved and is also used for harbor cruises, from a mudbank on which she was stuck. There were several other passengers already aboard Cornell, and we were all delighted by this opportunity to see her perform a true tugboat task.

Not long after I boarded we left on our mission. Here you see a Fire Department crewman (an FDNY fireboat is stationed at Pier 40) casting off the bow line to Paul, who served as a deckhand on Cornell for this voyage.

After Cornell left her berth, we passed Lilac, a retired Coast Guard lightship tender that is undergoing extensive renovation.

Going up the Hudson River, we passed the former Erie Lackawanna terminal in Hoboken, New Jersey. Here passengers would shuttle from commuter and intercity trains to ferries for the final leg of their journey to New York City. The need for ferries lessened with the completion of what is now the PATH (Port Authority Trans Hudson) subway in 1908, and the Holland and Lincoln auto tunnels in the 1920s and 30s. Now, however, ferry service is again becoming popular, and may become more so as people forsake commuting by car because of fuel prices.

We found Harvey, flying the Irish flag from her mainmast, wedged into mud outboard of the retired, and under restoration, lightship Frying Pan (so called because she once warned mariners away from the Frying Pan Shoals near Cape Fear, North Carolina). Cornell had to be wedged into the space between Frying Pan's bow and Harvey's stern in order to make lines fast to Harvey. This task was made extra difficult by I-beams placed around Frying Pan to protect her hull. Nevertheless, we were able to get in and make fast in good time. Below is a video of Cornell making fast to Harvey, then of Harvey being pulled free.



Once we had freed Harvey, people on the pier who were waiting to board her for a cruise loudly cheered Cornell. Could I resist waving back, even though I'd had nothing to do with the operation? Of course not.

This is Matt, skipper and owner of Cornell. He was hospitable and helpful with questions about the vessel and tugboat operations generally. To top it off (literally and figuratively), he wore a Mets cap.

Ann, an experienced mariner, had the wheel and control of the engines throughout the voyage. She was sometimes "assisted" by her three year old daughter.

After freeing Harvey, we went south past the Battery and into Buttermilk Channel, between Brooklyn and Governor's Island. We pulled into a slip on the Governor's Island side, next to the small harbor tanker Capt. Log, from which Cornell took on fuel. The large white hulled vessel beyond Capt. Log is Islander, which used to ferry passengers and cars from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to Martha's Vineyard.

While we were refueling, a group of kayakers paddled by. The yellow vessel in the background is a New York Water Taxi, part of one of the ferry services that have started up in the past few years.

Near the southern end of our voyage, we passed the small tanker Tradewind Passion, anchored just inside the Narrows separating Brooklyn from Staten Island. In the background is the port of Bayonne, New Jersey.

These are docks for car floats; that is, barges carrying railroad cars. The tracks on the decks of the floats connect to tracks on land, so that the cars can be coupled to locomotives and pulled off the floats. These docks, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, have recently been restored to working condition but have not yet been put into operation, as the fencing attests. Car float traffic to Brooklyn now goes to docks further north, in the Bush Terminal.
























Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson designed four large artificial waterfalls that are in operation this summer: one at the northern tip of Governor's Island, one just below the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, one below the eastern tower of the Brooklyn Bridge (shown in the photo as seen from Cornell going north on the East River), and one on the Manhattan side between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges.

Between the Manhattan and Williamsburgh (seen in the background) Bridges, we passed the classically proportioned yacht or excursion vessel Lexington, as she was overtaking Glen Cove pushing a loaded barge.

Ann's steady hand is on the wheel.

As we approached the site of the former Brooklyn Navy Yard, we saw the beneficiary of our earlier rescue, Harvey, come out into the River ahead of us.

While we were passing the Downtown Heliport, a chopper soared up in front of the massive 55 Water Street office building.

Here is Cornell back at her berth, displaying the Lehigh Valley's "black diamond" (carriage of coal was the road's principal revenue source) logo on her funnel. Update: Cornell now has her own website.

On the trail of the Continental Army with Brenda Becker and a bunch of Brooklyn bloggers.

Behold Brenda Becker in her tricorn hat, about to guide a bevy of Brooklynite bloggers through a bit of what Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux, best remembered as the designers of Central Park, considered their real masterpiece, Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Brenda, who produces the fascinating Prospect: A Year in the Park, is holding a copy of John J. Gallagher's The Battle of Brooklyn-1776 while briefing us for a short journey that will traverse both recent and Revolutionary War history. Behind her is the Music Pagoda, rally point for our expedition.

A few steps from the Pagoda, we crossed a bridge over a stream connecting a small pond to a larger one. this is a view of the smaller pond. Xris, of Flatbush Gardener, was able to identify the purple flowers on the pond's bank at the right. Perhaps he'll remind me what they are. (Update: He reminds me--see comments--that it's "Pickerel Weed, Pontederia cordata, a native, semi-aquatic plant.") Brenda said that these ponds were the source of all the watercourses of the Park, so we had to be at a considerable elevation here. (Correction: I must have misheard Brenda, as both she and Xris--see comments--tell me that the source is further up, near a place called "Dog Beach".) Indeed, our path led downhill for some distance.

We had hoped for a chance to ride the Park's carousel (which would have been my first since my daughter celebrated her fifth birthday here), but found it closed. Brenda told us that the carousel began its life on Coney Island, where it was designed by Charles Carmel (see a history of the carousel here), noted for a style featuring horses with flaring nostrils and flowing manes.

Here we go back almost two and a third centuries into history, to the beginning of the first real battle of the Revolutionary War. Concord's "rude bridge" and its "embattled farmers" are etched in our memories, thanks to Emerson, but Concord and Lexington, though of momentous historical significance, were skirmishes in which local militias held their own against regular British troops. It was in Brooklyn, and initially in what is now Prospect Park, that a Continental Army, under the command of George Washington, would first come into battle with the Royal Army. Brenda is standing in front of the Dongan Oak Marker, which commemorates a great tree felled by American troops to block a path from use by British troops advancing from the south.

Brenda is perched on a rock bearing a marker commemorating Battle Pass, where American troops fought a holding action that allowed most of their compatriots to escape to westward. This and a later, particularly valiant stand by a Maryland regiment which took horrendous casualties at The Old Stone House, allowed the majority of Washington's army to escape to Brooklyn Heights, then later to Manhattan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Here we turn from scenes of valor and carnage to those of bucolic delight. According to Brenda, this style of structure, made entirely of logs, is typical of what Olmstead and Vaux wanted for their park; that is, one that was simple and rustic, or, in New York State lingo, "Adirondack". She contrasted this with Robert Moses's later, mid-twentieth century additions, which were neoclassical and decidedly civilized and urbanized.

Beyond the rude gazebo, we descended into a ravine to a bridge crossing a stream just below this waterfall. Brenda said that the first post on her blog featured a photo of the falls, with the caption, "This is Brooklyn?"

"Relative Environments", BWAC outdoor sculpture show.

The 26th annual Brooklyn Waterfront Artists' Coalition ("BWAC") outdoor sculpture show is set up in Empire/Fulton Ferry State Park and adjoining Brooklyn Bridge Park, along the waterfront in DUMBO, and will be on view through September 7. Here are some of the works on display:

Laura Paris, "Sculptural Bench":


Lucy Hodgson, "Oh Swell":


Bernard Klevickas, "Untitled":


Henry Royer, "Study 8":


Beth Bailis, "Fusion Painting":


Matt Johnson, "ESB #6":



Update: For images from the 2009 show, "Abundance", see here.

Fresh Air Fund - last chance!

The week before last, I posted about the need for families to host City kids for summer breaks under the auspices of the Fresh Air Fund. Response to that post, as well as those of other bloggers, has been gratifying, but the Fund still needs some more hosts, with the summer's end quickly approaching. Accordingly, I'm reposting the text of my earlier appeal:

In my immediately previous post, I mentioned having taken my daughter, Liz, to a camp in Maine. This is the third summer she's been able to enjoy some time on a lake shore in the woods, hiking, swimming, sailing, learning archery and so on. Anyone who has been reading this blog for some time knows that I'm a confirmed urbanite, thoroughly in love with my adopted home, New York City, and especially the Borough of Brooklyn. I think the City is a great place to raise kids, and that City kids, on the whole, kids of all colors, persuasions and income levels, are great kids. But, much as the City provides these kids with a rich environment in which to grow and learn, they also need occasional respite from its busy-ness and a chance to enjoy things that the City cannot offer.

Unfortunately, not all City kids have families who can afford to send them to camps, take them to country houses, or even get away for a long weekend. For over 130 years, the Fresh Air Fund has been providing economically disadvantaged youngsters with summer vacations in the country. To do this, it has relied on people with primary or vacation homes in rural areas not too far from the City to host a child for a week or ten days. Details of the program can be found at the Fresh Air Fund website.

This year, the Fund is in need of more families willing to host City kids for a short but very important vacation. Volunteers are especially needed to host older children (9-12) and boys. The Fund, of course, checks all volunteer hosts for suitability, and the vetting process for this summer must be completed by the end of this month. So, if you have a house in upstate New York, northern New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, central Massachusetts or Cape Cod, and would like to share a small part of your summer with a City child, please go to the website (there's a schedule of what areas and communities will be hosting Fresh Air children on what dates on the web page) and contact the Fund through the links provided on the site. If you cannot host a child, but want to help the Fund in its good works, you may also make a financial donation through the website.

Please give this your consideration, and be aware that time is of the essence. Unless more host families can be found quickly, as many as 200 children may not be able to enjoy summer vacations.

Again, thank you for your consideration and please help if you can, or, if you know someone who could, please pass this along to them.

Judy Dyble and Fairport Convention

My last iPod Log included a YouTube clip of the great English folk-rock band Fairport Convention, showing a film or videotape of the group, at the time (1967 or 8) when they were recording their first album (cover at left), doing a song called "Time Will Show the Wiser". In my post, I noted that the woman singing harmony is Judy Dyble, who left Fairport after the first album. This prompted an appreciative comment from sam x, whose blog, Be a Goddess music, promotes the work of women musicians. Since I hadn't heard of Ms. Dyble post-Fairport, I assumed she was one of those promising young singers who made a few brilliant recordings then disappeared. However, Sam informed me that Judy is still recording as a solo artist. Also, I found on Be a Goddess this clip of Judy, along with Vikki Clayton and various present and former members of Fairport, doing "Si tu dois partir", a rendition into French of Bob Dylan's "If You Gotta Go, Go Now", which was one of the cuts on Fairport's third album, Unhalfbricking:

Of the two women onstage, Judy is on the left, wearing glasses, and Vikki is on the right.

Judy has a website which is well worth a visit.

A buck, a beach, a biplane, a bird, a building beset by brush.

Images from a visit to the Village of Shoreham, on the North Shore of Long Island:

iPod Log 4: (mostly) perky edition.

Here I continue the tradition of sharing with my readers the pieces of music randomly selected by my iPod to play during some journey (this having been during a trip from my apartment via foot, subway and bus to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where my daughter, her friend, and I were treated to a private tour by a former colleague and present friend of my wife, who is an art historian, and expert on Byzantine art).

Jimmy Cliff, You Can Get It If You Really Want. Reggae doesn't get much perkier than this complete self-help book sung in two minutes forty-two seconds flat, from the soundtrack of the magnificent The Harder They Come (1973; see a promotional trailer and hear the title song below):

Johnny Nash, I Can See Clearly Now. The iPod stays in a reggae groove with this song that's so perky that the first time I heard it on the radio, I thought it was Poco. Feeling depressed? Just click on the arrow below:

Gabriel Fauré, Elégie, Jules Eskin, violoncello, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, conducting. The iPod must have sensed that I was in danger of a perkiness OD, so it served up a shot of musical sedative in the form of this lovely piece for cello and orchestra. Below is a clip of cellist Julian Lloyd Weber playing it with just piano accompaniment (unfortunately, the pianist isn't identified; if anyone recognizes him, please let me know):

John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, with Eric Clapton, It Ain't Right. Can the blues be perky? This rendition of a harp-driven Little Walter song shouts an affirmative response.

J.S. Bach, Brandenberg Concerto No. 2, 1st movement, allegro, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Marriner conducting. Maybe the perkiest thing Big Daddy Bach ever composed.

Bruce Daigrepont, Laissez Faire.

Laissez-faire, laissez-faire, ma jolie
Bon temps roulé, allons danser, toute la nuit

This red hot Cajun song isn't as jarring coming after Bach as you might suppose. Indeed, it seems to fit quite nicely. Très perky, aussi.

Delbert McClinton, Dreams to Remember.

I know you said he was just a friend,
But I saw you kiss him again and again and again,
Honey, these eyes of mine don't fool me,
Why did he hold you so tenderly?

A fine example of the blues not being perky.

Fairport Convention, Jack 'o Diamonds.

Jack o' Diamonds can open for riches,
Jack o' Diamonds, but then it switches,
Covered by a picture, but it's only a ten,
Jack o' Diamonds...

Quick: how many rock groups that had their origins in the 1960s are still alive and performing, with at least one original member? There's the Stones, and one or two others, including these guys. Well, they're all guys, now, but at their inception they had a woman singer, Judy Dyble, who was with them for their first album, from which this steady, driving rocker comes. Before the second album, she left to join another group and was replaced by the lovely, tragic Sandy Denny. Below is a clip of the band's first lineup, doing "Time Will Show the Wiser", also from their premiere album, with Ian McDonald (later known as Ian Matthews) on lead vocal and Judy Dyble, and a very young Richard Thompson, on harmony:

Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Li'l Liza Jane. Classic New Orleans Dixieland brass with vocals, including some nimble scatting, doing a song I used to sing while marching in ROTC camp. This is from the excellent Rhino New Orleans Party Classics CD. Man, you talk about perky.

Willie Nelson, Crazy. Very early Willie, done in the overproduced, deracinated "countrypolitan" style championed by Chet Atkins, but nevertheless his voice and delivery, and a great song that he wrote but was first made a hit by Patsy Cline, triumphed over adversity.

Edith Piaf, La Vie en Rose Perky? Pour qui?

Rolling Stones, Rip This Joint. This is beyond perky; this is frenetic. Again, words would fail doing it justice, so here's a live performance video:


Ritchie Valens, Come On, Let's Go. Valens was a fireball in the rock 'n' roll firmament: signed to his first record contract at the age of seventeen, within a year he had hits off both sides of a disc, "Donna" and "La Bamba" (the latter the first rock hit sung in Spanish), and died before his eighteenth birthday in the plane crash that also ended the lives of Buddy Holly and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. "Come On, Let's Go" was Ritchie's first record release. It is muy perky.

The Band, Long Black Veil.
Enough of perky for now. I first knew this mournful song from the Kingston Trio (see my commentary on them here), though it was originally recorded by country music legend Lefty Frizell. The Band's version is on their first album, Music From Big Pink, which has a generally lachrymose quality, accentuated by the keening falsetto of Richard Manuel. Here's a video of the song from a live performance, featuring my late sometime Lion's Head and Lone Star Cafe drinking and (on one occasion) singing companion, Rick Danko:


Aretha Franklin, You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman.

When my soul was in the lost and found,
You came along to claim it,
I didn't know just what was wrong with me
'Til your kiss helped me name it

The iPod stays in a meditative groove with the Queen of Soul.

The Kingston Trio, Riu Chiu. It's July, so, of course, it's time for a Christmas carol; specifically, a sixteenth century Spanish villancico sung a capella in spine-tingling three-part harmony. I couldn't find a video of the Trio doing this, but here is a rendition by Chanticleer:


W.A. Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro, Overture, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, James Levine, conducting. So, my journey ends with an overture. And a right perky one, at that.

Please help a City child.

In my immediately previous post, I mentioned having taken my daughter, Liz, to a camp in Maine. This is the third summer she's been able to enjoy some time on a lake shore in the woods, hiking, swimming, sailing, learning archery and so on. Anyone who has been reading this blog for some time knows that I'm a confirmed urbanite, thoroughly in love with my adopted home, New York City, and especially the Borough of Brooklyn. I think the City is a great place to raise kids, and that City kids, on the whole, kids of all colors, persuasions and income levels, are great kids. But, much as the City provides these kids with a rich environment in which to grow and learn, they also need occasional respite from its busy-ness and a chance to enjoy things that the City cannot offer.

Unfortunately, not all City kids have families who can afford to send them to camps, take them to country houses, or even get away for a long weekend. For over 130 years, the Fresh Air Fund has been providing economically disadvantaged youngsters with summer vacations in the country. To do this, it has relied on people with primary or vacation homes in rural areas not too far from the City to host a child for a week or ten days. Details of the program can be found at the Fresh Air Fund website.

This year, the Fund is in need of more families willing to host City kids for a short but very important vacation. Volunteers are especially needed to host older children (9-12) and boys. The Fund, of course, checks all volunteer hosts for suitability, and the vetting process for this summer must be completed by the end of this month. So, if you have a house in upstate New York, northern New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, central Massachusetts or Cape Cod, and would like to share a small part of your summer with a City child, please go to the website (there's a schedule of what areas and communities will be hosting Fresh Air children on what dates on the web page) and contact the Fund through the links provided on the site. If you cannot host a child, but want to help the Fund in its good works, you may also make a financial donation through the website.

Please give this your consideration, and be aware that time is of the essence. Unless more host families can be found quickly, as many as 200 children may not be able to enjoy summer vacations.

Bet the inmates had fun making this one.

Yours truly in Mickey D's parking lot, Sturbridge, Massachusetts, on the trip back from Maine after dropping Liz off at camp. I got the car from Avis in Brooklyn, but it had Nutmeg State tags.

I need to keep working on that paunch. More Bridge walks, less Cognac.

Addendum: The car is a Dodge Avenger, and that's a name with a history. The first "Avenger" in the Chrysler family was made by Hillman, part of the British auto manufacturer Rootes Group, which was taken over by Chrysler in the late 1960s. Versions of the Hillman Avenger were marketed in the U.S. as the Dodge Polara and Plymouth Cricket. My second car was a pre-Chrysler Rootes product, a 1965 Sunbeam Alpine.

"I can call spirits from the vasty deep."

So says Glendower in Henry IV Part I*, Act 3, Scene 1. To this, Hotspur replies:

Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?

My efforts at baseball prognostication seem about as efficacious as Glendower's summoning of spirits. Just over a month ago, I posted here, declaring the Mets as good as dead this season. I also offered this gem of an opinion:

[F]iring the manager isn't going to do the trick. Indeed, at least in the short run, I think it's likely to make matters worse.

Well, in the short run, the Mets have a winning record since the Midnight (PDT) Massacre à trois, though it's an open question whether the change of managers caused this (perhaps a better theory, given the improvement in pitching, both from starters and bullpen, is that the change of pitching coaches made the difference), or whether we may just be seeing an instance of the Hawthorne effect.

Indeed, one of the things (perhaps the principal thing) that makes baseball fascinating is the number of variables involved in the outcome of any game, or season. Recognizing this, I'm foreswearing any further attempts at predicting the Mets' (or any other team's) fortunes after the All Star break.
___________

*Demonstrating the enormous effect Shakespeare has had on the understanding of English history, Sellar and Yeatman, in their magisterial 1066 and All That, assert that there were two Kings Henry IV: Henry IV Part I and Henry IV Part II.

Mike and Mies

In this morning's New York Times, Harvey Araton writes of Mets starter Mike Pelfrey's improvement from a shaky start this season. The turning point was the May 31 game against the Dodgers when, according to Pelfrey, he "went out there with a plan." That was to ease up, not overthrow, not give up walks. During the first inning, Brian Schneider, the catcher, puzzled by the relative softness of Pelfrey's pitches, went to the mound and asked him if he was hurt. Pelfrey said he was just making sure that he hit his spots, and added, "I want [the batters] to hit it." Pelfrey stayed in for seven innings and, as Araton notes, "began a run in which he has allowed slightly less than two earned runs a game over eight starts, winning his last five." Pelfrey had this observation about the L.A. game: "What I learned that day was, hey, I can back off if I have to; that less can be more."

In saying that, Pelfrey was, perhaps consciously, paraphrasing one of the greatest architects of the past century, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, whose maxim, "Less is more", is exemplified by the Seagram Building, which is iconic of the International Style that dominated post-World War II architecture.

Photo of Pelfrey from Chicago Mets Fan; photo of Seagram Building from John Snavely's Blog.

Obama and "elitism", again.

It's one thing for The Reverend Jesse Jackson to diss Obama for "talking down" to African Americans, but for (as I've learned from Rumproast) Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild to call him "elitist"; well, lah-ti-dah.

Icing on the cake is the comment by Betty Cracker: "Good god, what next? Amy Winehouse calling Christopher Hitchens a tosspot?"

Which prompts Kevin K of Rumproast to muse: "I wonder if Winehouse would last longer at waterboarding than Hitchens did?"

Greater New York: not just for New Yorkers.

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

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

Paul Simon - "American Tune" (1975)

One of the commenters on this YouTube clip notes that the chord progression comes from Bach. Another wonders who Bach stole it from.

Update: Now I think I know the answer. It struck me that "American Tune" is closely based on the Tom Glazer labor anthem "Because All Men Are Brothers". This website states that the tune for that song was Bach's O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden (also the basis for the English passion hymn "O Sacred Head Now Wounded") from the St. Matthew Passion. Bach, in turn, based this on H. L. Hassler's Mein Gmüth ist mir verwirret, in Venusgärtlein (Nuremberg, 1613). Now we can wonder where Hassler got it.

A fountain, a ship, some boats.

This morning, the WQXR announcer predicted a high of ninety degrees. I rose quickly to go for my walk over the Brooklyn Bridge before it got too hot and muggy. I was out the door by eight, and made my way briskly up the Promenade and across the Bridge. On the Manhattan side, I made my customary little side trip to the City Hall Park Fountain, pausing to get this photo before heading back to the Bridge.


Back on the Bridge, as I approached the west (Manhattan side) tower, I noticed a container ship, assisted by two Moran tugs, leaving its berth at Red Hook (since the time of the linked post, the Port Authority has decided to renew the lease of the operating company for the Red Hook container port, thus extending its life at least for the term of the new lease). I got this shot from the vantage point of the west tower.


By the time I got to the middle of the Bridge, the ship was almost broadside to me. She proved to be ANL Esprit, of the former Australian National Lines, now part of the much larger French CGM Group. She is one of the cargo ships that include accommodations for passengers, like lovely Abbie and Natalie. Here she is as seen from mid-Bridge:


As I approached the east tower, I saw this bright red tug pulling two empty barges:


By the time I reached the east tower, ANL Esprit had almost completed her turn to head out the Buttermilk Channel toward the lower harbor:


Off the Bridge, and onto the Promenade again, I saw two yachts, a large schooner and a small sloop, crossing in front of Ellis Island:

Proud to be a lawyer, redux.

Last November, I posted about a rally, organized by the New York City Bar Association, in support of Pakistani judges and lawyers who had been detained or relieved of their duties by the government of General Pervez Musharraf. The principal speaker at that rally was Ali Ahsan, a Pakistan born attorney practicing in New York, whose father is President of the Pakistani Supreme Court Bar Association, and who had been imprisoned at the time.

Yesterday, Ali Ahsan's father, Aitzaz Ahsan (photo above), was greeted with a standing ovation at a morning meeting at City Bar headquarters. In the time since the November rally, he had been released from prison, where he and many other lawyers and judges had been detained under a statute that allows arrest and confinement "to prevent the commission of a crime" (or similar words), and elections had been held which resulted in Musharraf's party being relegated to a splinter group in Parliament. Nevertheless, the new government has not yet, for reasons having to do with coalition politics, rescinded Musharraf's order stripping the Supreme Court and many lower court judges of their jurisdictional authority.

In his address to the City Bar, Mr. Ahsan recounted his difficulties in acting as defense counsel for Chief Justice Chaudhry of the Supreme Court, which were increased by the proceedings before the judicial tribunal being held in secret. He revealed one interesting aspect of Pakistan's legal system when he said that, in briefing the appeal to the Supreme Court, he cited as persuasive authority court decisions from India, with which Pakistan has been in conflict since the inception of the two nations, along with decisions from Australia, the U.S., Trinidad and Tobago, and Belize. This is because all of these nations share with Pakistan the tradition of British common law, a tradition that evidently transcends national rivalries.

Mr. Ahsan was generous in his praise of American lawyers, and Americans in general, for their support of the cause of rule of law and human rights in Pakistan. He said this feeling of gratitude was shared by many Pakistanis, but that the silence of the Bush administration on the issue of reinstating the judges and restoring the rule of law had been unhelpful. He argued forcefully that the restoration of judicial authority was essential to the fight against extremist and terrorist organizations, as such groups thrive where people have no recourse to legitimate authority to adjudicate disputes.

Mets demonstrate regression to the mean.

Statistics was about my least favorite field of study. What you learn is that, while wonderful things can happen, they are very unlikely; and, if they do, they are very, very unlikely to occur again anytime soon. Perhaps the most depressing statistical concept is regression to the mean. This tells you that, if someone has a history of doing badly, then suddenly has a run of success, that run will almost certainly end and s/he will return to her/his pattern of failure.

Back in May, the Mets beat the Yankees twice, at Yankee Stadium. One game of the three game series was rained out and rescheduled for this past Friday as part of a doubleheader, the first game to be played at Yankee Stadium and the second at Shea. Anyway, after the Mets swept their abbreviated series, I posted this celebratory piece, with the cautionary note, "just don't backslide". By writing this, of course, I was challenging the notion of regression to the mean, and regression prevailed, in a big way, as the Mets then dropped four straight to the Braves.

So, now, as I savor the Mets having won their season series with the Yanks, I see them regressing once again, dropping tonight's game to the Cards, 7-1, as John Maine has his turn in the starting rotation's frequently used barrel. The Mets thus also blew a chance to help the Cubs, a team I may have jinxed, who were swept this weekend by their Southside rivals.

Tim Marchman bets on regression to the mean in his column in the New York Sun about Ollie Perez.

The Bells of Hell

This is a slightly abridged and edited version of a piece I posted on the Fray three years ago as a comment on an article in Slate about "Bohemian New York", by Inigo Thomas, in which he mentioned Café Loup, which now occupies the space formerly taken by a great bar called The Bells of Hell.

The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling,
For you but not for me,
And the little devils how they sing-a-ling-a-ling,
For you but not for me.
Oh death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling,
Oh grave, thy victory?
The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
For you but not for me.

-British Army song

I discovered the Bells in the summer of 1976, following the breakup of my brief first marriage, when I was moving from Bank Street off Abingdon Square to smaller digs in what had been the notorious Van Rensselaer Hotel, newly rehabbed as a yuppie warren, on 11th Street just east of Fifth Avenue. Although I had lived in the Village for three years, I'd never had occasion before to walk the block of 13th between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. When I saw the awning with "The Bells of Hell" on it, my first thought was that this was a bit far north and east for a gay leather bar. On the way back, I looked in the window and saw a sign that said, "Traditional English, Irish and Scottish Music." Being a big fan of Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and their ilk, I resolved to check the place out sometime.

My first visit to the Bells was on a weeknight, when there was no live music. I found a vacant barstool near the door. To my left was a burly man with dark hair, and beyond him a brown-haired woman with glasses and a Scottish accent. The man introduced himself as Gary and his friend as Barbara. We chatted pleasantly while the jukebox cycled through "Dancing Queen" by Abba, Billy Connolly's spoof on Tammy Wynette's "D-I-V-O-R-C-E", Mna Na h'Eireann by the Chieftains, "Rivers of Babylon" by Boney M, "Hot Stuff" by the Rolling Stones, "I Can't Get Started" by Bunny Berigan, and "Highland Paddy" by the WolfeTones. Gary and Barbara filled me in on the history of the place. It had been started a couple of years before by the actor Malachy McCourt (now, along with his brother Frank McCourt, famous as a writer), who had been somewhat cavalier in the matter of paying Con Ed (the local electric company) and, as a consequence, had for a time done business by candlelight and with an ancient mechanical cash register. Malachy later sold the place to two Englishmen, Tony Heyes and Peter Myers. Tony is a Liverpudlian dockworker's son who had gone to Oxford on scholarship, gotten a Ph.D. from Michigan, ran the McGovern presidential campaign in Kentucky and Tennessee, and, during his tenure as a Bells owner, had a day job as an academic dean at the College of New Rochelle. (He later gave up academe and wrote a newspaper column on horse racing; the last I heard, he was doing some sort of business in Latvia.) Peter is a mountaineer and member of the Keswick Mountain Rescue Team. (He is now the proprietor of Myers of Keswick.) He is also a friend of Mick Jagger, who would visit the Bells now and then. (Many times I walked in and was told, "Oh, Mick just left" or "Right after you left last night, Mick came in." What I might have said if I actually encountered Mick is beyond my comprehension.)

The following Friday, I went again, and caught a show in the back room by two singers named Chris King and Mike O'Brien. As they were singing about "Men who strived, and men who died/ To tear the red rag down", I looked behind me and saw the two Brit owners grinning, no doubt thinking about the money they were making off this "Paddy music," as Gary had told me they called it. I decided it was definitely my kind of place.

During my time at the Bells I had lots of long, alcohol-fueled conversations with the likes of Nick Tosches and the late Lester Bangs. One night I was moved to make my confession of musical sin to Lester. I told him about several what I was sure he would consider lapses of taste, including liking Gordon Lightfoot. "Hmph," Lester said, "I know Gord. Do you know what he does when he needs inspiration to write a song? He goes to the hardware store and stares at the labels on cans of paint."

One of the Bells' regulars was an elderly Black man named Al Fields. Al had a private drink he called "kerosene" that included two or three kinds of clear liquor as well as (I think) Ouzo, served over ice in a beer mug. After a couple of these, he would often go to the back room and play the old upright piano that stood on the stage. One night, the members of The Clash were at the bar (I was elsewhere that night, natch) and were so impressed by Al's performance that they had him back them up on "Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad" for their album Give 'em Enough Rope; however, Al's contribution was not included in the album's final cut.   

I introduced my friend and law firm colleague Charlie McCrann to the Bells, and he also became a regular. He recruited several members of the cast of Toxic Zombies there. To my everlasting regret, Charlie was in his office on the 100th floor of One World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001.

For much of 1978 and '79, the Bells' house band was Turner and Kirwan of Wexford, consisting of Pierce Turner, who is now a successful solo artist, and Larry Kirwan, who now fronts Black 47. I have a CD made from a tape of Pierce and Larry's last performance at the Bells, climaxing with their cataclysmic 22 minute version of "The Foggy Dew," at the end of which you can hear me whooping ecstatically.

The Bells died in August of 1979. Its nemesis, I understand, was (fittingly) an enormous arrearage due to Con Ed. Afterwards, most of the Bells crowd, including me, migrated to the Lion's Head, a somewhat more staid venue frequented by, as Ace Gillen, one of its regulars put it, "drinkers with writing problems." The Head lasted until the mid 1990's, and its demise marked, for me at least, the end of any semblance of Bohemia in Greenwich Village.

Mariners celebrate a night without the DH.

Something like this could only happen to the Mets: their ace starter gives up a grand slam to the opposing pitcher. Listening to the account of the game on WQXR this morning, I was surprised to hear that it was the first homer ever by a Seattle pitcher. Then it struck me: "D'oh! They're an AL team. They play ninety nine percent of their games with the DH."

See the fun you've been missing, guys?

Update: Twiffer (see comments) says: "as far as the general DH discussion goes, i thought we agreed to disagree? [grin]". Indeed we did. This post wasn't meant to try to convince you, Twiff. It was meant for those who perhaps could be convinced, or for those on my side who might need more ammunition.

In other words, I will continue my campaign against the DH until my dying breath. I just won't expect you to join.

How Aurora Borealis almost destroyed civilization, and how Bobby Kennedy helped to save it.

I vaguely remember reading this tale before, but Richard Holbrooke, in his review of Michael Dobbs's One Minute to Midnight--Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War in Sunday's New York Times Book Review, recounts how, on "Black Saturday" (October 27, 1962), the day of maximum tension in the Cuban Missile Crisis, an American pilot named Chuck Maultsby (no doubt a CIA operative), "confused by the Northern Lights, wander[ed] hundreds of miles into Soviet airspace and somehow escape[d] without triggering a Soviet reaction." That reaction might well have been a full-press thermonuclear attack on the U.S., as Soviet forces were on hair-trigger alert, anticipating a possible U.S. strike in retaliation for their having shot down a U.S. U-2 reconnaissance plane, just like the one Maultsby was flying, over Cuba earlier that day.

That evening, as Holbrooke recounts, on President Kennedy's direction, Attorney General Robert Kennedy

summoned the Soviet ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin...and told him that the crisis had reached its moment of truth. ...With the downing of the American U-2 that day, Bobby Kennedy said that the American military, and not only the generals, were demanding that the president "respond to fire with fire." This meeting, coupled with a letter to Khrushchev skillfully drafted by Bobby Kennedy, Ted Sorensen and others, led to the Soviet announcement the next day that the missiles would be removed from Cuba.

So, we have another example of the thermonuclear bullet being dodged, but this time by action instead of inaction, and at the top instead of near the bottom of the chain of command. How many times can we be so lucky?

George Carlin, 1937-2008

In the summer of 1971, I was an Army second lieutenant going through the field artillery officer basic course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The Sooner State in summertime is no treat, but my three month stay did produce close encounters with two famous entertainers. The first was Lou Rawls, who was featured on Soul Night at the Fort Sill Officers' Club. He sang on the patio as I went through the buffet line, getting ribs, black-eyed peas, greens, cornbread, and (yes!) watermelon.

The other occurred on a long weekend when I got in my car and headed west with the intention of getting to high mountains. After driving most of a day and part of a night, including a spectacular run north and west of Tucumcari on a road that skirted the edge of a deep canyon, along which I saw working cowboys on horses, I ended up in Taos, New Mexico. After checking into a motel and having the best Mexican dinner since I'd left San Antonio at the age of five, I went looking for action. At the center of town was a shopping complex done in the worst sort of 1960s brutalist style, a bunker-like structure with great expanses of exposed, unpainted concrete. On one of these walls I saw a sign pointing down a staircase that descended from street level, saying "Downstairs at the Sunshine Company".

I went down and found a small bistro, fairly lively but not overcrowded, was able to get a small table not far from a stage that was unoccupied at the time, and ordered a beer. As I was about halfway through my first beer, a man dressed in black pants and shirt, with thinning brown hair and a scruffy beard, took the stage without any introduction and started a routine about parochial school, where the object was to get girls to throw up ("Hey, Mary Margaret, looka this! BLEAGGGGH!") He then shifted into a discussion of drugs: how the word had become a synonym of everything wrong with the younger (i.e. my) generation, yet how prevalent drugs of legal varieties were ("Coffee, the little daily cup of speed."). Next he riffed a bit on the misunderstandings arising from the hipster usage of "shit" as a synonym for marijuana. When he got onto serious theological stuff, I nearly fell out of my chair.

I finished my beer, and waved to the waitress to get another. When she delivered it, I asked who was the comedian. "That's George Carlin," she said. "He's a friend of the owner and he's doing the gig for free."

Update: Jerry Seinfeld has this appreciation on the op-ed page of today's New York Times. "[L]ike a train hobo with a chicken bone" is a simile I will treasure.

A heartfelt apology to Cubs fans.

A few posts ago, I expressed the hope (having lost faith in this year's model of my beloved Mets) that this might be the year you would be able to celebrate your team's first World Series championship in a century. I should have realized that, by publishing this, I was jinxing, even cursing your team's fate. My name should begin with "B", because I'm as bad as any billy goat, or black cat, or Bartman (now here's a team that's been beset by killer "B's").

Update: OK, things looked better today. But remember, the Mets are 2-0 against the Yanks so far this year, and, aside from hometown bragging rights, it's done them no good.

A survivor on the Lakes

Edna G was the last steam powered tug in use on the Great Lakes. She was retired from service some twenty years ago, but remains tied to this pier near an ore dock somewhere on the shore of Lake Superior. She appears well cared for in this photo taken just a few weeks ago--perhaps some historical society has made her its charge.

Thanks to TenaciousK for taking the photo and posting it on Tenacity Central.

Update: TenaciousK (see comments) writes:

Hi Claude! She's moored to a working pier at Two Harbors, a town about 30 miles north of Duluth. According to the placard, she is kept in working condition, and was completely restored in 1994. I figure with diesel prices being what they are, perhaps someone is thinking her retirement will not be, er, permanent.

He also gives a link to this Wikipedia article about her, which says she's listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and has a footnote indicating she's under the care of the Lake County (Minnesota) Historical Society.

Probably the last commentary on the firing of Willie Randolph.

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

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

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

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

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

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