Over the past couple of months, I've received a lot of hits on my blog off web searches for "Eisenhower Lock", about which I've posted before here and here. I asked my mother-in-law, who lives in Massena, New York, a mile or so from the Lock, why this might be. She said the Lock has its fiftieth anniversary this year. When we visited Massena a couple of weeks ago, I made my usual trip to the Lock.
I arrived as the classic laker Maritime Trader was locking through. Here she is, leaving the Lock and headed upriver in ballast toward Lake Ontario and her home port of Hamilton. By "classic laker" I mean a ship built specifically for Great Lakes/St. Lawrence River trade, with the traditional design (dating back to 1869--see under "Old Style Lake Boat" in Herb's Lake Boatshere) having the superstructure containing the bridge and crew quarters at the bow, and the engine room, another deckhouse and the funnel at the stern.
About an hour after Maritime Trader departed, another classic laker of Canadian registry, Ojibway, entered the Lock. Back in January, I posted about the thinning of the ranks of classic lakers, but those that survive are, I reckon, more likely to be found trading between St. Lawrence River ports and the Lakes, because they are small enough to fit the St. Lawrence Seaway locks.
Here's a closer view of Ojibway's forward deckhouse and bridge. Note the bowsprit often found on classic lakers.
Canadienne bakin' on Ojibway's fantail.
Ojibway leaving the lock, bound upriver toward the Lakes. According to the chalkboard at the Lock's Visitor Center, she was carrying a cargo of coke (presumably the kind burned in steel mill furnaces) to some destination in Ohio.
Closely behind Ojibway came the "salty" (i.e. oceangoing) freighter Marlene Green. The chalkboard listed her cargo as "windmill", which I thought seemed appropriate for a ship of Dutch registry.
Here's a close view of Marlene's wheelhouse and bridge as she sits low in the Lock.
Here's another view of Marlene's superstructure, and one of her deck cranes, after she had been lifted to departure level.
The metal tubes and truncated cones stowed on Marlene's deck are sections of a tower that will hold up a giant wind-driven electrical generating turbine. The turbine blades are probably stowed in the hold below.
Here is Marlene heading out of the Lock and upriver toward her destination in Michigan. Later on the same day, Tugster photographed her on her way past the Thousand Islands.
As a service to readers who may be visiting Eisenhower Lock or other Seaway vantage points, I'm putting here (as I did on an earlier post) a link to the Seaway web site, which has a further link to a map showing the positions of vessels navigating the Seaway.
A while back I acquired a copy of William Baer's Writing Metrical Poetry. After reading some introductory material, and learning about iambs (duh-DAH: think, "I WAN-dered LONE-ly AS a CLOUD"); trochees (DAH-duh: think, "ONCE up-ON a MID-night DREAR-y"); anapests (DAH-duh-duh: think, "THIS is the FOR-est pri-ME-val, the MUR-mur-ing PINES and the HEM-locks"; yes, that's a trochee at the end); and dactyls (duh-duh-DAH: think of where the Lone Ranger takes his garbage, "To the DUMP, to the DUMP..."), feet (iambs, etc.) to the line (scansion), rhyme schemes, slant rhymes, and so forth, I got to my first assignment. This was to write a four line poem, in "common measure", about a historical figure. Common measure is a rhythmic/rhyme scheme often used for hymns. A verse in common measure consists of two lines of iambic tetrameter (four iambs to the line) alternating with two lines of iambic trimeter (three to the line), with an abab rhyme scheme; for example:
A-MAZ-ing GRACE how SWEET the SOUND That SAVED a WRETCH like ME, I ONCE was LOST, but NOW am FOUND, Was BLIND but NOW I SEE.
(If you want to give yourself a very bad earworm, realize that you can sing "Amazing Grace" to the tune of the theme song from Gilligan's Island, which is also in common measure.)
Anyway, while thinking of a name that would fit well into such a metric scheme, "Wilberforce" came to mind. Of course, this would be Bishop Samuel "Soapy Sam" Wilberforce, famous for his debate with Thomas Huxley over Darwin's theory of evolution. So, here's my poem:
THE BALLAD OF SOAPY SAM AND TART-TONGUED TOM
When Bishop Wilberforce denied An ape could be his kin, The clever Huxley then replied: “I’d rather ape than him.”
In writing this, I violated several of Baer's instructions. For example: (1) the tone of the poem is humorous, not heroic; (2) I used two historical figures, not one; and (3) I used a slant rhyme ("kin/him"). I also played hob with history a bit: Wilberforce didn't squarely deny simian ancestry; he just asked Huxley on which side of his family tree his monkey forebears could be found. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it. Try singing it to the tune of "Amazing Grace".
8/13 Update: On the subject of evolution, there's a great column by Olivia Judson on the op-ed page of today's New York Times.
My eye was caught by this strung-together word on a bus-side ad for a TV show called Baisden After Dark. It struck me that the first word in this compound has, in our popular culture, become antithetical to the other two; that is, being intellectual implies being both uncool and un-funky. As to the connection between the other two, I'm sure it's possible to be funky without being cool, but not sure if one can be cool without being funky. Whether it's possible to be intellectual and cool but not funky might be called the "Barack Obama question".
If one could translate this compound word into French, it would probably not raise any eyebrows. (Do the French make compound words? It seems altogether too German.) There is a long tradition of Gallic intellectualfunkycoolness, going back at least to Rabelais. Even here, it was possible to be intellectual, funky and cool in the 1950s and 60s (think of the Beats). Who manages the trick today? Perhaps Mr. Baisden, if he lives up to his ad copy. One candidate I'll nominate is Joe Maddon.
Any other suggestions?
Update: Maybe Joe Maddon isn't so funky, after all:
In 1975 I went to a party in a big old apartment building on Riverside Drive at about 75th Street, in Manhattan's Upper West Side. There was another party going on in a nearby apartment, and guests from both parties were mingling on the landing next to the stairway. I heard some laughing and clapping, and went out to see what was going on. A man with long, dark hair, evidently well in his cups, was doing an impromptu dance. Just after I arrived on the landing, he said, "I'm going to bring my friend out. He's had monster hits." He went into the apartment where the other party was going on, and emerged a moment later accompanied by a stocky man with short, salt-and-pepper hair, carrying a twelve string guitar, who launched into "Walk Right In", a 1963 number one hit for The Rooftop Singers. When the song and the applause were over, I said "You're Erik Darling."
He held out his hand and I introduced myself. He introduced me to his tipsy friend, who was Nashville based singer-songwriter Vince Matthews. They invited me to join them at the other party, which was being given by a woman who hosted a country music program on one of the local not-for-profit FM stations (if I recall correctly, it was WKCR, the Columbia University station). The hostess greeted me, and we gathered in a circle on the floor for a sing-along, accompanied by Erik's guitar. Vince and I sang "On Susan's Floor", a song he co-wrote with Shel Silverstein and which was recorded by Gordon Lightfoot and later by Hank Williams, Jr., and Erik entertained us with "Al Perrin", a song about one of the characters he had known while growing up in charming Canandaigua, New York.
Vince's claim that Erik had "monster hits" was correct. One of his earliest musical accomplishments was creating and recording, along with Bob Carey and Roger Sprung, musicians that he met playing in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, the arrangement of the Appalachian ballad "Tom Dooley" that became the first, and a number one, hit for the Kingston Trio. Before the Rooftop Singers and "Walk Right In", Erik was a member of the Tarriers, a folk group formed in Greenwich Village in 1955, originally as the Tunetellers. Another member of the group was the then future actor Alan Arkin, who also became a director of , among other films, Little Murders (which I saw last night, for the first time in 37 years, at the BAM Rose Cinema). The third member, Bob Carey, was African American, making this one of the first, if not the first, interracial folk groups. In 1956, Art D'Lugoff, owner of the Village Gate, asked the Tarriers to back up Vince Martin on "Cindy, Oh Cindy":
The song charted in 1956, and I remember it, and Vince's haunting tenor, from my fifth grade year. It was later covered by, among others, Andy Williams, the Highwaymen (of "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" fame), and the Beach Boys.
"Cindy's" tune was based on a Jamaican song. In this respect, it proved a bellwether. The Tarriers' first hit on their own account was "The Banana Boat Song", which Erik created by fusing two Jamaican songs he learned from fellow Washington Square singer Bob Gibson. This song, released in November of 1956, and in early 1957 rose to number four on the Billboard pop chart. Harry Belafonte contemporaneously released a similar song, "Day O (Banana Boat Song)" whih didn't include the "hill and gully rider" chorus that Gibson included in the Tarriers' version. Belafonte's version also charted in 1957, but by one digit less than the Tarriers', which was was later covered by Shirley Bassey and by the Kinks. There's an interesting account of its history here. The Tarriers also did a version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", which was taken to number one by the Tokens in 1961. This was an adaptation of a Zulu song which, under the title "Wimoweh", had earlier been a hit for the Weavers. Erik later left the Tarriers to join the Weavers, replacing Pete Seeger.
I first became aware of Erik by name in the late 1960s, when I began collecting folk albums and saw him credited as an accompanist, either on guitar or banjo, on many of them. Below is a clip of the Rooftop Singers doing their hit "Walk Right In". Erik is the shorter of the two men. The woman is Lynne Taylor, whose vocal style evinces her background as a jazz singer. The tall man is Bill Svanoe, who remained a close friend until the end of Erik's life, which came last Sunday, at the age of 74.
That's me, on Kent Locke's farm in Barnstead, New Hampshire, carefully selecting the plumpest, ripest berries from a burgeoning bush. (What's this thing I have with alliterationsinvolving the letter "B"?) Anyway, my wife, her cousin Lori and I picked like mad for about ten minutes, which was more than enough to bucket enough berries for a bodacious pie (There I go again!) and have plenty left over to supplement morning cereal. The bill? A mere two bucks a pint (normal fare was three, but, being 62, I qualified for Locke's senior discount). Below, behold the bounty borne by a single branch of a bush (Yikes! Am I possessed by some hoary Anglo-Saxon spirit, or perhaps that of Gerard Manley Hopkins?):
The beauty of the berries did not prove deceptive. They were the perfect combination of sweet, tart, and that ineffable musky taste that good blueberries have.
In an earlier post (one to which I've already linked in this one; forgive me if I've taken you there twice), I included a photo of a six-point buck that casually sauntered across my path in the village of Shoreham, on Long Island, a couple of weeks ago, then paused long enough for me to shoot his photo. On the road back from Locke's, this white-tailed doe, by crossing a busy highway, proved that the female of the species can engage in more dangerous escapades than the male:
I'm in far northern New York State, on a brief vacation. Please bear with me until Thursday, when I get back to dear old Brooklyn and resume posting as usual. Thanks.
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.
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?"
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:
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.
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.
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:
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.
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?
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
I arrived as the classic laker Maritime Trader was locking through. Here she is, leaving the Lock and headed upriver in ballast toward Lake Ontario and her home port of Hamilton. By "classic laker" I mean a ship built specifically for Great Lakes/St. Lawrence River trade, with the traditional design (dating back to 1869--see under "Old Style Lake Boat" in Herb's Lake Boats here) having the superstructure containing the bridge and crew quarters at the bow, and the engine room, another deckhouse and the funnel at the stern.
About an hour after Maritime Trader departed, another classic laker of Canadian registry, Ojibway, entered the Lock. Back in January, I posted about the thinning of the ranks of classic lakers, but those that survive are, I reckon, more likely to be found trading between St. Lawrence River ports and the Lakes, because they are small enough to fit the St. Lawrence Seaway locks. 
Here's a closer view of Ojibway's forward deckhouse and bridge. Note the bowsprit often found on classic lakers. 
Canadienne bakin' on Ojibway's fantail.
Ojibway leaving the lock, bound upriver toward the Lakes. According to the chalkboard at the Lock's Visitor Center, she was carrying a cargo of coke (presumably the kind burned in steel mill furnaces) to some destination in Ohio.
Closely behind Ojibway came the "salty" (i.e. oceangoing) freighter Marlene Green. The chalkboard listed her cargo as "windmill", which I thought seemed appropriate for a ship of Dutch registry. 
Here's a close view of Marlene's wheelhouse and bridge as she sits low in the Lock. 
Here's another view of Marlene's superstructure, and one of her deck cranes, after she had been lifted to departure level. 
The metal tubes and truncated cones stowed on Marlene's deck are sections of a tower that will hold up a giant wind-driven electrical generating turbine. The turbine blades are probably stowed in the hold below. 
Here is Marlene heading out of the Lock and upriver toward her destination in Michigan. Later on the same day, Tugster photographed her on her way past the Thousand Islands. 
