Goodbye, Paul Newman.

My favorite memory (as, I'm sure, for many others) is Cool Hand Luke, from which I posted the "failure to communicate" clip above.

Cubs find two ways to be Met killers.

Monday and Wednesday it was by winning. Tonight it was by losing.

9/27 update: But the Mets are proving harder to kill than Rasputin. Now, if only the Cubs can switch out of Mets killer mode (so far, so good, but this may change).

9/27 second update: Phillies clinch the division title, but the Cubs come through against the Brew-ha-has, putting the Mets into a tie for the wild card.

Beavers contain Trojans; pundits proved wrong again.

Once again, the pundits have to eat crow for declaring Southern Cal a presumptive national champ early in the season. Last year it was the Stanford Cardinal who pulled off the big upset. This time it was Oregon State, by a score of 27-21. There's cacophony in Corvallis tonight.

Update: My Sitemeter tells me that someone in Seattle hit on this post by doing a Google search for "Beavers contain Trojans". By coincidence, one of my favorite perhaps unintentionally raunchy headlines came from the Seattle area. This was told to me at the bar of the Lion's Head by a friend who had worked as a journalist in Seattle before moving to New York. It concerned the outcome of a congressional race between incumbent Democrat Norm Dicks and a Republican named Beaver in a mostly suburban district south of the city. The morning after the election, the paper proclaimed: "Dicks Drills Beaver in Bedroom Community Race."

And, while we're on that subject, Mike McLaughlin of The Brooklyn Paper recently came up with this. Considering his present state of mind, I don't think it was unintentional.

Some hopeful news from a "red" state.

Yes, it's Bill's and Hill's old stomping grounds, but Arkansas is generally reckoned safe for the Republicans in this election, as it was in the last two. However, Archaeopteryx offers anecdotal, but bracing, evidence of substantial support for Obama there, among white as well as black folks.

The Descendents: "Kids on Coffee"

If this doesn't jump start your week, you're close to asystolic. .

College football: Bulls escape knife, Pirates walk plank, Commodores cruise.

Last Monday I predicted that my South Florida Bulls would beat Florida International, but that it would be closer than expected. Indeed. If I'd had the courage to put my money where my keyboard was and bet FIU as four touchdown underdogs, I could have done nicely. Then, again, I might have blown it betting Tennessee to cover the spread against Florida.

East Carolina's glory run was ended by in-state rivals N.C. State, in a thriller that went to OT. The Pirates have impressed the pundits enough, however, to stay in the top 25 in the latest AP poll. Newbies to the poll elite are the Vanderbilt Commodores, on the strength of victories over Miami of Ohio, South Carolina, Rice, and Ole Miss. There's a red sky at morning, though, with Auburn, smarting from a close loss to LSU, as their next opponent.

MLB playoff picture shapes up.

In the Real Baseball League (a.k.a. the Senior Circuit), the Cubs (who haven't won a Series since 1908) and the Dodgers are in. The other two will come from these three: Mets, Phillies, Brewers. Until recently, the Brew-ha-has (as Milwaukee native and Kettle of Fish owner Patrick calls them) looked like a lock for the wild card, but they've had a near end of season collapse that rivals the one that doomed my Mets last year. Meanwhile, the Mets, despite serious injury hits to their starting rotation, bullpen, and outfield, are still in the thick of things. If they can make the post-season and last beyond round one, Manuel should not only be stripped of his "interim" designation; he should be NL manager of the year.

The Designated Hitter League (a.k.a. the league for people with short attention spans) playoffs definitely include Los Angeles de Anaheim and the Tampa Bay Rays. Conventional wisdom has it that the Rays, having no playoff experience, have no hope of going the distance (just like the 1997 Marlins and the 1969 Mets). The Red Sox look to be a lock, either as Eastern Division champs if they can overtake the Rays and relegate them to the wild card, or, more likely, as the wild card. (My wife is happy.) The final spot will be taken by the Central division champs, either the White Sox (opening the possibility of a first-ever "El Series") or the Twins.

I see four possible final outcomes that would make me happy, in order of preference: (1) Mets (but, given the conventional wisdom that pitching is everything in the playoffs, they seem a long shot); (2) Rays (old hometown loyalty, as well as a liking for Cinderellas, and I think Joe Maddon is a really cool guy); (3) Cubs (for reasons explained here); and (4) Red Sox (spousal loyalty).

Sue Foley, "Queen Bee".

Here's the Canadian blues singer (part of a proud tradition going back at least forty years, to Ian Tyson doing "Flies in the Bottle") Sue Foley doing "Queen Bee", her version of Slim Harpo's "King Bee", which was also covered by Pink Floyd and the Stones.

Thanks to shadowknowz for the clip.

Update: On the subject of Pink Floyd, I've just learned of the death two days ago of founding member and keyboardist Richard Wright. R.I.P. (Scroll down the linked page to find a video clip of Wright and former Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour doing a chilling version of "Comfortably Numb".)

Pandora Radio: DIY programming.

Thanks to Kei Andersen, I've discovered Pandora Radio, a site that lets you set up your own music programs to play on your computer, based on your preferences for certain artists or styles. So far, I have set up "stations" that play music by (or similar to that by) Gram Parsons, Fairport Convention, Miles Davis, Koko Taylor, and Kronos Quartet. It's easy to do, and it's free.

College football: Bulls, Pirates survive; Trojans romp, not much else of note happens.

Contrary to my earlier trepidations (see "Update"), my South Florida Bulls were able to knock off the Kansas Jayhawks (since USF beat the Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks in their opener, the season record is now ungulates-2, raptors-0), as a result of which the Bulls rose to twelfth in the AP poll (one better than the rank previously held by Kansas), while the Jayhawks fell to nineteenth, the former position of USF. The Bulls are now cruisin' for a bruisin', but I'll be bold and say it probably won't come next week at the hands of Florida International, even though the game's in Miami. It'll be closer than expected, though.

This year's big surprise team, the East Carolina Pirates, despite having major upsets over Virginia Tech and West Virginia, was nearly capsized by Tulane's Green Wave, but managed to right itself. The Georgia Bulldogs, ranked second going into the game, survived a tough challenge from Steve Spurrier's unranked South Carolina Gamecocks. The Bulldogs were thereby demoted to third, behind USC and Oklahoma. The Florida Gators, idle this week, held at number four.

Southern Cal obliterated Ohio State, leading the New York Times' Pete Thamel to declare them this season's presumptive champion. However, NBC pundit Joey Johnston thinks an SEC team could unhorse the Trojans. Not so fast, says Johnston's NBC colleague John Walters, the Big 12 is really tops this year.

So, there's reason to keep watching.

Californians enjoying the outdoors.

Surfer, near Cliff House, San Francisco.

Hang glider at Fort Funston.

Closer view of hang glider.

On the beach, Fort Funston.

Another Fort Funston beach scene. Note the container ship (inbound, decks stacked with containers, probably loaded with Asian-made goods) and tanker (outbound, in ballast, probably headed to Alaska to load crude for East Bay refineries) passing in the background.

It's all San Andreas' Fault

On a visit to the Point Reyes National Seashore, we began by walking the Earthquake Trail. The displacement between the sections of fence in the photo above (lower to the left, upper to the right) shows the extent to which the land was shifted by the great 1906 earthquake that devastated San Francisco.

The three posts marking a line going toward the fence in the background show the approximate alignment of the San Andreas Fault. The Fault roughly marks the boundary between the North American and Pacific tectonic plates. So, I can say that, when I took this photo, I was standing on the Pacific Plate, to the west of the Fault, looking at the North American Plate, to the east (and right) of the line extending through the posts.

Fortunately for me, the earth did not move during my visit to this very excitable spot. I'm told that Northern California experienced a small earthquake a few days after we left.

Goodbye to a neighbor.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Monte Ghertler, though he lived but a few blocks from me, in the St. George Tower. I have known his daughter, Louise Crawford, for just over a year and a half. Along with producing Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn and being The Brooklyn Paper's "Smartmom", Louise conceived and organized the Brooklyn Blogfest. As I've noted before, she has been generous with help and encouragement to me and to this blog.

My heartfelt condolences to Louise, her mother, her husband and children, her sister, Caroline, whom I met in the Clark Street subway elevator when I mistook her for Louise, and all others who knew and loved Monte. Having read Louise's sweet farewell, I only wish I could have known him.

On the trail of the Continental Army, cont'd.

In a previous post, I described a tour, guided by Brenda Becker, in which we viewed sites in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, at which the first events of the Battle of Brooklyn (also called the Battle of Long Island) unfolded. The initial skirmishes took place on the hilly terrain where the park is now located, and where British troops, under General William Howe, advancing northward from their landing at Gravesend Bay first encountered elements of the Continental Army, under the command of George Washington, which had been deployed on Long Island to protect New York City from an attack from the east. The battle, as it developed, was a series of holding actions by American units that allowed the majority of Continental troops to escape to the westward. The fiercest of these actions took place in and around the Old Stone House, where a Maryland unit suffered 256 lost covering the retreat.

The Continental Army, having largely escaped Howe's initial thrust, encamped at Brooklyn Heights. Indeed, the building in which I now sit writing this probably occupies ground on which troops endured a soaking rain. The bad weather was actually a break for the Americans, as it forced Howe to halt his advance and gave Washington and his subordinate commanders time to plan a retreat. The American position on the Heights was untenable, as Howe's troops surrounded them on the land side to the east, and on the other side was the East River, where a shift in wind direction--which so far had favored the Americans--would allow the British Fleet, under the command of Howe's brother, Richard, to attack them and prevent any further escape to the west.

The historical marker in the foreground of the photo above notes that the area in front of it, now a small cove off the East River in the area between the Brooklyn (seen in the photo) and Manhattan bridges now called "DUMBO", but probably a very different looking place in 1776, before extensive shoreline filling was done, is roughly the site from which Washington's Army made its escape from Long Island. This was done under cover of night, and later morning fog which also was a blessing for the Americans. The crossing was made in boats crewed by seamen from Marblehead, Massachusetts, under the command of Colonel John Glover.

Once the wind shifted and allowed the British fleet to sail into New York Harbor, the Continental Army was unable to defend New York City, and retreated first to upper Manhattan, then to Westchester County, fighting delaying actions in both places. They then crossed the Hudson and retreated through New Jersey to eastern Pennsylvania, where they endured their winter encampment at Valley Forge. The same Marblehead boatmen who facilitated the escape from Long Island would, a few months later, be involved in Washington's crossing of the Delaware, leading to his victories at Trenton and Princeton.

Are the Rays the Mets of '08?

It's beginning to look that way. At least it's the Red Sox, not the Yanks, who are likely to benefit from this collapse.

Of course, it's still possible that the Mets could be the Mets of '08.

College football weekly: Bulls behave normally while Gators don't; Pirates pillage and burn.

Predictably, my South Florida Bulls came off an easy opener romp over Tennessee-Martin by falling flat in the second half of their joust with the Central Florida Knights, the closest thing these schools have to an Ur-rivalry, and just escaping with a win in OT. Next week they play Kansas. My gut says they get upset, but my head says they'll wait until mid-season to get knocked off by some mediocre Big East team.

Unpredictably, the Florida Gators did not go flat after their opener rout of Hawaii, and swamped the Miami Hurricanes, a team that's had their number for years, 26-3. They get a week's rest before facing Tennessee.

The East Carolina Pirates look to maybe be this year's Boise State, after edging Virginia Tech in their opener and crushing eighth ranked West Virginia 24-3 yesterday.

Things might stay interesting, in a good way, for a while.

Update: In mentioning the upcoming USF/Kansas game, I wrote that Kansas winning would be an upset. However, a glance at the AP rankings in this morning's New York Times shows the New! Improved! Jayhawks ranked thirteenth, while the Bulls have dropped from seventeenth to nineteenth because of their inexcusable failure to run up the score on Central Florida. So, it's an upset that I'm hoping for, but my hopes aren't too high.

Shpigel nails it.

Ben Shpigel, in today's New York Times, on yesterday's Mets loss to their Eastern Division rivals, the Phillies:

No matter how dominant [the Mets] looked in Milwaukee or how feeble Philadelphia appeared in falling to the Nationals, no team is better at lulling its fans into a false sense of security than the Mets.

8/7 Update: At least they avoid a sweep.

S-AB is three.

Because I was traveling, and thereby distracted, I failed to note this blog's third birthday on August 28. It's now reached an age where it can form coherent sentences and go potty without adult supervision.

Thanks to all my loyal readers and commenters. My Sitemeter tells me the blog is getting more and more visits and page views month by month. Visit number 25,000 will be coming up before long. I'll have to think of an appropriate prize.

iPod log 5: transcontinental soundtrack.

This is what I was listening to on American Airlines Flight 16 (see my immediately previous post) from the time the cabin steward said it was OK to turn on electronic devices until turnoff time as we approached JFK (with a small interruption for drink orders). As usual, the iPod was set to play in random order. No extensive commentary, as this is a long list.

Incredible String Band, "Black Jack Davy".

Ruth Brown, "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean".

Richard and Linda Thompson, "Wall of Death". She was pregnant, and they were in the throes of divorce when this was recorded as part of Shoot Out the Lights, one of the most emotionally wrenching rock albums ever.

Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Handel: Water Music, Suite 2, alla hornpipe.

Sue Foley, "Shake That Thing". If you think "Canadian blues singer" is an odd concept, listen to this lady.

Elvis Costello, "Lovable".

Uncle Tupelo, "Whiskey Bottle".

Rolling Stones, "Tumbling Dice".

Fleetwood Mac, "Buddy's Song" (see here).

Rolling Stones, "It's All Over Now". The series of guitar runs at the end of this song makes me think of Allen Ginsberg's line from Howl: "[T]he crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox."

Stop, Inc., "Second Line". Lively instrumental R&B from the city that dodged Gustav's bullet.

International Submarine Band, "Miller's Cave". Gram Parsons' pre-Byrds, pre-Burritos group does a Bobby Bare classic.

Beach Boys, "Darlin'".

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

The Band, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".

Marshall Chapman, "Don't Leave This Girl Alone" (see here).

Rod Stewart, "Tomorrow Is Such a Long Time".

J. Geils Band, "Hard Drivin' Man".

Bothy Band, "The Morning Star/ Fisherman's Lilt/ Drunken Landlady" (see here).

Altan, "Come Ye By Atholl/ Kitty O'Connor".

John Stewart, "Omaha Rainbow" (see here).

Lucinda Williams, "Lines Around Your Eyes".

Seldom Scene, "Little Georgia Rose".

Vampire Weekend, "Walcott" (see here).

Rod Stewart, "Every Picture Tells a Story" (see under Maggie Bell, below).

The Maytals, "Sweet and Dandy" (see here).

Woody Guthrie, "This Land Is Your Land" (this was playing as we flew over the desolate sand hills of western Nebraska).

Doug Sahm, "Poison Love".

Planxty, "The Jolly Beggar/ Reel" (see here).

Sam Cooke, "Chain Gang".

LaVern Baker, "Jim Dandy".

Chuck Berry, "Back in the USA".

Guy Clark, "Texas, 1947". One of my favorite train songs.

Marshall Chapman, "Why Can't I Be Like Other Girls?" Her signature piece (see above).

The Mamas and the Papas, "Twelve-thirty". I've loved this song since my first year of law school. Of the original four Ms&Ps, only Michelle survives.

Jefferson Starship, "Caroline". Marty Balin opens a vein.

Jaynetts, "Sally Go Round the Roses". Weirding me out since 1963.

Wolfgang Schulz and Hansjörg Schellenberger: Mozart, "Duet for Flute and Oboe" (Papageno's aria from The Magic Flute).

Gram Parsons, "Love Hurts". With Emmylou Harris.

Little Richard, "Rip It Up".

The Kinks, "Lola" (live version). I first heard the studio version of this song on a flight to California in 1970.

Arthur Conley, "Sweet Soul Music".

Fairport Convention(see here), "Tam Lin". From the great Liege and Lief album, with the late Sandy Denny on lead vocal.

Fairport Convention, "Sir Patrick Spens".

Smokey Robinson, "I Second That Emotion". Dylan called him "America's greatest living poet."

Fairport Convention, Si tu dois partir (see here).

Marshall Chapman, "You Asked Me To". Marshall does Waylon.

Beach Boys, "Please Let Me Wonder".

The Youngbloods, "Sugar Babe". Part of the soundtrack for Antonioni's Zabriskie Point.

Holmes Brothers, "Up Around My Head". Old friends from the days when they played Dan Lynch's on Second Avenue.

Otis Redding and Carla Thomas, "It Takes Two". From the great King and Queen album.

Adrienne Young with Little Sadie, "Hills and Hollers".

Emmylou Harris, "Time in Babylon".

Steeleye Span, "Weary Cutters/ New York Girls". The latter features Peter Sellers on ukulele and witty asides.

The Kingston Trio, "Utawena" (see here).

Royal Teens, "Believe Me". In my estimation, the epitome of adolescent angst songs--even cuts Dion's "Teenager in Love". If you don't (ahem!) believe me, give it a listen. Bob Gaudio, who plays the tinkling piano on this, went on to become one of the Four Seasons and wrote their first mega-hit, "Sherry".

Fleetwood Mac, "Go Your Own Way".

The Chieftains, "Lord Mayo".

Fairport Convention, "I Don't Know Where I Stand". The original lineup, with Judy Dyble (also see here).

Maggie Bell, "Queen of the Night". Someone once wrote, and I agree, that when she joins Rod Stewart on the line "She claimed that it just weren't natural", in the song "Every Picture Tells a Story", it's one of the most electrifying moments in rock.

The Melodians, "Rivers of Babylon". The Bony M version of this was a fixture on the Bells of Hell jukebox.

Townes Van Zandt, "Two Hands". I loved this guy. Sad to see him gone so young.

Amy Speace, "Double Wide Trailer". Keep an eye on her.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, "Sunny Side of the Mountain". From Will the Circle Be Unbroken, and featuring Jimmy Martin.

Judy Collins, "Pirate Jenny".

Sam Cooke, "Another Saturday Night".

Delbert McClinton, "Before You Accuse Me".

The Clash, "Clampdown".

Wynton Marsalis: Jeremiah Clarke, "The Prince of Denmark's March".

The Cellos, "What's the Matter For You?" (see here).

Neil Young, "Saddle Up the Palomino".

Jefferson Airplane, "Today". This 60s psychedelic love song provided a fitting close to a journey from San Francisco.

So, almost five hours of music: seventy two pieces, out of a total of 691 loaded on my iPod at present. This isn't what I consider a truly representative sample: light on classics, rockabilly and punk; no jazz; no hard-core Chicago blues; no Dead or Dylan. Still, a good set for a long plane ride.

Transcontinental

This is the beginning of the story of a journey and visit, which I'll be posting in pieces from time to time in the next week or so. In my typical bass-ackwards way, I'm starting with the return trip. Herewith the photo log of American Airlines Flight 16, SFO to JFK, on Sunday, August 31, 2008.

San Francisco, with the Bay and Golden Gate bridges, and the Marin Headlands and Pacific Ocean in the background.

Another view of The City, with the financial district and Embarcadero in the foreground, Nob Hill on the near right, and Chinatown and North Beach (home of the Beats in the 1950s) just beyond that. The green swatch on the right is the Presidio, and that on the left is Golden Gate Park. The thin green rectangle extending below that is the Panhandle; to the left of that is Haight-Ashbury, famed as the hippie neighborhood of the late 1960s.


Circular agricultural fields created by center-pivot irrigation systems in a Nevada desert valley.

The northern end of the Great Salt Lake. From the plane, the water near the shore of the Lake looked reddish.

A fertile valley with mountains (the Uintas?) to the east.

Unfortunately,the clouds seen in this photo became a solid overcast (from my point of view, undercast) that hid the Tetons and the Snowy Range from sight as we crossed Wyoming.


Sand hills of western Nebraska.


A typical Great Plains scene: small town with grain elevators and landscape divided into square homestead grant sections.


Confluence of the Mississippi and Wisconsin rivers, at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.


Milwaukee. Wisconsin is one of three states (the others are South Dakota and Oregon) in which I've never set foot. At least now I have a couple of photos from the air.

New York's Finger Lakes district. From bottom to top: Keuka, Seneca, Cayuga and (very faintly in the background) Owasco lakes.


Hudson River and George Washington Bridge. New Jersey is in the foreground, Manhattan in the center, and the Bronx in the background, separated from Manhattan by the Harlem River, which is here obscured by bluffs on the east side of Manhattan.


Whitestone (foreground) and Throg's Neck bridges, both connecting Queens (on the right) to the Bronx, with the western end of Long Island Sound beyond.


At dusk we were approaching JFK Airport from the south, over the Atlantic. Brooklyn (my home!) is in the background.

From "Sarah Jackman" to "Sarah Palin".

It occurs to me that this Allan Sherman classic now begs for an update:



Can't you just hear it: "Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin..."?

A couple of preliminary thoughts:

"How's your running mate?/ He's a real cheap date..."

"How's your son, Track?/ He's goin' to Iraq..."

So, help me out. Anyone who can come up with a complete song will have my eternal admiration and gratitude, not to mention that of the Democratic National Committee.

Update: For more Palin dish, see here.

College football kickoff: Bulls, Gators clobber overmatched opponents; ASU doesn't get another big opening upset.

Every year, I swear I'm going to give up on college football. Too many things are too predictable, like my alma mater South Florida having a three game losing streak after knocking off two pre-season top ten teams (Auburn and West Virginia) and attaining the number two ranking in the AP and USA Today polls last season, then progressing to a miserable drubbing in a minor bowl game. However, there are the wonderful unpredictables, like Appalachian State beating what proved to be an overrated Michigan team in their opener last year.

The boys from Boone couldn't pull off another big opening game upset this year. ASU was mauled, 41-13, by the LSU Bayou Bengals in a game at Baton Rouge that had its kickoff moved ahead from 4 P.M. to 10 A.M. because of Hurricane Gustav. Meanwhile, the Wolverines suffered another opening day defeat, though this time to a more highly rated opponent, Utah.

My USF Bulls romped over the Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks, 56-7, thereby breaking a pattern of struggling in their opener against a lightly-regarded opponent, and not jeopardizing their pre-season ranking of 19th. The Florida Gators, ranked fifth going into the fray, routed Hawaii by 56-10. The Rainbow Warriors, who have had some success moving into the ranks of college football's elite in the past few years, were not the usual sort of pushover Florida has scheduled for its opener. Given that fellow Southeastern Conference team Georgia has a pre-season rank of number one, while LSU and Auburn, both of which won today, are seventh and tenth, respecively, this may be an indication of just how tough the SEC is these days.

Walking a different bridge.

On our recent visit to Maine, we stayed with my wife's cousin, Lori, in her house at Cape Elizabeth, near Portland. My second morning there, I was wishing I could do my usual Brooklyn Bridge walk, then remembered that there was a bridge not far away. It wasn't a beautiful suspension bridge, but rather a utilitarian concrete arch with a drawspan near the center, crossing the Fore River estuary from South Portland to Portland. So, I set off northward on Ocean Avenue, turned left onto Broadway, then bore right onto the bridge's pedestrian walkway.

It was a foggy morning, so my view was limited to about a hundred yards as I set out across the bridge.

As I approched the Portland side, the fog had lifted enough for me to make out the docks below.

Here the concrete of the bridge walkway gave way to the cobblestones of the city sidewalk.

As I walked back across the bridge, I heard the roar of a motor below. Looking down, I saw the lobster boat Penalty Box headed toward Casco Bay.

On the way across, I had noticed a ramp coming up to the walkway just before the bridge crossed the south shore of the estuary. Coming back, I went down this ramp, which proved to lead to the foot of Ocean Avenue, thereby cutting about a quarter of a mile, and an unpleasant stretch above a wastewater treatment plant, off my return. At the foot of the ramp was a small park, and railway tracks that led to what must have once been a carfloat dock.

The following morning, the fog wasn't quite so thick. I found the tanker Maple Express, of Panamanian registry, docked on the South Portland side of the estuary, just west of the bridge.

The Dutch freighter Sampogracht was docked on the Portland side. The metal cylinders on her deck look much like the sections of wind turbine tower on the deck of Marlene Green, seen at Eisenhower Lock two days later.

On my reurn leg, I saw The Cat, the big passenger and car carrying catamaran ferry that runs between Portland and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, heading out toward the Gulf of Maine.

A few minutes later, the clouds had gathered as this tug sailed into the harbor.

After I descended on the ramp from the bridge, things became a little brighter again, as seen in this shot of a boatyard and marina in South Portland.

Why, oh why, must political campaigns be terminally stupid?

So, a reporter asked John McCain how many residences he and his wife own, and he (forthrightly) answered with something like, "I'll have to check with my staff and get back to you on that." It's fairly widely known that the McCains, largely because of her fortune, are really, really rich. Richer than the Obamas, who also are a good deal better off than any family that has to sweat out mortgage or rent payments.

OK, here's this public statement by McCain that's low hanging fruit. So low that even the media can be trusted to grasp it and do something, without any help. So why must the Obama campaign not just leave it there? No, they have to grab it and run, prompting McCain's people to chase after them with allegations that Obama somehow got his house through evil Chicago political machinations. So does the discourse of the campaign sink a little further toward cetacean fecal level.

Stick to real issues, not name-calling. It's not fatal. We're not the brain-dead lugs you think we are. Trust me, we'll listen, and judge accordingly.

Update: In a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle printed in today's paper, Jim Tulip, of Pacific Grove, California, struck a similar note concerning the role of media. Responding to an article with the headline "Revamp message, experts advise slumping Obama", Mr. Tulip observed that

the "experts" report that Sen. Barack Obama's thoughtful answers to complex questions are somehow inferior to Sen. John McCain's shoot-from-the-hip inanities.

He then argues:

If the role of the Fourth Estate is to bear witness to the truth, then shouldn't it be judging the candidates' statements by a higher standard rather than in a way that assumes those statements might be received by the lowest of the so-called low information voters. By accepting the idea that the democracy is in the hands of the uninformed, the media are creating a dangerous self-fulfilling prophecy. If we assume things need to be dumbed down, then they will be.

"Wag the Dog" in the Caucasus?

My friend Geoff, ever alert for chicanery by the present Administration and the GOP, circulated an e-mail a couple of days ago speculating whether Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili might have been "baited" by U.S. assurances that there would be "strong action" by the U.S., and perhaps NATO, if Russia sent troops to respond to a Georgian military incursion into South Ossetia. By so doing, Geoff reasoned, the Bush Administration would have given the McCain campaign a boost by setting up a crisis with Russia that would appear to warrant electing a "tough" and "experienced" leader. If so, this may be working, considering the most recent poll result reported by Reuters.

Today, Mikhail Gorbachev weighed in on the New York Times, op-ed page. In his column, Gorbachev clearly is carrying water for the Medvedev/Putin government, putting the best face on Russia's actions and the worst on Georgia's and those of "the West", including western media. He observes:

If this military misadventure was a surprise for the Georgian leader's foreign patrons, so much the worse. It looks like a classic wag-the-dog story.

It's interesting that he uses the title of a 1997 movie (see trailer above) in which administration aides manufacture a foreign policy crisis in order to divert attention from a charge of sexual misconduct against the President. This movie, obviously inspired by the Clinton/Lewinsky affair, has since been regarded as oddly prescient in some respects, such as the inclusion of a WMD threat (by Albania!) in the invented crisis.

Another great wine blog.

My neighborhood, Brooklyn Heights, is blessed with three very good wine and spirits shops. My "local", Montague Wines & Sprits, is but a few steps from the door of my apartment building. It's small, but stocks a well-chosen selection, and is managed amiably and knowledgeably by Big Jeff and not-so-big Michael. To the north, at the busy corner of Clark and Henry, is Michael-Towne, where I can sometimes find a former law firm colleague hosting a wine tasting, and can almost always find a chilled bottle of my wife's favorite white, Macon-Lugny "Les Charmes".

To the south, on Atlantic Avenue, is Heights Chateau (picture above from their website), the largest of the three. Here, Judy has been unfailingly helpful in finding good, inexpensive wines from various places, and Dominique guided me to some nice French artisinal reds that fit my budget.

On a recent visit to Heights Chateau, I got to chatting with a pleasant young woman at the checkout, during which I mentioned my admiration for Alice Feiring, and that I'd posted on my blog about her. She told me she also had a blog, and that she would e-mail me the URL. About an hour later I got the link to Elana's blog, So Many Wines...So Little Time. Her recent post on The Brandy Library sparked my interest, as I love good eaux de vie and single malt Scotches (the word "whiskey" derives from the Gaelic usquebach, which translates as "water of life", as does the Danish akavit, which derives from the Latin aqua vitae). Her series of posts about her visit to France, featuring Champagne and Burgundy, are informative and entertaining. Finally, hearty congratulations to Elana for completing the requirements for an advanced certificate in wine from the International Wine Center. I do like it that she resists the usual ways of writing about wine. As she puts it:

They teach you to describe [wine] with typical adjectives: fruit forward, oaky, tannic...but I still tend to tell our customers the following: so good it broke my heart, i want to put a straw in it and just drink, killer juice. Then there are my descriptions of some of my favorite spirits: made me break out into a jig, i love to wear it as perfume, or it's like a symphony (that can be used with wine as well). Sometimes you just have to go with that initial feeling.

Update: Eric Asimov, in his "The Pour" column in today's New York Times, praises California vintners, like John Williams of Frog's Leap, who are producing old school, subtle, balanced wines, as opposed to Parkerillas. I suspect Elana and Alice will join me in cheering Eric's espousal of terroir.

Equal opportunity defamer?

According to Frank Rich's column in today's New York Times, Jerome Corsi, author of the cleverly titled The Obama Nation (and earlier co-author of the Kerry smear book Unfit to Command), has accused the McCain campaign of accepting substantial contributions from a group with links to Al Qaeda (see here) and claimed that "McCain's personal fortune traces back to organized crime in Arizona" (see here). For what it's worth, Corsi has also insinuated a link between the McCain campaign and Russian organized crime.

Rich observes:

Corsi's writings have been repeatedly promoted by Sean Hannity on Fox News; Corsi's publisher, Mary Matalin, has praised her author's "scholarship."

Nevertheless, there are some people on the right side of the political spectrum, like Jon Henke, who characterize Corsi as a "smear artist" who has made "gross errors" and is one of the "hatchet men, bullies and political hit men" who "serve to discredit us [conservatives] all."

Then, again, if Hannity and Matalin are right about Corsi, should we, as Rich suggests, take him seriously about McCain?

Eisenhower Lock at fifty, and more about classic lake boats.

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 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.

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.

Your correspondent attempts metrical poetry.

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.

Intellectualfunkycool.

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: