Now, for you MoPar fans.

Here, thanks to sloanbarri, is Chrysler's answer (their restructuring plan was also filed Tuesday) to the previous post, as sung by Jan and Dean.

Yeah, I know: what's a New York City dwelling, global warming hating, bleeding-heart liberal like me doing reminiscing about the gas-guzzling, non-catalytic convertered, irresponsibly driven muscle cars of yore?

No good answer.

Pontiac lives?

This morning's New York Times, reporting on the General Motors survival plan due to be released today, said that the company would reduce its automotive product lines to four: Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC, and Buick. Even though I've never owned a Pontiac, that announcement took me aback and made this song my earworm for the day (thanks to A2Grapevine):


In an update posted on line after the release of G.M.'s plan, the Times now notes that the plan says Pontiac "will have a much smaller role, if any, in G.M.'s future... ." The actual text of the Plan, to which the Times gives a link, says (on page 15) that Pontiac "will be a highly focused niche brand." It will be interesting to see what "niche" G.M. sees Pontiac as filling: the Solstice niche; the Torrent niche?

Alas, Saturn looks like a goner, unless someone buys it.

2.20 update: Today's Times has a front page piece on Pontiac's decline, noting that G.M.'s past efforts to cut costs by standardizing vehicle types across divisions made Pontiac products less appealing to the performance buffs who were the marque's ardent loyalists.

The Times article also mentions the source of the initials "GTO": the Ferrari Gran Turismo Omologato.

2.23 update: Gotta love Catnapping's comment on having owned a 1966 Pontiac LeMans with a '65 GTO engine:

God, I loved that car. I liked the lines of the later models better, but there was nothing like punching the accelerator, and jumping from 25 to 70 in the blink of an eye. Better 'an sex - hell, it WAS sex.

Fifteen albums.

Another Facebook wheeze, which I've reposted here for non-Facebookers. The instructions were to list fifteen record albums (LPs or CDs) "that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life. Dug into your soul. Music that brought you to life when you heard it. Royally affected you, kicked you in the wazzo[o], literally socked you in the gut, is what I mean."

Mine are in roughly chronological order, beginning at about age nine. Before that, most of the music I can remember was from my parents’ collection of 78 RPM singles, which included lots of Spike Jones, e.g. “Cocktails for Two”, “William Tell Overture”, “My Old Flame” (with a delicious faux-Peter Lorre voice), and “In Dreams I Kiss Your Hand, Madame” (done perfectly straight until the last line: “In dreams I kiss your hand, Madame, ‘cause I can’t STA-A-A-ND your breath!”); Guy Mitchell (“Christopher Columbus”, “Sparrow in the Tree Top”); and Rosie Clooney (“Shrimp Boats is a-Comin’”).

Here goes:

1. “Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical Music”, Boston Pops Orchestra, Arthur Fiedler conducting. My parents probably got this thinking it would inspire me. Boy, were they right. For years, all my most grandiose fantasies played out in my head to the accompaniment of Verdi’s “Grand March” from Aida.

2. “The King and I”, original Broadway cast, Gertrude Lawrence, Yul Brynner, et al. Lots of great Rogers & Hammerstein songs. The Gilbert and Sullivan-esque “Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?” was an inspiration in dealing with school bullies.

3. Enoch Light and the Light Brigade, “Persuasive Percussion”. When I was about fourteen, I had a brief but intense craze for Command Records’ “Percussion” series, of which this is the only one the title of which I recall with certainty. Basically, this was very bouncy, Latin-flavored jazz with lots of things that snapped, hissed, crackled, popped, and banged. About ten years ago, this stuff was resurrected as “ultra lounge music”.

4. The Limeliters, “Sing Out!” The Kingston Trio’s “Tom Dooley” and “MTA” were my introduction on radio to the folk music craze of the late ‘50s and ‘60s, but this was my first folk album.

5. Beethoven, “Archduke” Trio; Pablo Casals, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, and Sandor Vegh. Achingly lovely.

6. The Ventures, “Surfing”. This guitar-bass-drum instrumental group, originally from Tacoma, Washington, predated the surf craze with their 1960 hit “Walk, Don’t Run”. Having relocated to L.A., they cashed in on mid-sixties surf mania with this album, a mixture of very able covers of surf guitar classics like the Chan-Tays’ “Pipeline” and original material. This was the soundtrack for many late evenings in my dorm room during my first year of college.

7. Flatt & Scruggs, “Foggy Mountain Banjo”. My first bluegrass album; the beginning of a long affair.

8. Paul Butterfield Blues Band, “The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw”. This album was my first taste of Chicago style electric blues.

9. The Byrds, “Sweetheart of the Rodeo”. My introduction to Gram Parsons’ “Cosmic American Music”; unfortunately, this drove my second year law school roommate to distraction.

10. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere”. I’ve fantasized about singing “Cowgirl in the Sand” to every woman who has ever spurned me.

11. Fairport Convention (see also here), “Unhalfbricking”. I first heard “Percy’s Song”, an obscure Dylan piece that Fairport did in the manner of Anglican chant, wafting from a friend’s dorm room during my third year of law school. Because I was captivated by the style and by Sandy Denny's voice, I got the album, and began my long romance with this group and with British folk rock.

12. “The Harder They Come” soundtrack, Jimmy Cliff et al. My go-to when I’m feeling down.

13. Marshall Chapman, “Marshall Chapman”. It’s a tough decision between this, her eponymous third album, and “Jaded Virgin”, her second (and my first to own). “Rock and Roll Clothes” and “Runnin’ Out in the Night” tip the scales, as it were.

14. The Bothy Band (see also here), “Bothy Band 1975”. I’d never heard of them when I picked this from the record bin in an Irish crafts store in Greenwich Village in 1977. Took it home, and was blown away by the virtuosity of the instrumentals and the voices of Triona Ni Dhomhnaill and her brother, now sadly deceased, Micheal O’Dhomhnaill.

15. John Coltrane, “Giant Steps”. Listening to this at a friend’s place brought me to a long overdue appreciation of modern jazz.

Happy Darwin/Lincoln Day.

Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. To mark the occasion, The New York Times has provided a video of a singing Darwin impersonator. The talented chap who does this is Richard Milner, a historian of science and Darwin specialist who was a boyhood buddy of the late Stephen Jay Gould. Today's Times has an excellent Op-Ed column on Darwin by Olivia Judson. (If you're not already registered for the Times on-line, you'll be asked to register before you can read the column. It takes only a minute, and it's free.)

Darwin was born on the same day as Abraham Lincoln: February 12, 1809.

Zagat's the way it goes.

Last week's New York Times "Dining Out" section featured an article by Frank Bruni with the headline "Restaurants Stop Playing Hard to Get." It begins with the question: "Has a restaurant hugged you lately?" Mr. Bruni bets it has. The reason, of course: the recession.

This strummed a mystic chord of memory going back 35 years, when I had just returned to New York from a two-year Army stint, and bought a copy of Jim Quinn's Word of Mouth: A completely new kind of guide to New York City restaurants--1973 edition, which I keep, despite ninety percent of the restaurants it reviews no longer being in business and its considering a $25 dinner "expensive", simply because it's great fun to read. Perhaps one of the "completely new" aspects of Quinn's book was its willingness to trash the competition. Of Gael Greene's Bite, a contemporaneous restaurant guide, he observed that the author is "a textbook case of social-climbing masochism."* In support of this, he quoted her:

During the arid recession-spooked summer of 1970 there were a few shocking breakdowns in the town's haute conspiracy of snobbisme...Soon some of the town's snob restaurants were a blinding glare of empty white tablecloths. For certain New Yorkers, being wanted is the cruelest blow. We want to go where we are not wanted...the fact that we are not wanted is the surest sign that we are storming a retreat worth wanting.**

Quinn took Greene at her word concerning La Cote Basque, then one of New York's best French restaurants, which he said Greene described as "a snob's idea of a fun restaurant" where "[c]lass lines [are] rigidly drawn."

Forewarned by Gael, I and my dinner companions have dressed to make trouble. I am in a cotton velour suit that looks like it was made of 200 gerbil skins, all stitched together sideways and brushed in the opposite direction. My long-time roomy and a poet of anthology rank are both glittering, braless, in ankle-length dresses that make you gasp when they walk. We are up for stalking out if we get the least bit of shit. We get the best table I have got in an expensive restaurant.

When it came to the most important task of the restaurant reviewer, describing the food, Quinn could deliver. Consider this account of filet mignon at Lutece, once New York's most celebrated French restaurant, and the only place to get an "A" grade from Quinn, who marked on a severe curve:

Filet mignon de boeuf en croute Lutece...is a big piece of tender, tasty filet, delivered rare, but charred dark outside, wrapped in good (if not spectacular) pastry and slathered with an extraordinarily good perigourdine sauce--one of the few in Manhattan that actually tasted of truffles. It comes accompanied by a generous serving of mixed vegetables that seem steamed and sauteed rather than boiled and include oddities like genuine flageolets as well as carrots, celery, and tiny peas.

In describing bad food, Quinn could be quite vivid, as in this conclusion to his review of a steak restaurant near Times Square:

Now dig in. Your grease has cooled enough to give the illusion you're eating vaseline; the steak has been tenderized so thoroughly that it has all the texture and taste of an expensive kid glove--after someone wearing it changed and drained a dirty crankcase. The potato is awash in neatsfoot oil; your garlic bun is slowly expanding, like a dry sponge dropped in a rendering vat. And as a special bonus you won't need to add any salt: the chef sweats on the meat.***

Quinn wasn't the only exponent of the restaurant-review-as-art. Seymour Britchky, an occasional Lion's Head visitor, whose stated qualification for the job was that he "ate three meals a day," wrote a monthly newsletter and compiled an annual anthology, under the title The Restaurants of New York, that lasted from 1976 through 1991. I used to have copies of several of the anthologies; unfortunately, somewhere along the way, they got lost in the shuffle. Like Quinn, Sy could be devastating. In a review of a famous Broadway theater area eatery, he wrote:

Sardi's most famous dish is its cannelloni, cat food wrapped in noodle and welded to the steel ashtray in which it was reheated under its glutinous pink sauce. Makes your mouth parch, doesn't it?

(Quoted in Richard Corliss, "That Old Feeling: Three Reasons to Love New York", Time, July 31, 2004.)

Then came Tim and Nina Zagat, with a splendid idea: let's put together a restaurant guide that's both compact and comprehensive, covering just about any respectable or semi-respectable dining spot in the City in a format that can easily fit a jacket pocket or small handbag. Moreover, let's make it democratic: instead of relying on one or two people's possibly unusual tastes, let's allow anyone who wants to rate a restaurant send us their numerical grade (on a scale of one to 25) for food, service, and decor, then average these. In addition to grades, the reviewers can send us pithy comments, the best of which we'll include in the one sentence "reviews" of each place.

When the Zagat guide first became available, I was delighted. It put lots of information at my fingertips, and I could carry it around in my attache case. Still, I had my Britchky available for more enlightening discussion of a place's qualities, or lack thereof, or sometimes just for the sheer pleasure I took in his prose. The trouble is, Zagat became, as they say, a category killer. When Sy stopped putting out his annual Restaurants of New York in 1991 (he died in 2004), no one tried to carry on his tradition (Quinn's Word of Mouth was, for whatever reason--unfortunately, in my view--a one-off). In an age of short attention spans, three page, discursive, idiosyncratic reviews were out. Of Henry's End, my favorite Brooklyn Heights eatery, Zagat tells us its street and web addresses and phone number, that it scored 24 out of 25 for food, 15 for decor, and 23 for service, and that

"[a]dventurous" types who "love wild game" tout this "quirky" Brooklyn Heights New American where "unique", "savory" meats are paired with an "extensive wine list"; "cozy closet"-size quarters are trumped by "value" pricing and an "exceptional proprietor."

As Mr. P. Pig says, "Th-th-th-that's all, folks." I can't gainsay anything about the ratings (although I might move the service rating up a notch) or the "review," so far as it goes. Henry's End does feature a wild game menu in the fall, and some unusual meats throughout the year. The wine list is "extensive", though not encyclopedic; more importantly, I've found the wines on it unfailingly good. Quarters are tight, but the noise level has become manageable, thanks to acoustic tiles now obscuring a gorgeous tin ceiling (so a few points off for decor; Cafe des Artistes this ain't). Prices are reasonable, by New York standards. Mark, the proprietor, is nothing if not "exceptional": he is--how you say?--a mensch.

But this one sentence write-up is, to begin with, seriously misleading in that it invites the reader to think this is exclusively a "wild game" place. The menu has plenty of beef, veal, pork, chicken, seafood, and pasta dishes. Moreover, it gives no flavor of the food, beyond calling the meats "savory". If I were reviewing Henry's End, I'd make special mention of the soft-shell crabs, available in season, and note that, of the three preparations offered, my favorite is with "Moroccan butter," a sauce with an earthiness and richness that, to my taste, perfectly melds with the delicate sweetness of the crabmeat.

Are there worthy successors to Britchky and Quinn today? There are some encouraging prospects. To begin with, there's the man quoted at the beginning of this post, Frank Bruni, whose reviews can be found in the Times on paper and online, but as yet not in book form. Mr. Bruni's reviews are, however, collected in a Times blog called Diner's Journal. I've just recently begun to explore the realm of food blogs. I surveyed wine blogs first; having found three favorites here (also discusses food), here (also discusses ardent spirits), and here (also discusses love). As for blogs that review restaurants, apart from Diner's Journal I've found (without extensive searching) one, Vittles Vamp, written by a fellow Heights resident I haven't yet met, that strikes me as quite good. The Vamp discusses recipes and ingredients as well as reviewing restaurants, and she seems a promising talent at the latter.

If you know of any other really good websites or blogs that review restaurants, particularly in the New York area, please let me know.

__________

*Social masochism evidently wasn't Ms. Greene's only kind. Her 1978 novel Blue Skies, No Candy, described by Chris Haines in Salon as one third of the Holy Trinity--the others being Erica Jong's Fear of Flying and Judith Krantz's Scruples--of the genre called the "shopping and fucking novel," included this (perhaps slightly paraphrased from memory) description: "His sweat was sharp and tangy; his asshole tasted like apple cider." This was quoted in Spy with the observation, "Ms. Greene is the food editor of New York Magazine."

**During that very "recession-spooked summer" I left my bar exam cram course lecture at Town Hall one evening about eight and walked east through midtown until I found myself in front of La Grenouille, then and now a grand French restaurant. Being hungry and feeling flush, I went in and was promptly ushered to a small table, ordered a beer while I studied the menu, and another to accompany my dinner, received polite and attentive service, and left with my wallet less than $30 (in 1970 dollars, but still a bargain) lighter, tax and tip included.

***I don't identify this place because this review was written at least 35 years ago, and the last time I looked (about two years ago), it was still in business. I've never eaten there, and therefore have no view on the quality of its food which may, for all I know, have improved dramatically since Quinn's visit.

Sigourney Weaver covers the Beatles.

While searching Google for the Sigourney Weaver photo to which I linked in my immediately previous post, I found this clip (thanks to BlakeHN) from Heartbreakers, a 2001 David Mirkin movie I somehow missed but will have to look for.

Evidently, there are some people who find Jennifer Love Hewitt more alluring than Sigourney. Go figure.

Self-absorption to the max.

Yesterday, I was tagged twice on Facebook to perform a task that is being passed around virally on that site, which is to make a list of twenty five "random" facts about yourself, then to pass it on to twenty five friends with the request that they do the same. I usually won't participate in these on-line pyramid schemes, but, indiscreet attention whore that I am, I couldn't resist this one, just as I can't now resist re-posting it here for the benefit of all non-Facebookers. Here 'tis:

1. I was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, a city renowned in vaudeville humor.

2. My nickname among the nurses when I was a newborn was “The Thin Man”.

3. I have ancestral roots that I know of in the following states: Indiana, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, and Missouri.

4. Despite my having two great grandfathers who fought for the Union (and none for the South), my high school faculty awarded me the Jefferson Davis Citizenship Medal of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

5. I began my formal education in a three room schoolhouse in rural Hertfordshire, England. Among the teachers’ comments on my report cards there were: “Writing: has difficulty grasping pencil properly”, “Reading [aloud]: good but monotonous”, “P[hysical] T[raining]: somewhat timid on apparatus”.

6. My sixth grade teacher at Eglin AFB [Florida] Elementary School told my parents I was so physically maladroit that I might never be able to drive a car.

7. Between my junior and senior years of high school, I took flying lessons, culminating in my piloting a Cessna solo.

8. My parents, other relatives and their friends have always called me “Kim”.

9. On two occasions, I tried to learn to play music. In third grade I joined a school band program and tried to play flute; during my senior year of high school I took guitar lessons. Both times I found that I lacked both the dexterity and the discipline to succeed.

10. I wish I could sing better. Sometimes my voice is “on”, and I get compliments. Most of the time, it’s not.

11. I still fantasize about being a rock star.

12. I’m often accused of wanting to have my cake and eat it, too. I usually answer, “Who wouldn’t?”

13. I’ve been in every state of the U.S. except Oregon, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

14. I’ve visited the following foreign countries in the following chronological order of first visit: United Kingdom (I lived there as a child for almost three years, and have since returned several times, visiting Scotland and Wales as well as England), France, Belgium, Holland (for a few minutes, riding across the narrow part near Maastricht), Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Spain, Bermuda, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark (an hour in a transit lounge at the Copenhagen airport), and Mexico.

15. I have a crush on Sigourney Weaver. (My wife knows this, and isn’t worried. Neither is Jim Simpson.)

16. I exhibit some symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (Isn’t calling it a “disorder” almost a contradiction in terms?), such as arranging all the bills in my wallet face forward, right side up, and in ascending order of denomination from front to back. This sometimes annoys people behind me in line at Key Food.

17. Guilty pleasures: Kraft American cheese, Popeye’s chicken and dirty rice, “Believe Me” by the Royal Teens, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

18. Like Mr. Leopold Bloom, I devour with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls (or, as my Massachusetts-born wife calls them, “speah pahts”).

19. In my estimation, any pizza can be improved by adding anchovies. Update: this may not apply to the hot dog and French fry pizza.

20. I dread being asked directions, because I often find myself saying “north” when I mean “south”, “up” for “down”, “right” for “left”, and so on (I call this “directional dyslexia”).

21. I think the most salient fact about me is the tension I feel between conflicting ideals, for example: fealty to tradition versus attraction to novelty, and reverence before mystery versus desire for knowledge.

22. I like some odd painters, such as Ivan Albright and Giorgio de Chirico.

23. I usually dislike being asked what is my favorite anyone or anything, as I seldom have a clear, overriding preference valid for all times and circumstances.

24. Before I die, I would like to tour around the Mediterranean, especially Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Egypt, and Morocco. I would also like to follow the route of the Silk Road from Asia Minor to China, and see the cities of Manaus and Salvador in Brazil.

25. I hate the designated hitter rule.

Update: Slate has an interesting analysis of the spread and decay of the "25 things" phenomenon, with an interesting conclusion for anyone planning an attempt at viral online marketing.

Best Super Bowl ever?

Maybe not. There's certainly competition. For me, the iconic one will always be III, Jets versus Baltimore Colts, which I watched with five or six other guys in a law school dorm neighbor's room. As soon as the score was final, our host jumped up and turned off the TV. Asked why, he said, "I don't want to hear Howard Cosell say, 'Broadway Joe Namath, the New York Jets, and the American Football League all came of age today.'"

Still, this one had about as exciting a finish as could be imagined. There's great running commentary on the Wall Street Journal's Super Blog.

This Keystone State native can take some satisfaction in the football and baseball championships both residing in Pennsylvania for the first time since 1980.

Oh, yeah, my prediction (see immediately previous post) was wrong. I've gotten into this thing of calling upsets I don't want, in hopes that by doing so I'll prevent them.

Smoothron, who trusted in Jesus, was wrong, too.

The comfort of the hot stove, and my Super Bowl prediction.

I left Tampa yesterday, just ahead of Super Bowl insanity. Back in chilly Brooklyn this morning, I was delighted to find, tucked on page three of the New York Times sports section, a column by veteran scribe George Vecsey with the title "Baseball Provides Warmth in Winter". In it, Vecsey recounts his recent conversation with former Phillies pitchers Robin Roberts and Larry Christenson. Roberts, a Hall of Famer who pitched in the Majors from the late 1940s to the mid 1960s had this observation:

Roberts thinks everybody overthinks pitching today. Teams get a youngster with a live arm, and they mess with his delivery and they mess with his mind, producing the insecure six-inning nibblers we see most days.

To this I say, "Amen", and add a "Hallelujah!" to Vecsey's succeeding paragraph:

Serene smiles came over the two right-handers as they recalled their own home runs, back when both leagues played the authentic version of baseball, before the ghastly designated-hitter rule. There were giants in those days. Roberts knew, right off the top of his head, that Wes Ferrell leads the pitchers' list with 38 homers (one as a pinch hitter), followed by Bob Lemon with 37, Warren Spahn with 35, Red Ruffing with 34, Earl Wilson with 33 and Don Drysdale with 29.

Oh, yes. That game tomorrow. As a Pennsylvania native, I want the Steelers to win. But something in my bones says it's the Cardinals' day, and that the Kurt Warner Canonization Campaign will get a big boost from a widely witnessed miracle.

O Florida, venereal soil (take 2).

By South Dale Mabry Highway, Tampa, January 29, 2009 (once again, apologies to Wallace Stevens).

Obligatory post-inaugural post.

I wanted something more. I wanted that deathless sound bite; that "Ask not what your country can do for you...", that "nothing to fear but fear itself." Nowhere in the speech, which was in my estimation an excellent one, was there anything that seemed to me to reach such a height. This was a speech characteristic of a former president of what has become a temple to the memory of Aleksei Stakhanov, the Harvard Law Review. As he spoke, I could imagine in the background the strains of that great hymn "Come, Labor On".

The speech posed a challenge. The new President said we were in a bad way, and that the only way out was through hard work. Come to think of it, that's just another way of saying, "Ask not what your country can do for you... ."

Update: Blue Texan finds a memorable quote, and makes a point with which I emphatically agree: the speech was anything but non- or post-partisan.

Andrew Wyeth, 1917-2009

The summer before last, we visited the Farnsworth Art Museum and Wyeth Center in Rockland, Maine. I'm afraid I'd succumbed to what I considered a highbrow prejudice against Wyeth as, at best, a very talented reactionary. Seeing his work up close quickly dispelled that notion. One painting, an interior scene in an old house as I recall, he described (according to the panel accompanying it) as "very abstract". How true.

Wyeth died today at the age of 91. The video above was made on his 80th birthday. In it, he touches on what is meant by "abstraction."

Take a walk with me.

Walking the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn to Manhattan, from the Cadman Plaza entrance to the East Tower, Tuesday morning, January 13, 2009.

The strange persistence of the Spitzer tie.

You might well think that a distinctive and prominent item of clothing worn by a disgraced politician in the very moment of his public humiliation would instantly lose its appeal. When I saw the now ex-Governor on TV confessing his indiscretion, I thought he was bringing to an end the long time popularity (at least since I was in college, which was just over forty years ago) of a particular rep stripe patterned cravat. Such a tie, I was convinced, would be indelibly stained by its association with infamy and self-destruction.


Evidently not, as witness this window display at Brooks Brothers' flagship Madison Avenue store today.

The Gators have become boring.

They've won the BCS title for the second time in three years, again holding a team many pundits (though this time not the bettors) thought an unstoppable scoring machine to a mere two TDs. Is this enough to silence that portion of the commentatoriate that, every year, finds some reason to declare SEC teams inferior to the Big 10, Pac 10, Big 12, whatever is the flavor of the moment? Probably not.

But, for me, the Gators have committed the unforgivable transgression: they're no longer underdogs.

Fortunately for me, now there's USF football.

Update: Maybe this year's better-than-the-SEC flavor will be the Mountain West.

A song for our times?

Uncle Tupelo at The Lounge Ax, Chicago, November 8, 1992 (thanks to Pants Elderly).

New Year's thank-yous.

I'm a little late with this, but I trust you'll forgive me. Last year at this time I posted a thank-you to everyone I could think of who had, in some way, supported this blog during the previous year. I am now repeating all those thank-yous (so, if you didn't follow the link, please go back, click, and read the linked post) because you all deserve a second round of recognition.

I also need to add some new friends who've been very helpful during 2008 and, I'm sure, will continue to be: Chrissie Brodigan; David Castillo of Blue Barn Pictures; and Eleanor Traubman of Creative Times, one of the principals behind Brooklyn Blogade.

I'd also like to give repeated and special thanks to those of you who've regularly commented on my posts: Archaeopteryx, Brooklyn Beat, Joe Martini, The Lady of a Thousand Nics (even though, for some inexplicable reason, she's yet to add S-AB to her blogroll), Rob Lenihan, The Lone Beader, Sometimes Saintly Nick, and Twiffer (and, of course, Anonymous, whoever s/he may be).

Special thanks for productive links from New York Times City Room, Fucked in Park Slope, and New York Shitty. A blog should be known by the company it keeps.

Hepzibah the acrophile.

Something in her little feline brain encodes a military maxim: Take the high ground.

Aboard Amtrak's Adirondack, with an R&B soundtrack.

Riding south from Plattsburgh to New York City on Amtrak's Adirondack last Sunday, I was in the rear coach, and noticed a couple standing at the back end of the car. He was using his camera to take a video through the rear window as the train rolled along. I was inspired to do the same, and shot this just south of Westport, New York.



As I was shooting, my iPod played Arthur Alexander's "You Better Move On", which, given that the train had left Plattsburgh about half an hour late, seemed appropriate.


As we continued southward along the shore of Lake Champlain, I heard this rare Dolly Lyon gem from 1957:

The song's steady rhythm melded well with the tempo of the train's motion, and Ms. Lyon's rich alto voice complemented the Champlain scenery. Thanks to northern soul stalwart cadlagh1 for the clip.

When we stopped at Whitehall, New York, improbable birthplace of the U.S. Navy (my wife, a Massachusetts native, strongly disputes this claim), I decided to shoot another video from the rear window as we departed the station and proceeded through the town.



As we continued southward toward Fort Edward, the iPod carried me back to my law school days with Robert Knight's "Everlasting Love":



A tip of the hat to davepinch1 for the video. South of Fort Edward, we picked up speed as we traversed the flat woodland between the Hudson River and Saratoga Springs. Looking out the window next to my seat, I saw the sky turning magenta. I aimed my camera through the window, but shortly after I pushed the button we passed a stick of freight cars, parked on a siding, that obscured the view. Once past the cars, the sky reappeared, with trees flashing by.



While the train was stopped at the Saratoga station, the iPod played "You Can't Sit Down", a 1963 hit by the Dovells, here capably covered by The Look in a 1982 MTV video posted on YouTube by that group's Dave Edwards:



The Amtrak crew was successful in making up lost time, so we arrived in Albany slightly ahead of schedule, and had almost forty minutes wait time at the Albany/Rensselaer Station. I decided to stretch my legs on the platform; while there, I saw Amtrak train 291, the northbound Ethan Allen Express, on its way from Washington, D.C. to Rutland, Vermont, arriving on schedule at 5:50 P.M.

Happy New Year!

These fireworks are from New Year's 2007, taken from the roof of my building.

Here's wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and (may I be so bold?) prosperous 2009.

Sampling the Saranac "beers of winter".

Continuing a tradition I began this time last year with the Sam Adams Brewmaster's Collection, this year I got the Saranac "Twelve Beers of Winter", a case of two bottles each of six brews thought appropriate to the season. The Saranac range of beers and ales is made by the Matt Brewing Company of Utica, New York. Matt operates what is now the oldest contrinuously used brewery in New York State. I first became familiar with Matt's products back in the 1970s, when I began to frequent the Lion's Head, where the staple draft beer at the time was Utica Club. Some years ago, Matt retired "UC", a typical but well-made mass-market lager, as its flagship brand, and turned to craft brewing. For a time, they made "local" craft brews (including my home favorite, Brooklyn Lager, until Brooklyn Brewery had its own plant) under contract. (Update/correction: I checked the labels on some Brooklyn Brewery bottles this evening, and found they still bear the message, "Brooklyn Brewery, Utica, NY." This means they're still being made at Matt's brewery. Perhaps it's only the kegs of draft that are being made here in Brooklyn.) They later adopted the name "Saranac" (after a lake in the High Peaks region of the Adirondack Mountains, just over 100 miles northeast of Utica) for their own line of premium brews.

This year's winter lineup includes:

Bohemian Pilsner. The Pilsner style is popular in this country because it is light, crisp, and takes well to refrigeration. Saranac's version is close to my Platonic ideal of Pilsner: definite, but not overpowering, barley toastiness balanced by tart, slightly astringent, but not too bitter, hops. It proved a good companion to pizza.

Belgian Ale. I've not been a great fan of Belgian ales, perhaps because, as an oenophile, I prefer fruit in vinous form (though I have a weakness for Berliner weisse mit schuss; a pale, almost sparkling wine-like wheat beer with a dollop of raspberry syrup). This low country-style charmer, though, won me over by having a tart, cinnamon-y opening that brought to mind my wife's excellent apple pie, and a subtle malty finish. It stood up well to Newman's Own hot chunky salsa on white corn chips.

Extra Special Bitter ("ESB"). Evidently, the makers of Fuller's ESB haven't trademarked the initials, which stand for "Extra Strong Bitter" or "Extra Special Bitter", depending on which side of the Atlantic you're on. In any event, "ESB" is prominent on the wrapper over the neck of this ale's bottle. Saranac's version isn't as complex or interesting as its British cousin, but still a well-balanced and satisfying ale.

India Brown Ale. I have a weakness for India pale ales, or IPAs, which began for me years ago with the version, sadly no longer made, by Ballantine. I like IPA's robust hoppiness--its name, as I recall, came from its being made to withstand a long, hot sea voyage to India; the hops, I suppose, acting as a preservative. Saranac's "India Brown", as the name implies, is darker in color than IPA, being brewed with malts that are, according to the Saranac website, "decoction mashed to highlight their character...". The result is a rather busy brew, with tart hops and savory malt both performing their virtuoso acts on the tongue. Not at all unpleasant, but I still prefer IPA.

Vanilla Stout. I was prepared to be mildly disappointed by this, as I was by last year's dark-brew-plus-confection, the Sam Adams Honey Porter. To begin, "stout" to me means Guinness; all others so far have been mere pretenders. Then there's my prejudice against added flavorings, even "natural" ones. My first taste confirmed that this is not Guinness; the hops are much more assertive and the malt heavier, less mocha-y. My first thought was, "Where's the vanilla in all this?" Then, after a swallow and a breath intake, it showed itself, coyly and not cloyingly. It's subtle, and it works. The website suggests having it with dark chocolate or fruit desserts. As luck would have it, on the same shopping expedition that yielded the Saranac I also scored a Terry's dark chocolate orange. Seemed like a way to kill two birds with one stone. Tried it; didn't get a trip to Nirvana, but it was pleasant.

Season's Best. This year's model of Saranac's annual special holiday brew is described as a "Vienna-style lager." I've never been to Vienna, but if this is typical of their beer, it may be worth a visit (that, and the opportunity to walk the same streets as Mozart, Beethoven, Freud, and Wittgenstein). Hops open strong here, but malt asserts itself at the finish. In between, there's a delightful frissance. Goes well with the chocolate orange, too.

Eartha Kitt

All I can say is, a bit of my childhood has gone. As I posted before, and will repost below for your convenience, Ms Kitt's Uska Dara was an indelible memory from age seven:

When I was about seven, and we were living in rural Hertfordshire, England, one afternoon my mother and I were listening to BBC radio when the disc jockey said, "And now, here's some Turkish music." What followed was a tune so hooky that it remained caught in my memory until some thirty or so years later when Mike McGovern, a New York Daily News writer who later became known as Kinky Friedman's sidekick in the Kinkster's detective novels, invited several of us who had closed down the Lion's Head to come to his place for a nightcap. He poured us each some whiskey, then put an Eartha Kitt album on his turntable. After a couple of cuts, I was amazed to hear the same exotic tune that had so captivated me as a child. Judge it for yourself here:

Season's Greetings

Tomorrow morning I am off to the very edge of the Great Frozen North, to the banks of the mighty St. Lawrence, there to celebrate Christmas. My opportunities for posting from that location may be few or none, so I leave you for now with warmest greetings of the season, and a scene of carolers gathered by the tree at the entrance to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.

Nick Reynolds, 1933-2008

Once again, as with another former Kingston Trio member, John Stewart, sad news has come to me late. The death of Nick Reynolds at 75 leaves Bob Shane the only surviving member of the Trio from its heyday. (I'll always remember Bob looking out at an audience that included me about ten years ago and saying, "God, but you all look old.")

Here's the original lineup of the Trio doing "MTA", a song that was a big hit when I was in seventh grade. Nick is the short guy in the middle playing the little four-string tenor guitar; Dave Guard is on banjo and Bob Shane on six-string guitar:



This has been a tough year for the folk music generation of the 1950s and '60s, considering also the deaths of Erik Darling (born the same year as Nick), Miriam Makeba, and Odetta.

12/18 update: Sadly, today I learned of an addition to the roster: British acoustic guitar legend Davy Graham.

Mets' bullpen woes over?

A couple of days ago the Mets acquired off free agency arguably the best closer in the Majors, Francisco Rodriguez (I resist calling him "K-Rod" for the same reasons Lisa Swan gives in Subway Squawkers: (1) it's an obvious ripoff of the nickname of a certain Yankee; and (2) his first name is not "Krancisco"). This filled the need arising from the injury to Billy Wagner, but didn't address the greater problem of the unreliability of the Mets' middle relievers last season, especially Aaron Heilman. Yesterday they announced a three way deal with the Mariners and Indians that, among other things, sent Heilman to Seattle and former Mariners' closer J.J. Putz (yes, he'll need a thick skin in Noo Yawk) to the Mets. As Jesse Spector "putz" it in Touching Base, "this trade...gives the Mets quite possibly the most fearsome bullpen in the National League. (They had that this year, but now it's fearsome to opponents instead of their own fans.)"

Whenever the Mets do a multi-player trade, there's always at least one that I regret their losing. In this deal, it's Endy Chávez. He's the kind of journeyman player that I admire because, despite his mediocre batting average that offsets above average fielding skills, I can't forget the occasional spectacular catch or clutch hit. I also like that he has a brother named Ender, who played for a season with my beloved Brooklyn Cyclones. What is it with Venezuelans--remember the Alfonso brothers, Edgardo and Edgar?

12/15 Update: MSNBC's First Read calls Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich "F-Rod".

Fresh Air Fund needs your help this holiday season.

This time of year is when we all get lots of appeals for money. This year is a particularly bad year for many. We have to decide who or what to support, and in what amount. I'm making this appeal for you to consider the Fresh Air Fund, which gives inner city kids an opportunity, for a couple of weeks in the summer, to savor country life and have some experiences they couldn't otherwise enjoy. A donation now will help FAF establish next summer's program, is greatly needed, and will be deeply appreciated. Also, if you have a country or permanent house in a rural area in the Northeast, please consider hosting a child next summer. It's a way to go beyond the giving of money, and to experience firsthand the fruit of your generosity. Please visit FAF's website here.

Chanukah on the Chisholm Trail.

Captain Smartypants and the boys do a little country 'n' eastern, working in a tradition begun by the great Kinkster (caution--lyrics of Kinky's song below are NSFW):


A tip o' the hat to Andy Bachenheimer.

College football: Gator-Sooner showdown.

I was tempted to predict that the Tide would roll over Florida in the SEC championship game this weekend, but with fresh memory of my last prognostication failure, I was fortunate by being reticent. Now I feel the same temptation concerning the BCS championship game against Oklahoma, a team I've never much liked. But I had the same misgivings concerning the Gators in their championship matchup with Ohio State a couple of years ago, and was proved wrong. I used to have an uncanny sense of when Florida was going to go flat, but they seem to have lost their once unfailing ability to break their fans' hearts. Even their one loss this season, to Ole Miss, seems less embarassing now that the Rebels have cracked the top 25 in the BCS rankings.

The Gators are number one and the Sooners second in the AP poll, while their positions are reversed in the USA Today coaches' poll. Does this mean that Bob Stoops is now more popular with fellow coaches, or Urban Meyer less so?

Another sign of a long, cold winter?

Perhaps it's just my imagination, but the local squirrels seem to be putting on weight above and beyond the norm this year. I spotted this one chomping on what appeared to be a bagel remnant scavenged from a trash can at the corner of Montague Terrace and Remsen Street, in Brooklyn Heights, yesterday morning.

Take a look at the sky this evening.

Shortly after sunset this evening, those of you afforded with clear skies (the forecast for the New York area is favorable) can see a conjunction of the moon, Jupiter and Venus in the western sky (see here). Viewers in Europe will be treated to an occultation of Venus, i.e. the moon will pass in front of the brightest planet.