Message from Wally Backman, new manager of the Brooklyn Cyclones.

Can a hero of the 1986 NLCS and World Series lead the Brooklyn Cyclones out of their always-a-bridesmaid rut?

Again, thanks to New York Blips for the tip.

Update: Faith and Fear in Flushing has a thoughtful and well worth reading piece about Backman.

Message to Jude Law.

New York City is a densely populated place. If you're going to live here, and have a balcony on your apartment, and your apartment is visible from other nearby buildings, and you're a celebrity (or an attractive person given to sunbathing on your balcony), people are going to watch you. Deal with it; preferably without throwing fruit.

Thanks to New York Blips for the link.

Zelda, the Battery Park turkey, says, "Thanksgiving, Shmanksgiving!"

Here she is, bold as brass, a little over a week before the holiday on which millions of her co-speciesists will be roasted or, for the brave, deep-fried, calmly resting on a well-traveled footpath in a busy park in downtown Manhattan. I first spotted her (at the time, I was unaware of her name, and insufficiently steeped in turkey lore to perceive her gender) shortly before Thanksgiving three years ago. I saw her again in March of 2007. In a comment on that post, ChickenUnderwear pointed me to a New York Times City Room blog post post in which Sarah Grimké Aucoin, director of the New York City Urban Park Rangers, gives her history and name, including its provenance (Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott, who wandered Battery Park in her episodes of mental distress). I don't know the average, non-Thanksgiving threatened, turkey life span, but I wish Zelda many more years of wandering the park.

Someone in Myanmar visited my blog.

I'm delighted, of course. Could it be an indication that President Obama's visit to Asia is bearing fruit? Perhaps. I'm curious to know, though, how my reader in Rangoon got to S-A B by way of Amazon's Christmas page?

The house that Jeter is building, and the aftermath of a victory parade.

The old Yankee Stadium was called "The House that Ruth Built". Will the new one be called "The House that Jeter Built"? Derek Jeter has been the preeminent Yankee player for the past decade, just as the Babe was in his day. Time will tell, and A-Rod may offer a dissenting opinion.

When I was in Tampa recently, a friend said, "You've got to see the house Jeter is building on Davis Islands." It was pretty easy to spot from Bayshore Boulevard: a massive edifice under construction on the western waterfront of the larger of the two islands. I drove out there and got the shot above. I've been told it's to have twenty three rooms, and is even larger than George Steinbrenner's house, which is located a few miles to the north.

The day after the Yankees' victory parade on lower Broadway, trees in City Hall Park were still festooned with paper.

Update: My colleague Bill, a Yankee fan (but a fine fellow nevertheless) kindly shared this photo of The House That Ruth Built being unbuilt:

Please bear with me.

No sooner had I returned from Florida, where Mom is now doing fine, when my Vista-cursed computer suffered cataclysmic OS failure. I am in the process of replacing it with a Windows 7 machine. I hope to have it up and running by tomorrow, and be back to posting as usual.

Live blogging Florida-Georgia from the Tapper Pub, Tampa

For the First Time Ever in History, Georgia wears black helmets. Dawgs won toss, chose to kick. Gators promptly marched to TD.

On their first possession, Georgia can't buy a thrill, but get a good punt to put Gators deep.

Florida receiver Brandon James could maybe double as a juggler--nice try.

Tebow throws a strke to Rodney Cooper, his roomie, for another TD. 14-0 Gators, Still 1st Q.

First play of second possession, Georgia penalized for false start. Gator LB Brandon Spikes (how many Florida players are named for this Tampa suburb?) has great dreads.

End of 1Q. Georgia passing game starting to click.

Start of 2Q. Georgia march stalled, but Dawgs get on board with a FG.

Second is all Georgia so far, as they get a pretty TD on a pass by QB Cox over the middle.

Gator offense gets stuffed, but Sturgis notches 56 yard FG.

Nice Georgia run nullified by holding, but Urban Meyer still looks as if his patience is sorely tried.

A Dawg defender also has impressive dreads, so long I can't read the name on his jersey.

Tebow scores on a dive play, passes Herschel Walker for SEC rushing TD record. 24-10 Gators.

Cox sacked. Shades of Watergate! Halftime.

Watching halftime report. Northwestern has a QB named Kafka. Wonder if he's subjected to inexplicable penalties.

Start of second half. A.J. Jones hits Georgia QB Cox, ball goes up and Jones grabs it for interception. Next play produces another Tebow rushing TD.

Georgia drives and gets a TD on a strike from Cox to a receiver with magnificent dreads. 31-17 Gators.

At this point, I had to forsake the Tapper when a call on my cell phone brought the unexpected but welcome news that my mother was about to be discharged from the hospital and sent to a skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility. Earlier in the day I had been told that, for administrative reasons, this wouldn't happen until Monday.

With Mom safely and comfortably in her new place, I stole a glance at the game's final minute on the activities room TV. From the highlights, I gather that after I stopped watching Florida got another FG, then the aforementioned Brandon Spikes scored on an interception to make the final score Gators 41, Dawgs 17. Apparently, having knock-'em-dead dreads was very important in this game.

So, my latest fearless prediction about the Gators, just like my previous one, has proved wrong. Once again, I'm glad it did.

My skepticism about my alma mater, South Florida, also was unfounded, as they rebounded from their drubbing by Pitt to defeat the 20th ranked West Virginia Mountaineers, 30-19.

Addendum: Tebow has a thing about putting scriptural citations in the little black anti-glare patches on his cheekbones. For the Georgia game it was Phil. 11-something (I never could discern the verse number). From Georgia's point of view, however, it probably should have been Hebrews 13:8.

Second addendum: Here's a photo of the Tapper's proprietor, and my high school friend, Kay Groetsch, tending the bar:

As you can see from Kay's welcoming smile, the Tapper is a friendly place. If you find yourself on Dale Mabry Highway (once designated the ugliest stretch of road in the U.S.) in the vicinity of Britton Plaza, a strip mall that has been around for about fifty years and should probably be on the National Register of Historic Places, and feel like having a brew or two, by all means drop in.

Marine art preserved in a New York subway station.

In 1913, the elegant Hotel McAlpin was completed at Broadway and 34th Street. The artist Fred Dana Marsh was commissioned to produce paintings illustrating the history of New York Harbor to decorate the Hotel's restaurant. These were executed on tiles, bordered by decorative terra cotta. Because of the paintings' popularity, the restaurant became known as the Marine Grill. In the early 1990s the McAlpin and its restaurant closed, and a developer bought the building for conversion to condominium apartments. The paintings, and their terra cotta borders, were preserved and re-installed on the walls of the heavily trafficked east-west passageway of the Broadway-Nassau/Fulton Street subway station in lower Manhattan. The painting above shows a four-stack transatlantic liner with Cunard's funnel markings (still in use today), probably the first Mauretania, which went into service in 1906.

 

This painting shows one of the coastal or inland waterway vessels that, in competition with the railroads, carried passengers between New York and places upstate along the Hudson as far as Albany, or New England by way of Long Island Sound.

 

This painting shows Dutch ships of the early seventeenth century bringing settlers to what is now New York. In the background is a gallows, with the bodies of two hanged criminals dangling from it.

I began work on this post several days before, in Brooklyn, and was referring to a photo I took of a plaque mounted in the station for information about the paintings and their removal to their present location. When I came to Florida, I neglected to include my photo of the plaque in my draft for reference, and therefore had to search the web for information to complete this post. In so doing, I discovered a much more thoroughgoing post on this subject by my friend Flatbush Gardener. It confirms my identification of the Cunard four-stacker as Mauretania, identifies the coastal passenger vessel as Commonwealth of the Fall River Line, shows some other paintings in the collecction, and gives the full story of how the art works were preserved and reconstructed after having been removed from the walls of the old McAlpin and the tiles scattered willy-nilly in bins.

Score one for the Real Baseball League: Phils 6, Yanks 1

Cliff Lee outpitched his old friend C.C. Sabathia, who gave up two dingers to Chase Utley, as the Phils beat the Yanks in the Series opener, at Nuevo Yankee Stadium.

Fans of short-attention-span ball may argue that, this game having been on an AL field, it was won with the DH rule prevailing. Nevertheless, the result without the DH would likely have still been a Phillies win, as they could have done without the two RBIs of their DH, Ibanez. (The Yanks' DH, Matsui, scored zip.)

Update: Has this Phillies fan taken "ball game" to a whole new level?

Game 2 update: Yanks even the Series, improving the chances for my hoped-for seven games.

The Series from Hell?

According to Lisa Swan, a Yankees versus Phillies Series should give any Mets fan agita. This Mets fan wanted the Yanks to win the pennant once the Red Sox (my favorite AL team by dint of spousal loyalty) were out of contention, if only for the boost it would give to New York City's economy. Now that they're up against the Phils, the question is, for whom do I root? As a Mets fan, I should naturally loathe the Phillies, who are division rivals and frequent nemeses (and, for those with long enough memories, sent us Juan Samuel in a slumping year). On the other hand, I'm a Pennsylvania native with Philadelphia ancestry, and loyal to the National League for preserving real baseball instead of pandering to short attention spans with the DH rule. So, what's to do? Flip a coin?

For now, it's not who I'm rooting for, but what: seven games.

College football: USF falls again, and a fearless prediction.

The South Florida Bulls, designated gladiators of my alma mater, appear to be reiterating a familiar process, i.e. start hot, get a big upset victory, lose a tough one, then fall to pieces. Have the sports gods cursed me by making me both a Mets and Bulls fan?

Meanwhile, the Florida Gators, my arch-loyalty from the days before USF football existed, managed to keep the longest winning streak in college ball going with a victory over Mississippi State. Last week, I wrote that this game had upset potential, and it was something of a struggle for the Gators, though not as much as their previous game against Arkansas. Next Saturday, though, Florida faces a different set of Bulldogs: their arch-rival Georgia. Here is my fearless prediction: Dawgs over Gators, in a close one. (Note, however, that my last fearless prediction came a cropper.)

Bach's third Brandenberg, two ways: Advent Chamber Orchestra and Punch Brothers

The clip above is of the first movement, allegro, of J.S. Bach's third Brandenberg concerto, performed by the Advent Chamber Orchestra, using traditional instrumentation. Instead of showing the musicians playing the piece, this clip, made by smalin, presents a "scrolling, bar-graph score" that lets you visualize the notes being played by the various instruments.



Now, as the Pythons would say, for something completely different. Here's a performance by the Punch Brothers, a five man string band who use traditional bluegrass instruments--banjo, bass, fiddle, guitar, and mandolin--to play both bluegrass and classical music. The clip above shows them, along with Rob Moose on an additional violin, performing Rob's arrangement of the third movement, also allegro, of the third Brandenberg.

Football, finally: Gators survive, Bulls don't.

I've held back on my usual commentary on college football this season, waiting for the shoes to drop. As of now, one has, but the other hasn't. The one that has is that my alma mater, South Florida, has continued its pattern of starting hot, pulling off a stunning upset (this year of Florida State), getting nationally ranked, then losing. This year's nemesis is Cincinnati, which comes out of the game still unbeaten and ranked fifth in both the AP poll and the BCS. It wasn't an instance of the Bulls getting the vapors because of their previous week's ranking of 21st in the AP poll and being on national TV; Cincy was just a better team. What remains to be seen is whether USF can prove resilient instead of going into a funk, as they have after their first loss in the past two seasons. It won't be easy: their next game is away against Pitt, 6-1 and 20th in both AP and BCS, after which they come home to face West Virginia, 5-1, 22nd in AP and 23rd in BCS.

The shoe that didn't drop, at least not yet, was Florida losing to an unranked team, as they did last year to Ole Miss, though the Gators rebounded from that and went on to win the SEC and the BCS championship. While they dodged disaster in the Arkansas game, their next two have, in my view, high upset potential. Next Saturday the visit Mississippi State, which has upset their applecart in the past. A week after that, they face Ur-rival Georgia which, though thrice beaten and unranked, will be hungry for revenge after a string of losses and well-rested, having this weekend off.

Bruce Wasserstein, 1947-2009

I was shocked, while skimming the news a while ago, to come across this Reuters story announcing the death of my law school classmate, Bruce Wasserstein. I hadn't seen Bruce since a class reunion almost twenty years ago; at the time, it struck me how fit he looked compared to the chubby youngster (he started law school at 19, two years younger than most of his classmates, and three years after entering the University of Michigan at 16) I had known from classes and the occasional shared lunch table twenty or so years before. Until I saw the Reuters story, I didn't know about the recent concerns over his health, or the heart irregularities that put him in the hospital several days ago.

The Bruce I knew back in the day was a committed leftist who had been active in Students for a Democratic Society ("SDS"), the pre-eminent student radical organization of the 1960s, as an undergraduate at Michigan. I was surprised when he told me that he was entering the newly announced joint J.D./M.B.A. program, which entailed spending an extra year in Cambridge taking courses at the Business School. He needed, he said, to understand the workings of the system he opposed. For a time, he worked for Ralph Nader, and put his business degree to use in heading the team that produced Nader's critique of Citibank, a thick, statistics laden book the cover of which was adorned with a cartoon pig.

I was surprised, but not shocked, when I heard he had gone to work for Cravath, then and now perhaps New York's most prestigious corporate law firm. The Cravath partnership included several prominent former Kennedy New Frontiersmen, and some who had been student radicals of the '60s were settling into similar career paths, perhaps rationalizing that they could do more good (and make some money in the process which, of course, could also be put to good use) by working inside the system. His leaving Cravath for investment banking, initially at First Boston, also seemed a logical move. By then, I had pretty much lost touch with him, but assumed he still was on the left politically. I was disabused of that notion in 1980, when I volunteered to work on a law school fund raising telethon, and Bruce showed up with a stack of invitations to a fundraiser for Mark Green's congressional campaign. Mark had been Bruce's closest friend in law school and after that a fellow Nader Raider. As he passed around the invitations, Bruce said, "Friendship compels me to do this, but I hope no one here is still a liberal Democrat."

Bruce was preceded in death by his younger sister, Wendy, a Tony and Pulitzer winning playwright, who succumbed to lymphoma at the age of 55. He adopted her young daughter.

I'm impressed by the succinct comment made by "JHL" in response to the piece in today's New York Times Deal Book blog:

Good banker. Created value for clients. Sine qua non of banking, but he would have offered more over time. Peace.

I, too, think "he would have offered more." I envisioned his winding down his frenetic deal-making and, re-kindling his youthful fervor for social justice, applying his tremendous intelligence and practical know-how to some grand project or projects for which he might be remembered long after the RJR/Nabisco and Time/Warner deals are forgotten.

Still life with jellicle.

Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats are rather small;
Jellicle Cats are merry and bright,
And pleasant to hear when they caterwaul.
--T.S. Eliot, "The Song of the Jellicles"

Hepzibah at one of her favorite perches, next to the wheatgrass on which she and her brother, Attila, love to graze. (Photo by Martha Foley.)

Update: Twif asks: "[I]s posting cat photos worse that baby pics?" You decide.

Dolly Trolly wants you for an indie band angel.

Dolly Trolly (clockwise from top left: Sam Trioli, bass, guitar and piano; Tara Lynne Mallon, rhythm guitar, keyboards, percussion and vocals; Tami Johnson, drums and vocals; and Gerard Kouwenhoven, lead guitar, bass and vocals) is a Brooklyn-based band with a self-described style--"Indie/Southern Rock/Pop"--that caught my eye. Having listened to their songs on their MySpace Page, I'm convinced of this group's potential. In some of their vocal harmonies and guitar work I hear echoes of the early Byrds, and their arrangements bring to mind Smiley Smile and later Beach Boys, so perhaps the "Southern rock" refers to Southern California (although when Tara Lynne dons the blonde wig and shades she bears some resemblance to Marshall Chapman).

They're now appealing for funds to complete their demo CD; counting, in these fraught economic times, on their fans to come through for them. Their appeal is stated in a video, no longer available, that used as its musical background the song "Night":



In order to raise the $2,799 (of which $820 has already been pledged) needed to complete the project, the band is asking for pledges (which will only be called upon if they reach the goal by 9:00 A.M. on November 9), for which they are offering rewards based on the amount of the pledge (the rewards are also presumably contingent on their meeting the $2,799 goal by the stipulated date). These are described in detail on this web page. A pledge of only $9 gets you a CD; $25 an autographed CD and a t-shirt. Above that, the reward selection becomes a veritable narcissists' candy store. A $50 pledge gets "props mobile", meaning the band will dedicate a song you choose to you at all their performances, and $150 will have you listed as an "executive producer" of their CD. Pledge $200 and they will write a song about the subject of your choice, list you in the song credits, and dedicate it to you at their three subsequent performances. For $300, you get the "YOUniCyCle" award, which means the group will write a song about you; and $500 gets you a starring role in their next music video.

Update: Dolly Trolly reached their goal on Kickstarter and their CD, Tiny Love Pieces, was produced. (I have a copy, signed by the then band members.) The band still exists, though reduced to three members: Trioli, Mallon, and Johnson.

Yanks win, Red sox lose.

It's official. I'm a Yankee fan for the duration of the ALCS, and maybe for the Series. Sorry, Twif; I hope you enjoy your quality time with Lil' MacDuff and Harold.

John Prine, "Paradise"

Above, courtesy of jordanthecat, is a clip of a young John Prine, on the steps of what had been his family's house in Maywood, Illinois, with his "number one partner in crime", John Burns, singing "Paradise", a lament for his parents' home town in Kentucky. Here's jordanthecat's description of the provenance of this song and clip:

"Paradise" is one of the three songs John Prine first performed on stage- the others being "Sam Stone" and "Hello In There." He still plays all of these songs in his concerts today, almost forty years later.

Muhlenb[e]rg County, in western Kentucky, was once one of North America's largest coal-producing regions. The Peabody Coal Company, now called Peabody Energy, is to this day one of the world's largest coal companies.

The town of Paradise[,] in Muhlenb[e]rg County, was flooded by the waters of the Green River in 1969 when a dam was erected, in order to facilitate barge traffic to and from the Peabody coal fields.

This clip is from the outstanding "JOHN PRINE LIVE ON SOUNDSTAGE 1980" DVD, released in March, 2007.

John Prine's site: http://www.ohboy.com/

Today is John Prine's sixty third birthday. Many more years of good living and singing, John.

Baseball playoffs: where I stand.

So long as the Red Sox are in it, I'll root for them. Spousal loyalty and all that.

If the Sox fail to make it to the Series, I'll root for the National League team, unless that team is the Dodgers, in which instance I'll back the Designated Hitter League team, even if that team is the Yankees.

Update: The Yanks trashed the Twins in the ALDS opener Wednesday, and yesterday the Sox fell 5-0 to the Angels, which my wife, using convoluted Bay State logic, takes to be a good sign. Meanwhile, in the Real Baseball League, the Phils went one up on the Rockies, and the Cards, doing their best Mets impression, blew it on an error and lost to the Dodgers. So far, so bad.

artandsoul says, anyone but the Yankees. Twif says, if the Sox are eliminated, he'll return to repeated viewings of Harold and the Purple Crayon.

Second update: I hadn't considered the possibility of an Angels/Dodgers Series. Perhaps I should check Netflix for availability of Harold and the Purple Crayon.

The Yale of the Beauforts demonstrates Google's continued superiority to Bing

                                Flickr photo by M Kuhn

Your correspondent is in Tampa for a week that commenced with his 45th year high school reunion (coincident with a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of his now truly grand old school) and will conclude with the celebration tomorrow of his mother's 93rd birthday.

This morning (conveniently now switching to the first person) I was sitting with my mother, going through her collection of memorabilia that includes extensive documentation of our time (1951-54) in England, where my father was on assignment with the U.S. Air Force. We were there during the coronation of Elizabeth II, and one of the items I found was a pamphlet titled "Westminster Abbey in its Coronation Setting". The text of the pamphlet begins:

Approaching the west end of the Abbey from Dean's Yard, the visitor comes first to the west side of the Annexe, which is composed almost wholly of glass. On this are engraved panels showing the Royal Badges--the Rose, the Thistle, the Leek and the Shamrock. Below, at eye level, are The Queen's Beasts, which were specially modelled by Mr. James Woodford, R.A., on the lines of the King's Beasts carved for King Henry VIII at Hampton Court. The Beasts and the arms they carry exemplify the descent of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen's Beasts in the order they are approched from Dean's Yard are as follows:

1. The Falcon of the Plantagenets
2. The Bull of Clarence
3. The Griffin of Edward III
4. The Unicorn of Scotland
5. The White Lion of the Mortimers
6. The White Horse of Hanover
7. The Dragon of the Tudors
8. The Yale of the Beauforts
9. The Greyhound of the Tudors
10. The Lion of England

This raised two questions in my mind. One was, "Why did the Tudors rate two beasts?" The second, and more immediately compelling, was, "What the heck is a yale?"

Since Mom's computer has MSN as its homepage, I was prompted to try Bing for my web search, "Yale of the Beauforts". Bing drew blank, suggesting several unhelpful alternatives including "Beaufort Sea" and "Beaufort, S.C." (which, incidentally, are pronounced differently). So, I turned to old, reliable Google, which directed me to M Kuhn's Flickr photo that appears at the top of this post, and which is accompanied by the following text:

The yale was a mythical beast, said to be white in colour and covered with gold spots. It's [sic] peculiar characteristic was that it could swivel each of its horns independently. It de[s]cends to the Queen through Henry VII, who inherited it from his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. The shield shows a portcullis surmounted by the arched royal crown. The portcullis (uncrowned) was a Beaufort badge, but was used both crowned and uncrowned by Henry VII.

Now I know of another member of the mythical bestiary, as well as to continue to rely on Google.

Update:  artandsoul answers my first question (which I never attempted to do):

I think the tenuousness of his right to the throne spurred Henry VII to acquire TWO beasts to pull the carriage of his [Tudor] name.

One mythical and one natural, no less.

Opera on the street: Martha Cardona Theater

On my home street, Montague, in Brooklyn Heights, singers and instrumentalists from the Martha Cardona Theater performed this piece from Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, along with many other opera vignettes, as part of the Montague Street Business Improvement District's "Summerspace" program.

Things like this are among what makes living in New York great.

Mets may blow their last chance.

Today, the Mets beat the Nats with superb pitching by Tim Redding, timely hitting by Jeff Francouer, Daniel Murphy, and David Wright, and a rare--these days--save opportunity made good by Francisco Rodriguez.

Unfortunately, this puts the Mets thirteen games "behind" Washington in the one race the Mets can still win: the race to the bottom of the NL East. This is with thirteen games left to play.

I'm contemplating the bleak prospect of a Yankees-Dodgers World Series. If it happens, I may hold my nose and root for the Yanks, unlike in 1955 and '56.

Old-time country music from the green hills of Brooklyn.

Yesterday afternoon I attended part of the Twelfth Annual Park Slope Bluegrass & Old-Time Jamboree, at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. I walked in as a group of musicians, led by a fiddler with an impressive red beard, were jamming under a tent (see clip above).

After that, a smaller group performed under a tree.

Finally, on the lawn nearby, a group that included accordion and autoharp as well as a guitarist and vocalist, did the Carter Family classic, "Will the Circle be Unbroken?" Unfortunately, my memory card reached capacity before the song was over.

Melanie Hope Greenberg: "Beams of Hope"

Yesterday, riding the "M" train to Bushwick, I noticed the bright red pedestrian walkway on the Williamsburgh Bridge next to the track. While I've walked over the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges many times, I've only crossed the Williamsburgh once on foot. That was on September 11, 2001, with my daughter, my friend Marie, and her two sons as we made our way back to Brooklyn by the then only available route from the kids' school, P.S. 150, in lower Manhattan, a few blocks north of the World Trade Center. I remembered looking south at the smoke blowing eastward toward my neighborhood, Brooklyn Heights, and the fighter jets flying overhead along the path of the East River. I also remembered the Hasidim who greeted us on the Brooklyn side, offering us cups of water.

Last year, I posted a photo of the "Tribute in Light", the twin searchlight beams sponsored by the Municipal Art Society in memory of the September 11 tragedy. This year, I've posted "Beams of Hope", by my friend and neighbor Melanie Hope Greenberg, an artist, author and illustrator of children's books. Image © 2004 Melanie Hope Greenberg.

Jeter ties Gehrig's record.

Much as I've made it clear that my dislike of the Yankees goes a long way back, and I think most Yankee fans (though there are important exceptions) can be classified as either financial house quants who spend their time plotting new securitization strategies that could lead to the next market meltdown or gum-beating airheads who, when asked, "Why the Yankee cap?", will answer, "Oooh! Derek Jeter...he's so-o-o-o cute!", my animosity does not extend to most (though, again, there are exceptions) individual Yankee players, past or present. Indeed, the roster of baseball's truly great includes a disproportionate number of those who, for most or all of their careers, wore pinstripes. Perhaps the greatest of these was Lou Gehrig.

Nevertheless, I'm not dismayed to see Jeter (who, the last time I attended a Yankee home game, was rushed by two of the aforementioned airheads who came out of the stands to kiss him, and no doubt were rewarded with a night in the lockup) tying Gehrig's hit record. He's worthy of this, both for his play and for his character. I think Lou would be pleased.

Bravo Obama!

The details of the plan are good, if not all I might have wanted. What made the speech great was his peroroation in which he addressed the larger issue of government's role in society, and the people's relationship to government.

Self-Absorbed Boomer reaches the four year mark.

The fifth anniversary is usually reckoned the first biggie, but I can't resist giving the fourth a bit of fanfare.

Thanks to my Site Meter, I've learned a lot about who's visiting my blog, and why. Relax. I can't, in most cases, identify specific visitors, unless you're using a server at work, like one regular reader who works for a local college. When I get a hit from that college's server, I'm pretty sure it's him. If you're reading me from home, and use, say (as I do), Verizon as your ISP, your IP address will vary depending on which of your ISP's local servers your traffic is being routed through at the time. I can "tag" you if I send you a link to S-AB by e-mail and you follow it back; if you have, for example, a Road Runner address, and I see a hit referred from Road Runner at your location, I'll be reasonably certain it's you. But, unless you have your own dedicated server, I won't be able to use the IP address to identify future visits from you.

I've learned from my Site Meter that upwards of ninety per cent of hits on my blog (of which I'm averaging just over 1,000 per month now) result from web searches for things other than my blog or me. Some of these are just for concatenations of words that occur randomly in different posts (Google will aggregate these); my favorite, to date, being "married Nashville women wanted for casual sex". A fair number are for terms or phrases incorporating the word "boomer". For a while, I was getting a lot of hits from India, where apparently there was some kind of on-line game going called "Play Ben Ten Boomer". "Self-absorbed" is also an attractor: I get lots of visits off searches like "how to deal with self-absorbed husband" (no, it wasn't my wife). Most of these searches, however, are for topics about which I've posted. The two most popular, over time, have been subjects on which I've unwittingly become something of a web authority.

The first of these is the Eisenhower Lock, which is part of the St. Lawrence Seaway system, which allows ships of considerable size to transit from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The Lock is located about two miles from my in-laws' house in Massena, New York, and, being a ship buff, I almost always visit it when we visit them. I've posted about it here, here, and here. The other is a train we sometimes ride when going to visit my in-laws, Amtrak's Adirondack, about which I've posted here and here.

I'll conclude by commending to you some posts I've made over the years that I think deserve your attention, if you haven't already seen them. In the area of political economy, I recommend Is corporate greenery undemocratic?. For literature, please look at Riding the train with Fred Exley. For music, check out Marshall Chapman can't be like other girls. For visual arts, please see Pierre Bonnard, "Late Interiors", at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Finally, for local color, take a look at The Bells of Hell and The walk home through Red Hook.

I promise that, during year five, I'll do my best to merit your continued attention. I also welcome suggestions for improvement.

"Abundance", BWAC outdoor sculpture show.

The 27th 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 5. Here are some of the works on display:

"Dodecaps", by Bernard Klevickas.

Untitled, by Nova Mihai Popa.

"Windwave", by Maximilian Pelzmann (contrast this with my nighttime image of the same sculpture).

"Mirror Mobile", by Summer Yates.

"Recurrence", by The Friendship Project Collaborative Group (Corrina Sephora Mensoff, Terri Dilling, Susan Ker-Seymer, Alison Weldon, Amandine Drouet, and Mary McCarthy).

For images of works in last year's show, click here.

Bruntlett's unassisted triple play: at least the Mets find interesting ways to lose.

Addendum: Today I'm reminded of what Greg Prince, co-author of Faith and Fear in Flushing, wrote some time back: "Being a Mets fan is recognizing reality and accepting that sometimes things are too funny to be sad and sometimes too sad to be funny." (Quoted in John Koblin, "The Anti-Homers", New York Observer, July 20, 2009).

Update: Twiffer, evidently wanting to steer me to the "too funny to be sad" side, sent me a link to this Onion article. Like all good satire, it empearls a grain of truth. (Indeed, I wish someone could tag the Wilpons out.) The Mets did dutifully lose to the Marlins last night (Pelfrey had one of his too-frequent misadvetures; can anyone tell me who is on the Mets' starting rotation now?).

Today, the Mets rose from the dead to trounce the Marlins 10-3, courtesy of not-so-bad pitching by Redding (Pelfrey + Redding: there's 2/5 of the rotation) and good pitching by the bullpen; lots of offense; and lousy fielding by the Marlins. But, while you're on that link, scroll down (and down, and down) through the Mets' D.L. It sorta looks like the casualty roster from Antietam.

Update-update: at least the Cyclones haven't imploded. Yet.

Your correspondent finds, to his great surprise, that he's a really cool guy.

Today's New York Times fashion section includes an article by Guy Trebay that starts with this welcome (to me, at least, if not to Robin Lester, who tipped me off to it) news:

This summer the unvarying male uniform in the precincts of Brooklyn cool has been a pair of shorts cut at knickers length, a V-neck Hanes T-shirt, a pair of generic slip-on sneakers and a straw fedora. Add a leather cuff bracelet if the coolster is gay.

In truth this get-up was pretty much the unvarying male uniform last summer also, but this year an unexpected element has been added to the look, and that is a burgeoning potbelly one might term the Ralph Kramden.

For anyone too young, or un-steeped in American pop culture, to remember The Honeymooners, here's a photo of Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden, intrepid Brooklyn bus driver, thrusting his ample belly forward. Compare this to the photo of myself at the top of this post. It's not a stretch to say that I have a "Kramden."

Of course, Trebay notes that the hipster's Kramden is "developed too young to come under the heading of a paunch"; nevertheless, I submit that mine has entirely been the product of a period in which I have been Young At Heart (for some odd reason, my wife persists in using the archaic locution "immature").

To top things off, I later got drawn into one of those virally multiplying Facebook quizzes, this one seeking to determine "[w]hich Last Exit [a bar I have actually visited twice] patron are you?" The answer I got was "The Hipster":

What's up with crazy yourself, hep-cat?! Nice shirt... oh, I get it. You're not REALLY a trucker named Randy. You got that at Beacon's closet. Well, congrats you Brooklyn dwelling recreant. You're the kind of customer that is nice, polite, easy on the eye and an excellent tipper. It's okay that the credit card you're using is under you dad's name- we know where that money is coming from. You like to drop by on Friday nights and come in sometimes on Monday for Pub Quiz with your workmates from Google. It's cool. Just don't get too drunk and vomit in the bathroom - that's when you cease to be pleasant. Until then, cheers!

Not too bad a description, I submit, except for the bits about dad's credit card and working for Google. I haven't been in for Pub Quiz yet, but it sounds like something I should check out.

I'll confess, I did have to be a bit creative in answering some of the quiz questions. For example, the multiple choices for "What do you order to drink?" didn't include "craft-brewed ale, e.g. Six Point Brownstone or Dogfish Head IPA", so I had to make do with the closest substitute: "PBR and a shot of Jack." Of course, a couple rounds of that would put my aging liver on the ropes, but never mind. Tomorrow, I shall wake with a new mantra: "I'm cool, I'm no fool, get used to it!"

Oh, yeah. Did I mention that I have an IMDb page?