Mets win spring training opener.

What's more, they beat the Braves, a traditional nemesis. Nevertheless, there had to be an injury-related worm in the apple, as pitcher Elmer Dessens is removed after a line drive hits his knee.

So, what does this mean in the great scheme of things? In the immortal words of Mr. Natural, "Don't mean shee-it." Remember, they won the spring training opener last year.

Remembering some 1960s pop music: Dave Clark Five, Gale Garnett, We Five.

Many of us boomers think of the 1960s as the acme of pop music. Several genres had their origin, and sometimes their demise, in that decade: Motown, Philly and Memphis Stax/Volt soul; surf; Phil Spector's "wall of sound"; British invasion (itself consisting of several sub-genres such as Merseybeat, the Oxford sound, and various R&B influenced styles: London--think the Rolling Stones; Newcastle--think the Animals; and Belfast--think Them and Van Morrison); folk rock; San Francisco psychedelia; and even an early sort of disco exemplified by Joey Dee and the Starliters. In this post, I've collected a few of the perhaps less enduringly famous remnants of that decade which I nevertheless remember fondly. Some of these are grainy black and white videos with less than perfect sound, but I hope you can enjoy them.

The Dave Clark Five, "Glad All Over" and "Bits and Pieces":
During 1964 and '65, this group--unusual in being named for their drummer--rivaled the Beatles and Stones in popularity. The British Pathé news clip above introduces the band and shows "live" (lip-synched) performances of their first two hits: "Glad All Over" and "Bits and Pieces".

Gale Garnett, "We'll Sing in the Sunshine":

The radio soundtrack for my first term at the University of South Florida in the fall of 1964 prominently included this song, along with Manfed Mann's "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy", Gene Pitney's "It Hurts to Be in Love", and "She's Not There" by the Zombies. Gale was later an occasional visitor to the Lion's Head, but I never met her.

We Five, "You Were on My Mind":

We Five were not quite a one hit wonder; after "You Were on My Mind" a later recording, now forgotten, made it to 31 on the pop charts. "You Were on My Mind", written by Sylvia Fricker Tyson of Ian and Sylvia, reached number three on the Billboard "Hot 100" in August of 1965. Much of its success, and that of the subsequent album, can be attributed to the style and vocal range of their lead singer, Beverly Bivens. She has been compared to, among others, Fairport Convention's first female singer, Judy Dyble.

Baseball (yawn!) is happening again.

For some years now, the words "pitchers and catchers report" have, for me, been a tonic in bleak February. Not so this year. I'm a Mets fan, and what I've learned to expect from the Mets is MOTS (More Of The Same). "The same", of course, is disappointment, compounded of anemic hitting, porous defense, inconsistent pitching, and, mostly, a DL that, as the season progresses, comes to resemble a casualty roster from Anzio. This year, with spring training just starting, Carlos Beltran is out until at least May following surgery and ace starter Johan Santana is coming off surgery, though evidently looking good in his first bullpen session. The acquisition of Jason Bay adds a good hitter to the outfield, but one who is (the Mets really need this) prone to injury. For a wrap-up of the Mets' offseason, it's hard to beat Jon Lewin's Mets Hot Stove Roundup: the Pilot Light is Out. (Jon asks readers to buy him a coffee on PayPal. I don't have a PayPal account, but if Jon should have occasion to visit Brooklyn Heights, I'll be glad to treat him to some of Lassen & Hennigs' premium joe.)

If there's any reason for hope, it's that the Mets don't have, to invoke a well-worn phrase, the burden of expectations. I'm keeping my expectations low: a few days ago, I posted as my Facebook status that I was rooting for them to finish no lower than third in the NL East. The more I think about it, though, the more I'm convinced I should be happy if, once again, they can finish ahead of the Nats.

Update: Twif (a.k.a. Ethel, as in "Stop torturing me,..."), who either is as hostile to capitalization as e.e. cummings or has the same difficulty with the shift key as Don Marquis' archy, says: "hey, don't forget that the phillies went out and got roy halladay."

Dale Hawkins, 1936-2010

LaVern Baker, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, Bo Diddley, Don and Phil Everly, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, Ritchie Valens: these are the stars of the first generation of rock and roll. Today only Chuck, the Everlys and (improbably) Jerry Lee survive. There were others of that cohort who didn't achieve the same degree of fame but nevertheless influenced the history of rock. Among these were Charlie Gracie, Janis Martin, Big Joe Turner, Link Wray, and Dale Hawkins. With the death of Dale Hawkins last Saturday, Charlie Gracie is the only survivor of these five.

The clip above, from Dale's own YouTube channel, shows him performing a tribute to Bo Diddley, backed on guitar by James Burton, who has played with, among others, Elvis and Marshall Chapman.

Thanks to Michael Simmons for giving me the following Hawkins quote; his advice to aspiring rockers: "Study the masters, man. . . . Grab the roots and see how it evolved and know what's real."

Townes van Zandt, "Rake"

Townes van Zandt (1944-1997) had a voice and a lyric pen I'll always miss. The clip above (courtesy of lapislazuli42) was, according to its caption, made at a "private concert" at a Holiday Inn in Houston, in 1988. I think this must have been done late at night, following a gig, or perhaps after a long day's travel. His voice sounds a little weary, but that fits the song perfectly.

The splendor that was steam: Nickel Plate and Pere Marquette Berkshires in action.

To get the full effect of this video, double click twice to bring it to full screen size, and crank up the volume.

Because I was born on the leading edge of the baby boom, I was able to witness what train buffs, among whom I count myself, call the "transition period", during which steam still supplied a significant portion of motive power on railroads. My childhood memories include Union Pacific's enormous Big Boy and Challenger articulated locomotives pulling seemingly endless blocks of bright yellow-orange refrigerator cars over Sherman Hill in Wyoming, streamlined steamers on high-speed passenger runs on British Railways, and the Pennsylvania Railroad's formidable array of steam power on both freight and passenger trains that thundered past my mother's home town, Tyrone, Pennsylvania.

So I was delighted to find this short (ten minutes) video of two locomotives from the last years of steam (both built in the late '40s or early '50s) that have been preserved in working order, pulling a train of restored transition era freight cars, running on the tracks of the Great Lakes Central Railroad across the flat farmland of central Michigan. Both are of the "Berkshire", or 2-8-4, type, with two (one on each side) forward small "pilot" wheels; eight large, powered driving wheels; and four small trailing wheels under the large firebox. They are of virtually identical design, having been built for railroads under common ownership, that followed parallel routes. The Nickel Plate, officially the New York, Chicago & St. Louis (it got its nickname because it was a high-speed route with top quality trackage, built entirely for cash), followed the southern shore of Lake Erie from Buffalo across Ohio to Chicago. The Pere Marquette, named for a French priest and explorer, followed the most direct route from Buffalo to Detroit, across southern Ontario to the north of Lake Erie. Today, these roads are under different ownership. Nickel Plate is part of Norfolk Southern, one of the two great surviving rail systems in the eastern U.S., while Pere Marquette is part of its rival, CSX.

This video is by Lerro Productions and JoMiFu. Thanks to silverprint2002 of NYC Maritime for the link.

The song of the hour.

The great Satchmo, who would have loved tonight's Super Bowl result.

Update: Someone commented on this post, in Chinese. Using Babel Fish, I got the following translation:

The human must cherish hoped that only then the live joy, the day only will then cross substantially, meaningful, will have the vitality, will have the confidence.

Seems on point to me.

Lower Manhattan architectural contrasts, redux.

In my almost daily walks across the Brooklyn Bridge and back I've found time to admire the examples of various architectural styles represented among the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan (see this earlier post). In the photo above, taken from the Bridge, the American International Building casts its shadow on One Chase Manhattan Plaza. American International, designed by the architectural firm Clinton & Russell, Holton & George, was completed in 1932 for the petroleum and utilities conglomerate Cities Service, and was later sold to the now-distressed insurance giant AIG. It is a fine example of the art deco skyscraper style that came to dominate the New York City skyline (other well known examples being the Chrysler, Empire State, and General Electric buildings in midtown Manhattan) during the 1920s and 30s. There are some very good photos of details of the building here.

One Chase was designed by Gordon Bunshaft of the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Bunshaft and SOM were influential in making the international style of architecture dominant in post World War Two New York office building design. One Chase was completed in 1961 to serve as the headquarters of Chase Manhattan Bank, now merged into JPMorgan Chase. When I first settled in New York in the early 1970s, the law firm with which I was associated had its offices in One Chase. From a distance, the building has a light, almost lace-like appearance. I found, however, when I first approached it, that the huge load-bearing exterior columns on the north and south facades give it a massive, almost forbidding aspect.

Other buildings prominent in this photo are 60 Wall Street, the building with a truncated pyramidal roof immediately to the left of the American International Building, and 180 Maiden Lane, the building sheathed in green-tinted glass immediately to the left of 60 Wall. These buildings, both completed in the 1980s, exemplify very different architectural styles. 60 Wall is in the style sometimes called "postmodern", which reacted to the austerity of the international style by incorporating decorative elements evocative of neoclassicism or art deco. 80 Maiden Lane is in what could be said to be a direct offshoot of the international style, in which the rectangular box form was forsaken in favor of structures with walls meeting at acute or obtuse angles, and beveled edges, giving the impression, as one commentator put it years ago, of buildings produced by machine tools.

Is civilization a product of intoxication?

I've long considered the moderate consumption of alcohol to be a useful, if not essential, adjunct to civilized life. According to this Der Spiegel article, however, booze may have been, if not the mother, at least the midwife of civilization. Among the interesting recent anthropological discoveries: beer may have been invented in what is now Iran, where having a tipple today can get you a flogging.

Note the comment by reader "hxie", who observes that "[i]n the days before mechanised agriculture in Europe beer supplied a large proportion of the sustenance required for physical labour during the harvest."

Thanks to Michael Simmons for the tip: I owe you a beer the next time you're in New York (or I'm in L.A.).

My SOTU trivial observation.

The President had to make do with having his head flanked by Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. Governor McDonnell, giving the Republican response, had the advantage of hand-picking his audience and his camera angle, which had him bracketed by an African-American woman and an Asian-American man. In both instances, the male member of the flanking pair nodded affirmatively almost incessantly. How soon will we see a Biden bobblehead on the market?

Update: No need to wait, sez the ever-alert Twif. There already is one (but get your order in fast; they've sold like hotcakes and there's, as of this writing, just one left).

It seems I'll have to watch the Super Bowl, after all.

I've never been much of an NFL fan. As I've explained before, I came of sports fan age in Florida long before there were Bucs or Jaguars, or even Dolphins. Back in the 1950s and '60s, the college game was the Real Deal. I took an occasional interest in pro ball; for a while, I was a fan of the Baltimore Colts because my dad and I had watched their star running back, Lenny Moore, when he played for the Eglin Air Force Base Eagles. (For a time, I thought the horseshoe design on the Colts' helmet was a "U" for Unitas.) Still, I was always more interested in the fortunes of the Florida Gators and Florida State Seminoles. Having no connection to either school, I rooted for both, but usually rooted for State when they played Florida because of my weakness for underdogs. This later changed when Bobby Bowden built the 'Noles into a superpower; my algorithm then was to back whichever team had the best shot at post-season glory.

After moving to New York, and having read Fred Exley's A Fan's Notes, I declared myself a Giants fan. In 1976, however, the Tampa Bay Bucs came on the scene, tempting me with old hometown loyalty. I went to the Lion's Head to watch them play the Giants, who had just forsaken the City to play in their new stadium in the New Jersey meadowlands. I arrived, checked the score on the TV, and said to Tommy the bartender, "Looks like my home town team isn't doing so hot." "Yeah," Tommy said, "Jersey's beating 'em."

After that, my interest in baseball began to eclipse that in football, though I still followed the college game. I would watch the Super Bowl, usually rooting for whichever team was rated the underdog. I did root for the Giants in 1986, when they beat the Broncos in Super Bowl XXI. However, in 1990, when they played the Bills in XXV, I secretly (since I watched the game at the apartment of a Giants fan) rooted for Buffalo because of their underdog status and my (some would say perverse) liking for the Queen City of the Niagara Frontier.

This year I was impressed by the Saints, and thought it would be a good thing for poor New Orleans, another city I love, to get a championship. Then along came the Jets, rising from mid-season near disaster to defeat the Colts, I team I have loathed since Robert Irsay deliberately sabotaged the franchise in Baltimore, then shipped the team's equipment out of town under cover of night. I thought the Bengals would prove the Jets' nemesis, but against all conventional wisdom they won two games from them, both decisively. It seemed too much to hope they could pull off a fourth miracle, and it was.

Had the Vikings won the NFC crown, I'd have sat out this year's Super Bowl, but Brees and company came through, so I'll cast my lot with them.

Haiti: special needs.

I've been dilatory in posting about the disaster in Haiti, not out of lack of concern, but because I believed I had nothing of value to add by way of blogging, as opposed to contributing, which I did through Episcopal Relief and Development, an organization I know to be trustworthy and effective. I made my contribution in memory of my friend Charles A. McCrann, who was in his office on the hundredth floor of One World Trade Center when the first plane hit on September 11, 2001. He left a lovely Haitian American wife and two children.

My Brooklyn Heights Blog colleague T.K. Small posted this comment on BHB:

This afternoon I spent some time creating my own fund-raising campaign for contributions to the Haitian relief efforts. Specifically, it concerns me that people with disabilities are at the absolute bottom level of society and, even under the best of conditions, experience unimaginable poverty.

Through some research I was able to find an organization which has expertise and a track record of providing relief to people with disabilities. Based upon the recommendation of a personal friend of the legitimacy of the organization, I made a contribution. But still I wanted to know more and called the organizer to get a better sense of what they were doing. Very quickly I realized that this is a credible initiative. The organization is called:

Portlight Strategies, Inc.
2043 Maybank Highway
Charleston, SC 294
http://www.portlight.org

My Frayfriend Hipparchia also posted this on her blog.

If you've already given, thanks. If not, please do.

Norovirus or no, Queen Victoria arrives.

Cunard's newest cruiser, the 90,000 grt Queen Victoria, as I saw her this morning from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, passing Governors Island and the Statue of Liberty en route to the cruise ship terminal on Manhattan's West Side.

News reports were that the ship might be denied permission to dock here because some passengers had been infected with norovirus, which causes gastrointestinal distress and nausea. Evidently, the crew and medical personnel on the ship were able to contain the outbreak before it reached a level sufficient to justify such action. Several other cruise ships have had similar problems recently.

Photos of Queen Victoria docked during her maiden visit to New York two years ago are here

Addendum: Was it all the fault of H.R.H. the Duchess of Cornwall? Perhaps she could use some bottle-smashing lessons.

The universe: spatially and temporally.

In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the second volume of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker series, Zaphod Beeblebrox, as punishment for his theft of the Heart of Gold spaceship, is put into the Total Perspective Vortex, supposedly the most fiendish torture device ever made:

When you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little mark, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, "You are here."

Zaphod is able to survive the Vortex with his sanity intact because his ego is robust enough to conclude that the "You are here" marker means that he is the most important thing in the universe, the whole vastness of which was made specially for him.

The American Museum of Natural History has produced a video that, while not having the intended impact of the Vortex, nevertheless gives a sense of the immensity of the known universe (double click twice on the video to bring it to full screen size for maximal effect):


As the text on the video notes, our view of the known universe has a temporal as well as a spatial dimension. Because light travels at a finite speed, light from distant objects reaches us some time after it originated. When we look at Alpha Centauri, the nearest star, we are seeing it as it was about four and a half years ago. As we've developed more powerful telescopes, we've expanded our temporal as well as our spatial horizon, looking farther and farther back in time. Below is an image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, in which the circled objects are the most distant galaxies yet detected.

As detailed in this NASA web page, the faint galaxies in this image are about 13 billion light years away, which means we are seeing them as they were six to eight hundred million years after the Big Bang.

Thanks to Geoff Abrams for forwarding the AMNH video.

Let the Art Institute of Chicago help you with your resolutions.

I'm not one for resolutions. As my wife sometimes says (usually as I'm pouring my ill-advised second helping of Cognac): "You have the willpower of a gnat." Nevertheless, I'm glad to see as distinguished an organization as the Art Institute coming to the aid of those who wish to start the new year, indeed decade, off in good form. As a guide to what should be resolved against (or, according to one of my Facebook friends, in favor of), the Institute has mounted an exhibit of paintings and sculptures illustrating the Seven Deadly Sins, beginning with Lust (see Titian's Danaë--possibly the first-ever recipient of a golden shower--above). For those of you not willing to brave a trip to Chicago in the winter (my friend Marian Saska can give you the chilling details of the winter of 1979 there), the guide to the complete exhibit, with images of the art works, can be seen on-line here.

New year's shout-outs.

Brooklyn Bridge pedestrian and bike path, January 1, 2010

I've made it my practice, on New Year's Day, to thank my readers, and to recognize those who have given this blog help and support during the previous year. As always, my biggest source of new readers has been Brooklyn Heights Blog, now part of the Brooklyn Bugle empire. So, once again, my hat's off to Homer Fink and the rest of my BHB colleagues. Other blogs that have been helpful sources of traffic are Age of Reason, artandsoul, Bed-Stuy Blog, Growing Tomatoes from Seed, Instaputz, Forgotten NY, Fucked in Park Slope, Luna Park Gazette, newyorkshitty, Notes from a Transitional Fossil, Nurse Ratched's Place, Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, Rumproast, This Page Intentionally Left Blank, and tugster: a waterblog, so thanks, respectively, to Thomas Paine; Cindy Jacobs; The Changeling; Switters; ts; Kevin Walsh; Erica; Rob Lenihan; Miss Heather; Archaeopteryx; Mother Jones, RN; Louise Crawford; Kevin K; Twif; and Will Van Dorp. Other loyal readers and commenters include Tom and Polly Beason, Brooklyn Beat, Ted Burke, catnapping, Melanie Hope Greenberg, Susan Houx, Isonomist, Keifus, The Lone Beader, Joe Louzonis, Joe Martini, Maria McGarry, Marian Saska, Schadenfreude, Michael Simmons, Sometimes Saintly Nick, Mike and Bonnie Starling, Lisa Swan, and Allan and Marcia Tremmel. If I've overlooked you, please let me know and I will add you to the roll.

This year I'm giving a special "thank you" to Daniel Machalaba for spotting my post about the Amtrak Adirondack and quoting me in his Wall Street Journal article about baby boomers discovering rail travel, and to WSJ multimedia producer Beckey Bright for making the video that accompanies the on-line version of Dan's article.

"Amtrak Adirondack" (or variants thereof) continues to be one of the most popular web searches to lead to hits on my blog, along with Eisenhower Lock. This year, Fred Exley has also drawn many visits. Probably the biggest attraction in 2009, however, was my post about the Pierre Bonnard exhibit at the Met. A tip of the hat goes to Mark Crawford for sparking my interest in Bonnard. Another popular destination has been my post on jazz and the visual arts, which was inspired by Mike Sorgatz.

Sadly, 2009 saw the deaths of many people whom I knew or simply admired (these are listed in rough chronological order): Andrew Wyeth, Darlene Bailey, Stephen Bruton, Koko Taylor, Paul Hemphill, Walter Cronkite, Frank McCourt, Ted Kennedy, Bruce Wasserstein, and Liam Clancy. Farewell.

To all of you: my fondest wishes for a happy and prosperous new year.

The view on the last morning of 2009.

Here's the view from my window this morning, looking across Pierrepont Place toward Pierrepont Playground and Columbia Heights beyond.

The playground occupies the site on which formerly stood the Henry Pierrepont mansion, the rear of which is seen in the center of the turn-of-the 19th to 20th century photo at left. (The photo comes from this Brooklyn Heights Blog post.) The Pierrepont mansion was designed by Frederick A. Peterson, a German-born architect perhaps best known for the Cooper Union building in Manhattan. The mansion was demolished in 1946.

The building the edge of which is seen at the left of my photo at top, the rear of which can be seen toward the right in the old photo, is the Abiel Abbott Low mansion, designed by Richard Upjohn and completed in 1857. To its south (part of the rear visible at the right of the old photo) is its near mirror-image twin, also by Upjohn, the Alexander M. White mansion. Low and White were prominent merchants, Low in the China trade and White in furs. Low was the father of Seth Low who, at various times, served as Mayor of the City of Brooklyn, President of Columbia University, and Mayor of New York City.

"Once in Royal David's City"

My favorite carol, performed by the choir of King's College, Cambridge, as shown on the BBC "Carols from King's" series. Thanks to edders05 for the clip.

Your correspondent rides the Adirondack with Beckey Bright of the Wall Street Journal.

About six weeks ago I received a call from Daniel Machalaba, a freelance writer who sometimes writes on railway related topics. Dan said he was working on an article for the Wall Street Journal about retired baby boomers discovering or re-discovering rail travel. He had read my blog post about riding the Adirondack, which, he said, might be an ideal "starter train" for someone wanting to sample rail travel because its route is very scenic but also short compared to Amtrak's or VIA Canada's transcontinental routes. We talked for a while about my history as a railfan, having spent time in my childhood watching action on the four-track main of the Pennsylvania Railroad at my mother's hometown, Tyrone, Pennsylvania, and about my experiences riding the Adirondack from Penn Station up to Plattsburgh, New York and back on trips to visit my in-laws in Massena. He asked me about things that could be seen from the train, the quality of the service, and timeliness. Finally, he said he had what he thought was some good material for his article.

I heard from Dan again a couple of weeks ago. He said his article would be in the December 19 issue of the Journal, then, to my delight, added that his editor thought it would be good to have me interviewed while riding the Adirondack as far as Poughkeepsie, and to have the interview as a video to accompany Dan's article. So it was that, last Tuesday, I stood under the arrivals/departures board at Penn Station and was greeted there by Beckey Bright, who proved, in appearance and personality, perfectly to embody her name. Beckey did a superb job of editing the ensuing rambling discourse to include only those parts in which I managed to sound the least foolish. I have two regrets: first, that the views of the scenery are less than inspiring because of the weather, and second, that my voice couldn't be edited so as to make me sound a little less like Ben Stein.

You can read Dan's article here.

Liam Clancy, last of the Clancy Brothers.

Though we were both Lion's Head denizens, I never met Liam Clancy. I did meet his brother Paddy, who died eleven years ago, at the Head's bar one afternoon in the 1980s, and even harmonized on a couple of songs with him. Tom, the oldest of the singing Clancys (there were nine siblings), died in 1990, and their singing partner Tommy Makem in 2007. Liam was the last remanant of a group I came to love in 1965, when I got a copy of their record album Recorded Live in Ireland. As announced on his website, Liam died in his native Ireland on Friday.

12/7 update: Liam was buried today. There was a rainbow. Photos and text are here.

New York Senator Diane Savino on marriage equality.

New York state Senator Diane Savino represents parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island. Her measured, well reasoned yet impassioned plea to her colleagues to approve marriage equality for same sex couples, in what I was dismayed to learn was a losing cause, has been well distributed on the web, but I'm compelled, on behalf of my many friends in committed same sex relationships and out of my sense of justice, to add it to my blog. To anyone who might accuse Senator Savino of playing to a gay vote in her district, I can vouch that it is an area that is largely middle class, Roman Catholic or Jewish, and "traditional" in values. Her speech, I believe, is an appeal to the better angels of her constituents' being.

Thanks to Brooklyn Heights Blog reader "Lifer" for giving me the link to Sen. Savino's speech. By following the link to BHB, you may also see the speech by Sen. Daniel Squadron, who represents my district, in favor of the marriage equality bill.

Grace Slick at seventy.

Someone once wrote that Jefferson Starship's Red Octopus was "proof positive that rockers can age gracefully." This photo (thanks again to Michael Simmons) of Grace Slick at seventy bears out that statement. Below is a YouTube clip of Starship doing "Fast Buck Freddie", the opening cut on Octopus, accompanied by a slideshow of photos of a younger, but not necessarily prettier, Grace (thanks to liquidgee13 for the clip):

Blue trees.

According to a sign at the far end of this row of trees, this art project at the World Financial Center is sponsored by Korean Air Lines. The artist isn't identified.

Paulina Sinaga: a Polish siren in Ontario.

Ontario, California, that is. Back in 1983, low-budget movie genius Mark Pirro gave us A Polish Vampire in Burbank, which included, among its highlights, this delightful Sonny and Cher cover by brother-sister duo Steve and Bobbi Dorsch:


Today, in Ontario, not too far from Burbank, there lives a Polish singer and ukulele strummer par excellence named Paulina Sinaga, who my friend Michael Simmons has dubbed "The First Great Star of the 21st Century." Here she is doing her cover of Weezer's "Island in the Sun", accompanying herself on both uke and kazoo, with supporting action by her cat, Pom Pom:


You can read about, and see and hear more of, the lovely Paulina on her MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube pages.

Harvard vs. Yale--The Game I never watch.

Maybe I should, though. When I was in my first year of law school, I went to a couple of Harvard football games. South Florida, my undergraduate alma mater didn't have football back then, so it was a new experience for me to be able to take a Saturday afternoon off, walk a short distance, and catch some gridiron action. I cheered for the Crimson, to no avail on either occasion, as I saw them defeated, first by Dartmouth, who edged them 23-21 for their first loss of the season after four wins, then by a Princeton team that demolished them 45-6 using the single wing offense, which was considered archaic even in 1967. Later, I read a piece in the law school newspaper that instructed 1Ls like me about a point of etiquette: it is uncool, as a law student, to root for Harvard athletic teams unless you are a graduate of that college located a block down Mass Ave. There was no exculpatory provision for having gone to a college that allowed only "participant oriented sports".

So, I went back to following the fortunes of Florida and Florida State, though news of either was hard to get in the Boston area. I remember being surprised by a late night jock on one of the local radio stations saying, "Well, I've got to hand it to my old Florida State team. They beat Florida today." I did get caught up in the celebration of Harvard's 1968 "victory" (actually a 29-29 tie--this was before overtime was introduced to college football) over a Yale team that had Brian Dowling, model for Doonesbury's "BD", at quarterback and Calvin Hill, later a running back for the Dallas Cowboys, and which, going into The Game, was ranked tenth in the nation in the AP poll. After leaving Cambridge, though, I scarcely gave Harvard football a thought.

That is, until I read this account of this year's Harvard-Yale game. It made me wish I could have been in the Yale Bowl for this nail-biter with a finish in doubt until the end, unlike today's Alabama-Auburn game, which was closer than anyone (except Auburn's coach, players and fans) expected, and featured some razzle-dazzle by Auburn early on, but in which I knew that other Crimson (the Tide) would prevail. (Update: See Pete Thamel's analysis in today's New York Times.)

Scanning the comments on the Harvard Magazine article, I found this by my friend and neighbor Bronson Binger:

My first cousin once removed, who graduated from Harvard around 1918, used to say that the Harvard-Yale game was called “The Game” because it was held to decide the amateur championship of the US.

I think that may be more true now than it was in 1918, because much of college football has become distinctly non-amateur. The BCS teams are, in effect, a minor league for the NFL, from which the most promising players are often taken before their college careers are done. Coaches, too, often rise from the BCS schools to the pros (though, unlike players, they may go in the opposite direction as well). I've never been a great fan of the concept of amateurism in athletics, which has historically been used to keep poor people from competing. Still, it's refreshing to see a college game in which the players can all be called "student athletes" without a knowing smirk, and where, perhaps, the game is played with a bit more brio because it's regarded as a game, not a career move.

Update: On big-time college athletics generally, see Gilbert Gaul's op-ed piece in today's Times.

"We Gather Together"

The North Guilford Congregational Church Bell Choir plays the Dutch folk melody that has become perhaps the most popular (Hey! I almost wrote "iconic", but I caught myself) Thanksgiving hymn.

A joyous Thanksgiving to all.

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?