Phoebe Snow and Poly Styrene

In an earlier post, I asked, rhetorically, why I had to post so often about people who had just died. I answered my own question by noting that I was now at an age where those artists and writers born ten to twenty or so years before me, and who therefore were at their creative peak and involved in shaping pop culture when I was in my teens and twenties, were now dying with some frequency. Last week saw the deaths of two women singers both younger than me, Phoebe Snow, 60, who died of complications of a stroke, and Marianne Elliot-Said, better known as Poly Styrene, 53, who succumbed to breast cancer.

Phoebe Snow had one hit, "Poetry Man" (see clip above, courtesy of jassblue), which never really grabbed me. I never listened to her albums, and consequently didn't realize what a gifted interpreter she was of blues and soul. I also didn't know of her dedication to her only child, Valerie, who was born with severe brain damage, and for whom Snow cared until her death in 2007, at the age of 31. One thing I appreciated about her was her choice of professional name. As a railfan, when I first heard of her I realized she had taken the name of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western's (the road later merged with the Erie to form the Erie Lackawanna, most of which is now part of CSX) premier passenger train, and later learned she, born Phoebe Laub, had chosen it because she saw "Route of the Phoebe Snow" emblazoned on freight cars rumbling through her hometown of Teaneck, New Jersey.

"Phoebe Snow" was the fictional brainchild of adman Earnest Elmo Calkins, who decided to play on the Lackawanna's advantage in luring passengers on the competitive New York City to Buffalo run: its steam engines were fueled by clean-burning anthracite coal from the eastern Pennsylvania mines along its route; hence, a lady in a white dress needn't fear its being soiled by the soot generated from burning bituminous coal used on rival roads.



In 1977 I bought a copy of Geef Voor New Wave, a Dutch anthology of British and American punk. About halfway through, I heard a woman say "Some people think litt-ul girls should be seen and not heard, but I think, OH, BONDAGE, UP YOURS! ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!" This was followed by a keening alto sax, unusual for a punk band (and played, I later learned, by another woman, called Lora Logic) and then by the vocalist, Poly Styrene, bellowing the song's lyrics. This was the group X-Ray Spex, which, over its brief career, released five singles (including "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" and "Identity", which the band performs in the clip above, courtesy of goldenhinde), and one album, Germfree Adolescents. An early British punk band featuring women was unusual; the only other examples I can readily think of are Dolly Mixture, an all-woman group that took its name from a kind of candy that is evidently the rage in British ecclesiastical circles, and the Mo-Dettes, who may have been a touch too arty to be considered true punks.

When I first heard Poly Styrene, I envisioned her as a blonde, perhaps an English Debbie Harry. I now know she was the dark haired, tan skinned daughter of a mother of Scots-Irish ancestry and a Somali father.

Beef on weck at a Montreal style Jewish deli in Brooklyn?

Beef on weck (pronounced "wick") is a sandwich I got to know early in my career, when I was making frequent trips to Buffalo to visit a client there. It's sliced roast beef au jus with horseradish served on a kummelweck roll. I loved the way the intense flavors of the caraway ("kummel") seeds and coarse-grained salt on the roll, and the touch of horseradish, complemented the richness of the rare beef. At the time (early 1970s) I was also introduced to the spicy chicken wing, accompanied by celery and bleu cheese dressing. While I found the wings delightful, if I'd been asked which Buffalo specialty would take the nation by storm, I'd have bet on beef on weck, which also seems to be the sentimental favorite of many Buffalonians.

Until a few days ago, I'd never had beef on weck more than seventy or so miles from Buffalo, so I was surprised to see it listed on the menu of Mile End, a Montreal style Jewish delicatessen not far from where I live in Brooklyn which has been quite a hit with local foodies (at least those of the non-vegan sort). I had to give it a try.

The sandwich, as presented (see photo) was much as I knew it. It could've been from the place near the intersection of Main Street and Transit Road, about a quarter mile from our friends' house, where I usually get my beef on weck fix these days. One bite, though, told me I was far from the Niagara Frontier. A tipoff was on the menu. Mile End's version uses something definitely non-Buffalonian: wagyū beef. I'd never had this much-hyped Japanese style (I presume Mile End's wagyū comes from domestic cattle, probably cross-bred wagyū and angus) beef. It was as tender as its reputation has it, but, to me, the texture was a little too soft and smooth. It seemed a bit wan and short on flavor. The jus, however, was very tasty, and made up for the flavor deficiency. The other ingredients were superb. The roll was softer than usual (like the beef), but not unpleasantly so. It had a rich, slightly sweet taste, and the caraway and sea salt were delightful flavor bombs. This being a Jewish deli, horseradish was not an option in a dainty cup on the side. It was served in the sandwich, in just the right dosage.

All in all, a good sandwich, and evidently popular, as I heard two other customers order it in the short time I was at the deli. My only suggestion is to forget the wagyū and go to a purebred angus beef with more flavor and a more toothsome texture. Wagyū seems an attempt to yuppify a quintessentially blue-collar treat; a (dare I say?) inauthentic touch.

As to how a Buffalo specialty got on the menu of a Montreal deli in Brooklyn I can only guess. Buffalo's well known economic troubles have made it lose population for many years, creating a Buffalonian diaspora that has resulted in beef on weck being offered in places like Wilmington, North Carolina. (Update: thanks to Dan Williams, I now know that it's available in my old home town, Tampa.) Perhaps some expat Buffalonians made it to Montreal and started a beef on weck craze there. More likely, I think, is that many western New Yorkers favor the Adirondack region of New York, a little to the south of Montreal, as a vacation spot. This may have spurred a demand for beef on weck there, and Montrealais visiting the area may have tried and liked it. My quick web search for beef on weck in that part of the state didn't yield any results, but it did resolve one question: why it is that hot dogs with chili, which in western New York are called Texas hots, are called Michigans in the north country. As the linked Wikipedia entry states, the popularity of these in northern New York spread northward to Quebec, so it's possible the same thing happened with beef on weck.

If you want to try making your own beef on weck almost from scratch (you don't have to bake your own rolls), Bobby Flay has a recipe.

e.e. cummings on the unimaginable.

i thank You God for most this amazing

day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes.

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth

day of life and love and wings and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any—lifted from the no

of all nothing—human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

--e.e. cummings

Thanks to The Rev. Stephen D. Muncie, Rector of Grace Church, Brooklyn, for printing this in today's Easter Sunday Bulletin.

J.S. Bach, "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden" ("O Sacred Head Sore Wounded") from the St. Matthew Passion

This performance is by the Holland Boys' Choir and sung in Dutch. Thanks to Ikje86 for the clip. (For a modern, secular song to this tune by Paul Simon, see here.)

I came to you as the least of your brothers and sisters; I was hungry and you gave me no food. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.

--from the Reproaches

Kris Kristofferson, "Sunday Morning Coming Down"

Kris doing one of my favorite songs of his at Paradiso in 2008. Thanks to Jacques van de Wal for the clip.

An important fossil discovery: Liaoconodon hui, a Mesozoic mammal with a transitional middle ear.

In the clip above, Jin Meng, curator of fossil mammals at the American Museum of Natural History, describes how the well-preserved fossil of Liaoconodon hui, a mammal that lived in the Mesozoic era -- the age of dinosaurs -- shows the development of middle ear structure that characterizes later mammals, including ourselves.

Heather Quinlan surveys the New York accent.

Here's the trailer for friend and Brooklyn Heights Blog colleague Heather Quinlan's forthcoming (and you can play a part in bringing it to the big screen: see here) documentary If These Knishes Could Talk: the Story of the New York Accent. For those with sensitive ears, caveat: you get hit with an F-bomb at the beginning.

Egyptian Blogger Gets Three Year Sentence for Criticizing Military

Just before Hosni Mubarak's capitulation, I wondered what kind of government might succeed his. This story from today's New York Times (thanks to Andy Bachman for bringing it to my attention) is, to say the least, not an encouraging portent. Maikel Nabil Sanad, a 25 year old blogger, has been given a three year prison sentence by a military tribunal for posting material, often quoting established human rights groups like Amnesty International, exposing abuses by the military against protesters.

I'm glad Mubarak is gone, but I hope the Egyptian people will find the strength to bring their military under civilian control, where it belongs in any decent society.

East-West IPA Smackdown: Brooklyn "East India" vs. Sierra Nevada "Torpedo"

I've had Brooklyn Brewery's East India Pale Ale before, and published my tasting notes on it here. Seeing it on the shelf at Key Food near the Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA made me want to do a comparison tasting, though -- New York versus California, the storied rivalry, and all that. Here are my notes:

Brooklyn East India Pale Ale:

Color: rich golden amber.

Head: ample and long-lasting.

Aroma: I detected the same herbes de provence as before, but this time also a hint of vanilla along with yeasty undertones.

Flavor: hoppy, as an IPA should be, but the hops don't overpower the malt. My earlier notes had malt dominant at the finish, but this time hops prevailed, though not overwhelmingly. Kind of like a tart rhubarb pie, with malt playing the part of crust.

Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA

Color: orange-amber.

Head: medium; collapsed quickly.

Aroma: evergreen and citrus, with malt undertones.

Flavor: citrus and pine rosin, with a strong malt base. Grapefruity finish.

The envelope, please.

And the winner is, for all-around drinkability, Brooklyn's East India. As I noted the last time I tried it, this is a well-balanced IPA with the assertive hoppiness characteristic of the type but with the malt not utterly overpowered by hop bitterness. It could be enjoyed with many kinds of flavorful food (though, as with all IPAs, not with anything with too delicate a flavor that would be overpowered by the hops' bitterness) or by itself.

Sierra Neavada's Torpedo reminded me of wine pooh-bah Robert Parker's description of what he likes: a "hedonistic fruit bomb." On the whole, I prefer the Alice Feiring kind of wine; subtle and complex. Like a Parker-favored wine, the Torpedo packs a punch: 7.2% alcohol by volume compared to Brooklyn East India's 6.9%. All this isn't to say I didn't like drinking it. I think it would make a great companion to very spicy dishes, like vindaloo curries, as well as being enjoyable on its own from time to time.

Sidney Lumet

 

So, why do I have to keep posting about people who have just died? Easy. I'm at that age where the people who made my world, i.e. those about a decade or two older, are dying. The latest is Sidney Lumet, who fits in the two decade category. Like many show biz veterans of his age cohort, he got his start, through his parents, in the Yiddish theater. From there, he made his way to Hollywood, first as an actor, then as a director, where he had his success. I don't agree with his assertion, made in an interview, that art can't change the world. I do think that it's less likely to be effective the more the artist self-consciously strives to make it so.

I'm ashamed to admit that I've only seen two of his movies: Twelve Angry Men (clip above) and Network. How I could have missed Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico, two classics about my city, is beyond me. I'll have to rectify this soon.

The Times' Clyde Haberman on chronicling the Lion's Head.

Clyde Haberman, who took a drink or two at 59 Christopher Street back in the day (I never had the pleasure of meeting him), had a piece in yesterday's New York Times about Dermot McEvoy's project to compile an "oral history" of the Head, and about the many Head regulars who have died in recent years. If you have a story or two, or more, to share, please send it to Dermot at dermotmcevoy@hotmail.com.

Update: It seems that Mr. Haberman's piece about the Lion's Head was one of the last of his NYC columns. On Thursday he issued his final column in the series. In it, he explained what he tried to do over the past sixteen years:

My goal was simply to make a desperate stab at explaining the maze called New York City. When I failed, people let me know. But the reward was the thousands of generous messages over the years from readers, many of whom accused me of having consistently made them laugh.

I was one of those, and I'll miss the column. He writes, "[t]here is time for a new adventure or two at this place." So, it seems, I'll be able to find his writing, and wit, elsewhere in the Times. But farewell to NYC, and thank you, Mr. Haberman, for years of stimulating reading, and for putting a link to my blog in the on-line version of your column about the Lion's Head.

Gabriel Fauré, Le jardin de Dolly, by Susan and Sarah Wang

Hearing this lovely piece for four-handed piano on WQXR sent me searching for a video; the best I could find, and I think it's superb, is this performance by the then fifteen year old twin sisters Susan and Sarah Wang (they are now in their twenties; read more about them here).

The story behind this piece is that Fauré had an affair with the singer Emma Bardac, who was later to become Madame Debussy. Bardac had a young daughter, Hélène, who was called "Dolly." Fauré adored the little girl, and composed a six part suite for four-handed piano, which he named in her honor, one part being composed for each of her birthdays. This is the third part ("Dolly's Garden") of the suite (the others are Berceuse, Mi-a-ou, Kitty-valse, Tendresse, and Le pas espagnol).

Le jardin de Dolly seems to me (perhaps not surprisingly, given my liking for seeing connections between music and visual arts) the epitome of impressionism in music; the aural equivalent of one of Monet's roughly contemporaneous Giverny paintings. For an example, consider Monet's Garden at Giverny (1895) above (E.G. Bührle Collection, Zurich; image from WebGallery of Impressionists).

Dolly later became Madame Gaston de Tinan; she died in 1985 at the age of 93.

Addendum: I've gotten lots of hits on this post from web searches for "Madame Gaston de Tinan". I decided to do my own search and found, at this website, a photo of Dolly with her later to be stepfather Claude Debussy, along with a very impressive looking borzoi, taken in 1904, when Dolly would have been eleven or twelve years old. The linked post quotes from a lecture she gave in 1972, when she would have been about eighty, preserved by the British Institute of Recorded Sound (now the National Sound Archive), in which she said that Debussy's composition was influenced by visual arts, as well as by fiction and poetry:

He had a great partiality for the paintings of Turner and Whistler and the drawings of Arthur Rackham, one of which inspired the Prelude “Les fées sont d’exquises danseuses”. Neither must we forget other titles of British inspiration: Children’s Corner, Homage to Samuel Pickwick Esq, Puck’s Dance, and finally The Blessed Damozel of the pre-Raphaelite painter and poet, Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Update: Phils release Castillo; but another ex-Met looms as a threat.

My fear that Luis Castillo, having been released by the Mets and picked up by division rivals the Phillies, would come back to haunt the Mets, has now been relieved, as the Phils have also let him go. The reason, however, doesn't bode well for the Mets (What does, these days?), as Philadelphia has a good short term replacement for ailing Chase Utley in another ex-Met, Wilson Valdez. So, the "curse" theory can still be tested.

Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" Part I by QUILF Wind Quintet

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The calendar tells me that spring has been here for a week, but the chilly wind outside denies it. I'm hoping Stravinsky's piece works some magic. "Rite of Spring" was written for full orchestra; here it's performed by the QUILF Wind Quintet in an arrangement by Michael Byerly.

Remembering Lanford Wilson

I got to know Lanford Wilson, who died yesterday at 73, in the late 1980s when we both were taking the waters at the Lion's Head. He was bright, witty in a down-home way, with southern Missouri Ozark roots, and kind. Through him I met Tanya Berezin, artistic director of Circle Repertory Company, which occupied a playhouse across Sheridan Square from the Head. Through my introduction to Tanya I got involved with Circle Rep, serving on the board of their fund-raising group. I also got to meet some other playwrights, including Craig Lucas, Athol Fugard, A.R. "Pete" Gurney, and Terence McNally, and to see their plays. I saw Lanford's Burn This and Craig's Prelude to a Kiss on Broadway, Lanford's Redwood Curtain in a special performance while it was still in development, and a dramatic reading of his earlier play The Hot L Baltimore. I'll always be grateful to Lanford for this introduction to the world of theater.

Lanford had an amazing ability to enter the heads of different sorts of people and to write convincing dialogue for them. Seeing his plays made me empathize with characters I couldn't have imagined liking. His vision was unsparing, but ultimately forgiving, if not optimistic.

So the litany of old Lion's Head regulars departed continues. This past year we have lost David Markson, Paul Schiffman, and Vic Ziegel. Going back a few more years we have Liam Clancy, Dennis Duggan, Frank McCourt, Cicely Nichols, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.. A hazard of getting older is having to say goodbye too many times.

Elizabeth Taylor, 1932-2011

The video above consists of scenes from the screen adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (1967), starring Ms. Taylor and her twice husband Richard Burton. Thanks to Valley TaylorBurton for the clip.

About the time she was going through her third or fourth divorce, Billy Graham was preaching to a stadium crowd and said he didn't think people should condemn her, but instead should pray for her. A man's voice came from somewhere in the upper deck: "I've been praying for her for years, and I haven't gotten her yet!"

Update: Some great photos on Slate.

Castillo goes to Phils.

Luis Castillo, released by the Mets, has been picked up by the Phillies. Will he go from catcalls at Citi Field to cheers at Citizens Bank Park? This certainly provides another chance to test the "curse of the ex-Met" theory.

Update: The other shoe drops, as Oliver Perez gets his walking papers, this after walking too many batters and tossing too many gopher balls (two in his last outing with the Mets on Sunday). This means that the cash-strapped Mets have eaten $18 million ($6 million to Castillo and $12 million to Perez) in contractual obligations so far this season.

Is there really such a thing as the curse of the ex-Met? I dunno. I think I heard someone use that phrase years ago at the Lion's Head, and it's stuck with me. I certainly don't have any statistical evidence to back it up. Still, somewhere in the back alleys of my brain, probably in the vicinity of the amygdala, resides the notion that, whenever a Mets player is traded, released, or lost to free agency, his performance, especially against his old team, improves dramatically (and conversely, whenever a veteran player is acquired by the Mets, his stats go south). These are falsifiable propositions, and I'm sure there is someone out there who can produce counterexamples. Of course, I will then argue that you've found an exception that proves the rule.

Black 47, "Funky Céilí"

Black 47, featuring my old Bells of Hell friend Larry Kirwan, with some great soprano sax by Geoffrey Blythe (formerly of Dexys Midnight Runners) and Uilleann pipes by Chris Byrne. The clip stops rather abruptly, but you get almost all of the song.

Larry is a prolific writer as well as a musician. I once saw one of his plays (the title now escapes me), which was based on the idea, "What if the Beatles never made it big?" Set in Liverpool in the late 1970s, the story was built on a reunion of the group, which broke up after Paul McCartney unwisely insisted that "Till There Was You" should be their second song promoted for the charts. At the time of the play's action, racist demagogue Enoch Powell has become Prime Minister and Britain is wracked by violence. John Lennon is still in Liverpool with Cynthia, living in public housing, unemployed, and on one occasion getting crazy drunk and running naked through the streets shouting, "All you need is love!" Ringo Starr soldiers on, playing drums for local pub bands like Gerry and the Pacemakers. George Harrison is a priest. The big splash is Paul, returning from the U.S., where he's become a pop star, bragging of having written the theme song for Spiro Agnew's successful presidential campaign.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Thinking about tsunamis.

A month ago I was asked to write a "lenten meditation" for a booklet of "daily devotions" for the season published by my church. I agreed, and was assigned what for me proved a difficult Biblical passage. In my piece, I referred to the earthquake that had just struck New Zealand. Today's disaster in Japan, which may spread to other places by tsunami, brought it to my mind. I'm republishing it below, in an expanded form based on some more thoughts I've had since I submitted it.

You will be in the right, O Lord,
when I lay charges against you;
but let me put my case to you.
Why does the way of the guilty prosper?
Why do all who are treacherous thrive?
You plant them, and they take root;
they grow and bring forth fruit;
you are near in their mouths
yet far from their hearts.
But you, O Lord, know me;
You see me and test me-- my heart is with you.
Jeremiah 12: 1-3

This passage troubles me. Jeremiah must have been in a bad way when he wrote it; after all, “do all who are treacherous thrive”? Bernie Madoff may have prospered for a time, but he was brought to justice, though it has proved mostly cold comfort to those whose trust he betrayed. Beyond the question of factuality, though, the passage points to a great difficulty for me and for many: the problem of evil. If God is good and just, omniscient and omnipotent, how or why can evil exist? Perhaps, like me, you were told as a child that everything is part of the unfolding of “God’s Great Plan.” You may wonder if this Great Plan includes, to use an example in the news as I write this, the deaths of perhaps a hundred or more people in an earthquake in New Zealand. Near the close of the passage, Jeremiah addresses God with, “You see me and test me.” Does God “test” people? Did God arrange the death of young Annie Darwin to “test”—evidently past the breaking point—her father’s belief?

Jeremiah’s faith survived the test, whether it was put to him by God or by his own troubled mind. At the close, he confesses, “my heart is with you.” This took me back a few years to a time when I was wrestling with the concept of faith, and wrote a blog post on the subject, which I headed with an epigram from Anne Lamott: “The opposite of faith isn’t doubt, it’s certainty.” Doubt may arise from facts: for example, good things happening to bad people, and bad things happening to good. If we try to explain these facts--that is, to achieve certainty--with statements like "it's God's will," we are on shaky ground. People who try to do so are, in the words of Cathleen Falsani, “more interested in being right than being Christian or loving or gracious or civil.” Faith should be grounded on hope, and oriented toward the future. It doesn’t mean denial of the past or of present realities; indeed, it may demand action to change those realities. This is where I think Jeremiah was at the end of the quoted passage.

You may reasonably ask: "What can we do to change the realities that give rise to earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters?" At present, relatively little, beyond creating and enforcing building codes, discouraging people from building in areas of especially high risk, making better warning systems, and studying ways to improve our ability to predict such events. You may then ask: "Couldn't a wise and benevolent God have given us a planet without shifting tectonic plates?" That's a question I can't try to answer. Perhaps the problem is in the question itself.

The Mets' angel, Doris from Rego Park

I've avoided posting about the Mets this year, for obvious reasons that unfortunately inspired this Manhattan Mini Storage subway poster. For a while, I was mentally composing a piece with the title, "Could Bernie Madoff be Good for the Mets?" I was thinking that the Wilpons might be forced to sell a controlling stake, which they may yet. I've blamed them for the team's woes, on no better theory than the buck stops at the top. But, then, I began to contemplate the devil you know versus the one you don't conundrum, especially if the latter is Mark Cuban. Next I fell back on an inversion of Tim Marchman's explanation of the Sports Illustrated cover curse: if a team that makes the cover is at the top of its game and has nowhere to go but down, then one that has suffered a series of disappointing seasons and is having cash flow problems because its owners are embroiled in a financial scandal can go nowhere but up. Try as I might, though, I couldn't convince myself. The Nationals have nowhere to go but up, too, and bid fair to relegate the Mets to the division cellar this year.


So, I was delighted to find, among the barrage of articles about lawsuits, emergency loans, possible fan desertion, and the seemingly endless psychodrama of Oliver Perez, this Times story about a faithful Mets fan who, alas, is no longer with us to share her opinions. As an exercise in metafandom (I guess that's what you would call being a fan of a fan), Don Rosler has written and recorded a song about her (clip above). Rest in peace, Doris, though I can't help but wonder what thoughts you'd have about the Mets of today. Somehow, I think, you'd find a reason for optimism.

Some music for International Women's Day: Marshall Chapman and Sue Foley

In celebration of International Women's Day, here are selections from two of my favorite women singers.


I've had the pleasure of knowing Marshall Chapman for some years, and wrote a long post about her here. I also posted a clip of her singing "I Love Everybody" with the late Tim Krekel and his band here. In addition to being a superb singer and songwriter, she is the author of two books, the autobiography Goodbye Little Rock and Roller and They Came to Nashville (the linked post also has a clip of her doing "Going Away Party" as part of the same set with Danny Flowers at Nashville's Loveless Cafe that includes "I Love Everybody" in the clip above). She also writes a regular column (the linked clip includes another song, and has a very funny ending) for NashvilleArts magazine. Check out Marshall's website, tallgirl.com.


This being International Women's Day, I've gone north of the border to include a clip by the Canadian blues singer Sue Foley, who shares her surname with my wife. I've posted this clip before, but her woman's version of Slim Harpo's "King Bee" is well worth repeating.

Thank you, Hank!

A year ago last November I was in Tampa, and one of my friends said, "You've got to see the house Derek Jeter is building on Davis Islands." I found it, took a photo, and did a blog post about it. Since then, I've received a fair number of hits on that post off web searches for "Derek Jeter's house" or similar. On February 22, though, my Site Meter showed I was getting a blizzard of hits; when I checked, I saw they were almost all from searches for Jeter's house. Some quick web research got me the reason why. The 23rd proved to be the blog's biggest day ever. Since then, things have tapered off, but I'm still getting lots of "Jeter's house" hits. Not bad for a Yankee-hater.

So, thank you, Hank. You've also given me the opportunity to caption a post with a lyric from a Marshall Chapman song.

Photo courtesy of LestersLegends.com. I suspect Lester of a little Photoshop magic, but I love it.

Johnny Preston, 1939-2011

Johnny Preston had one of the great pop novelty hits of the late 1950s-early '60s in "Running Bear" (thanks to rameyblue for the clip), which was written by J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson, who, along with Bill Hall and (yes!) George Jones, did the whoops and toomba-toombas that accompany Preston's vocal. The Bopper died in a plane crash with Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens before the song became a hit. Yesterday, Johnny Preston went to join Running Bear and Little White Dove "in that Happy Hunting Ground".

Thanks to FB friend Georgene Z. Russell for the tip.

Leonard Bernstein: Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, 2nd movement.

I think of Leonard Bernstein principally as a composer and conductor rather than a pianist, though his performance here, in my opinion, is superb (he can't resist doing a bit of conducting, too, when he can get one hand free). This is the second movement, adagio assai, of Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G (for the first and third movements see here and here). I'm a sucker for impressionist music, just as I am for impressionist and post-impressionist painting.

Thanks to loyal Brooklyn Heights Blog reader and commenter AEB for bringing this to my attention, and to masiurb for the clip.

Dermot McEvoy on the Paul Schiffman memorial.

Yesterday evening there was a memorial gathering for Paul Schiffman at the Kettle of Fish, the bar that now occupies the space that formerly housed the Lion's Head. Dermot McEvoy wrote this account:

On a night when Hollywood honored a stammerin’ British welfare king, the Lion’s Head roared back to life like it was 1977 in honor of one of their favorite sons, the late Captain Paul Schiffman. The aisles were jammed at the bar and the back room was packed with Generation V (for Viagra). If Shifty worked the bar there was no doubt that the death penalty would have been meted out on the first person who would dare order a Bloody Mary.

It was just like the old days—there were writers, poets and newspapermen mingling with corporate lawyers. Seamen debated Melville and the true meaning of Shifty with the publishing crowd. Denver Dave Coles and Richie Sisk ran away from their journalism jobs in Washington, D.C. to spend one last night with Captain Paul. Writers Vince Patrick, Pete Hamill and the great George Kimball talked into the night, while the rest of us gobbled up the wonderful buffet spread that Joanie Leinwoll had put together.

We were lucky enough to have Tommy (Sugar) Butler’s daughter, granddaughter and nephew in attendance, along with Alphie McCourt. It was a sad reminder of how many of our friends we have lost over the years. In the last eighteen months alone the list has been brutal: Pulitzer Prize-winner Frank McCourt; sportswriter Vic Ziegel; impresario Art D’Lugoff; character actor supreme Val Avery (somewhere in the great beyond, presumably eating someone’s liver out); journalist Sid Zion; Liam Clancy, “the greatest balladeer of the 20th century”; David Markson, one of the great novelists of the 20th century; and ace journalist Dennis Duggan, who preceded Frank in death. I’ve probably missed someone and if I did I do apologize. You are all in our hearts.

The night was capped off with stories about Shifty. Mike Wholey, a master seaman himself and close friend of the Captain, journeyed down from Woodstock to tell a Shifty story I’ve never heard before. When Das Boot came out in the early ’80s Mike decided to go see it. The theater was empty during the afternoon as the movie started. Well, pretty soon the Nazis start torpedoing the U.S. Merchant Marine.

“Mudderfuckin’ Nazi scum,” came the shout from the back.

The U-boat captain yells “Torpedo los!” and another shout emerges from the darkness, “Kraut cocksuckers!”

When the movie is over Mike gets up to walk out. Our narrator? None other than Captain Paul Schiffman, USMM!

The night finally came to an end with the tin whistle of the great David Amram’s rendition of “Will You Go Lassie, Go.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the place. The crowd asked “What would Shifty do?” Obviously heeding heavenly instructions, most retired to the bar and ordered a Jameson.

Good night, Captain Schiffman. You would never believe it, but you will be sorely missed. God bless.

There's little I can add to that, except that I saw many old companions I hadn't seen in years, some of whom, I'm afraid, I may never see again, and, like Dermot, I will sorely miss Paul. Well, one more thing:

The photo above is of the bow of the cargo ship American Victory, which I took while visiting Tampa in 2006. She is preserved there as a floating museum, and takes occasional short cruises into Tampa Bay. Last night, as Mike Wholey was giving his recollections of Paul, he mentioned a conversation in which it came out that he and Paul had both served as officers on this ship, but over two decades apart. Not only that, but Paul had been on her maiden voyage, and Mike on her last as a freighter in active service.

Two Pennsylvania beers: Yuengling and Lionshead

I decided to do a comparison tasting of these two beers because (1) they're both from my native state and (2) they're both available at Key Food, a block from my apartment, at $6.99 a sixer, plus tax. I'm not unfamiliar with either. I first had Yuengling several years ago at a local bar, and was delighted, in October 0f 2009, to find that its popularity had spread from the Northeast to the Tapper Pub in Tampa. I spotted Lionshead a few months ago at Key Food, and had to give it a try because (1) it has a name similar (one word instead of two) to that of one of the two greatest bars that ever existed, and (2) the price was right.

So, here are my tasting notes:

Yuengling Traditional Lager:

Color: rich amber (I later found that it's described just so on the brewery's website, but, I swear, this was my description without any prompting).

Head: ample and long-lasting.

Aroma: floral, with yeast undertones.

Flavor: crisp start, toasty finish with some lingering hop bitterness; good hop/malt balance.

Summary: A satisfying, well-made lager with good body and flavor.

Lionshead Deluxe Pilsner Beer:

Color: deep gold.

Head: modest; collapsed quickly.

Aroma: sweet, with malt and yeast undertones.

Flavor: hops and malt both subdued; overtones of honeydew melon.

Summary: As we say in Brooklyn: meh! (This is a step above feh!) Not bad, but nothing special. According to the brewery's website, corn is used along with barley in making this beer, as in many mass-market American pilsners.

Hepzibah surveys the scene.

Nothing on Pierrepont Place escapes her penetrating gaze.

Meat in vats: first step toward celebrity cannibalism?

This item on MSNBC cites a "yuck factor" as the principal impediment to getting people to eat meat cultured in vitro from cells taken from food animals, rather than grown "on the hoof" or claw, as the case may be. While I doubt I'd yet go to Key Food for a couple pounds of "charlem" (Charleston engineered meat) made from

myoblasts — embryonic cells that develop into muscle tissue — from turkey...bathed...in a nutrient bath of bovine serum on a scaffold made of chitosan (a common polymer found in nature)[,]

I wouldn't be averse to trying it. I could be more favorably inclined once Dr. Vladimir Mironov, the scientist at the Medical University of South Carolina who is working on this project (with funding from PETA) finds out how to add fat for "marbling" and "a vascular system so that interior cells can receive oxygen [that] will enable the growth of steak, say, instead of just thin strips of muscle tissue."

www.themodernword.com

It's not the notion that this is a product of technology rather than traditional agriculture that gives me pause. Instead, it's a "slippery slope" argument. Usually, I'm not fond of these; so long as reasonable people like me are around to draw the appropriate lines, they'll get drawn. Still, I remember an idea from the fertile mind of Samuel R. Delany (photo at left). In his novel Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, he posits a future galactic civilization that, of course, has technology far beyond ours in all respects, including the ability to grow meat in vats. It's a minor point in this very complex novel, which concerns Rat Korga, the sole survivor of a disaster that destroys a planet. After his rescue, Korga is taken to the planet Morgre, in the company of an "industrial diplomat", Marq Dyeth. As Dyeth and Korga are walking together, they are approached by a member of the Butchers' Union, Si'id.

Excuse me, Marq...I have hungered all day for this honor... . But then, it's clear, the whole of Morgre has developed an appetite for our fine friend. ...We are all famished for a taste of that survival.

Si'id then takes a "sampling knife" from her pocket and, before Dyeth or Korga can object, secures a flesh sample from Korga's arm, leaving only a small cut.

"Oh, thank you!" Si'id exclaimed. "Yes, a beautiful sample. We will savor the complexities of your flesh for years to come, and it will lend its subtleties to many complex meals."

Delany saw that the ability to grow meat in vats meant the ability to grow any meat in vitro. Combine this with the old observation that, when you're a celebrity, everyone wants a piece of you, and it's easy to see a future in which "What's for dinner?" can come down to a choice between beefsteak and a slice of Sandra Bullock.

S.S. United States saved from the blowtorch, for now.

This is old news, and I've been meaning to post about it for about two weeks, but life has been hectic. Those two jauntily raked red, white, and blue funnels you see in the photo above (click to enlarge), taken during a visit to Philadelphia in 2006, belong to the S.S. United States, the sleekest, fastest transatlantic passenger liner ever. Launched in 1952, as the Korean War raged and the Cold War between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. grew more frigid, she was a joint venture between her commercial operator, United States Lines, and the U.S. Navy, which funded the majority of her construction cost and held the right, in the event she was needed, to take her for use as a high speed, high capacity troopship or hospital ship.

Wikimedia Commons

On her maiden Atlantic voyage, the "Big U", as she came to be known, set new speed records for both the east and west bound crossings. She thereby claimed the Blue Riband, awarded to the fastest liner on the transatlantic route. She still held it when she was retired from service in 1969, and it retired with her, as the age of regular transatlantic passenger ship service had ended. Since then, she has been idle, for a time at Newport News, Virginia, where she was built; later at Philadelphia. Norwegian Cruise Lines bought her and planned to convert her to cruising, but turning an ocean thoroughbred into a carriage horse is tricky. As years passed and her condition deteriorated, it seemed more and more likely she would go for scrap. As Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in "Old Ironsides", his impassioned poem protesting a plan to break up the frigate Constitution: "The harpies of the shore shall pluck/ The eagle of the sea."

A group of people determined not to allow this to happen formed the S.S. United States Conservancy to raise funds for the ship's restoration and preservation, and to publicize her plight. Susan Gibbs, granddaughter of William Francis Gibbs, principal designer of the ship, serves as its president. In 1999, a predecessor organization to the Conservancy succeeded in having the ship listed in the National Register of Historic Places; nevertheless, this did not guarantee that it would be preserved.

Fortunately, with funds pledged by Philadelphia philanthropist H.L. "Gerry" Lenfest, the Conservancy has purchased the ship as of the first of this month, and has sufficient funds to maintain her for twenty months. The Conservancy must also find a permanent home for the "Big U", with New York in the running, along with Philadelphia and Miami. Naturally, I'm hoping she returns to New York, her home port.

Egypt: what kind of democracy?

Yesterday's New York Times op-ed page includes a piece by Essam El-Errian, a member of the Guidance Council of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, with the title "What the Muslim Brothers Want". It includes many reassuring (to those of us who want to see Egypt emerge from its crisis as a robust democracy) declarations: "we have persistently demanded liberation and democracy"; "the Muslim Brotherhood is committed to...reform and progress"; and, most significantly, "We aim to achieve reform and rights for all: not just for the Muslim Brotherhood, not just for Muslims, but for all Egyptians."

I don't question the sincerity of these declarations. I do pause, nevertheless, at this paragraph, which I think may reflect a misunderstanding:

As our nation heads toward liberty, however, we disagree with the claims that the only options in Egypt are a purely secular, liberal democracy or an authoritarian theocracy. Secular liberal democracy of the American and European variety, with its firm rejection of religion in public life, is not the exclusive model for a legitimate democracy.

I'm heartened by Mr. El-Errian's evident rejection of "authoritarian theocracy" (which I take to mean no imposition of Sharia as civil law); but I claim a misunderstanding because he characterizes American and European democracies as having strictly excluded religion from the public sphere. In America, religious references abound both in our governmental ceremonies (yes, nonbelievers and religious objectors--there are those--are given the opportunity to omit references to God or "affirm" rather than to "swear"), and, more importantly, in our political discourse. Our First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a particular religion, but in its succeeding clause guarantees the right to "free exercise" of religious beliefs. This point is also made in a letter, published in today's Times, by Regan McCarthy in response to Mr. El-Errian's column (see here).

European democracies offer even stronger counterexamples. Britain, for instance, still has an established church, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is formally appointed by the monarch, takes part in ceremonies of state. Nevertheless, adherents to faiths other than that of the Church of England are allowed to practice their religion, and no one, including nonbelievers, is excluded from public life, including the holding of office.

Also troubling to me is Mr. El-Errian's apparent rejection of "liberal" democracy. I'm sure what he means by "liberal" is not what that has come to mean in American political discourse, i.e. the belief that government should intervene in the economy to prevent abuses of private power and to maintain a strong social safety net, but rather the classic meaning, which is that the establishment and preservation of individual liberty should be the fundamental principle (for more discussion of this, see "Genghis Khan: the first liberal?").

In conclusion, despite Mr. El-Errian's encouraging words, I'm perplexed as to what role he proposes for religion in public life, and what scope he is willing to allow for individual freedom.

Update: Aljazeera English has just reported Mubarak's resignation.