/Here's Nicola (Nikki) Lund, Secretary of the Library's Board of Trustees and a native of the Sceptered Isle, explaining the traditions of the English Tea.
This song has been going through my head for several days. I suppose it's a metaphor of the time we're living now, when everything seems precariously close to disaster. The video inspired me to look up Lillian La France. She was born Agnes Micek in Kansas in 1894, and became famous as a motorcycle stunt rider in the 1920s and '30s. She's perhaps best remembered for riding the "Wall of Death" which, as you can see from the video, is a circular track with steeply sloping walls so that, near the top, a rider and bike are horizontal to the floor, held from tumbling down only by centrifugal force.
I first knew of Richard Thompson as guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for Fairport Convention, a band I came to love in the spring of 1970 when I was walking past the dorm room of my law school classmate John Lovett, a Kentuckian and superb banjo picker. John's door was partly open, and from inside I heard spine tingling female and male harmony on what sounded to me like Anglican chant. I knocked and asked John who was doing the song. He said it was Fairport Convention, doing their arrangement of an obscure Bob Dylan piece called "Percy's Song", on their album Unhalfbricking. I didn't rush out and buy the album; I was prepping for finals and working on my third year paper.
When I arrived in New York in June of 1970 I began collecting Fairport albums. The group was very prolific in the years 1968-'70, recording and releasing six albums: Fairport Convention (1968); What We Did on Our Holidays (January 1969); the aforementioned Unhalfbricking (July 1969); Liege & Lief (December 1969); and Full House (July 1970). Thompson played lead guitar and sang on all of these, and co-wrote several of the songs.
In 1971 Thompson left Fairport to begin a solo career, although since the 1980s he has performed at Fairport's Cropredy Convention (formerly the Cropredy Festival), often with present or former members of Fairport. His first solo album, Henry the Human Fly (1972) , was panned by critics and sold poorly, although a reviewer in 2004 called it "a true gem." One of his backing vocalists on the album was Linda Peters, who soon after the album was released married Richard and became Linda Thompson. They then did six albums together. The first, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, recorded in 1973 but not released until '74 because the OAPEC oil embargo made production of vinyl discs expensive, was at first "ignored by reviewers," but "later came to be highly regarded." The next four albums received less praise.
Their last together, Shoot Out the Lights, had a title that ironically referred to their first. It also reflected the state of their marriage at the time it was recorded; they were divorced before it was released in March of 1982. After that, they traveled to The U.S. for a promotional tour during which they were onstage together but otherwise kept apart. The album received much critical praise. Robert Christgau wrote in the July 6, 1982 Village Voice, "these are powerfully double-edged metaphors for the marriage struggle." The song titles tell a tale. They are, in order: "Don't Renege on Our Love"; "Walking on a Wire"; "Just the Motion"; "Shoot Out the Lights"; "Back Street Slide"; "Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?" (all songs were written by Richard, but this has lyrics by Linda); and, finally and fittingly, "Wall of Death."
I've only seen Richard Thompson in live performance once. It was in the early 1990s, when he did a free outdoor concert in Battery Park City, during which he did a splendid rendition of what is, in my estimation, one of his greatest songs, "1952 Vincent Black Lightning." I've delighted in his recordings for over half of my life, and, despite its lack of his guitar fireworks, consider "Wall of Death" one of my favorites.
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I used to hate the Yanks. For years it was because, as I first saw them in '55, they were the Big Bad Bullies. I lost interest in the Dodgers when they left Brooklyn in 1957, and for some years I didn't follow baseball closely. As best I remember, for a time I had some liking for the then Milwaukee Braves, although I was living in Florida at the time and had no family connections to Wisconsin. I remember having a dream that a girl I had a crush on in ninth grade was actually Warren Spahn's daughter. In 1960 I got a brief thrill when a traditionally hard luck team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, with whom I could identify because my mother grew up and I was born about one hundred miles east of Steeltown, beat the Yanks in the World Series.
When the Mets arrived as an expansion team in 1962, they quickly became a laughingstock. I remember TV ads featuring their loveable old manager Casey Stengel extolling the efficacy of Rolaids as the Mets' blooper reel played in the background. They were custom made for my proclivity toward the downtrodden, but like many of my fellow Floridians I was more interested in football than in baseball. I was happy to see the Mets rise from the ashes - an apt metaphor as their home, Shea Stadium, stood on what had been the "valley of ashes" described in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby - and win the 1969 Series, but I was more thrilled by the 1970 Super Bowl victory by another upstart team, the New York Jets. I was in law school at the time, and about ten of us crowded Mike Vaccaro's dorm room, he having the only TV on our floor, to watch the game. The moment the final buzzer sounded Mike jumped up and turned the TV off. Asked why, he said, "I couldn't stand to hear Howard Cosell say, 'Broadway Joe Namath, the New York Jets, AND the American Football League, all came of age today.'"
I finally got to attend an MLB game after I moved to New York in 1970. My roommate, Mario Diaz-Cruz, was an associate at the law firm White & Case, which had a box of seats at Yankee Stadium. That summer I saw the Yanks lose to the Orioles largely by virtue of Boog Powell's bat. Powell went on to be the American League MVP, and the Orioles to win the World Series. For a while, thanks to Mario and to other friends, I became a Yankees fan and attended a fair number of games. I saw them, on TV, win the Series in '77 and in '78, beating the Dodgers twice. By the early '80s, though, I was losing my enthusiasm for the Bronx Bombers. In '81 they did something they hadn't done since '55, losing the World Series to the Dodgers. After that they had several disappointing seasons. I also developed a distate for their owner, George Steinbrenner. My father had instilled in me an aversion to people with "overinflated egos," and Steinbrenner's was up to near bursting point.
Sometime during the late summer of 1985 I was in my favorite Greenwich Village pub, the Lion's Head, sitting next to Pat Carroll, a Brooklyn native who had moved to London and was back for a visit. Pat said he had two tickets to a Mets game but his mother couldn't go, so would I be interested? "Sure," I said. The Mets won, beating the Cardinals thanks to a two run homer off what was then called the "unlikely bat" of Howard Johnson. During the game Pat said, "What you have to know is that the Mets are really the Brooklyn Dodgers continued by other means." This was an "Aha!" moment for me; I could return to my first baseball love. (I have some friends, like Dermot McEvoy, who consider the Mets to be the New York Giants continued by other means. I'm glad for their fellow fandom.)
1985 was a propitious year to become a Mets fan. Gary Carter, whom the Mets had acquired by trade from the Expos the previous winter, led the Mets in home runs and RBI and provided solid defense behind the plate. Dwight Gooden won 24 games, with an ERA of 1.03 and 268 strikeouts. Darryl Strawberry was out with an injury from May 11 to June 28, but still managed 29 homers and 79 RBI, along with sparkling defense in right field. The Mets finished three games behind the Cards in the NL East.
My reward for Mets fandom came the following year. The 1986 Mets were a juggernaut. Deftly managed by Davey Johnson, they won 108 games; twice as many as the 54 they lost. They finished 21 and a half games ahead of the Phillies in the NL East, then beat the Astros for the league championship. The World Series though, against the Red Sox, proved to be a seven game struggle. The Sox had a three games to two lead going into game six, which I was watching on TV at home. Boston had a 5-4 lead going into the bottom of the tenth and I felt convinced they would go on to win the game and the Series, so I decided to go to a local bar where I knew my friend Bill, a Springfield, Massachusetts native and Red Sox fan, would be, and congratulate him. On the way I heard cheering coming from an apartment window. When I got to the bar I could see lots of people smiling and clapping, and Bill looking dejected. I asked him what had happened and he gestured at the TV, which showed a replay of Mookie Wilson's grounder skittering past Bill Buckner's glove and between his legs. Earlier in Mookie's at bat, a wild pitch by Bob Stanley had allowed the tying run to score, which probably occasioned the cheering I'd heard on the way. Buckner's error allowed the winning run and a walk-off victory for the Mets, who went on to win game seven and their second MLB championship. Buckner, who otherwise had a long and distinguished baseball career, and Wilson became friends, and appeared together at fan events.
After 1986 came a long period of frustration for Mets fans. The remainder of the 80's, through 1990, were an "often a bridesmaid" period in which the Mets regularly finished second in their division. In '88 they finished first but lost to the Dodgers in a league chamopionship series from which I have memories of Davey Lopes rounding the bases with his right thumb pointed upward. The early 1990s were dismal, with the Mets often finishing at the bottom of their division. It was in 1991 that I got married, to a Red Sox fan, and in 1993 I became a father. This cut into the time I spent at the Lion's Head, which is where I watched Mets games. I did attend several games with Charlie McCrann, an executive at Marsh & McLennan, which had a private box at Shea. Despite this, Charlie was a Yankees fan. He was also a Republican. Despite our being on opposite sides of both baseball and politics, our friendship was strong, and lasted until the morning of September 11, 2001 when Charlie was in his office at One World Trade Center, an event memorialized here.
In 2000 the Mets won the NL title, which set up a longed for "subway series" against the Yankees. Unfortunately, it would not satisfy the longings of Mets fans, as the Bombers prevailed in five games. It's a Series best (or worst) remembered for when, in game two, Mike Piazza broke his bat fouling off a pitch from Roger Clemens. A piece of the bat flew toward the mound. Clemens grabbed it and threw it to his left, where it almost hit Piazza, who was trotting toward first. This incited a bench clearing brawl. Clemens denied having intended to hit Piazza.
The Mets returned to the World Series in 2015, and the result was no better than in 2000. The Kansas City Royals, as had the Yanks, won in five. The following year the Mets made the playoffs, but were eliminated by the Giants. In 2019 they had an 86-76 record, but failed to make the playoffs. I characterized that season here. The 2020 season was shortened by COVID and the Mets had a sickly 26-34 record, finishing fourth. Before the 2021 season Steve Cohen became the Mets' principal owner (the Wilpon family retained a five percent stake).
Cohen's first significant move was acquiring shortstop Francisco Lindor, who continues to be a vital part of the team. The Mets started the 2021 season hot, then collapsed, finishing third in the division. In 2022 they had a 101-61 record, their best other than 1986's, and tied with the Braves for the division lead. Since the Braves had a winning season against the Mets, they were awarded the division championship, and the Mets had a wild card playoff against the Padres, which they lost 3-0. 2023 saw the Mets reverting to losing ways, finishing fourth in the East. 2024; well, we've covered that.
Now it's 2025 and the Mets are off to a blazing start. A day short of one month into the season they have a 19-8 record, the best in the majors. In their division they have a five game lead over the Phils. Turning to intracity rivalry, the Yankees' record is 15-11. MLB's Anthony DiComo thinks part of the Mets' early success stems from Tylor Megill's (photo at top) improvement of his "stuff." According to DiComo, "[t]he zip on a fastball, the snap on a slider, the tumble on a changeup -- these are all examples of stuff." It's done Megill well so far; despite a 3-2 win-loss record, he has a 1.09 ERA and thirty strikeouts. The starter in today's win over the Nationals, former Yankee Clay Holmes, showed some good stuff, allowing four hits and no runs over five innings, with two strikeouts. He could have gone seven innings but for his time on the mound having been interrupted by a rain delay.
On the offensive side much optimism was engendered by the signing, for $765 million, the largest contract in baseball history, of the former Yankee star Juan Soto. It seemed worth it when he hit a home run in his first at bat of the season. Since then he has added only two more, and his average is a pallid .235 with twelve RBI. He also missed a catch in Friday's game that set the scene for the Nationals' ninth inning walk off victory. Mike Lupica, on MLB.com, writes of Pete Alonso, who was a free agent last year but stayed with the Mets with a lucrative two year contract, "[n]o one in the league has been more valuable so far than the Polar Bear [Alonso's nickname]." As of now he has a .333 average, with six homers and 26 RBI.
Can the Mets sustain this success? Is it 1986 again? Or will it be another 2021 in which they start flaming hot, then go freezing cold? Or perhaps another 2022, when a splendid regular season is followed by a playoff collapse? There are reasons, I believe, for optimism. Apart from Soto the core of the team has been together for a while, and the chemistry seems good. The unknown factor is how injuries may affect the team. I once speculated about why the Mets seem to suffer from this so much. Nevertheless, my hopes now are high.
I made "a fan's notes" part of the title of this post as an homage to Frederick Exley, whose first novel had that title, and with whom I once had a close encounter at the Lion's Head.
Photo: D. Benjamin Miller, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
There's a lot of talk about "tech bros" now, most of it not flattering. This being International Women's Day, and March being Women's History Month (so if I fail to complete this post today it will still be timely) I want to focus on two women, Ada Lovelace (portrait above; who, thanks to my daughter, is the namesake of my granddaughter) and Admiral Grace Hopper. I've called them "tech sisters" although their lifespans did not overlap, because each had a profound effect on the technology of computing. I think one can fairly say that Ada Lovelace was the first person ever to glimpse with any clarity what has become a defining phenomenon of our technology and even our civilization: the notion of universal computation.
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She would go on to develop the first compiler and to work on the first machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL and other languages. In the 1970s, she advocated for networked computing and for standardization and testing of programming languages, a standard that was adopted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
She retired, as required by regulations, at the age of 60, but was called back to active duty twice, was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1985, and finally retired in 1986, shortly before her 80th birthday. She died on New Year's Day, 1992, at the age of 85. Admiral Hopper is remembered in several ways. The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing has, since 1994, hosted "a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront." Two buildings and a warship have been named for her: Hopper Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy, which houses the Academy's Center for Cybersecurity Studies; Grace Hopper College at Yale; and the Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer USS Hopper. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 by President Barack Obama.
Image of Ada Lovelace: detail of portrait by Margaret Sarah Carpenter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo of Grace Hopper: James S. Davis, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Maryland has enacted laws that abolish the crime of which petitioners were convicted. These laws accord petitioners a right to be served in Hooper's restaurant, and make unlawful conduct like that of Hooper's president and hostess in refusing them service because of their race.***
Maryland follows the universal common law rule that, when the legislature repeals a criminal statute or otherwise removes the State's condemnation from conduct that was formerly deemed criminal, this action requires the dismissal of a pending criminal proceeding charging such conduct. The rule applies to any such proceeding which at the time of the supervening legislation, has not yet reached final disposition in the highest court authorized to review it.****
Accordingly, the Court vacated the judgment of the Maryland Court of Appeals and remanded the case to that court which, upon remand, held that the Baltimore and Maryland public accommodations statutes, along with the subsequently enacted federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, operated only prospectively and therefore could not invalidate the Hooper's sit-in demonstrators' convictions.***** However, this was not the end of the story. As Professor Reynolds notes at the conclusion of his previously cited article:
On December 14, 1964, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Hamm v. City of Rock Hill, holding that the 1964 Civil Rights Act did indeed abate all pending prosecutions of those who had been arrested for activity that the Act protected. Although Hamm readily appears controlling, the Court of Appeals waited nearly five months to issue an order on April 9, 1965, reversing the convictions and assessing costs against the State, thereby ending the historic case of Bell v. Maryland.******
Just over a year after the Court of Appeals issued its final order in Bell v. Maryland, Robert Mack Bell received the degree Bachelor of Arts in History from Morgan State College. Later that year he matriculated at Harvard Law School, from which he graduated with the degree Juris Doctor in 1969. He then returned to his home town, Baltimore, and was in private law practice for six years.
In 1975, Bell was appointed to the District Court of Maryland, District 1, in Baltimore City and served there until 1980. He was an Associate Judge, Baltimore City Circuit Court, 8th Judicial Circuit, from 1980 to 1984, when he was appointed to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. Seven years later he was appointed to the state's highest court and became the chief justice in 1996. He was a member of the Court of Appeals Standing Committee on Rules of practice and Procedure from 1977 to 1982; the Commission to Revise the Annotated Code of Maryland, 1980-82; and the Board of Directors, Judicial Institute of Maryland, 1982-84. In August 2006, Bell was named Chair of the National Center for State Courts' Board of Directors. At the same time, Judge Bell also was named president of the Conference of Chief Justices.*******
In 2013 he reached the mandatory retirement age of seventy for Maryland judges. His career was significant for Black History in two ways. First, he helped to instigate and carry out a sit-in demonstration that led to litigation that clarified the legal status of such non-violent demonstrations. Second, he became the first Black Chief Justice of the Maryland Court of Appeals (now called the Maryland Supreme Court) and, in a delicious bit of irony, thereby became Chief Justice of the very court that had affirmed his conviction in 1962.
In 2008 he made this observation about how he considered the significance of his case:
I think my case has given me that point of reference, and it also makes me appreciate the extent of progress that has been made. And it also made me able to gauge the extent of the progress which has yet to be made. I think, not just about that case, but about that era in that fashion. The unfortunate thing is that younger people don't remember it. They don't know what happened. And therefore you're finding a different kind of attitude and a complacency which I think is more dangerous than anything else. So our job is pretty hard.********
I believe this observation is still relevant in 2025.
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"Carter believed passionately in the capacity of human beings to create civil societies that would contain the beasts in all of us. Civilization would prevail over brutality. Humanity over inhumanity.
Carter was a religious man who lived by this simple civil religion. He not only saw the good in others but he practiced the good. He was far from the best president America has had but he was one of the best and most decent people ever to serve as president."
UPDATE: Sabrina Lippman, CEO of Habitat for Humanity New York City and Westchester County, offers this remembrance:
“New Yorkers and global citizens alike have lost one of our greatest advocates for affordable housing, self-help homeownership, and shelter for all. We add our voices to the chorus around the world celebrating a life well-built.
President Carter’s leadership and commitment to decent, affordable housing was rooted in his faith, belief in family, and an unwavering dedication to the idea that we can create a better life for all by lifting each other up and working together to accomplish our shared goals.
We cannot overstate our appreciation for just how much Habitat for Humanity and the people we’ve served around the world have benefited from the support of President and Mrs. Carter, may they both rest in peace."
Photo: Department of Defense. Department of the Navy. Naval Photographic Center, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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When I was in high school and first read this couplet from T.S. Eliot's (photo) "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" I assumed that a man's having the bottoms of his trousers rolled, or cuffed, was a new fashion trend in 1915, when the poem was written, and that Eliot ascribed to the aging Mr. Prufrock a desire to appear au courant.
This morning a different reason occurred to me as I tucked, or rolled under, the bottoms of my trousers. From my teen years until now I have worn trousers with a thirty inch inseam. However, I now find that instead of the desirable "break" at shoe level, I get an unsightly sprawl. The reason became evident when a doctor measured my stature and found it was five feet seven, down from the five feet ten it had been for most of my life. I had, for some time, noticed that people, especially women, seemed on the average taller than I was used to seeing.
This I now know, is because a loss of stature frequently occurs during aging. According to this article, by losing three inches I've lost the maximum expected amount. I hope that's true.
Perhaps, then, poor J. Alfred had lost an inch or more growing old, and that's why he needed to roll his trousers.
Photo: Thomas Stearns Eliot with his sister and his cousin by Lady Ottoline Morrell.jpg: Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873–1938) derivative work: Octave.H, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
For years there were unsuccessful attempts to grow vinifera vines in New York. This was blamed on the cold climate. The first to succeed was Dr. Konstantin Frank (photo above). A native of Ukraine, Dr. Frank earned his PhD in viticulture (the science of wine) with a thesis on growing vinifera grapes in cold climates. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1951, and in 1958 bought some land near Keuka Lake, one of the Finger Lakes, and planted Riesling, a white vinifera varietal that originated in the relatively cool climate of Germany's Rhine Valley. He made several award winning wines from this first planting, ranging in style from very sweet to dry. He went on to introduce many other vinifera varietals, both red and white, to the Finger Lakes climate and soil, and to make widely praised wines from them. After his death in 1985 his son Willy took over management of the winery, and began making sparkling wines using the French méthode champenoise. He also continued making varieties of still wine his father had been making, although he reduced the number of them from sixty to twelve. Willy died in 2006 and was succeeded by his son, Fred. Fred's daughter, Meaghan, has now assumed much of the management responsibility, so the winery and vineyards have had the attention of four generations of the Frank family.
Dr. Frank was a mentor to many other winemakers in the Finger Lakes and elsewhere. Among these are Jordan Harris of Heron Hill, Morten Hallgren of Ravines Wine Cellars, and Sébastien LeSeurre of Domaine LeSeurre, all of which Martha and I visited when we toured the Finger Lakes wine region in 2021. This year Chris Bennem and Lisa Moore invited us back to Glen Hollow for a long weekend, and arranged for us to take a tour of the Frank winery followed by a paired tasting of selected foods with Frank wines.
Photo of Dr. Konstantin Frank, Finger Lakes Wine Country; all others by C. Scales
Lesh’s bass lines hopped and bubbled and constantly conversed with the guitars of Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. His tone was rounded and unassertive while he eased his way into the counterpoint, almost as if he were thinking aloud. Lesh’s playing was essential to the Dead’s particular gravity-defying lilt, sharing a collective mode of rock momentum that was teasing and probing, never bluntly coercive.
As Pareles also noted:
His bass lines held hints of Bach, jazz, bluegrass, blues, Latin music and far more, as he sought out new interstices each time through a song.
The reference to bluegrass, a style of music I've long enjoyed, intrigued me. According to the Times obituary, Lesh first met Jerry Garcia when Garcia was playing bluegrass banjo at local East Bay nightclubs. The obituary quotes Lesh on hearing Garcia on banjo:
That was my first intimation that music with that kind of directness and simplicity could deliver an aesthetic and emotional payoff comparable to that of the greatest operatic or symphonic works.
Lesh told Garcia he wanted to learn to play bass. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
It was not to be. The Mets' regular season record against the Dodgers was 2-4; that also proved to be their record in the National League Championship Series. The Dodgers will now be facing the Yankees in a World Series for the twelfth time, though the first since 1981. Their 1955 Series, when the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn, is memorable for me. This time, though, I'll be rooting for the Yankees.
