Client 9, the downfall of Eliot Spitzer.

Eliot Spitzer's self-inflicted political undoing seemed puzzling to me, as to many. I've also commented about his neckwear. So, I'm looking forward to seeing Client 9, Alex Gibney's new documentary about his rise and fall (see Gibney interview above). Gibney has produced the documentaries Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room; Taxi to the Dark Side; Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson; Casino Jack and the United States of Money; and Freakonomics. Disclosure: my charming next-door neighbor is Gibney's mother-in-law.

For those of you in New York City, Client 9 is playing at Angelika Film Center New York, City Cinemas East 86th Street, and Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.

Update: Keifus sez: "You can also rent it at home if you subscribe to IFC's on demand thingie."

Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, "Even Heroes Have to Die"

"Many are the beauties of the fall."

Comments on the election? How about a cute doggie video?

Actually, this is kind of like me for the past 24 hours or so, chasing after scraps of good news. Here in New York, it has been mostly good, with Andrew Cuomo trouncing the noxious Carl Paladino for Governor, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand easily re-elected to the Senate, and Eric Schneiderman, whom I met and supported enthusiastically, succeeding Cuomo as our Attorney General. The one Republican for whom I voted, Harry Wilson, lost the race for Comptroller by a small margin. I was also disappointed, but not surprised, by New York City voters' overwhelming approval of a referendum proposal to return term limits for city officials to two terms. I'm not a fan of term limits, which take power away from the electorate.

Good news came early from Connecticut, with Dick Blumenthal's knock-down of wham-bam Linda McMahon, and, though expected, from Delaware, with Christopher Coons' capture of the Golden Snitch before hapless Christine O'Donnell. These early bits of cheer were tempered by the news of Rand Paul's triumph in Kentucky; unfortunately, his opponent ran a very bad campaign. After this came a drumbeat of bad news: Rubio's win in Florida, Toomey's in Pennsylvania, Boozman's in Arkansas. Just before I went to bed, my spirits were lifted by Barbara Boxer's victory in California, but promptly deflated by the news of the loss of one of my favorite senators, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.

I woke up to WQXR giving me the sad but expected news that the GOP had captured the House. This was offset by hearing of Jerry Brown's re-election, after a long hiatus, as Governor of California, and of Harry Reid's having survived the challenge of Sharron Angle. Later, I was bouyed by learning that Lisa Murkowski appears to be leading the pack for the open Alaska senate seat and that Deval Patrick was re-elected Governor of Massachusetts, but disappointed by Mark Kirk's victory in the Illinois senate race. My final bit of good news was that Michael Bennet had prevailed for the Senate in Colorado.

I was thinking of going on and writing a "What's it all mean and where do we go from here?" analysis, but I'm just too tired right now. I've read some of the many published so far, and may digest them and try to put my own gloss on things later, perhaps during the weekend.

Video courtesy of my friend and neighbor WellingtonsMummy.

Update: Patty Murray is declared the winner in the Washington senate race. Justice is served on errant robocallers.

Why I wanted the Giants to win the World Series

(By the time I finish this, it may be a done deal--the last I looked the giants had a 3-1 lead going into the eighth.) The last time the Giants won the Series was 1954, when I was in third grade at Eglin Air Force Base Elementary School, in northwest Florida. We were allowed out of class in the afternoon (all World Series games were played during the day then) to watch the games on a TV set on the stage in the "cafetorium". Although I was eight years old at the time, I knew nothing of baseball, having spent the previous three years in England, where my father had been stationed, and having begun my formal education in an English school, where I learned the rudiments of cricket and "footy" (soccer).

The '54 Series featured the then New York Giants against the Cleveland Indians. I didn't have any rooting interest that I can recall, and my one clear memory of the Series is of Willie Mays making the great catch shown in the clip above (courtesy of chawk720) in game one, on Wednesday, September 29. I'd like for Willie to see his old team win again.

Update: And he does!

Mussorgsky-Chernov, "Night on Bald Mountain"

Boris Berezovsky (the pianist, not to be confused with the exiled oligarch) does a breathtaking rendition of Chernov's piano transcription of Mussorgsky's macabre classic. Thanks to medpiano for the clip.

Happy Halloween!

S. Neil Fujita, 1921-2010

A year ago last May, I did a post here with the title "Jazz and the Visual Arts", which included an image of the cover of Charles Mingus' album Mingus Ah Um. The painting reproduced on the cover was by an artist unfamiliar to me, S. Neil Fujita. I soon noticed, from my Site Meter, that this post was attracting lots of hits off web searches, many of them for generic topics like "album cover art" or "jazz album covers", but also many for Fujita. This piqued my curiosity, and I thought I should do a web search for him, but other matters seemed more urgent. A few days ago, I noticed a spike in visits to S-A B, and, checking the details, saw that many were off searches for Fujita. I did my own search and learned that he died last Saturday at the age of 89.

Fujita was born and raised in Hawaii, the son of Japanese immigrant parents. The initial "S" is for Sadamitsu, his given name at birth; the name Neil was assigned to him when he went to a boarding school in Honolulu. He went to art school in California, but his studies were interrupted after Pearl Harbor when he, like thousands of other Americans of Japanese origin or parentage, was sent to an internment camp. He left the camp by volunteering for the U.S. Army, and served with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a unit consisting almost entirely of Japanese Americans, which won many honors for bravery in combat in Italy and France. After the war, he completed his art studies and went to work for an advertising firm, where he produced award winning graphic designs. His success led to a job at Columbia Records designing album covers, including Mingus Ah Um and Dave Brubeck's Time Out (shown above), both of which featured his paintings, and 'Round About Midnight by Miles Davis.

Fujita later formed his own firm, and his commissions included many book jacket designs, the best known of which are probably Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and Mario Puzo's The Godfather. Fujita discusses his career in detail in his 2007 interview with Steven Heller. He has also written an autobiography, Mouth of Reddish Water. Late in life, Fujita returned to his original passion, painting.

I just got a robocall telling me to vote for Dino Rossi.

"Patty Murray is a Washington, D.C. insider", the authoritative male voice said. "She's on Harry Reid's side." Rossi, I was assured, would stand up to Reid and the rest of the inside-the-Beltway establishment. He'll do what's in the best interests of the people of Washington. Washington state, that is.

Only problem (besides the fact that I wouldn't vote for Rossi even if I could) is that I'm in New York, a continent away. If this is how the Republicans handle targeting their robocalls, maybe they need some lessons from the NRA.

Is there a pot of gold in Park Slope, Brooklyn?

Photo taken by my wife from an office on Garfield Place, Brooklyn, yesterday afternoon.

The CalTex Series

With both the Phillies and Rays eliminated, I lost both teams I could have a strong reason (Tampa is my old home town; Pennsylvania my native state) to support in this year's World Series. With the Yankees out, I also lost the one team I loathe (actually, in the interest of boosting the local economy, I was rooting for the Yanks to win the AL championship, then lose the Series in seven games to either the Giants or Phils). So, I'm left to decide between the Giants and the Rangers, or simply to sit back and watch without taking sides. 


Reasons for supporting the Giants: (1) they are the representative of the Real Baseball League, as opposed to the Designated Hitter League; (2) my maternal grandfather was born and raised in California, so I'm one of those odd people who can claim roots there without ever having been a resdient; (3) my earliest baseball memory is of Willie Mays making a spectacular catch in the 1954 Series (New York Giants vs. Cleveland Indians); and (4) I love San Francisco.


Reasons for supporting the Rangers: (1) they're scrappy, low-salary underdogs; and (2) I love Texas (really; scroll down to the addendum to the linked post).

By a score of 4-2, the Giants win my loyalty.


Update: So far, so good. Giants dodge one Cliff Lee bullet.

Second update: Giants "Cain" rangers, 9-0 to take 2-0 Series lead.

Video of bike ride across the Brooklyn Bridge

I've posted several times before about my almost daily walks over the Brooklyn Bridge and back, including documenting one such, on a chilly January morning, on video. There is little pedestrian traffic on this winter day, but a fairly steady stream of bikes, mostly headed in the same direction I'm going, from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Given the hour (roughly 8:30-9:00 a.m.) this video was shot, the bike riders are likely commuting from homes in Brooklyn to workplaces in Manhattan.

Now, thanks to The Phantom of Bay Ridge Blog, I've found the clip above, which shows a complete crossing of the Bridge from a biker's point of view, from the beginning of the bike path at Tillary and Adams streets in Brooklyn to its end across from the Municipal Building in Manhattan (the action is speeded to keep the video reasonably short, and there's some nice background music). Judging by the state of construction of Frank Gehry's Beekman Tower (scroll to the bottom of the linked post), I'd say this video was made in the late summer of 2009. It being a clear summer day, there are lots of pedestrians on the Bridge, many of them tourists busy lining up photo shots. There's a bold white line dividing the pedestrian and bike lanes of the pathway, which is mostly respected on both sides, though in the video you can see some near misses, usually caused by pedestrians abruptly crossing into the bike path.

Bikes have been part of New York City life since their invention, but in the recent past, in my experience, most of them were used by messengers or restaurant delivery people. Over the last decade or so, the number of people using them to commute to and from work, or for recreation, has increased greatly. This has led to tensions between bikers and auto drivers and parkers (note: the "victory" for bikers claimed in the linked post was later partly undone in a "compromise" brokered by a local politician, allowing parking in the bike lane on Sundays during church services), as well as pedestrians. I don't own a bike--indeed, I never learned to ride one--and so might well be found on the anti-bike side of these issues. There have been times during my trans-Bridge peregrinations when I've shaken my fist and cursed under my breath at bikers who've come flying around the corners that abut the towers of the Bridge, heedless of the fact that tourists often gather there to take photos, or who've bellowed at me for having the temerity to transgress slightly onto the bike path while I'm passing groups of fellow pedestrians walking three abreast. The pathway really is too narrow, given the traffic it gets on pleasant days, to allow for strict separation of bikes and pedestrians, unlike the nearby Manhattan Bridge, which has separate bike and pedestrian paths. In general, I've found both bikers and pedestrians on the Brooklyn Bridge to be courteous to each other, but there are exceptions. I hope one of these exceptions doesn't eventuate in a serious injury.

Classic Dylan, for the first time.

Five days from now, on October 19, Columbia Records will release a "Bootleg Series" two CD set of early Bob Dylan recordings, The Witmark Demos 1962-1964. The set's title comes from these having been "demo" recordings Dylan made during the first two years of his recording career, mostly for the publisher Witmark Music, but a few of the earliest for another house. These recordings were not made for publication, but rather for the publisher to play for other recording artists who migiht be interested in covering them. Consequently, Dylan's approach to them is relaxed. Most of these songs were also recorded by Dylan for publication, and included on his early albums, from Bob Dylan (1962; follow the link and scroll down for some interesting commentary that appeared on the liner of this, Dylan's first album, then scroll down further for videos of earlier performances of some of the songs he covered on this album) through Bringing It All Back Home (1965), and a few on later albums. Some were never included in official Dylan albums, but only on bootlegs, and some others were never released by Dylan. As Michael Simmons noted in MOJO:

In addition to the obvious classics, there are renditions of little-known Bobtunes that in hindsight stand with his best from this time (15 of the songs here have never been officially released by Bob in any form). Long Time Gone is a powerful refutation of any attempt to tame the drifting protagonist. It includes the line "But I know I ain't no prophet / An' I ain't no prophet's son" - that predates the spokesman-for-a-generation furore (he may be more prophetic than he knows). With a sprightly rhythm, engaging melody and offbeat chord changes for the folk idiom, Guess I'm Doing Fine is another anthem of determination.

You can listen to 22 of the 47 tracks in this collection on the NPR website. The demo of "Blowin' in the Wind" struck me as better than the version released on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, but this may just have been a "shock of the new" reaction. "Long Ago, Far Away", which I previously knew only from the Brothers Four Sing of Our Times album (you can play a sample here), seems badly recorded; Dylan's voice on "far away" sounding very screechy. The anthemic "When the Ship Comes In"--my favorite version has long been that of The Hillmen, Chris Hillman's pre-Byrds bluegrass group (listen here)--is here done by Dylan accompanying himself on piano, and done splendidly. Other songs I'd never heard, like the aforementioned "I'm Doing Fine", were especially pleasant surprises.

As Michael Simmons sums it up:

I'm betting a lot of young people of the 21st century will find comfort listening to this young man of the 20th as he begins his odyssey. All eras set challenges for young minds - and Lord knows everyone gets the blues. True artists make their own mistakes and learn their own lessons, but it never hurts to know where giants have trod before embarking on a journey of your own.

The Amygdaloids, "Brainstorm", with Lenny Kaye and Steve Wynn

I've posted before about the Amygdaloids, a band consisting of New York University science professors and graduate students whose repertoire is made up of songs about the wonders of the human brain. The clip above shows them doing "Brainstorm" at the CD launch party for their new release, Theory of My Mind, at Don Hill's in New York City on October 8. Joining them for this song are guitarists Lenny Kaye, of the Patti Smith Group, and Steve Wynn, of The Dream Syndicate, Steve Wynn and the Miracle 3, and The Baseball Project.

Another song done by the group at Don Hill's (and also on the new CD) is "Fearing". The music video above, featuring lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Joseph LeDoux and drummer Danielle Schiller, was directed by Noah Hutton.

Rays are gone.

It appears I really did manage to curse both the Twins and the Rays by supporting them in their respective division series. At least I'm now relieved of having to support a Designated Hitter League team for the championship.

Braves are out, and I'm sort of sad.

Yes, I know: not quite a month and a half ago I wrote here that a Yankees-Braves series would leave me with the vain hope that both could lose. To me, the Braves have seemed, despite their struggles in the postseason, the National League's version of the Yanks: swaggering, beloved of the pundits, and, most importantly, frequent nemesis of the Mets. How I came to hate the tomahawk chant they stole from Florida State! As with the Yanks, my dislike of the team did not extend to individual players (with the fortunately brief exception of the noxious John Rocker); in particular, I've admired the two unrelated Joneses, Andruw and Chipper, and am glad to see that the latter hasn't played his last game. As I've said, I'm now committed to the Rays (a commitment that may be extinguished tomorrow), but I'd have liked to see Bobby Cox, a rare genius of the game, at least get a league pennant in his final year.

Va fa Napoli, hipster.

I've posted before about culture war in Brooklyn, focusing on the fight between middle income car drivers who live in the outer parts of the borough and mostly affluent Park Slope bike riders. David Castillo, of Blue Barn Pictures, directed the photography for the video above; a clever take on the clash between older Brooklynites and recently arrived hipsters. Note that this also involves bikes.

Sahr Ngaujah and company do songs from Fela! at St. Ann's Warehouse, Brooklyn

This Monday evening, Sahr Ngaujah and the band from the Broadway show Fela!, a tribute to the Nigerian musician and political activist Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, considered "the father of Afro-beat" (there's a good short biography here), performed music from the show at St. Ann's Warehouse, a theater venue in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn. The show was meant to be performed outdoors, in Brooklyn Bridge Park, but was moved indoors because of rain. My friend and neighbor Karl Junkersfeld was on hand to make the video above. Enjoy!

Gliese 581g, the "Goldilocks" planet.

By now you've likely read the news that an Earth-like planet has been found in the solar system of a nearby star, Gliese 581. According to the Washington Post story:

The planet, called Gliese 581g, is quite close at 20 light years from Earth's solar system. It is considered to be in the habitable zone because of its distance from its sun and its size.

Together, those two measurements tell scientists that any water on the planet will be in liquid form, and that the planet is large enough to have the gravitational pull to hold an atmosphere around it.

We don't know yet if there is any water, or any atmosphere. Gliese 581g differs from Earth in one important way. Like our moon, and like Mercury, the time it takes to rotate on its axis is synchronous with its orbital period, which means that it keeps one side facing its sun (or, in the case of the moon, Earth) at all times, while the other side stays in darkness. The side permanently facing the sun would be too hot to support life, while the dark side would be too cold. Nevertheless, there would be a band between the bright and dark sides--a "twilight zone", if you will--where temperatures could be moderate enough to accommodate life. It strikes my layman's mind, however, that if Gliese 581g had an earth-like atmosphere, such a tremendous temperature difference would result in a huge difference in atmospheric pressure, which in turn would give rise to some ferocious weather, perhaps severe enough to preclude life, at least on the surface.

What's really exciting to me about this discovery, apart from its being the first of a planet similar in important respects to earth, is that it's so close to us. Since, so far as I know, there's no reason to believe that our immediate galactic neighborhood is more likely than any other (except, perhaps, near the galactic center) to include solar systems that have earth-like planets, the fact that there are two separated by only twenty light years suggests that such systems are fairly common.

Maine, again.

We made our annual summer visit to Maine a bit late this year. As usual, we stayed with friends in Cape Elizabeth, near Portland, and I took my customary morning walk over the Casco Bay Bridge (for some views from that bridge a couple of summers ago, see here) instead of the Brooklyn Bridge. This year, we made a side trip to Boothbay Harbor.

The afternoon of our arrival, we visited Fort Williams Park and Portland Head Light, the most photographed lighthouse in America (for my views of it from visits four and three years ago, see here and here). While there, I made the shot of a schooner passing between Portland Head and Ram Island Ledge Light, above.

After Fort Williams, we went to Jordan's Farm in Cape Elizabeth to get fresh vegetables for dinner.

The next morning, on my walk to the Casco Bay Bridge, I passed a park in South Portland with this colorful floral display.

The small trawler Daryl Anne was docked at a pier below the Casco Bay Bridge.

Three McAllister tugs were docked at the Portland International Marine Terminal. The city of Portland lies beyond.

A basket of flowers decorates a doorway in South Portland.

A view of Boothbay Harbor.

Skiff, dock, and pigeon, Boothbay Harbor.

Dinner, part one: steamed cherrystone clams.

Dinner, part two: lobster.

New Marshall Chapman video: "Going Away Party", and a plug for her new book.

Marshall Chapman is a favorite of mine, so it's always a pleasure to find a new video of her in performance that I can share with you. The clip above shows her doing a slower, bluesy-er number than usual, and I think she does it very well.

Marshall's first book, the autobiography Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller, was published in 2003. Her second, They Came to Nashville, has just been published. Her new album, Big Lonesome, will be released next month.

College football begins, and a belated farewell to Vic Ziegel.

The Harvard Crimson are the consensus favorites to win the Ivy crown this year, though the New York Times' Thomas Kaplan likes Penn's prospects. Do I care? Last year I mused about the fine points of Ivy football, as opposed to we-need-new-machines-for-the-training-room-so-let's-fire-the-philosophy-department football. But for which Ivy team would I root? For the reason given in the post to which I linked above, Harvard is out of the question. Penn is a possibility; after all, I'm a Keystone State native. If I chose based on my present location, it would be Columbia. I believe the Lions actually had a winning season five or six years ago. Backing them would be in character with my sports masochism: see under Mets, New York.

Anyway, I have my undergraduate alma mater, South Florida, to root for now. When I was a student (1964-67), President John Allen's policy was to allow only "participant-oriented athletics", which, I suppose, meant anything not likely to draw a crowd. It was huge when, in 1971 (after Allen's retirement), they got into basketball. Football didn't happen until 1997, initially as an independent in what was then called the NCAA's Division 1AA. The Bulls are now a BCS team, playing in the Big East Conference. They have a fairly impressive record, with only two losing seasons (1997 and 2004) and one break-even (2005), and bowl appearances every year since joining the Big East (their bowl record is 3-2; last year, they beat Northern Illinois 27-3 at the International Bowl, in Toronto). This year, they have a new coach, Skip Holz, who had a creditable record at East Carolina, and has impeccable coaching DNA. For the first time in several years, the Bulls didn't figure in the pre-season rankings (though they were among the "others receiving votes" in the USA Today coaches' poll, no doubt reflecting admiration for the Holz brand). They opened with a 59-14 trouncing of the Stony Brook Seawolves. It was news to me that Stony Brook, a unit of the State University of New York system located about forty miles from my home, has a football team. I was doubly surprised to learn that they play in the Big South Conference, along with teams like Charleston Southern, Coastal Carolina, and VMI. (Then, again, the University of Richmond used to be part of something called the Yankee Conference, which must have had Robert E. Lee spinning in his grave.)

This coming Saturday, South Florida has its first ever game against the Florida Gators, currently ranked fourth in the AP and third in the USA Today poll. The Bulls have a history of pulling off big upsets: in 2007, they beat Auburn and West Virginia when both were ranked in the AP top 25, and last year they unhorsed the Florida State Seminoles. Florida's season got off to a slow start Saturday as they defeated Miami University of Ohio by the closer than expected score of 34-12, in a game characterized by sloppy offensive play. I see this as bad news for the Bulls, as Gator coach Urban Meyer will crack the whip and the players will be motivated to make up for a poor showing in their opener. I used to be good at predicting the Gators' fortunes from game to game, but lately I've lost my touch. Last year, I thought they would lose to arch-rival Georgia, and was happy to see that prediction come a cropper. Nevertheless, I'll go out on the limb again and predict Florida 45, South Florida 17.

I'll end this piece on a sad note, with a farewell to yet another of my Lion's Head companions of yore, the sportswriter Vic Ziegel. I enjoyed many a chat with Vic at the Head's bar, mostly about baseball back in the days when the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn and the Giants inhabited Coogan's Bluff. College football wasn't Vic's game. When I mentioned it to him once, he shrugged and said, "Well, you've got Notre Dame, Michigan, Southern Cal...what else?" Another time, I remarked on the fact that every profile of a quarterback I had read in recent memory somewhere included the words, "his profound Christian faith". This led me to ask Vic if the great Chicago Bears quarterback of the 1940s, Sid Luckman, was Jewish. "Yes, he is" Vic answered, "I just saw him last week. Looks great." He also told me that Luckman was a Brooklyn native and played college ball at Columbia.

Goodbye, Vic. I'll miss you.

Update: Unfortunately, my prognostication for Florida/USF was pretty accurate.

The worst baseball season ever?

We're up against stiff competition: strike-blighted 1994, scandal-scarred 1919. OK: I'm seeing this as a Mets fan and Yankee hater, and particularly looking at tonight's results which, for me, are bad all the way. The Mets lose to the Braves, 9-2, after having lost to them 9-3 yesterday. The Yanks win, and the Rays lose, putting the Yanks back in sole possession of first place in the AL East. The Red Sox also lose.

The outline of something dreadful is taking shape on the horizon: a Braves-Yanks World Series, in which I will be relegated to the vain hope that they both lose.

Happy 65th, Van Morrison.

In the immortal words of Paul Schiffman, "Live forever, kid!"

S-A B is five today!

Somehow, I've managed to keep cranking out the posts for half a decade. Thanks to all my regular readers (I'm not sure how big an "all" that is, but I know there are a few of you). A fifth anniversary seems deserving of some sort of hoopla, but I can't think of much to write now beyond what I did a year ago. At that time, I promised to do what I could to merit your continued attention, and invited your comments and suggestions. I repeat that promise, and that invitation.

(Image courtesy of Camden Chat.)

Eli "Paperboy" Reed at Le Poisson Rouge, August 11, 2010

Three weeks ago, I posted about Eli "Paperboy" Reed and his band, the True Loves, noting that they were to play at Le Poisson Rouge, in Greenwich Village, on August 11, and promising "a full report". I was there, and made the video above of Eli and the True Loves doing "Help". Eli and his excellent band put on an energetic and gut-wrenching show; I now think I know what it was like to be in Cincinnati in the 1960s, catching a show by James Brown and an early version of the Famous Flames.

A visit to the studio of painter George Oommen

This video clip, courtesy of Harvard Magazine, takes us into the studio of painter George Oommen as he demonstrates and explains his technique. I found interesting Oommen's analogy of his method to jazz; long time readers of this blog may recall my attempt to describe a connection between jazz and some modern painting.

Oommen's work includes purely non-representational (a term I prefer to "abstract" because all painting is, of necessity, abstract, as Magritte, somewhat tendentiously, indicated in "The Treachery of Images") paintings, as well as some representational, but very un-naturalistic, landscapes, largely inspired by scenes in his native Kerala state, in southern India. You can see images of Oommen's paintings on his website.

Culture war, New York City style: it's about bikes.

Much has been written and said about the supposed cultural divide between coastal elites and heartland (or flyover country) just plain folks, but, as Alexander Nazaryan describes it in his Daily News piece, there's an internecine version playing out here in Gotham. His analysis of the kerfuffle over a bike lane abutting Prospect Park in Brooklyn, in which our Borough President, Marty Markowitz, sided with the gas guzzlers, is illuminating:

Markowitz, the consummate politician, was playing to his base: the ethnic whites of Jewish, Italian and Irish descent who drive along Prospect Park West to their homes in Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend and Midwood. On Prospect Park West live yuppies who couldn't tell Marty Markowitz from a borscht belt yukster - and couldn't care less. They're the ones doing the biking, the ones with no tangible roots to New York who might finally spend that year in France - where, of course, they will bike from patisserie to boucherie to the wineshop in perfect pastoral bliss.

The Mets are toast, but The Baseball Project is alive and well.

The Baseball Project is the creation of Steve Wynn and Scott McCaughey, two rockers who first met at a club in Seattle and discovered a common passion for the national pastime. They rounded out the group with McCaughey's R.E.M. colleague Peter Buck on bass and Linda Pitmon on drums. The clip above, courtesy of Steve's YouTube channel, shows them on Letterman, doing "Past Time". Once again, a hat tip to Eliot Wagner (follow the link for some great photos he took of the group, with Mike Mills in place of Buck on bass, at Maxwell's in Hoboken) for turning me on to them.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

A bargeload of crushed cars, having passed under the Brooklyn Bridge, heads toward New Jersey.

Trader Joe's beers: cheap and cheaper, but not bad.

In these times, I've become an avid bargain hunter. A sixer of domestic "craft" beer from a store in my neighborhood costs from ten to thirteen dollars, tax included, which works out to roughly two bucks a bottle. So, when I visited Trader Joe's a couple of weeks ago, I checked out their beer offerings. I found that they carry several house brand beers and ales, some at $6.99 a six-pack and others at $7.99 before tax. I decided to try one of the less expensive beers, the "Vienna Style Lager". The Saranac special holiday lager I tried two years ago was also described as "Vienna style", and I liked it a lot.

TJ's offering proved a bargain. It has a rich reddish amber color and a mild, malty aroma with just a hint of hop herbaceousness. The flavor is well balanced between malt and hops, the latter adding a bit of citrus-y zest. This is a go-with-anything beer; nothing about it is attention-grabbing, but it is satisfying. The label says the beer is bottled by Trader Joe's Brewing Co. of San Jose, California, but, according to Beeradvocate, this is a "beer marketing company", so where the beer is brewed is a mystery.

On my next visit to TJ's, I noticed some cans of "Simpler Times" beer offered at a reet-cheap $3.99 a six-pack. It was available in both lager and pilsner versions. "How bad can it be?", I thought, and bought a sixer of lager. This beer proved to be as close as I can imagine to a polar opposite of TJ's Vienna Style Lager. The color is pale yellow-gold. It has a flowery nose, with a slight, earthy malt undertone. The flavor is intensely sweet and fruity, my predominant impression being of ripe plum, with a suggestion of caramel. Would I make this a staple beer? No. It would go well with spicy food, or could be enjoyed by itself (its maker, Minhas Craft Brewery of Monroe, Wisconsin, formerly the Joseph Huber Brewing Company, also makes root beer). I'm not sure if this beer is exclusive to TJ's. In any event, at less than five bucks a sixer, with tax, I'll probably have it again if I'm planning Indian, Mexican, or Szechuan take-out.

I will be trying more beer and ale from TJ's, and report on it from time to time.

Eli "Paperboy" Reed: from Brookline to Brooklyn

"Blue-eyed soul" is a term I first saw used in reference to the Righteous Brothers. As a concept, it may have originated (I'm leaving aside the blackface tradition extending from the Christy Minstrels to Al Jolson) with Sam Phillips in Memphis back in the early 1950s, musing about how he could make a million if he could find a white singer who sounded black. His wish was granted in the form of Elvis Presley, who recorded Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky" as if it were composed by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, and Crudup's "That's All Right" as if it weren't a white singer's cover. When these first Elvis recordings got some air time on Memphis radio, Peter Guralnick writes in his notes to The Sun Sessions CD, the DJ, Dewey Phillips ( a friend, but apparently not a relative of Sam), interviewed Elvis live on his show in order to ask one question: "Where did you go to high school?" When Elvis answered "Humes", the audience in then segregated Memphis knew he was white.

Since then, many white singers have aspired to achieve what Elvis did in those early recordings; none perhaps so blatantly as Lou Reed. The latest of these shares Lou's surname, if not his style. Eli "Paperboy" Reed, "a Jewish kid from Brookline" (Massachusetts, a close-in suburb of Boston), along with his band, the True Loves, does R&B that evokes sounds from the sixties and seventies (see clip above). This album review suggests, however, that Reed's music is more than a re-creation of old R&B. He spent the better part of two years studying the roots of R&B, first in Mississippi, birthplace of the blues, then in Chicago. The result, according to the review, is a syncretic style that draws on a number of sources, not all of them well known.

Reed is now, like so many critically acclaimed musicians and groups, Brooklyn based.

Eli and the True Loves will be at Le Poisson Rouge, 136 Bleecker Street, this Wednesday evening, August 11. I'll be there and give you a full report.