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.

Looking back to the childhood of the universe.

The images above, starting on the left and rotating to the bottom right, are successive magnifications of the same patch of sky, made using the Hubble Space Telescope. The blurred object in the bottom right photo is the most distant galaxy yet observed. It's about 13.2 billion light years away. Since the Big Bang was about 13.7 billion years ago, light reaching us from this galaxy originated within about half a billion years from the beginning of the universe, when it was in its infancy.

More winter scenes from Brooklyn Heights.

The storm that started Wednesday and ended early Thursday added another blanket to what had already accumulated and not melted in earlier warmer weather. Accumulation on tree branches was spectacular.

From my window, late Wednesday morning.

Trees arching over Montague Terrace, looking toward Remsen Street, Thursday.

Shoveling on Cranberry Street.

Ship's bell in front of Danish Seamen's Church, Willow Street.

Corner of Hicks and Remsen Streets.

Grace Church, Hicks Street and Grace Court.

My state senator's message to Jets fans.

I got to know Daniel Squadron (photo above) early in his campaign to become state senator from my district, and was able in a small way to help him win the Democratic primary against a thirty year incumbent. For this, my reward was four days in Buffalo. I later attended his swearing in ceremony in Albany and have kept in touch with him and his staff since. Today, I got a message from his chief of staff that impressed me greatly. In the aftermath of the Jets' defeat by the Steelers in yesterday's AFC championship game, Senator Squadron declared himself a Jets fan. Given that New York has two NFL teams, that was an act of political courage. What impressed me more is what he posted on ESPN's website, which included the following:

To be a Jets fan is to be a believer. It’s to ignore the conventional wisdom or the odds, even logic. If you can wake up each Jets game day believing that this time will be different ... well, you can wake up believing anything. Jets fans start each season believing in the infinite possibility of a changed future. We begin each game believing in the limitless opportunity to shake off past failures and make today the beginning of something new and special.

Inspiring words, indeed. And it struck me how true they would also be if you substituted an "M" for every "J" in that passage. Could the Senator also be a Mets fan? It would be in character to root for both "-ets" teams, both underdogs with long histories of breaking their fans' hearts.

But for a New York City politician, at least one whose district does not lie entirely in Brooklyn or Queens (Squadron's includes lower Manhattan as well as a small part of Brooklyn), to come out as a Mets fan would be uncommon valor. There isn't nearly the intensity of contempt between Giants and Jets fans as there is between Yankees and Mets partisans. Yankee fans are a majority in three of the five boroughs, which is why Rudy Giuliani could proclaim his Yankee loyalty without endangering his chances in citywide elections, and why Hillary Clinton made the claim that she had "always been a Yankee fan", which she quickly qualified by saying she was a Cubs loyalist, but the Bombers were her favorite AL team.

Palin free February? You betcha!

Wikimedia Commons

Dana Milbank has made the challenge. I'll gladly take it up. After all, I've only posted about her three times. The first was in 2008, when she was a candidate for Vice President and I, like many, was shuddering at the "heartbeat away" prospect. Another was an apology. The third was here. Anyway, it doesn't seem that big a sacrifice for me.

How about you?

Paul Schiffman

In my e-mail inbox this morning was the following message: "Paul Schiffman died last night in his apartment." I got to know Paul in the 1970s when he was a bartender at the Lion's Head and I was a young lawyer living in Greenwich Village. At the time, I was taking the waters at the Head, which was a few blocks from my apartment. I'd heard that Paul had been a captain in the Merchant Marine, so one night, after he'd gone off duty (Paul worked the early shift, from noon to eight in the evening) and taken a seat next to me at the bar, I told him of my four sea crossings of the Atlantic during my childhood and my continuing fascination with ships and the sea. After a while, he growled something about having made his living on the sea and not needing to hear about it from "landlubbers and bollard squatters." A few months later, I was once again sitting next to him and, undeterred by our previous encounter, I said I had read that the Liberté, on which I had crossed the Atlantic twice, had gone to the breakers. "When I read that I damn near cried," I said. "I loved that ship." He put an arm across my shoulders and said, "Claude, that's something you and I understand that landlubbers and bollard squatters never will."

Paul was emphatic in his likes and dislikes. Any drink with more than two ingredients was anathema. I was at the bar when four young men in suits came in. As one approached the bar, Paul said, "What can I get you, mate?" "Four tequila sunrises" was the answer. As Paul slammed four glasses down and was filling them with ice, the customer tried to make conversation, asking Paul what he thought about a scandal involving Bess Meyerson, a former Miss America who'd gotten involved in city politics. "None of my affair," Paul said, gruffly. "But did you see..." the man continued. "Look," Paul said, "I don't give a damn if they hang her or shoot her!" After the Head's owner installed TVs at each end of the bar, I was in one evening and got enthusiastic about a college basketball game. I noticed Paul glaring at me, and when our eyes met, he said, "We used to have a portable TV that we kept in the cabinet under the dry bar, and we brought it out once every year--for the Kentucky Derby!"

Over the years, Paul and I had many conversations. We never became close friends, but I came to cherish his company and his opinions. He was unsparing of any tendentiousness or bullshit. I last saw Paul about a year ago, at a reunion of Lion's Head alumni at the Kettle of Fish, the bar that now occupies the space formerly taken by the Head. As I was parting, I shook Paul's hand, and, sensing that it might be the last time, said something a bit awkward (I don't recall just what), and he gave me a sharp look. Just a few days ago, I was recalling this and wondering if I'd get the chance to see Paul again.

Update: there was a memorial gathering for Paul at the Kettle of Fish on Sunday, February 27. Read Dermot McEvoy's account of it here.

News of the very old and the old: dinosaurs and wine

PBS Newshour

This has been a productive time for paleontologists. From Argentina, a dinosaur hot spot in recent years, comes news of what may be one of the most primitive of theropods, Eodromaeus ("dawn runner") murphi (see illustration at left). This scrawny four-foot-long critter lived in the Triassic Period, about 230 million years ago, when dinosaurs were just beginning to emerge, and before they attained the dominance they would enjoy in the succeeding Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods. Eodromaeus is early in a family tree that would later branch to include such diverse progeny as T. Rex and Tweety Bird. Read more about it in this PBS Newshour story.

Utah, long a preeminent source of dinosaur fossils, produced eight new species (see this Deseret News article) in 2010. One of these, Seitaad ruessi, named for a Navajo legendary sand demon because its fossils were found in petrified sand, is a small, early member of the sauropod group, the familiar long-necked herbivores that evolved into giants like Apatosaurus. Another, Abydosaurus mcintoshi, is a later, larger sauropod. Two are iguanadonts, bipedal herbivores that are relatives of Iguanadon, the second dinosaur ever to be described and named. One, Hippodraco ("horse dragon") scutodens, is relatively small for this group, while the other. Iguanacolossus fortis, as its name proclaims, is massive (See their comparative sizes, and read more about them, in this Open Source Paleontologist article). Three, Diabloceratops eatoni, Utahceratops gettyi, and Kosmoceratops richardsoni, are ceratopsians; horned dinosaurs similar to Triceratops. Only one is a carnivorous theropod: Geminiraptor suarezarum. This dinosaur got its name, which means "twin predatory thief of the Suarezes", in honor of the twin sisters Marina and Selina Suarez, both graduate students at Temple University, who studied the geology of the area where the fossils were found (see this Environment News Service article). Geminiraptor is an early troodontid, a group of small, agile predators related to Velociraptor.

Now, from paleontology to archaeology and anthropology, and to one of my favorite topics: wine. I've posted before about the role of alcoholic beverages in the development of civilizations. This Washington Post article reports the discovery of the remains of "a surprisingly advanced winemaking operation" that dates to about 6,000 years ago, located in a cave near an Armenian village. As Slate notes: "It gives 'mis en bouteille dans nos caves' a literal flavor".

Martin Luther King, Jr. on hatred and love.

Wikimedia Commons

From a sermon delivered at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, on November 17, 1957:

There’s another reason why you should love your enemies, and that is because hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. You just begin hating somebody, and you will begin to do irrational things. You can’t see straight when you hate. You can’t walk straight when you hate. You can’t stand upright. Your vision is distorted. There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate. He comes to the point that he becomes a pathological case. For the person who hates, you can stand up and see a person and that person can be beautiful, and you will call them ugly. For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful. For the person who hates, the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That’s what hate does. You can’t see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost. Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater.
…
So this morning, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all of my brothers in Alabama and all over America and over the world, I say to you, "I love you. I would rather die than hate you." And I’m foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed.

See the complete sermon at Martin Luther King Online. Thanks to the Rev. Steven Paulikas, Assistant to the Rector, Grace Church, Brooklyn, for citing this in his sermon this morning.

Nostalgic about the '70s? This National Airlines ad may cure it...

...or, it may not. You'd have to be well over thirty to remember National Airlines (not to be confused with a cargo and charter carrier based in Ypsilanti, Michigan), which was founded in 1934 and merged into Pan American World Airways in 1980. Pan Am went into bankruptcy and ceased operating in 1991. In its heyday, National was strong on two routes: the East Coast route from the Northeast to Florida, and the Southern Tier transcontinental route connecting Florida, Texas, and California.

AirNikon

The ad shown in the clip at the top, which aired on TV in the early 1970s, continued a tradition of sexual innuendo that began in the '60s and culminated in the 1970s with the "fly me" (perhaps riffing on the old "Coffee, tea, or me?" gag) campaign, during which National painted women's names on its planes (see "Elaine" in photo above), and also aired ads like this:


As this Time article reported, some flight attendants (then commonly called "stewardesses"--male attendants were rare in those days) objected to this campaign; in particular, to the company's requirement that they wear "fly me" buttons on their uniforms. The article quotes National's PR director: "We had no preconceived idea of injecting a suggestive leer into the campaign." Um-hmmm.

According to one of the comments on the "I'm Maggie, Fly Me" video, the campaign was the brainchild of Dick Wolf, who went on to create the TV series Law and Order.

Margaret Whiting: 1924-2011

Margaret Whiting, who died Monday at the age of 86, was one of the great song stylists of her generation. The clip above is of her rendition, in a duet with Johnny Mercer, of the now timely classic "Baby it's Cold Outside" (thanks to moonbeam0013).

Chilly scenes of winter in Brooklyn.

Statue of Civil War General Gouverneur Kemble Warren, Grand Army Plaza.

A white pigeon finds itself almost perfectly camouflaged on a Park Slope sidewalk.

The view from my window this morning, after fresh snowfall overnight.

Chilly Scenes of Winter is the title of a 1970s Ann Beattie novel later adapted for the screen by Joan Micklin Silver as Head Over Heels, then remade by eliminating an unconvincing "happy ending" and re-released under the novel's title.

Brooklyn's Winter Ale

Yesterday evening, I tasted this offering from Brooklyn Brewery. My notes:

Color: deep reddish amber.

Head: full and creamy, but collapsed quickly (perhaps because of low ambient humidity).

Aroma: fruity, with chocolate overtones.

Flavor: full, rich, mildly sweet and caramel-y, with slight hop bitterness at finish.

All in all, a most satisfying brew for a winter's night. I had a different reaction when I tasted this in May: see my tasting notes here. In particular, this time I didn't notice the "slippery, glycerin-y" quality that I did in the earlier tasting. I wonder if the formula has been changed for this winter's offering, if my palate has changed, or if it just makes a difference whether you taste this on a warm night in May or a cold one in January.

The Jets do not let me down.

Wikimedia Commons

Jets 17, Colts 16! Gang Green pulled it off on a final seconds field goal following a perfectly executed sideline pass. Sometimes the upsets I want do happen. Next week, I can test that theory when the Jets face the Pats, who they defeated early in the season, and were trounced by toward the end.

If Namath is "Broadway Joe", should we now start calling Sanchez  "Park Avenue Mark"?