It's Franz Schubert's birthday.

Someone with a particularly refined aesthetic sensibility once claimed that "music ended with Schubert." Franz Schubert (1797-1838) is reckoned an early romantic, but to me his music seems to partake more of the classical elegance that characterized Mozart (like him, Schubert died in his 30s) than of the romantic sturm und drang of Beethoven and his successors. I love both Schubert's classicism and Beethoven's romanticism.

The video above is of the fourth movement of one of my favorite Schubert compositions, the "Trout Quintet," performed by Julian Rachlin, Mischa Maisky, Mihaela Ursuleasa, Nobuko Imai, and Stacey Watton 

Now, for something very different, here's Johanna Beisteiner playing his "Serenade" on guitar.

No collection of Schubert's music would be complete without a sample of his lieder (songs). Here's one, Am Fenster, by two late and great musicians, the German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and the Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter.

The Helmsley Building

The Helmsley Building (Warren & Wetmore, 1929), formerly the New York Central Building and headquarters of the great railroad nicknamed the "Water Level Route", stands  astride Park Avenue, which passes through the portals on both sides of the building. The NYC's passenger tracks, which extended to Chicago, began and terminated at Grand Central Terminal, just to the south and past the more recently built Met Life Building (Emery Roth & Sons, Pietro Belluschi, and Walter Gropius, 1963), formerly the Pan Am Building--so did two late, great transportation companies surrender their claims to the skyline.

The Helmsley Building is now being lit in festive colors--this evening it was in patriotic ones, in honor of the inauguration--by an energy efficient lighting system.

Stan Musial and Earl Weaver

Stan Musial, who died yesterday at 92, wasn't a larger than life character like Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, or Mickey Mantle, or a dominant personality like his St. Louis Cardinals teammate Bob Gibson. He was, like Harmon Killebrew, famous simply for being very good at his game. "Very good" is an understatement; he was one of the best of his era, which extended from eight years before I was born until my senior year of high school. A friend of mine said losing him was "a total crusher." There's "nobody left from those golden baseball days of the 40s and 50s but Ralph Kiner." My friend says he now feels "like some kind've World War I vet wearing his medals and ribbons telling some group of semi interested kids about the Battle of the Somme...life in the trenches and such."

Earl Weaver, who also died yesterday, at 82, never played in the majors. He came to fame as manager of the Baltimore Orioles, serving as their skipper for seventeen years, during which the Birds won four American League pennants and one World Series (they lost a series to my Mets, before they were my Mets, in 1969). Unlike me, he wasn't fond of "little ball"; the business of advancing runners with bunts, sacrifice flies, and stolen bases. He loved the long ball, especially with two or more runners on base, as well as pitching and defense. My favorite Weaver quote  is his advice to a player about to go to bat in a close game with one out and a runner on first: "If you even think you might hit into a double play, have the good sense to strike out."

Stan Musial photo: npr.org
Earl Weaver photo: usatoday.com

Birmingham 1963

A year ago I posted an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail. This morning The Rev. Stephen Muncie, Rector of Grace Church, read the letter to which Dr. King was responding. It was itself a response to the peaceful demonstrations, seeking an end to segregation and the extension of full civil rights to the descendants of slaves, that were going on in Birmingham, Alabama at the time. The letter counseled the demonstrators to have "patience" and to refrain from further public activities, condemned the influence of "outsiders," and commended the local media and law enforcement authorities for their "calm" response (see photo above). The letter was signed by C.C.J. Carpenter, then Episcopalian Bishop of Alabama, along with his Bishop Coadjutor, a Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop, two Methodist bishops, a Baptist minister, and a rabbi. The text of the letter, followed by Dr. King's letter, is here.

As I listened to Steve's sermon, I had a disquieting thought. If I had been in Bishop Carpenter's position at that time, I would have been tempted to sign that letter. Carpenter, as Steve told it, was no racist troglodyte. He had made statements supporting efforts to end discrimination against African Americans. In doing so, he was risking the displeasure of many, if not most, of the white Episcopalians in Alabama at that time. To have declared himself as supporting the demonstrators would have invited demands for his resignation or replacement. It would also have estranged him from his fellow white denominational leaders and from business and government leaders. My instinct in similar situations has been to try to find a via media, a way if not to please everyone at least to avoid utterly alienating anyone. My besetting sin has been to value tranquility over justice.

Update: for more on this subject, see Diane McWhorter's insightful column in today's New York Times.

Photo: K.C. Johnson, "From Brown to Birmingham"

More photos from my peregrinations.

Real life has been intruding on my blogging time lately, so right now, despite having a head full of ideas that are driving me insane, I'm taking the easy way out and just posting some more photos I've taken with my new camera on several early morning and weekend walks over the past couple of weeks. Above is a gnarly tree next to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade.

The Chrysler Building (William Van Alen, 1930) was, until completion of the Empire State Building in 1931, the world's tallest building. It is still the world's tallest steel-supported brick building, and one of the most spectacular examples of the art deco style. This photo was taken from Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park, about three miles from the building. I'm very happy with my 20X zoom lens. Note the bird at the upper right of the photo. Probably a seagull, but possibly a red-tailed hawk. I've seen a hawk flying over the Brooklyn Bridge en route from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Why?

Just as these pigeons, and some starlings, are finding plentiful pickings in Brooklyn's Columbus Park, the hawks are finding plentiful prey here.

A frozen-over watercourse on the landward side of Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park.

The tug Weddell Sea, with a barge in tow, heads out of the East River towards the Buttermilk Channel and lower New York Harbor.

A Staten Island ferry, seen from Pier 5, Brooklyn Bridge Park, is docked at its Manhattan terminal. Beyond, at left, is the former Central Railroad of New Jersey station and ferry dock.

Yet another view of the South Street Seaport Museum's fleet, this time in fog.

Statue of Henry Ward Beecher, by John Quincy Adams Ward (1891), at the north end of Columbus Park, Brooklyn. In the background is the Federal Building and Post Office (Mifflin E. Bell, also 1891), an excellent example of the romanesque revival style.

We started with a tree; we'll close with more bare trees along the east side of Cadman Plaza Park, Brooklyn.

Paul Whiteman and the Rhythm Boys, "That's My Weakness Now."

The Rhythm Boys were Harry Barris, Al Rinker, and the young Bing Crosby. Paul Whiteman was a jazz bandleader whose career began in the 1920s when this recording with the Rhythm Boys was made. This clip by 240252 accompanies the music with a montage of photos of the musicians and period scenes. This song has long been a favorite of mine, since first hearing it on Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band's album Jump For Joy.

I might as well have posted, "Roll, Tide!"

It seems my role as a sports Jonah continues. All I had to do to sink Notre Dame's chances in the BCS championship game was to declare that, for the first time ever, I was rooting for the Irish to pull off an upset. Of course, the fact that I'm often rooting for upsets may have something to do with my lousy record.

Also, some credit has to go to Nick Saban and his lads in the red helmets, who thoroughly dominated the game. I arrived at the Chip Shop about halfway through the first quarter, got a pint of IPA, and saw the score was already 7-0 Tide. Not bad, I thought; N.D. has a way of falling behind early and then coming back with a vengeance. But then it quickly went to 14-0, and the Irish offense couldn't seem to get anything going. At halftime I got another pint, this time of Fuller's porter, and hoped for things to get better. They didn't. I topped the evening off with a hot toddy made with Irish whiskey and honey, and left late in the third quarter.

I was backing Notre Dame partly out of respect for the memory of my late friend Pete Demmerle, a hero in the Irish victory over 'Bama in 1973, and partly because Notre Dame is one of the few BCS schools where one may say "scholar athlete" without a knowing smirk.

New Year's remembrances and thanks.

It's been my custom, early in the New Year, to recognize those who have been helpful to my blogging venture in the past year, and before. This year I'm starting by remembering those whose loss I've felt especially strongly in the previous year. For me, the most significant loss was that of my mother, Marjorie Elizabeth Lane Scales, who died on August 31, just a month and two days shy of her 96th birthday. For the last four years of her life, following a hip fracture the day before her 92nd birthday, she was unable to walk and confined to a skilled nursing facility. The staff there praised her tenacity and sense of humor; these were among her many fine qualities I had known for my sixty plus years.

2012 took a heavy toll of musicians I admired, including Dave Brubeck, Earl "Speedo" Carroll, Levon Helm, Whitney Houston, Earl Scruggs, Donna Summer, Doc Watson, and Kitty Wells.  As a space exploration enthusiast, I mourned the loss of Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride. My second vote in a Presidential election was for George McGovern; I was sorry to see that good man gone.

I've also mourned the death of my law firm alma mater, LeBoeuf, Lamb, which after a mega-merger became Dewey & LeBoeuf. However, I celebrated the revival, in Italy, of my brief movie career that grew out of my time at LeBoeuf.

Now to the happier task of giving thanks. A special hat tip goes to The Reverend Stephen Muncie, Rector of Grace Church, for having shown me an image of Henry Ossawa Tanner's remarkable painting, The Annunciation, which was the basis for what has become the most popular post on this blog. I have a perennial debt of gratitude to Michael Simmons, my old Lion's Head companion who keeps in transcontinental touch and often feeds me material for posts, including this one about Dylan's album Tempest.

On the subject of the Lion's Head, I also must thank Dermot McEvoy for keeping me and other alumni of "Lion's Head University" in contact, with recollections of the past, as well as news, some of it, unfortunately, sad, but some of it welcome, like an invitation to a performance that featured Head alums David Amram and David Coles. Another Head veteran who inspired a post is Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Thanks also to Larry Kirwan of Black 47 for inviting me to a salon of the Irish American Writers & Artists, at which I met Honor Molloy and heard her read "Sixpence the Stars". I couldn't help but think of her delightful piece this morning at Grace Church as we celebrated Epiphany Sunday, recalling how the Dublin "shawlie" in Ms. Molloy's story described the gifts of the Magi as "golden frying pans and more," but said the infant Jesus' favorite was the poor boy's present, "the little oranges."

I'm grateful to Louise Crawford for asking me to review Peter M. Wheelwright's novel As It Is On Earth, and for directing me to the residence and studio of painter Simon Dinnerstein, after I had admired the work of her photographer husband Hugh Crawford, in preparation for what proved to be my "seven artists in two days" post.

On the subject of art, my post on Pierre Bonnard remains a perennial favorite, and for that I owe a continuing debt of gratitude to Mark Crawford (no relation to Hugh and Louise), who inspired my interest in that fascinating painter. I posted about Mark's art just over five years ago. Since then, he's produced many more paintings and his work has taken some new directions, so I will be writing another post about his art in the near future. I'm also working on a new post about Bonnard, based on some interesting material I've recently seen for the first time.

As always, I'm grateful to John Loscalzo and the rest of the Brooklyn Heights Blog staff for giving me an alternate forum on which to post about neighborhood news and issues, and for providing a permalink to this blog which produces much readership.

Thanks also to my faithful readers whom I haven't mentioned by name, but who make this enterprise worthwhile, and to my wife and daughter, who tolerate my obsession.

New Year's Eve day walk, with iPod log

On the morning of New Year's Eve day, I went out with my new camera and my iPod for a stroll through Brooklyn Bridge Park and Brooklyn Heights. Here are photos I took along the way, as well as a log of what I was hearing. The photo above was taken from the Park's newly opened Pier 5. It shows the top of the new One World Trade Center (David Childs, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), still under construction and already the tallest building (but not the tallest tower) in the Western Hemisphere. In front of it, and appearing almost as tall because it is closer, is 66 story 70 Pine Street (Clinton and Russell, Holton & George, 1932), originally built for oil and utilities giant Cities Service, then acquired by insurance behemoth AIG (which had a near death experience in the financial crisis of 2008), and now owned by a Korean investment company. It typifies the high art deco style of the 1920s and '30s.

The Flying Burrito Brothers, "Christine's Tune": my walk begins with the first cut on The Gilded Palace of Sin, the first album by the group formed by Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman after they left the Byrds. Chris takes the lead vocal on the first verse, Gram on the second. Video here.

Wynonie Harris, "Rotgut": jump blues from the early 1950s by a classic shouter. Hear it here.

John Mayall, "Bernard Jenkins": this blues instrumental features Eric Clapton, who was part of Mayall's  seminal group Bluesbreakers in 1965-66, on lead guitar. Listen here.

The east tower of the Brooklyn Bridge (John A. Roebling, 1883) and the west tower of the Manhattan Bridge (Leon Moisseiff, 1909), also taken from Pier 5.

Billy Grammer, "Gotta Travel On": I remember hearing this on our car radio as my parents and I were moving to Tampa in 1958. Watch a live version here.

Tracy Nelson, "I Need Your Love So Bad": some years ago I was at the bar of the Lion's Head and got into conversation with a woman sitting next to me. She told me she was a blues singer. "What's your name?" I asked. "Tracy Nelson." I think she's amazing. There's no video of her superb cover of this Irma Thomas hit, but here's one of "Walk Away."

The Staten Island ferry John F. Kennedy passes Ellis Island, historic reception place for immigrants, seen from Pier 5.

The Mystics, "Hushabye": in 1959 five young men from Brooklyn had a hit with this uptempo but soft doo-wop song written by the now legendary duo Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. The Mystics continued to perform together over the years; here they are on WLIW-TV in 2007 doing a faithful rendition of their hit.

South Street Seaport Museum's tall ships Wavertree and Peking, also seen from Pier 5.

Paul Butterfield Blues Band, "Spoonful": "Buttter" put together a racially integrated band that brought the raw sound of Chicago blues to a predominantly white audience of college students, myself included. This is their cover of a song written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Howlin' Wolf.

Vampire Weekend, "Mansard Roof": And now the tops of buildings I can see them too. You're going to see more of the tops of buildings in this post, as I test the 20X zoom lens on my new camera. Here's a video of the group doing the song. I love these guys.

Seagull on piling; seagull in water. Near south end of Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Tom Russell Band, "Hong Kong Boy": He's got a thousand dollar gold watchband, boots made of watersnake skin/ A diamond cross in his left ear, there's no mistaking him.  No video available, but you can hear a sample here.

The Holy Modal Rounders, "Flop Eared Mule": the original Holy Modal Rounders, Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber, were described by someone as "the originators and sole exponents of the genre known as acid-folk." I was listening to their recording of this from the 1960s, of which there is no video or on-line recording available. Here is a video of a live, very frenetic performance by Stampfel, the surviving original Rounder, with several accompanying musicians.

The ferry Robert Fulton passes the pilings at the south end of Pier 1. The gaps between the rows of pilings show where subway tunnels pass under the East River.

Rolling Stones, "No Expectations": Here's a live performance video from Holland in 2003. Perhaps this should be the new Mets' theme song.

The Boys of the Lough, "The Hound and the Hare": a lovely song, from the Live at Passim album, that ends with the instruments breaking into an eerily accurate imitation of the sound of a pack of hounds in pursuit. I heard the Boys in concert in the late 1970s, and got to meet the great Shetland fiddler Aly Bain because my date was his sister-in-law. There's no video, but you can hear a sample here.

Meagan Ann pulls a barge downstream past Pier 1.

Lou Killen, "Row Bullies Row": a classic by the modern master of the sea chantey, appropriate for watching East River traffic. Listen to a sample here.

Another view of the South Street Seaport's fleet, this time from Pier 1. The Ambrose lightship is at right, and the schooner Pioneer lies astern of the tall ship Peking.

The Angels, "My Boyfriend's Back": mid 1960s girl group R&B par excellence. Video here.

The top of the Municipal Building (William M. Kendall, McKim, Mead and White, 1914) as seen from Pier 1. The gilded statue on top is Adolph Weinman's Civic Fame, showing her back to Brooklyn.

10,000 Maniacs, "Maddox Table": video, and my commentary, here.

McAllister Girls (not to be confused with McAllister Sisters) passes under the Brooklyn Bridge. 

Kingston Trio, "Leave My Woman Alone": the Trio did a wide variety of music, ranging from Hawaiian drinking songs to Appalachian ballads to African hunting songs; here they sing the blues. There's no video of the Trio doing this song, but here's a quartet of Tokyo Trio enthusiasts doing a rousing and, I think, convincing cover.

Cheap Trick, "Surrender": I often woke up to this song when my clock radio was tuned to WNEW-FM during the 1980s. Live performance video here.

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Hillside Dog Park.

Coro e Orchestra di Teatro Comunale di Fiorenza, Ricardo Muti, cond., "Va, Pensiero, Sull'Ali Dorate": this chorus from Verdi's Nabucco, in which the exiled Israelites long for their homeland, was once described to me as "the unofficial Italian national anthem." Indeed, the first time I heard it, someone in the audience yelled "Viva Italia!" at the end. Video by the chorus and orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera here.

The 1824 vintage Eugene Boisselet House, at the corner of Middagh and Willow streets. Not the oldest house in Brooklyn Heights, but in the words of Francis Morrone, "it is hard to imagine a more perfect specimen of the Federal style frame house." (An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn, Gibbs Smith 2001).

Little Brother Montgomery, "Santa Fe": I'm a railfan, so I'm a sucker for songs about trains and railroads, even when the road's name is mispronounced. Stop, look, and listen here

James Brown, "You Don't Have To Go": from the great "Roots of a Revolution" album that includes many of his earliest recordings. Hear a later version here.

Art deco details on the upper stories of the Cranlyn apartment building (H.I. Feldman, 1931), at the corner of Cranberry and Henry streets. Like 70 Pine (first photo) it is a good example of prewar high deco.

The Beatles, "If I Needed Someone": a gem from Rubber Soul; video here.

Iggy Pop, "The Passenger": a favorite of my late friend Charlie McCrann, maker of Bloodeaters aka Toxic Zombies aka Il ritorno degli zombi. Here's a live performance video from the Manchester (England) Apollo in 1977.

Berries, Cadman Plaza.

Charlie Musselwhite, "Leaving Your Town": great harp, great vocal. Listen here.

The Tarbox Ramblers, "Jug Band Music": "It sounds so sweet, yes, it's hard to beat." Listen to a sample here.

The top of the 38 story office building at 16 Court Street (H. Craig Severance, 1927). This building, until recently the second tallest (after the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower) in Brooklyn, is identified in old mariners' charts of New York Harbor as the "Flat Top Building."

Lightnin' Hopkins, "I'm Wit' It": a lively little blues guitar number. Hear a sample here.

This gilded statue, "Lady Justice'" stands atop the cupola of Brooklyn Borough Hall (Calvin Pollard/ Gamaliel  King, 1851). The original wooden cupola was destroyed by fire in 1895 and replaced by a new cast iron one (Stoughton & Stoughton/ Vincent Griffith) in 1898. The statue, part of the original design, wasn't placed atop the cupola until 1988.

Tom Rush, "Love's Made a Fool of You": an able Buddy Holly cover by one of my favorites of the folkie generation that came to prominence in the mid to late 1960s. Hear the original, by Buddy and the Crickets, here. Tom is alive, well, and still singing.

Arlington Apartments, 62 Montague Street (Montrose W. Morris, 1887). The tower and turret on this building is one of the first things I see as I walk out of the building in which I live just across the street.

The Flying Burrito Brothers, "Sin City": I began my walk with the first cut from their first album, and ended it with the second cut. Lovely harmonies by Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, over the dreamy pedal steel of Sneaky Pete Kleinow, he of the pterodactyl Nudie suit.

Louis Jordan, "Saturday Night Fish Fry"

Something to get you into the party spirit.

Oh, no! Cat photos.

My wife funded my purchase of a new camera for Christmas, and I bought it today. It's a Canon PowerShot  SX 260 HS (no, I haven't a clue what "SX" and "HS" mean), a handy point-and-shoot that will be easy to carry and use on my morning walks. By the time I'd set it up and the lithium ion battery was charged, it was dark and sleeting outside. So my first practice shots were of two handy subjects in our apartment. In the photo above, Hepzibah is snug in her kitty bed. I bent down to try to get a better shot, and, of course, she got up and left.

Here's Attila ("Tilly") curled up on our bed.

Is that a bug on the ceiling?

The weather should be better tomorrow, so I'll try to get some outdoor shots. Anything good I'll post here.

Remembering Peter Demmerle, and anticipating Alabama vs. Notre Dame.

I used to hate Notre Dame. This came to a climax with the 1992 Sugar Bowl, in which the third ranked Florida Gators, my favorites, led by Heisman candidate QB Shane Matthews, played the eighteenth ranked Fighting Irish. Florida was a heavy favorite, and I saw this as their big opportunity to crash into college football's elite by beating a team that epitomized the game's establishment. Over time, I had become sick and tired of the panjandrums of pigskin punditry going on, as I once put it, like a minyan of Reb Tevyes chanting Knut Rockne, tra-DI-shon!; Four Horsemen, tra-DI-shon!; Golden Dome, tra-DI-shon!; subway alumni, tra-DI-shon!; ad nauseam. 

Much to my dismay as I sat at the Lion's Head bar that New Year's Day afternoon, tra-DI-shon was to prevail, as usual. The game started well for me, with the Gators holding a 16-7 lead at halftime. In the third quarter the Irish got a quick TD and field goal to go ahead 17-16, but Florida responded with another FG to regain the lead, 19-17. The final quarter proved really ugly. Florida's Arden Czyzewski notched his fifth three pointer to build the lead to 22-17. Then the ND offense went to work, propelled by the running of Jerome Bettis, later to  become one of the NFL's leading rushers and gain the nickname "The Bus." His two quick TDs, one followed by a two point conversion, put the Irish ahead 32-22. Florida scored again on a Matthews to Harrison Houston pass; a failed conversion made it 32-28. But Bettis went back to work, breaking loose for a 39 yard scoring run that iced the game at 39-28 with less than two minutes left. I chugged what was left of the last of a series of beers I'd had during the game, paid my tab, and left before the post-game commentators could break into their Tevye dance.* Some time after that I offered Peter Demmerle (photo) my grudging congratulations.

I had known Pete, a rising star at LeBoeuf, Lamb, my law firm alma mater, for several years. I knew he had played football at Notre Dame, and would occasionally make friendly wagers with him on games in which I thought the Irish might be upset. He always won. In 1989 undefeated Notre Dame and West Virginia teams were slated to play for the national championship at the Fiesta Bowl. I offered to bet on the Mountaineers; Pete's response was, "You really want those guys to win? How about if they do I beat you up?" I was saved by a 34-21 Irish victory.

Our conversations weren't always about football. We both worked in the same area of law: insurance transactional and regulatory matters. Pete was instrumental in planning the restructuring of the Lloyd's of London insurance market in the 1990s.

One day in 1999 or 2000 I ran into Pete on a Midtown street around noontime, and stopped to chat. I noticed that his speech seemed slurred. From another friend I learned that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, "ALS" or "Lou Gherig's disease." He died in 2007, leaving a wife and four daughters. During his final years, he supported and advocated ALS research.

While I knew Pete had played at Notre Dame, I knew nothing about his career there, since I never followed the team except when they were playing someone I hoped might beat them. I once asked him what position he played; he said he was a pass receiver. Since nothing was said about an NFL career, which would have to had been quite brief considering his having spent three years in law school, then gone through the lengthy apprenticeship of being a law firm associate before being made a partner, I guessed he was a second stringer who spent much of his college career warming the bench. I was wrong.

On December 9 The New York Times sports section included an article by Bill Pennington, "Culture Clash,", about the meeting between the Notre Dame and Alabama football teams, in the 1973 Sugar Bowl that decided what was then sometimes called the "mythical" national college football championship. Both the Irish and the Crimson Tide were undefeated in regular season play, but 'Bama had the number one ranking going into the bowls. The Tide, as was customary for the Southeastern Conference champion, accepted a bid to play in the Sugar Bowl, in New Orleans. Paul "Bear" Bryant, 'Bama's by then legendary coach, said he wanted Notre Dame to be their opponent. As Pennington puts it:

Thirty-nine years ago, there was a  college football national championship game arranged not by computer rankings or a rubric of poll results like this season's Alabama-Notre Dame matchup for the Bowl Championship Series title, but by the kind of primitive challenge heard in a sandlot.

The game had historic dimensions. It was the first meeting of two of college football's dominant teams, and it had the north versus south angle. Despite this, I have no memory of it. I may or may not have watched. I didn't have any rooting interest, as I disliked both teams, Notre Dame for the reasons given above, and Alabama because they were a frequent nemesis of the Florida Gators. Nor was I a fan of the stern, authoritarian Bear Bryant, although I did get a chuckle from one of the several motivational signs he was said to have posted in the training room: "A moral victory is like kissing your sister." Having no sister, I could only use my imagination.


If I did miss the game, I missed a good one. Indeed, it's hard to fathom how I could have forgotten it if I did see it. If you have six minutes to watch the highlights clip above, you'll see what an important part Pete Demmerle played in Notre Dame's victory, with his name being called twice for important receptions, one for a two point conversion.

Doing research for this post, I learned why Pete didn't have a successful NFL career, despite having been a college All-American. The championship Sugar Bowl game was during his junior year. The following year, Alabama and Notre Dame met again, though not with a national championship at stake, in the Gator Bowl. During that game, Pete suffered a knee injury that, while not severe enough to preclude his playing again, was sufficient to drop him to being a thirteenth round draft choice. He chose law school instead.

So, on the night of Monday, January 7, I will be watching the BCS championship game, once again pitting Alabama against Notre Dame. This time, with apologies to my friends from the Heart of Dixie, I'll be backing the guys in the gold helmets, thinking (maybe even yelling) "Win one for Pete!" Maybe I'll even discover my inner Tevye.
__________
*This brings to mind Super Bowl III, which I watched in the room of my law school classmate, the late Michael Francis Vincent Peter Vaccaro, owner of the only TV on my dorm floor. The moment the game ended, Mike jumped up and turned off the TV. 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.'"

"Good King Wenceslas" by York Minster Choir

My last post pointed to the tragic side of Christmas: Herod's massacre of the innocents. This is a carol that by contrast commemorates the kind deeds of a good king, actually a  Bohemian nobleman posthumously raised to kingship by the Holy Roman Emperor Otto and canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. Although Wenceslas lived in what is now part of the Czech Republic, the lyrics of the carol were written in mid nineteenth century England and set to a Finnish tune.

"Coventry Carol" by the Westminster Cathedral Choir

The "little tiny child" in this carol isn't the infant Jesus, instead he is one of the many innocents slaughtered under orders of Herod (Matthew 2:16). The song originated in the sixteenth century; its lyrics have been passed down through various transcriptions over the years. Wikipedia gives this modern attempt at a reconstruction of the original:

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,

Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

Lullay, thou little tiny Child,

Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,

For to preserve this day

This poor youngling for whom we do sing

Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

Herod, the king, in his raging,

Charged he hath this day

His men of might, in his own sight,

All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor Child for Thee!

And ever mourn and sigh,

For thy parting neither say nor sing,

Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

The city of Coventry, in the English Midlands, suffered its own massacre of the innocents on November 14, 1940, when a Luftwaffe firebomb raid killed over 800 people, injured thousands, destroyed 4,000 houses, and reduced historic Coventry Cathedral to a shell.

"Sixpence the Stars" by Honor Molloy

Honor Molloy, playwright, novelist, and superb reader, is the daughter of an American who went to Ireland to do graduate study and the Irishman she fell in love with and married. I saw her first at a Bloomsday event, and again tonight at the twice monthly salon of the Irish American Writers & Artists, where she read her "Sixpence the Stars" (video above, courtesy of bennettcerffan), a delightful rendition of the Christmas story as told by a Moore Street, Dublin "shawlie," or fruit vendor.

Ms, Molloy is the author, most recently, of Smarty Girl, a novel "loosely based" on her girlhood in Dublin. Here she is reading from the novel:



Thanks to Larry Kirwan of Black 47, and formerly of Turner & Kirwan and the Bells of Hell, for inviting me to the salon.

The Newtown massacre.

News.Yahoo.com

Around noon yesterday I took a short break from work to get something to drink with the sandwich I'd brought to eat at my desk. I also checked my smartphone for new e-mails, and saw a breaking news item about a shooting at a school in Connecticut. One dead, one wounded was the initial report. I mentioned this to a fellow worker, who said he'd seen a report that the principal had been killed and one student wounded, and that it was believed the shooter was a parent of a student at the school. As time went by and we kept getting updates, it became evident that we were in a "fog of war." The shooter was 20. No, he was 24. His name was Ryan Lanza. He drove to Connecticut after killing his father in New Jersey. No, he was Ryan Lanza's younger brother, Adam. He lived in Connecticut. He went to the school to kill his mother, a kindergarten teacher, then started shooting children. There were eighteen dead. No, twenty.

As the extent of the horror was revealed, I became more distracted and depressed. I imagined as yet unwrapped presents hidden in a closet and the anticipation of a delighted smile on a young face. I imagined myself, at age five, cornered in a room and frozen in terror as a gun is pointed at me.

"What can be done?" is the natural, the inevitable reaction. Adam Lanza was not a deranged person who was able to buy guns; the weapons he used belonged to his mother, who became a victim of the firepower of her own arsenal. Is it understandable that someone in suburban Connecticut would want a weapon for self-defense? Well, yes. Did she need two 9mm pistols and a carbine? Probably not. Have similar mass murders occurred in countries with stricter gun controls than ours? Yes, although the Dumblane massacre led to the enactment of even more stringent legislation in Britain. Could school security have been better?  It's reported in today's New York Times that the principal, who was one of the victims, buzzed Adam Lanza in because she recognized him as the son of a colleague.

I didn't write the paragraph above as an argument against gun control or any other measures that may be proposed in response to this tragedy, but just to observe that, if you'll forgive a perhaps inevitable expression, there is no magic bullet.

Update: This story continues to develop. It's now reported that Lanza was not buzzed in by the principal, but instead forced his way in. According to the same Gothamist story his mother, Nancy Lanza, was not a teacher at the school, was a "gun enthusiast" who owned a large collection of firearms in addition to those used in the massacre, and taught her sons how to shoot.  The story also reports that on Tuesday before the massacre Adam Lanza tried to buy a rifle "but was turned down because he didn't want to undergo a background check or abide by the state's waiting period for gun sales."

Dee Dee Sharp, "Hard Candy Christmas"

Dee Dee Sharp is a veteran of the 1960s Philadelphia R&B scene, part of the stable of artists who recorded for Cameo-Parkway (another of those artists, who provided the label with its first chart-topping hit, "Butterfly", was Charlie Gracie). Dee Dee's biggest hit, which I remember fondly from high school dances, was "Mashed Potato Time." 

In the video above, thanks to Paul Piccari, that I found through Mike Miller on Facebook, Dee Dee sings "Hard Candy Christmas," a lovely bittersweet song from the play and movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

It's Chanukah, and Chanukah it is.

 In the song accompanying the video above, the LeeVees address the burning question: how do you spell the name of the minor Jewish holiday--but which has become major in the American context; see Hilary Leila Krieger's piece on the Op-Ed page of today's New York Times--that started today, and will last for another seven days? Ms. Krieger chose "Hanukkah." Four years ago I chose the alternative "Chanukah," mostly because it gave a visual as well as sonic alliteration to my post's title, "Chanukah on the Chisholm Trail." Last year I avoided the issue by not mentioning the name in the title or body of my post, although the caption of the embedded Matisyahu video spells it "Hanukkah." The LeeVees don't give us an answer.

Of course, there is one absolutely correct way to spell the name of the holiday:  חֲנֻכָּה What we're considering here is how to spell it in a transliterated fashion, in the Roman alphabet. I've made my choice: I'm going with Chanukah. My reason is that the initial "Ch" denotes the slight guttural sound, as distinguished from the soft English "H," that properly begins the word. So says this latke loving (salmon roe and sour cream, please) goy, who eagerly awaits our neighbor's Chanukah celebration.

Holiday Lionel Train layout at NYC Transit Museum Annex, Grand Central

Here's this year's version (see last year's here) of the Lionel Train display at the New York City Transit Museum's annex and gift shop in Grand Central Terminal. The basic layout is the same as last year's, with the addition of a model of Grand Central's underground platforms, which you see at the beginning of the video, and of a model New York City subway train consisting of vintage "redbird" cars. Other trains include a New York Central passenger hotshot pulled by a first generation General Motors E-type diesel, the seasonal favorite "Polar Express" with a steam loco, and a two car New York Central freight powered by what looks like an Alco RS-3.

Dave Brubeck, 1920-2012

Dave Brubeck, who took jazz in new directions, died Wednesday, one day before his 92nd birthday. I first heard Brubeck during my freshman year of college. I was walking past an open dorm room door and heard some music that wasn't quite like anything I'd heard before. It was jazz, but it didn't follow any jazz pattern I knew--not that I was knowledgeable about jazz--nevertheless it swung. One of my floormates, a transfer from MIT, was walking toward me. His eyes lit up, and he said "Blue Rondo à la Turk!" (Video above.) What made the piece unusual was that it was in 9/8 time instead of the customary 4/4 of jazz and most popular music. I later learned that it came from Time Out, an album that featured the use of unusual time signatures (the cover art is by S. Neil Fujita).  It became one of the best selling jazz albums ever, and included what became Brubeck's most popular piece, "Take Five," (video below) which is in 5/4 time.



The Quartet that recorded Time Out (there were earlier lineups, though Paul Desmond was a constant) consisted of Brubeck on piano, Paul Desmond on sax, Eugene Wright on bass, and Joe Morello on drums. The same players are in the videos above.

Some years after my first acquaintance with Brubeck, I heard a friend's copy of the Dave Brubeck Octet album. Brubeck formed the Octet in 1946, the year I was born. He had served in Patton's army in Europe, where he met Desmond, returned to his native California, studied composition under Darius Milhaud at Mills College, and briefly attended classes with Arnold Schoenberg at UCLA.  He couldn't agree with Schoenberg's insistence on giving each note equal account, and returned to San Francisco to start his own jazz group. The group that made the album  included Desmond, Cal Tjader, Dave Van Kriedt, Dick Collins, William O. Smith, Jack Weeks, and Bob Collins. I was delighted by the inventiveness and energy of the music, and got my own copy of the album. You can hear the Octet's rendition of the George Gershwin standard "Love Walked In" at Last FM.

As It Is On Earth, by Peter M. Wheelwright

Taylor Thatcher, protagonist and point-of-view character of Peter M. Wheelwright's first novel, set at the end of the last millennium, tries to make sense of how the world works, and so seeks unifying concepts. His brother, Bingham, or "Bin," delights in particulars. They are epistemological yin and yang and, like the taijitu symbol of two nestled fishes, they complement each other. As Taylor says, "My brother and I know the stars by different names." They also share the same birthday, born two years apart.

They are in fact half-brothers, and also cousins. Taylor's mother, Lily, drowned in a canoe accident when he was a toddler. His father then married Lily's identical twin, Roseanne. She gave birth to Bin, and immediately after succumbed to diabetic complications of pregnancy. Rose was quickly supplanted as a caretaker by Esther, a Cajun who came north to Maine seeking the origin of her ancestor, a French Acadian forced by the British to move to Louisiana.

Taylor's memories of his mother and stepmother are "Vague, diaphanous."

It seemed to me I had been born into a pretty fast-paced but solemn world...with a lot of black and white and the sense that I'd better start paying attention.

Taylor's and Bin's father is a physician, but he is always called "the Deacon," his ecclesiastical title as a senior layman in the Congregational Church of Mount Vernon, Maine. The pulpit of that church is manned by The Reverend Samson Littlefield, whose homilies partake more of the hellfire of Jonathan Edwards than of  the latitudinarianism of today's United Church of Christ, unlikely ecclesiastical successor to the severe Calvinists of Edwards' time. The minister's wife, Felicity, teaches Sunday school and tries to make her husband's sermons palatable and comprehensible to the children. She is relieved when Esther suggests that Taylor, who seems disengaged from the proceedings, be excused from the class along with Bin, who asks "difficult questions about miracles." The Rev. Littlefield eventually mimics his Biblical namesake by bringing the church building down around him and his wife, who proves, in a moment traumatic for Taylor, to have more in common with Delilah that we are at first led to believe.

The Deacon holds Truth in high regard, and on the front porch severely punishes Taylor for deviations from it. So Taylor pays attention to Truth. This leads him, with a few side trips behind the big schoolyard oak tree to examine girls' pudenda or behind a barn to smoke weed with his neighbor Galen McMoody, into academe. As a college student, he masters the game and crafts a double major in "Sociology of Engineering Science" and "Science of Social Engineering," and does it "right under the nose of the faculty." (Here the author seems to be having some fun, as when he gives two interdisciplinary study centers names that yield the acronyms SASS and ARSE; we're in David Lodge territory, which is not a bad place to be.)

As a graduate student in the College of the Sciences, Taylor recalls:

I had my own ideas about the space-time continuum; a different theory of relativity. I wondered if the heavens were only being reshuffled in order to fit the circumstances here at home, in the moment, on the ground.

This reminded me of an assertion made by NYU physics professor Alan Sokal in 1996, about the time when Taylor would have been in grad school: "the pi of Euclid and the G of Newton, formerly thought to be constant and universal, are now perceived in their ineluctable historicity." This was part of an article Sokal submitted to the cultural studies journal Social Text, which had published articles suggesting that knowledge gained through science was "socially constructed" and not objectively universal. After Social Text published Sokal's article, he announced that it was a hoax.

So perhaps Taylor fell for what Sokal and his later collaborator, the French mathematician Jean Bricmont, called Fashionable Nonsense. Perhaps this was a reaction to the Deacon's reverence for a transcendent Truth. Later, as a junior professor, Taylor would have these musings:

Tomorrow, I am supposed to, lecture on the Holy Trinity of Science to a bunch of first year engineering students...It has to be Science Lite for these guys -- they've just started tinkering with the universe, still trying to connect the dots -- so I usually try to avoid the seamy social history of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology and keep the focus on the contributions they have made to the lives of my students. But...I have decided to let the kids know what I really think. ...

It's all religious history.

Has the Deacon prevailed, after all? It's not that simple. Despite whatever doubts Taylor has about the Deacon's philosophy, doubts that could only be exacerbated by the Deacon's behavior shortly before his death and by the manner of his death, Taylor keeps on seeking Truth. It may prove to be the inverse of the Deacon's Truth, just as the novel's title is an inversion of the Lord's Prayer. Taylor's seeking leads him to Mexico, to the Mayan ruins of Yucatan and Chiapas, where he meets Nicole, who will for a time be his wife.    The marriage is stifled under the burden of Taylor's seeking, and Nicole returns to Rafael, the Mexican lover from whom Taylor won her.

I have to hand it to Rafael. He leans eagerly into the future with both feet on the ground, a reformed hidalgo intent on things-in-the-making. I keep drifting backwards in storm clouds, unredeemed, trying to unravel things past. 

The word "burden" seems to appear frequently in Taylor's narrative. He bears the burden of losing two mothers, of his father's alcoholism, and of the Thatcher history: exile to Maine on account of an ancestor's apostasy from the religious orthodoxy of Massachusetts Bay. The greatest burden, though, concerns Bin. Taylor frequently refers to something cryptically: "the Fall" and "the Stigmata." Its nature isn't completely revealed until near the book's conclusion.

Lest you think this novel is entirely Dostoyevskian spelunking through the caverns of the human soul, it has more than a few brighter moments. Early on, they include Taylor's socializing with his faculty colleagues, a predictably eccentric lot who could easily migrate to the pages of works by David Lodge or Kingsley Amis. An ultimately leavening influence on Taylor's state of mind is the arrival, late in the Deacon's life, of a third, and female, Thatcher half sibling. Christened Evangeline, she is called "Angie" until she's old enough to announce her own preference, which is to be "Evie." (Now there's a fresh beginning for the Thatcher clan.) Most importantly, encouragement comes to Taylor in the form of Miryam, a graduate art student whose photographs of bridges and Nefertiti-like profile catch his eye.

Much of the first part of  the novel is taken up by flashbacks in which Taylor tells his history, but it concludes with a rush of action as Taylor and his SASS colleagues converge with their rivals from ARSE for a conference in which Taylor plays an unexpected role. This takes place in the southern Connecticut realm dominated by the casinos of the Mashantucket Pequots and the Mohegans, once battlefield enemies and today rivals for gamblers' dollars. Rafael attends with now pregnant Nicole, and cements a Mayan alliance with his distant northern cousins. Taylor and Miryam visit the nearby home of Taylor's widowed grandmother, where Miryam bonds with Evie. And Bin, accompanied by Jemma McMoody, Galen's daughter, makes an announcement that brings to mind the legend of the Fisher King. At its conclusion, As It Is On Earth made me think of the final sentence of my favorite Kurt Vonnegut Jr. novel, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: "Be fruitful and multiply."

As It Is On Earth is published by Fomite, Burlington, Vermont.

RIP: Earl "Speedo" Carroll

Talk about getting a lemon and making lemonade: Earl Carroll, lead singer of the Cadillacs, put his car into valet parking. When he reclaimed it the parking attendant said, "OK, Speedo, here's your torpedo." Carroll's response to this obviously racially motivated taunt was, "My name isn't Speedo; it's Mister Earl." This, with slight modification, became the lyrics for "Speedo" (see video above), which became a number 17 hit in 1955. There's a recent interview with Earl Carroll here.

Mr. Earl died today. Speed on, Speedo.

Divine Dvořák; scintillating Shostakovich

Friday evening my wife and I went to a New York Philharmonic concert featuring guest conductor Andrey Boreyko. On the program were Felix Mendlessohn's Overture to Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde ("Son and Stranger"), a sprightly piece that got things going nicely, followed by Dmitri Shostakovitch's Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 99, with soloist Frank Peter Zimmerman. The concert concluded with Antonin Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 in E minor,  Op. 95, From the New World. I'll discuss the last piece first, as it's an old favorite of mine, as well as of many.

When I was nine years old, my parents bought the LP album Classical Music for People Who Hate Classical Music, an anthology of performances by the Boston Pops Orchestra, under Arthur Fiedler, of mostly familiar, mostly (in that early edition) nineteenth century romantic pieces that were accessible (or, as a rock critic might put it, having hooks) to people unfamiliar with, and perhaps inclined to dislike, the classical canon. (The collection, greatly expanded to include more kinds of music performed by many orchestras and artists, is still available as a four CD set.) One of the cuts on the LP was the second movement, Largo, from Dvořák's New World symphony. You can hear it, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra directed by Carlo Maria Giulini, by playing the clip above.

As I recall, the notes to the mid 1950s vintage LP said Dvořák got the principal theme for the Largo movement from a "Negro spiritual" with the title "Goin' Home." As I've discussed before here, classical composers frequently borrow tunes from other sources, including folk music and the work of other composers ("Variations on..." is a title frequently seen in classical music) just as pop tunesmiths sometimes mine the classical canon. This is mostly, but as George Harrison could have told you not always, considered Kosher. In any event, notes by James M. Keller in the Playbill for the concert correct the mistaken notion that Dvořák used a folk tune here. The tune was original to Dvořák, and acquired the title "Goin' Home" some thirty years after the symphony was written, when Dvořák's pupil and later teaching assistant William Arms Fisher wrote "dialect" lyrics for it that begin, "Goin' home, goin' home/ I'm a-goin' home."

Keller also observes that the composer's notes accompanying the original score for the symphony, which were used when it was given its world premiere by the New York Philharmonic in 1893, had been kept in the Philharmonic's archives. After the premiere, performances relied on a score published by the Berlin music house Simrock that lacked these notes and may have differed from the original score in other respects, although the Simrock score had the composer's blessing. In 1989, at the request of another music publisher, Breitkopf & Härtel, the Philharmonic's librarians produced the notes, along with the original score, and these became the basis for the Breitkopf & Härtel edition that the Philharmonic performed last night.

I don't know if it was in part because I'd never heard this version of New World before, and it was certainly in large part because of the skill of the instrumentalists and conductor, but this was easily the best performance of New World I'd heard, live or recorded. This is the kind of familiar work that can become formulaic and languid, but the Philharmonic's rendition was crisp and energetic. Even the Largo, while keeping all its melancholy plaintiveness, seemed fresh. One thing that struck me was how "American" this music by an emigre from Central Europe seems; not only the Largo but, for example, the principal theme of the first movement, Adagio--allegro molto, in which I thought I could hear hints, though I doubt it was a conscious appropriation on Dvořák's part, of Stephen Foster's "Oh, Susannah!" In the tumultuous final movement, Allegro con fuoco, I sensed an influx of Slavic soul; on the way out I said to my wife that it seemed to me like John Philip Souza filtered through Modest Mussorgsky. I then had to explain that I didn't mean it in a bad way.

Dmitri Shostakovich, considered by some to be the greatest composer of the past century, wrote his first violin concerto in 1947-48 and dedicated it to David Oistrakh, considered by some to be the greatest violinist of that century. It  may be one of the most challenging works ever written for the solo violinist.  According to Keller's notes, Oistrakh "asked Shostakovich to show mercy."

Dmitri Dmitriyevich, please consider letting the orchestra take over the first eight bars in the finale so as to give me a break, then at least I can wipe the sweat off my brow.

Shostakovich readily assented to Oistrakh's plea. However, the concerto wasn't performed until 1955, two years after Stalin's death. Keller notes that the great cellist Mstislav Rostrapovich blamed the delay of its release on Oistrakh, implying that he was daunted by the work's difficulty. But Keller argues that the delay was occasioned by Soviet politics.  Like many other artists, Shostakovich fell in and out of favor during the Stalin years, depending on the dictator's whims. In 1945, following the defeat of the Nazis, Stalin wanted nothing but art that expressed unreserved triumphalism.  Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony, published that year, was judged lacking in patriotic fervor, and therefore considered "decadent." As a consequence, Shostakovich lost his teaching position at the Leningrad Conservatory and became, in Keller's words, "indelibly traumatized and paranoid." This may have caused his reluctance to release a work that might, like his Ninth, be characterized as containing "formalist perversions and antidemocratic tendencies...alien to the Soviet people and its artistic tastes."

The video above is the best I could find of the concerto's spectacular final movement. The soloist is the Russian violinist Vadim Repin, with the Orchestre de Paris conducted by Paavo Järvi. There's also a black-and-white, somewhat grainy video of Oistrakh, who died in 1974, doing the cadenza here. These are both magnificent performances; Zimmerman's on Friday evening was similarly awesome.