Classic Harpo

I just started reading Harpo Marx's autobiography Harpo Speaks, so I was in the mood to watch some of his famous bits, and thought maybe others might be as well. Here's a classic scene from Duck Soup (1933):

Friday Family Blogging Quiz

This picture of Nick and Helen was taken about two years ago. The question is, what is the closest body of water to where this shot was taken? Place your guesses in the comments section.

Last week, I had the greatest outpouring of contestants since I started doing these quizzes last fall, all trying to identify the denim clad knee in the corner of a picture of Helen from three years ago. I'm sorry to burst my brother-in-law Tom's overly confident bubble, but he did not get the answer right; he can, however, accept some deflected glory in the fact that his son Ben (who hedged his bets a little) did. The knee belonged to Natalie. Thanks to all who played, and let's see your names appearing again in the comments with guesses on this week's stumper!

More Friday Family Blogging

I probably should save this one until some time closer to Halloween, but I'm afraid I'll forget about it by then (this is another from Gramma's cache):

I'm wondering why Batman has what appears to be lipstick smeared all over his face. That's Thomas, Sara, Maria and Joseph in case you can't penetrate the amazing disguises.

Friday Family Blogging

This will likely be my last chance to post some older pictures from my Mom's collection for awhile, so I hope you like these. The first two are of Uncle Frank and Aunt Patty :

The first, above, is with their Grampa Volstadt (my great-grandfather).

This one is from a few years later with their parents (my Gramma and Grampa).

And last, here's one I post for Thomas-- of my Mom, his Gramma, on her graduation from 8th Grade (along with her parents and Grampa, also seen in the previous photos).

Soup Diary 090731

I generally associate dill with pickles, but I had a bowl of Dill Soup yesterday that hardly tasted like a briny cucumber. In fact the dill flavor was very mild, but evident enough to give the creamy potato mixture a bit of tang. Not quite in the upper tier of what I've tried this summer, but a worthy contender from the middle of the pack. I think I'm down to one more visit to Fables before I head back west. I wonder what the options will be (and if I'll be tempted to fall back on a favorite instead of trying something new-- stay tuned!).

Friday Philosophy

Today's quote comes from the novel Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor:

"...free will does not mean one will,
but many wills conflicting in one man.
Freedom cannot be conceived simply."

Cradle Will Rock

Kind of as a follow-through on my previous post, I thought I'd mention a really fine movie that addresses how art and politics collided in the 1930s, namely Cradle Will Rock, directed by Tim Robbins (which should be available for rental in most video stores). Having read Hallie Flanagan's memoir some years ago (she was the head of the Federal Theater Project), I was struck at how closely the film matched up with my sense of her commitment to the project. It certainly takes some liberties as well (most noticeably in telescoping events that unfolded over several years into what seems like just a couple of weeks), but in the end I think it gets at the essence of the debate. Here's the trailer:

A Favorite Painting, 39

Victor Arnautoff, Coit Tower Mural-- Street Scene, c1934

Coit Tower in San Francisco was built in 1933, and, in an early New Deal art project, 26 different artists were commissioned to develop murals for the interior walls of the tower. In the 1930s, there was a strong push throughout the arts community towards realism, with a particular emphasis on the importance of documenting the effects of the Great Depression, often in support of certain political positions with respect to what might be done about the problems it engendered. The muralists of that generation often followed the lead of the highly political Mexican painter Diego Rivera, and that influence, along with a strong commitment to documentary realism, is evident in this particular panel by Victor Arnautoff. It clearly celebrates the "common man" as opposed to the elites (maybe including Mrs Coit, who bequeathed the money to build the tower in the first place), depicting how hard they work and their lack of pretension with respect to what they wear, how they interact, and their taste in entertainment. But there is also a hint of something that suggests more broadly defined horizons for these denizens of the city by the Bay: the inclusion of the Daily Worker and The Masses on the newstand rack. Is this a signal from Arnautoff that the common man is ready to revolt, or merely an acknowledgment that such examples of the radical press were widely available and read during that era? Considering that Arnautoff was a supporter of Rivera, whose own mural in the newly built Rockefeller Center was destroyed by Nelson Rockefeller because it included a likeness of Lenin, I rather suspect the former. But then, the two possibilities are hardly exclusive of one another. The emerging documentary tradition (which would flower in the films of Pare Lorenz; the photography of Walker Evans, Dorothy Lange and so many others; the writing of James Agee and even John Steinbeck; the Living Newspapers on stage, etc.) certainly embraced a progressive perspective, perhaps inevitable in the face of the economic and political questions that arose from the great collapse. At any rate, the works in Coit Tower serve as a great reminder of how seriously such questions were debated, even within the arts, during that time period.

What I Did Yesterday

Yesterday I went with Sally, Ben, Nik, Helen and Emma to the Burchfield-Penney Art Museum. It's an incredibly kid-friendly place, not like most art galleries where you get the impression that you need to be totally quiet to fully appreciate the artwork. Here they actually have mulitple rooms where the youngsters can play and be creative on their own terms.

There was also a "tool kit" (held by Ben above) to help them look for certain elements in the regular exhibits, which at least gave them the opportunity to engage on some level with the more serious work on display (the current shows focus on Charles Burchfield's urban landscapes, Duane Hatchett's geometrical creations in paintings and sculptures, and some nice Western New York regionalism from the thirties, forties & fifties including a healthy selection of paintings by local legend Anthony Sisti).

I think I've written before that the Burchfield-Penney Center is a great space, with large open spaces (including a nce outdoor balcony) between the various galleries (which is part of what makes it so kid-friendly, as they have space to wander around without disturbing the more serious patrons).

The schedule of upcoming events looks pretty exciting too-- which means that there should be lots of new stuff to see the next time I get a chance to visit (hopefully in December).

After leaving the Burchfield-Penney Center, we made a stop at the Anderson Gallery to look at some wonderful Salvador Dali prints on display there. This gallery is in an old public school building, so there was space for the kids to run around a bit here too (they played tag while Sally and I perused the artwork). They also had up a bunch of stuff related to the work of James Joyce, so bonus points there as well. A great day to enjoy some art and maybe spark some long-term interest in the stuff among the young'uns.

Thursday's Thought for the Day

Max Planck (1858-1947) is the originator of quantum theory of physics. So he has a bit of a stake in the following conclusion. If I can propose a small assignment in relation to this quote, think about whether it applies to areas aside from science (or even always science):

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by
convincing its opponents and making them
see the light, but rather because its opponents
eventually die out, and a new generation
grows up that is familiar with it."

Norah Jones Doing Hank Williams

I really like this rendition of the Hank Williams classic "Cold Cold Heart" (which goes back to the late 1940s) as performed by Norah Jones (the daughter of Ravi Shankar, continuing on a theme from the last music video I posted). I hope you like it too:

Great Contemporary Character Actors

Back in the thirties and forties, many Hollywood movies that were otherwise pretty mundane could be brought to life by the appearance of a familiar face in a small but critical role; in the case of good films, they could be counted on to make the proceedings even better. I'm thinking of folks like William Demerest, Eugene Pallette, Ned Sparks, Charles Coburn, Peter Lorre (with or without Sidney Greenstreet), Beulah Bondi, Jane Darwell, Spring Byington, and many, many others. The character actor always seemed to play the same part-- their careers pretty much depended on typecasting, where they so perfectly embodied some common type that they could essentially play the same role over and over and always make it fresh and relevant to the story at hand. We don't often think of actors in such simplistic ways today, but there are a number of fine character actors around, and I thought I'd like to give them a little attention. So, here's the first installment in what will be another intermittent feature on this blog: celebrating the great contemporary character actors. My first subject: the sublime Carlos Jacott, who I first rememebr encountering in the Noah Baumbach feature Kicking and Screaming (see below). Some of you may recognize him from other fine work he's done in Grosse Pointe Blank, Mr. Jealousy, The Last Days of Disco, or as Ramon the pool boy from Seinfeld. Here are some highlights from Kicking and Screaming, most of which feature Carlos (in his role as Otis, the pajama-wearing guy with a drinking problem):



So, a heartfelt tip of the hat to Carlos Jacott-- keep up the good work!

Wednesday Morning Quotation

Short and sweet, from Philip Wylie's controversial book of 1942 (though I doubt this point was part of that controversy), Generation of Vipers:

"Ignorance is not bliss--
it is oblivion."

What I Did Sunday

This past Sunday, I took a little ride with Sara, Tom, Natalie, Ben, and Andromeda down to Eighteen Mile Creek Park in Hamburg. None of us had been there before, and we made a few wrong turns before finding the park entrance, but it was worth the effort. The creek cuts through a small chasm of steep shale cliffs on one side and green forest on the other, and it made for a great spot for wading, skipping stones, and taking pictures, like these:

Above is a look at the forest on the pathway down to the creek (which you can make out in a silver sliver near the center of this shot).

Here's a view looking across at the shale (and I think looking west where the creek eventually empties into Lake Erie).

There were a couple of very high, very narrow waterfalls cascading over the edge on the far side of the creek.

Here are Natalie and Ben doing some of that aforementioned wading (kids sure do like to get wet, don't they?).

There were a few mild rapids in the creek where we were, and a little later on, we saw some kids with tubes (though not actually riding them for some reason).

I think I caught a stone in mid-skip here-- it's just splashed and is heading off stage left.

I had to get one in here of Tom and Andromeda, but you may have to squint to see them.

Sally never stops being a teacher-- I wonder what fascinating item she is showing Ben here (and I wonder if she brought it home with her). It was a fun day all around, and the rain even mostly held off until we got back to the car!

Soup Diary 090728

Did you ever have a bowl of soup garnished with lettuce? Me neither, until yesterday. How about this: do you associate celery with cheeseburgers? No, me neither, though chunks of the crispy stuff was very prominent in the bowl of Cheeseburger Soup I had yesterday at Fables. Despite these odd components (odd in the sense of defying expectations) this was a really good soup. There was also, of course, some cheese and hamburger in the mix, along with onions and tomatoes, and no doubt one or two things I didn't discern (distracted as I was by the lettuce and celery), and the whole thing was extremely satisfying. I made the comment in an earlier diary entry to beware of gimmick soups, but here was a clear exception to that warning, making me glad I didn't opt for the Minestrone (though I'm sure that would've been fine also).

Quotation for Tuesday

I thought of the poet Vachel Lindsay after posting my comments about Mark Harris the other day (Harris wrote a biography of Lindsay, though I haven't read it), and found this segment of his poem "The Unpardonable Sin" worth sharing:

"This is the sin against the Holy Ghost:--
To speak of bloody power as right devine,
And call on God to guard each vile chief's house,
And for such chiefs, turn men to wolves and swine."

Amy Allison

I had a recent e-mail exchange with friend Evan on the topic of Mose Allison, the really fine jazz/blues pianist and his influence on rock musicians. It reminded me that I haven't checked on what his daughter Amy has been up to lately-- and, lo and behold, she has a new album out! You'll note she has a very distinctive voice (as did her pop, though they sound nothing alike). Here's a video of the title song (I can't wait to hear the rest of the album):

Adventures in Night Photography (cont.)

As regular readers of this blog know, I've undertaken to improve my night-photography skills this summer. I mainly work on this by going out, at night, and snapping off dozens of pictures, all the while adjusting the manual camera settings, and hoping that a few will turn out nice. I try to find places where there is sufficient light, and also some potential for interesting subjects or compositions. Here are a few that I like from the past week:

The first two are from the Canal Fest held each year here in Tonawanda, celebrating the community's history as a key point on the old Erie Canal.

There are always lots of lights and crowds at the Fest, so it was a natural place for me to try my luck with the camera.

A little later that same evening, I drove down to Delaware Park (near where I first started these experiments almost two months ago). That's the park casino in the background of the above shot. It had started to rain a bit, which added some nice reflections to these pictures, as you can see.

Above you can see the Historical Society building off in the right background. Because of the wet pavement, it's not immediately discernible, but Hoyt Lake occupies much of the right side center of this picture.

These next three are from a trip on downtown with Sally, Tom and Ben (I got a couple of them hooked on shooting at night too), down by the terminus point of the Erie Canal, which has only recently been developed into a tourist attraction. Above is a view looking back up from under the Buffalo Skyway (by the way, it was raining on this night as well).

This is a view of the Canal Museum, looking across the slip. The building is meant to look like a warehouse from the antebellum period of the Canal's first heyday.

Last, here's a tall ship leaving the slip (with a bunch of rowdy revelers onboard) for an evening cruise. I'm hoping to get out at least one more time while I'm back east (maybe back to Niagara Falls), and I'll post some more pictures if I do.

A Favorite Writer

Mark Harris, 1922-2007

For a long time, with every visit to a library or bookstore, I made sure to check the fiction section to see if there was something new from Mark Harris. I was rewarded at the rate of about once every four or five years, but even that slim prospect of some new work by Harris made it worth the habitual peek. I just found out that Harris passed away back in 2007. I learned this when I did an author search at the library (a process that became more infrequent as the years passed since the appearance of his last novel, The Tale Maker, in 1994) and saw the death date listed on his entry. I feel bad that there won't be any more books from this fine author, but then it does give me an excuse to go back and re-read (again, and in some cases for the third or fourth time) earlier favorites. He was probably best known for the exquisite baseball novel Bang the Drum Slowly, which of course isn't really about baseball at all (though it's predecessor The Southpaw is possibly the greatest ever in that genre). I also loved his two novels about academia, Wake Up Stupid! and Lying in Bed, which as much as anything else prepared me for the more absurd elements of a professor's life (The Tale Maker is of a different stripe, but no less insightful on that topic). And his poignant tribute to the promise and inevitable loss of youth, Speed, serves as a nice bookend to his much earlier Something About a Soldier which chronicles the struggles of a young man thrust into a world that did not nearly match up with his adolescent expectations. Harris' style (particularly the voices of his typically first-person narrators) seemed on first encounter kind of stilted and artificial, but is ultimately effective in defining the real, human qualities of his characters in a way that required no additional exposition. When you "heard" his characters speak (in narration or dialogue), you quickly had a handle on who they were, and what they represented, and in most cases that meant a solid American folkiness-- not in a backwoods rural sense, but representative of a down-to-earth, common sense kind of perspective on a world rife with modern challenges. The challenges sometimes were insurmountable, but Harris' characters nonetheless remained true to those values that defined them, expressing a world-view that was essentially compassionate and generous even to those who themselves in those attributes. If you'd like to check out his work, let me suggest you start with the Henry Wiggen novels (Wiggen was the narrator): The Southpaw, Bang the Drum Slowly, Ticket for a Seamstitch, and It Looked Like Forever. Even if you aren't a baseball fan, I think you'll find them all great reads.

Monday Morning Philosophy

This passage is from what I think was Peter Matthiessen's first non-fiction book Wildlife in America from 1959. He's has written fiction as well in a long and distinguished career:

"The concept of conservation is a far truer sign of
civilization than that spoliation of a continent
which we once confused with progress. Today,
very late, we are coming to accept the fact that
the harvest of renewable resources must be
controlled. Forests, soil, water, and wildlife
are mutually interdependent, and the ruin of
one will mean, in the end, the ruin of them all."

The Last Movie I Saw

I came to Olivier Assayas' new film Summer Hours (l'Heure d'ete) expecting something of a thematic sequel to his earlier film Late August, Early September. The latter (which I loved, by the way) was a fascinating portrait of a group of friends approaching their middle years and coming to grips with the tensions of adulthood and mortality. The brief summary that I'd heard of Summer Hours, a family coming together to deal with the death of the matriarch, suggested a similar examination, but that proved to be a relatively minor theme in comparison to Assayas' inquiry into the nature of culture and generational legacies. The matriarch had lived the latter portion of her life as the caretaker of her beloved uncle's artistic works and reputation. Her home was practically a shrine to his career, filled not only with the uncle's pieces, but also the gifts of his colleagues and counterparts in the art world in the form of paintings and sculptures, but also desks, armoires, and (most touchingly, in the end) dinnerware and vases. The mother's death puts the fate of these objects-- and to a degree the "culture" that they represented both within the family and in the sacred (not in the religious sense) national heritage of France-- in question, and the story that unfolds in response is both fascinating and provocative.

I saw this movie at the same time that I was reading Roberto Bolano's novel By Night in Chile, which raises similar questions in relation to a dying priest recalling his career as a literary figure (poet and critic) during an age of political and social upheaval in his native country, leading to the era of Allende and Pinochet. His ruminations start with the a core belief in the power of literature to define something pure, noble, and lasting of his own country's best nature (not unlike the church to which he is also devoted). This is based in part on a certain ascetic devotion that pretends to catholicity (again, not in the religious sense, except metaphorically), but ultimately evolves into something like proprietary exclusivity that renders the works themselves inaccessible and ultimately forgotten. It certainly becomes evident that "real life" does not acknowledges such cultural capital as events outside the literary salons betray the common rejection of anything remotely pure or noble. The consequence for the priest is to be shaken on his deathbed with the realization that his longstanding anchors had failed, leaving him adrift in uncertainty and strangely un-articulate-able regret. Bolano's masterful narrative belies any notion that there is no value in art, but it cannot in the end entirely refute the priest's conclusion that its powers hardly extend beyond the merely aesthetic.

Assayas' film offers a different perspective, that offers more hope than Bolano's story implies. For Assayas, there is a generational imperative to constantly redefine culture-- not to become bogged down in preserving something whose value (aesthetic, political, utilitarian, or whatever) cannot be effectively translated from one time or place to another. He also seems to be arguing for a view of art that allows for individual need or sensibility to trump institutional interpretation in determining something's value. This kind of thoughtful, engagingly intellectual (but not snooty or overly intellectualized) treatment is in the end, much like Bolano's novel, proof that art (and culture, in the way that Matthew Arnold defined it) has a place, even as it perpetuates the questions about what that role might be.

Soup Diary 090726

I enjoyed a hearty cup of White Bean and Pork soup last night at the Hideaway Restaurant in North Tonawanda. The white meat pork was a nice switch from the more commonly used bacon or ham in bean soups, and made for a most enjoyable prelude to my dinner of baby back ribs. What this experience tells me is that it is possible to get a decent and original tasting cup of soup somewhere other than Fables. I was starting to wonder.

Sunday's Quotation

Josiah William Gitt, was the longtime editor of the Gazette & Daily published in York, Pennsylvania. These particular comments are from a 1957 editorial he wrote:

"Humanity's most valuable assets have been
the non-conformists. Were it not for the
non-conformists, he who refuses to be
satisfied to go along with the continuance
of things as they are, and insists upon
attempting to find new ways of bettering
things, the world would have known
little progress indeed."

A Night at the Movies

Back in this post, I mentioned the Paul Newman retrospective unspooling at the classic Riviera Theater in North Tonawanda this summer. I also mentioned my intention of going to watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to see if the big screen, old-time Hollywoody environment could improve my impression of that so-called classic (though I was off by a couple weeks as to when it was scheduled). Anyway, it did play this past Thursday, and I was there. I have to report that the mostly beautiful Conrad Hall photography did look especially good on the big screen, but that overall I still don't think much of the movie. The leads (Newman and Robert Redford) are charismatic, and there are a lot of great scenes and or lines (you can probably recite a few yourself if you've seen the flick), but overall I can't figure out what it's supposed to add up to. Like every George Roy Hill (director) film I've ever seen, it seems extremely choppy and prone to sensation over substance. I don't deny that that can make for an enjoyable night at the cinema, but I'd like to think that titles elevated to the status of classic would have a little bit more on the ball. In a way (and I admit I'd have to think about this some more to figure out if what I'm about to write holds up to close scrutiny) this is an early example of what mainstream movies would mostly become by the end of the 1970s-- star vehicles that didn't necessarily have any purpose besides making money. I know that's been true of Hollywood from the very start in many respects, but I'm not sure that it wasn't until this later period when audiences (as much as studio accountants) counted something worthwhile based strictly on its commercial success-- you know, finding the first weekend grosses to be a sign of whether something is worth seeing or not. Again, this is coming off the top of my head, so maybe I'm being unfair to Butch Cassidy in that regard-- feel free to tell me so in the comments if you're so inclined.

Saturday Morning Cartoon

From those heady days of 1964, here's the first segment from the premiere episode of The Underdog Show. Doesn't arch-villain Simon Bar Sinister sound a lot like Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life? I hope you like this as much as I did when I was five years old:

Saturday's Quote

This passage from the noted nineteenth century critic and essayist Matthew Arnold is kind of a prelude for a longer post I should have up by tomorrow (probably under the heading "The Last Movie I Saw"). So your assignment is to read this, think about it, and be prepared to consider how it applies in that upcoming post:

"The great men of culture are those who have
had a passion for diffusing, for making prevail,
for carrying from one end of society to the other,
the best knowledge, the best ideas of their time;
who have labored to divest knowledge of all that
was harsh, uncouth, difficult, abstract, professional,
exclusive; to humanize it, to make it efficient
outside the clique of the cultivated and the
learned, yet still remain the best knowledge
and thought of the time, and a true source,
therefore, of sweetness and light."

Friday Family Blogging Quiz

I know this will be hard to believe, but the above photo is of Helen, not Emma (though Helen was about the age her sister is now when this was shot). The question I pose to you is: whose knee is that in the lower left hand corner of the picture? Put your guesses in the comments section. Quick hint: the picture was taken during the Fourth of July reunion in 2006.

Last week, I asked you to spin a little yarn about what was going on in a picture taken of Ben and Natalie at the Tifft Nature Preserve. Lil Sis talked herself out of the wrong answer in the only response (the only response!? Come on folks-- I thought you liked to play these games!), and actually hit on the right answer (though for the wrong reason). Ben and Natalie were indeed collecting stones, not to save, but to toss at a large snake sunning itself on a branch in the lagoon. We were all wondering if it was dead or alive and thought we could tell if the snake responded to being splashed (or hit directly). It was all in the interests of science, I assure you (and to put an end to the suspense: it was very much alive and a lot quicker than we would've thought considering that we all thought it was dead).

More Friday Family Blogging

It may seem like I'm posting an inordinate number of photos of the Caufield kids in this space, but consider: 1) I'm spending a fair amount of time with them this summer; 2) they're young enough that they mostly ignore me constantly sticking a camera in their faces; and 3) they're just so gosh-darned cute! So please indulge me as I once again offer up some pictures, of Nik (in the big chair)...

... Helen (in mid salute)...

... and little Emma (accompanying the crew on piano):

Soup Diary 090724

There was something new to try today at Fables, so I (figuratively) dove right in. The avgolemono is a Greek Chicken and Rice soup with lemon and (in this case) plentiful onion rounding out the mix. It was quite tasty, if not quite up to the best bowls enjoyed there in previous visits. One of the things I'm discovering through this little exercise of recording my soup choices is that I noticeably prefer the creamy to the clear broth varieties, something that I would not have predicted. I'm also surprised that the blended soups, where you can't detect the main ingredients by sight (as opposed to taste) are also in the top tier. I'm wondering how difficult they are to make, anticipating a long winter far from the library cafe, and contemplating trying to replicate some of my favorites at home. I've got another week to sample a couple more varieties here, and then I'll be searching for recipes. I'll be sure to keep you posted on whatever experiments I undertake in my own kitchen.

Friday Family Blogging

About two weeks ago, my cousin Sharon's daughter Jessica got married, bringing together out in the Washington, bringing together the whole west coast side of the Powers clan. They took the opportunity to pose for the picture above, which I'm posting here in the event my sister Liz has missed sending it to anyone. I recognize all my cousins and I think their spouses; but it's hit or miss with the next generation-- anyone want to take a shot at a full listing (you can click on the picture for a bigger version)? I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of these folks next month when I get around to heading out that way.

Political Comment

I'm not going to pretend that, as I've been enjoying my summer vacation, I've spent a lot of time following the ongoing debate about the proposed Health Care bill. To the degree that I have heard some discussion on the topic, I have to say that its critics are betraying a significant lack of understanding of one of the key elements of the push for reform. No one, as some of them seem to imply, is suggesting that the quality of health care in this country (that is, the proficiency of our doctors, the quality of technology in our hospitals, etc.) is the real problem. The problems are access and waste, both of which are exacerbated by private insurers by their refusal to cover "pre-existing" conditions (often uncovered only long after the customer began paying premiums) and the bureaucracy they employ to tell their customers "no." I have insurance, but when I travel, I'm confronted with an incredible headache of trying to re-fill my prescriptions because my insurance company won't authorize my purchasing more than a month's supply at a time. This necessitates numerous phone-calls between me and my doctor's office, them and the pharmacy, and I suspect between the pharmacy and the insurance company. That adds up to a lot of man-hours of wasted time, when all they need to let me do is get sufficient pills before I leave to last me through my trip. Mine is ultimately a tiny problem in the grand scheme of things, but I can't help but think it's indicative of systemic inefficiency made many times worse by the virtual monopolies enjoyed by private insurers in many instances. Those who are trying to stall the reform (Republicans and Democrats alike) are doing all of us a disservice by pretending that this isn't a big problem, and should stop taking their lead from the insurance industry.

Friday Food for Thought

The substance of the following may strike some as cynical or pessimistic. But if you think it through, I think you'll have to admit that Sir Isaiah Berlin (the eminent Latvian philosopher and historian of ideas) was on to something with the statement:

"In the ideal society, composed of wholly
responsible human beings, laws, because I
should scarcely be conscious of them, would
gradually wither away. Only one social
movement was bold enough to render
this assumption quite explicit and accept
its consequences-- that of the Anarchists."

A Favorite Painting, 38

Robert Delaunay, Champ de Mars: The Red Tower, 1911/23

I've been thinking a bit lately about the meaning of "modernism," not just in relation to art but as a historical phenomenon associated closely with the twentieth century. It's a term that permeates much of what was and is written about the period marked by rapid technological advances and concurrent developments in political, social and aesthetic thought and practice. At its core, modernism suggests that what is new is better, or at least more important or significant, than the traditional practices that dominated the Western world (at least) for the previous several hundred years (classicism). Where art and painting is concerned, this is manifested in an image like Delaunay's, the style of which is representational, but fragmented and analytical as opposed to merely illustrative. In viewing more traditional works, a viewer might break it down into component parts for study, but here, Delaunay has already done that for us. There's a comparison to made between this and Peter Breugel's Renaissance depiction of the Tower of Babel, but Delaunay's image portrays the inherent instability of his structure without needing to invoke any outside point of reference as Breugel's work does. What's really interesting is that that instability is built into the modern sensibility-- something cannot be new forever, and will inevitably give way to something else. The question remains as to whether there is an infinite pool of innovation to draw upon, or if it is inevitable that we rediscover and integrate the classic ideas over and over in order to continue fostering what we consider to be change.

In the Category of Useless Information...

[Which end do you think is the front? Not so fast...]

Did you know that today marks the anniversary of the start of the first transcontinental, non-stop, backwards auto trip across the US? Now you do. Setting off on this date in 1930, Charles Creighton and James Hargis drove their 1929 Model A in reverse from New York City to Los Angeles (arriving on August 13) without ever stopping the engine. Pretty interesting huh?

Last night, Ben and I went to a classic car show at the Canalfest in North Tonawanda, and actually saw a 1929 Model A there. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the car that made the backwards trip (nor is it the one in the above picture), and I didn't hear the story of the Creighton/Hargis adventure until this morning-- I just thought it was a weird coincidence that I saw the same model car just before hearing the story.

Thursday's Quote

Andre Malraux (1901-1976) was a noted French writer and political activist, who also commented extensively on the importance of art, as in this comment:

"A man becomes truly Man only when in quest
of what is most exalted in him. True arts and
cultures relate Man to duration, something
other than the most favored denizen of a
universe founded on absurdity."

Classic Woody Allen

I feel like I owe Woody Allen a little compensation for my comments in the previous post. So, in the spirit of making things right, let me state that he was without doubt one of the great standup comics of the 1960s (and might've been so longer if he hadn't given it up for movies). Anyway, here's one of his classic bits from about 1965, which makes me laugh (even after hearing it many times) even if his latest movie doesn't much:

The Last Movie I Saw

I understand that the script for Whatever Works (written and directed by Woody Allen) is an old one from the 1970s, dusted off to make sure Allen could put something into production before a feared actors strike last year. If that's true, it raises a question about why it was so critical for the fimmaker to have something done in time for the summer season, and whether this signals a turn by Allen towards the creation of product instead of art. I know many would say that process began some time ago, as his annual offerings seldom generate the kind of interest (let alone excitement) that greeted his efforts back in the seventies and early eighties. This one strikes me as another forgettable throwaway, like so many of his movies over the past twenty years. I certainly don't begrudge Allen or anyone else the right to keep working and making movies as long as someone out there is willing to fund them and others are willing to go and watch (similarly, I understand why past-their-prime rock bands continue to tour and re-play their hits for those who remember their glory days). But I'm not sure I'm going to remain part of the latter group myself. In fact, I guess I've already drifted away, since I haven't gone to any of his previous movies since Curse of the Jade Scorpion about eight years ago. Although the current movie has a few good scenes and a few more good lines, it hardly holds together as anything more than a rehash of some common Allen themes (most notably-- mismatched couples brought together by chance). Larry David, the star, is awfully hard for me to take in anything but small doses, and while Evan Rachel Wood is better, Allen draws her character in such broad strokes as to make her more silly than engaging. Patricia Clarkson's character is likewise reduced to little more than a stereotype. Ed Begley Jr. and Michael McKean can usually be depended on to liven things up, but here only the former gets even a single scene to make his mark. This is not so much a bad film as an almost immediately forgettable one; which is exactly what you should expect from half-hearted fodder for the summer market.

Wednesday Morning Quotation

Joseph Brodsky was a Nobel Prize winning Russian poet who was expelled from the Soviet Union, no doubt for expressing views sim8ilar to this one (from his Nobel acceptance speech):

"If art teaches anything... it is the privateness of
the human condition. Being the most ancient as
well as the most literal form of private enterprise,
it fosters in a man, knowingly or unwittingly, a
sense of his uniqueness, of individuality, of
separateness-- thus turning him from a social
animal into an autonomous 'I'."

Steve Forbert Classic

Since I mentioned him in relation to my comments on Conor Oberst in the previous post, I thought I'd check and see if Steve Forbert's one and only hit was available on YouTube. Wouldn't you know it, someone had posted it, as I do here now for your listening pleasure:

The Last Concert I Saw

As alluded to previously, I went to see Wilco at Artpark in Lewiston on Sunday night. Wilco is an amazing band, having compiled an incredible run of quality experimentation over their body of recorded work, but they are even greater live. I saw them a few years back when they were touring the A Ghost is Born album, and they knocked me out, in part because I had read that leader Jeff Tweedy did not particularly enjoy live performing, and in part because a lot of the sonic elements of their two most recent albums (the other was Yankee Foxtrot Hotel) seemed to stem from access to studio technology. Based on what they delivered though, neither of those factors made a lick of difference. The show I saw Sunday was more wide-ranging in choice of material from the breadth of their career (including a couple from the first Mermaid Avenue album, on which they collaborated with Billy Bragg to put tunes to some old Woodie Guthrie lyrics), and it was evident that the band has become even more polished over the intervening years (with Tweedy playing the avuncular host). I think the phrase I'd use to describe this show would be exquisitely tuneful noise: walls of sound cascading through the theater, without ever really losing the melodic themes. Plus, I don't think they missed a single song that I was hoping to hear-- which rarely happens when I go to a show (see my comments on Amy Rigby from the day before). There were only two, minor downsides: one was that I was a long way from the stage (serves me right: I didn't buy my ticket until the day of the show), but I have to say the sound was the crispest I have ever heard in a venue of that size. Two, I took to heart the warning on the ticket that cameras would not be allowed and so have no first hand photos (the above was found on-line), even though plenty of other folks were snapping away (of course, from where I was sitting, I wouldn't have gotten anything particularly good anyway).

Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Boys opened the show, and they were pretty good too, decked out in matching white boatsman caps. Oberst is a talented guy, and sounds good with a band behind him. But unlike Wilco, it's hard for me to see him as anything more than a better-than-most-but lesser-than-some singer-songwriter. One odd thing-- Oberst performed his whole set in shadows, although he was stage front and center for most of it. All the spotlights were on the bandmembers. An act of self-effacement? I don't know. He reminds me of guys like Steve Forbert and Willie Nile, and more recently Tim Easton and Todd Snider who never got anywhere near the attention Oberst now enjoys (which obviously isn't really a reflection on him or them so much as the vagaries of the industry), though I'm hard-pressed to see much difference in the quality of their work. He seems content to work that vein, and more power to him. But meanwhile Wilco is constantly challenging themselves to come up with something new. Even when they revert to elements of their folk/country roots, they never sound like anyone else, and it's gratifying to know they are willing to stretch out that way, and be comfortable re-examining and re-defining themselves periodically-- and playing killer live shows that can draw on the full span of their career without any evident inconsistancy showing. They are truly a great band, to my mind the greatest working today.

Soup Diary 090721

A favorite returned to the Fables menu today, and since there was nothing else that I hadn't already sampled, I was free to indulge. The Creamy Black Bean is one of my two or three favorites, maybe falling just a little short of the Sweet Potato Pablano but a bit ahead of the African Peanut. Isn't it odd that I'm ranking them at all? I mean, if I had not started doing these little write-ups, I'd be satisfied to just enjoy them "in the moment" (or not, as the case may be). But since I've undertaken to keep a record, I feel somewhat compelled to give them a degree of relative worth compared to all the others. Actually, what's really got me worried now is that I've completed the cycle, and will not have any new varieties to sample and report on through next week (after which I head back to Montana and endure a forced separation from my favorite soup venue). Maybe the chefs there will surprise me.

Which reminds me of something I failed to record here last week, when I got back from my trip through central New York. When we stopped for lunch in a bistro in Saratoga, we inquired as to the soup of the day and were told by our waitress that it wasn't ready yet, the chef was still working on it. So we did without (I had a pretty good chicken sandwich, though). But the idea that the chef was still "working on it" made me imagine something truly special was imminent, and I regretted we wouldn't be hanging around for dinner when, it seemed reasonable to assume, the special concoction would be ready. Oh well, as all Jack Benny fans know, timing is everything.

One last note: my Mom made a nice pot of tomato soup for supper this evening (along with grilled cheese sandwiches). Perfect comfort food for a rainy day here in WNY.

Traveling Through New York State, Part 5

Here's the last set of pictures from my little trip last week, which more-or-less finished up in Saratoga, a nice little town that attracts a lot of wealthy people because of the nearby springs and racetrack (what, you didn't think they came to check out the historic battlefield, did you?).

First up is a fountain in Congress Park that sits between Broadway downtown and the neighborhood of large mansions (and the aforementioned racetrack) on Union Avenue.

This gazebo is another nice feature in Congress Park. There was also a carousel and a pretty little stream running through a very green meadow.

Here's one of the big mansions we walked by-- every house on Union Ave. is big, mostly ornate, and different from all the others around it. It boggles the mind to think of all the money that must've been floating through this place at one time (and maybe still does).

Here is another of those big houses, perhaps a bit more modest than most of the others, but impressive nonetheless. I especially like the big, rounded porches, especially the round one on the corner of the second floor.

The houses in the previous two pictures date from the late 19th century, and reflect the wealth of the nation by that point in time. This last one is of a place known as Fort Klock just outside Fort Johnson, about fifty miles or so west of Saratoga. It was built in the 1750s, and occupied by the same family until the 1930s. It is a much more simple affair, with its major feature being double walls that made it a safe haven when enemies were lurking about the neighborhood. We stumbled on this place by accident-- seeing a historical marker, we turned in, and although he was in the process of shutting down for the day, the docent kept the place open a little longer and gave us a tour. It turned out he was the great great great great (there were at least four, maybe five "greats" in there) grandson of the first inhabitant of the house. His hospitality made out last stop one of the highlights of the trip. Next year, I'm thinking of making another loop through the state, possibly to the north (maybe the Thousand Islands).

Quote of the Day

Here's a little snippet from one of the great American novelists (whose hometown I visited last week), James Fenimore Cooper:

"It is the besetting vice of democracies to
substitute public opinion for for law. This
is the usual form in which the masses of
men exhibit their tyranny."

Live Wilco

I went to see Wilco last night and will post some reactions a little later. But in the meantime, here's a live cut of a song they performed last night to give you a little taste of what I saw and heard (though from considerably farther away than the guy who shot this):

Soup Diary 090720

Isn't Chicken Gumbo supposed to have okra in it (like in the picture above)? Actually, I think it usually includes sausage as well, though I didn't miss that as much as the okra in the cup I had at a diner after the Amy Rigby/Wreckless Eric show this past Saturday. Oh well, it was hot and loaded with other stuff, so I really can't complain too much. And, it was a nice complement to the meatloaf dinner I ordered (I often order meatloaf in diners-- it seems to me that is a staple menu item of such places, so they generally get it right). Tomorrow I should be back to Fables for something more exotic; but it seems like awhile since I had something really good, so maybe the law of averages will be working in my favor. We'll see...

Traveling Through New York State, Part 4

Here are a few shots from the Saratoga battlefield about thirty miles or so north of Albany. Saratoga was perhaps the key battle of the Revolutionary War, as the improbable American victory there prompted the French to back our cause. Above is a blockhouse that sits in a park alongside the Hudson a few miles from the actual battlefield, but commemorating the battle nonetheless.

Next is a shot of the battlefield from the present-day visitors center. Actually, the battle was fought in several places around this countryside, but this was where the first encounter took place, with some American sharpshooters under Dan Morgan first engaged the advancing British before falling back into the woods.

Heres' a sepia-toned view of the same field from a different angle. The sepia gives it a slightly more historic feel, don't you think?

Above is a painting one of the offensives from the battle on display in the visitors center. Can you picture this kind of action in the very serene-looking fields in the preceding images?

Curtis and I took a little hike down along this path, which covers the same ground as some of the advancing British in 1777. It was a beautiful day for such a morning stroll, but then we didn't have sharpshooters taking potshots at us as we walked along.

Monday Morning Philosophy

Zhuangzi was a Chinese mystic from the third century BC. Here is his straightforward advice for how to live your life and stay out of trouble:

"In doing good avoid fame. In doing bad
avoid disgrace. Pursue a middle course
as your principle. Thus you will guard your
body from harm, preserve your life,
fulfill your duties to your parents, and
live your allotted span of life."

Whole Wide World

I mentioned Wreckless Eric's most famous song in the previous post. I've heard lots of versions of this song over the years (it's something close to a standard from that early Stiff-Records-New-Wave era of the 1980s). Here's a really nice rendition by the Proclaimers:

The Last Concert I Saw

Yesterday afternoon, Sally, Natalie and I drove over to Rochester for the Bop Fest, a fairly intimate (I'd guess no more than a couple hundred folks, if that) musical gathering featuring several bands. The one I most wanted to see was headliner Amy Rigby, performing with her husband Wreckless Eric (that's them in the photo above). The show was sponsored by The Bop Shop, the premier record store in Rochester (and one of the better ones you'll find anywhere anymore). There was a rain shower that delayed things a little bit, and the local Gay Pride parade passed by the venue (an old industrial complex converted into retail space, with a nice central courtyard, where the musicians played) which drew virtually the entire crowd over to the street to take a look, causing another brief intermission. But despite those interruptions, it was a pretty good time.

The Tarbox Ramblers preceded Amy/Eric to the stage, and they performed a spirited electric country blues set. The persevered without their bassist, who leader Johnny Tarbox informed us was in the process of having a baby, "maybe at that very moment." If he hadn't mentioned the absence, I for one wouldn't have noticed-- and I mean that as a compliment, as the remaining duo was quite good regardless.

When the headliners finally came on, they were also clearly having a good time, despite the weather delay. The two complemented each other, in style and personality, and it's easy to see how they hooked up (Eric told a great story of how they met when Amy did a show in his hometown of Hull, England and performed a cover of his most famous song, "Whole Wide World," but used the wrong chords). The highlight of their set, for me, was Rigby's vigorous performance of "Dancing With Joey Ramone" from her Little Fugitives album. My only complaint about their show was that there was minimal (maybe three or four songs) material from Rigby's deep catalogue, with much of the focus on Eric's composition,s and songs off their recent collaborative recording. But it was entertaining, nonetheless.

However, I think Natalie (despite her protestations to the contrary) might've preferred a show where the performers (and for that matter, the bulk of the audience) were a bit more on her side of 50. Ah, youth!

Traveling Through New York State, Part 3

Continuing my little travelogue of my short trip earlier this past week, above is a sepia-toned (somehow it seemed appropriate) of a gazebo on the grounds of the Fenimore Cooper Art Museum, located on the path leading down to Lake Otsego.

Above you can see one corner of the garden behind the Museum, with some nicely pruned bushes and other botanical delights.

Next is a shot of the lawn spreading out behind the Museum and down to Lake Otsego.

These next couple of pictures are of the Hudson River, taken at a riverside park just south of Saratoga (from day two of the trip).

It's easy to forget that New York is a largely rural state, punctuated on either end by a couple of large metropolitan areas. Is it any wonder that it served as an inspiration to a whole school of painters (The Hudson River School), or writers like Cooper and Washington Irving?

Walter Cronkite, RIP

Back when I was growing up, my Dad watched Walter Cronkite virtually every night, and his was a more familiar voice and face than even some of my relatives. I remember his hosting the various NASA launchings throughout the sixties, and I remember him from a couple of programs that I always took to be aimed at kids-- The 20th Century and You Are There-- though I'm sure a lot of adults enjoyed (and learned from them) too. (Sidenote: why doesn't someone release those classic programs on DVD?). I generally don't make a big deal out of media/entertainment retirements, last shows and the like, but I remember making a special effort to make sure I didn't miss Cronkite's last regular broadcast in 1981: I was out of the house, and realizing that his sign-off was imminent, made my way to a nearby department store to watch it on the whole row of TV screens on display in the electronics department. Having studied media history, I still think of Edward R. Murrow as the dean of broadcast journalists, but Cronkite wasn't far behind. Although both were associated with CBS, Cronkite was not one of the "Murrow Boys" recruited by Murrow to the network during the World War II years. But when Cronkite became their colleague later on (during the war he was a correspondent for the AP), he quickly established he was the equal of Charles Collingwood, Eric Severeid, Larry LeSeuer, Howard K. Smith, and the others in terms of erudition and integrity; and perhaps surpassed them in demonstrating as strong an empathy for his audience as for the stories he covered. It's a sad commentary to realize that we're unlikely to see his like again on TV news, and tragic that those in charge of the media don't seem to care (despite what will certainly be a plethora of tributes from them over the next few days).

Thought for a Sunday Morning

Horace Walpole was the 4th Earl of Oxford, a politician and a writer. The following is from a letter he wrote to Sir Horace Mann in 1769:

"I have often said, and oftener think,
that this world is a comedy for those
who think, and a tragedy for those
who feel."

Saturday Morning Cartoon

Taking a small break from my travelogue, here's a classic episode of Space Ghost, which I remember fondly from my youth. Later, the character would become an ironic talk show host on the Cartoon Network, but these early programs were pure adventure. Alex Toth, the great comics artist had a hand in designing Space Ghost, putting him squarely in the classic comics tradition:

Traveling Through New York State, Part 2

After going through the Baseball Hall of Fame, we strolled along Cooperstown's Main Street to look at the old nineteenth century buildings and whatever other sights might catch our attention. Here's a view of the south end of Otsego Lake looking up a creek from a bridge on Main Street.

Here's a shot of the front of the Cooperstown Library, which goes back to before the Civil War. We wandered in and it seemed a great place to while away a few hours on a warm summer evening, but we had other places we wanted to check out.

Here's Curt and I flanking a statue of James Fenimore Cooper that sits in the small park behind the Hall. Apparently, Cooper's house stood on the far side of this park before burning down in the 1930s.

The house that burned should not be confused with the Fenimore Cooper House (now Art Museum) that sits on the west side of Otsego Lake a mile or so north of town. We drove up there, but unfortunately arrived after the building was closed (missing what looked to be a cool exhibit of american artists' renditions of Rome). But we walked around the grounds and that was pretty impressive in itself.

Here's the view looking out towards the lake from the back porch of the Fenimore Cooper Art Museum. Apparently James Fenimore Cooper was inspired by this place to write his Leatherstocking tales, with many of Natty Bumppo's adventures happening near and around Cooper's hometown, with the Lake as a primary focus.

Traveling Through New York State, Part 1

Here are a few pictures from my recent two-day jaunt through central and eastern New York, with the main focus being a visit to Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Our first stop was in Geneva to walk out along the pier that stretches into Lake Seneca (above). I was traveling with my old friend Curtis. This was his first trip to Cooperstown (my third, the last one about ten years ago).

When we arrived at our destination, we wandered around the quaint little town a bit before heading to the museum. As you can imagine, it is over-flowing with shops and restaurants that cater to the baseball theme. Above we see a somewhat spontaneous outgrowth of that environment: some kids playing pepper in the corner park across from the Hall of Fame.

The Hall itself has been considerably modernized, even from my last trip (at the time of my first, back in about 1970, it was still a pretty rustic set-up). Above is the display celebrating the accomplishments of my favorite team, the Braves, in the 1990s. Greg Maddux, shown pitching at the top of the exhibit, had his number retired by the Braves in a ceremony last just night.

The main reason the Braves are my favorite team is that when I was a youngster, my favorite player was Henry Aaron, who of course went on to become the game's most prolofic home run hitter in the pre-steroid age. They had a special exhibit devoted to Hammerin' Hank and his pursuit of Ruth's record, with the above collage serving as its introduction.

Down the street, there's a small, old-fashioned ballpark, where we stopped to grab a drink. I decided it was the perfect time to try Yoo Hoo for the first time, and had Curtis snap this photo to commemorate the event.

Quote of the Day

Fyodor Dostoyevski (1821-1881) was, of course, one of the giants of literature. Here's a line from his novel The Brothers Karamozov which gives one a tiny idea of how he attained that stature:

"Love a man even in his sin
for that love is a likeness of
the divine love, and is the
summit of love on earth."

Friday Family Blogging Quiz

This isn't the greatest photo I've ever taken, but it lends itself to a question. Taken at the Tifft Nature Preserve last Sunday, Ben and Natalie (who, it should go without saying, are ineligible to
play this week) are collecting something, which they plan to use for a very specific purpose. Can you fill in the gaps in this little scenario? If no one gets it right, I'll declare the most creative answer the winner (but there is a right answer). Feel free to offer up more than one response, and you can put them into the comments section.

I thought last week's quiz would be so obvious that it would give you pause and lead to some good guesses, but Natalie wasn't fooled: the arm belongs to yours truly (Dr. Uncle John). I'm going to have to make an extra effort to be sneaky about these things in the future.

Soup Diary 090717

At Fables today I was confronted with too many options, and ended up sampling two different cups of soup instead of the usual single bowl. First up, the Lasagna Soup. This was pretty much what you would expect-- ground beef chunks, diced tomatoes, pasta (shells in the case of my serving), with basil and other spices. The saving element though was the onion, which was the prevailing flavor. I'm convinced that just the right amount of onion can rescue just about any dish, and that was the case here. Without it, this would've been very bland; with it, it was a satisfying, if unspectacular cup of soup.

I also tried a cup of the Tomato Gorgonzola, which was a definite improvement. Much like the Spinach Gorgonzola I had a few weeks ago, the cheese made a very definite impression, helping to maintain the tang while cutting the acidity of a more traditional Tomato soup. In hindsight, I wish I had committed to the bowl of this treat, and skipped the more exotic sounding, but mostly pretty ordinary, Lasagna soup.

Other soup notes: Having been on the road for the last couple of days, I ate all my meals at restaurants, and generally started with a cup of soup. Unfortunately, none of the places we stopped at (we looked for local places, as opposed to chains, and looked for lots of cars out front as the signal of quality) had anything on the menu beyond the staples. So, I had a decent bowl of chili in Cooperstown (identified as "award-winning" on the menu, but don't they all say that?), a bit on the sweet side where I like it more peppery; a bowl of French Onion on the road from Cooperstown to Albany, which was noteworthy for using what seemed to be chunks of rye bread to hold up the cheese melted over the bowl (not an improvement on the typical french bread, but kind of interesting); and, the highlight, a bowl of Vegetable Beef in Wampsville, which came with beef and veggies piled high enough to form a dome over the cup-- the chunks of beef were big and tender, and there were lots of onions (see above) and peas, which I like in soup, so I was quite pleased (if only the rest of the dinner had been as good, sigh).

More Friday Family Blogging

Having already established that Natalie has a taste for fire, is it any surprise that's been inherited by Ben? Last week they (and Tom and I) were having some fun with those little candles used to keep bugs away from the barbecue. These pictures are from that evening.

I have more, but these are the only two that turned out pretty good (I'm still working on fine-tuning my night photography skills).

Happy Birthday Sara! (Friday Family Blogging)

Boy, these birthdays are really piling up! Today, we celebrate my niece Sara's thirteenth-- yikes! another teenager! Here are a few shots from the "early years:"

Above, we see Sara in a classic pose, pulled off with perfect aplomb, a trait that Sara cultivated right off the bat...

... and which comes across despite the occasional lapse in fastidious cleanliness.

Sara's always been good at holding on to friends...

... and even that time she was kidnapped by Indians, she made herself completely at home with the tribe.

From an early age, Sara knew how to straddle mountains...

... but never lost that down-to-earth nature that endears her to everyone around her.

Happy birthday Sara! I hope you have a great day!

Friday's Quote

I thought this was kind of an interesting sentiment from writer Louise Erdrich, from her novel Love Medicine, so here it is for you all to chew on a bit as well:

"All through my life I never did believe in
human measurement. Numbers, time, inches,
feet. All are just ploys for cutting nature down
to size. I know the grand scheme of the world
is beyond our brains to fathom, so I don't try,
just let it in."

Happy Birthday Ben!

Thirteen years ago today, one of my favorite people made his first appearance in the world: my nephew Ben. Many happy returns on the day, Benjamino-- and here's a little photolog of some highlights of those thirteen years (or at least moments when someone was pointing a camera at him):

I like this photo a lot (anyone know who took it?) . Ben seems perfectly relaxed despite sister Natalie having him in a headlock.

I figured i had to have at least one shot that might cause Ben a little embarrassment, so I'm going with him in the reindeer antlers above.

Remember when this was taken? We found this pleasant stream in New Hampshire and stopped to cool off a bit. Shortly after this picture was taken, Ben defied all expectations (yeah, right) and fell in the water.

Kid's got a nice smile, don't ya think?

But sometimes, it's a little forced.

Little known Ben-Fact: he awakens every morning around 5 a.m. to prepare breakfast for the entire family-- and he's been doing it since he was four! I understand his eggs benedict are spectacular, though I've never been invited over to try them ;-(

Here's Ben in long-hair mode, a semi-perpetual state in recent years.

This is the only recent photo I have handy. Anyone care to comment on what might have caused that bemused look on Ben's face?

Happy Birthday Ben-- I hope you have a great day!

Wednesday Quote of the Day

Sir Thomas Browne was an English physician and writer of the 17th century, riding the wave of the then current scientific revolution. This is an insightful snippet from his work Religio Medici from 1643:

"There is no man alone, because every
man is a microcosm, and carries the
whole world about him."

Programming Note

Posting will be light for the next couple days as I'm hitting the road for Cooperstown. I should be back in time for some Friday Family blogging, and will also post some info about my trip.

More Badfinger

After my previous post on the concert I saw last Saturday, I thought I'd look for a Badfinger clip to post here. This is my favorite of the band's many hits, featuring the late Pete Ham on lead vocals:

The Last Concert I Saw

This past Saturday evening, Nick and I met my friend Don down at the canal and enjoyed an evening of tunes courtesy of the latest edition of Badfinger. As some of you may know, the group was a hit-making machine in the first half of the seventies, but fell on some tough financial times (much of it related to the fact they recorded for Apple records, which had a slew of their own problems) which pretty directly led to the suicides of two of the group's key members, Pete Ham and Tom Evans. It was a sad seeming end to a fine band, until they were reorganized for the oldies circuit by the third songwriter in the original group Joey Molland. It's a little bittersweet (if you know the details of their story) to see the group now, but I have to say they overcame any reservations I might have had by putting on an excellent show.

All those on the stage seemed to be having a great time, especially Molland, and instead of just rifling through the hits with some covers thrown in (a common enough agenda for these kinds of acts), they played a number of old album tracks and other material that sounded nearly as good if not so familiar as the standards like "Come and Get It,", "Day After Day," "Baby Blue," and "No Matter What." Molland also told some funny stories of the group's early days (several of which involved encounters with individual Beatles with whom they worked). He also gave ample credit to the late Ham and Evans in introducing their compositions.

You hear a lot of people say that once a band falls off the hit parade they should just hang it up and get a real job. But I say, if you can make a living doing what you love (as these guys clearly loved playing rock and roll for an appreciative crowd), then more power to you. In away, it's just a return to the roots of live music-- wandering troubadors just happy to find a place to play. I mean, that works just fine for me.

The Last Movie I Saw

Back in the mid-eighties I belonged to an organization called the North American Radio Archive, or NARA for short. The main perk of being a member was that you could rent tapes of old radio programs from the group's massive library, and I indulged deeply. I would peruse their catalog looking for more episodes of favorites like Fred Allen or Vic & Sade, but once I exhausted those I started to request programs that I knew nothing about just to see what they were like. One of my favorite discoveries was the science fiction show from the 1950s that started out as Dimension X, but later became X Minus 1. These were latter-day old time radio, produced well after most comedy and drama had migrated to television, but they retained all the elements of the classic era, creating masterful theater of the mind by turning short stories by writers like Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein into audio-only broadcasts. The greatness of the series was in focusing on character and psychology, pitting its spacemen, scientists, and ordinary folks against emotional, physical, and intellectual challenges that were exacerbated by the futuristic or intergalactic conditions that were key to the show's premise, but ultimately not the main point. In the 1950s when the program was produced, it was easy to recognize how the current conditions (things like the Cold War, nuclear arms race, social conformity and civil rights) were deeply integrated into the scripts, making them more than simple escapist fantasy.

Moon, directed by Duncan Jones and starring the fantastic Sam Rockwell strikes me as a throwback to the kinds of stories encountered on X Minus 1. While most Hollywood sci-fi these days seems to obsess over the hardware, or trying to concoct the most revolting looking aliens, this film is firmly planted in the psyche of its protagonist. Rockwell's situation raises questions that are similar if not identical to many that we as a society are collectively working out right now, related to issues like energy and social engineering-- questions that we'd like to believe will be resolved by the time when the movie takes place. It's a gripping and ultimately highly satisfying film, despite falling short in the Wham! Pow! comic-booky sort of action found in something like Star Trek (not a bad movie in itself, but lacking the depth I associate with great science fiction). It's the kind of movie that stays with you after leaving the theater, and sadly, there just aren't enough of those anymore, especially during the summer blockbuster season.

Quote for Tuesday

Chief Seattle (c1786-1866) was a leader of the Suquamish tribe of Indians in present-day Washington state. There's some doubt about whether he actually spoke these words as written, but there's no controversy that they represents a sentiment held by him and members of his tribe:

"This we know: The earth does not belong to man,
man belongs to the Earth. All things are connected
like the blood that unites us all: Man did not
weave the web of life, he is but a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."

Classic From the Eighties

Does anyone remember the Del Fuegos? They were a great band for at least a couple of albums, out of Boston (in fact the name of the album from which this tune was taken is Boston, Mass.), headed by Dan and Warren Zanes. Their first album was even better, but I couldn't find any clips from that one. But make no mistake, this is a really good song too:

The Last Book I Read

I have to admit I harbor some fascination for the seedier side of the entertainment and media industries. I enjoy stories about how those way out on the margins hustle to survive, and in many cases even thrive, by offering up the most basic forms of visceral information or spectacle. I don't necessarily enjoy the products produced by these outsiders, but hearing about how they go about their business almost always hooks me. A good example of this sort of thing that I've recently re-encountered is the comic strip Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer by Ben Katchor. Other examples include stories of old forgotten vaudeville acts (Fred Allen's memoir of his days on the circuit, Much Ado About Me, is a favorite), Poverty Row movie serials, and just about anything that might've sparked the interest of those who booked the old Joe Franklin Show.

Anyway, Mike Edison has enjoyed a career bouncing around music, wrestling, and magazine work that certainly fits the bill as far as steering clear of the mainstream. His account of his adventures in these areas was a quick and entertaining read, which gave me the opportunity to slum a little in going along for the vicarious ride. For example, I now feel like I have a better sense of what a G.G. Allin show was like, and it didn't involve me watching the guy mutilate himself. Along those same lines, the backstage view of High Times magazine was totally engrossing, and instructive on how hippiedom has declined. I don't mean that in any way to denigrate the things Edison's done, since clearly, he mostly enjoyed himself too-- and in those instances that were not so much fun, by his own account those situations at least had the value of helping him hone his crafts or demonstrate his ability to maintain some standards of professionalism. If you too would like a glimpse at a side of show business or the media that is not covered by Entertainmaen Weekly, you might enjoy this book too.

Soup Diary 090713

Beware of gimmick soups! Yesterday I spent a few hours down at the Taste of Buffalo, an annual affair where local restaurants set up booths and dole out samples of some of their signature dishes. Needless to say, I tried a variety of items, not just soup, but the two soups that I did try were not that great, which was a big disappointment. The first, pictured above was Buffalo Chicken Wing Soup, which was sour as opposed to sharply tangy, and padded with lumps of potato instead of actual chicken. Yuck. The other was a Beef & Weck Soup (from the same venue). Buffalo Wings are of course a local favorite which have spread across the country; Beef on Weck (a salted roll with caraway seeds) is an even longer standing traditional Buffalo staple, so I guess it made a kind of sense to feature them at this event. Unfortunately, the latter was pretty blah-- basically a beef and dumpling soup with the small dumplings salted like a weck roll. It wasn't terrible, but lacked pizzazz-- maybe a dollop of horseradish would've made it more interesting (it certainly works with the sandwich).

Luckily, the weekend was not a total bust in the soup area. My mom made a pot of Cream of Cauliflower soup on Saturday night, and it was great (I should've taken a picture, instead you get an internet facsimile above). Full of fresh chunks of carrots and onions in addition to the cauliflower (purchased that morning at the local farmers' market), and set off in a slightly cheesy cream broth, I'd match it against anything the fancypants chefs at the Taste of Buffalo were peddling (and not just counting the soups). I can always count on Mom coming through with the goods!

A Favorite Critic

There's a nice article up at the New York Times online today about the film critic Andrew Sarris, and his role in shaping cinephilia in this country going back to the 1950s. I've been reading Sarris for thirty years, starting back when he and Robert Christgau gave me a reason to buy the Village Voice every week, and have found his reviews to be almost without fail both entertaining and insightful, even when I didn't necessarily agree with him about a particular film's worth. His American Cinema has been my reference of choice for quick information about almost anything made prior to 1968, and when I spotted his Confessions of a Cultist on the shelf of a used book store some years back, I snapped that up too. Recently, he was let go by the New York Observer as their on-staff reviewer (due to economic factors, apparently), and that seems to bring to an end my weekly access to his ongoing love-letters to the movies. It's another terrible example of where print journalism is heading, with arts writers seeming among the first on the chopping block. But at least it appears that Sarris will continue to contribute to Film Comment, and of course, I still have the wonderful books to re-visit whenever I want a dose of his especially humanistic approach to film.

Monday's Quote of the Day

Here's another of my favorite quotes about the nature of art and its role in society. It comes courtesy of the novelist Henry Miller, who knew firsthand a little bit about shaking up his readers:

"The task which the artist implicitly sets
himself is to overthrow existing values,
to make of the chaos about him an order
which is his own, to sow strife and ferment
so that by the emotional release those who
are dead may be restored to life."

Harold Ramis in Stripes

Since I was extolling his virtues in the previous post, here's a little sample of Harold Ramis' more stellar work from Stripes (1981). In it, he plays Bill Murray's sidekick as the two decide to join the army after they've basically failed at everything else. Here, they arrive for basic training and immediately put things into their own terms (that's Ramis kicking off their rendition of Do Wah Diddy):

The Last Movie I Saw

I consider Harold Ramis t0 be one of the key underrated figures in comedy over the past thirty plus years. He was a writer (and occasional performer-- anyone remember Moe Green?) on the original SCTV series, co-wrote the classic National Lampoon's Animal House, had a hand in Caddyshack, Stripes and Ghostbusters (again, as writer and performer in the last two), and made a classic out of the most unlikely premise I can remember with Groundhog Day (writer and director). He doesn't hit a home run every time out, but he has definitely built up a large storehouse of credibility with me. Unfortunately, his latest, Year One falls short of his best work. It's amiable enough, and I chuckled pretty regularly throughout (Jack Black and Michael Cera are a good pairing: one frantic, the other low key), but there's no really over the top guffaws in this mellow paeon to the stupidity of the ancients. It is kind of a neat idea though-- normally all we choose to remember from the BC era are the giants of philosophical, religious, or military prowess. This movie, much as Monty Python did a generation or two ago, suggests a much less enlightened group of ancestors than we generally care to acknowledge. But the film never really takes off. It's the kind of thing that, when it pops up on TBS in a few months, will command my attention while channel surfing at least until the next commercial break, when I'll wander away and forget to return. And I'll still look forward to seeing what Ramis comes up with next.

A Quote I Like

Every now and then I like to share a quote relevant to my profession. Here's one from the eminent French historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874):

"The historian's first duties are sacrilege
and the mocking of false gods. They are
his indispensable instruments for
establishing the truth."

The Last Book I Read

As a longtime fan of Bill Mauldin's work, I have to say it's about time that someone delivered a comprehensive biography of the legendary cartoonist. Todd DePastino has done a fine job fleshing out the contours of Mauldin's long, productive career which began when he was still a teenager, then exploded with his work from the frontlines of World War II (by the way, DePastino has also edited a complete collection of Mauldin's wartime cartoons, called Willie & Joe: The WWII Years, which is also outstanding). Having read several of Mauldin's own memoirs (I discovered A Sort of a Saga and The Brass Ring back in the seventies and have read both multiple times), there's a bit of deja vu through the early chapters of this book, but DePastino draws on a variety of other sources to put Mauldin's experiences into a broader historical context in relation to the military campaigns that he chronicled, and those aspects of 1940s military culture that reveal the nuances of many Mauldin cartoons that I previously missed. Even more interesting from my perspective was the story of Mauldin's post-World War II career, as I only knew small bits and pieces beyond the fact that he became a Pulitzer winning editorial cartoonist (he'd earlier won a Pulitzer for one of his wartime cartoons as well). Throughout his career, Mauldin remained a somewhat idiosyncratic but consistent commentator, serving as a surrogate and often an advocate for those who did not always have the ability (or means) to command the kind of audience that Mauldin eventually built. It's to his credit that he never significantly compromised in his principles, and to DePastino's that he has so fully captured the circumstances and personal characteristics that made Mauldin so important.

Saturday Morning Cartoon

Like most of my generation I first encountered Archie, Jughead, Veronica and the rest of the gang in the funny papers. But in the late 1960s they jumped to Saturday morning TV in a program called The Archie Show. Here's a segment from about 1969:



Not satisfied with just being animated jokemakers, Archie and the others soon became recording stars as well. Here's a video of their biggest hit, which, if I recall correctly, was introduced on the cartoon show:

Quote of the Day

In the aftermath of all the Michael Jackson hoopla, these lines from the eminent German literary and cultural critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) seem especially pertinent:

"Historically, the various modes of communication
have competed with one another. The replacement
of the older narration by information, of information
by sensation, reflects the increasing atrophy
of experience."

Harold Lloyd

Here is one of the most famous movie scenes of all time. Don't be put off by the fact that it is silent (aside from the music) and in black and white. Harold Lloyd was definitely a step behind Chaplin and Keaton in creativity, but only a short step. He specialized in playing a jazz age go-getter, which is kind of evident here. Odds are you've seen stills from this before, even if you haven't seen the entire scene. Enjoy:

Friday Family Blogging Quiz

Here's another cropped photo, this time of Raechelle. The question is, who do the disembodied arms directing her down the slide belong to (you might not want to rush to any conclusions here!)? Put your guesses in the comments section.

Last week, I asked you to identify the backyard toys that were clipped out of a shot of Natalie and Nikolaus. Sally was the first to mention the golf clubs that end up strewn across Gramma's backyard every time one or more of the grandkids come over (in fact, it happened again last night when Helen and Emma came over). The motorcycle was another possible guess, but I guess on that particular evening it was still in the garage. Thanks to all who played!

Soup Diary 090710

Zucchini has got to be the most nondescript vegetable out there. Today I enjoyed a bowl of zucchini rosemary soup at Fables, but I'd be hard-pressed to have actually recognized the flavor of any squash in the mix. The rosemary on the other hand was pretty much front and center, along with the onions and potatoes. This was very chunky and filling concoction, but I have to admit that I probably won't order it again unless it happens to be a very cold winter day (it did have a very warm, stick-to-your-ribs kind of character).

Unrelated-to-soup footnote: in the dining area at Fables they have a silent TV running in the corner perpetually tuned to Headline News. On each of my last four visits, Michael Jackson has been the sole topic of coverage. Even acknowledging the man's popularity and influence, isn't that rather excessive, and indicative of an even more critical "death:" that of a vibrant and useful media in this country?

More Friday Family Blogging

Emma is proving to be a wonderful model-- I'm poking a camera in her face all the time. Here are a few recent shots for your viewing pleasure (I hope). These are from the Independence Day party last week:

I don't remember ever seeing a baby so good natured about being confined to a playpen.

Above we see Emma getting her heavy metal holler down...

Of course she charmed all the guests (like Aunt Sara)...

And kept flashing that smile that lights up the sky way more than any silly fireworks.

Friday Family Blogging

I thought I would focus on my neice Raechelle this week, since I don't see her all that often; nor does the west coast side of the family, and I thought they might appreciate seeing some pictures.

Above, you'll see Raechelle taking her first driving lesson-- she even got dressed up for the occasion.

And here she is auditioning to replace the San Diego Chicken (though a bit prematurely as the original continues to tour ballparks to engage in his fowl antics). I do like Rae's option ot go with the speckled look, though.

You've got to admit, Rae gives off a vibe of total self-assurance (I'm sure the stuffed lamb is merely a companion and serves no therapeutic role).

This is from last week's Fourth of July gala at Theresa & Dan's house. I think that's chocolate cheescake on Raechelle's plate-- a perfect choice to top off the good grub and great company!

Friday Philosophizing

Today's pearls of wisdom come from the Swiss philosopher Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881), who wasn't terribly prolific but still came up with this food for thought:

"The natural liking for the false has several causes:
the inheritance of prejudices, which produces an
unconscious habit, a slavery; the predominance of
the imagination over reason, which affects the
understanding; the predominance of the passions
over the conscience, which depraves the heart; the
predominance of the will over the intelligence,
which vitiates the character."

Sleater Kinney!

I'm not sure this video is really all that representative of the group's oeuvre, but it sure is fun, so I thought I'd post it here. Sleater Kinney may be the best band to hail from the Northwest since Paul Revere & the Raiders (sorry, couldn't resist a little needle aimed at the grunge fans):

A Favorite Painting, 37

Thomas Cole, View on the Catskill-- Early Autumn 1837

Next week I'll be driving across New York state to Cooperstown and points east, having recently won a couple of tickets to the Baseball Hall of fame in a raffle. I know that for many outside the state, New York is defined by its urban landscapes, most prominently of course, the Big Apple itself. It's easy to forget just how rustic much of this region was and remains even today once you get out of New York City, or wander even just a little north or south of the I-90 corridor between Buffalo and Albany. It's no coincidence that the first major school of American painters in the early nineteenth century took their name and much of their subject from the Empire State-- namely the Hudson River School, of which Thomas Cole was perhaps the leading figure. Much of what Cole and his cohort tried to convey and celebrate was the majesty of this country's natural setting, especially in the mostly still undeveloped areas away from the eastern seaboard. Scenes like those depicted above made a place for a human presence (look closely in the lower left), but acknowledged that people were dwarfed by their environment in ways that were concurrently primal, sustaining, uplifting, and intimidating. Part of their message was that as Americans we had by the 1820s figured out how to fit into such an imposing landscape without undermining its beauty or bounty, and also without entirely taming its more frightening aspects. Eventually we would mostly stop being so in awe of our surroundings, and that wasn't necessarily a good thing. I'm looking forward on my drive to seeing some places that resemble the lovely setting of Cole's painting (Cooperstown itself sits in a particularly bucolic spot as I recall), and I'm pretty sure I won't be disappointed.

Will Wonders Never Cease?

As reported here yesterday, I went out tot he old ballbark last night and ended up (much to my surprise) seeing a pretty good game, actually won by the home team. A pitcher with a name right out of Damon Runyan-- Lance Broadway-- went the distance and didn't allow a run until the ninth inning. He also allowed the tying run to come to the plate by putting an additional couple of runners on, but hung in there to strike out the last two batters and preserve the victory. I was convinced that if they had gone to the bullpen, the lead would have evaporated, and so kudos to manager Ken Oberkfell for sticking with Broadway (the name was especially appropriate in that the Bisons are the Mets farm team, and they were playing Scranton-Wilkes Barre, who are affiliated with the Yankees). Now you might think this in some way invalidates my theory of the bad uniforms, but in fact they trotted out a much less offensive third option last night-- maybe this win will keep them dressing sharp and foregoing the ugly tunics displayed here yesterday.

Thursday's Quote

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this sentiment from Nobel Prize winning novelist Albert Camus, but it's a point worth pondering:

"If there is sin against life, it consists perhaps
not so much in despairing of life as in hoping
for another life and in eluding the implacable
grandeur of this life."

Boy, Are the Buffalo Bisons Bad!

I was really looking forward to watching the Buffalo Bisons this summer, as in years past. But the team is woeful. I'm going to the game later tonight, but expect the only real entertainment will be watching to see if they come up with a new way to lose (actually, the company should be pleasant too). Last week, I saw them blow a five run lead in the eighth inning; last night on TV they collapsed again, this time in the ninth (though to be fair, it was only a one-run lead). I think they may have the worst record in all of professional baseball, and deservedly so. But the real point I wanted to make about all this is that it was predictable, if we'd only been paying attention when their new uniforms were introduced last winter. The change was occasioned by their switching from the Indians to the Mets as their parent club. Anyway, take a look at these two jerseys and tell me if you can imagine them being worn by a winning team:

Buffalo has long suffered from an inferiority complex in relation to our bigger downstate counterpart-- so, why did the Bisons need to have the NY of the Mets stitched into their uniforms? It's contradictory and ugly (they also have an NY stitched below the B on their caps, which also looks stupid), and no doubt contributes to their lackluster play.

This is even worse-- it looks like the shirt that would be worn by a beer-league team of undertakers. Is it any wonder that the team isn't playing any better, when they have to take the field in these horrible uniforms?

The Last Book I Read

Kitty Ferguson's book tracing the influence of the ancient philosopher Pythagoras down through the centuries was a surprisingly good read. I can't remember how or where I heard about it (maybe from the New York Review of Books), but I'm glad I jotted it down as something to look for this summer. It's an outstanding intellectual history that serves not only to explain how Pythagoras and his followers constructed their views and shared their discoveries over 2500 years ago (most central to the book's "plot" is their discovery of the natural numeric relationship of musical notes necessary to create sonic harmony), but also serves as an excellent survey of the means by which knowledge itself traverses both space and time. My own grasp of math and science is pretty rudimentary, but Ferguson made some pretty complex notions entirely clear which, rather than bogging the story down, contributed to the narrative momentum as the ideas spread and often were revised from one generation to the next. Just as compelling as her obvious grasp of the mathematics involved in this story is her willingness to engage elements of faith without becoming patronizing, a fair treatment especially given the variety of motivating, and perspective-shaping, forces that operated on such descendants of Pythagoras as, for example, Johannes Kepler. Ferguson, herself a musician, was perhaps attuned to this potential balance between science and something more metaphysical in its nature by the power of music to transcend purely mathematical precision to move a listener on a more fundamental level, a trait that seems entirely consistent with the worldview she ascribes to Pythagoras himself. This was the book of the summer so far for me.

Wednesday's Quote

Jean De La Fontaine (no relation to Pat as far as I know), was a seventeenth century French poet. Some consider him the greatest French writer prior to Victor Hugo, but I have no opinion on that. Here's a short excerpt from his Fables that I do think is on the mark:

"Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it
if not also animated with the love of truth
and virtue, no matter whether he be a
prince, or one of the people."

Classic Jazz

It's been awhile since I posted a good jazz clip here. So let's remedy that with a 1959 video of Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers featuring Wayne Shorter on sax, Walter Davis Jr. on Piano, Jymie Merritt on bass and Lee Morgan on trumpet. The tune is a Dizzy Gillespie composition:



If you are unfamiliar with Blakey's group, do yourself a favor and hunt up some more of their work. Blakey was the only constant in the group for over thirty plus years, and he gave a lot of young players a boost into the limelight-- starting with guys like Morgan and Shorter, Bobby Timmons, Freddie Hubbard, etc. etc. and right on down through the Marsalis brothers and Terrence Blanchard in the 1980s. Outside of jazz circles, I don't think Blakey's name is as well-recognized as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie or Charlie Parker, but it should be.

A Night at the Movies

The Riviera Theater in North Tonawanda is having a Paul Newman Retrospective this summer, kicking off last week with Cool Hand Luke. I saw the movie once before, probably more than twenty years ago and didn't think it was all that great (though obviously a lot of folks consider it a classic-- like Sumner Sloan*), but that was on TV. Seeing it on the big screen, in a nicely restored old movie palace with a good sized crowd was a whole other experience, and I had a really good time. When the Riviera hosts movies, they always provide some additional period detail (that is, from the period when it first opened back in the 1920s) by having someone play their "Mighty Wurlitzer" as folks are finding their seats:

I'm hoping to catch a couple more of the Newman series before I head back out west. I never liked Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid much either, so maybe that's the best candidate for rehabilitation by environment, and it's scheduled for next week. I'll report on whether the Riviera magic strikes twice.

*Diane Chambers' fiance in the premiere episode of Cheers-- Cool Hand Luke was his contribution to the bar debate on the "sweatiest movie ever made."

Soup Diary 090707

I'm not a really big fan of sausages. I like a good hot dog (Sahlen's is my preferred brand), and on occasion some good Polish or Italian sausage might hit the spot. But I generally won't go out of my way to have sausage if there are other options; even at breakfast, I prefer bacon or ham. Today I had a bowl of Roasted Red Pepper and Sausage soup, and while it was pretty tasty, I can't help but think that it would've been better if they left the sausage out, as its only contribution (that I could detect) was to add a few chewy lumps to the mix. I will say that the crumbly cheese (seemed a little mild to be feta) that the Fables chef sprinkled on top (in place of the sour cream shown in the above picture found on-line) was a nice touch, and they had fresh rye bread to go along with the soup, so that was a plus. In sum, it was another case of something good falling short in comparison with the more stellar soups I've enjoyed in recent weeks. I'm guessing that the Creamy Black Bean is due for a comeback pretty soon, so I have something to look forward to.

Tuesday Morning Philosophy

Pierre Sylvain Marechal (1750-1803) was a French poet and revolutionary. I guess it was in the latter role that he formulated the following statement:

"Let the revolting distinction of rich and poor
disappear, once and for all, the distinction of
great and small, of masters and valets, of
governors and governed. Let there be no
difference between human beings other than
those of age and sex. Since all have the same
needs and the same faculties, let there be one
education for all, one food for all."

Hero of the Small Screen

I know the Three Stooges shorts were originally prepared for theatrical exhibition, but I first saw them as a kid on TV, so I think this fits under the above heading. Moe was a meanie; Larry was just kind of there to look goofy; but Curley, well Curley was a comic genius. Here's a great example of his ability to mine comic gold from a simple encounter with a bowl of soup:

Quote of the Day

With newspapers struggling, both financially and in living up to their responsibilities with respect to democracy, it's worth remembering these words from John Peter Zenger (1697-1746), the colonial printer whose trial helped establish the principle of "freedom of the press." I couldn't find a picture of Zenger, but here's a copy of the paper he published in which he criticized the governor of New York, leading to a charge of libel (a charge of which he was acquitted):

"The loss of liberty in general would soon
follow the suppression of the liberty of the
press; for it is an essential branch of liberty,
so perhaps it is the best preservative of the whole."

More Photographic Experiments

Continuing with my recent efforts to figure out how to take good pictures at night, I decided to see if I could capture some of the fireworks display witnessed last night at Niawanda Park in Tonawanda. These are the ones that turned out best (out of about 45 pictures).

I was shooting with a tripod, which I think helped a lot, but even so, most of the pictures I took are pretty mundane. The ones above and below were about the best.

I think that all things considered, spending time capturing these images (that is, monkeying with angles and settings) meant I couldn't enjoy the show the way I usually do, and the photos themselves (even the better ones) ultimately fall short of fully recording the experience, especially without the attendant ka-booms. So next year I may leave the camera at home and just enjoy the display in the moment.

More of Dad's Favorite Songs

A few days ago I posted a video of the song "Master Jack," and noted it was one of the few rock songs my Dad liked. In the comments to that post, my sisters Theresa and Liz both remembered he was also a fan of the Katrina & the Waves song, "Walking on Sunshine." I can't embed the video for that song here, but you can find it at this site. However, it did remind me of another tune he liked, which he was amazed to learn (from me) was written by Paul McCartney (though it turned out I was wrong; McCartney produced Mary Hopkin's recording, but the words were actually written by someone else, and set to a melody from an old Russian folk song). Here's the video for that song:

The Amazing Natalie!

There was a cookout at Theresa & Dan's yesterday to celebrate the Fourth of July, prior to heading down to the Niagara River for fireworks. One of the highlights of the day was this little performance courtesy of Natalie:



Dan promises to have his protege ready to walk on sword blades or lay on a bed of nails in time for next year's festivities.

Sunday's Quote

Here's a "golden oldie" from Meng-tse (aka Mencius), a Chinese philosopher from the fourth century BC:

"The men of old wanting to clarify and diffuse
throughout the empire the light which comes
from looking straight into the heart and then
acting, first set up good government in their
own states; wanting good government in their
own states, they first established order in their
families; wanting good order in their families,
they first rectified their hearts."

Bonus Family Blogging

l. to r.: Ben, Emma, Nik, Natalie

I thought I'd share this picture because a) I think it's pretty good, and b) because it was taken by my four year old niece Helen, and c) because I wanted to be able to say I was the first one to publish her work.

Saturday Morning Cartoon

The Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Show was always the last cartoon show I watched on Saturday mornings, coming on around lunch time as I recall. Here's a classic from director Chuck Jones that didn't actually star any of the big names in the Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies cast:

Political Comment

If, as some commentators are suggesting, Sarah Palin resigned as Alaska's governor so she could spend the next two years preparing her run for the presidency, I have to ask this question: does anyone share her seeming belief that she is some kind of candidate of destiny? That perception of herself certainly came across in her comments during the 2008 campaign. I also can't help but wonder (again, assuming that is the reason for her resignation) that she is being egged on by some of the same supporters who backed George W. Bush, and did so because they recognized the ill-informed and tragically uncurious W. as someone who would easily do their bidding. Palin certainly comes across to me as someone willing to sell her political soul for a shot at the top spot, but she also seems to think she is some kind of force way beyond any evidence of her influence in national affairs. Then again, maybe it's just that all the documented scandals and abuses of power during her term in office have finally added up to some major impending backlash, and she's just ducking out before the storm fully hits. Either way, I can't see how this could possibly bode well for her political future. Maybe she'll just fade back to being a full-time hockey mom-- the role she seems best suited for, from my perspective.

Fourth of July Quote

This nugget from the fifteenth century Hindu philosopher Kabir might not seem, on the surface, all that relevant to America's Independence Day, but if you think about it a moment the connection will become clear:

"Men have always looked before and after,
and rebelled against the existing order. But
for their divine discontent men would not
have been men, and there would have been
no progress in human affairs."

The Last Movie I Saw

Michael Mann's new movie Public Enemies seems to have something, actually several things, on its mind, but doesn't really spend enough time on any of them to amount to much. Johnny Depp's performance as John Dillinger gives the film an excellent center, and the themes spun off this tale of the notorious outlaw's latter years all merit consideration and development, but for some reason Mann does little more than introduce them before diving back into a pretty mundane love story that, frankly, is the least interesting of all the various plot elements. These include themes of criminal celebrity, abuses of government power (even touching on the current torture debate), politicalization of crimefighting, and a few more. The film (like all of Mann's work) looks great, and the period detail adds to its visual appeal. But if you're going to make the pretense of offering something more than a "shoot'em up," then please follow through instead of letting those ideas wither away when the bullets fly. There's no reason to expect more from a summer blockbuster than the action set pieces that are plentiful here; but if you're going to tantalize the more discerning part of the audience with hints of something more substantial, please deliver the goods on that score too. Otherwise, the movie feels flat, as this one does, when it had the potential to be so much more.

Soup Diary 090703

I want my readers to know that I "took one for the team" today in my soup selection. Once again, the Sweet Potato Poblano was on the menu at Fables (along with the Spinach Gorgonzola, another recent favorite), but I foregoed (forewent?) it in favor of something I hadn't tried before, namely the French Dip Soup. This was a hearty concoction (though not as thick as the picture above implies) of essentially French onion soup augmented with chunks of mushroom and steak. It was tasty enough, but ultimately just a slightly more robust version of onion soup, and therefore nothing really special. If my pursuit of variety means I don't taste the Poblano again this summer, I'll be kicking myself (and will likely exaggerate its perfection in my memory through the coming winter months); next time I'll just have to spring for two cups to insure at least one fully satisfactory taste experience.

Friday Family Blogging Quiz

This photo of Nicky and Natalie is cropped. In the original, there is a toy just to their left (your right), one that has been enjoyed by virtually all the grandkids who have frolicked in Gramma's backyard over the years (I say "virtually" because, while all have played with it, maybe it's going out on a limb to assume they all enjoyed the experience-- or am I just being obtuse to throw you off the scent?). What is it?

In last week's quiz, you were asked to identify who was standing just off-camera in a picture of the Banning kids. I guess everyone bowed to Lil Sis' expertise, because she was th only one to guess, and as it happens, guess right (or maybe it wasn't a guess... maybe Lizzie had some inside information, hmmm?). Anyway, congratulations to Lizzie, and let's see if we can't get more contributors this week.

Several weeks ago, I opened up a vote on which rock star a particular picture of Nik most resembled. After tallying up the votes, the winner is... Bob Dylan with a grand total of two tallies (no one else got more than one). So I guess it's official: Nik looks like the grand old man of folk rock, at least the way he looked in his sixties prime. Thanks to everyone who voted (and if you didn't, why not?). Notice I'm putting a lot of questions in parentheses today (do you think that's a positive trend?).

More Friday Family Blogging

Here are a couple of group shots that manage to show several branches and generations of the clan all at once. The first depicts a gathering including Mom, Uncle Dick and Aunt Patty out near Seattle, along with most of the Dobes's and Bannings (I'm guessing either Richard or Catie snapped the picture)

Second is a photo commemorating a tea party involving the full complement of females in the family from a couple of years ago (only Emma, who wasn't born yet, is missing):

A good looking group of gals, no?

Friday Family Blogging

I thought I would share a couple of photos I found taken during Mom and Dad's honeymoon, part of which found them in Gettysburg. First, here's one of Mom:

And here's one of Dad:

They must've had a good time, because I remember them taking us kids to the battlefield when I was around six or seven. I mark that trip as one of the earliest events that helped launch me on my career as a historian.

Friday Philosophy

It seems appropriate, given the impending Independence Day holiday, to offer up a quote from the author of the Declaration of Independence, namely Thomas Jefferson. This is from a letter he wrote on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of that document:

"All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man.
The general spread of the light of science has already
laid open to every view the palpable truth that the
mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on
their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred
ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of God."

A Favorite Song From Many Years Ago

I never thought I'd see a video for this song-- will the wonders of YouTube never cease? This is the only "rock" song I can remember my Dad claiming to like, which really impressed me back in 1968. I still get a kick out of hearing it. Four Jacks and a Jill were a South African band, which seemed pretty exotic back then, and this was their only hit in the US. Maybe it'll bring back some memories for you too:

A Classic Comic Strip

Created by Frank King back around 1920, Gasoline Alley was famous for being one of the few strips where the characters aged more or less in real time. It began as a take-off on the automobile craze, with the main characters mostly talking about and fixing their cars and bragging about the trips they would take (hence the name). But when Walt Wallet found an abandoned baby on his doorstep, the little guy and Uncle Walt's efforts to raise him pretty much took over the storyline. I believe the strip still runs today, though it's been years since I've seen it in a newspaper; King was succeeded as the artist by the very capable Dick Moores and later Jim Scancarelli, who kept up the Wallet family chronicles in fine fashion.

But I wanted to cast a spotlight on the wonderful Sunday pages produced by King in the strip's heyday of the 1930s. He really stretched out and played around with the format (back in the days when each weekend strip occupied an entire page, this was much easier to do), and introduced elements of surrealism and fantasy which were nonetheless somehow consistent with the general tone of the strip even during its more straightforward plots during the week.

These reproductions don't do them justice. A few years back, the periodical Drawn & Quarterly reprinted a whole bunch of these fabulous pages with excellent attention to making them appear as they originally did 70 or more years ago. They really made one appreciate just how artistic the funnies could be.

Every fall, Uncle Walt and Skeezix would take a stroll in the woods to check out the autumn foliage, and these were among the most stunning pieces King concocted, and I imagine regular readers looked forward to seeing how he might top himself each year. I can't think of anyone working in newspaper comics today who exhibits quite the same ambition (which might be more due to changes in format than individual initiative), but it sure is a treat to revisit these great examples of comic art from the past.