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50 years ago: the beginning of political activism

By the time this was published, two or three weeks later, I was MORTIFIED by my response.

When I was 15, I was a conventionally conservative kid, fueled by my religion and small city roots. I had been in a couple civil rights marches but that was a topic that affected me personally.

I was preternaturally aware of the political issues, reading the op-ed pages of both the morning Sun-Bulletin and the Evening Press. Chet Huntley and David Brinkley were on the NBC news and Walter Cronkite was over on CBS, and I watched one network or the other since I was 11.

I entered Binghamton Central High in February 1968 and was asked early on by someone on the school newspaper, the Panorama News, who I supported for President. Oddly, I hadn’t given it much thought. I opted for Richard Nixon, noting that he had eight years as Vice-President.

By the time this was published, two or three weeks later, I was MORTIFIED by my response. I was going through…something. It may have been the influence of new friends or Cronkite’s assessment of the Vietnam war on February 27 as a likely stalemate.

On March 12, Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-MN) received 42% of the vote in the Democratic primary in New Hampshire against a sitting President, Lyndon Baines Johnson. I was utterly fascinated by this turn of events.

Still, I was not prepared when Johnson invoked the pledge in his March 31 national address, announcing, “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.” I had developed mixed feelings about LBJ. Great on civil rights, but like many, I was doubting the point of the war in southeast Asia.

So I’m pleased that my daughter, at an age younger than I was, is feeling all riled up about some issues in her world, more about which I’ll mention in due time. I think the Resistance play she was in this month at church was really in her emotional wheelhouse.

Music throwback: requiems for Holy Week

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Requiem. Orozco, José Clemente: Mexican, 1883 – 1949

There was a pastor of my church who considered himself a Lenten person, rather than an Easter person. I totally got it. And requiems are the music I most associate with the period between Mardi Gras and Easter, arguably more interesting that the tunes associated with the culmination of the season.

Maybe it’s because it’s the music I have sung personally most often that it resonates so. Or, to quote Elton John yet again, Sad songs say so much.

I’ve only sung one movement of A German Requiem by Johannes Brahms (1833–1897), and that in English, but several times during services. But I’ve sung the requiems by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) in the mid-1990s, Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) in 2000 and 2005, Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986) in 2008, and John Rutter (1945- ) in the mid-1990s. the ones from this century I have recording of.

The famous Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) requiem I’ve sung thrice, once in 1985, once in the mid-1990s, and most recently on September 11, 2002, outdoors on a windy day, the only time I’ve ever worn a tuxedo to work.

There’s usually a pattern, starting with the introit:

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine:
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them.

Then
Kyrie, eleison.
Christe, eleison.
Kyrie, eleison.

It ends with In paradisum deducant te Angeli -May the angels lead you into paradise.

Not every requiem uses every element, or exactly the same text, but they are quite similar.

Listen to:

How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place (from A German Requiem by Brahms) – Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra

Verdi: Requiem, UC Davis Symphony Orchestra and University Chorus

Faure: Requiem Opus 48, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus

Durufle: Requiem, Opus 9, Choir of King’s College, Cambridge

Rutter Requiem, Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, and members of the City of London Sinfonia

Mozart – Requiem, Academy Of St. Martin In The Fields

L is for Lodge’s, Albany’s oldest department store

I usually shop at Lodge’s on Tuesdays, since they give a senior citizen discount then.

Lodge’s, or more formally, B. Lodge & Co., was founded in downtown Albany, NY in 1867, a couple years after the end of the American Civil War. When I stopped working downtown, and our office moved out to Corporate (frickin’) Woods in 2006, one of the things I wrote was that I would miss is that eclectic department store, and I did.

It is the place where one can find school uniforms and medical scrubs. One Yelp review notes: “They mainly sell the essentials here, nothing particularly fancy, ” and that is quite true. Another writes: “The staff is almost unerringly helpful and knowledgeable.” And the prices are quite reasonable.

A 2009 piece in All Over Albany described the place as “eclectic” and that’s certainly the case. It’s open Monday – Saturday, 8:50 a.m. to 5:25 p.m. – who DOES that? – and is closed Sundays.

You can read its extensive history here, but basically, it has been at four different locations, all but one on North Pearl Street, changing as a result of business expansions or a devastating 1952 fire, after which it moved to its current location at 75 N. Pearl.

The Lodges sold the business in 1960 to the Ginsburgs. Jack and Elaine Yonally bought it in 1995; as of 2011, it’s now owned by their children, Mark Yonally and Sharon Freddoso.

The December 2017 Times Union article about the store notes: “Lodge’s does not sell any items online, does not have a business Instagram or Twitter account and first added a website several years ago.” It does have a Facebook page.

Now that I’ve been back working downtown since 2015, I’m happy to be able to shop at Lodge’s again. It’s usually on Tuesdays, since they give a senior citizen discount then. Mark and Sharon and some of their other employees know me by sight, if not by name.

I’ve purchased shirts, pants, socks, a belt, winter gloves, and cheap sunglasses in the past few months. As someone who loathes shopping generally, it’s my favorite place to buy clothes.

I have to think that Barrington Lodge and his two sons, Charles and William, would be pleased that their family business has celebrated its sesquicentennial.

For ABC Wednesday

The Lydster: worrying about the Daughter

Teenage boys are annoying creatures.

When I told someone that my daughter was sick in November, for the third month in a row, I was asked, “Am I worried about her?” The answer was, “No, not really.”

In that iteration, it was the same bug that her mother had, only my wife had it a couple days earlier. And other people in church and elsewhere in my circle experienced the same symptoms in the week or two before.

I DID worry that my wife had recovered enough. I was away in Syracuse and Binghamton so couldn’t tend to them.

Now, I WAS worried in October when the treatment of what turned out to be the Daughter’s slowly-developing asthma attack. I felt it was misdiagnosed early, and I felt helpless.

The Daughter wanted to go to the Donald Trump rally in April 2016 in Albany. I said no, not because of his politics – I was rather interested in seeing the phenomenon in person myself – but because I was worried that she (or I) might have been attacked, as some people had been in other venues.

I’m told that some white people see black young people as being older than they are. See, for example, 12-year-old Tamir Rice of Cleveland, who was reported as a man with a gun and ended up dead by police. So I figured my daughter, who was 5’8″ at the time might have been seen, for some reason, as antagonistic to some Trump supporters, and I wasn’t willing to risk it.

Instead, we went to the Bernie Sanders rally that day, and though we didn’t get in, he came outside to give his 7-minute stump speech, one of the highlights of her past year.

Of course, I worry about teenage boys, just by virtue of their boyness. Teenage boys are annoying creatures. Having been one myself, I can testify that this is true.

A buddy of mine wrote about worrying, and I said that it is highly overrated. But worrying about the Daughter just comes with the territory.

Steven Tyler of Aerosmith turns 70

In 2013, Aerosmith’s principal songwriters, Tyler and Perry, were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame

I own two greatest hits albums by Aerosmith. The first collection, unimaginatively called Aerosmith’s Greatest Hits, came out in 1980, and never got above #53 on the Billboard album charts. But it was a steady product, with over 10 million copies sold. I really like it.

The second, Big Ones, came out in 1994, and contains all those 1980s hits, many of which left me cold. It got to #6, and has sold more than four million copies.

Steven Tyler is the lead singer of Aerosmith. He was raised by a classical musician and a secretary, and began his musical career as a drummer in bands as early as 1964.

Meanwhile, guitarist Joe Perry and bassist Tom Hamilton started in a band called the Jam Band, eventually operating out of Boston. They met Joey Kramer, a drummer from Yonkers, NY, who dropped out of Berklee College of Music to join the Jam Band.

“Kramer knew Tyler and had always hoped to play in a band with him.” After the Jam Band and Tyler’s band Chain Reaction played the same gig in 1970, Tyler “wanted to combine the two bands” but “only if he could be frontman and lead vocalist,” which was agreed upon.

Rhythm guitarist Ray Tabano joined what was by then called Aerosmith, but was replaced by Ray Whitford, another Berklee dropout. The band had a “temporary” change of personnel from July 1979 to April 1984, but has otherwise stayed the same.

What really relaunched their career were two things: Tyler and Perry appearing on Run–D.M.C.’s cover of Walk This Way, “a track blending rock and roll with hip hop”; and Tyler getting sober.

Steven Tyler has a famous actress daughter, Liv, who thought Todd Rundgrun was her dad early on.

“Aerosmith is the best-selling American hard rock band of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide, including over 70 million records in the United States alone… The band has scored 21 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100… They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001… In 2013, the band’s principal songwriters, Tyler and Perry, were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.”

Listen to:

Dream On – #59 in 1973, but a longer version went to #6 in 1976, a song “inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for being one of the most influential songs in the development of rock”

Sweet Emotion, #36 in 1975

Walk This Way, #10 in 1977

Walk This Way – Run- D.M.C., #4 pop, #8 R&B in 1986

Steven Tyler turns 70 on March 26