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July rambling #1: a dog for mayor of Schenectady, and the benefits of music

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” – Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

On ISIS’ Terms: Courting a Young American.

Nicholas Winton, Rescuer of 669 Children From Holocaust, Dies at 106. Here’s the 60 Minutes piece from 2014.

Why Don’t the Poor Rise Up? Is it because of a loss of the spirit of e pluribus unum?

John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight on transgender rights.

Same-Sex Marriage DOES Threaten “Traditional” Marriage. It’s “a threat to those who do not believe in EQUALITY between the sexes in general.”

So much anger about love. Related: There are 6 Scriptures about homosexuality in the Bible. Here’s what they really say. He could have gotten into St. Paul’s interesting pro-celibacy position in 1 Corinthians 7.

100 Percent Is Overrated. People labeled “smart” at a young age don’t deal well with being wrong. Life grows stagnant.

John Green explains — in under eight minutes — the mess that is the economy of Greece.

Leonard Starr, R.I.P.

Stephen R. Bissette: comics pioneer & evangelist, from Radio New Zealand.

Dondi creator Irwin Hasen’s final interview.

I Can’t Believe This Is an Archie Comic.

A most disturbing story about Jackie Fox of the Runaways: One famous band. One huge secret. Many lives destroyed.

Garrison Keillor sees transition out of ‘A Prairie Home Companion’.

Ken Levine’s ode to radio, and your own “radio station.”

Brian Eno Lists the Benefits of Singing: A Long Life, Increased Intelligence, and a Sound Civilization.

Polyphonic overtone singing – Anna-Maria Hefele.

Keith Richards: Life. Full Documentary Movie – 1 hour.

Music video: “HAVE A NICE DAY” – WORLD ORDER.

Songs that Stephen Sondheim wishes he’d written. (This is part 3, but the first two are linked within.)

Paul McCartney Opens Up About Lennon, Yoko, and More. “Our greatest living rock star on why Lennon’s a martyr, who gets the credit, and touring in his seventies.”

Nice story about guitarist Lawrence Juber.

Now I Know: A Tale of One Cities.

Leonard Maltin remembers Omar Sharif. I noted that I knew him better from reading his bridge column, initially with Charles Goren, trying (and failing) to ascertain the art of the artificial bid.

BBC Radio 2003 half-hour documentary of the romantic (and business) relationship of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz available for the month of July. Here’s Mark Evanier’s brief encounter with them.

Korean age.

Meet The Obscure Exclamation Comma: Because Excitement Can Happen In The Middle Of A Sentence. Sorry, I ain’t buying.

A Dog Named Diamond Is Running for Mayor of Schenectady, New York. And her owner, Kathy, sits about ten feet from my desk at work. In fact, I have Roger Fur Mayor bumper sticker on my office cubicle wall, from when that cat ran in 2011.

Maria from Sesame Street retires. That would be Sonia Manzano.

Muppets: Congressional Muppets and what is marriage and number six and a thank you.

This Crazy Fan Theory About ‘Jeopardy!’ Actually Makes Total Sense. Or not.

GOOGLE ALERT (me)

The Friends of the Albany Public Library presented the library with a check at the Washington Avenue branch. “The $3,500 will go towards the costs of the summer reading program. Albany’s Tulip Queen was also on hand for the presentation.”

Preparing the circus’ center ring. The state of the Republican debate.

Jaquandor links to stuff.

Matt & Sweat, and derecho anniversary

The Wife went to college in the North Country, and taught school in the midst of the Adirondack mountains.

Once upon a time, I used to complained that The Wife did not follow the news enough, mostly because events I thought were commonly known, she was unaware of. She does pay more attention now, checking out 5 minutes of the NPR news each weekday morning, plus catching news at other times of the day.

There was one recent story for which she definitely took notice, which was two convicted murderers, Richard Matt and David Sweat, breaking out of prison, the Clinton Correctional Facility at Dannemora in (WAY) upstate New York on June 6. Truth is that it would have been very difficult to have avoided, with the local cable news station using special dramatic music frequently while the men were loose.

The prison break ended with Matt being shot and killed, and a few days later, on June 28, Sweat being shot but captured alive. It was such a great soap opera that people were casting characters for what seems to be an inevitable TV movie. Some folks were sad that the situation ended. The Wife was NOT one of those people, and she was a bit bummed that Sweat was brought to Albany Medical Center, only a couple miles from our home, for treatment.

She seemed to relate to the vastness of northern New York. She went to college in the North Country and taught school in the midst of the Adirondack mountains. Part of her interest was her concern for those isolated folks in their homes and summer cabins, some of the latter of which Matt and Sweat did break into.

That said, she was bemused by the saga, which involved one prison employee, Joyce Mitchell, who was apparently romantically involved with one or both of the prisoners, procuring tools for the breakout. Mitchell put them in some ground beef, froze it, and then gave the meat to another prison worker to give to the felons. Both employees have been indicted.

True: the Daughter knows more about this case than either my wife OR myself.
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I should also note that this is the 20th anniversary of a derecho that started in the Midwest and eventually struck the Adirondacks and Albany. A derecho is “a line of intense, widespread, and fast-moving windstorms and sometimes thunderstorms that moves across a great distance and is characterized by damaging winds.” Those 70+ mph winds rattled the windows and woke us both from a sound sleep a little before 7 a.m.

It tore up some trees in nearby Washington Park. But a member of our church had dozens of broken bones when a tree fell on her up in the aforementioned Adirondacks.
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Happy birthday to my bride. I love you.

A is for Hank Aaron

Hank Aaron is still the career leader in total bases, extra base hits, and runs batted in.

Henry Louis Aaron, “Hammering Hank,” born February 5, 1934, in Mobile, AL, was, for decades – from 1974 to 2007 – the leading home run hitter in Major League Baseball, with a total of 755. He led the league in homers for four seasons.

His journey to break Babe Ruth’s career home run record he conducted with quiet dignity, despite severe obstacles. He had hit 40 home runs in 1973, ending the season one home run short of the record.

“He was the recipient of death threats during the 1973-1974 offseason and a large assortment of hate mail from people who did not want to see Aaron break Ruth’s nearly sacrosanct home run record.”

Aaron is still the career leader in total bases, extra-base hits, and runs batted in. He is also in the top five for career hits and runs.

He played in the All-Star Game every year from 1955 to 1975, won the Golden Glove as best fielder in 1958 to 1960, and was the National League MVP in 1957.

After a brief stint in the Negro Leagues and a short stint in the minor leagues, Hank broke in with the Milwaukee Braves in 1954, played with them as they moved to Atlanta in 1966, then spent the last two years of his career back in Milwaukee, with the Brewers.

After the 1976 season, when his days on the field were over, Aaron rejoined the Braves as an executive, in various capacities over the years. In 1982, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, with 97.8% of the vote.

Hank has been a charter member and cheerleader for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which I’ve joined. Read this 2015 story.

Hank had a brother, the late Tommie Aaron, who hit 13 home runs in a much less distinguished career, also with the Braves, making them the all-time brothers’ leader in homers.

Henry Aaron isn’t my favorite baseball player of all time – that will always be Willie Mays – but he’s in the Top 5.

ABC Wednesday – Round 17

MOVIE REVIEW: I’ll See You In My Dreams

The critics really liked the movie I’ll See You In My Dreams more than the public.

Before I can even begin to write about the movie I’ll See You In My Dreams, which The Wife and I saw on a Tuesday night at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany, I have to talk about the MAKING of this film.

It was a Kickstarter project, in which Brett Haley, a 2005 University of North Carolina graduate, was able to promise Blythe Danner and Martin Starr to be in his film. Haley managed to raise $61,365, or 102% of the $60,000 goal. All 127 people who have put in $100 more, were listed in the end credits.

In recent years, Blythe Danner is probably best known for plugging Prolia, an osteoporosis drug for a condition she is said to have had. Too bad: in the Northeast US, she’s known as a fine stage actress, on Broadway, and especially on the stage of the Williamstown (MA) Theater Festival, where my spouse had seen her perform more than once.

The first time I ever saw Blythe Danner was on Adam’s Rib, a 1973 “TV adaptation of the Tracy/Hepburn classic” film, where she played opposite Ken Howard. Howard, incidentally, would go on to play the coach in the high school basketball series The White Shadow; the executive producer of that show, and of the hospital drama St. Elsewhere, was Bruce Paltrow, Blythe’s husband until he died in 2002. They had two children, Gwyneth and Jake.

Martin Starr, I first saw as arguably the geekiest of the Freaks & Geeks on that too-short-lived TV show. Here’s a short scene from that show.

I mention all of this because I’d be fascinated to find out how Haley got Danner, a woman now in her early 70s, and a widow for about a dozen years, to play Carol, a woman in her 70s, and a widow for a few decades.

The critics really liked the movie I’ll See You In My Dreams (94% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), more than the public (72% positive), and I think I know why. It’s rather well-acted, particularly by Sam Elliot as the charming Bill, and Rhea Perlman from Cheers, Mary Kay Place from Fernwood 2night and June Squibb from the movie Nebraska as Carol’s friends. But the script, by Haley and Marc Basch, is perhaps too subtle. too low-key.

Somehow, I think the story might have fared better as a play. The movie, as good as it was, had a low-budget feel. Other than a scene on a boat, a few golf scenes, and a walk home from the supermarket at night (which easily could have been replicated), it might have been better on stage.

The story had some interesting twists, including conversations between Carol and the directionless pool man Lloyd (Starr), who interestingly seemed to be somewhat in the same boat. I never felt quite as invested as the narrative suggested I feel, about the tricky nature of aging.

At 92 minutes, I was glad to spend the time seeing pros at work but was left wanting more…something. On the other hand, I always cared about Carol’s specific journey, and on that basis, I mildly recommend the film.

The religion of literate librarians

As part of the Ask Roger Anything process, Arthur is hankering for me to write about religion:

What’s one thing you just don’t “get” about non-believers?

The need, at least for some of them, to ascribe all the problems in of the world at the feet of religion. Taking the issue of same-sex marriage, in the US, you see that a majority of white mainline Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and especially Jews are supportive.

Surely, horrific things have happened, and continue to take place, in the purported name of God/Allah. It’s just as certain that awful things happened in no deity’s name, and that decent, even wonderful, things take place through the works of people following their religious beliefs.

A corollary, I suppose, is the easy willingness to point to some group of purported Christians, and INSIST that they represent Christianity as a whole. The Ku Klux Klan claim to be Christian; it does not follow that the KKK represents Christianity. Nor do those folks out of Kansas, the Westboro Baptist Church represent my understanding of living a Christ-centered life.

I think it makes me irritable for the same reason that one black person’s flaws seem to be attributed to the whole race.

Just recently, through Daily Kos, I came across Faithful America, which says it “is the largest and fastest-growing online community of Christians putting faith into action for social justice. Our members are sick of sitting by quietly while Jesus’ message of good news is hijacked by the religious right to serve a hateful political agenda. We’re organizing the faithful to challenge such extremism and renew the church’s prophetic role in building a more free and just society.”

What’s one thing you wish non-believers understood about your faith position (and what’s a better word for that—I’m drawing a blank…)?

I don’t know what term you’re looking for. My theology? My belief system? Fred? I’m not humorless about my faith; I really liked Monty Python’s Life of Brian, BTW.

There is a degree of uncertainty not only for me but in lots of thinking people.

Listening to the families of the victims in Charleston, many said that their faith required them to forgive the presumed killer, but it wasn’t easy. Some folks were practically apologetic about not being at that point yet. It was a very relatable struggle.

For most of us, faith is a process. Most of the mainline churches have evolved on issues of race fairness, gender equality, gay rights, et al. If the source material hasn’t changed, it must be the Holy Spirit working in us.

An example: from 1939 to 1968, the Methodist Church, prior to becoming the United Methodist Church, had something called the Central Jurisdiction, which “formally established segregation as official church policy.” It would be unthinkable today.
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SamuraiFrog is curious to know:

What’s a misconception people tend to have about librarians?

That we’re humorless, that we all have buns in our hair, that all we do at work is read all day. (And when I worked at a comic book store, I didn’t read comics all day, either.)

One of the things I’ve noticed as president of the Friends of the Albany Public Library is that so much of the work involves providing Internet connections for those without them, assisting people who are seeking employment, and being a locale that provides a hub for the community.

The struggle for libraries nationally is that people who don’t use them seem to think they’re passe because “everyone” has e-readers. Well, most libraries have e-books.

What book have you owned the longest?

Play the Game: the Book of Sport, edited by Mitchell V. Charnley (1931). This was an anthology of sports stories from American Boy magazine from 1923 to 1931, stories which I read over and over. I have no idea how I got it, but I feel like I’ve always had it. The cover, BTW, is green.

This isn’t the oldest book I own though. That honor probably goes to a Methodist hymnal with an 1849 copyright date. In the mid-1980s, my girlfriend at the time bought it for me for the handsome sum of $2.50. It has a LOT of hymns by Charles Wesley, many more than in subsequent iterations, starting with O, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing on the first page, and including Hark! the Herald Angels Sing and Christ, the Lord, is Risen Today, plus a whole bunch with which I am not familiar.

Do you re-read books? Which ones?

Not so much this century. I’ve read the Bible all the way through, different iterations, in 1977-78, sometime in the 1980s, and 1996-97, but not since. I used to reread Matt Groening’s Life in Hell books, certain books about the Beatles. Now, I feel there are SO many books that I OWN that I haven’t read the FIRST time that rereading seems like a luxury.

This may be true: the only books I’ve reread that I wasn’t going to review are children’s books: Dr. Seuss, Sue Boynton. And not necessarily for the Daughter’s consumption, but for my own.
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New York Erratic muses:

Do you find different communication platforms cause you to think differently? For example, reading Facebook vs. talking a lot on the phone.

Here’s the difference between someone’s Facebook and someone’s blog: I’m more likely to read the latter. Of the 710 friends I have on Facebook, last I checked, there are fewer than ten for which I get notifications every time they post, and I’m related to most of them. So when they later say, “I wrote about that already on Facebook,” I shrug, because I didn’t probably see it. If I DID follow everyone closely, I’d have no life.

I HATE reading lengthy pieces on FB. This is probably a function of the font, which I’m told I can alter but haven’t had the inclination to figure it out. But it’s also true that I associate FB with short comments or links to other items. I tend not to link satire (except The Onion) on FB, because too many people think it’s true.

I much prefer email to texting because there’s less an expectation that I’ll reply instantly.

Here’s a bit of my library process: I’ve mentioned that I’m more likely than my fellow librarians, all of whom are at least a decade younger, to pick up the phone and call an agency, an association, etc. What I believe is that they all put up websites and seem to think that all the information that users will need is there. This is incorrect, as I’ve gotten plenty of useful info by actually finding, and speaking to, the right person. Sometimes, it’s just connecting our client with that appropriate contact that solves the issue.