Category: Uncategorized

Love, Actually

When I deigned to come up with Songs That Move Me a few years back, God Only Knows was #1.

Yeah, yeah, we should always tell people we love them, and we shouldn’t need to a day to do so. Blah, blah, blah. Just like Thanksgiving should be the only day we should give thanks. Except we DON’T always give thanks or show love. We get too busy or take each other for granted.

I have a very small family. My parents are deceased. My wife and each of my two sisters have but one daughter each. I feel as though it is necessary to tell them all, as well as my friends, how much I care for them.

I don’t know if I mentioned how much I like the website Pantheon Songs, which is attempting to create “a fictional Pantheon in which only the best songs will be included.” And only one song per band! Sometimes I agree, sometimes not.

His choice for the Beach Boys was spot on: God Only Knows. When I deigned to come up with Songs That Move Me a few years back, God Only Knows was #1. Of course, it’s my favorite Beach Boys song.

Those of you who have seen the movie Love Actually – here’s the trailer – will recall that God Only Knows plays at a pivotal late scene. The quality of this video is not great, but I still find it quite moving, still.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Parade magazine had a list of Americans’ All-Time Favorite Love Songs:
1. “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston
2. “Unchained Melody” by The Righteous Brothers
3. “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge
4. “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker
5. “How Deep Is Your Love” by The Bee Gees
6. “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith
7. “Crazy” by Patsy Cline
8. “I Want To Know What Love Is” by Foreigner
9. “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” by Bryan Adams
10. “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye
For the most part, meh.

Some local column asked about the Valentine’s Day proposal – romantic or cliche? I voted “nay – diminishes every subsequent v-day and if it doesn’t work out, sucks the joy out of the day altogether.” What dost thou think?
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Bought Valentine’s Day cards a couple of days ago for my daughter’s class. It’s been a while since I shopped for these, but I was surprised that SO many of the items were licensed products, representing, e.g., the Disney princesses, Pixar’s Cars, and the animated Madagascar movies; disappointing.

Well, there’s Plan C

On Saturday, we did almost nothing.

I know that some of you folks from out of town, and out of the country, were concerned about how we fared after the Blizzard of 2013. We were fine in Albany, with 6.5″, c 16.5 cm, of snow. More in the hilltowns around here. The worst weather was to the east – Long Island, and much of New England. I noticed on Facebook that Steve Bissette, who lives in Vermont, was able to get to the post office, but the post office was closed.

Our Saturday was like that. Usually, that morning involves my wife going to Weight Watchers, which is about four miles (6 km) away, at 7 a.m. Since the bulk of the snow had fallen Friday night – and she and the Daughter had gone, on foot, to Steamer No. 10 to see Annie the night before, she slept in until nearly 6:30! She really knows how to goof off; yeah, right. She didn’t go to her Zoomba class either, which probably didn’t take place anyway.

There was a party planned for our twin nieces, who were turning 12, about an hour away, at 1 p.m. That event ended up getting postponed until the next day. The superintendent of the Albany schools had invited people over to visit her at 3 pm, but that got canceled, fairly late.

OK, the local branch of the Albany Public library was going to do some really cool stuff for Chinese New Year, involving reading, and music, and – oh, ALL of the branches were closed for the day!

After I had shoveled the sidewalk early on – a wonderful experience, I must say, the family ate breakfast, together. Then the Daughter and I shoveled a path from the front to the back of the house and dug out the car. It was considerably colder at 8 a.m. than it was at 6 a.m., and it was a good thing we liberated the vehicle because it would have been too difficult on Sunday morning to get to church on time.

As it turned out, on Saturday, we did almost nothing. Laundry was washed, dishes were cleaned, but mostly it was reading, watching TV, and listening to music. My wife noted how relaxing it is not to have to get up before dawn on a weekend morning; as someone who dreads the alarm going off on weekday mornings, but especially on Saturday, I quite concur.

This is an example of where LESS (stuff to do) is MORE (fun). I approve of this concept.

The First Step to Freedom

Freedom is a process, not an event.

 

There was an exhibition, entitled The First Step to Freedom: Abraham Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation that toured eight cities in New York State in the fall of 2012, the last of which was Albany, on November 9 and 10, at the New York State Museum. My family spent over 90 minutes in line to see the document for less than three minutes.

As this audio/visual presentation shows, the Emancipation Proclamation has been oversimplified.

It is NOT true, for instance, that President Lincoln freed all slaves with the stroke of a pen.

“It is an easy narrative, historians argue, that a single document granted freedom. But that’s not how it happened.

“Look to the proclamation’s language: ‘That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.’

“Freedom only applied to those slaves in states that had seceded. It did not apply to border states, or specific regions in Union control: about 750,000 slaves.”

On the other hand, it would also be false to suggest that it did nothing. It led to a number of black soldiers fighting on the Union side; after about two years of war, that infusion of new fighters made a huge difference, and also showed that it wasn’t just others fighting for the freedom of black people.

The Emancipation Proclamation was just part of a process, sometimes progressing (Thirteenth Amendment, Reconstruction), sometimes regressing (Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws, inequitable treatment by courts). The military became integrated, and the schools were supposed to be, although the resegregation of public education is now painfully clear. There is an inequality in our prison system, and continued inequity in wealth is its own jail.

Freedom is a process, not an event.

E is for Encyclopedia

I still have a soft spot for those nearly uniform books that went from A clear down through Z.

When I was around six years old, my parents got me the Golden Book Encyclopedia, a series of books for kids. Well, it was for my sisters and me. But I was the one who practically wore off the covers.

Three or four years later, Mom and Dad purchased the Encyclopedia Americana, ostensibly for the family, but I was clearly the greatest user by far. I may have read the whole thing, over time. Because the books became instantly dated, Americana sold these Annuals that would update the main books. My parents bought these as well, and I DID read the volumes practically cover to cover.

When I was living on my own, local supermarkets would often sell encyclopedias, one book a week. The first volume would be 99 cents, or maybe just a penny; subsequent books were three or four dollars each. I know I started buying these because I ended up with a lot of A volumes; I knew more about aardwolves and Aachen than anyone should.

During my brief time in New York City, I was a telemarketer for about three months. I called people who had the World Book Encyclopedia already and ask them if they wanted to buy the Annual. I was rather good at selling these, as I recall.

Of course, now, most encyclopedias are available online, which makes them easier to keep up-to-date. Still, I still have a soft spot for those nearly uniform books that went from A clear down through Z.

That reminds me: I learned to spell the word encyclopedia from Jiminy Cricket on the Mickey Mouse Club.

ABC Wednesday – Round 12

My ambivance about Ed Koch

Ed Koch also didn’t endear himself to upstate voters when he ran for the Democratic nomination for governor of New York State in 1982, again against Mario Cuomo.

 

Edward I. Koch died recently. He was the brash, outspoken mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989. You should watch this interview conducted in 2007, where he “reflected on his life and political career, and talked of how he would like to be remembered.” I would agree that he brought some fiscal stability to a city on the brink of bankruptcy, “turning a $1 billion budget deficit into a $500 million surplus in five years. He restored the city’s credit, doubled the annual budget to $26 billion and oversaw $19 billion in capital improvements.”

The year 1977 was tough for both NYCNY and me. The city had a blackout that led to widespread looting. A guy dubbed Son of Sam was going around shooting people. I had graduated from college the year before and was underemployed in my college town in the autumn of 1976. In desperation, I lived with my parents in Charlotte, NC for the first four months of 1977; not my favorite place at the time. Then, after a brief trip to Binghamton, NY, I ended up living in the apartment of my sister and her husband at the time. Much of the time, they were in Boston, though they were present some of the time, and he and I did not get along that well.

I had a 30 hour per week telephone job from 6 pm until midnight. I spent most of my time hanging out in Greenwich Village with a co-worker named Michael, who pursued an ill-fated romance with a young woman. I’ve long since lost track of him, but have remained friends with the woman to this day.

So I wasn’t all that engaged with the politics that was going on. It seemed that there were a half dozen folks running for mayor. Ed Koch had been a reform-minded member of Congress, but his pro-death penalty position troubled me greatly. I ended up rooting for Mario Cuomo, who was the state’s Secretary of State.

Despite living there, I was totally unaware of signs that were apparently all over the city saying “Vote for Cuomo, not the homo.” Mario Cuomo has continually denied being behind these signs, and though Cuomo and Koch appeared together from time to time subsequently, Koch never forgave either Mario, or his son Andrew, the current New York State governor. (I tend to believe Mario, but wouldn’t be surprised if Andrew were involved; he was a very nasty guy.)

He also didn’t endear himself to upstate voters when he ran for the Democratic nomination for governor of New York State in 1982, again against Mario Cuomo. Koch described his run as hubris. He was hurt by an interview with Playboy magazine, where he was insulting to upstaters, describing rural life as “a joke,” for instance.

Amid his accomplishments, and they were many, it was thought by many that he was lousy on race relations with blacks, and extremely slow in responding to the HIV/AIDS crisis.

After his time as mayor, he worked as a partner in a law firm, did radio commentary, wrote newspaper columns, and even movie reviews. talk-show guest. his support of the war in Iraq peeved me, especially since he had opposed the Vietnam war as a Congressman. More recently, he tried, unsuccessfully, to get nonpartisan reapportionment done, which I support.

The writer Pete Hamill said in 2005 that he was “some mad combination of a Lindy’s waiter, Coney Island barker, Catskills comedian, irritated school principal and eccentric uncle.” This was meant as a compliment, and it’s pretty accurate. The praise he received was no doubt warranted, but somehow, I was not his biggest fan.
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Artists Against Fracking is a video postcard from Yoko Ono to Andrew Cuomo

From the 1977 Sacred Songs album, NYCNY by Daryl Hall, which rather sounds like NYC, NY of 1977

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