Ramblin' with Roger

Christ Lag in Todesbanden @FPC 1st Friday

ARTISAN SPRING MARKETPLACE
HOSTED BY TIM DUMAS

Friday, April 6 at 5:30 PM – 8 PM. Music starts at 6 pm (despite what the poster says)

First Presbyterian Church of Albany
362 State St at the corner of Willett St, across from Washington Park
Albany, New York 12210

In concert:

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
CHRIST LAG IN TODESBANDEN
MUSICIANS OF FIRST PRESBYTERIAN

MUSIC FOR FLUTE AND HARP
KARLINDA CALDICOTT, HARP
JAN VINCI, FLUTE
SELECTIONS FROM HESS, PERSICHETTI, AND MOLNAR

In the gallery:

ARTISAN SPRING MARKETPLACE
HOSTED BY TIM DUMAS

ROSLYN JEFFERSON – JIVA JEWELRY
JONATHAN HAMMER – LEATHER GOODS
LYLE HOUSTON – THE FIFTH TIER BAKING STUDIO
TIM DUMAS / INFUSED INTERIORS – ART LIGHTING
FRANK HAMMER – HAND TURNED WOODEN BOWLS
GAIL HINCHEN – MIXED MEDIA COLLAGES

and

CEMETERY FIGURES – PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID HINCHEN

Gallery opens at 5:30 pm, concert starts at 6:00 pm

This is a free and family-friendly event.

March rambling #2: librocubicularist

They don’t think capitalism will exist by then

The invasion of Iraq more than a US “blunder,” or “colossal mistake;” it was a crime

The Return of the Chicken Hawks

John Bolton Paid Cambridge Analytica $1.2 Million to Make Americans ‘More Militaristic’

Scientific American: Why Are White Men Stockpiling Guns?

Give Teachers Guns, And More Black Children Will Die

How baby-toting, robed-and-hooded moms paved the way for today’s white hate groups

Surveillance footage shows the Las Vegas gunman’s methodical steps in the days just before the massacre

Obamas to Parkland students: “You’ve helped awaken the conscience of the nation”

I Tried to Befriend Nikolas Cruz; he Still Killed My Friends

Don Blankenship, the worst man in America, is running for Senate

“Death Penalty for Drug Dealers” Proposal Reeks of Eugenics

Non-disclosure agreements for White House staff? Not so fast

Why the Stormy Daniels story matters – it’s not about sex, it’s about the abuse of power

Austin Goolsbee says the tariffs are like his Aunt Trina’s lasagna

After the Storm – post-hurricanes Irma and Maria in the U.S. Virgin Islands last fall, some people showed up and stayed

New York City exporting homeless families to other parts of the state, including my hometown of Binghamton

Some millennials aren’t saving for retirement because they don’t think capitalism will exist by then

Living like I’m dying

NY Mets hitter Rusty Staub dies at 73

Kimmel Produces PSA For Melania’s ‘Cyberbullying’ Campaign

How to Decipher a Sarah Huckabee Sanders Press Conference

Librocubicularist (noun; plural: librocubicularists) (rare) A person who reads in bed

Bill Messner-Loebs, comic book artist worked on Wonder Woman and Thor, now homeless

Every Wes Anderson Movie, Ranked Worst to Best

Lois Weber, early 20th-century filmmaker

Sophia Jex-Blake, part of the Edinburgh Seven who campaigned for the right of women to study medicine

Steven Spielberg Doesn’t Think Netflix Movies Should Qualify for Oscars

Now I Know: How Chairman Mao Turned Freedom into Oppression and How Hitchcock Kept Psycho a Secret and How a Nearly-Perfect Crime Became Perfect Again and When the Driver Walks Away and Why Tennis Balls Are Yellow and Why You Shouldn’t Eat Those “Do Not Eat” Packets

Lois Lane, The Pulitzer Committee Wants Their Prizes Back

A video essay about cartoon sound effects

“73 Questions” video – Christine Pedi as Liza

MUSIC

Three Manhattan Bridges, for Piano and Orchestra: I. George Washington Bridge – Michael Torke, composer; Albany Symphony Orchestra, David Alan Miller, conductor; Joyce Yang – piano; Torke, Miller, Yang discuss the work

Pluto – King of the Underworld (Hades) – Taimane

Chicken Shack Boogie – Amos Milburn

Snake Farm – Ray Wylie Hubbard

Hendrix doing Hendrix on an acoustic guitar

5 O’Clock World – the Vogues, with more of their songs

Long Time Gone -Tom Jones & Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Coverville 1210: Aerosmith Cover Story II

WKRP in Cincinnati new home recordings and end theme lyrics

TV Theme Song medley – Jimmy Fallon & Will Smith

Stream a 346-Hour Chronological Playlist of Live Grateful Dead Performances (1966-1995)

DJT and I have the same favorite song

The curiously elusive date of Bach’s birthday

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