Gotham – A Honey of an Anklet

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“‘He was once somebody’s baby boy…'”: Critical appreciation of ten film performances by Gene Hackman.
John D. Cook shares a graph of Voyager 2’s speed as it achieves Solar System escape velocity. “In a gravitational assist, the velocity of a spacecraft with respect to the planet doesn’t change, but the velocity relative to the sun changes greatly.”
Increasingly Inconvenient MTA Service Advisories, by Tom Smyth.

Trains are being held due to an investigation at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station. They’re trying to figure out how to pronounce “Schermerhorn.”
What better name can we give to the realm of music that we call (ill-advisedly) “classical”? My girlfriend in college preferred the term “art music,” but I think that term is too limiting. I’ve also heard “Western concert hall music,” which is getting closer. Matthew Aucoin has some thoughts.
I’m not a big fan of our commonwealth flag (just the seal slapped on a field of blue), but there’s one element that I’ll speak up for: Texas schools nix lesson over Virginia state flag’s exposed breast.

“I see her as an Amazon,” said Virginia Senate Clerk Susan Clarke Schaar, recalling how a little girl summed up the motto during a tour of the Capitol: “Take that, big boy.”
Early 20th-century home economics researcher Inga Allison experimented with baking at high altitudes to achieve the perfect Fort Collins brownie.
I found eighty cents in my sofa cushions, how’s that? Fyre Festival’s embattled founder is selling the brand: ‘It’s time to pass the torch’.

Coming to a museum near you

Antique technology roundup:

Neon signs in New York City.
The ubiquitous “Gorton” pantograph font, in Manhattan and world-wide. (longread)
Blimps over Akron, O.

Two pics of neon signs in Greater New York that I’ve happened to catch in pixels over the years.

New York 2024 bis

I made a second trip to New York this year! The impetus was seeing the Vivian Maier show at Fotografiska before that venue closes its doors. Also on the gallery/museum visit checklist was

Brooklyn Botanic Garden: the Franklinia trees were looking rather peaky, but I did spot a Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) in one of the flower beds. The Japanese garden was a bit of a disappointment; I don’t understand why the torii was placed in the pond. Some traffic noise, but overall, the BBG is worth a return visit.
A (for the most part picturesque) ride up the Hudson on Metro North to Dia Beacon, to see some “old friends” (Robert Ryman, Sol LeWitt, Richard Serra). I liked the Steve McQueen installation downstairs (Bass): it felt like waiting on a subway platform for the train out of Purgatory.
International Center of Photography, now on Essex Street.
MoMA PS1 for James Turrell’s Meeting, seen under perhaps perfect afternoon conditions: some haze in the blue sky, tumbles of clouds sliding by.

I rolled out in the direction of the Rockaways on the A to Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge (an NPS property, despite its name). Birding was slow in the late morning, but a Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia) flitted about and a trio of Black-crowned Night Herons (Nycticorax nycticorax) perched up. I found a few new plants that I did not recognize, a couple of non-native invasives (Rosa rugosa and Saponaria officinalis) and a startling mint, Monarda punctata. I watched a Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) steal a cicada from an Eastern Cicada-killer Wasp (Sphecius speciosus): after the wasp lost its meal, it spiraled in angry circles around the scene of the robbery. I killed my first Spotted Lanternfly. And my second. Any my third. Walking the coarse gravel path around the West Pond in my hiking sneakers began to wear out my feet.

The A runs underground until 80th Street, so I had ample time to admire some brilliant innovative tech: as the train approaches a station, doors on the exit side are framed in green light, and the strip map above each door changes to a map of the platform with the train berthed, with your car marked with a “You are here.” Arrows direct you to stairs, elevators, connecting trains and (in the outlying stations) major buses, and street intersections. Wayfinding right when you need it, before you step on to the platform. Let’s hope that this tech makes its way on to the other lines. The gold and cobalt blue accents in the livery are quite handsome.

For all of the New York subway’s crashed message boards,

funky stinks, cramped escalators (looking at you, E and M at Lexington Avenue-53rd Street), squonky noises, confusing service changes for maintenance (for a trip back from Columbus Circle, it would have been faster to walk, even accounting for the fact that I jumped on the wrong 7 train), and random rust stains, once in a while you find a bit that has been restored to glory. Here’s a station marker on the Lexington line that’s just superb.

I visited three jazz clubs new to me:

Dizzy’s Club: rather posh, bar seating works well.
Blue Note: very snug, not for claustrophobes.
Jazz Gallery: no frills, no minimums, just right.

Some views from my jewel box hotel on East 55th Street: an old school shoe repair shop.

From the 7th floor terrace, buildings at the corner of Lexington, and in the distance down at Madison, a partial view of what I still think of as Philip Johnson’s AT&T Building, now just known as 650 Madison.

On my way back to the subway from the Joyce Theater, I was feeling peckish for dessert. Poof! appeared an Oddfellows ice cream shop at the corner of 17th Street. A generous scoop of vegan chocolate-chocolate chunk was very good.

Uphill battle

More developments in New York’s struggle with trash: Emily Badger and Larry Buchanan for the Times focus on the three-tiered containerization plan, and point out that Manhattan streets are stuck with the job of temporary storage because the street grid doesn’t provide alleys. Eric Lach for The New Yorker uses more ink to write about personalities.

New York 2024

(Cleaning up my to-do list.)

Back in January, I took my first trip to New York since pre-COVID-19 days. I’ve already posted my theater reviews; I checked off two new (to me) jazz venues and made my pilgrimage to the Met’s Astor Court. This post is mostly about trains.

The trip stated off with a mess: a Northeast Regional train was out of commission ahead of our Acela, somewhere in the neighborhood of Aberdeen, Maryland. Our train picked up all the passengers and it was standing room only (and not much of that) all the way into Penn Station, an hour-plus late. I was very grateful for the comped snacks in the mini fridge in my hotel—they got me through the dinner hour—and even more grateful for the lone food truck that was open, in the rain, at Hudson Yards, after Here We Are let out.

The next day, I checked off a new rail system: I rode the Staten Island Railway from St. George about halfway out the island, then turned around and rolled back. There are no fare gates at the interior stations: you scan your OMNY card in or out at St. George.

Much drama finding some place that would sell me an OMNY card; much thanks to the Bronx express bus driver who asked me, “just where are you heading?”

I made what will not be my only trip to Zabar’s on the Upper West Side. I brought back babka for the Dance Nation teams and a scrumptious fruit-filled confection labelled “Russian coffee cake” for me.

There are still fire escapes to be found on Coenties Slip.

Another highlight of the trip: Sol LeWitt’s Whirls and Twirls (MTA) at Columbus Circle. LeWitt’s wall drawing style, accomplished in much more durable tile.

On the way back home, the Amtrak conductor was a little tongue-tied approaching Philadelphia, and it sounded like he was announcing “William H. Macy Station.” Now that would be something.

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Ooh, shiny, shiny.
Hilary Howard visits the Jewel Streets neighborhood of Brooklyn/Queens, at 4 feet above MSE. It’s not often that you see Phragmites australis growing on a street corner.
Yes, outdoor cats are a problem. Probably worse than you think.

Just the amount of different insects and invertebrates that they are eating in their diet. We know that they eat insects. That wasn’t necessarily new, but we didn’t really have an idea that they were eating so many things. And I think our concern there is that most scientists that have done these studies in the past were not really looking for insects and they’re not taxonomists trained to understand insects.
Mary Pipher makes brightness in the dark. “We cannot stop all the destruction, but we can light candles for one another.”

Some links: 96

New York begins to roll out new trash receptacles. A heavy base and a light basket that lifts out—what a concept.
ChatGPT bails out on providing a precise quotation from Proust to Elif Batuman. Surprise, surprise.

2. Did ChatGPT seriously just recommend I “delve into Proust’s monumental work in its entirety”?

3. Am I being trolled?

4. Is it possible that the passage I’m thinking of wasn’t published until after September 2021?

5. No.
T. Rex explains why I like the original Rollerball (1975). (Well, Norman Jewison, James Caan, and John Houseman might have something to do with it.)

Some links: 93

It’s about damn time: Fairfax “County will officially rename L** and L**-J*cks*n Memorial highways next month.”
Jacob Fenston on the current moderate drought condition in the DMV.
Team develops autonomous robot to stave off spotted lanternflies. I wish that phys.org didn’t have to finance itself with skeevy ads.
Benj Edwards bought an encyclopedia that doesn’t require Wi-Fi or USB.
Adverse effects on South American farmers of pesticides used on coffee grown in the sun: “skin disorders, respiratory problems, to high blood pressure, organ damage, cancer and cardiovascular disease.” Elsewhere, In Hawaiʻi, trials are underway to control Coffee Berry Borer with a parasitic wasp, Phymastichus coffea.
Tasty. Might tempt me back to eating beef: Rachel Leah Blumenthal discloses “The Mysterious Origins of Steak Tips, a Uniquely New England Dish.”
Missy Dunaway paints the birds of Shakespeare, including the unloved Eurasian Starling (Sturnus vulgaris). She explains Hotspur’s joke, and pulls in Fugate and Miller’s debunking of the Central Park urban legend.
Grace Abels asks, “Can ChatGPT fact-check?” “While sometimes reaching accurate conclusions, ChatGPT struggled to give consistent answers, and sometimes was just plain wrong.”
Beautiful small pleasures, One: Tap dancing in the New York subway. “The notes that you’re not playing also have just as much importance as the notes you do play.”
Beautiful, small pleasures, Two: David Greer tastes a wild strawberry. Epicureans vs. Stoics. 3QD has a problem with crapola ads, too.

I think it would be fun to run a newspaper

Only in New York. “Inside New York City’s Nastiest (and Smallest) Newspaper War,” by John Leland.

There’s gotta be a movie in this story.

740 calories

Ginia Bellafante is no slouch, either. From the Why We Can’t Have Nice Things Dept., Must We Gentrify the Rest Stop?

Five years ago, the New York State Thruway Authority conducted a survey of more than 2,600 drivers to take measure of the customer experience at the service areas lining the 570 miles of road that make up one of the largest toll highways in the country, stretching from the edge of the Bronx up past Buffalo. Whether participants were traveling for work or for pleasure, they had needs that apparently were going unfulfilled.

Among those who identified as occasional users of the Thruway, more than half said they would like food halls with “local artisan” offerings. Some commuters wanted Blue Apron meal kits. The resulting report listed as chief takeaways that leisure travelers complained about unappealing interiors and the lack of “Instagrammable moments.”

Real Good

TIL that Maryland’s Carroll County and Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens are named for the same guy. C. J. Hughes looks into the backstory of some of the names of neighborhoods in the outer boroughs.

New York getaway 2019

Snaps from a long weekend in New York.

It turns out that my hotel is in the flower district of Chelsea. A nicer streetscape look, when compared to most of the residential streets, which were covered in dead Christmas trees.

Hopes dashed! The Park is only a restaurant.

This Second Avenue subway is apparently really a thing now.

The reflections from the shop window and the strange color cast—I claim artistic license. Who knew that Stetson makes a red hat?

Sometimes all you need is to hang out your shingle.

$8.50

Alex Vadukul limns Sir Shadow, artist of the Bowery’s Whitehouse Hotel.

“A man with a million dollars doesn’t have what I have.

“All that matters to me is the next poem,” he added. “The next drawing. And I have to be ready to receive it. All the other stuff? That’s someone else’s problem.”

The scoop

The photograph of the Munsell soil color chart book pulled me up short. As I read Richard Schiffman’s piece, my thoughts bounced around from “wow, this is cool that soil scientists are getting profiled in the Times” to “New York has a soil brokerage clearinghouse so that good fill dirt from a construction site can be used to rebuild a wetland? That’s bananas—no, that’s brilliant!”

While the idea might seem obvious, Dr. [Dan] Walsh maintains that this is the first soil exchange anywhere in the world that is run by a city government. It is currently being watched by officials from New Orleans and Los Angeles as well as municipalities in Germany, China and Australia, which are considering implementing similar programs.

* * *

“We’re essentially matchmakers,” Dr. Walsh said. “We don’t stockpile the soil, so both a donor and a recipient have to be ready at the same time. Our job is to coordinate the transfer.”

The NYC Urban Soils Institute has plans to establish a soil museum in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery—something for my to-see list in New York.