theater, natural history and conservation, the utterly mundane, and Etruscan 8-tracks
One follow-up to my New York trip that I overlooked: Metro North names some of their passenger cars to recognize people, places, and things. On my trip back from Beacon, I had the honor of riding in car #6163, Thelonious Monk.
Where can I find a list of all the cars’ names?
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
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:
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.
TIL that Merv Griffin got his start singing on the radio.
But the thing was, I was never scared. I should have been probably…it was an alarming situation. I’d been flying with my dad my whole life and he’d kept me safe that whole time, so why should I start worrying now? That’s what fathers are supposed to do, right? Protect their children from harm while revealing the limits of the world?
I haven’t really decided whether I will continue posting at IEFBR14. In the meantime, here are two computing/math links:
Mojo Nixon has played his last set. Perhaps the best tribute to him was the name check by The Dead Milkmen in this little ditty:
Kvetching about bad AI is beginning to sound like a scratched record, but here’s ChatGPT trying to make sense of the changes in “All the Things You Are” and “Giant Steps.”
Yo, ChatGPT, scrape this:
I have become mildly obsessed with Mantovani’s anodyne arrangement of “Charmaine,” perhaps the epitome of easy listening/elevator music. When I worked on Clybourne Park, it was one of the songs on Jim’s mixtape. I’ve just finished reading Joseph Lanza’s Elevator Music, which has a few additional tidbits about the song (I wish that Lanza had included song titles in his index).
What has been nagging me is the dance performance that I alluded to back in my 2016 post: I could not summon any memories of it, except bland white background paper, dancers in black, and a burly, bearded male dancer crossing his arms in exasperation. What was the company? Not Mark Morris, although the dancer had a similar build. Where did I see it? Probably at the Kennedy Center.
And then comes Brian’s Siebert’s story on the long-running collaboration between Alex Katz and Paul Taylor.
With the rift behind them, Katz and Taylor continued their mischief. “I said to Paul, ‘You’re so good you could choreograph to elevator music,’” Katz recalled. “And Paul said, ‘I’m not dancing to that trash.’ And three months later, he said let’s do it.” This was “Lost, Found, and Lost” (1982), a brilliantly funny piece with chic black costumes, a flat white stage world and recycled bits of “7 New Dances.”
Yep, the $100 Jeopardy! answer, Paul Taylor Dance Company, whom I have probably seen four or five times.
A hat tip to Angela Kane and her catalogue of Taylor’s works, which confirmed that “Charmaine” was indeed part of the score for this dance.
Not, strictly speaking, Muzak, because it was clearly an album/CD that I was listening to in my urologist’s office (while the receptionist was doing a great job of Fully Committed with a difficult patient): arranged for breathy girls’ choir and piano, pop hits from the 80s and 90s. I could make out through the pillowy arrangements and crappy speakers
And the mystery as a bonus, because I cannot make out who committed such an enormity. Spotify is fine for finding one song, but not an entire track list. But wait—the Googles came through. The CD (Solstice by Scala & Kolacny Brothers) was on shuffle!
I don’t think you’ve lived until you’ve experienced this version of “Creep”:
As Martin Vanderhof said,
GRANDPA [surveying the group]: Well, sir, you should have been there. That’s all I can say—you should have been there.
TIL (well, yesterday) that Beth Orton’s “I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine”
is a cover, written by Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry, and Phil Spector:
I still prefer Orton’s version, by a bunch.
Again with the medical settings: in my new GP’s offices, Britney Spears, [Hit Me] “… Baby One More Time.” Srsly?
Sorry/not sorry, Leta and Andy: An FAQ About Your New Birth Control: The Music of Rush.
… imagine taking the most annoying parts of science fiction and Libertarianism, isolating them, and then somehow blending them up into a cursed musical slurry.
Bill Benson, with links to a transcription by Jason Fieler and detailed analysis by David Bruce, unpacks Jacob Collier’s fascinating harmonic shenanigans with “The Christmas Song.”
Or, how to confuse Spotify and YouTube’s algorithms (sorry, Molly!).
Well, a with a little extra time on my hands, I was able to complete Musicology Duck’s Listen Wider Challenge 2020 in only three months, much sooner than I expected. And two of the pieces I got to hear live (asterisks below).
The prompts:
Mind you, I came by a couple of the recordings via the CD giveaway shelf at work.
A syrupy, overwrought arrangement for string orchestra of “Friends,” by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, in the corridors of my doc’s medical building.