May 2018 - Page 6 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

How do you pronounce Albany? Depends

Someone from the country of Albania is an Albanian. Someone from Albany, NY is also an Albanian.

As anyone who has lived in the state capital of New York or its environs for any period of time knows, you pronounce Albany as ALL-bun-ee, with first syllable rhyming with “fall.” One can always tell when an out-of-town advertising firm has created a television spot and the announcer says AL-ban-ee.

But how do you pronounce it in other parts of the world? In New Zealand, North Aucklanders can’t quite agree about its suburb of Albany.

“A 1980 North Shore Times story found ‘Al-bany’ to be the more common pronunciation. However, an English-born councillor at the time David Thornton confessed he said ‘All-bany’, due to a block of London flats called ‘The Albany’.

“Massey University linguistics lecturer Victoria Kerry said there is no ‘should’ when it comes to pronunciation. ‘I would say that there’s no one correct or incorrect way of pronouncing it. In linguistics, we would look at the variety of ways that you can say it that might associate you with a particular area.’

However, “the New York pronunciation is actually closer to the original pronunciation from Britain and Scotland, where past Dukes of Albany came from, she said. Albany originally derives from ‘Alba’, which is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland.”

So put New Zealand in the AL category, but with a strong ALL contingent.

Oregon Live says that state’s Albany mimics New York’s.

This guide puts New Albany, Indiana in the NYS camp. Yet a fellow on Englishforums.com claims: “Most Hoosiers say ‘New All-ban-ee.’ Some, that have more southern roots, say ‘Nallbanee.'”

I have found inconclusive polls about California’s choice for its city.

According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Albany, GA is pronounced “AIL-binny.”

It’s pretty definitive that Albany, Western Australia is pronounced “Al-bany”, the first syllable rhyming with “pal.”

One more thing: someone from the country of Albania is an Albanian. Someone from Albany, NY is also an Albanian, but pronounced differently, al-BANE-ee-in vs. all-BANE-ee-in.

Thanks to Arthur@AmeriNZ for the inspiration.

TWO absentee ballots for Albany’s May 15 vote

Each absentee ballot must be returned separately to the organization responsible

As someone who has used an absentee ballot for the school district vote, I was intrigued and disappointed by this from the Albany school district:

“Voters wishing to cast absentee ballots in the City School District of Albany’s May 15 budget vote and Board of Education elections will receive two separate absentee ballots — one from the school district for the budget and related propositions, and one from the Albany County Board of Elections for the board candidates.

“The state moved the district’s board elections from November to May last summer to align Albany with the vast majority of public school districts statewide, which annually hold their board elections and budget vote together on the third Tuesday in May.” This, I thought, was a very good thing, and long overdue.

“The state legislation as it is currently written requires the county to be responsible for the board elections, as it has been traditionally when school board members were elected in November in conjunction with the general election. The district is responsible for the budget vote and related propositions as in past years.

“Please note that each absentee ballot must be returned separately to the organization responsible.

“…The absentee ballot for the school budget vote and related propositions… will contain the following propositions:
Proposition #1 — 2018-19 school budget vote
Proposition #2 — Proposal to establish a Capital Reserve Fund
Proposition #3 — 2018-19 Albany Public Library budget vote (this item is unrelated to the school district)”

Incidentally, the League of Women Voters of Albany County has announced a Candidate Forum for the Albany School board election on May 14 at 7 p.m. at Myers Middle School, 100 Elbel off Whitehall Road. It is cosponsored by CANA, Citizen Action NY and the NAACP. Nell Stokes is the moderator.

I hope that there can be a legislative fix for the voting glitch before the balloting in May 2019. The turnout for these important votes are notoriously low, and I’m in favor of things that will make the franchise easier.
Albany County Board of Elections will deal with “absentee ballots for the board elections. Four candidates are vying for three open seats on the school board.”

Music throwback: Boredom by Procol Harum

Boredom shows up on the A Salty Dog album that came out in 1969.

In the 1970s, I owned a greatest hits album by Procol Harum, for some reason, on cassette. I don’t remember the title – there are so many of them! – but it ended with a live version of Conquistador. Eventually the tape wore out, as cassettes were wont to do, and I replaced it with a 2000 CD, imaginatively called Greatest Hits.

I was gobsmacked when I got to the song Boredom. I was unfamiliar with it, as it wasn’t on my cassette. The lyrics began:

Some say they will and some say they won’t
Some say they do and some say they don’t
Some say they shall and some say they shan’t
And some say they can and some say they can’t

Back in high school and early in my college days, I tried my hand at songwriting. I didn’t think they were very good, and I seldom shared them with anyone. I had them in a notebook which is now lost or at least misplaced.

One was called Inconsistent:

The most consistent thing about me
Is my inconsistency…

But here’s the chorus (or a variation thereof)

If you think I will, well, then I won’t
If you think I do, well, then I don’t
If you think I can, well, then I can’t
If you think I shall, well, then I shan’t

And it goes on from there. The very specific use of the word “shan’t” makes me think that I must have heard the song Boredom on some FM radio station late at night and inadvertently purloined it.

Boredom shows up on the A Salty Dog album that came out in 1969. Technically I DO own it now, since some friends of mine gave me their LPs when they were just holding on to their CDs, but I’ve actually never played it, apparently.

Listen to:

Boredom
A Salty Dog, arguably, my favorite PH song

And for good measure:
Conquistador, from the live album, which actually got to #16 on the US Billboard charts

Star Wars versus the completist mentality

I’m like Ado Annie from the musical Oklahoma.

It occurred to me that I haven’t seen The Last Jedi, the 8th (VIIIth?) Star Wars film or Rogue One, which, I gather, fits between III and IV? But it wasn’t a specific disdain for VII, The Force Awakens, but rather a meh attitude.

Whereas I pretty much hated the first prequel, The Phantom Menace, for reasons besides Jar Jar. So I never saw II or III, possibly to my eternal detriment, I am told. Whatever.

As someone who used to collect comic books for about a quarter of a century, I know a little about the completist mentality. When I bought Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1 (1972) and forward, I had to pick up the Amazing Spider-Man #123, which featured the character.

The I discovered AS-M #122 was still on the newsstand – the death of Gwen Stacy! – and I eventually started getting all the Spider-Man books: Spectacular Spider-Man, Marvel Team-Up, even Marvel Tales, which reprinted early AS-M issues.

Then Todd McFarlane started doing Spider-Man (1990), a comic fanboy’s dream. I hated it. I bought three or four issues, decided that whoever was under the mask was NOT the Peter Parker I cared about, and dropped it.

When I picked up Sub-Mariner #50 (also 1972), not only did I get the new issues, including The Defenders, I got all the back issues, including, as it turns out Tales to Astonish #70-101, and Iron Man and Sun-Mariner #1, and only.

(Hey, it’s Free Comic Book Day tomorrow! Yes, I’ll go.)

I tend to be lyal that way about TV shows. I watched a show called The Closer (2005-2012), and when it evolved into Major Crimes (2012-2018), I stayed with until the end.

Grey’s Anatomy is now the darling of the binge-watchers. I’ve just viewed it every week since 2005. It has jumped the shark twice (thrice?) but has managed to right the ship, with recent interesting story lines involving immigration and #MeToo without being (too) preachy.

But it’s difficult for me to start watching a new series. There’s a LOT of TV out there, and, I am told, a great deal of it is excellent. I’m like Ado Annie from the musical Oklahoma; it’s All Er Nuthin’.

As I get older, recognizing a finite amount of time, nuthin’ seems to be winning.

Movie review: Black Panther

Its actors, its costume design, its music, and countless other facets of the film are drawn from all over the continent and its diaspora.

Has ANYONE seen the movie Black Panther for the first time in a theater later than I? Taking off a day from work, I finally trekked out to the Regal Cinema in Colonie Center, near Albany on April 30, three days after the new Avengers movie, Infinity War opened.

I so seldom go to the mainline theaters that I had forgotten how many commercials there were, BEFORE the seven movie trailers, including for the aforementioned Avengers film.

Seeing it so late, after it had recorded $688 million domestically and $645 million overseas, I’m not sure what I’d add to what my friend Alan David Doane wrote: “Millions of African-Americans and others… found in the recent Black Panther film an inspirational culture in which they could see themselves and their own history.”

I will say that I spent time collecting articles that remained unread until after I saw the film. Check out a couple articles from Medium, 5 Lessons from Black Panther That Can Save Our Lives — and Transform Black Politics and Why ‘Black Panther’ Is a Defining Moment for Black America. From the latter: “Ryan Coogler’s film is a vivid re-imagination of something black Americans have cherished for centuries — Africa as a dream of our wholeness, greatness and self-realization.”

So naturally, when black people are feeling that, as Democracy for America put it, the flick is “a refreshing reminder of the power of representation in media,” some other folks feel somehow threatened. I mentioned this some weeks ago, and people seemed genuinely surprised; they don’t read enough right-wing literature.

I highly recommend reading The Tragedy of Erik Killmonger. The article contains major spoilers, none of which I will post here.

“Black Panther is a love letter to people of African descent all over the world. Its actors, its costume design, its music, and countless other facets of the film are drawn from all over the continent and its diaspora, in a science-fiction celebration of the imaginary country of Wakanda, a high-tech utopia that is a fictive manifestation of African potential unfettered by slavery and colonialism.

“But it is first and foremost an African American love letter, and as such it is consumed with The Void, the psychic and cultural wound caused by the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the loss of life, culture, language, and history that could never be restored.”

The subtitle of the Atlantic article is: “The revolutionary ideals of Black Panther’s profound and complex villain have been twisted into a desire for hegemony.” That’s how certain people, certainly not I, chose to view it.

I am hoping that, even though it came out with a the non-prestige February release date, it gets some Oscar love. As others have noted, Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger (Creed), and the lead women, may have more screen charisma than Chadwick Boseman (42) as the title character, T’Challa.

Before Black Panther, I had seen only one Marvel Cinematic Universe movie since 2011, Ant-Man (2015). Seems that I probably need to catch up at some point.