Month: April 2019

April rambling: Unbreaking America

Why Did the U.S. Government Pay for a Painting of Strawberries? Two-thirds of the paintings, in total, are by women. This wasn’t because women of the era liked to paint fruit.

No Room!
“Looking Backward,” drawn by the brilliant Austrian-born Joseph Ferdinand Keppler (February 1, 1838 – February 19, 1894) for Puck magazine, January 11, 1893

First image of a black hole revealed.

Slave Owners’ Names Are on Dorms at a SUNY School. That’s Changing. New Paltz is my undergraduate alma mater.

Why There’s So Little Left of the Early Internet.

Anderson Cooper speaks the “language of loss”.

Amy Biancolli: talking to the darkness.

“I Had Nothing”: How Parole Perpetuates a Cycle of Incarceration and Instability.

You Are Probably a Victim of the Largest Theft of All Time.

TEDx: we all should be feminists – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Weekly Sift: Mueller by Gaslight.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: the sinister sides of World Wrestling Entertainment and the Mobile Home Industry.

Behind Bars, Co-Pays Are a Barrier to Basic Health Care.

The Death of an Adjunct Professor.

An aging population and a declining birthrate among the native-born population mean a shrinking workforce in many areas.

The Stephen Miller Presidency.

What an Empire Built on Nazi Collaboration Says About Our Economy.

Political Notebook: Politics last week and this week.

FTC Data Spotlight Shows Steep Rise in Complaints about Social Security Scams.

Unbreaking America: A NEW Short Film about Solving the Corruption Crisis.

New Zealand Parliament bans assault weapons.

“Men do not learn much from the lessons of history and that is the most important of all the lessons of history. “
– Aldous Huxley

The Persistence of Attachment.

What can an ice mummy teach us about heart disease?

Watch The World Turn.

The reason we bake at 350F.

5 Things to Do When You Have Too Many Ideas and Never Finish Anything.

Bless Your Heart doesn’t mean what you probably think it means.

Inside Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon’s Unconventional Marriage and ten minutes with Fosse.

Remembering William Goldman.

Re: Dwayne Wade: Now this is a proper sendoff

Minor League Baseball announces pace-of-play rules for 2019 and this is what Major League Baseball fandom looks like across the country.

Now I Know video: This Guy Tastes Ice Cream For a Living.

Now I Know: Who is Dr. Fill and why are these people afraid of him? and This idea to augment the postal service was a catastrophe and Why You Shouldn’t Carpool with Winnie the Pooh and especially Why Did the U.S. Government Pay for a Painting of Strawberries?

MUSIC

Religion – PJ Morton feat. Lecrae.

Faith – Business Casual.

Dead Boys -Sam Fender.

Live from New York, it’s Aubrey Logan.

Heaven Is a Place on Earth – KT Tunstall.

Video Killed The Radio Star – Walk off the Earth feat. Sarah Silverman

My Heart Will Go On – Big Daddy

Les chansons des roses – Morten Lauridsen.

You Get What You Give – Scary Pockets.

Africa – Robyn Adele Anderson.

Pencil Neck Geek – Don Blassie.

Coverville: 1257: A Cover Chain with Birthday Covers for Stan Ridgway, Katrina Leskanich, Norah Jones, Mandy Moore, and Brian Setzer

FUV ESSENTIALS: Richard Thompson.

Health reports: how can we keep from singing?

I’m giving a talk about March, Books One, Two, & Three>, graphic novels by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell for the Friends of the Albany Public Library Tuesday at noon.

singingYou may recall that my sister Leslie had a serious bicycle accident back on June 4, 2018. She missed about six months of work recovering and has had a number of medical procedures.

On April 8, 2019, she had a couple more surgeries, around her eye socket and nose. They were done more or less simultaneously, in order to minimize the total time of recovery. She’s doing well.

Meanwhile, I’m recovering from whatever health thing that I had. You know you’re unwell when you have to stop and rest walking DOWN the stairs.

On Sunday past, I barely got out of bed, except to watch two recorded basketball games that had been on the day before. And I couldn’t view anything more than 30 minutes at a time. It was impossible to focus enough to read or write.

Even back at work this week, I felt… loopy. I was still taking meds all week, including one at night that contained codeine. And I couldn’t ride my bicycle for the same reason.

I’m glad my wife finally submitted the paperwork for the taxes to get done. Usually, that process starts in the third week in February, during the school break. But because of our extreme busyness, worse than usual, it didn’t begin until the last week in March.

It’s just as well. Last year we got back around $700 federal; this year we PAID about the same. I was happy that all those early filers girded me for what I thought was a likely outcome.

Even though I’ve not seen five minutes of Game of Thrones – it’s just not my thing – I find myself skimming all episodes, RANKED BY TOMATOMETER; I blame my pharmacist. There are even GoT Oreos.

And speaking of religious behaviors, it’s Holy Week on the Christian calendar. Monday: I get my annual physical. This is a fortuitous occurrence, as it will be the follow-up to the treatment for my illness. I think the yo-yo weather is wreaking havoc with my allergies as well.

Tuesday: My daughter’s heading to Montreal on a ONE-DAY trip, which means getting her to school by 5:30 a.m., and picking her up around 10:30 p.m.

Also, I’m giving a talk about March, Books One, Two, & Three, graphic novels by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell for the Friends of the Albany Public Library.

Wednesday: Get my teeth cleaned.

Thursday: Sing.

Friday: Not sing, but attend service.

Easter Sunday: sing, a LOT, if I still have a voice left.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

A song (or five) that makes you happy

In the course of a year, I’m likely to rediscover a song that had slipped my mind. I hear it again and fall in love with it all over.

BlastersOnce again, a prompt that I find almost impossible: a song that makes you happy.

It’s not that that I can’t find one. It’s that, in the course of a year, I’m likely to rediscover a song that had slipped my mind. I hear it again and fall in love with it all over.

Many of the songs I have already used in this quiz, or will use in the future, fall into this category. So tell me in the comments, or on Facebook: what songs make you happy? And if you know, why.

That’s The Way of the World – Earth, Wind, and Fire. There are are certain elements of a song that bring me joy. For this one, it the “YOW” in the vocal.

Other examples: Paul Carrack’s growl near the end of Tempted by Squeeze. The overly-long introduction of Papa Was a Rolling Stone by the Temptations, that ticked Dennis Edwards so much that he practically snarled, “It was the third of September.” The vocal harmonies in the Beatles’ version of Twist and Shout.

Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen – Santana. I love the Abraxas album, which came out in 1970 and was one of the relatively few albums I took to college the next year. It’s the last minute of the medley, though where my air guitar really starts flying.

Do What You Want to – Billy Preston. The first song from his first Apple recording, it starts off slowly and is at a different rhythm by the end. Neil Young’s When You Dance I Can Really Love does much the same thing.

And I remember when (May 1971), where (Poughkeepsie, NY), and with whom (my high school friend Steve) I heard it. It helped me get over a breakup.

I’m Shakin’ – the Blasters. This was a FantaCo era song. I seem to have head this Dave Alvin song a lot on WQBK/Q104, in the store a lot in the early 1980s.

Would I Lie To You – Eurythmics. One of my favorites from when people used to watch MTV for music videos, back in 1985.

Greg Haymes a/k/a Sarge Blotto, RIP

The music video for I Wanna Be A Lifeguard, with the lead vocal by Sarge, was played on music television’s very first day on the air in August 1981.

greg haymesIt occurred to me that I’d known Greg Haymes, also known as Sarge Blotto, almost since I moved to Albany in 1979. Greg DEFINED Albany for me.

FantaCo, that comic book store on 21 Central Avenue in the city, where I worked starting in May 1980, also sold a handful of music-related items. That would mean Japanese imports of Beatles EPs and Goldmine magazine.

It would include Hello, My Name Is Blotto, What’s Yours? a four-song EP by a bunch of folks who, like the Ramones, weren’t REALLY related. The store sold a second collection called Across and Down. Blotto performed Lightning Strikes on a regional compilation called Hudson Rock, another item we sold.

A Blotto member also found a couple of copies of a single called Wings in Japan by the Spastic Phono Band, which you can listen to HERE. I secured a rare recording at that time.

Then MTV happened. The music video for I Wanna Be A Lifeguard, with the lead vocal by Sarge, was played on music television’s very first day on the air in August 1981. The awe and mystery that was Blotto put Albany, and the band, on the music map.

The guys primarily interacted with Raoul Vezina, FantaCo’s resident artist, and front-of-the-store guru. When he died unexpectedly in November 1983, it was unsurprising that the fellows in the band all went to the funeral.

Afterward, and I’m not sure how it happened, I ended up at a restaurant in Troy with the band, swapping Raoul stories and complaining about the church service. (The priest, several times, referred to the deceased as “Ralph.”)

Eventually, I left FantaCo, and did the librarian thing. But I would run into Greg Haymes fairly regularly at some concert or art opening, usually while he was doing his job as a reviewer for the Albany Times Union. My wife agreed he would be at an eclectic mix of performances. He refused to allow me to promote him to Lieutenant.

His greatest gift might have been Nippertown, the online magazine he and Sara Ayers produced. It was “based in the greater Capital Region and Hudson Valley regions of New York and western Massachusetts, writing about local art, music, theater, film and anything else that interests us.” It published from May 2009 until April 10, 2019.

Metastatic cancer, while in his mid-60s. “A prolific writer, musician and visual artist who was a vital part of the Capital Region arts scene for more than 40 years.” I can scarcely believe it. Fellow musicians, writers, and fans are all devastated by the loss of his generous and talented spirit.

Here’s Chuck Miller’s take, which includes musical links.

Librarians in America (and everywhere)

Working at FantaCo, the comic book store et al., has been very helpful in my current job. I know about balancing a checkbook, applying for a business loan, trying to get a better rate on a credit card.

Berkeley Lab Librarians Peter Palath and Michael Golden
Berkeley Lab Librarians Peter Palath and Michael Golden at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on Friday, October 6, 2017 in Berkeley, Calif.
My dear friend Deborah wonders if Asking Roger Anything would include her son asking me questions about finding work in libraries in America? (He is, last I knew, in France.)

Why, yes, it would. We should set up some online dialogue. Meanwhile, let me give you some general thoughts about being a librarian.

Whatever he already knows, in whatever field, is good. It’s because it will be useful in some yet unexplained way.

Working at FantaCo, the comic book store et al., has been very helpful in my current job. I know about balancing a checkbook, applying for a business loan, trying to get a better rate on a credit card.

Late last month, I gave a webinar about sales tax. It was, well, pretty damn good, according to the reviews.

My interest in such an arcane topic came from realizing that a comic book is a periodical and not subject to sales tax in New York State. But if you sell that same comic book for more than the cover price, it is then a “collectible” and therefore IS subject to sales tax.

(I know that last paragraph was REALLY exciting. Riveting, even. My friend Dave and I talked sales tax that very evening. Seriously. Of course he WORKS for the tax department.)

Working as an enumerator for the 1990 Census was likewise of great value to my current work. If you know the questions they ask, it informs what data might be available.

Librarians HAVE to be curious. You have to want to, no, need to know. You can be trained to do that, I suppose, but it REALLY helps if one is innately so disposed.

This is why my friends Judy and Jendy and Broome nagged me to go to library school in 1990. They KNEW. It was patently OBVIOUS to them, and eventually to me, that my mind works in a particular way. Ask my sisters; I’ve ALWAYS had a need to know.

He doesn’t have to be up on EVERY topic, just his areas of interest. But it is an occupational hazard that other people think librarians know everything about EVERYTHING, when it’s merely ALMOST everything.

This notion, BTW, is laid out in the book called The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Your son probably should read it. I’m about 2/3s of the way through.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial