Still going after all these years.
I haven’t listened to Bill Evans’ Moon Beams in a while. I listened to it yesterday afternoon in my living room sitting next to the right channel. I was completely blown away by Chuck Israel’s bass, which I hadn’t really heard before but which is panned hard right in the stereo mix. It made me think I was listening to a recording from a different, much more recent decade.
Special bonus note: The cover model was Nico.
As expected, when I started posted family history, I started getting clarifications and corrections from my family. (Thanks, Dad!) Following my post about my grandfather’s close brush with World War I, my dad emailed me to say that Papa Olin had actually been in Officer Candidate School at Tusculum College. As a newly minted second lieutenant, he would have been sent off to the front lines. Fortunately the war ended before that could happen.
I’m now hunting for documentary evidence of his time at Tusculum. Unfortunately I can’t find any online records from that period—no issues of the Tusculana, no records of OCS participation, nothing in Ancestry.com’s military databases. If anyone can recommend a place to look, I’d appreciate it.
As mentioned, we know (thanks to photos like this and a uniform folded away in an attic for seventy years) that my grandfather (Papa Olin) was going to be called up for a war that, mercifully, ended before he could see service. Unfortunately that’s about all we know.
His name doesn’t show up in the military records I can see on Ancestry.com. It’s possible he was only called up locally and then his records were destroyed before the Army got them. I don’t know.
But the pictures of this scientific farmer in his World War I uniform remain a little bit of a mystery.
In 1924, at the age of 19, my grandmother Linda Freeman married my grandfather Olin Jarrett. He had been courting her for a while; she attended the Dorland-Bell School in Hot Springs, which she credited for the rest of her life with teaching her to read, cook, and love the Presbyterians. He was a farmer in Madison County who narrowly missed going overseas in World War I—there are two photos of him in the uniform I would find in the attic seventy years later. Now he was living with his papa Zeb and mother Laura in their house on the side of a holler, learning about modern farming at the extension at Mars Hill.
It’s 16.3 miles by modern roads from downtown Marshall to Hot Springs. It would have been an impossible journey without staying overnight, which was itself impossible, by mule. But the railroad had come through Marshall in 1871 and passed through Hot Springs on its way to Painted Rock, Tennessee. So my uncle caught the train at the Marshall Depot and rode it as it twisted its way along the French Broad River all the way into Hot Springs. My grandmother always credited the railroad for bringing them together.
Fast forward many years and three children and four grandchildren, and Papa Olin’s death in 1974. It’s now 1987 and Linda learned that… well, it’s best if I let my Uncle Forrest take over telling it:
“Forrest!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“They’re going to tear the old Marshall depot down. We don’t want that to happen.”
“No, ma’am.”
“That’s where Papa Olin caught the train to come to see me down at Hot Springs.”
And so Uncle Forrest, who had worked for Norfolk Southern since 1952 and was now Director of Police, put in a few calls, got ownership of the Depot transferred from Norfolk Southern Railway to a group for a pittance, and went about transforming it into what it is today: a venue for live mountain music. And cakewalks.
A few years ago a local artist memorialized a group of folks associated with the life of the Depot. That’s my Uncle on the left, in his hat and holding the clipboard, along with the lady responsible for the cakewalks. And, of course, the Chicken Man.
I went to my class dinner last night for my fifteen year anniversary of graduating from MIT Sloan. (The actual anniversary of graduation passed, unremarked, on Wednesday.)
Fifteen years ago this week I was sitting in the rain on a fifty-degree day in Cambridge, hoping my Dad wouldn’t catch pneumonia and listening to the commencement speaker (who, being from the World Bank, was getting his share of protesters). It was a momentous month; in addition to my first Blogaversary (and hard to believe we’ll celebrate the sixteenth tomorrow), we were consolidating belongings from storage in New Jersey with the contents of our North End apartment; I was driving south to North Carolina for a family visit and my first visit to the Marshall Depot (about which more soon); visited with my grandfather; spent a week batching it as Lisa flew ahead to sign the closing papers on our house; packed up our apartment; and settled into our new home in Kirkland.
June will forever feel to me like a time of transit. But it also becomes a time of reunions, and it was amazing seeing so many familiar faces and hearing people’s life stories. I look forward to doing more of that tonight.
I went to see Mavis Staples in concert at Cary Memorial Hall on Friday night. It was immensely moving and a hell of a lot of fun.
Mavis’s sets are heavy on covers and on Staple Singer tunes, which on paper sounds problematic until you realize just how completely she owns her covers. I couldn’t have told you that George Clinton had been anywhere near “Can You Get to That”, so thoroughly did she own the song, and yet it was also recognizably funky.
Mavis was the most moving in “Wade in the Water,” where she started testifying after the song was over, then stopped about a minute later. “I didn’t mean to get ugly up here,” she joked back to the band.
Mavis clearly has health issues. She was helped to and from the stage, had to move carefully, and displayed what looked like shortness of breath. I hope that she continues to be with us for a long time.
It’s back. This Cocktail Sunday post leaves the familiar world of whiskey and gin behind and weaves its way over to brandy. Which seems fitting given that this cocktail was designed for one of the wealthiest men in America, Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt wouldn’t have been drinking any cut rate brandy in his cocktail; he would have used VSOP Cognac, and I recommend (following the advice of David Wondrich) that you make the same substitution in any classic cocktail calling for brandy. Life is too short to do otherwise.
The big question in this cocktail appears to be the proportions. The first written recipe I’ve found for it, 1922’s Cocktails and How to Mix Them, calls for 1:1 brandy to cherry liqueur, which seems likely to yield something way too sweet. The Savoy’s Harry Craddock in 1930 dialed it back to a 3:1 ratio, which seems just about right.
One curious note about the name: the 1922 source says it was named for Col. Cornelius Vanderbilt, “who was drowned on the Lusitania during the War.” But the Vanderbilt on the Lusitania was Alfred Vanderbilt, and there was no “Colonel Vanderbilt” alive then. So: poetic license.
It’s grilling season, and for some reason I had extra homemade pickles that wouldn’t fit in the jar. Turns out they’re wonderful with the Vanderbilt. Who’d have guessed?
As always, if you want to try the recipe, here’s the Highball recipe card. Enjoy!
Yesterday I bought and connected a Rega Fono Mini A2D phono pre-amp to my new Marantz amplifier. Setup had me swearing for a minute, until I remembered that setup turned on the input ports depending on what was connected when the receiver was first run, and that I needed to use the onscreen menu to turn on the input I was running the Rega into. Initial listening — a Marian Anderson 45 of spirituals which was unfortunately staticky, the new Beatles Sgt. Pepper remaster — was sublime. Looking forward to getting in some more listening this week.
“But wait,” you might say. “I thought the Marantz had a built in phono preamp. Why did you need an external pre-amp?”
Well, the Marantz does have a built in phono preamp. I’ve even used it, and it sounded fine on cursory listen. What it lacks is a tape monitor out connection. And without any sort of output connector, it’s impossible to use the system to digitize vinyl. Which meant either I needed to get a USB turntable—and I don’t want to part with my Denon DP-45F—or add a pre-amp with a digital out.
And the Rega works just fine for that as well.
But the absence of “monitor out”—the closing of the traditional “analog hole” even in a relatively high end consumer system—has me thinking anew about future-proofing, customer “requirements” vs. unanticipated use cases, and product features that appease other parts of the supply chain to the inconvenience of the customer.
I was troubleshooting the inability to play a DVD on a Windows 95 laptop from Sea-Tac airport for Lisa, who was back home in Boston.
Twelve years ago today, I had stabbed a broken wineglass stem through my palm and was also writing about my first two rehearsals with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.
And eleven years ago today, I was a winner of a traditional Bavarian Olympics at the Erdinger Weissbräu factory.
Who says I’ve lived a boring life?
Yesterday was lost in mist. I spent the day cooking and thinking about sacrifices. And the paradoxical beauty of spring that so many died so that we could enjoy it.
I’ve been working on this one for a while, and today felt like the right day to finish it up. This is an indulgent (over four hours long) tour through at least four different genres, with a common thread of funk.
There’s no particular logic to the sequence except that they’re loosely grouped by genre so as to keep the groove flowing. And the first track might seem odd, but listen to Carleton Coon and Joe Sanders trading scat syllables (in a style that will seem familiar to fans of the Warner Brothers cartoon “Dough for the Do-Do”) and the connection to funk becomes clear.
It’s been a light blogging month here, as I had to take on some additional responsibilities at work. I’m definitely looking forward to Memorial Day and our customary celebration, which for the past few years has involved barbecue. And not just any barbecue, but the only time each year that I make pulled pork, which this year will be served alongside homemade bread and butter pickles. And pulled chicken. And our quasi-semiannual pilgrimage to Karl’s Sausage Kitchen for grilled bratwurst.
I have some shopping to do.
It’s reached the part of my Lego collecting lifetime where I’m starting to upgrade sets that I bought years ago—in some cases at the dawn of my adult Lego life. As I noted a year or so ago, I’m a grown up who still likes Lego, a so-called AFOL, and have now been so for close to 15 years. In that time Lego has dramatically improved their range and building techniques have evolved. So I’ve started replacing sets that I built when they first came out with the latest and greatest.
So far there have been three: the Burj Khalifa (21031 replacing 21008), the Guggenheim Museum (21035 replacing 21004), and the Y-Wing (75172 replacing one of the models in 7152). I’ve previously published a review of 21031 incorporating a comparison with the older model on Brickset, and just published (and am awaiting moderation on) a comparison of the Y-Wings. There may be more coming in the future…
I’ve been experimenting with ramps lately. For those initiated, ramps are a wild allium (leek/garlic type vegetable) with an unforgettably sharp flavor and aroma. They aren’t cultivated so only appear for a few weeks in the sprint, and this year I noticed that our local farm stand was carrying them (picture above shamelessly ganked from someone’s blog).
So I started looking for things to do with them, and so far my impression is the simpler the better. I started with a variation on this spring green risotto from the New York Times. I didn’t have any spring greens so I substituted some fresh English peas. It was… just OK. The flavor was subdued and, while tasty, the risotto didn’t capture the excitement of the ingredient.
On Sunday I went much, much simpler, tossing ramps (and some bok choy) in olive oil and grilling it over low heat in a basket until I started to get black edges on the greens. This was much, much better — the bulb of the ramp was sweet and the green was smoky with a little bite.
But the best recipe of all may be the family recipe that my uncle makes: fry some streaky lean bacon, fry potatoes in the bacon fat, then add the ramps at the end. Looking forward to trying this weekend if any ramps are left at the stand.
It’s been almost thirteen years since the last time I saw the Pixies live. In that time they’ve released two new albums, toured a whole lot, and replaced Kim Deal — twice. I was thrilled to get tickets to see them at the House of Blues — I mean, the last time I was there it was the Avalon, and it’s been the HoB since 2009. With so much time passing, I wondered what I’d see from the floor.
First, let’s acknowledge that the opening act, Cymbals Eat Guitars, is no Mission of Burma. But it’s no Bennies either (though Jeremy Dubs’ band did rock). Cymbals did a perfectly respectable set that wandered around …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead territory for a while and had me feeling pretty psychedelic by the end. We waited for a while while they set up the next band, and my friends Chris and Fred got into a conversation with the girls behind us. “You can’t possibly have been alive when the Pixies released their first albums. When were you born?” “1989.” Between that and the lengthy drunken monologue from one of the women, things were looking a little sketchy.
And then the band showed up. So how were they? In a word, tight.
Time was that I could have remembered the setlist, song by song. Thank goodness someone else has done that for me. All I can say is: 36 songs (35 if you subtract the false start of “Wave of Mutilation”). The opening, “Ana,” has been one of my favorites since I picked up Bossanova in my first year of college, but wasn’t in the setlist at the Tsongas Arena in 2004.
And when “Head On” started I was transported. Totally in another place.