In these sad times full of the fear-mongering preachers of hate, take an hour to be inspired by a program that includes not only Marian Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial but moving performance of the song King mentioned as he lay dying and which was performed at a rally in Memphis that night.
A Beautiful Symphony of Brotherhood: A Musical Journey in the Life of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Listen today at 3pm on 93.9FM or listen online:
From the WNYC site:
Martin Luther King, Jr. grew up listening to and singing church songs, and saw gospel and folk music as natural tools to further the civil rights movement. In this hour-long special from WNYC, host Terrance McKnight interweaves musical examples with Dr. King's own speeches and sermons to illustrate the powerful place that music held in his work--and examines how the musical community responded to and participated in Dr. King's cause.
More photos after the jump.
Continue reading "Photos from New Year's Eve in Times Square" »
One thing that irritates me every year around this time is having to listen to people complaining about how "Christmas has become all about shopping" when shopping and gift-giving is what made Christmas the major holiday that it's become. There was a reason that many religious people, including our own Puritans in New England, outlawed any kind of observation--it was a sham holiday (according to the Bible, Jesus couldn't have been born in December) laid clumsily over an ancient Roman one. Consumerism and the modern traditions of Christmas were invented at the same time in the early nineteenth century and owe their existence to one another. If there's a time of year when consumerism should come to the fore, it's Christmas.
(Much of the following information comes from Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas, which is a profound cultural history of the holiday and not related to the silly and shallow War on Christmas books.)
Have you ever wondered why images of “Old Christmas” are almost exclusively Victorian? Before the 1820’s, Christmas was a completely different holiday. The roots go back to the ancient Roman celebration of Saturnalia, a harvest holiday when Saturn was released, chaos reigned, the streets were full of bacchanalian revelry, and masters and servants would switch places for the duration. This served as a social gauge and was understandably popular with the servants.
Hundreds of years later, a monk placed the birth of Christ atop this pagan tradition in an attempt to smother it. Religious leaders were riled, asking what shepherds would be tending their flock by night in Syria in late December? When the Puritans came to New England, the holiday was outlawed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The way the holiday was celebrated for centuries was with marauding members of the lower class knocking on the doors of the wealthy, caroling or wassailing until invited inside to partake of the best wine and food the house had to offer. (Think trick-or-treating.) In the rapidly growing city of New York, there was a move to alter this tradition.
Continue reading "There's a Reason Christmas Is Commercial" »
I do like the Twinkle Twinkle Little Snowflake story at Saks and the touchscreens at Macy's that allow you to write a letter to Santa.
But Bergdorf Goodman once again wins my personal Christmas Window Competition for 2009.
The photo on the left is by Rudy Pospisil who photographed this year's windows. To see them all, visit About.com.
...I hope you have a restful holiday weekend.
Each year, at eleven in the morning on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the Veteran's Day parade begins at Madison Square and heads up Fifth Avenue.
Why 11:00 on 11/11?
Ninety-one years ago, at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the armistice, the official cessation of hostilities signed six hours earlier, went into effect, ending World War I, the war to end all wars and the war remembered by more memorials in New York than any other war before or since.
A year later, President Woodrow Wilson created Armistice Day, which was actually celebrated on the 12th. It was later moved to the 11th. In 1938, the day became a legal holiday, but was still known as Armistice Day until 1954 when it became Veteran's Day under Eisenhower.
Follow the links for a survey of World War I memorials in New York and for a history of the armistice as well as the primary document of the actual terms. The armistice and the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed the following year, became such symbols of national disgrace in Germany that when Hitler captured France in 1940, he forced the French to sign an armistice in the same railway carriage where the Germans had conceded defeat twenty-two years earlier.
The NYC Parks Department and the Washington Heights and Inwood Development Corporation have been co-hosting the city's Medieval Festival in Fort Tryon Park since 1983. This year's events were held on Sunday and thousands came to the home of the Cloisters to celebrate feudalism, superstition, internecine warfare, and the plague.
There seemed to be hundreds of vendors in stalls that lined Margaret Corbin Drive. Almost all were in costume, including two men representing Manhattan Mini Storage which people don't realize started in Avignon in 1146. Besides securing your storage locker, you could have your fortune read while shopping for talismen, incense and battle axes.
And there was lots of entertainment. A grand procession at 11:30 was followed by performances throughout the park, around every corner, by singers, dancers, instrumentalists, falconers, actors, knights, jugglers, magicians, and jousters. The Cloisters also offered a garden tour, a highlights tour, and two costume demonstrations.
I was impressed by how many people dressed up for this festival and by how long the lines were to partake in the grilled feast--massive drumsticks that would make a hobbit happy and golden cobs of corn...wait a second! Corn?! There was no corn in Europe in the Middle Ages!
More photos after the jump.
The Statue of Liberty as seen from Battery Park. The photo makes it look like I've hacked my way through a jungle to reach the shore, but the trees are just part of a small but verdant copse at the southern end of the park.
Albino Manca's East Coast Memorial, 1961
If you read about my Christmas trip to LA in January, you would remember that I believe holidays should be celebrated when it's convenient for us. SO: a New Year's Eve memory.
In 2006, Travis Stroessenreuther, who has appeared in several of our bytes, spent all night in Central Park to snag some free tickets for Meryl Streep in Mother Courage. Read Stroessenreuther in the Park for the embarrassing punchline. For that nocturnal excursion, Travis sent out a mass e-mail, asking who was with him. The answer? No one. And that's how Travis ended up meeting Daryl and Emily...but that's another story.
Anyway, Travis did the same thing for this New Year's Eve --Travis Stroessenreuther, a New Yorker since 1997, decided to revel in Times Square to watch the ball drop. That's right. A New Yorker. In Times Square.
Here's Travis:
Times Square. New Year's Eve. Of course. I thought to myself, "People come from all over the world to freeze in Times Square and watch the ball drop. They pay stupid prices for hotels, plane tickets, meals, etc. I live twenty minutes away and, after being here nearly twelve years, I've never done it. And what better way to kick off 2009 than with a million other people who also think it's going to be an amazing year? THIS IS THE YEAR TO STAND IN TIMES SQUARE!" So, I set about my plans. I invited a hundred people to join me. Literally. One hundred people. No one did. My wife (bless her soul) hates the cold and was planning to yoga the new year in. "I'll see you at the party afterwards!"The countdown is the most important part. It's that moment of renewal, of re-evaluation. That second of the very loud clock ticking from one chapter of your life into the next. I've spent New Year's Eve in a wide variety of places: with just my wife outside Boston; looking at the fireworks over the beautiful beaches of Rio de Janeiro; and at numerous wonderful house parties. I have always counted down to the New Year. The countdown is the most important part.
2008 was a mediocre year. I mean, all the important things in my life were great. My health, wonderful. My marriage, never better. A new president, thank God. But it was just sorta... well... flat. No big career advancements. Nothing that really grabbed me. In November, I began to put my energies into making 2009 amazing. How could I kick that off right? Give it the jumpstart that it needed?
The last person to bail on me did so at noon, saying, "Aw, man, it's cold out there. You're not going through with this, are you?"
So I would be alone with a million people. Somehow, I was really OK with that.
I dress in layers (knowing it's getting down to fifteen degrees), pack snacks (Cliff Bars, bananas, and Spirulina Balls), and make my way down to Times Square.
Continue reading "Hope You're Having a Happy Stroessenreuthing New Year!!" »
Thanks to Cayce for helping out with the blog this week. Where have I been? From the picture it might appear that I attended the southern California Ping Pong Championship, and that's not too far off since my family takes ping pong almost as seriously as it takes miniature golf. My parents live in Myrtle Beach for Golf's sake!
I finished drafting the new novel the weekend before last and took off for a week in sunny California. (Actually, it rained a bit, but the temperature beat the crap out of New York's.) My family flew out or drove up to Los Angeles for a belated Christmas reunion. Only a month late.
Now that I've returned, I'm ready to dive back into the novel and resume the blog...right after I celebrate the New Year. The ball is still up in Times Square, (read this if you've forgotten), so those of us with a flexible holiday schedule can do the countdown whenever we feel like it. I love this city!
To wrap up, here are two shots of my niece, the real redheaded reason I flew west:
GORGEOUS!!
Bald on top with a red fringe in the back, she has a Ron Howard look going on right now. It works.
This afternoon, to celebrate the swearing-in of Barack Obama as the nation's forty-fourth president, twelve men and women in the belfry of Trinity Church will strike a full peal for over three hours.
From Newsday:
"The exact sound cannot be heard anywhere else in the country: Trinity has the only change-ringing tower - in which each bell is rung individually - with 12 bells, two more than the National Cathedral in Washington.
"A full peal of Trinity's bells consists of 5,000 changes. A "change" occurs when each bell is rung individually in a sequence, without duplication. The ringers, who are about 20 feet below, yank ropes to swing the bells and cause the bells' clappers to strike."
For a video demonstration and more specific details, visit the Newsday feature.
A few interesting bytes of significance:
Washington took the oath of office down the street from the second Trinity Church. The first had been burned in 1776; the second was under construction when Washington took his oath. In the scene above, painted for the centennial of the first inauguration, the third and present Trinity Church is depicted mistakenly.
Trinity Church will be giving the full peal at the end of Wall Street, whose troubles this fall very much contributed to the outcome of the 2008 election.
Columbia College began in the basement of Trinity Church (the first structure) in 1754. The college has since graduated many illustrious public figures, but it has never been able to boast a president until today. Another nice Trinity/Columbia twist is that buried in the church's cemetery is arguably its most important graduate--Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, who helped create the financial system now teetering and which Columbia's more recent graduate inherits this afternoon.
A little "Tid-byte" from Cayce:
On January 1st, we love to celebrate the new year. So, while we revel in the optimism of a fresh start, let's remember some great people who love or loved New York and who happened to celebrate their birthday on this date.
Alfred Stieglitz
Frank Langella
Betsy Ross
J.D. Salinger
Finally, we celebrate his birthday January 25th, but we think of him more now because he wrote the lyrics to "Auld Lang Syne"--the lovely Robert Burns. To learn a little more about him, watch this:
Besides all of the technology of this year's brand new ball, what makes this ball so historic? At some point on January 1st, after this bright and colorful orb makes its descent, it will be raised again to remain atop One Times Square throughout the entire year. You will be able to see the New Year's Eve ball in March, July, and October.
A brief history:
The first New Year's Eve celebration was the 1904-1905 bash which marked a rebirth of what had been known as Longacre Square, a place of horse-related business during the day and a notorious red-light district at night. Change to the square had begun in 1895 with Oscar Hammerstein's Olympia, the first of many theaters built in what would become the theater district, but the year 1904 saw the opening of the neighborhood's first luxury hotel (the Hotel Astor) as well as the opening of the brand new subway and the headquarters of the New York Times. 1904 was also the year Longacre Square was rechristened Times Square--through some kind of deal quietly worked out between the director of the new subway and Adolph Ochs, the publisher of the paper.
The first ball drop took place in the 1907-1908 festivities, which still included fireworks as well as local waiters who wore battery-powered top hats with 1908 spelled out in miniature bulbs. With the wartime exception of 1942 and 1943, the ball has dropped every New Year's Eve since then. The ball drop comes out of an old time-keeping tradition first performed in Greenwich, England above the English Royal Observatory in 1833. Chronometers could be set on passing ships every afternoon at 1 pm. Other time-balls would begin to drop from tall buildings throughout the world.
When it was built, by the way, One Times Square was the second tallest building in the world after the Park Row Building across from City Hall. Today captains on ships along the Hudson or East River wouldn't be able to see the ball, blocked as it is by the much taller buildings that run river to river in midtown.
Visit the Times Square Alliance for more history, details about the technology and construction of this year's ball, and wonderful photographs of all that it can do.
This is the house of Lucy Spata whose family has been decorating their home for over forty years, but whose house in the eighties had become so over-the-top and was attracting so much traffic, that the police were often called. The neighbors, though, have long since joined in and displays that can cost over $30,000 can be seen throughout the neighborhood. (And on YouTube. See the posting below for three videos.) Is it worth the $5000/month electric bills? It's reported that 100,000 people make the pilgrimage each holiday season and that several of the houses collect donations to support various charities like St. Anthony's (the Spata home) and the American Cancer Society (the Polizzotto Toyland across the street).
More photos of our trip after the jump.
