the year 2015

a question to you mr. governor pataki: how bad can the design of the freedom tower get?

i had the incredible opportunity to see mr. brubeck at carnegie hall this past friday night. absolutly amazing! when this 84 year old man sits at the piano, he becomes ageless, and swings like he is 25 again. if you get the chance go see him......

Boasting the first jazz instrumental to sell a million copies, the Paul Desmond-penned "Take Five," Time Out captures the celebrated jazz quartet at the height of both its popularity and its powers. Recorded in 1959, the album combines superb performances by pianist Brubeck, alto saxophonist Desmond, drummer Joe Morrello and bassist Gene Wright. Along with "Take Five," the album features another one of the group's signature compositions, "Blue Rondo a la Turk." Though influenced by the West Coast-cool school, Brubeck's greatest interest and contribution to jazz was the use of irregular meters in composition, which he did with great flair. Much of the band's appeal is due to Desmond, whose airy tone and fluid attack often carried the band's already strong performances to another level. Together, he and Brubeck proved one of the most potent pairings of the era.

alan lomax

Alan Lomax (January 31, 1915 - July 19, 2002) was an American folklorist and musicologist specializing in the music of the United States and that of other nations which influenced American music.

Lomax was son of pioneering musicologist and folklorist John Lomax, with whom he started his career.

Lomax earned a degree in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin. He worked on the oral history project for the Library of Congress. To some, he is best known for his cantometrics.
Lomax's recordings are a highly regarded treasure trove of American and international culture. Alan spent a lifetime collecting folk music from around the world, particularly from the American South.

Lomax also recorded substantial interviews with many musicians, including Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Jelly Roll Morton, and Jeannie Robertson.

He received a Grammy Trustees Award for his lifetime achievements in 2003.

check out everything, and anything you might want to know about ny tri-state roads and highways......damn!

"Serving the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan area since 1997, nycroads.com provides current and historical information on highways, bridges, and tunnels throughout the tri-state area. The site also provides links to current traffic conditions and highway web cameras, as well as exit lists."

From the first notes of Concord Records Quincy Jones& Bill Cosby: The Original Jam Sessions 1969, you know you're in for quite a ride. After being lost for over 30 years, these dusty vintage grooves have been wiped down and mopped up only to uncover the nasty six-strings and funky rhythmic beds of backbeats that make for a funk-loving romp of pure jam...no jelly. Captured on this CD is the authentic interplay between the heaviest jazz musicians on the planet savoring the opportunity to stretch their jazz legs.

museum of chinese in the americas
through june 30th (still a couple days left)

"Have You Eaten Yet?," the wonderful Chinese restaurants exhibit now on view at New York's Museum of Chinese in the Americas, takes a Babel of ephemera and makes it speak. One's visit begins with an absence: the never-photographed first Chinese eateries in America, known as "chow chows," which sprang up in California in the mid-19th century to serve Cantonese laborers. True holes in the wall, they were marked, as per a Chinese tradition, with yellow cloth triangles. No menus have survived, if ever there were any; who knows but that they served stir-fried buffalo. Still, we may gather that the workers liked the fare, for we do have the advertisements of competitors, who suddenly began offering free potatoes with their meals. The spud strategy was ultimately for naught, though: The Chinese restaurant had been born.

grilled cheese nyc
168 ludlow st. (lower east side)
between houston and stanton sts.
212-982-6600

A chalkboard sign hanging in this small shop reads, “Just like you, the sandwich grew up.” Who knew grilled cheese could be so gourmet? The laid-back staff patiently waits and supplies complimentary treats (sorbet, chips, or carrots) as customers chew over a dizzying array of grilled-cheese specialties, ranging from “the classic” to meat-and-vegetable combos. Locals from nearby boutiques and galleries stream in for lunch, and at night, folks lounge around munching on sandwiches and playing Connect Four.

Giant Popsicle Melts, Floods NYC's Union Square

NEW YORK -- An attempt to erect the world's largest popsicle in a city square ended with a scene straight out of a disaster film, but much stickier. The 25-foot-tall, 17 1/2-ton popsicle treat of frozen Snapple unexpectedly quickly melted in the midday sun Tuesday, flooding Union Square in downtown Manhattan with pink fluid that sent pedestrians scurrying for higher ground.

Firefighters closed off several streets and used hoses to wash away the sugary goo as the 35,000-pound, Kiwi-Strawberry flavored pop gushed thousands of gallons of liquid.

The spilled slush was slippery; Several bicyclists slid to the ground after riding through puddles, the New York Post reported.

Snapple had been trying to promote a new line of frozen treats by setting a record for the world's largest popsicle, but called off the stunt before the ice-scraper was pulled fully upright by a construction crane.

Authorities said they were worried the 2 1/2-story pop would collapse.
"What was unsettling was that the fluid just kept coming," Stuart Claxton of the Guinness Book of World Records told the Daily News. "It was quite a lot of fluid. On a hot day like this, you have to move fast."

robert maillart

Like his teacher Ritter, Robert Maillart (1872-1940) studied at the Eidgenssische Technische Hochschule (Federal Institute of Technology), graduating with an engineering diploma in 1894. He would go on to become the leading early twentieth-century engineer in reinforced concrete. He was the first to develop concrete structures that satisfied the goals of good structural art: efficiency (safe performance with minimum materials), economy (accountable to the public welfare and or to private industry with competitive costs), and elegance in design.

A hobo is a member of a distinctive sub-culture of homeless, traveling workers in the United States. Hobo culture was most popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is particularly associated with the railroads, as hobos have the reputation for freight hopping-hitching free rides from place to place in the baggage cars of trains.

Hobos generally apply the term hobo only to itinerant people who work. In contrast, they define a tramp as a itinerant person who does not work, and supports himself by other means e.g. begging or scavenging. Alternatively, a tramp is somebody who prefers to walk or hitchhike rather than ride the rails. A bum is a homeless person who neither travels nor works. Both are terms of derision within the hobo community.

The population of hobos increased during times of economic trouble, and their numbers increased greatly during the Great Depression. With no work and no prospects at home, many decided to travel and try their luck elsewhere.

Nowadays there are few railroad-riding hobos left, though there are still small numbers of them. Some itinerant individuals today travel by car rather than rail, but still identify themselves as hobos.

do yourself a favor today, and check out a little bit of sonny stitt

"summer"
giuseppe arcimboldo
1573

cabbage alley
the meters
1972

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, New Orleans's Meters churned out irresistible funk instrumentals that were distilled to their essence and intended to get people up and shaking. When the Josie label went bankrupt in 1971, the band moved over to the Reprise label and began to broaden their horizons, expanding their sonic palette and putting more emphasis on vocals. Cabbage Alley, their Reprise debut, finds them experimenting with tropical sounds ("Soul Island"), Allman Brothers-style guitar leads ("Stay Away"), Neil Young covers ("Birds"), and socially conscious lyrics ("Lonesome and Unwanted People"). Still, it's the simple funk anthems that hit home on cuts such as "You've Got to Change," "Do the Dirt," and "Chug Chug Chug-A-Lug"

Baruch Shemtov is a young (actually very young) New York designer who has talent and charisma in spades. His unconventional ties sell at some of New York's hottest boutiques, and he's been lauded everywhere from Inc. Magazine to the Times of London.

Predicted Events, Unknown Dates:

-Assuming a successful launch in January 2006, NASA's New Horizons space probe is scheduled to perform a fly-by of the planet Pluto in July of this year. After its brief visit here the probe is expected to continue into the Kuiper Belt.
-One of the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers will enter service, possibly named HMS Prince of Wales
-The Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project, in Downtown Los Angeles, California, will end, setting the local record for the longest planning project, lasting 62 years.
-The Dulles Corridor Rapid Transit Project should be complete, connecting Dulles Airport and the surrounding communities to Washington, DC.
-George Jung is scheduled to be released from prison. He will be 73 years old.
-The rolling stock of the Tyne and Wear Metro system will come to the end of its useful life, and will be replaced by a more modern system - possibly incorporating street-running trams.
-John Titor a man who posted on a series of time travel forums in 2001 claimed to be from 2036 and that there would be a third world war leading to nuclear war in 2015 and causing over three billion deaths worldwide. He also spoke of a very different world folowing the event.

sinatra at the sands
with count basie & orchestra
1966

joel & ethan coen
from the big lebowski(1998):

Donny: If what's during league play?
Walter: Life does not stop and start at your convenience, you miserable piece of shit.
Donny: What's wrong with Walter, Dude?
Dude: I figure it's easy money, it's all pretty harmless. I mean she probably kidnapped herself.
Walter: Huh?
Donny: What do you mean, Dude?
Dude: Rug-peers did not do this. I mean look at it. Young trophy wife. Marries a guy for money but figures he isn't giving her enough. She owes money all over town--
Walter: That...fucking...bitch!
Dude: It's all a goddamn fake. Like Lenin said, look for the person who will benefit. And you will, uh, you know, you'll, uh, you know what I'm trying to say--
Donny: I am the Walrus.
Walter: That fucking bitch!
Dude: Yeah.
Donny: I am the Walrus.
Walter: Shut the fuck up, Donny! V.I. Lenin! Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!
Donny: What the fuck is he talking about?
Walter: That's fucking exactly what happened, Dude! That makes me fucking SICK!
Dude: Yeah, well, what do you care, Walter?
Donny: Yeah Dude, why is Walter so pissed off?
Walter: Those rich fucks! This whole fucking thing-- I did not watch my buddies die face down in the muck so that this fucking strumpet--
Dude: I don't see any connection to Vietnam, Walter.
Walter: Well, there isn't a literal connection, Dude.
Dude: Walter, face it, there isn't any connection. It's your roll.
Walter: Have it your way. The point is--
Dude: It's your roll--
Walter: The fucking point is--
Dude: It's your roll.

Sandhog is the slang term given to urban miners, construction workers who work underground on a variety of excavation projects. Generally these projects involve tunneling, caisson excavation, road building, or some other type of underground construction or mining projects. The miners work with a variety of equipment from TBM (tunnel boring machines) to blasting a path for the project they are building. The term is an American colloquialism.

Starting with their first job in 1872, the Brooklyn Bridge, the "hogs" have built a large part of the city of New York: the subways and sewer, Water Tunnel #1 & #2, the Lincoln, Holland, Queens-Midtown, and Brooklyn-Battery tunnels to name a few, as well as the foundations for most of the bridges and many of the skyscrapers in the city. Since their work is mostly done below street level, in an unseen world of rock, sand, and earth, recognition of their achievements has been limited.

according to the rendering, friends of the high line are going to show screenings of 2001 a space odessey floating in mid-air. i can't wait.

i'll just leave it at that.

does this website have a strange sinister, human engineering edge to it, or am i just imagining things?

enjoy some drawings at the patent room, a museum of early 20th Century design in patent art. the drawings reflect 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s design styles.

a question for whatever audience this blog may have:

what is the most incredible piece of music you have ever heard?

admiral dewy sez:
i know it is from probably the most famous piece of music ever composed....so call me a sell-out, but i must pick the third movement of beethoven's 9th symphony or properly know as: Adagio molto e cantabile - Andante moderato - Adagio

i ask because i am curious, answer at your leisure.....................

i was too young then to remember this one...but i am sure if i was taking acid in 1976 i would have been watching......

After success on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, Shields & Yarnell moved to Los Angeles, where they brought their mix of new vaudeville and physical comedy to their gigs as regulars on “The Mac Davis Show”. When that was cancelled, they were quickly snatched up by CBS to appear as regulars on "The Sonny & Cher Show" in 1976. Due to their overwhelming popularity and successful reviews, CBS gave them their own variety show. Many fondly remember the robot characters, "The Clinkers," which they created at that time and still perform in their act to this day.

The show regularly resided in the Top 10 Nielsons, and was the first show in the history of CBS to rate in age groups from 8 – 80.

At their height, famous fans such as Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, George Burns, Jack Lemmon, Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Danny Thomas, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Carson, and countless others were tuning in regularly. In fact, it was even said that Elvis’ favorite TV show was Shields & Yarnell.

check out how these two had an influence on breakdancing, specifically with the "robot" or "mannequin"

the ifc channel is showing a documentary about one of the first cable stations around......

The Z Channel wasn't America's first premium cable outlet specializing in feature films, and it wasn't the most commercially successful, but few, if any, had as strong an impact on the film industry or a more influential list of customers. Based in California and blanketing sections of the state dominated by the movie business, Z Channel had been operating for several years before former screenwriter Jerry Harvey took over as head of programming in 1980. Under the guidance of Harvey and his staff, the channel became a film buff's dream, screening rare classics, important foreign films, and maverick American titles that had fallen through the cracks of commercial distribution. Harvey and his staff also programmed original and uncut versions of films which had only played American theaters in altered form (including Heaven's Gate, Once Upon a Time in America, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and The Leopard) long before the concept of the "director's cut" had currency beyond the most hardcore of film fans. And The Z Channel aggressively championed pictures they believed were overlooked, and programmed deserving Oscar-nominated movies during the Academy's voting period, years before studios began distributing video "screeners" to potential voters. (More than one industry expert has credited Z Channel's showings of Annie Hall as a key factor in the film winning Best Picture.) But Jerry Harvey was also a deeply troubled man, and when legal and economic problems began dogging the company in the late '80s, he snapped, leading to a horrible and tragic murder and suicide.

Backgammon is the oldest recorded game in the world, believed to have originated in Mesopotamia. The game was played on etched or painted wooden boards with polished stone pieces, and dice carved from bone, wood, or pottery. It is believed to have derived from the ancient Egyptian game of Senet.

Senet was a game which Egyptian kings played to prepare themselves for the afterlife. It was believed that upon death, one would have to face the God Thot in a game of Senet. Thot would then judge the dead on the basis of sin or good action while playing. Carved game sets were buried with the later Egyptian kings, a talisman for gaining Thot's blessing in the afterlife.

Always associated with royalty and nobility, backgammon encourages a player to develop through adversity, while teaching strategy & tactics. The English version of the name comes from the "back game", where stones taken off the board are re-entered into play. The Italian and Persian words for Backgammon come from the native word for "table", which is the customary place to play the game.

sit a spell

prelude
eumir deodato
1972

so i was recently wondering around the tv channels, and came about a hummer commercial with the low slung funky fender rhodes sounds of deodato's version of "also sprach zarathustra", and was reminded just how good he is.......real good album

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
1864-1901

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born on Nov. 24, 1864, in Albi, France. He was an aristocrat, the son and heir of Comte Alphonse-Charles de Toulouse and last in line of a family that dated back a thousand years. Henri's father was rich, handsome, and eccentric. His mother was overly devoted to her only living child. Henri was weak and often sick. By the time he was 10 he had begun to draw and paint.

At 12 young Toulouse-Lautrec broke his left leg and at 14 his right leg. The bones failed to heal properly, and his legs stopped growing. He reached young adulthood with a body trunk of normal size but with abnormally short legs. He was only 1.5 meters tall.

Deprived of the kind of life that a normal body would have permitted, Toulouse-Lautrec lived wholly for his art. He stayed in the Montmartre section of Paris, the center of the cabaret entertainment and bohemian life that he loved to paint. Circuses, dance halls and nightclubs, racetracks--all these spectacles were set down on canvas or made into lithographs.

Toulouse-Lautrec was very much a part of all this activity. He would sit at a crowded nightclub table, laughing and drinking, and at the same time he would make swift sketches. The next morning in his studio he would expand the sketches into bright-colored paintings.

In order to become a part of the Montmartre life--as well as to protect himself against the crowd's ridicule of his appearance--Toulouse-Lautrec began to drink heavily. In the 1890s the drinking started to affect his health. He was confined to a sanatorium and to his mother's care at home, but he could not stay away from alcohol. Toulouse-Lautrec died on Sept. 9, 1901, at the family chateau of Malrome. Since then his paintings and posters--particularly the Moulin Rouge group--have been in great demand and bring high prices at auctions and art sales.

A drum is a percussion musical instrument, consisting of a membrane called a drumhead that is stretched taut over a cylindrical tube that is open at the other end. The membrane is struck, either with the hand or with a drumstick, and the tube forms a resonating chamber for the resulting sound. The sound of a drum depends on how the drum is constructed. In most popular music and jazz, drums usually refers to a drum kit or set of drums, and drummer to the band member or person who plays them.

top five drummers according to the admiral:
1. john bonham (led zeppelin)
2. clyde stubblefield (jb's)
3. ahmir ?uestlove thompson (the roots)
4. joseph zigaboo modeliste (the funky meters)
5. billy cobham (jazz legend)

national doughnut day

Richard Henry Sellers

Sellers' first film successes were in British comedy films, including The Ladykillers (1955), I'm All Right Jack (1959) and The Mouse That Roared (1959); however, he is most famous for his role as the bungling Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies, which gave him a worldwide audience. The movie The Trail of the Pink Panther was released posthumously in 1982, containing previously unused footage of Sellers. Sellers' widow Lynne Frederick later successfullly sued the film's producers.

Sellers was launched internationally with the hit "The Millionairess". In Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb he notably played the triple role consisting of President Merkin Muffley of the United States, Dr. Strangelove, and Group Captain Lionel Mandrake of the RAF (the first two appearing in the same room throughout the film). He was remarkably versatile, switching easily from brilliant themes as in The Party, to more intense performances as in Lolita (from Vladimir Nabokov's notorious novel).

For only 45 days, starting June 1st until July 15, 2005, Prophet Yahweh, Seer of Yahweh, will be calling down UFOs and spaceships for the news media to film and photograph. During this time, a spaceship will descend, on Prophet's signal, and sit in the skies over Las Vegas, Nevada for almost two days.