Dreamboat Annie

A few weeks ago I developed a minor obsession with this song. Not "Barracuda" (even though it does kick ass!), "Crazy on You" or "Magic Man", but little ole "Dreamboat Annie." It's not espcially folk, especially here when lipsyched on the Captain and Tenille show (two 70's celebrities I really had forgotten about, despite the fact that they were part of my t.v. diet when I was a full on pre-teen with a mouthful of braces and a Dorothy Hamill meets Moe Howard hair do).

When I mentioned this to someone recently, they said something like 'Isn't one of them still good looking and thin' 'cause you know, that's what it's all about, right? Ok, they were both pretty hot back in the day (well, not so much in the 80's when they went hair band) and yes - Ann did gain weight, but apparently she still has a good voice, and she had a pretty great one back then. And it was distinctively hers. I heard them do a version of Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeOHssaIJbM&feature=related) and if anyone could match Robert Plant's shrill, it was Ann Wilson. They had great songs in the 70's and a presence that lacked gimmick or pretense.

"Dreamboat Annie"(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5qsO9Ms7Ns) is a pop song I guess, with a perfect intro from Nancy (the clip here has her first playing "Silver Wheels" - usually the intro to "Crazy on You"), and a little banjo thrown in. Melancholic and sung gorgeously by Ann, and with perfect harmonies by Nancy, her voice mellowed down and nuanced. It's not slow pop in the old AM way, an FM hit for sure. Melancholic, escapist and mellow - a much needed salve for my life as it is this summer.

"The sweet remembrance of the just shall flourish when they sleep in the dust" - anonymous

I happened to be in lower Manhattan this morning and wandered into the graveyard at Trinity Church from the stairwell entrance on Trinity Place. Often I forget about this small urban oasis simply because for the most part, my life right now doesn't take me to lower Manhattan, and perhaps also because of the post 9/11 hoards of tourists that never seemed to frequent the area much when the twin towers were still standing.

Regardless, there I was, weaving through the mostly 18th century markers and recalling some of the old burial grounds in Boston - Kings Chapel, Copp's Hill, the Granary, and the Dorchester North. When I was in undergraduate school I took a class in Tomb Sculpture and wrote about "The Sun in Word and Stone." Basically, the sun, sometimes with a face, and usually sporting wings, represented renewal and regeneration, something like this:














Sitting on a bench and writing in my journal, I looked up while searching for a word and there was the face, not the clearly incised face of a puritan winged sun, but the almost blur of the face of a child. It seemed faded and distant, and barely in relief. I got up and walked over to it, and the closer I came to it, the more faded and distant the image of the infant face appeared to be. Standing back from it seemed to throw it in relatively higher relief.

It's a romantic (and Victorian) vision, and I mean romantic in the sense that what can be read into this face is fictitious, and also infinite. My mind wandered and conjured up thoughts, and even sounds that neither belong to my own history, or to anyone else's in particular. An face like this can elicit a quiet escapism that can take you out of yourself and transport you to somewhere more entertaining than a novel or a movie, many of which could be inspired into existence by it.

Dog Day Afternoon

Red Hook, July 12, 2008


Ahhhhhhhhhhh Summer! A magical time, especially in the streets of Brooklyn. I live across from what I feel is Olmsteads' finest in NYC (being from the Boston area, I have an affinity for the Arnold Arboretum and Franklin Park), Prospect Park. But I remember my old neighborhood, Carroll Gardens, in the dog days of summer. Hot Hot Hot! And the guys from the nickle and dime funeral home across the way standing across narrow Sackett Street screaming at one another as if from across the East River. And the car and bus fumes at the corner traffic light wafting up through my second floor window. Except when the air conditioner was on. I am amazed at surviving 15 summers in NYC, and I am not sure if I am really a better person for it, other than to say I lived through it. Summer in NYC induces crustiness, weariness, and general exasperation. Getting away however makes one all the more grateful for time shares, friends with timeshares who invite you out, friends who live near the beach, and the LIRR and New Jersey Transit. Oh, and the floating pool in Brooklyn Heights too! I'm going to be doing both this summer: whining and whinging and grinning widely when I dip my toes in the waters at Smiths Point. Ahhhhhhhhh Summer!

Brooklyn Summer Rag

In order to get to an interview on Monday, I decided it would be more efficient to arrive at Point B from Point A by walking through Prospect Park from my place on Prospect Park West and 12th Street to my destination at Flatbush Avenue and Winthrop Streets in Lefferts Gardens. A very humid, dewy summers day hindered my usually breakneck city pace and I began to stop and smell the echinacea, cornflowers, grass and the loam on the pond and to take in the diversity of Brooklyn's inhabitants while they sunned, lolled, cycled,ran, barbequed, loved, married, photographed and slept in their big back yard. Here are some images taken to and fro.

Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, The Mistress and The Tangerine

At Film Forum through Tuesday, July 8th. Showtimes: 1:15, 3:15, 6:00, 8:00, 10:00. 11:15AM showtime added on Saturday and Sunday, July 5 and 6 only.

See this movie at Film Forum, or when it arrives at a theater near you. An amazing look at an uncompromising and fearless artist, along with her ego-less assistant Jerry Gorovoy, and MoMA curator Deborah Wye, a find in herself as seemingly one of the most earnest and honest art world figures I've seen in a long time. Co-directed by Marion Cajori and Amei Wallach.