Entries by

Celebrating the Holidays with the Singing Roches

December 24, 2012 /0 Comments/in , /by

The night before the tragedy in Newtown, CT, I attended a special holiday concert put on by Suzzy and Maggie Roche with their extended musical family. It was a wonderful show, full of humor, uplifting sentiment, and infectious music. Sadly, the next morning as I downloaded photos from my camera and prepared to write a blog post about the show, news of the Newtown shootings began to emerge. I put the idea aside, my heart just wasn’t in it, especially after I learned that a former colleague’s 6-year old son was among the dead. Tonight, with Christmas Eve day ticking on toward midnight, even while another violent outburst of deadly gunfire was reported today, near Rochester, NY, I’ve decided to finally share my pictures and make this into a bit of a Christmas post.

I’ve written about the Roches a number of times over the past several months. First, Kyle and Ewan and I had fun at Terre Roche’s Sunset Singing Circle in Battery Park in June. This public sing-a-long was held at the tip of lower Manhattan, facing New York harbor and the Statue of Liberty. I also wrote about sister Suzzy’s splendid mother-daughter novel, Wayward Saints,  a tragi-comic tale of rock n’ roll, family, and second chances in life. I posted next when Terre published a NY Times Op-Ed on what she dubbed the new busking in the music biz, with emerging mechanisms to seek funding for support of recording such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Finally, last summer Suzzy led a Bryant Park reading room discussion on Edith Wharton’s House of Mirth, which Kyle and I greatly enjoyed, and which I wrote about, as well.

They are clearly a very talented family, and I’m a fan. What’s more, they don’t just rest on their laurels for things they did back in the day (with Maggie) as The Roches, with such great compositions as “Hammond Song,” with its theremin-like lead instrument and great harmonizing of all three voices. It’s still a beautiful song, and deserves a fresh listen, if you haven’t heard it recently, or ever. That’s why I was eager to attend Suzzy and Maggie’s Dec. 13 program, what they called a “holiday-ish concert,” which was also going to include their brother, David, with his daughter, Oona; Suzzy’s daughter, Lucy Wainwright Roche (whose father is Loudon Wainwright III, composer of the the classic, “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road”); and singer songwriter, Julie Gold, best known for her song “From a Distance,” which Bette Midler recorded and made famous as a Grammy Song of the Year in 1991. It promised to be quite a program, and the event didn’t disappoint, at all.

I had never heard Maggie before this occasion, and it was interesting to hear her voice mix with that of Suzzy, with it a bit lower in register by comparison. They did “Hammond Song,” with Lucy taking the part that would’ve earlier been sung by Terre. Lucy also sang the title song from her latest album, “There’s a Last Time for Everything.” That wordplay is found in much of the Roches’ writing, with humor in their lyrics and a kind of plain-spoken matter-of-factness that I found refreshing. It doesn’t at first seem artistic, and the lack of artifice is welcome; what it is, is real. Scan the first verse of their song, “We,” their opening number on this program, credited to all three of the sisters, which they wrote in 1979:

We are Maggie and Terre and Suzzy/Maggie and Terre and Suzzy Roche/we don’t give out our ages/and we don’t give out our phone numbers/give out our phone numbers/sometimes our voices give out/but not our ages and our phone numbers

The night ended with them inviting anyone in the audience who wanted to sing in the last few carols to join them at the front of the church. A lively group assembled around them and the evening ended with a great, joyous sing-a-long. I’m glad I could be there, and finally post this little essay on the concert, notwithstanding the terrible tragedies that have intervened. I hope the photographs below give you a full sense of this special program. Please click here to see all photos.

Windy Hudson River Bike Ride Photos

December 24, 2012 /1 Comment/in , , /by

I shared a couple of these photos on Instagram earlier, but here are two others. They were all taken on a break during a very windy bike ride this past Saturday. Standing on a bluff above the Hudson River as as an intense, dramatic sunset glowed across the whole skyline, I am in upper Manhattan at about 165th Street, looking south down the river back toward the city. Though I’ve often ridden in strong wind along the Hudson, the gusts usually come from one direction. Saturday, they swirled and came from all points of the compass.

Sure Sign the NRA is Losing Some of its GOP Base

December 22, 2012 /0 Comments/in /by

It’s not surprising that the NY Daily News would show disapproval of Wayne LaPierre’s toxic pro-gun rant yesterday, as shown below, since it occasionally tends more moderate than far-right:

but it is surprising that the Murdoch-owned NY Post ran with this cover on today’s paper:

It is true that Murdoch recently tweeted somewhat favorably about gun control, but the Post has for so long been a bastion of extreme right-wing positions it is striking they would take this tone against the NRA. It shows, I believe, how much the political climate on gun control has changed in the past eight days, and how far the image of LaPierre and his extremist organization have fallen, since the murders in Newtown, and Lapierre’s so-called press conference, where he appeared unhinged and took no questions from the reporters summoned to the briefing.

Thanks to David Taintor of TPM, who shared these covers earlier in my Twitter feed.

Alexander Moulton, 1920-2012, Innovative Bicycle Designer

December 19, 2012 /1 Comment/in , /by

Although Englishman Alexander Moulton (pictured here) was trained as an automotive engineer his most lasting professional contribution was as the designer of the first mini-bicycle, the forerunner of today’s folding bikes. The fascinating NY Times obituary details the moment when

“Moulton began toying with a small-wheel design for an adult bicycle in the late 1950s. His interest was partly spurred by gasoline rationing in Britain during the Suez crisis, which began when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, an act that threatened to halt oil shipments to Western Europe from the Persian Gulf.

But the design was also fostered by his own engineer’s determination to make things better: ‘The Moulton bicycle was born out of my resolve to challenge and improve upon the classic bicycle,’ he said.

His idea was to create a more efficient, all-purpose vehicle, suitable for errands and commuting at least as much as for recreation. He wanted it to have substantial carrying capacity, to be maneuverable in traffic, to roll smoothly and to be pedaled easily.

He came up with a bike with wheels 16 inches in diameter, high-pressure tires for minimum rolling resistance, front and rear rubber suspension systems for smooth riding on potholed or cobblestoned roads, and a step-through frame (that is, without the top tube of the traditional diamond-shaped frame) for easy dismounting (and more suitable for women wearing skirts). The small wheels left plenty of room for carrying briefcases, shopping bags or overnight luggage. The early bikes could easily be taken apart for convenient stowing, though they were not really foldable; still, the small-wheel collapsible bikes of today owe a debt to the original Moulton. ([The Moulton company] now makes foldable bikes itself.)”

I’ve owned mini- and collapsible bikes and didn’t know who’d invented them.  They are great city errand-running bikes. I also love the fact that they were invented as a response to a fuel crisis. Thank you, Alexander Moulton!

Please Follow Me on Twitter

December 19, 2012 /0 Comments/in , /by

I’m continuing to post and share items on my Facebook page, but in 2013 will also be ramping up my use of other social networks–especially Twitter, sharing material that I don’t always put on Facebook. If you’re on Twitter and want to follow me there, please do so–my handle is @philipsturner. You may sample the tweets on my profile page by clicking on this link or see a screenshot of the page below. At the upper right corner of this site, you may join me on any of the social networks where I’m active. I have other initiatives in mind for The Great Gray Bridge in 2013 and look forward to introducing them in the weeks and months to come, including publication of guest posts by other writers on key topics. As always, thanks for reading and sharing my enthusiasms and interests.