300th Blog Post

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When I look at the dashboard for this website I feel as I’ve lifted the hood of a car and am peering in at all the belts and fans and cables. The difference is that just two months shy of a year since I started The Great Gray Bridge, I pretty much know what’s going on under its hood, whereas with an automobile I never will. One thing the dashboard shows at a glance is how many posts I’ve published, counting from the very first one I put up October 30th last year. As you can see from the screenshot pasted in below, a handy counter shows that the next post I put up–this post, in fact–will be my 300th since the blog’s inception.

While I concede that the recognition of benchmarks like this one is only as important as we make them, I want to pause a few moments over this milestone. In ten months as a (near) daily blogger, what have I learned?

1) I now know for sure that by last fall–nearly three years after I had stopped working as an editorial director for a major publishing house–I missed having a list of new books to acquire, edit, package, and assemble for each new publishing season. I wanted something to curate, a garden of words and enthusiasms to plant, tend, and share. This blog has allowed my curatorial instinct to bloom again.

2) I know for sure that I am fortunate to have a loyal cadre of readers who, over the past several months on average, number between 850-1100 unique visitors to the site every day. I also know that my readers–you–average three pages viewed on the site during each visit. I am very grateful for this attention to what I write and post and pledge to keep writing and posting with the frequency and variety that I have done for the past ten months, hopeful that the time spent here you regard as well-rewarded.

3) I see from the second screenshot shown here that the categories forming the super-structure of the site, with each new post being assigned one or more categories under such rubrics as Art, Film, Photography, Design; Books & Writing; Canada; Media; Music, Bands & Radio; Publishing & Bookselling; and Urban Life, New York City & Bicycling, to name only a handful of the fifteen total–form a telling cross-section of my interests and what I’m covering. The bookish buckets, Books & Writing and Publishing & Bookselling, combine to comprise two of the most heavily populated categories, with 138 and 55 posts respectively, while News, Politics & History clocks in at 101 (sure to keep growing as the fall political campaign heats up). Meantime, my musical mission is highlighted by the 68 posts falling under Music, Bands & Radio, with many of those overlapping with the 50 I’ve assigned under the category, “Canada,” whose indie music scene I follow closely, as fan and blogger.

I’ve recently added a couple new categories–Sports and Food & Spirits, and tacked Bicycling on to the Urban Life, NYC category, as I had earlier omitted it. Considering that I bike approximately 40 miles per week in the city, during which I get some of my best blogging ideas and have adventures I later write about, I’m going to be blogging about biking from time to time, especially as biking becomes a civic and political issue in Gotham, with the BikeShare program due to start in 2013.

Another recent addition is the page at the top of the site called PT–Personal, a biographical sketch that is a counterpart to PT–Professional. In the former I chronicle my personal history from teenage years in Cleveland to the point at which I became a bookseller and editor, covered in the latter page. I will also soon be creating a page called PT–Photographs, where I’ll be posting pictures relevant to my personal history and pursuits.

Whether this is your first time on my site, or if you’re a frequent visitor, thanks for dropping by and spending time here. Please feel free to comment and share, or just to poke around and read. You needn’t leave any footprint at all, as I know that many readers prefer not to.

I want to close this 300th post by saying that in the build-up to what will be the one-year anniversary of the site in October, I will also be marking the 80th anniversary of the opening of the George Washington Bridge, aka The Great Gray Bridge, which I’ve previewed in this post. I invite you to check back again soon.

 

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A Presidential Barn Burner in Las Vegas

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As you’ll see in this 1:30 video, President Obama brought his ‘A’ game to the campaign trail today. In Las Vegas to give a speech on the differences between Mitt’s education policy and that of his administration, he hit a crescendo of tasks that remain undone after one term in office, and he exhorted everyone to help get him, and us, the second term he needs to carry on the job toward completion. H/t TPM and Benjy Sarlin for getting up the video and the story so quickly this afternoon.

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Hoist on their Own Petard

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Isn’t it the pinnacle of cynical political mendacity for establishment Republicans and Mitt Romney to try and shove Todd Akin out of the Missouri Senate race? First of all, he won a democratically contested primary just a few weeks ago. He got the most votes. Second, they’re not doing it because they find the views he expressed about rape and abortion objectionable. Instead, they’re trying to force him out because his ugly remark was stupid and puts them in bad odor politically. They’re trying to run away from this situation the same way they ran away from Mark Foley in the scandal involving  under-age congressional pages a few years ago. For them it’s all about appearances and how they look to women voters. It’s monumentally cynical because over the years they have clearly demonstrated how little regard they actually have for protecting women’s reproductive choices. Meantime, establishment types like John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell (who relishes the prospect of becoming Senate Majority Leader in 2013, but who may see it slipping away) have a problem on their right wing with the Family Research Council and other fervent anti-choice types increasingly alienated because of the pressure on Akin. Now that it seems clear Akin’s going to stay in the race, I expect to see a growing division at the Republican Convention among establishment types and social conservatives. It’s been reported today that the platform for their big shindig includes a plank devoted to denying access to abortion in all circumstances.

For this political observer, it’s going to be fascinating to observe them try to reconcile the conflicts in their party, and watch the gender gap continue to widen in President Obama’s favor in the presidential race. I think their Tampa convention next week may in its impact on the country come to resemble the 1992 tilt when Pat Buchanan ruined George H. W. Bush’s show, shocking the country with his noxious nativism.

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Romney & Ryan Stoking Racial Resentment

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Republicans should be careful, though they probably won’t be.

Stoking racial distrust and animus–as they’re gleefully doing over Joe Biden’s ‘chains’ remark this week, which I covered in a post titled Why Mitt’s Trying to Beat up on Joe Biden–may yield blowback. Their latest move is giving Artur Davis a key speaking role at the convention–he’s the African-American pol who lost his gubernatorial race in Alabama and then left the Democratic party. He’s this election season’s Zell Miller–a Southern DEM who’s claims to have been spurned by his party, only for the right-wing there’s the added benefit of him being black, so they can try and bash the president with added zest.

I recommend Jamelle Bouie’s Plum Line column yesterday that charted Davis’s political evolution.

In this over-heated political climate, with rampaging shooters targeting people every week, I fear the consequences of Republicans zealously making low information voters angrier than they are already, especially among those who believe that President Obama is ‘foreign,’ as Romney repeatedly intones to campaign crowds.

 

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Why Mitt’s Trying to Beat up on Joe Biden

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Just posted at the Plum Line: this really excellent political opinion column by Jamell Bouie. He gives an answer as to why Mitt has over the past 24 hours tried to blow up Joe Biden’s ‘chains’ remark into such a big deal: it’s cause he’s trailing in the election, by all reliable measures. “Losing” is Boulee’s word.

Borrowing an outlook from sports, I believe that if the campaign gets into the third quarter of the race (after Labor Day, after the autumn solstice) with current trends still favoring the president continuing, the professional political operatives on board the Romney team are going to need a series of Hail Mary passes to somehow get their candidate back in to the contest. With Mitt often being his own campaign manager, I’d say it’s him driving the over the top push-back against Biden, and continuing to air ads like the one falsely asserting Pres. Obama’s ruined the welfare law. Mitt himself may have written the fervid speech he game late last night, the one raising dungeon about Pres. Obama’s character, the one the Obama campaign this morning called “unhinged.” Bouie points out that one of the underpinnings within the Romney camp has been their presumed advantage with senior voters, but the Ryan pick is threatening to erode that big time. If so, pop goes one of the legs on their 3-legged stool.

As for the Obama camp’s response to the convenient outrage over Biden’s use of a loaded word, and their response to things like the welfare ad, I think they’re doing it right. Basically, they’ve made it clear they’re not having any crap, and they won’t be instructed by an opponent whose policies would damage the middle class–the big banks, the new shacklers that Biden was talking about–and which has been making stuff up about the president since their first TV ad.

The Plum Line, where Greg Sargent and Jonathan Bernstein also post, is one of my steady political reads on the Web

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Jeremy Fisher, True Troubador

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Jeremy Fisher isn’t a big person, but the singer-songwriter sure makes a big sound. It’d be hard to imagine more music coming from any other solo player. Along with his voice, his primary instrument is a weathered Gibson LG-2 guitar from which he punches out a great, full sound. His bright singing voice offers a lot of welcome contrast with that percussive Gibson, since I suspect it falls somewhere between the tenor and alto range. The lyrics he sings are deeply felt declarations that carry a personal, even existential quality.

I highly recommend all of Jeremy’s music, and particularly, his latest album, “Mint Juleps,”  a recording with five originals written by Jeremy and  covers of seven songs by such artists as Gordon Lightfoot, John Hiatt, and Greg Brown. Fisher makes each song his own in such a way that until I studied the album sleeve, I wasn’t sure which songs were his and which were the covers. “Spin, Spin, Spin” is a rare Gordon Lightfoot song, in that it hasn’t been sung by lots of other artists already. In a recent phone interview, Jeremy told me that was one of the reasons he chose it for the record. He said he wanted songs to which he knew he could add something new. That is certainly the case with Greg Brown’s ode to the bounty of summer, “Canned Goods,” about the pickles, tomatoes, and fruits his dear grandma put up for canning when he was a boy.

One of the highlights of attending the North by Northeast (NXNE) festival in Toronto in June was finally hearing Jeremy perform live. I had heard him on CBC Radio 3 many times, enjoying such songs as “Shine a Little Light” and “Jolene” (not Dolly Parton’s song of the same name) but I was unprepared for how bright, funny, and charismatic he is as a live performer. That week I heard him play at the Dakota Tavern showcase** hosted by his label Hidden Pony, and at the picnic hosted by CBC Radio 3 host and author Grant Lawrence, where I took this outdoor photo.

The title of the new album is not meant to remind listeners of the Kentucky Derby, or anything about America’s Old South. This Canadian composer wanted to evoke lazy summer days, or as he told me, “the kind of record I’d like to listen to while making brunch on a Sunday morning, or having a drink on a Friday afternoon.” He said he’s been playing other people’s songs ever since he started joining bands as a kid, playing songs by Canadian super-groups Blue Rodeo and the Tragically Hip. and later Beatles and Motown covers. They were the “starting point” for him as a songwriter. For the new album he played solo versions of the songs he’d decided to record and emailed the sound files to the musicians he’d asked to accompany him. This group included such standout Canadian musicians as Joey Wright, whose 2011 album “Hatch” I enjoy a lot. Adding a nice tough here, Wright plays guitar, mandolin, and tenor guitar. Based on his rough work-up, Jeremy told his musical recruits, “this is the feel I want, but I want fresh ideas every take. . . . I wanted the personalities of the players to shine through.”

The new album was engineered my Mark Ouimet, who also plays percussion and sings on several numbers. Among many favorite songs on the album, I’m especially enjoying “If It’s Alright With You,’ written by Gene MacClellan, which sports a great harmonica riff played by Jeremy himself. Listening to Jeremy Fisher’s latest recording of his favorite songs during this sweltering summer of 2012 one is left with an unmistakable impression of hearing a latter day Buddy Holly, a forgotten sibling to the Everly Brothers, or maybe Paul Simon. Even with all those classic rock and pop associations, which are not a stretch, Jeremy’s an original talent with a great feel for song–I recommend you listen to him for yourself.

**That Dakota showcase where I heard Jeremy Fisher also featured Erin Passmore, the Danks, Elephant Stone, and Rah Rah, each also clients of Hidden Pony. All five acts–including Jeremy who followed Erin–played great that night. Click here to view 15 of the photos I took during the showcase.

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5 Key Analyses of Mitt’s VP Pick

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I’m sure there will be lots more important columns to read as the process of vetting Paul Ryan moves forward, but this is where I recommend we begin. Dear readers, if you have faves of your own, please let me know what they are.

1) Greg Sargent’s take at the Plum Line on Mitt’s choice to double down on economic radicalism; 

2) Benjy Sarlin’s TPM piece, Democrats Can’t Wait to Run Against Paul Ryan’s Budget;

3) Also at TPM, Evan McMorris-Santoro reports that (incredibly, but typically and absurdly) Mitt’s already trying to distance himself from the Ryan Budget;

4) At the WonkBlog, Ezra Klein writes about what he believes the Ryan pick means, with a helpful 10 point list;

5) At NY magazine, Jonathan Chait explains It’s Paul Ryan’s Party: With Romney VP Pick, Movement Conservatives Openly Control GOP At Last.

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Another Wealthy Friend of Mitt’s (This One Lives in a House Like a Spaceship)

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Earlier I noted the strange AP photo of Mitt looking lost in a cornfield. Turns out there is a reason why Mitt was in the field with the two men, and as is usually true with Mitt it has to do with wealth. The figure on the left is Lemar Koethe, and according to a post by Stephen Lacey on ThinkProgress, Koethe is the owner of the spaceship-like house in the second photo here. (Photo: Debra Jane Seltzer via Roadside Architecture)

Lacey writes,

“In an attempt to show his concern for farmers hit by the devastating drought that has swept 78 percent of the country, Romney had a photo-op with Iowa ‘farmer’ Lemar Koethe. However, Koethe isn’t exactly the rugged down-home farmer struggling to keep his operation going that you might expect. Or should I say operations — 54 of them. Yes, according to the Des Moines Register, Koethe owns 54 soy and corn farms. And that’s just one of his jobs. In previous reports on his activity over the years from the Des Moines Register, Koethe is also a described as a millionaire, a real estate mogul, and a former concert promoter who booked acts like Slipknot at his 24,000 square foot event center. Like a lot of people in the agricultural sector, Koethe says the drought is hurting some of his crops. Ultimately, when it comes to voicing his concerns, it shouldn’t matter if the man owns one farm, 10 farms, or 54 farms — he’s taking a hit like everyone else. But really, Romney? Out of the hundreds of thousands of farmers being impacted by the drought — many of them family farmers struggling to keep their heads above water — you had to meet the millionaire real estate mogul who lives in a spaceship house with an underground car wash and recreation center?”
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