Happy New Year

/0 Comments/in /by

Here’s to a good 2013. Let’s be safe, strong and support each other. It’d be great if folks could be decent to each other, even kind, solicitous, and reciprocal. Or if all that’s too much, let’s just leave other alone. As an accompaniment to my New Year’s message, here’s an image of “The Circus,” A. Logan (1874) is from the splendid exhibit about circus art that my wife and I viewed on my birthday a few months ago, on September 22. You can see more art like this in the post, Life is a Carnival.  The title of that post is an homage to the song of the same name by The Band from their album “Cahoots.”

Read more

Our Holiday Soundtrack–Ralph Vaughan Williams and Bob Dylan with Friends

/0 Comments/in , /by

Last night in my household we listened to music from several old LPs featuring folk songs, folk themes, and original music for chamber groups and orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), the English composer whose work I’ve listened to since I was a student at Franconia College, a student at Franconia College, when a professor there, Bill Congdon, turned me on to his music. Appropriate to the season, we heard RVW’s arrangements of “Wassail Song,” and similar songs. Not carols, exactly, but old folk songs of the season. I’m Jewish and so don’t observe Christmas, but I do love this music without reservations. RVW was part of a worldwide interest in folk idioms that also engaged many of his musical forebears and contemporaries in other countries–like Smetana and Dvorak in Hungary and Czechoslovakia; Sibelius in Finland; and Aaron Copland in the States. Like Alan Lomax in the U.S. in later decades, RVW took early recording equipment in to the field and had nonprofessional musicians sing and play songs for him, also making notes of what he was told. It should be said, that Vaughan Williams didn’t just take folk themes and rework them–he was also a bold, original composer with an edge, exhibited in such works as his modernist Fourth and Sixth symphonies.

Famously, RWV arranged and reworked “Greensleeves,” as a song, and as a suite for orchestra, and many lesser known songs with names like “The Captain’s Apprentice,” “The Lark in the Morning,” “Bushes and Briars, and “The Unquiet Grave.” His output was vast and in the years when vinyl was still the dominant music medium I bought a lot of it. When I visited London for the first time, in 1980, I bought secondhand albums, releases that were never even brought out in the U.S., such as EMI’s boxed set of his nine symphonies and other orchestral music, conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. The album covers still bear the name of the dealer where I found them, Harold Moores Records. The records I bought there all evidently came from a public or college library, because inside I found little index cards, which had noted each time a patron or student had checked out the item. On “English Folk Songs, Arranged by Ralph Vaughan Williams, with the Purcell Singers conducted by Imogen Holst” a tiny, spidery hand had recorded each of the 13 times the album  was requested and played between 1963-78.  A scant 13 plays in 15 years? The album was in great shape when I brought it back home, and still is. Checking the Internet, I see that Harold Moores Records is still in business on Great Marlborough Street in London.

This afternoon, we made a change of pace and have been listening to a magnificent live album, “Bob Dylan–The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration,” the Madison Square tribute concert staged in 1992 to commemorate Dylan’s first recordings. This is a 3-LP six-sided banquet that features guest performances of 28 Dylan songs by–brace yourself, in order–John Mellencamp; Stevie Wonder; Eddie Vedder; Lou Reed; Tracy Chapman; Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash; Willie Nelson; Kris Kristofferson; Johnny Winter; Ron Wood; Richie Havens; the Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem; Mary Chapin-Carpenter, Rosanne Cash, and Shawn Colvin; Neil Young; Chrissie Hynde; Eric Clapton; the O’Jays; The Band; George Harrison; Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers; and Roger McGuinn. The house band was Booker T & the MGs, while Al Kooper makes a key appearance on Mellencamp’s rendition of “Like a Rolling Stone.” Toward the end, Dylan steps on stage at the Garden to play 4 songs, “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),” “Girl of the North Country,” and “My Back Pages and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” with McGuinn, Harrison, Clapton, Petty, and Neil. I bought my copy about 15 years ago, again secondhand, and it still sounds great, as day has slipped on toward night.

Read more

Benjamin Wheeler, “Nearly Always at Full Tilt”

/0 Comments/in /by

Readers of this blog may have noted my recent post, Benjamin Wheeler, September 12, 2006-December 15, 2012–RIP, about one of the children murdered last Friday in Newtown, CT, and his father, David Cole Wheeler, with whom I was a co-worker at Avalon Publishing Group from 2001-2006. When I put up that post on Saturday there was no picture yet online of young Benjamin, but I see tonight that the Wheeler family has now released a photograph of their handsome young boy, and I am sharing it here.

A full obituary has now run in the Newtown Bee:

Benjamin Andrew Wheeler

Benjamin Andrew Wheeler was born in Manhattan, September 12, 2006, and moved to Newtown in April 2007 with his parents, Francine and David Wheeler, and his now 9-year-old brother, Nate.

Ben died December 14.

Inspired by dear friends who had made the move some years before, the family found a house in Sandy Hook and a cultural, spiritual, and creative home in the rare collection of priorities and spirit that is Newtown. Since then, Francine has become a fixture in Newtown as a music educator and performer, and more broadly, as a founding member of the children’s music group, The Dream Jam Band, while David works as an illustrator and designer. Both of them are members of Newtown’s own Flagpole Radio Cafe live radio show.

Ben was an irrepressibly bright and spirited boy whose love of fun and excitement at the wonders of life and the world could rarely be contained. His rush to experience life was headlong, creative, and immediate.

He was a devoted fan of his older brother, Nate, and the two of them together filled the house with the noise of four children. He loved the local soccer program, often running across the field long after it was actually necessary, but always smiling and laughing as he moved the ball, nearly always at full tilt. He was becoming a strong swimmer and loved his lessons.

Eager to learn, he could not wait to get to school to see his teacher and his growing group of new first grade friends. Ben was also a member of Tiger Scout Den 6, which met at the Sandy Hook Volunteer Firehouse.

Earlier in December, Ben performed at his piano recital, and sitting still long enough to play one piece was an accomplishment he reveled in. He loved The Beatles, lighthouses, and the number 7 train to Sunnyside, Queens.

In a conversation with Francine before school on Friday, he said, “I still want to be an architect, but I also want to be a paleontologist, because that’s what Nate is going to be and I want to do everything Nate does.”

He will be sadly missed by his loving parents; his brother Nate; his grandparents Carmen and Annette Lobis of Garnet Valley, Penn., Ellsworth and Kay Wheeler of Charleston, S.C., and Harry Berquist of Newport News, Va.; great-grandmother Sophia Turchi of Broomall, Penn.; aunts and uncles Michael and Sheila Lobis, Anthony and Colleen Lobis, and Steven and Ann Lobis, all of Penn., Jeffrey and Dawn Wheeler of Wash., and Andrew and Jamie Wheeler of Hawaii; great-aunts and uncles James and Nancy Cole of Va., Robert Lobis of Colo., and Michael Lobis, Marianne Stewart, and Marie Turchi, all of Penn.; and numerous cousins and friends. He was predeceased by grandmother Ann Cole Berquist.

It is suggested that memorial donations be made to the Benjamin Wheeler Fund, c/o Trinity Episcopal Church, 36 Main Street, Newtown CT 06470.

The family will receive visitors at the Trinity Episcopal Church, Newtown, Wednesday, December 19, from 4 to 8 pm. The funeral will be held at the church Thursday, December 20, at 11 am. Burial will be private.
The B.C. Bailey Funeral Home of Wallingford has been entrusted with the arrangements. To leave a message of remembrance, please visit www.BCBailey.com.

—

My deepest condolences to David, Ben’s mother Francine, and their older son, Nate. Please feel free to leave a comment in space below, if you worked at Avalon with us, or would just like to say something.

 

 

Read more

Dogs Giving Comfort in Newtown

/0 Comments/in /by

A K-9 team of comfort dogs has been flown from Chicago to Newtown, CT to be available to grieving children and adults to be petted and hugged for consolation in the wake of the mass murders there last Friday. As reported by Naomi Nix in the Chicago Tribune, ten golden retrievers, including the dogs pictured here–Chewie, Ruthie, and Luther–are now in the small town, provided by Lutheran Church Charities. Nix’s story adds,

The dogs have been helpful even to those without children in Sandy Hook Elementary School . . . organizers said. “I asked [one man] how he is doing. He just kind of teared up and said: ‘This year, I’ve lost five loved ones and now this happened,’  Hetzner said. ”The whole town is suffering.“ The comfort-dog initiative first started in 2008 at Northern Illinois University after a gunman killed five students. . . . [It] was so successful that weeks later students petitioned university leadership to bring comfort dogs back to campus, Hetzner said. The initiative has grown from a handful of dogs in the Chicago area to 60 dogs in six different states, he said. Since then, the dogs have traveled across the nation to comfort people in the aftermath of major tragedies such as, Hurricane Sandy, and the tornado that hit Joplin, MO. On Monday, the dogs plan to be with Sandy Hook students for after-school activities.

Amid this tragedy, it gladdens my heart that these dogs will be in the town to be held and hugged, to give back what dogs do give, unconditional love. H/t Michael Rosenwald of the Washington Post who tweeted this earlier.

Read more

Tweeting a Colleague’s Sad Loss in Newtown

/0 Comments/in /by

Read more

Benjamin Wheeler, September 12, 2006-December 14, 2012–RIP

/0 Comments/in /by

My sadness and anger over the shootings at the elementary school in Connecticut grew this afternoon when I learned that the 6-year old son of a former colleague was among the children killed in the incident. From 2000 through 2006 I worked at Carroll & Graf Publishers, part of the Avalon Publishing Group, and during that time David Cole Wheeler worked in Avalon’s art department as a designer of covers and book interiors. For much of that time, his work station was directly across from my office, and Cole–as he was then known–and I spoke often, about books, design, politics, and New York City. He was a close work friend. Occasionally, I remember seeing his wife Francine come by the office.

On September 11, 2001, Avalon’s office was in lower Manhattan only a couple blocks from the World Trade Center. Many Avalon colleagues experienced that day together–I ran from the building with a co-worker–and months of upset and distress followed, as we continued working in that stricken neighborhood. In 2002, the company moved uptown to Chelsea but all of us having been through so much together, Avalon remained a pretty tight workplace, with a lot of close work friendships. We went our separate ways when Avalon was sold to Perseus Books in 2007, but folks have tended to keep in touch. Earlier this year, several of us came together on Facebook after learning of the sudden death of our office manager, David Ortiz, who was killed in an accident in San Diego where he had moved with his wife. I really liked David, and sadly, had written a recommendation for him on LinkedIn shortly before his death. How unsettling it is to know that that is still there on line.

I’d heard that after Avalon broke up, Cole–who’d begun using his proper first name, David–and Francine had moved out of the city and moved to Connecticut. Tonight, I got a message from longtime friend and Avalon colleague, Keith Wallman. The Wheelers’ six-year old son Benjamin was among those murdered in Newtown. This sketch of Benjamin is in the Washington Post tonight:

Benjamin Wheeler
Benjamin Wheeler, 6, was “a very spirited boy,” said Rabbi Shaul Praver of Adath Israel in Newtown.  He and his parents, David and Francine Wheeler, were not members of the synagogue, but they attended its Hanukkah  celebration.
“There’s always some brave individual who goes up to the dance floor to get everybody involved. That was Ben Wheeler,” he said. “Just delightful people.”
The Wheelers did not want to talk to the media Saturday, said a man who answered the phone at their home. The Episcopal bishops of Connecticut said the family were members of Trinity Episcopal Church of Newton. A volunteer there said the church lost several congregants in the shooting and the rector, the Rev. Kathie Adams-Shepherd, was ministering to them Saturday.

My deepest sympathy and condolences to David and Francine, and their older son, Nate. I’ve been thinking of them all night. They will remain in my heart.

Read more