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What a peculiar day...
Jan. 19th, 2010 11:15 pmLike many others, I've been following the Massachusetts campaign. I was prepared for the Republican challenger to lose, or for it to be a squeaker, with another long drawn-out Minnesota-like recount. I was not prepared to learn, when I came upstairs to check the progress of the election returns, that Martha Coakley had conceded less than an hour after the polls closed.
Although Scott Brown's victory aligns with my politics, I'm not inclined to do any victory dances until both parties start moving away from the "aristocracy of pull" model -- where you can't tell the legislators from the lobbyists without a score card, and where the coin of the realm is campaign contributions, special exemptions, and pork.
EDIT: The picture makes no editorial statement. I just liked the odd couple.
Although Scott Brown's victory aligns with my politics, I'm not inclined to do any victory dances until both parties start moving away from the "aristocracy of pull" model -- where you can't tell the legislators from the lobbyists without a score card, and where the coin of the realm is campaign contributions, special exemptions, and pork.
EDIT: The picture makes no editorial statement. I just liked the odd couple.
Mmmmm. Mummers!
Jan. 1st, 2010 10:30 pmThis happens to be the Joseph A. Ferko String Band, which took second place this year. Quaker City took third.
We hung out at the Union League for its open house, eating oyster stew and big slabs of roast beef and drinking Fish House Punch, the official drink of The State in Schuylkill, America's oldest eating club. (Coincidentally, they have the archival storage locker next to my library association down in the basement of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.) That Fish House Punch stuff packs a mean wallop.
This is always a great beginning to the new year. I could wish, again, that I had a better camera. But other fine photographers with Nikon D-90s have been posting their photos on Flickr so I can enjoy the fruits of *their* labors.
We hung out at the Union League for its open house, eating oyster stew and big slabs of roast beef and drinking Fish House Punch, the official drink of The State in Schuylkill, America's oldest eating club. (Coincidentally, they have the archival storage locker next to my library association down in the basement of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.) That Fish House Punch stuff packs a mean wallop.
This is always a great beginning to the new year. I could wish, again, that I had a better camera. But other fine photographers with Nikon D-90s have been posting their photos on Flickr so I can enjoy the fruits of *their* labors.
String Band Rankings and YouTube Links
Jan. 4th, 2009 10:18 amBecause you can never have enough sequins and feathers in January.
These YouTube videos are quite good -- especially if you view them in high definition. To get a full appreciation of the madness, imagine playing a saxophone while dancing madly, after marching / playing / dancing for three miles, and with weather in the 20s and a bit of a breeze.
These YouTube videos are quite good -- especially if you view them in high definition. To get a full appreciation of the madness, imagine playing a saxophone while dancing madly, after marching / playing / dancing for three miles, and with weather in the 20s and a bit of a breeze.
Mummer pirates
Jan. 2nd, 2009 06:35 pmWe had the best Mummer's Day imaginable, even though it was bitterly cold.
We walked up Broad Street from Christian to Sansom, experiencing two very different parades. At Broad & Christian, the comic brigades (drunken pipefitters in drag) had just started their march. There were very few crowds there. Grand daughter was totally entranced, stood there like a toddler at the sight of its first Christmas tree. I think it was all the testosterone in the air.
Later we went to the Open House at the Union League, which included reserved bleachers just in front of the League House. The League writes the Mummers Association a check with many zeroes, as it has for years, and they perform for us. They were especially grateful this year as the Mayor has cut the city budget and there will be no funding for the Mummers in 2010, so folks like us are increasingly important. I sat in the cold for four hours, watching the end of the comics, the fancy brigades, and all 18 string bands without leaving my front row seat. Roy and our granddaughter brought me coffee every 45 min or so and checked to make sure I was still able to move.
This is granddaughter with a member of the Greater Kensington String Band, from their "A Pirate's LIfe for Me" 2009 theme. Click around the Flickr photostream for more Mummers.
The official Channel 17 video of them is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mVhaewTm3s
I have a partial video that I took with my little camera, but I am not sure I know how to use GoLive to edit it down to size.
We walked up Broad Street from Christian to Sansom, experiencing two very different parades. At Broad & Christian, the comic brigades (drunken pipefitters in drag) had just started their march. There were very few crowds there. Grand daughter was totally entranced, stood there like a toddler at the sight of its first Christmas tree. I think it was all the testosterone in the air.
Later we went to the Open House at the Union League, which included reserved bleachers just in front of the League House. The League writes the Mummers Association a check with many zeroes, as it has for years, and they perform for us. They were especially grateful this year as the Mayor has cut the city budget and there will be no funding for the Mummers in 2010, so folks like us are increasingly important. I sat in the cold for four hours, watching the end of the comics, the fancy brigades, and all 18 string bands without leaving my front row seat. Roy and our granddaughter brought me coffee every 45 min or so and checked to make sure I was still able to move.
This is granddaughter with a member of the Greater Kensington String Band, from their "A Pirate's LIfe for Me" 2009 theme. Click around the Flickr photostream for more Mummers.
The official Channel 17 video of them is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mVhaewTm3s
I have a partial video that I took with my little camera, but I am not sure I know how to use GoLive to edit it down to size.
