In which we dabble more in the music queue

Music (Audit division)"

• Dan Fogelberg, 'Souvenirs." Lots of folksy stuff in his second album. When I originally came to him, it was a bit later, and he was a bit solider. That stuff that first drew me to him should be somewhere in the queue for the future. This one is not unpleasant, though.
• "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, LTD" by the Monkees is, I think 4th album. And is the predictable collection of hits and forgettables. But then “Cuddly Toy” came on, and I was reminded of the line in the documentary “Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?)” where someone said, after the Monkees recorded this song of his, that his life would change. It did. I am a big Harryhead, as they say, having come to him late (he was already dead when I came across a greatest hits collection that started me collecting all of his albums) and having never left. "Nilsson Schmilsson," for instance, is in my GOATs playlist. And one of my favorite pieces of trivia is that both Cass Elliot and Keith Moon died in Nilsson’s London apartment (although I’m pretty sure he wasn’t there on either occasion). Anyhow, I recommend the movie. (And I enjoyed this album.)
• McGuinn and Hillman’s cleverly named album "McGuinn-Hillman." A couple of Byrds, and I can always listen to anything by any of them. 500 Songs’s Andrew Hickey goes into great detail on Hillman, including giving him credit for much of what Gram Parsons always gets sole credit for. I tend to believe Hickey’s interpretation of things, and am on the hunt for all the Hillman I can get going forward. (I was already tracking down McGuinn.) We’ll see how that goes. Anyhow, this is a very enjoyable album.
• "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" by Eno and Byrne. Electronica. Moby liked it, per the quote on the album cover. I didn’t.
• "Working on Time" - Maarten Altena Ensemble. I don’t know why this modern music album was in my list. It quickly went the way of "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts."
• The Remains, self-titled first album. This album was released in the 90s, but there was no question of its 60s sound. At first I thought it was some 90s group pretending to be a 60s group—the 90s were the Ironic Era, remember—but it turns out they really were a struggling American 60s group. The production isn’t great, but you can hear some very interesting songwriting despite none of the tracks standing out. When I looked them up I learned their interesting story, which includes opening for the Beatles, and bouncing from record company to record company, and then as artists playing on others’ albums. (Speaking of which, reading Dave Mason’s obituary, I didn’t remember he had played with so many others on their records. RIP.) There isn’t that much more the of the recorded Remains to listen to, but I will definitely listen to whatever there is.
• Larry Williams was a fantastic R&B singer/songwriter. He’s the man behind “Boney Maroney” and “Dizzy, Miss Lizzy” for starters. "Here’s Larry Williams" was his first album. It’s fantastic, and it was hard to avoid the temptation to toss literally all of the songs into my main playlist.

In which the NYSFL has its moment

Right now you are probably asking yourself, I wonder how States went over the weekend? Well, I'm happy to fill you in.

For reasons that will elude me to the grave—in fact, I can see myself on my death bed turning to the love ones around me, gathered there to see me off in some semblance of style, and whispering with my last breath, “Why the fig jam do they do that?”—the 5th and last round of the debate prelims is a flip round, even though in the previous 4 rounds were not flip. And this is both in LD and PF. What is the point? What is it about the 5th round that suddenly the basic business we've been handling the first four rounds is suddenly unacceptable? What were they smoking back in the Eisenhower Administration or whenever when they came up with this wrinkle? By the way, they also do this at CatNats. Go figure. 

I bring this up because making this happens requires a switch in the software before round 5 is paired. The switch makes all the rounds, in PF and then in LD, flip-for-sides. This is not a problem when you are then going into elims, which are all traditionally flip-for-sides. But if, in 2025 you have flipped that switch and then never switched it back, round 1 in 2026 is, voila!, flip-for-sides.

Oops.

Fortunately this was only a minor setback, and we probably didn’t lose too much time, since the first round is always rife with confusion anyhow. Still, it was a pain. So it goes.

The good news is that Kaz was back with us, She and I make a good team, and we get things done. One of the most fun parts of the deal is when you actually have to play with something, like balancing judge usage and judge rating in a large double-flighted round. You could just press the button and devil take the hindmost, but good tabbing evens everything out for the sake of the most possible fairness across the board. And, of course, it has to be done quickly. This is where teamwork is essential, meaning a good team is essential. Kaz and I (or any combination of Kaz, Janet, Vaughan, myself, Frank O’Bono, Catholic Charlie) can do this well. I mean, we do it all the time, and we pride ourselves on it: best possible pairings. (The other thing we pride ourselves on is fixing our mistakes quickly; we’re not perfect, after all. But we can see mistakes that may not be obvious, and quickly fix them one way or another. That is also a good tabbing skill.) So, three cheers, us. 

After that first minor setback, we zipped right along, and by the end of Saturday we were right on schedule. Sunday, with three judges in every round, had a realistic enough schedule to give the debaters plenty of time in between rounds. It was tight once or twice, but only because the occasional schmegeggie took forever to fill out their ballot. On occasion we would send our enforcer, Amy from Upstate, to set them on the straight and narrow. (I only ever see Amy from Upstate at States; she would be useful everywhere! What tournament doesn’t need some serious enforcement?) 

On Saturday, Mr. Softee (or the legal equivalent) showed up when the sun was shining and the air was warm, and before long he had an endless line for the rest of the day. Catholic Charlie and Rick O’Bono flashed their tab FastPass credentials to get to the front of the line, but when Kaz and I went out, we weren’t under any pressure and were happy to just stand out in the sunshine. And, after all, there was a nice chocolate sundae to be had for the waiting. Sadly, Mr. S  (or the legal equivalent) came back on Sunday for a cold, rainy day relatively free of ice cream seekers. Oh, well. He broke the bank on one of the days. That was, hopefully, good enough. 

And then it was over, another States in the books, and we were all very satisfied with the weekend as a whole. We’ll see you all again next April, back at good old Bronx Science. 

Next up, CatNats!

In which we listen to a little music

The initial pairings are ready for States tomorrow morning, so I'm using the downtime before dinner to write this...

Music (audit division): 

• "Wings Deluxe" is a recent compilation, and apparently it’s the definitive one, if the critics are to be believed. I listened to it and by the end realized that Wings had some good songs, but if they hadn’t existed, I wouldn’t have invented them. At least Sir Paul still had his voice back then, compared to his latest recording where he sounds old and raspy because, well, he is old and raspy. More power to him; I’m pretty old and raspy myself. But then again, I haven’t recorded any albums lately.  
• "Lyle Lovett and his Large Band" has some of his best work. He’s on my constant total-oeuvre replay, and I’ve seen him numerous times. In other words, I’m a fan.
• "Another Night" by the Hollies. Yet again the group puts out a couple of really good songs amid a bunch of okay songs. More power to them, too. 
• Maria Muldaur's "Open Your Eyes" was released in 1979, and somehow I missed it. She’s in my Lyle category; I constantly work through all her stuff, and when I get to the end, I start again. And I’ve seen her numerous times. In other words, I’m a fan of her too.
• Next up, Spotify’s playlist of the Essential Gladys Knight. Andrew Hickey, in "The History of Rock in 500 Songs," explains how Knight was, early in her career, poised to be another Aretha. Or vice versa. I don’t remember the details, but his discussion moved me to do a thorough canvass of her work. There’s perfectly good music to be heard, but nothing blew me away. The woman certainly can sing, though…
• "With the Beatles," because they too are on my endless replay. I won’t bother to defend my fandom.
• Redbone, "Already Here." This group, with Chicano and Native American heritages, would have been a big hit with me if I had known them at the time (69-77). I’ve been enjoying going through all their work chronologically, and occasionally popping a tune over to my main playlist. Solid rock. 
• Sanseverino X Lise. That is, Sanseverino and Lise Cabaret (whoever she is). I’ve been a buff of this old-fashioned “gypsy” style jazz (apologies for the use of that word) ever since “The Triplets of Belleville,” which led to Django, which led to Stephane Grappelli, except it really started with Grappelli with his great post-Django albums of swing violin from the 70s. (Okay, I don’t know where it started, but I know I started listening to Grappelli myself in the eighties.) Anyhow, that’s where Sanseverino fits in, and I like most of his stuff, although occasionally he gets a little outre for my blood. This was a good one, with a reprise of his big hit, “À l'enterrement de ma grand-mère,” the bounciest dead grandmother song ever. 
• After that, I ran through another big collection of Fats Waller, because, well, I love Fats Waller. So sue me. 
• I rewatched the whole Beatles Anthology series on Disney+ when the new episode came along, and then I listened to Anthology 4. TBH, it can’t hold the proverbial candle to the first three sets, which had plenty of truly revelatory music on it. The problem is that A4 covers mostly the same stuff, and, well, the best was already taken. So there’s a couple of interesting tracks of just harmonizing, or the background music, but no real rethinking of songs that make you marvel at how they created what they created. 
• I saw him rocking away on some TV show, so I figured I’d try Kenny Chesney’s Greatest Hits. It’s pure country pop, and probably as good as country pop gets. The thing is, I’m not a fan of country pop, so I was disappointed. Bottom line: he’s not making music for me, but the zillions of people he is making music for are getting their money’s worth.

And that's it for now. Excelsior!

In which we look forward to States

And what about States this coming weekend, you ask.

Well, first of all, it looks pretty big. 140 or so LDers, 250 or so PFers, both across three divisions. That’s a bit bigger than last year, which while problematic when it comes to finding tournament spaces, is good news for debate in the region. Keep in mind that there is plenty of debate in addition to those who have States on their calendars, and overall I think we’re in good shape. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, debate is the best thing to happen to education since the invention of the pencil box, and the more of it, regardless of predictably differing views on its execution, the better. Of course, all those debaters puts a little pressure on the tab room, but once again Kaz will be onboard with me, so things should move smoothly. 

Most of what we do is straightforward according to Hoyle. Saturday prelims, Sunday elims. 5 double-flighted prelim rounds, 2 presets and 3 hi-los. Breaking roughly a third of each field, which is more than fair. Nothing unusual so far. In fact, the only unusual thing is that, if you have teams in semis, you are eliminated from that judging pool. (Judges are obligated for the whole tournament.) This rule goes back to the Pleistocene, and it’s not terribly problematic tabbing-wise, but it is on the books until the regional directors remember to remove it. More importantly, we do try to free up judges with no one in the late elims if they travel a long distance, from either the frozen Albanyish north or the remote verges of Long Island. If you have a long trip home, we’ll try to make it happen. It’s the locals who will get the final round nod.

To be honest, I can’t remember anything, well, memorable, from recent States. (Stateses?) It was nice when we were down at Hofstra, which was very good with its support of the league, but we lost that over the pandemic. Since then the Bronx has picked up the goodness reins, and I don’t know how we could do it without them. But the tournament itself tends to run fairly hitchless. We pair, we post, we chase down the usual judges who are allergic to Acknowledge buttons, we pair again… With 6 debate divisions, not to mention all the action with Congress and Speecho-Americans, it’s a busy weekend. But I know from my own experiences back in the day, a rewarding one for the students. They have made it to a selective culminating event. They rub elbows with their peers from across the state. They have a good experience and maybe even win a prize. And the tournament is generous to the students, allowing at-larges and not charging an arm and a leg, since all we have to do is cover the usual costs. What better way to end a debate season?  

In which we take a little trip

 Journeys: "I once spent a year in Philadelphia, I think it was on a Sunday." — W. C. Fields

Despite being a great fan of Mr. Fields, I disagree with him on the merits of what was essentially his home town. Then again, I think he just liked saying “Philadelphia,” much as he liked saying “cockaleekie soup” or “shades of Bacchus.” I’m disappointed that he never heard of Tuckahoe, but I can’t imagine that one getting past the movie censors of the day.

Anyhow, we just came back from a few years days in Philadelphia, and I must say that I find it a great city to visit. In fact, we’ve been doing so for nigh on to fifty years now. In the beginning it was for the history, and we explored all the crooks and nannies around the Independence Hall and the south side, before and after our daughter was born. Then there were the wilderness years of the Villiger and Penn tournaments, away from center of things, aside from staying in the middle of town for early Penn visits and taking the trolley up to the college. (Once we even stayed at what was, if I remember correctly, a half-hospital half-hotel place within walking distance of the school with a lot of wheelchairs by the elevator.) Lately it’s been for long weekends, this latest one driven by the need to visit the Universal exhibit at the Franklin Institute, and then whatever art we could find in the neighborhood. Given that the strip where we stayed has enough museums to sink a battleship, we had come to the right place. 

First of all, as W. C. would probably have been happy to inform you, everything major is closed on Wednesdays. Fortunately we have a penchant for digging up minor sites and found the Museum for Art in Wood which is, indeed, a museum of wood art objects. Definitely worth a visit, even if it wasn't Wednesday. 

The next day was devoted to the Philadelphia Museum of Art Philadelphia Art Museum (they recently changed the name because the old name was so confusing and the new name just nailed it, which is very Philadelphian of them). This is a spectacular collection worthy of a major city with some great gems. I made it from pre-Renaissance to post-Impressionism, regularly wondering sticky-fingeredly if they would miss some of the smaller pieces no one was paying attention to. In addition to stuff on the wall, there are a lot of recreated rooms, like the Gilded Age one below. I am a big fan of recreated rooms. That is one of my favorite areas of the Met. 

The next morning it was off to the Franklin Institute for their Universal exhibit. It was not bad, but it was all about how they do modern stuff (I get it, it’s a science museum) rather than any sort of historical retrospective, as the Disney exhibit a couple of years had been. I enjoyed it, though. 

And then, the Barnes. 

The Barnes is an interesting place. You can read all about it here if you’re interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_Foundation Today it is something of a standard museum, but with walls-full of paintings arranged higgledy-piggledy. 

The picture is of probably the biggest display room in the place. Most of the galleries are small, with dozens and dozens of paintings up and down the walls. But they have this great app that allows you to point at a picture and get the info on it. Better still, when you get home, there is an email in your inbox containing all the pix you took a shot of. 

The Barnes is a place where you go exploring. You could just walk around and look at everything and pick out the pictures you like and study them more closely. Or you can pick one artist and track that one. Or whatever. It’s a far cry from the usual chronological narratives of most museums, but it’s perfectly acceptable. For me, it was mostly tracking down the Cezannes. Between the Art Museum and the Barnes, there are apparently more Cezannes in Philadelphia than anywhere else in the world. Loving Cezanne more and more as time goes on is probably a cliche. I can stare at his work forever. There are probably plenty of other reasons to go to Philadelphia, but none better than Cezanne in both museums. On the other hand, if you can go through the Barnes and not come out wishing never to see another Renoir, your constitution is stronger than mine. Yes, the landscapes. No, the kewpie dolls. Barnes the man was a big collector of both Cezanne and Renoir. I mean, they do each have their unique color palettes that mark most of their work from across the room and down the hall and around the corner. But other than that? Beats me. There’s also a few nice M/a-o/nets hither and thither. You can learn a lot about art history from the Art Museum. You can learn a lot about what you like at the Barnes. And there you are.

One odd note. We had dinner one night at a restaurant called Maggiano’s. There are a few of these in various cities, and they’re very old-fashioned Italian, but pretty good. The one in Philadelphia has a back room for banquets. As we were sitting there over starters, a troop of teenagers marched out of that back room. Ten, twenty, thirty… I reminisced about large groups of debaters at travel tournaments, and still they poured out. Forty, fifty, sixty… By the time over a hundred clowns had exited the VW, we could no longer hazard a guess of who or why. And then the next thing you knew, another army of them came in from the outside and took over where the first army had decamped. As we were leaving we grabbed a couple of this endless stream of adolescence back and forth and learned that California has a habit of shipping it’s teenagers across the country at Springtime to get a view of how the other half lives. They had started in D.C. and would end up in NYC, lapping up all the historical sights along the way. And, apparently , filling up the back rooms of every restaurant they could find that could fit them. Who knew? 

All in all, a nice couple of days. And now it's back to the salt mines and getting ready for States this weekend. Onward!

In which we watch a little television

There are shows I watch alone, and shows I watch en famille. Here’s three of the latter.

The Cormoran Strike series probably shakes all sorts of skeletons in the literary closet, and for that matter just plain skeletons in general. You can’t talk about a Rowling project without addressing the transphobic elephant in the room, but now I just have and we’ll let it go at that. Suffice it to say that I have not embargoed her work, but also have not embraced her cause. Make of that what you will, because I barely know what to make of it myself. I admit to enjoying the Strike books, until they got longer than, say, Dickens, at which point they are decidedly NOT Dickens, and that was the end of that. (Speaking of Dickens and Rowling in the same breath, you have to rank the two of them at the top of character namers; witness Mr. Murdstone or Severus Snape, for example.) But the TV version is spot on. The actors in the leading parts are absolutely perfect. We just finished the latest series on HBO/Max, but I was happy to find that there’s yet another one in the works. Will Strike and Robin get it on before the series ends?

Speaking of HBO and Rowling, the preview of their new Harry Potter series is inescapable. And, from the looks of it, the series couldn’t be any more unnecessary. Given the difference between movies and TV series, sure, there will certainly be a lot that wasn’t covered in the eight movies, but for God’s sake, people, move on! If you must continue in the Potterverse, make new stories, or new Universal attractions, or anything with the word new in it. How many times can you dig in the same hole and still find treasure?

Speaking of treasure—if you know the story you understand the segue—the second of our family shows these days is PBS’s “The Count of Monte Crisco.” It’s not great but it’s far from terrible, and since I have never read Dumas (oh, the shame of it!) this gives me a chance to finally learn what the story is all about. It’s a Masterpiece Theatre production from the get-go. You either like that sort of thing or you don’t. We mostly do. 

And the third show, also Masterpiece T, is “The Forsytes.” Ah, that brings me back. My first real dive into audiobooks, back when they were literally books on tape, was The Forsyte Chronicles, the whole endless cycle of trilogies and interludes and God knows what-all. Books on Tape, in caps, was, if I am not mistaken, primarily a project for the blind at the time. And when cassette players started to appear in automobiles, a project for commuters. I listened, and listened, and listened… For dessert I listened to Churchill’s The Gathering Storm before going on to cover the next 5 volumes on paper.  Which relates back to Forsyte, because the very first Masterpiece Theatre was “The First Churchills,” which I watched at the time, and the whole MT series was predicated on the success of the BBC’s “The Forsyte Saga.” It’s all related. Anyhow, the latest version is on the edge of watchable, because it has too many characters in too many small bites to get any real narrative juice going. We’ve watched the first two and will stick with it for at least one more, but if it doesn’t slow down soon we may not finish it. Galsworthy wrote enough books to take over a whole couple of networks for millennia; downing them all in one Cliff’s Note seems either unambitious or too ambitious, depending on your point of view. Anyhow, as I say, we’ll stick with it a little while longer. The performers are all fine; it’s the writing that’s suspect. 

In which we do not tee off

 I was supposed to play golf today, but we abide by the 50 degree rule: if it’s not over 50 degrees, we don’t play. Golf is supposed to be fun in the sun, not shivering in the damp. Oh, well. We haven’t played yet this year, but I did take a whack at a few balls on the range a couple of days ago, so when we finally do get out there, I’ll be marginally warmed up and ready for action. Meanwhile, if I can’t play golf, there’s always blogging.

Books (audio division): After dumping Bleak House, I went for Jim Butcher’s Dead Beat, which is #7 of the Dresden books. As always, it did the job. In aid of changing the mood entirely, after finishing off the wizard in Chicago, I then went to Judi Dench’s Shakespeare: The Man who Pays the Rent. I found this to be different from what I was expecting, which was some sort of memoir. Instead, it’s an exploration of Shakespeare by a noted player—not, btw, narrated by said noted player—and as such it’s really interesting and, at the same time, a pretty lousy audiobook. With audio I am on the lookout for fast-paced narratives. I listen while I’m walking, which in its own way sets the parameters of what works or not. Slow-paced simply doesn’t make it; one needs the beating of the drum to keep the galley oars ploughing the waters. (And, as noted previously with Bleak House, some idea that the end is in sight before one shuffles off the Mortal C). So Dame J only got an hour before I turned to The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door by H. G. Parry, which got off to a great start. I loved her The Magician’s Daughter, although I didn’t much care for her A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, which just goes to show that you can’t win them all. She’s quite prolific, and I’m hoping that in the long run I’ll be falling on the like side more often than not. 

Television: My general evening viewing usually includes an episode of an hour-long series, followed by an episode of a half-hour comedy. This means that I have watched a lot of half-hour comedies. Now, if you’re watching something that is allegedly funny, it is not out of the realm of possibility that you might expect to laugh out loud on occasion. But, sadly, no matter how good a show is, the idea of LOL is way more likely than the reality. But in the immortal words of the Wizard of Oz, “Not so fast. Not so fast!” 

Enter “Vicious,” stage left. This is truly a laugh-out-loud program. It may be one of the funniest shows ever. This week I finished the first season with their Christmas show, and watched the most droll and perhaps longest double-take ever, to which the whole season was building up. Ian McKellen is a gift to humanity. His costar, Derek Jacobi, is no slouch either. I’m mildly reminded of “The Thick of It” as far as the writing here is concerned. The show is available on Prime, and if you don’t start watching it now, you deserve to watch every Trump speech in hell for all eternity. (For that matter, you have watched “The Thick of It”, right? The source of the phrase “as useless as a marzipan dildo”? I mean, seriously, if not, you need to catch up.)

And I don’t think I mentioned that I finished the first season of “The Punisher.” I know I’ve mentioned these second-tier Netflix Marvel shows in general before. They are now part of Disney+, and I’ve been working my way through them methodically, and while I don’t think they’re for the ages, they are perfectly entertaining (if slightly drawn out). I’m now watching the second Luke Cage series (I’m doing them in order, and for the record, already watched Jessica Jones season two out of order before I cottoned to the fact that all the different shows were a set.) I hope to catch up to the recently released Daredevil seasons sometime before the second J. D. Vance Administration. 

Gaming: Having given up on Indy and the Great Circle, I went on to the highly rated Astrobot, which is cute but not compelling unless you’re in the mood for that sort of thing. I had fun with it for a little while, and then went on to Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. I’ve made it as far as having to assemble a crew and collect money by traversing Honolulu regularly fighting, as the game announces boldly, “ASSHOLES!” I got it at a good discount and I might or might not stick with it. I find that if I play daily, games work well for me. If I take too much of a break, they’re hard-pressed to bring me back. But overall, I feel that I get my money’s worth out of them. I know that my granddaughter will enjoy Astrobot when she visits this summer. And I’ve been pointed to a good two-person game for her age group, to wit, Lego Voyagers. This means getting a second controller and, jeesh, they’re not giving away those babies away anywhere. But one seldom weighs the price of amusing a grandchild versus the value.