Started my official touring of Israel after a weekend in Tel Aviv.
Memorial marks roughly the positioning of the stage at Yasgur Farms where the Woodstock Festival occured. The attendees would have been on the hill in the distance
I’ve been a fan of 50s music since I became fond of the classic movie, Back to the Future, as a child, and came to listen to a lot of music from that era.
The Jarmels
The audience was also from that era. The majority of people there were of an older bent. The Jarmels were only 33% original, and 66% replacement. But I am always struck by the performances by doo wop groups, and what they do with their hands and feet while performing…something you can’t hear in the recording. The Jarmels only had one hit, A Little Bit of Soap.
Kid Kyle was one of the youngest people there, except me. Of course, he got paid. He’s just under 22 and has been singing doo-wop since he was 8. It is nice to see that these songs will not die with their originators and original fans.
The Toys were formed in 1961 in Jamaica, Queens. Barbara Harris, the lead singer of the Toys, is still actively touring with two younger musicians. While it was my least favorite act, mostly because I found the pitch painful because I was too close to the right speaker( 5 rows from the front), Harris was impressive in the energy she is still able to convey. She had several Senior Citizens dancing in the aisles.
The Elegants also only had a single hit…Little Star, which Vito Picone recorded when he was 17. Now 75, he and the remaining Elegants performed not only that song, but a doo-wop cover of Ray Charles’ Georgia(Picone oddly put on dark sunglasses for that), as well as several other songs.
Kid Kyle and Co
Finally, the Tokens appeared. Out of these groups, I had seen the Tokens perform before. Their version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, with Jay Siegel still able to hit the high notes he hit in 1961 is still impressive, and despite other recordings predating it, is generally the best known version of the song.
The group started in Brooklyn, and Neil Sedaka was one of its early members. The Tokens also produced other musical acts, such as the Chiffons, Randy and the Rainbows, the Happenings, etc.
For anyone interested in their next concert, the same production group is bringing Vito Picone back, along with the Happenings, the Marcels, The Tymes, and The Excellents on Saturday, March 25th, 2017 at 7:30PM, also at the Colden Auditorium at Queens College. Call 718-423-8394 for more information.
The event was also the first I brought my new 360 degree camera to. It is interesting to take a video where you can see not only the audience, the performers…but me reacting to them. That’s a bit too much me in the shot. I like a bit more subtlety.
But there is some part of me that wishes random people still formed doo-wop groups. Part of me would enjoy the experience of singing with one at least once.
So, I decided to watch Elementary. Which made me a bit annoyed. Please forgive me if I spoiled it. If you care about watching it yourself, stop reading now.
The episode that aired last night, entitled, How the Sausage is Made…has Sherlock Holmes coming up with a conspiracy where there is a enough profit in the FDA classifying artificially grown meat as a ‘meat substitute’ instead of as meat to allow Jews to eat cheeseburgers and Muslims to eat pork that someone would kill to ensure it.
During the course of the episode, Holmes tries to explain kosher law, among other things….that food is broken out into meat and dairy, and a third category that is neither…one he calls Parevah. I usually say Pareve, but even par-veh is correct. I’ve never heard anyone call it pareva, to be honest and I asked around this evening. There isn’t one person who could look up the common pronunciation. One would assume the character might be wrong, but in the scene he had just met with some rabbis discussing the issue, so he should have just heard it. On the other hand, if you google pareve, and click the pronounciation, it pronounces it paravah also, I embedded Google’s pronunciation below. Either someone tell me they’ve heard it pronounced as three syllables or someone at Google please correct it.
Perhaps in a universe where the Convocation of Orthodox Rabbis(I’m assuming as a stand-in for the OU, the Orthodox Union) exists, the issues are different. I confess to not be as familiar with the Halal certification bodies in the U.S. but I am fairly familiar with the kosher ones.
So in the end, Holmes and Watson lead the murderers to believe that the bodies that certify kosher and halal food will, because of the suspicious murder, never certify the artificial meat as ‘pareva'(sorry, it just annoys me) and that the whole murder would therefore be pointless as the product would be relegated to the vegan aisle. And if someone confeeses to the murder, the rabbis and the imams will change their mind because ‘murder is not kosher.’ I would hope that the two characters are lying through their teeth, but I would hope that two individuals who are counting on a big payday from kosher and halal sales would know better the issue if they are going to kill for it.
The truth of the matter is that the issue of whether meat grown in a lab would be considered not to be meat, and thus not subject to the prohibitions of keeping meat and dairy separate is not an issue so clear cut for many reasons, so it would not be something that they would hold over the heads of would-be murderers like a business transaction. If you just search for kosher artificially grown meat, the first few entries lay out how much debate would be necessary to settle the issue. And in my personal opinion, it is much more likely to be classified as meat.
That said, the suggestion that all Jews are sitting around, clamoring for the opportunity to find a loophole to eat cheeseburgers and other food which is not kosher(the same for Muslims) suggests an extreme level of cynicism.
I have to say, while television is often lacking in realism, and often poorly written, this seems to be a case of a writer trying to come up with a clever story, but failing to do five seconds of research to put the issue into a realistic perspective. And, while poor characterizations of Jews on television has always annoyed me, sloppy storytelling annoys me even more.
In thinking about the current election, I was reminded of the words of Julia Sand. Sand was an educated woman who, while bedridden in her family home in New York City, wrote Chester A. Arthur beginning in August of 1881, a month after President Garfield was shot. Arthur took the oath of office on September 20th, after staying in seclusion while Garfield lay critically ill and bedridden. Arthur was a controversial figure, as he’d been involved in several scandals in New York and was thought to be a political lackey of several powerful New York interests.
For reasons unknown as all she knew of him was from the newspapers, Sands believed in Arthur and wrote to him with advice and encouragement many times over the next few years. Some of the letters survive, including the first.
‘Your kindest opponents say ‘Arthur will try to do right’ – adding gloomily – ‘he won’t succeed though making a man President cannot change him.’…But making a man President can change him! Great emergencies awaken generous traits which have lain dormant half a life. If there is a spark of true nobility in you, now is the occasion to let it shine. Faith in your better nature forces me to write to you – but not to beg you to resign. Do what is more difficult & brave. Reform! It is not proof of highest goodness never to have done wrong, but it is proof of it, sometimes in ones career, to pause & ponder, to recognize the evil, to turn resolutely against it.“
She goes on later to write:
“How sad it must be for anyone to look back and feel that the best strength of their manhood has all been wasted on unworthy ends. For your own sake and for the sake of those who love you, do not fill your life with actions which afterwards bring you only regret. Go back to Washington – forget New York, political strife and personal animosity. Remember that you are President of the United States – work only for the good of the country. And bear in mind, that, in a free country, the only bulwark of power worth trusting, is the affection of the people.”
Arthur surprised people. Having been a direct beneficiary of the political spoils system, he nevertheless participated in dismantling it and pushing for civil service reform. Admittedly, there aren’t that many parallels between Donald J Trump and Chester A. Arthur, but the often forgotten legacy of Chester A. Arthur is that a man can be changed by the realities of the Presidency.
Sat down to watch the 2nd Presidential Debate. I’m just depressed. The Candidates were supposed to interact with the public, right?
Joining the ranks of The Mensch on the Bench and Maccabee on the Mantel—Hanukkah books with attendant plush toys—is Shmelf the Hanukkah Elf. This new picture book, written by Greg Wolfe and illustrated by Howard McWilliam, dropped September 6. It should be dropped permanently, preferably from …
I found out that Fyvush Finkel died early this morning at his apartment in Manhattan at the age of 93. I had been a fan of his since I had seen him on Picket Fences when I was a kid. The more I learned about him, the more I became a fan of his. On Picket Fences, in this show set in a small Wisconsin community…there is a larger than life Jewish character. I can’t say that he was acting per se…as all of Fyvush’s performances were him. He brought his presence to everything I saw him in.
There is very little I can say about him that hasn’t been said already. Even as recently as last month, he was making the news with his declaration of support for Hillary Clinton. And every few months, since the picture below as taken, I would try to attend the Yiddish Artists and Friends Actors Club events, where he would act as the Master of Ceremonies.
He was active till the end and always full of enthusiasm, which is why, despite his age, I am surprised at the news.
The best we can do at a time like this is remember, so below is a excerpt I found of one of the YAFAC events I attended, telling one of his classic jokes.
Attended an event this evening and got to meet Fyvush Finkel. I’ve been a fan of his for years.
The much-loved characters from the BBC sitcom Are You Being Served? are set to return to our screens, played by a new cast. The original sitcom began in 1972 and ran until 1985.
I used to watch this show in reruns on PBS as a kid. I would love to see a remake. It would be the first time the characters have been seen since the short lived sequel in 1992-1993. Makes me want to get out the box set.
John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian. E-mail him at jconway52@hotmail.com. Reposted with attribution.
RETROSPECT
by John Conway
July 29, 2016
AN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AIRLINES DON’T USE
It has been said before, and it bears repeating that virtually every significant historic or economic milestone in Sullivan County’s history has been sparked by a major breakthrough in transportation.
This phenomenon started back in 1764, when Daniel Skinner envisioned a way to utilize the Delaware River to transport timber to Philadelphia where it could be sold to the ship building industry, giving birth to the region’s first great industry. It continued through the construction of the Newburgh-Cochecton Turnpike, which enabled the population of Sullivan County to double in the first twenty years of its existence. The D&H Canal, completed in 1828, also spurred a population explosion, as well as the tanning and bluestone industries, and the arrival of the railroads in the second half of the 19th Century was the final piece in the county’s transition from an industrial economy to a tourism economy. The Liberty Highway in 1918 and the Quickway in 1958, each in its own way contributed to major changes in the county’s resort industry.
The construction of Sullivan County International Airport in 1969 was envisioned as another major breakthrough in transportation that would foster a significant economic milestone, the rebirth of the county’s floundering resort industry.
It didn’t quite work out that way.
There certainly was a sense of optimism and enthusiasm when the new airport opened in July of 1969, its 6,500 foot runway designed to handle twin-engine jets as large as the 105-passenger Douglas DC-9 and the three engine Boeing 727.
“Everybody who owns a piece of real estate is hanging on to it and anywhere in the county prices have grown six times in value,” Steve Stetka, Chairman of the Sullivan County Board of Supervisors told the New York Times.
”What the completion of the $6.5 million project, whose finishing and not-so-finishing touches are still to be applied, has created here is a general feeling of optimism that a surge of economic development will occur in the next few years,” Times reporter Leonard Sloane wrote in a July 28 article that year. “To this well-known 1,500 square mile resort area north of New York City, such development will be welcome.
“Not only will it bring additional business visitors and vacationers to the Catskill region, local enthusiasts believe, but it will also serve as a spur to existing businesses and a magnet for the light industry and research plants that are being sought.”
Of course, much of the impetus for the construction of the airport came from the local resorts, a $60 million annual industry that was struggling, and for whom it was envisioned as a much needed savior.
“Speak to members of the Catskills Resort Association– who handled 4,500 groups among their 2 million visitors in 1968 and expect substantially more in the years ahead—and you find an overall anticipation that their market, both for convention and individual sales, is about to expand dramatically,” the Times reported shortly after the airport officially opened. “‘The Catskills have always drawn upon New York as its prime source of revenue,’ says Howard L. Bern, director of sales at Grossinger’s. ‘Now, as transportation to get here becomes easier, the perimeter of business becomes larger.’
“Gordon Winarick, executive director of the Concord, points out that ‘the airport, a status symbol, has jelled us into the concept of thinking as an area. It’s not going to happen automatically but it will become a very vital link for us.’”
And the hotels were also viewed as a vital link in the success of the airport. Grossinger’s and Kutsher’s collaborated on a plan to encourage vacationers to fly in on charter flights from cities such as Pittsburgh, Detroit, Baltimore and Washington. The Concord organized a plan with 14 other hotels, some of them not in Sullivan County, to offer an all-inclusive Sunday to Sunday tour package to people in Chicago and the Midwest for $239. The plan was for tourists to spend the first four nights at a Sullivan County resort, one night in a motel in Catskill, in Greene County, and Friday and Saturday nights at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, travelling between the points on a sightseeing bus.
“There is no doubt that all the major hotels in our area eventually will be involved in encouraging charter flights to the new airport,” Grossinger’s General Manager Morton Sunshine told the Times. “The airport is sure to help us all, and we are determined to help the airport. Indeed, we are even encouraging our personnel to use Mohawk’s regularly scheduled flights whenever they have occasion to travel.”
Mohawk Airlines was the first scheduled carrier to use the new facility, and provided the “International” for the airport’s official title by way of its scheduled flights from Montreal and to Toronto. Daily flights also departed for Buffalo, Elmira and New York, connecting travelers to Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Washington.
Despite the optimism that accompanied the airport’s opening, however, it never fulfilled expectations, or even came close. Plagued by problems from the outset, including a long, brutal winter and labor problems that delayed construction and pushed its completion date from spring to mid-summer, the facility went through five operators in its first four years of operation, and by 1972 was under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office for alleged fraud during its construction.
In 1985, the Times ran a story about the nearly deserted operation under the headline, “In the Catskills, An international Airport Airlines Don’t Use.”
More on that next week.
John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian. He can be contacted by e-mail at jconway52@hotmail.com.
RETROSPECT
by John Conway
August 5, 2016
THE CAVALCADE OF JETS NEVER ARRIVED
When Sullivan County officials announced in December of 1966 that they had received a Federal grant for the construction of an airport large enough to accommodate commercial jet planes, they envisioned bringing new resort business and eventually new industry into the county.
When the Sullivan County International Airport finally opened in July of 1969, county officials and local businessmen predicted it would “open new vistas” for the county. Sullivan County National Bank chairman Joseph Fersh was among several quoted in the New York Times’ July 28, 1969 edition.
“We will attract more affluent people to the area than we now have,” he said. “And this has to have a terrific impact on the entire economy.”
Lumber yard owner and home builder Manny Bogner of Monticello was even more effusive. “We have already found that a lot of people whose occupation is not a fixed-base occupation, like sales people or entertainment people, have been increasingly ready to move up here because they’re now in touch with the whole Northeast,” he told the Times.
And insurance executive Max Rhulen added, “It’s quite conceivable that we’ll develop some sort of aviation industry in the area. After all, we have the longest runway between New York and Buffalo.”
Within a few years, however, the airport had gone through five fixed base operators and the United States Attorney’s office was investigating reports that the Federal Government had been defrauded in the construction of the facility.
“According to local sources close to this quiet investigation, witnesses have testified that runway soil samples were falsified to conceal findings that the soil in places would not support the proposed runways,” the Times reported on July 15, 1973. “Some county officials and businessmen were also reported under suspicion for allegedly improperly benefiting from construction work at the airport.”
The leak to the media that the federal investigation was underway prompted one county official to ask the Sullivan County District Attorney to impanel a special grand jury to investigate “all phases of design, construction and operation” of the airport.
John J.J. McGough, the county’s Commissioner of Public Works and chairman of the County Airport Commission, wrote to District Attorney Louis Scheinman that he was “personally unaware of any impropriety or wrongdoings by anyone involved in or connected to the airport” and promised his full cooperation if Scheinman agreed to the request. McGough noted that articles in the New York Times and Middletown Times Herald-Record newspapers had raised a cloud of suspicion in the minds of the public with allegations and innuendoes about the project and a grand jury would be the only way to remove the suspicions.
Scheinman denied the request about a week later, saying he had never seen any evidence of any impropriety and no one had ever come forward to present charges.
“If there were any evidence of wrongdoing, the investigation would be underway,” Scheinman said. “But the grand jury has more to do than answer letters and conduct investigations to clear one man’s name.”
Even as the federal investigation was underway, another controversy had enveloped the airport. Absent an operator and a carrier to serve it on a regular basis, county officials drew up a contract with Hudson Valley Airways, which was newly owned and operated by Robert H. Abplanalp, owner of the Eldred Preserve resort and a close friend of President Richard Nixon.
The contract, the Times reported, “would be for up to 38 years under terms generally considered even by the county officials who agreed to them unusually favorable to the multimillionaire.”
The contract, according to the Times, would have required Abplanalp to pay the county just $55,000 a year through 1981 and then slightly more than that through 2011. In return, the county would commit to “maintaining the grounds and runways, expanding certain facilities and building access roads to any facility Mr. Abplanalp constructs” while exempting him from sales tax “or any other charges, fees, or tolls of any nature” in airport transactions.
Many locals hollered “giveaway” and asked that the contract not be signed.
Milton Levine, chairman of the county’s Board of Supervisors, admitted that the deal was more than just a bit one sided, and yet acknowledged the county had little choice.
“It’s a bad contract- let me be honest with you,” Levine told the Times. “But I am interested in seeing this airport operate on any terms. I wouldn’t care if there is no contract.”
Leon Greenberg, president of Monticello Raceway and the Catskill Resort Association, as well as the secretary of the Airport Commission, added that “air service is vitally needed and beggars can’t be choosers.”
Nonetheless, after months of controversy, Abplanalp, citing lack of public support for his taking over the airport, declined to sign the contract, leaving county officials back at square one.
Though the federal investigation eventually fizzled out, the airport’s fate never improved. In fact, in September of 1985, the New York Times was prompted to run an article about the facility under the headline “In Catskills, An International Airport Airlines Don’t Use.”
“With great pomp and ceremony, an international airport opened 16 years ago in this tiny rural community in the Catskills, 100 miles from New York City,” the article began. “The Sullivan County International Airport was paid for with $4 million from the Federal Government and $2 million from the county. Local officials anticipated cavalcades of jets unloading swarms of tourists ready to play the casinos that long have been discussed as a way of rejuvenating the area’s depressed economy.
“But the slot machines never came and the jets never arrived.”
John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian. E-mail him at jconway52@hotmail.com.
PHOTO CAPTION: Sullivan County officials, including (left to right) Board of Supervisors chairman David Kaufman, Airport Commissioner John J.J. McGough, Airport Commission Secretary Leon Greenberg, Bethel supervisor Russel Gettel, and county administrator Paul A.Rouis, mark the inaugural flight of Ransome Airlines in the late 1970s. Ransome was one of several airlines to try unsuccessfully to provide regular air service to the Sullivan County International Airport.
For a little over two years, I have been involved in Indiewebcamp. This past weekend, for the first time in five years, I was able to attend WordCamp.
WordCamp NYC was a massive undertaking, to which I must give credit to the organizers. WordCamp was moved to coincide with OpenCamps week at the United Nations, which added security headaches to the fold as well. There were 500 attendees just for WordCamp alone. I have to congratulate them for their hard work.
By comparison, an Indiewebcamp is a smaller, more intimate affair that is happy to get 20 people. In a discussion with Shane Becker, who is organizing Indiewebcamp LA in November, he has a personal goal of getting a hundred people there. But more people makes for a very different conference than 20.
For me, the scale of WCNYC created problems. Contributor’s Day, the smaller pre-event for people interested in contributing to WordPress, found me in a room full of people interested in being involved in Core not interacting, sharing ideas, or picking each other’s brains…but mostly working independently. There were isolated pockets of people helping each other, but I felt that should have been what was encouraged. The equivalent at an IndiewebCamp is the Hack Day, where people announce at the beginning what they are thinking of working on, which encourages people who have similar interests to interact as they build something. And at the end, you present to all a demo of what you created.
For the panels at WordCamp, I found the speakers very engaged, but two tracks, one for users and one for developers led to a wide range in each room. WordCamp Orange County, the previous weekend, had four tracks. WordCamp Boston, next week, has three. On the first day, Designers, Developers, and Intro to WP/WP in Higher Education. The second day has Users/Writers, Business/Entrepreneurs, and a Contributor’s Day track. That seems like an organization that appeals to me a bit more.
The appeal to me of IndiewebCamp sessions is that they are more interactive. You get to discuss an idea in more detail. I look forward to seeing how that might scale.
I enjoyed WordCamp, and it had a lot to offer. I suppose I am just looking for more opportunities to share interests inside the conference activities, instead of outside them.
ListenedCool Cool Considerate Men – 1776 Original Cast Recording from YouTube
In rewatching 1776, which I do around Independence Day every year, I am reminded of the writer, Peter Stone’s great bit for Lewis Morris, the delegate from New York…who spends the entire play remarking, “New York abstains…courteously.”
Finally, it is the character of John Hancock who finally loses his temper and asks him about it. Portrayed by Howard Caine in the movie, Morris admits that the New York Legislature has never given him specific instructions on anything. “Have you ever been present at a meeting of the New York legislature? They speak very fast and very loud and nobody listens to anybody else with the result that nothing ever gets done.”
Nothing much has changed in New York politics since 1776…or at least when Stone wrote the play in the late 60s. Stone also wrote the screenplay for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three(the original, not the horrible John Travolta remake), which also pokes a lot of fun at New York, as well as the 1997 musical(not to be confused with the movie) Titanic.
I actually repurchased 1776 this year on Blu-Ray. The new version includes an all-new commentary, an extended version, and some deleted scenes. I found this lengthy explanation of the various cuts over the years in the Amazon commentary. To summarize:
The movie premiered in 1972, approximately forty minutes shorter than the director’s original cut.
“Cool Cool Considerate Men” was cut after a negative reaction from the White House regarding the scene’s anti-conservative tone, studio executives agreed to remove eight solid minutes. So great was the pressure that the original negative and all known parts of the scene were destroyed. A search began for any version of the missing footage.
The restored film on the laserdisc was presented in the widescreen format and remixed for true stereo sound using the original multi-track units (in some cases as many as twenty-four tracks). It contained a total of 40 minutes of footage not seen since the two premiere screenings in 1972. Other highlights of the Laser Disc version were the full opening credits, newly incorporated character closeups and additional music for several songs. The running time was once again 180 minutes. The 1992 Pioneer Laser Disc Special Edition of 1776 was one of the most ambitious video restorations ever performed.
For the 2002 DVD release, the replaced footage was been repaired, giving the DVD a much cleaner look visually than the laserdisc, but the film was been shortened to 166 minutes.
Finally, in 2015, the director’s cut of 1776 has made its way to Blu Ray and it includes a “branching version of the movie” with both an extended and the director’s cut, which incorporate many of these missing moments mentioned from the Laser Disc,scrubbed up and restored to as pristine a quality as possible.
The Extended cut has everything that was on the Laser Disc except: Overture and Entr’acte created for the LD; Scene of Jefferson (sitting on a window sill in Congress) watching some children playing (rather patriotically) as a young girl looks back up at him and smiles; An extended scene (just after the conclusion of Yours, Yours, Yours): Instead of the blackout (that now occurs between scenes) there was one continuous scene showing the breaking dawn as Franklin arrives, after taking a piece of fruit in the marketplace, and finds Adams asleep on the stairs below Jefferson’s room while a lamplighter blows out a nearby streetlight; The underscoring to John and Abigail’s final scene [leading into “Compliments”] — though the underscoring to Franklin’s entrance has been restored.
On a related note, anyone want the DVD copy? I can give you a good price? And I just noticed the 42nd anniversary edition of Taking of Pelham 123 is out…with interviews with surviving production individuals, and the single surviving lead actor….think I should click? The one saving grace of Blu-Rays lately vs streaming are the extras they bring to the table, especially for classics. They keep rereleasing things with more material and trying to get me to buy it. They may succeed in this case.
Hi, I’m Pelle Wessman and this is my blog.
Here I post whatever stuff I’m currently interested in, may it be coding, knitting, cooking – the future will tell.
