We hit the road again for My Better Half's Birthday and of course Mother's Day. We picked up our oldest and her pal at their college campus and drove up yonder on the Thruway to Albany NY with our 3 younger kids. Rented a couple of cozy, reasonable 2bedroom suites at a great motel near the SUNY Albany campus. Having set up our headquarters, we proceeded to paint the town pink, and purple, red, and yellow: after all, we were in town to check out the 60th Annual Albany Tulip Festival which our daughter had visited before and was the prompt for this Mother's Day weekend away.
Located in Washington Park, a lovely preserve located in the center of downtown Albany, designed by Olmstead and Vaux, designers of Central and Prospect Park, the Tulip Festival is a local tradition that includes the washing of the streets of Albany, followed by a weekend of fleurs and frolic, and capped by the crowning of the Tulip Queen.
The Tulips are lovely, numerous plantings on a hill in the center of Washington Park (which is about 4 blocks by 3 blocks in size), resulting in fields of lavish color. Lots of photographers out there. But, as Jerry Garcia used to say about the Grateful Dead, and Jagger said about the Stones in Gimme Shelter, the center of attraction, while cool and loads of fun, is really more of an excuse for folks to get together, listen to music, eat food from a variety of vendors and shop like crazy from artisans, craftsfolks, etc. who are set up throughout the park.
The music was great, especially The Black and White Years, produced by Talking Heads' Jerry Harrison, a band that reminded me a little of Danny Elfman's Oingo Boingo, crossed with TH. Performances concluded with an appearance by The Spin Doctors, of the multiplatinum "Pocket Full of Kryptonite," who have a new album coming out soon.
The Tulip Fest was also the site of a Wellness Green, health care and organic foods providers, yoga lessons, etc. Finally, Grannies for Peace held a demonstration for world peace, in which they invited participants to help produce "Peace Soup" by working for a better world. We walked away with great freebies, including organic dog food, too.
Later that night we were invited to fantastic home thrown pizza fest (baked on the barbecue grill)at the home of friends in Albany, plus vino and homemade desserts. It was a fun, lovely and warm evening with a delightful family.
The next day, we celebrated Mother's Day/Mom's Birthday at a great place, Provence, in town. Funny, we were originally trying to find its sister restaurant, Milano, in Latham NY, but got hopelessly lost, and we were heading back into town when we stumbled on Provence, which we had scoped out the night before for its lovely sounding brunch buffet, but which we gave up hope of getting into because of the lateness of our reservation. But, out of sheer desperation we ended up in Provence, its sister bistro, and the manager took pity on us Out-of-Towners, got us a table, where the six of us enjoyed the warm ambiance and great brunch. Just shows you never can tell. Then we headed back to New Paltz and back to the City, thinking about our great weekend away and looking for excuses to visit Albany again
Ideas in Art, culture, technology, politics and life-- In Brooklyn or Beacon NY -- and Beyond (anyway, somewhere beginning with a "B")
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Current Reading
- Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War- Tony Horwitz
- A Sultan in Palermo - Tariq Ali
- Hitch-22: A Memoir - Christopher Hitchens
- Negropedia- Patrice Evans
- Dead Funny: Humor in Nazi Germany - Rudolph Herzog
- Exile on Main Street - Robert Greenfield
- Among the Truthers - A Journey Among America's Growing Conspiracist Underworld - Jonathan Kay
- Paradise Lost - John Milton
- What Is Your Dangerous Idea? Thinking the Unthinkable - John Brockman
- Notes from the Edge Times - Daniel Pinchbeck
- Fringe-ology: How I Can't Explain Away the Unexplainable- Steve Volk
- Un Juif pour l'exemple (translated as A Jew Must Die )- Jacques Cheesex
- The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins
- Pale King - David Foster Wallce
- David Bowie: Starman bio - Paul Trynka
- Tobacco Stained Mountain Goat - Andrez Bergen
- The Future of Nostalgia -Svetlana Boym
- Living in the End Times - Slavoj ZIzek
- FIrst as Tragedy Next as Farce - Slavoj Zizek
- How to Survive a Robot Uprising - Daniel Wilson
- Where is My Jet Pack? -Daniel Wilson
- Day of the Oprichniks - Vladimir Sorokin
- Ice Trilogy - Vladimir Sorokin
- First Civilizations
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- The Beats - Harvey Pekar, et al
- SDS - Harvey Pekar, et al
- The Unfinished Animal - Theodore Roszak
- Friends of Eddy Coyle
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- Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahme-Smith - Entertaining and historical
- Dictionary of the Khazars - Pavic
- Sloth-Gilbert Hernandez
- War and Peace- Leo Tolstoy
- Charles Addams: An Evilution
- Life in Ancient Greece
- Time - Eva Hoffmann
- Violence - S. Zizek
- Luba - a graphic novel by Gilbert Hernandez
- Life in Ancient Egypt
- Great Apes - Will Self - riveting and disturbing
- Lost Honor of Katherina Blum - Heinrich Boll - could not put it down
- Yellow Back Radio Brokedown - Ishmael Reed (author deserving of new wide readership)
- Living in Ancient Mesopotomia
- Landscape in Concrete - Jakov Lind - surreal
- 'There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor's Baby'-Ludmilla Petrushevskaya - creepy stories - translation feels literarily "thin"
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- The Book of Genesis - illustrated by R. Crumb - visionary
- "Flags" - an illustrated encyclopedia - wish I could remember all of these. Flag culture
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- Ubik - Philip K. Dick
- Nobody's Fool - Richard Russo
- Hitler's Empire - Mark Mazower
- Nazi Culture - various authors
- Master Plan: Himmler 's Scholars and the Holocaust - Heather Pringle
- Eichmann in Jerusalem - Hannah Arendt
- Living in Ancient Rome
- Traveling with Herodotus -R. Kapuszynsky
- Oblivion - David Foster Wallace - Some of his greatest work
- Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace - still wrestling with this great book
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- Mount Analogue - Rene Daumal
- John Brown
- Anathem - Neal Stephenson - love Stephenson but tough slogging first few chapters
- 7 Deadly Sins
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- FIASCO by Thomas Ricks
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- Best of 20th century alternative history fiction
- Judah P. Benjamin - Eli Evans - Confederacy's Secretary of State & source of the W.C. Field's exclamation
- Moscow 2042 - Vladimir Voinovich - Pre-1989 curiosity & entertaining sci fi read; love his portrayal of Solzhenitsyn-like character
- Gomorrah - Roberto Saviano - Mafia without the It-Am sugar coating. Brutal & disturbing
- The Sack of Rome - Celebrity+Media+Money=Silvio Berlusconi - Alexander Stille
- Reporting - David Remnick - terrific journalism
- Fassbinder
- Indignation - Philip Roth
- Rome
- Let's Go Italy! 2008
- Italian Phrases for Dummies
- How to Pack
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- Physics of the Impossible - Dr. Michio Kaku
- Managing the Unexpected - Weick & Sutcliffe
- Wait Til The Midnight Hour - Writings on Black Power
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- Burning Down the Masters' House - Jayson Blair
- Howl - Allen Ginsberg
- Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
- The Palace Thief - Ethan Canin
- John Adams - David McCullough
- The Wooden Sea - Jonathan Carroll
- American Gangster - Mark Jacobson
- Return of the King - J.R.R. Tolkien
- Gawker Guide to Becoming King of All Media
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- A Team of Rivals - Doris Goodwin
- Ghost Hunters -William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death - Deborah Blum
- Dream -Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy - Stephen Duncombe
- Love & Theft - Eric Lott
- Exit Ghost - Philip Roth
- Studio A - The Bob Dylan Reader
Current Listening
- Alexi Murdoch Wait
- Wilco Summer Teeth
- Wilco The Album
- Carmina Burana - Ray Manzarek (& Michael Riesmann)
- Polyrock - Polyrock
- 96 Tears - Garland Jeffries
- Ghost of a Chance Garland Jeffries
- Yellow Magic Orchestra
- Mustang Sally Buddy Guy
- John Lee Hooker
- Black and White Years
- Together Through Life - B. Dylan
- 100 Days 100 Nites - Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
- DYLAN: 3 disc Greatest...
- Glassworks - Philip Glass
- Wild Palms - Soundtrack -Ryuichi Sakamoto
- Dinah Washington - Best of..
- Commander Cody& His Lost Planet Airmen Live at Armadillo
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