A farewell

Terrible loss last week to the Sláinte session and the NYC Irish music community as the news came out that much-loved regular Kevin Brooks had passed away due to COVID-19 complications.

That's him on the bones (the brisk clickety-click), switching later on to bodhrán (goatskin frame drum). He was also a great one for the old-fashioned Irish songs, the ones speaking of the emigrant's longing for home and loved ones and the beauty of Ireland.

The bodhrán comes in for a lot a grief, as it can be hazardous in the hands of an overenthusiastic novice, but in the hands of an expert and sensitive player it's a singing heartbeat for a tune.

It seems unreal that when this thing has run its course and the session is once again able to gather, Kevin won't be there in his usual spot.

Take care and please stay safe, everyone.

Much love from Brooklyn.

Election Night at Slainte

I was tired from getting up early to go vote before work, but I figured that if I went home I was likely to just end up turning on the computer and getting obsessive over election results. Going to Slainte to play some tunes with friends and perhaps indulge in a refreshing adult beverage or two seemed like a better way to while away the evening.

It wasn't entirely an escape, Slainte isn't specifically a sports bar but they do have big TV's that are usually tuned to various games up on the wall, and last night election results were really the only game around (ok, there was hockey for a minute but pretty soon that want back to results), so I ended up kind of obsessing anyways, but obsessing in good company, while playing some tunes and drinking Dark 'n Stormies, was waaaay better than obsessing at home by myself. Can't think of a much nicer way to spend the evening.

I need to get a new camera battery, the old one's not holding a charge well and runs down especially fast during video recording, but here's a minute of last night's music.

In the end, I was pretty happy with the results -- yes, I was disappointed about some of the races, but personally, the main thing I wanted out of this election was to see some brakes put on this runaway train of an administration, and I think we got that. Not quite a blue tsunami but enough of a wave to count - and the diversity is splendid, I love seeing winners that actually look like the world I live in!

What Goes Around Comes Around, Or, How I Started Dancing, Stopped Dancing, Started Kayaking, And Eventually Got The Dancing Back Too

Pity I didn't get any use out of these DANCE SHOES, isn't it? 😉

Another rambling walk down Memory Lane because of something I pulled out of a closet. Ah closet cleaning. Once every fifteen years whether they need it or not, eh?
************************

1998 was the year I started paddling seriously.

My main hobby before that had been Irish music and dance. I'd been introduced to Irish music by a co-worker at Carnegie Hall, where I had my first long-term job in NYC (got to go to the Carnegie Hall Centennial Gala, even!). One March, I'd found a copy of John B. Keane's The Bodhrán Makers in a St. Patrick's Day display at a nearby Barnes and Noble. The Bodhrán Makers is an excellent novel about small town life in Ireland in the 1950's, with the bodhrán (goatskin drum) makers of the title being rural folks who were terribly poor but cherished rich musical traditions that had been handed down through the generations, and the people of the town - particularly the Church - who wanted to see the old ways dead and gone. Fantastic book, in fact I just stopped typing for a minute to go find it because now that I'm thinking about it, of course I have to read it again.

I'd first read my dad's copy in the UK, where my folks were living when I first moved to NYC. I'd really enjoyed it, so when I saw it at the bookstore, I grabbed it. Well, when Annmarie from the development department walked by my desk and saw it, she came to an abrupt halt, pointed at the book, and said,

"WHERE did you get THAT?"

Am's family is good solid Brooklyn Irish with deep roots remaining in Ireland, and she was very familiar with the author (best known here in the States for writing the play that became the 1990 film The Field, starring Richard Harris, and held in the highest regard in his home country). She already knew the book but this was in March of 1993 and it had just had its US release in October 1992. She was completely startled to see it sitting on a random co-worker's desk! Once I told her where I'd gotten it, she smiled and said,

"If you like that book, there's someplace we need to go some night".

"Someplace" turned out to be a local pub (was it Muldoon's, or Kate Kearney's? So long ago!) where Brian Conway and Don Meade were running a weekly seisiún.

I was completely enchanted by the music and Am and I got to doing that as a regular thing. Next Am introduced me to the Irish Arts Center, where we signed up for set dancing classes. She also brought me a tin whistle back from one of her trips to visit family in Ireland, so that's where that started, and I was doing some Irish song classes there for a while too.

Annmarie has ended up being pretty much my oldest and best friend here in NYC. Her family made a habit of welcoming young folks who were far from their own families for Thanksgivings and other events; TQ and I tend to go to his mom's for most holidays now but I've had some great times with Am's family and I still look forward to seeing everyone at the big family gathering an aunt and uncle hold around St. Patrick's Day every year in Brooklyn. Am moved out of the city years ago and I don't see her as often as I used too, but I still see her whenever I can.

Anyways - once she introduced me to Irish music and dance, that became What I Did through most of the 90's. At first it was set dancing (much like square dancing except that instead of a caller, there are set "figures" that the dancers learn). There was a great Irish social dance scene in the 90's, with Joanie Madden of Cherish the Ladies (great musician!) and friends playing for set dancers at Flannery's Pub every Wednesday night and ceilis to go to on weekends. I made a good group of friends through the dancing, eventually started dating one of the guys, it was pretty much my entire social life. Good exercise, to boot!

For a while I just did set dancing, then the fella and I started taking step dancing at the IAC. He'd done it for a little while as a kid until his mother made the mistake of having him appear onstage before his elementary school classmates in West Virginia shortly after they'd moved there from somewhere where Irish American kids just took Irish dance classes because "that is how they do" (quoting Zefrank). Oh yeah, and she put him in a kilt. Turned out 1970's children in West Virginia weren't ready for a little new boy in a skirt, the curtain went up and the laughter began and they were laughing at him, not with him, and that was the end of his dance career at that point, but he was genuine Irish American (last name Murphy, ok?) and as an adult he'd gotten interested again. I wasn't particularly good at it, but I was having fun plugging away, and after I'd been doing it for a while, I started talking about getting some proper shoes for it. I'd been using the same shoes I'd used for set dancing and they just weren't really bangety enough for the step dancing, which is the solo percussive dance that everybody's now seen in Riverdance. I mentioned that I needed some "riverdancing" shoes to my folks and they decided that would be a great birthday present.

Now at that point I think they were in Hawaii, so they couldn't exactly take me out shopping, but they sent me a check that was going to cover the shoes plus a really nice dinner or two with the fella.

Except that that was when the fella heard from his college dreamgirl, and then things kind of fell apart. She was thinking of moving to NYC, and yeah, she was willing to think about going out with him (which she'd never been willing to do in college, which I think was part of the appeal). Turned out that he was still carrying a torch for her lo these many years, which in hindsight wasn't all that surprising (I had all along been more into him than vice versa), so was the end of us (sad trombone).

Unfortunately that then made the social dancing really frickin' weird. Irish set dancing may not have the obvious smolder factor of, say, tango, but the fella was a good dancer, we danced well together, and although we would split off and dance the occasional set with friends we mostly danced together.

Lost my partner, what'll I do?

So one day I wandered down to the Hudson to watch the water go by and think things over and there went a whole flock of tiny boats. Oooh.

Take a kayaking lesson and discover a new addiction that didn't need to be a couple thing at ALL, that's what!

Oh, yes, when TQ came along it did become something of a couples thing - but that was years down the road and I guess I was ready. And the boating is still nowhere near as much of a partner thing as dancing had gotten to be - we like paddling together but we both like paddling on our own and with other friends, too. Better balance, really.

Anyways, with the What I Do in my life changing (I kept on with the tin whistle 'cause that had been more my thing than our thing, I backed off on the dance, and was loving the time on the river) I sat on the shoe money for a while and then all of the sudden it was fall and I wanted to keep paddling and that's when the theoretical shoes magically transformed into an actual Henderson paddling suit. POOF!;

i mean really, you'd think it just sat in the closet the whole time, wouldn't you?

Practically pristine...what a waste...

No, seriously, this was a great piece of gear and I wore it absolutely to shreds. At first it was just out on the river, then as it started to wear out, I got a new one, and this one became my pool suit. There was a while when I was regularly going to weekly pool sessions in the wintertime (note to self: you should get back into that!); chlorine's hard on gear so it's good to have something old to sacrifice, and this Henderson suit did that dirty job for a very long time.

I have finally just chucked it as part of project Seize the Storage. Old gear goes. But here's the comes around-goes around part - with dance classes back into my life (delightfully small world, Megan, one of my teachers from way back when, literally turned up calling a square dance in the back yard at Sebago and it turns out she's teaching close to where I work and at a good time for me to get over there) that right about the same time as the wetsuit that was originally meant to be a pair of dance shoes reached the end of a spectacularly long and honorable run -

I finally got the shoes! 

Goodbye Bill

Goodbye, Bill. I'm not the best tin whistle player in the world, but it's entirely because of your teaching that I'm as good a whistle player as I am. 

More about Bill.

And a few photos from the session that broke out at the post-service reception. Wouldn't have been a proper farewell without it. 

Sunday Fun for a Good Cause - Sanctuary Sessions for the ACLU

Kicking off the St. Patrick's season with some great music for a good cause! I'm looking forward to the NYC one, which will be held from 1 to 4 in the afternoon at the Four-Faced Liar pub in the Village, at 165 West 4th St, between 6th and 7th avenues.

You can read more about the sessions in The Irish Echo, and you can find a complete list of locations on their Sanctuary Sessions Facebook page.  

Definite Last Session of 2016 -

Oops, thought I was going to have my annual holiday windows post tonight, but the friend with whom I always go to see them isn't feeling well today, so instead, here are a few photos from last week's music session. I was on the tail end of a cold, in fact I'd stayed home from work on Monday, but it was the night of the annual holiday party and the first in the Dempsey's session's new home at Slainte, and I didn't want to miss it. They make a nice hot toddy (just the thing for the tail end of a cold), the food was delicious, the tunes (led by guest musician Tom Dunne) were good, owner Tom O'Byrne joined us for a few songs, there was some good festive garb (sample below!)and although I did head out much earlier than I usually would have, I thoroughly enjoyed myself for the time I was there. Sorry I ran out of steam, but glad I was well enough to go for at least a bit.

I'm so glad the move has worked out - it was kind of sad leaving Dempsey's when it had been such a good home for the music for so long, but I've been really enjoying Slainte's excellent beer and cocktail lists (they have something like 19 beers on tap and they rotate 'em, so you can try something new every time), and I think I'm actually going more than I used to because it's a little closer to both my office and the subway; there've definitely been nights where the weather was such that I wouldn't have gone to Dempseys, but didn't mind going to Slainte.

This really is such a local treasure - there are other sessions, but Dempsey's is the one where everybody gets to play, and it's a lovely addition to a week. Hats off to John Nevin, who keeps it all together - that's him in the 3rd picture down, far right with the big smile.

In NYC, want to check it out? We're there most Tuesday nights, 8 'til late! 

Worlds Collide - and it was fun!

OK, this is a bit out of order here, I wanted to get the more photo-heavy events (the sail on the 10th and of course City of Water day last weekend) up, but now I'm bouncing back to July 9th, when my paddling and music hobbies collided in a most delightful and totally surprising way. I spent the morning lazing about at home but in the afternoon, I got motivated to go for a paddle -- I was thinking of being a trip leader for City of Water Day and I wanted to test how my stamina is coming along, and I'd thought that I would do that by repeating the paddle I'd done when I paddled to Dead Horse Bay to see Hokule'a. That's a paddle that under ordinary circumstances I would've knocked off without really thinking twice, but that was my first paddle after my reconstruction surgery.

I'd gone on my own and I'd made a comment on the original post about that maybe not being the brightest thing I'd ever done, but the one good thing about going on my own was that I was absolutely free to paddle at whatever pace I wanted to. I paddled a reasonably good clip going out but then on the way home I kinda ran out of steam - got home under my own power but man, I craaaaawled the last couple of miles.

I figured that doing that again and seeing if I held up a little better would be a good test for whether I was ready to be a trip leader again.

But then I got to the club and a clubmate asked if I was there for the hoedown. Hoedown? OK, I'd seen a few emails with the topic "hoedown" but hadn't looked at them because I'd assumed they were about the annual square dance at the ACA camp at Lake Sebago, and I just don't get up to the lake that much these days.

So I walked out back and there was Megan Downes, one of my set dance instructors from back in the 90's when I was doing Irish music and dance at about the same level of intensity as I now paddle! Another old friend from Irish music was there too, along with a lovely trio of old-timey musicians, and other members of the City Stompers, NYC's premier Appalachian clogging group. One of my clubmates dances with them and I'd actually been meaning to surprise Megan by turning up at a class sometime, but this was even better, we both got to be surprised!

All plans for paddling were scratched and I had an absolutely great time dancing - it was all square dancing, with Megan teaching the moves and calling the sets. Sound like fun? Check out the schedule on the City Stompers page I just linked to, they're doing a number of similar events here and there for the NYC Parks Department. Tons of fun!

And as a bonus, I have now gone to 2 set dance classes with Megan, and it seems that my feet have not forgotten quite everything.

I didn't get to take many pictures because we had just enough dancers for 2 squares if everybody danced every dance, but here were the 2 I did get:

And here's a bit of video with Megan and Kathy (one of the Stompers) doing some clogging!

Dempsey's - End of an Era (beginning of another)

Dempsey's Pub, looking out the front window.

I've been making it to the Irish music session at Dempsey's Pub on 2nd Avenue fairly often (at least for me) over the winter and spring so far. One night I was sitting on one of the barstools by the wall, looking at more or less this view (only with musicians of course) and out of the blue came the thought, "What a lot of weather I've watched out of that window". This session has been running for 20 years, and I think I've been attending for around 15 of those. I'm an irregular regular, I'll go for long stretches without attending, but I always like knowing it's there when I'm feeling like a tune and a pint. I've been there in all seasons, watched rain, snow, sleet, hail, and fog out that window (oh yes, and some nice nights too), and I found myself feeling strangely nostalgic about it.

Last Tuesday, I was thinking the same thing, but now there's nothing at all strange about feeling that way. Dempsey's is closing down for renovations and a change of format to match the increasingly hip vibe of the neighborhood. So Tuesday's session was the last there at the session's original home. The turnout was massive, so it was held in the back of the pub instead of up here where we normally met, and, to use the Irish phrase, the craic was mighty as we said farewell to the old place.

I took both of my cameras, of course - the Lumix for stills plus the Optio for some video. Haven't had time this week to check the videos, but I did go through the photos the other night and I got some nice ones. Click here to visit my flickr album of that night's fun, and click here for more about the closing on Gothamist.

Fortunately, although Dempsey's will be gone, our amazing and dedicated session leader, John Nevin, and the owner of Dempsey's, Tom O'Byrne, a very good singer himself, have made arrangements for the longest-running session in New York City to live on (phew!). Tom owns another very nice pub not too far away, and so starting next Tuesday, we'll be there instead, and the Dempsey's Irish Traditional Music Session will carry on as the Dempsey's Irish Traditional Music Session In Residence At Slainte. Stop by any Tuesday night for some great music!  

Singing In the Solstice at the William Main Doerflinger Memorial Shanty Sing

Didn't take me long to return to the John A. Noble Maritime Collection at the Sailor's Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island - a little less than a month after TQ and I chose that as a nice quiet Escape from Black Friday location, I was back with some friends for their monthly William A. Doerflinger Shanty Sing, which runs from 2 pm to 5 pm on the third Sunday of each month. Blogging friend Rick Spilman over at The Old Salt Blog has a new book called The Shantyman coming out soon and in honor of that he'd given an excellent talk about shanties at the NY Ship Lore and Modelbuilding Society back in November; I'd mentioned it on Facebook, with some reference to the monthly sing, and a couple of friends perked up and said, "Let's go!".

I'd never been to a shanty sing before, but I enjoyed it and I think I'll be back. The group was friendly (there were a couple of instances where people spaced on words, and I didn't pick up any sense at all that anyone was looking down their noses at that, which is nice), the choruses were easy enough to sing along with, and although I'd told a clubmate that I wasn't sure that the harmonies would be quite as harmonic as this, there was some good singing. I was able to get a few licks on my tin whistle, and of course joined in enthusiastically on "Mele Kalikimaka" - not a traditional shanty but good grief how many times did I sing that song as a kid??? I was tempted to lead 'em through the Hawaiian Twelve Days of Christmas (Numba One Day of Christmas My Tutu Give To Me, One Mynah Bird in One Papaya Tree) but as a first-timer I felt like that might be a bit much. Maybe next year. Another singer sang The Parting Glass (the hearty version, not the plaintive one), which we sang back in Jerry Kerlin's Irish Song classes at the Irish Arts Center - there are actually a couple of songs I know from there that I wouldn't be surprised to hear at this session.

My friend Gail and I rode the ferry over and then walked up to Snug Harbor. I was a little disappointed in the weather, forecast had called for partly sunny and low 40's and instead it was slate-gray and hovering in the low 30's, but it was still fun walking along the Kill Van Kull and watching all the ships go by, plus we had to stop and smell the Christmas trees at Gerardi's Farmer's Market, which was right along the way. Actually you could see the container ships going by from the room where the session is held - that lent some atmosphere!

Victoria and Steve from the Long Island City Community Boathouse joined us there and had a very good time, and then the four of us ended up going out for a rather spontaneous dinner at Pasticceria Bruno on Forest Avenue, which turned out to be pretty darned good (lovely appetizers, unfortunately gone before I remembered to take pictures).

Photos from the day - click for slideshow view, this is the end of the write-up!

Snowy Evening, Times Square, and Clannad

Here's another New Yorky post - a snowy evening in Times Square. This was on Sunday night, I was running to meet some friends from Sebago for a Clannad concert. Yes, we're branching out even more - first it was kayaking, then hiking, now concerts, we're culchad! Seriously, though, our official club mermaid Vicky M. has access to inexpensive tickets from time to time and asked on Facebook if anybody wanted to join her at BB King's for Clannad; in the end eight of us convened for a very nice Thai dinner and then a fantastic concert.

Clannad is probably best known among the non-Irish-music-enthusiast public as the band that launched new-age icon Enya, the younger sister who did vocals and keyboards with the band until it was time for her to sail away, sail away, sail away. They're quite fabulous unto themselves, though, been playing together for a very long time and their performance pieces ranged from straight trad (including a sing-along for "Two Sisters", a charming lilting song of love, betrayal, murder and being boiled in lead - is it weird that I know it by heart?) to folk rocky to jazzy to new-age swoons, finishing up with a rollicking rendition of "Teir Abhaile Riu" (Go home with you!) - talk about an encore with a point! All made for a fantastic concert.

The internet hysteria about a huge blizzard turned out not to be true; none of us had really been concerned, paddlers are pretty weather-savvy and NOAA had never said anything more than "Chance of snow" for the weekend, not even estimating accumulations. It was definitely a night for boots but the snow didn't really amount to much in the end. Great night out, thanks Vicky and company! 

Dempsey's first Tuesday Night Seisiún of 2013 - off to a great start!

Seems like everybody was really ready for a few tunes (and maybe a pint or two) after a couple of weeks off for a holiday hiatus. At least 25 musicians showed up (and I sat on a stool in the vicinity and occasionally tootled on my tin whistle too) and as they say, "the craic was mighty". Fearless Leader John Nevin was concerned that he might not be able to make it, so he lined up a guest leader, but then he WAS able to come, so we had both Fearless Leader John AND Martin O'Connell, last year's All-Ireland Button Accordion Champion, who utterly delighted us at one point by leading off a set of traditional reels with a blazing rendition of "Tico Tico". I wish I'd had my camera along, but this guitar version gets to rollicking along at a similar pace at 1:14 (at first time through is apparently just a warm up). Yowza!

Three Sets at Dempsey's Pub, Tuesday, 1/10/2012

Quick lunchtime post here - between our seisiun leader John Nevin getting Patrick Mangan as a guest artist, and the continuing mild weather, I figured last night's traditional Irish music seisiun at Dempsey's was going to be a roof-raiser, so I decided to take my Optio along & take a shot at catching a few sets on video. I was glad I did. They came out very dark, of course, and the Optio microphone isn't near good enough to do justice to the music, but these 3 came out well enough that I think they get at least a little of the idea across. Enjoy! Oh, and if you like these & want to hear at least a little bit more in much higher quality, head on over to BeautifulPeopleDocFilm.com - that's the website for a really nice documentary film about our seisiun that came out last year. I'm not in it (I'd been scarce enough at that time I specifically DIDN'T go on the nights they were filming in the pub because I didn't want people to think I was just reappearing because I wanted to be in the movie), but I went to see it when it came out and it's a really wonderful depiction of this unique seisiun, which is both "the longest running open session that this town has to offer" (to steal a quote from the website) AND the most truly OPEN open seisiun there is, welcoming musicians of all levels (and not by accident, either, that's how our seisiun leader planned it & I think that's actually part of why it's endured so well).

Live in the area & want to come check it out sometime? Dempsey's is in the East Village, at 61 2nd Avenue, bet. 3rd & 4th Streets. The music starts around 8 & usually rolls on until at least midnight - I'm actually not sure what time they end, I've never been able to stay that late!







Now...I hate to mar an otherwise perfectly "Happy Bonnie" (tm) post with a mention of something annoying, but I just can't resist adding a note on the weirdness of tune recognition software:
I was astounded to get a copyright notice on the second set - it posted but there was a friendly little notice that something in the contents "Matched third party content." Continued on to say: "Your video, Dempseys 1 09 2012 - second set , may include content that is owned or administered by these entities:
Entity: Music Publishing Rights Collecting Society Content Type: Musical Composition." They didn't do anything but apparently the "Entity" may have the right to post ads on my video. :(

I assume YouTube has some corporate version of that marvellous little TunePal app I was introduced to last night - you hear a tune you like but don't know, you turn on TunePal, TunePal "listens", identifies it (giving the degree of certainty, it's never entirely sure), and can then give you sheet music and an MP3 so you can learn it yourself. I loved it. I'm still not getting an iphone but that's neatest app I've seen yet. Apparently the YouTube version "listened" to my content and is fairly sure it recognized something that somebody holds a copyright for. I've gotten that notice before, but those were both instances where I could see where the issue would be (and both videos are still up with their sound, no actual action was ever taken), but it just threw me for a loop that I could get on a video of the Dempsey's seisiun!

Change

When some things change, it can be such a relief.

Elsa's Irish Music Party 2008


But it's nice that some things don't.

Elsa's Irish Music Party 2009


Same sunny apartment full of nice people, good food & lively tunes - what a pleasant way to spend another chilly winter day.

Green Fields of France

I didn't make it to my Irish music session tonight.

But I'm sure that this song was sung in honor of Veteran's Day, and since I have no thoughts of my own worth sharing on the topic, but don't want to just ignore it, I'll just quote Eric Bogle, who said it very well indeed:

Well how do you do, Private William McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side?
And rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone that you were only 19
when you joined the glorious fallen in 1916.
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, William McBride, was it slow and obscene?

chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly?
did they sound the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
And though you died back in 1916
To that loyal heart are you always 19.
Or are you just a stranger without even a name
Forever enclosed behind some glass-pane
In an old photograph torn and tattered and stained
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

chorus

Well the sun it shines down on these green fields of France,
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance.
The trenches are vanished now under the plough
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard it is still No Man's Land
And the countless white crosses in mute witness stand.
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation that was butchered and downed.

chorus

And I can't help but wonder now Willie McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe them that this war would end war?
But the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame -
The killing, the dying - it was all done in vain.
For Willie McBride, it's all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Did they beat the drum slowly?
did they sound the pipe lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?

If you are interested, Wikipedia has an article with the song's history & links to sites where you can hear the song.

A boat I don't want to see, Irish music & the Wooly Bear Forecast

Jarrett over at the Good Old Boat Redwing blog emailed me and Tugster Will the other day.

He was curious to know if either of us had spotted a certain unusual new boat out on the Hudson.

My answer was:

"Holy cow, no! Don't think I want to either, I go out on the water to get AWAY from all the BS on shore, don't want it coming after me out there! Ick!"

Port or starboard, don't care...please, oh please, keep that thing away from Jamaica Bay!

And now I must go find Moonstruck DennisG's wooly bear forecast. I'm semi caught up at work for the first time in months (UNBELIEVABLE, I must have forgotten something), and with a lot of people being out for various reasons I was able to get out of work in time (and with enough energy) to get in both a good walk and a visit to my fave Irish music session (the Tuesday night one at Dempsey's Pub, where us non-prodigy type Irish musicians are welcome*) and dang, it was FANTASTIC to actually go out & unwind after work with a cheeseburger, a couple of pints & some good tunes and old friends I haven't seen in months - but dang, it's COLD here. Somebody told me it was snowing in Jersey. I believe that.

Wooly bear caterpillar never lies, said Moonstruck DennisG. Oh please, wooly bear, have mercy! I'm not ready for winter.

*p.s. - the Dempsey's gang loved this review. My friend John, who runs the session, has worked his tail off making this session the friendliest one in town (with the help of a strong core of people who've been attending for years). It's really something special, striking a balance between keeping it open to musicians of many levels, while making sure that the stronger musicians who really help drive the tunes & keep things together have fun. It took a while to find that balance, but the setup that goes on now works great - first couple of hours it's a round robin & everybody takes turns starting if they want to, which means everybody gets to play something as part of the group (quite a different experience than playing by yourself at home), even if they're fresh from their first classes at the Irish Arts Center & only know one or two tunes well enough to start. Later, it loosens up & the better musicians really get to cut loose & have some fun. I haven't heard about anything else quite like it in NY. Guess my long-delayed return there has got me all warm & fuzzy, but seriously, it's quite cool.

pps: And speaking of fuzzy - I found the Wooly Bear forecast: Wooly Bear extended weather forcast. Large black ring - warm Nov/Dec. Small orange ring - cold Jan and large black end ring - warm Feb and March. Wooly Bear never lies. And Wooly Bear has nothing to say about October. Oh well.

Happier links - Venice Kayak, and Irish music!

Oh, that last link was too saddening. Have to followup with happier.

1. Hey, who has ever fantasized about paddling in Venice? Well, it doesn't have to just be a fantasy - Rene Seindal, who started up the Paddling Planet (if you have a kayak blog & you aren't on there, you should let him know - the more the merrier!), is starting a kayaking business. Looks very cool. Interested? Check out Venice Kayak!

2. Want to get in the mood for St. Patrick's Day? Put on your favorite Chieftains record ('cause yeah, we sound JUST LIKE them, they just have better publicists!) and then visit the Flickr gallery I set up after a fabulous Irish music party a friend of mine threw back in February (sheesh, at the rate I'm going my President's Day trip report will get posted in April...).

Tons of fun, I was SO glad it was during the day so I could go & actually get some good pictures! A lot of the sessions tend to be at night, and I just don't like flash photography with the Optio (except for the odd flower that gives you a nice surprise when you take an accidental flash closeup, first two in that post were that case), so this was fun.

BTW, ever think it would be fun to play music like the Chieftains (or dance like the Riverdance people)? Well, there's a great place in Manhattan to get started - it's the Irish Arts Center! OK, honestly, few of us amateurs ever get anywhere close to Chieftains level, but the good folks at the IAC have taught many a beginner enough music & dance to enjoy playing along in or dancing with a group. It's lots of fun ("great craic" is a term you'll sometimes hear coming from the actual Irish Irish people use when the room starts to fill energy that gets going when people are playing well together & having a great time doing it, means the same thing pretty much) and hey, person does not live by boat alone!

And in a very nice twist - you need not be Irish to apply!

Don't live in NYC? There are organizations like the IAC in many other places - a good place to start looking is the branch finder page on the website of the world's largest group for the preservation & promotion of Irish traditional music and dance (stole that description from their site of course), Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann.

Look - there's even a branch in Japan!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Thanks AM!

Trivia for non-Irish-music-devotees - St. Patrick's Day aside, Danny Boy is probably the one piece of music least likely to be performed in NYC's Irish pubs - which is where all the good seisiuns. My friend Am first introduced me to the Irish music & dance scene back in the early 90's, when we were both working at Carnegie Hall. Good story, that - my folks were still in England then, and on a trip to Ireland, they'd had picked up a book by the name of The Bodhran Makers. I'd read it during a visit, loved it, and when I saw it on a St. Patrick's Day display in a bookstore, I snapped it up. Had it sitting out on my desk one afternoon when Am walked past - she spotted, froze, pointed dramatically & said "Where did you get that?". I told her, and she said that if I liked the book, there was something we had to do as soon as possible. That something was a great seisiun that Brian Conway and Don Meade used to lead at Muldoon's, in midtown. Oddly enough - remember what I said about Irish music circles being very interconnected? - the only time I ever heard Danny Boy played at an Irish music event in NYC was actually at one of the concerts Don used to produce at the Blarney Star Pub on Murray Street. It was a guitar player that night, cripes the name escapes me but he was one of those guys who it's all you can do to keep from getting up to dance - anyways, some drunk lady shouts out from the back corner of the room "Can you play Danny Boy?". There was this silence. He got this funny look on his face like "huh...I wonder if I can?", and gamely launched into it - gave up after about the first verse or so & shook it off with a good driving set of reels.

More musical trivia -

Did you know that the musical saw can't be played when it's below freezing?

Sunday Dance/Music/Poetry/Photography event

Sorry no time for posting this week! Lots of work + Monday night meeting + assorted fun stuff = neglected blog. The meeting, btw, was another SERIOUSLY good one, we had a great assortment of representatives from a lot of places turn out to show support for Pier 26 - at this point, the outcome there really doesn't have any impact on my personal ability to paddle, but I still see myself as one yappy little part of a much larger community, and in that way, cuts to the overall boating in the Hudson still matter a whole lot to me. I really need to do the Cast of Characters post that I'd planned to do after my Storage By the Numbers - that was were I was going to take the numbers I'd showed & put them in actual context of what groups are operating where, and what kind of access they each provide - all of 'em together and you have this incredibly rich mix of people using the water - take any one out, and I don't think it would be the END of park paddling & rowing, but I think that it would take away a couple of facets worth of sparkle. Sigh, no time for that at the moment - may not manage to post again 'til next week, please forgive the hiatus!

(note to G.C. - don't worry, finishing the newsletter article is in the "assorted fun stuff" that's taking precedence over blogging!)

Did want to post this, though, it came in over my Irish music yahoo group - I love it when my interests converge harmonically! This sounds really neat...unfortunately, as I told Matt, I have some tentative plans involving being on the water on Sunday, possibly in the Norwalk Islands in CT, and doubt I can make it - but I did want to put this on here. Me being me, and liking having my cake & eating it too, I've of course asked if there's any chance they'll do it again...shoot, they should hook up with New York Packet (if they're not already hooked, Irish music circles in NYC look a lot like those mazy Celtic designs on the t-shirts the musicians sometimes like to wear) and do it at the South Street Seaport Museum...that would be cool...ok, already spent more time than I was supposed to, 'nuff pipe dreaming, here's the announcement, for anyone who CAN make it!
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Please excuse the interruption, but I wanted to make everyone aware that I will be performing this Sunday with a small group at the Construction Company Theater (10 East 18th St, 3rd Floor Between Broadway and 5th Ave). The songs are all original material that was put together for this project and are all based on the theme of New York Waterways and the history that flows from it. Feel free to come along on a relaxing trip downstream with us....

As a warning, please forgive any butchering of an Irish tune or two that will be thrown into the mix. This group primarily does songs with a little bluegrass thrown in, so don't expect a night of jigs and reels.

See below for details:

Sunday, March 18
The Contruction Company Dance Gallery Presents:

Waterways
A warm interweaving of music, photographs and poetry that creates a stirring, impressionistic overview of New York's hardworking waterways . Featuring:

Matt Diaz: flute, banjo, pennywhistle, bouzouki
Rob Meador: mandolin, guitar
G. Doug Pierson: guitar, button accordian
Ian Stell: dobro, weissenheimer, guitar
Loren Stell: spoken word
Colin Dean: acoustic bass

10 East 18th Street , 3rd Floor (between Broadway and 5th Avenue)
Sunday March 18
5:00 pm
(212)924-7882

Life Ain't Fair!

First the kayak storage at Pier 63 gets threatened because some non-boaters decided that motorized & non motorized vessels can't operate in the same waters.

Now the Irish music session I occasionally attend is evidently threatened because the owners of our host pub have apparently decided that we don't drink enough.

So much for THAT stereotype, eh?

Fortunately there are a few more Irish pubs in NYC than there are kayak storage facilities - hopefully it will be easier to re-house a displaced session than it would be to re-house a displaced paddling community.

Dunno, though - last night's session rocked, it was literally standing room only. Our fearless session leader JN has hit on a great concept of having guest artists in once a month or so. Last night we had Patrick Mangan, who's an extremely talented young fiddler & he led a really excellent session. I ended up staying out quite a bit past my bedtime - the session just didn't start winding down at the usual hour.

Did my bit for the cause, too, had a couple of pints. Quite a sacrifice, yes, but one I made with a good spirit!