Michael P. Smith, photographer

New Orleans culture and music in black-and-white photographs:

In the Spirit: The Photography of Michael P. Smith

(Thanks, Linda!)

The Savory Collection

Lost and found: audio engineer and jazz fan William Savory’s recordings of late-1930s radio broadcasts have a new home at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. The New York Times has a story, a video feature, and seven audio samples. The highlight among them: Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, and Fats Waller putting together a blues. Says the announcer, “This oughta be good.” It’s great.

Of time and The Honeymooners

I looked up at the clock the other night and heard the voice of Alice Kramden in my head: “Ralph, it’s a quarter to eight. You’re gonna be late for bowling.” (Thank you, involuntary memory.) As you may already have suspected, the big hand was (roughly) on the 9. Had I been looking at a digital clock, I would not have heard Alice’s voice. For the time would have been 7:45, or :44 or :46.

In the early 1980s I heard Susan Sontag give a talk that touched briefly on analog and digital timekeeping. The difference between them, Sontag said, was the difference between cyclical and linear conceptions of time. I was quite excited, as I had already come to the same conclusion in my grad-student head. Nowadays, I don’t find the cyclical/linear fascinating or even persuasive: a digital flip-board moves through time on wheels, and even an LCD or LED display cycles through a routine. The real differences between analog and digital timekeeping lie elsewhere. An analog clock admits of interpretation: it lets us look at time from different directions. If you’re waiting for someone who was due to arrive at 7:00 and is now forty-five minutes late, it’s 7:45. They’re forty-five minutes late. But if that someone is supposed to arrive at 8:00, it’s a quarter to. They’ll be here in fifteen minutes! Analog also encourages genial imprecision: a few minutes after eight, almost nine. Who’s counting? I like too the quaint grade-school-like fractions of analog time — halves and quarters. And metaphorical faces and hands add a human element unmatched by a digital “display.”

I have never owned a digital watch, and the clocks in our house are old-school. But I do prefer using a digital alarm clock. I like to wake up exactly, so as not to be late for bowling.

[Alice warns Ralph about the time in the “Pardon My Glove” episode of The Honeymooners, March 17, 1956. About that flip-board: in the 1980s, flip-board clocks were mechanical, with placards moving on wheels. Now flip-board clocks are virtual, showing up in screensavers and phone apps.]

Herman Leonard (1923–2010)

Herman Leonard, one of the great photographers of jazz, has died. From a recent exhibition: twenty-five photographs.

Abbey Lincoln (1930–2010)

The singer Abbey Lincoln has died. From the New York Times obituary:

In 1956, she made her first album, Affair ... a Story of a Girl in Love (Liberty), and appeared in her first film, the Jayne Mansfield vehicle The Girl Can’t Help It. Her image in both cases was decidedly glamorous: On the album cover she was depicted in a décolleté gown, and in the movie she sported a dress once worn by Marilyn Monroe.

For her second album, That’s Him, released on the Riverside label in 1957, Ms. Lincoln kept the seductive pose but worked convincingly with a modern jazz ensemble that included the tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins and the drummer Max Roach. In short order she came under the influence of Mr. Roach, a bebop pioneer with an ardent interest in progressive causes. As she later recalled, she put the Monroe dress in an incinerator and followed his lead.

Here’s a sampler, via YouTube:

“Afro Blue” : “Driva Man” : “Freedom Day” : “Sophisticated Lady” : “Throw It Away” : “When Malindy Sings”

Baby’s in back

[Hi and Lois, August 14, 2010.]

Two years ago, the sight of the Flagston family heading off on vacation with baby Trixie in the front seat of the car turned me into a close reader of Hi and Lois. (Way too close.)

This year Trixie’s been stashed with the tennis racket and football. And the door handles. And the apostrophe. I think Hi means “Lois’ family’s cottage.”

Related reading
All Hi and Lois posts

[Post title with apologies to John Lennon and Paul McCartney.]

Mystery photograph

[Photograph by Michael Leddy.]

If you think you know the location, comment away.

Update, 2:28 PM: Mystery now solved, in the comments.

Chris Dedrick (1947–2010)

Composer, singer, instrumentalist Chris Dedrick of The Free Design has died. Here’s a Free Design sampler, via YouTube:

“Bubbles” : “I Found Love” : “Kites Are Fun” : “Love You” : “My Brother Woody” : “Peekaboo”

I came to the music of The Free Design very late, via their recording of Bruce Johnston’s “Endless Harmony” on the 2000 compilation Caroline Now! (Marina Records). That was all it took.

Corrections of the Times

From the Corrections page in today’s New York Times:

An article on Wednesday about Tiger Woods’s golfing struggles heading into the P.G.A. Championship described incorrectly his change of heart about playing on the United States Ryder Cup team. His new willingness to be a captain’s pick for the team represents a 180-degree turn, not a 360-degree turn.

Or better: a reversal. (Avoid clichés.)

Related reading
All Times corrections posts

New England Mobile Book Fair

[Photograph by Michael Leddy.]

The squat, featureless warehouse — originally a tennis-racket factory — is surrounded by retail clothing stores and restaurants serving the affluent western suburbs of Boston. With only modest indication of what wares are inside, the independent bookstore still outsells each of the four superstores in the area. Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman, A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder (New York: Back Bay Books, 2007).

The New England Mobile Book Fair, in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts (hereafter, the NEMBF) is not mobile, nor is it a fair. Its distinctive feature is that it organizes almost all new books into hardcover and paperback sections by publisher. That scheme allows for all sorts of chance discovery. I found William Lindsay Gresham’s novel Nightmare Alley by browsing New York Review Books. And from the same publisher, Balzac’s The Unknown Masterpiece for Elaine. The photograph above shows a relatively small part of the whole: the floor stretches at least as far in the other direction. More photos can be found at the store’s website.

*

The New England Mobile Book Fair closed, apparently for keeps, in 2020.

Related posts
Harvey’s Hardware Telephone exchange names on screen (On Nightmare Alley)

(Yes, “hereafter” is a joke.)