Signs that Christmas is coming...

The man who stands outside Whole Foods wearing a cape and playing a bucket added a Santa hat to his attire.

Turkey Day weekend in Massachusetts

We celebrated our first major holiday here in the commonwealth. We missed our traditional family gatherings but made the most of the four day weekend. On Thanksgiving Day we ate dinner at the Blue Heron restaurant. We ate there on our anniversary, so we knew it was good, but the four-course turkey dinner was amazing! Grandma Bauer and T.L. Bear make better turkey, though.

On Saturday we set out to explore New York City. We drove to New Haven, CT and took the train into Grand Central Station.

Jay can barely contain his excitement on the train.





Grand Central Station is a great welcome to New York City. The classical architecture is amazing, but the huge crowds are a little overwhelming. Jay compared it to the most crowded day at the Minnesota State Fair, minus the cheese curds and pronto pups!



Times Square hypnotized us with the flashing lights. For some reason we left feeling like we should buy something...I'm sure it had nothing to do with the dense concentration of ads we saw.
















We gave in to the pull of the street vendors and got hot dogs but resisted the temptation to buy "real" Prada handbags, although there was a lovely blue leather one that would look stunning with Jay's eyes...

Even though it hasn't been officially "lit" the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center is impressive! We were surprised at how small the skating rink was, however.

We walked through the Theatre District right in the middle of the Saturday matinee rush. If you look closely at the people in the bottom of the picture you'll notice a man being arrested, which on its own isn't very entertaining, but it happened in front of the families in line for "The Lion King". Jay was particularly impressed with this scene.



Hanging out in Central Park enjoying the beautiful weather. We didn't see any celebrities during our visit (we tried, Sarah!) but Jay swears he saw a guy who looked exactly like Brian Lien in the Park. Hmmmm......

After Central Park we went to the American Museum of Natural History, where we came across this statue from the Olmec culture in Mesoamerica. Heidi was especially excited to find it since she had talked about them in a lecture she gave on the Olmec just last week. Jay was not expecially excited to find it, even though he sat through Heidi's practice lecture. He lost even more points when he laughed at the fact that the evolution wing of the museum was closed for renovation.











Before we left the museum Jay got a call on his cell phone from his grandma. When he told her where we were, her response was "Oh, for heaven's sake!"

Our final stop was the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We only had a little time to spend there so we went straight to the European wing. The Impressionist art is amazing! After the museum we walked down Park avenue to Grand Central Station to catch the train home.

-hbc

Today is Julia Child Day; Dylan in concert

Today, Thursday, Nov. 16, Smith College celebrates Julia Child '34 and her contributions to the college community. Her recipes are featured at the Campus Center Café and Smith College Club for lunch as well as in the Smith dining rooms and the café for dinner. “What I learned in the Kitchen,” a panel with Smith faculty discussing the pleasure treasures of a life well-lived and loved, will take place in the Campus Center at 4:15 p.m. and will be followed by a gala reception.

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Last night’s concert deserves a ‘pretty good’, but not a ‘great’, in the humble opinion of this Blapp.

Openers The Raconteurs = indie songwriter stud Brendan Benson + the rhythm section of Cincinnati’s The Greenhornes + some manic fidgety guy named Jack White who plays a pretty mean guitar and sings a bit too. The flashes of Led Zep worship shown on Broken Boy Soldiers were in full effect live, and several songs were extended by bluesy psychedelic Page-esque noodlings that probably would have been much cooler in a small club setting.

White blew his voice out mid-way through the set, but gamely kept reaching for those high notes anyways. Ouch. Rhythm section was very solid, but clearly relegated to second-fiddle status backing up the Benson & White show. A noisy version of “Steady As She Goes” was the closer and highlight of the set, which ended promptly at 8:30 PM.

Dylan? Well, Dylan’s songs speak for themselves, but on this night he was definitely not a showman or a performer. He played the keyboard and the occasional harmonica line, facing his band, shoulder to the audience - his only verbal acknowledgement of the crowd was the mumbled afterthought of, “Thank you, friends” as he left the stage.

Interesting demographic mix in the audience, with an about-even mix of boomers, gen Xers and college-age troopers.

An excitable young fellow sitting near us apparently felt that giving the “devil horns” sign for each song was an appropriate tribute, and his friend’s yelled proclamation to anyone and everyone of, “He’d better f&*#ing play ‘Like a Rolling Stone’!” midway through Dylan's set was . . . um . . . charming.

Mr. Zimmerman and his band performed songs drawn almost entirely from the new record Modern Times, with the notable exceptions of “Highway 61 Revisited” and a driving version of “Like a Rolling Stone” as the crowd-pleasing finale. Dylan's voice was a bit ragged and scratchy; of course Dylan’s backing band was fantastic, propelling each song with precision and finesse.

DQ!

An important update / correction to information posted previously in The Blapp Report:

New England DOES have Dairy Queens after all
I found one, in Springfield’s Holyoke Mall
My Blizzard purchase: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough,
I consumed it swiftly, I’ll have you know,
Blizzards taste great any season - winter, spring, summer or fall.

So...

We’re seeing some guy named Bob Dylan tonight – he’s in concert at UMass, with The Raconteurs opening. Looking forward to the show.

- Jay

Voting is neato, eh?

The election is over, which is fantastic because it means that my TV viewing will again be dominated by irritating product commercials rather than irritating campaign commercials. Bravo to the Dems for their successes this week – or, more appropriately, bravo to the voters for their success, right? (My political leanings are a lot like my preferences in dress shirts – blue, light blue, blue with stripes, and a little bit of green – so I’m pretty pleased about Tuesday’s results.)

MSNBC recently reported that over $160 million was spent solely on campaign advertising – the vast majority towards negative ads. Imagine the collective good that amount of money could have done if it was distributed to some school districts, health clinics, and business development organizations rather than to cruddy TV commercials...

Here in Massachusetts, Deval Patrick (D) won the race for governor by 20+ percent margin over the Republican challenger. He is a former civil rights lawyer who worked in the Clinton administration. He also had a high-power exec job with Coca-Cola for awhile, which briefly raised the ire of some uber-lefties a few months back, but they quickly got over it. He comes across as thoughtful, humble, and charismatic – a leader who doesn’t seem like he’ll result to “just folks” style pandering. Good stuff.

I will admit to being confused by Patrick’s campaign slogan, “Together We Can”. No announcement has been made about what it was that we are canning… Pickles? Tomatoes? Perhaps he’ll tell us when he formally takes office.

In other news, I saw Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth with her daughter while we were wandering around Northampton last week. This was cool as heck.

Which reminds me: Derailleur scored a gig at the Guthrie this Friday night. You should go.

Be good; be good at it.

- jbc