Tag Archives: William P. Tandy

Books & Writers, Culture, History, Maryland

Bookish History in Baltimore

October 28, 2014 Davida Breier 1 Comment

Geo-Poe

Tomorrow night, Next Edit Travel’s editors will be reading their Edgar Allan Poe-inspired stories as part of Geo-Poe, a “literary geo-caching adventure.” Fourteen well-known local authors will read at Westminster Hall, a spot that has been called the spookiest place in Baltimore, and the site of Poe’s grave.

It is a free event as part of Free Fall Baltimore and in partnership with Poe Baltimore, you just need to register.

Where: Westminster Hall, 519 W. Fayette Street, Baltimore, MD 21201
When: Wednesday, October 29, 7:00 p.m.
Website: http://citylitproject.org/index.cfm?page=news&newsid=150

If you are in the city to visit Poe’s grave and other literary landmarks, there are many additional bookish spots worthy of your attention. Here are a few:

Kelmscott Books

Baltimore’s largest antiquarian bookseller is located at 34 W. 25^th Street (near Charles and 25^th Streets) on what was once “Bookstore Row.” The name of the store is a nod to William Morris and it specializes in Arts and Crafts-related books, including books about books. With 30,000 books in inventory – from the 1600s to present – the shop offers many temptations for the bibliophile. I found an affordable signed mystery just last week. The store also has genuine bookstore cats who provide security and greet customers.

Hours: Monday-Friday, 10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m., Saturday by appointment only.
Website: http://www.kelmscottbookshop.com/

The Enoch Pratt Free Library

The Enoch Pratt Free Library began serving the citizens of Baltimore in 1886, making it one of the oldest free public library systems in the U.S. The Central Library, located at 400 Cathedral Street (near Cathedral and Mulberry Streets), is also Maryland’s State Library Resource Center. It is a beautiful building with an open floor plan in the entryway that extends to galleries on the second floor. They offer patrons a children’s room, exhibits (Maurice Sendak is up now), classes for kids and adults, author events, and special collections. The library also hosts the annual City Lit Festival in April. Next time you are in there, explore the building.

Hours: Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m., Saturday 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Sun. 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. (October-May)
Website: http://www.prattlibrary.org/

The Peabody Library

The Peabody Library is near the Washington Monument in Mount Vernon (17 East Mount Vernon Place). Started in 1860, a few decades before the Enoch Pratt Library, the Peabody’s collection of more than 300,000 books is mostly from the 18^th and 19^th century with a focus on the humanities, as well as maps. Much of their collection is online, including the library’s printed catalog, Catalog of the Library of the Peabody Institute, from 1883 and 1896. If you like books, this is an incredibly beautiful space.

Hours: Tuesday -Thursday: 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Friday: 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
Website: http://guides.library.jhu.edu/content.php?pid=205178&sid=1712833

History, Indiana, Strange

Indiana Medical History Museum

October 5, 2014 Davida Breier Leave a comment

“So…how long will you be here for?” the cab-driver asked in his heavy African patois. With our conference over, the three of us – Marilyn, Kat, and myself – had but a few hours left to explore Indianapolis before heading out for our respective home states; I nearly answered as much, until I saw the cabbie warily assessing a few distressed homes and unkempt yards surrounding us.

Indiana Medical History Museum, Indianapolis, IN

“An hour – maybe two,” I said, recognizing the seemingly questionable sense of three out-of-towners dodging the well-attended confines of their downtown hotel for a destination three-and-a-half miles west, in a neighborhood that grew rougher-looking by the block.

“Ah, good,” the cabbie said, exhaling his concern. “This neighborhood…might not find a cab back so easy.”

The four of us stared incredulously at the large, empty field surrounded by wire fence when his GPS announced our arrival about a half-mile later. It was Marilyn who finally noticed the non-descript sign that stood watch at the entrance to a long, flat driveway: INDIANA MEDICAL HISTORY MUSEUM.

“This is it,” said Kat, pointing down the lane.

The driver headed slowly through the open gate, coming to a stop a few hundred yards later in front of the Old Pathology Building, which houses the museum. The driver handed Marilyn a business card.

“You call this number when you are ready for pick-up,” he said. “They will send a driver for you.”

We stood before the brick Victorian as the cab pulled off. Built in 1895, the structure is one of the few remaining vestiges of the once-sprawling Central State Hospital, a self-contained psychiatric institution whose various incarnations operated on the site from the mid-19^th century until its complete closure in 1994. Today, the Indiana Medical History Museum, housed in what was once called the Pathological Department Building, chronicles the earliest days of modern psychiatry and medicine.

Inside, we paid our admission and were directed to wait in the nearby anatomical museum for the next scheduled tour. Guided tours, which begin on the hour, are mandatory, and for good reason, to which the museum’s fragile artifacts and sometimes constrained presentation ultimately attest.

With the arrival of a few more paying customers, a very knowledgeable docent named John led us on an informative tour of the museum’s key features, including its teaching amphitheater, clinical laboratories, photography lab, library, autopsy room, medicinal garden, and a small brick outbuilding known as the “Dead House”, where cadavers were once stored for extended periods of time.

Indiana Medical History Museum, Dead House

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Indiana Medical History Museum lies in the immediacy of its displays, which often suggest a phantom staff of doctors, nurses, and administrators who were there one day and gone the next, leaving everything in its place. Photography is permitted throughout the building save for one upstairs room, which still houses old patient records. Ancient textbooks bearing titles like Sexual Truths and Journal of Insanity abound in nearly every room.

However, despite its collections of autopsy equipment and preserved biological specimens, the Indiana State Medical Museum’s presentation avoids ghoulish overtones, focusing instead on pioneering efforts to scientifically identify and treat various forms of mental illness. It will appeal to fans of places like the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia and Scotland’s Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (both stories for another time), and is well worth a jaunt for anyone living or staying in the Indianapolis vicinity. But those without their own transportation be warned: plan your return trip in advance.

INDIANA MEDICAL HISTORY MUSEUM
3045 West Vermont Street, Indianapolis, IN 46222
(317) 635-7329
Website: http://imhm.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imhmuseum
Hours: Thursday – Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. (last tour starts at 3:00 p.m.)
Cost: $10 (seniors $9; students $5, with valid ID)

Culture, Food & Drink, Music, Pennsylvania, Video

Bomba Estereo

September 20, 2014 Davida Breier Leave a comment

War, some say, is God’s way of teaching Americans geography. And while for many, sadly, that may still hold true, today’s digital technology readily issues passports to foreign landscapes for anyone with a Galilean sense of curiosity and a good wifi connection – particularly in the musical sphere. Indeed, fusions of Western sound as filtered through the experience of foreign cultures – and vice versa – make for some of today’s freshest, most exciting music, and the Internet offers an improbably diverse world of rhythms and melodies for those willing to listen.

Bomba Estereo, World Cafe Live, Sept. 15, 2014

Among my favorite acts of recent years is Bomba Estereo, a Colombian band at the forefront of a style some have dubbed “electrocumbia”, a seamless blend of indigenous rhythms, Latin, reggae, rock, and electronic music. I had longed to experience this monstrously heady fusion in person for the last several years, but the space/time continuum remained steadfastly averse to it; Bomba Estereo never played Baltimore, and driving 45 minutes to Washington, D.C., on a Monday night usually proved problematic.

That Davida and I finally leapt at the opportunity to instead drive twice as far on a Monday night, to World Café Live in Philadelphia, probably reflects our feelings for D.C. as much as any affinity for Philly. Leaving work an hour early meant our only significant challenge would be the Rush Hour of Brotherly Love.

Having arrived at our destination about an hour before the doors opened, we enjoyed a delicious Indian buffet dinner at the nearby Sitar India. (Being a buffet, it allowed us to not only eat our fill, but also be as fast or slow in the process as we wished.) Afterward, we enjoyed the mild evening air of mid-September as we wandered back to the venue.

It was our second trip to World Café Live, the first having taken place a year earlier, when we took our 7-year-old son to his first concert, a Halloween-themed triple bill of the Fleshtones, Southern Culture on the Skids, and Los Straitjackets called “Mondo Zombie Boogaloo” (after a collaborative album of the same name). We’d found both sound and stage favorable, the staff to be most accommodating, and the restrooms quite clean. We bought drinks at the bar, then wandered out to the still-empty floor.

With their own blend of Latin, jazz, funk, and psychedelia, opening act Los Crema Paraiso proved well-suited to the task. I particularly dug the Venezuelan band’s seven-minute trance-epic called “Shine On You (Crazy Diablo)”, as well as the bouncy jangle of “Petrocumbia”. The next day, in fact, we bought their album, El Debut, online. (Curiously, neither band had a merch table that night.). When their set concluded, Davida and I staked out our places at the foot of the stage.

Upon taking the stage, Bomba Estereo unleashed a sonic juggernaut, an irresistible melting pot of jungle noise and urban nightlife. I found the lighting – which more often than not cast the band in silhouette (and sometimes total darkness) while at times, in fact, spotlighting the audience instead – to be especially interesting.

Though diminutive in stature (despite her platform sneakers), vocalist/MC Liliana Saumet commanded the audience with a powerful feminine presence that, amazingly, never detours into either pixie-princess or androgyny. Backed by band-founder Simon Mejia (bass), Julian Salazar (guitar/synthesizer), and Kike Eggurola (drums), Saumet – with her impeccable ability to rile the audience at just the right moments – led the band through dance-inducing numbers like “Fuego” as deftly as more atmospheric tunes, such as “Lo Que Tengo Que Decir”.

For 90-odd minutes, Bomba Estereo awed concertgoers not with blood and fire, but rather a distinctively reshuffled deck of human experience, demonstrating the notion that, often, travel is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder…

And you could dance to it.

BOMBA ESTEREO
Website: http://bombaestereo.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BombaEstereo

LOS CREMA PARAISO
Website: http://loscremaparaiso.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/loscremaparaiso

WORLD CAFÉ LIVE
3025 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Phone: (215) 222-1400
Website: http://philly.worldcafelive.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wclive

SITAR INDIA
60 South 38^th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104
Phone: (215) 662-0818
Email: sitarindiapa@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.sitarindiacuisine.net/
(DGB comment: they note on the buffet which items are vegan and gluten-free.)

Food & Drink, Maryland, Travel Tips

Daytrips From Baltimore: Cross Island Trail / Blackwater Distillery

September 3, 2014 Davida Breier 3 Comments

Many bicyclists thrive on adrenaline-fueled treks across rocky or wooded terrain, or long-distance hauls of a hundred miles or more. Not me. While I do not shun physical exertion or breaking a sweat, I’m a walker, not a runner; my workaday life offers enough white-knuckle adventure for my taste. Come the weekend, I prefer pedaling through nature at a more leisurely pace. Maryland’s Kent Island – just east of the Bay Bridge (Route 50), about an hour’s drive south of Baltimore – provides just that. (En route, Wawa store #569, off Route 50 Exit 29A, makes an ideal pit stop, offering clean restrooms, reasonably priced fuel, food ranging from prepared sandwiches to fresh fruit to every kind of processed junk, and, of course, top-notch coffee.)

Unlike some of the state’s more congested bike trails, Kent Island’s Cross Island Trail, an east-west route running between Stevensville and Kent Narrows, is never crowded. The paved six-mile asphalt trail is open to skating, walking, running, and biking. Its consistently flat terrain makes it ideal for families with young children, older users looking to avoid high-traffic areas, and anyone simply out to enjoy the scent of salt air and the island’s towering pines.

We favor setting out from Terrapin Nature Park, at the Trail’s western terminus, as the Chesapeake Exploration Center, at the eastern end, makes for an excellent mid-ride break (more on that later). A playground near Kent Island High School, about a mile out, is a welcome pit stop for small children. Farther along, the Trail wends its way through alternating patches of forest and wetlands. Use caution at the handful of highway crossings; while many drivers will stop to allow trail-users to pass, some do not.

Cross Island Trail, crab spider hard at work

Panorama view from the top of Chesapeake Exploration Center

Upon reaching Kent Narrows, grab your water and snacks and climb the spiral stairs of the three-story outdoor observation platform at the aforementioned Exploration Center for a marvelous view of the Narrows, the Chester River, and their attendant varieties of marine traffic. Downstairs, visit the indoor interpretive center, offering all manner of island life and history ranging from the ice age to recent work by local artisans (not to mention very clean restrooms). The friendly staff will be happy to chat and answer any questions.

Of approximately equal length, the nearby South Island Trail, running from Matapeake Park to Romancoke Pier, provides a north-south alternative to the Cross Island Trail. However, but for the fishing pier at its southern end, this trail features little else of interest, especially for children.

Trail near Chesapeake Exploration Center

While there is no charge for using either trail, it should be noted that, in 2014, Queen Anne’s County instituted paid permit parking for public spots like Matapeake Beach and Terrapin Nature Park. Seasonal ($35) and daily ($5) permits are available, however, they must be purchased from certain local businesses, which may or may not be open during park hours. While I have no problem paying a fee, especially if it benefits trail maintenance and patrols, having onsite purchase points would be infinitely more convenient and practical.

Baby Horseshoe Crab, Chesapeake Exploration Center

***

Situated in the unassuming office park just across the street from the entrance to Terrapin Nature Park is Blackwater Distilling, makers of the fabulously smooth Sloop Betty vodka. Maryland’s first fully-licensed distillery in more than 40 years, Blackwater offers free tours and tastings Friday through Sunday. Staples like Sloop Betty Honey utilize local, organic ingredients, while the distillery also produces various seasonal infusions throughout the year.

No bathtub hooch, Sloop Betty has won three Gold Medals, including the Gold Medal and “Best in Show” distinction at the New York World Wine & Spirit Competition, while The Tasting Panel magazine awarded the vodka a 94-point rating in its July 2011 issue. So take a bottle home, and keep your drinking money local!

WAWA STORE #569
321 Buschs Frontage Road, Annapolis, MD 21401
Hours: Open 24 hours
Phone: (410) 757-2328

CHESAPEAKE EXPLORATION CENTER
425 Piney Narrows Road, Chester, MD 21619
Hours: Open year-round 7 days/week (closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day and Easter); Monday – Friday 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., weekends 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Phone: (410) 604-2100
Admission: Free
Web: http://www.baygateways.net/general.cfm?id=74

BLACKWATER DISTILLING
184 Log Canoe Circle, Stevensville, MD 21666
Hours: Free tours offered Friday – Sunday, 12:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Phone: (443) 249-3123
Email: akeller@blackwaterdistilling.com
Web: http://www.blackwaterdistilling.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlackwaterDistilling

Louisiana, Music

Music: Shotgun Jazz Band and Tuba Skinny (New Orleans)

August 17, 2014 Davida Breier Leave a comment

Music is as fundamental to the character of New Orleans as red beans and rice, which is why I always stop by the Louisiana Music Factory whenever I’m in town. The place focuses on regional music, from New Orleans jazz and R&B to zydeco and early rock ‘n’ roll, and its multiple listening stations are an aural smorgasbord. Every trip unearths a few gems; here are a couple of my favorites.

SHOTGUN JAZZ BAND – Don’t Give Up the Ship

Much like “Johnny B. Goode” sounds as fresh in concert today as when Chuck Berry first recorded it in 1958, the Shotgun Jazz Band’s old-school jazz selections are infused with a vitality that belies their age. Indeed, tracks like Zilner Randolph’s “Old Man Mose”, the opening number on SJB’s 2013 album, Don’t Give Up the Ship, spring from a nearly century-old repertoire.

SJB sweeps aside the at-times too-cool-for-school jazz of the mid-20^th century onward, and instead lunges straight for its roots in the New Orleans of Satchmo, the Kingfish, and Prohibition. The band’s “fairly consistent” core lineup – including Christopher Johnson (tenor saxophone); Michael Magro (clarinet); Peter Loggins (trombone); Justin Peake (drums); John Dixon (banjo); and Tyler Thomson (bass) – produces a tight sound that still affects the breeziness of an impromptu hootenanny.

But the proverbial ace up SJB’s sleeve is vocalist and trumpeter Marla Dixon, whose vibrant and soulful style at once recalls blues queen Bessie Smith (notably manifest in her interpretation of “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”) and poet Dylan Thomas’s summation of novelist Flann O’Brien’s raucous 1939 masterpiece At Swim-Two-Birds: “This is just the book to give your sister – if she’s a loud, dirty, boozy girl.” (The sentiment applies to both band and book in the best possible ways.)

Other highlights include jaunty covers of Wooden Joe Nicholas’s “All the Whores”, Sam Morgan’s “Short Dress Gal”, the Harlem Hamfats’ “Weed Smoker’s Dream”, Bessie Smith’s “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”, and a few infectious originals, such as the title track and “Girl, You Better Use Your Head”. The album’s cover art (and title) draw upon Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s battle flag commemorating the dying words of Captain James Lawrence during the War of 1812.

Tuba Skinny

TUBA SKINNY – Pyramid Strut

Fellow New Orleans jazz revivalists Tuba Skinny launch their latest full-length effort, Pyramid Strut (2014), with their take on Bunk Johnson’s “Big Chief Battle Axe” and from there throw an all-hours party.

As the Cramps famously did for forgotten garage and rockabilly, so Tuba Skinny resurrects obscure and long-forgotten tracks from the early days of jazz and blues, such as Victoria Spivey’s “Blood Thirsty Blues” and “Mean Blue Spirits”, a variation of Bessie Smith’s “Blue Spirit Blues”. The band’s line-up includes Todd Burdick (tuba); Westen Borghesi (tenor banjo); Jon Doyle (clarinet); Barnabus Jones (trombone); Shayne Cohn (cornet/fiddle, as well as the album’s cover artwork); Robin Rapuzzi (washboard); and Erika Lewis (vocals/bass drum), whose voice can conjure heaven, hell, and everything in between within the span of three minutes.

What’s more, the band is insanely prolific. While Pyramid Strut (Tuba Skinny’s fifth full-length record since 2009) was just released in early 2014, as of this writing (August 2014), the band’s website already reports the completion of its next album, Owl Call Blues.

While both bands amply demonstrate their musical chops, the music they play itself hearkens back to the bouncy simplicity of early-era jazz, much like the early days of rock and roll and Chicago blues, before both were overrun by dorm-room wankers and 12-minute guitar solos. Both albums are available through Louisiana Music Factory, or directly from the artists’ websites.

Culture, Massachusetts, Music, Video

Dick Dale

August 15, 2014 Davida Breier Leave a comment

Fifty reverb-drenched years following the release of his signature hit, “Misirlou”, Dick Dale never comes off as an “oldies” act, a feat the 77-year-old “King of the Surf Guitar” reaffirmed with a recent Boston-area performance that for me happily coincided with a work conference in that city.

Middle East, Dick Dale — Dick Dale, August 6, 2014, The Middle East, Cambridge, MA

Having closed down a rooftop cocktail reception our second night in town, three friends and I hailed a cab from the convention hotel in the city’s Back Bay section to Cambridge, just across the Charles River. In less than 10 minutes, the four of us stood outside the Middle East nightclub, located at 472-480 Massachusetts Avenue.

The $30 cover ($25 in advance) was substantially more than the $11 or $12 I used to pay to see Dale back in the mid-’90s, when he rode a wave of resurgent popularity following director Quentin Tarantino’s prominent use of “Misirlou” in his film Pulp Fiction. Still, I was pleased to find the Middle East a throwback to the smaller, darker, more intimate venues frequented in my youth, like Philadelphia’s Trocadero Theatre.

Dick Dale, August 6, 2014, The Middle East, Cambridge, MA

Downstairs, people packed the floor while the opening act, Three Day Threshold, delivered a decent brand of cow-punk somewhat reminiscent of the Supersuckers. I spied an opening at the bar, and we promptly ordered a round. The right moment arrived a few minutes later, when the band went off stage and the crowd briefly broke for the bathrooms and bar. It was then, drinks in hand, that we deftly made our way to the foot of the stage.

Dale is, in a sense, multiculturalism incarnate. Born in Boston to a Polish mother and Lebanese father, he grew up in nearby Quincy before moving with his family to El Segundo, California, where the teenage Dale took up surfing. The traditional Middle Eastern music he had known all his life came to heavily influence a style of music now commonly associated with Southern California. Indeed, his best-known tune, “Misirlou”, is based on a folk song that dates back to the 1920s. With his ferocious speed and amp-blowing volume, many today consider Dick Dale a progenitor of everything from punk to heavy metal.

Despite his advanced years and a recent bout with cancer, Dale, backed by a top-notch bass guitarist and drummer, tore through his 50-year repertoire with hurricane fury that night in Cambridge: “Let’s Go Trippin”, “Fish Taco”, “Ghost Riders in the Sky”, “House of the Rising Sun”, “Louie Louie”, “Summertime Blues”, and a blistering rendition of the late Link Wray’s “Rumble”. He also remains the only man alive who can make both “Hava Nagila” and “Amazing Grace” sound completely bad-ass. No matter the tune, Dale, like the Ramones, has a sound so distinctive that whatever he plays instantly becomes his own.

At one point during the show I turned around to face the crowd. The whole place was packed.

While Dale has to pay the bills just like the rest of us, one aspect that has always stuck with me since his earlier shows is his manifest enthusiasm for his fans. At no time was this ever more evident than the end of the show, when Dale would sit at the edge of the stage and talk with everyone, autograph anything, until the very last person had left, no matter how long that took.

But perhaps the most impressive thing about Dick Dale is that he is nothing if not a survivor, defying a half-century of passing trends, health troubles, and an industry chronically obsessed with youth. As a fellow cancer survivor, I greatly respect that.

If Dale displayed any symptom of age it was sitting in a chair behind the merch table after the show. But there he sat, once again, chatting with fans and signing autographs, until the last folks in line (us) had their turn at the table. I bought a black-and-white photo of the King of the Surf Guitar, circa 1963, which he graciously signed to the attention of my 8-year-old son, also a fan.

“Fantastic as ever, Mr. Dale,” I said as he signed the picture. “I’ve been coming to see you for 20 years now.” He grew momentarily frustrated upon realizing he’d misspelled the word “special”.

“Heh,” he chuckled, handing me the photo. “You don’t look that old.”

“Neither do you, sir,” I laughed. “Neither do you.”

THE MIDDLE EAST
472-480 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: (617) 864-3278
Website: http://mideastoffers.com

DICK DALE
Website: http://www.dickdale.com/

Lodging, Massachusetts, Nautical

Boston B&B on a Boat

August 5, 2014 Davida Breier Leave a comment

Anyone accustomed to traveling on business is familiar with the cash cow that the work conference circuit is for the hospitality industry, which commands top dollar for everything from wifi to dessert. Bearing that in mind when she was called to Boston for a three-day conference in late June 2013, Davida began researching more economical alternatives rather than spend her annual travel budget all in one place.

With my own annual conference out of the way, I planned to take a few days off to accompany her. Knowing my love for all things nautical, it was with great enthusiasm that Davida emailed me to ask if I’d be interested in taking a cruise one evening aboard a schooner she discovered during her online digging.

Sailing in Boston Harbor, Liberty Clipper

“Absolutely,” I replied.

She emailed me again two minutes later: “How would you like to stay aboard the schooner?”

“Hell yes!” I exclaimed, and with that she promptly booked us for two nights aboard the 125-foot Liberty Clipper.

At $130 a night (with less expensive options available), the deluxe cabin cost roughly one-third the price of a room at the conference hotel. Better still was the fact that, whereas the latter is situated in a stretch of reclaimed industrial waterfront a mile or two south of downtown, the Liberty docks at Long Wharf, well within walking distance of downtown attractions like Faneuil Hall and the Old North Church. Granted, this made getting to and from the conference more of a chore, but the ambiance of staying aboard a working schooner moored inside Boston Harbor more than made up for it.

Both of us being on the shorter side in height, the cabin (which included a two-person top bunk) proved an ideal fit for our compact frames. We also took advantage of the 30 percent discount on any cruise offered to anyone staying aboard.

Mind you, such accommodations are not without challenges, starting with the fact that your room effectively disappears for several hours each day (the dockside office will gladly hold any belongings you might want to access during that time). Also, with features like a common head (bathroom) and shower, the operation more closely resembles a hostel than a hotel.

While such arrangements should be carefully considered when planning a trip, especially if traveling on business, the experience will prove both memorable and affordable for the more adventurous traveler. And be sure to call ahead, as Liberty heads south every winter, to ply her trade in the Caribbean.

The Liberty Fleet of Tall Ships
Address: 67 Long Wharf, Boston, MA 02110
Phone: (617) 742-0333
Website: www.libertyfleet.com
Email: liberty@libertyfleet.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Schooner-Liberty-Clipper/128590424883?fref=ts

Culture, Louisiana, Music, Video

Kermit’s Treme Mother-in-Law Lounge

July 29, 2014 Davida Breier 1 Comment

In 1994, New Orleans R&B legend Ernie K-Doe and his wife, Antoinette, opened the Mother-in-Law Lounge (named after the singer’s 1961 hit single). Located at 1500 N. Claiborne Avenue, in the city’s Treme neighborhood, they hoped the lounge would infuse new life into the singer’s career. It did just that, and the bar and music spot soon became a cultural hub of the community.

Kermit's Treme Mother-in-Law Lounge — Kermit’s Treme Mother-in-Law Lounge

Following her husband’s death in 2001, Antoinette K-Doe continued to own and operate the Mother-in-Law Lounge (which was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005) until her own death in 2009. The club closed the following year.

But in January 2014, the Mother-in-Law found new life when it reopened on Martin Luther King Day under the stewardship of New Orleans jazzman and native son Kermit Ruffins. Today, with its vibrant exterior murals and predominantly local clientele (as well as a smattering of tourists), the Mother-in-Law is reaffirming its place in Treme, providing a venue and gathering point for a variety of area musicians.

The renowned Treme Brass Band’s weekly Sunday gig happily coincided with my first night in town. So at the encouragement of Andy Rubin, a Baltimore-based friend and the Treme Brass Band’s General Manager, I set out on the mile-and-a-half walk from our digs at the French Market Inn on Decatur Street.

The residential streets surrounding Esplanade Avenue, in Faubourg Marigny, are quieter, more empty, and within a few blocks of the Mother-in-Law it becomes evident that you’re no longer in the tourist-driven combine of the Quarter. The words “I told u who hold the fuckin power!” are hand-scrawled in black Sharpie across the warped clapboards of a nearby house. And then, farther up the street, the visages of Ernie and Antoinette manifest in the form of a colorfully loud mural. A bronze plaque beside the door commemorates the previous owners.

Inside, the Lounge is comparatively nondescript (save for a flamboyant life-size statue of Ernie K-Doe), comprised mainly of two utilitarian rooms – the bar side and the stage side – separated by a cinderblock wall, patrons in the former dancing to the brassy strains emanating from the latter. Benny Jones, Sr., the Treme Brass Band’s leader since the 2012 passing of Uncle Lionel Batiste, and five or six other band members generate their signature sound with little, if any, amplification from the tiny stage, which is little more than a raised platform. Five or six patrons stand watching the band, their backs to the dividing wall; unlike the bar side, no one facing the music is dancing. Not in the corporeal sense, anyway.

For once, I don’t feel badly for sweating through my pressed, button-down shirt; in this climate, everyone does, especially in late June. I found the staff to be very friendly, and I downed a couple of reasonably priced beers during the roughly 45 minutes of the Treme Brass Band’s set that I caught. Despite its simplicity, the place exudes an identity, a sense of history and atmosphere, much more on par with the classic juke joints and gin mills of old than their more modern, sanitized corporate counterparts.

The band wrapped up their set, and I dropped a few bills in the metal urn in front of the stage that serves as a tip jar. I bought a copy of their 2008 album, New Orleans Music, which the band members graciously signed to the attention of my 8-year-old son. From hard rock to hip-hop to traditional folk, he loves live music – the enthusiasm and energy – in all its forms. And the CD, by proxy, will hopefully tide him over until the day I can bring him with me back to see and hear and appreciate for himself the singular city of New Orleans, and the resilient, unvarnished character that appears nightly in places like Kermit’s Treme Mother-in-Law Lounge.

Kermit’s Treme Mother-in-Law Lounge
1500 North Claiborne Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70116
P: (504) 975-3955

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kermits-Treme-Motherinlaw-Lounge/674959599217170

Amusements & Arcades, California, Strange

VIDEO: Musee Mecanique

July 21, 2014 Davida Breier 1 Comment

Amusements & Arcades, California, Strange

Musee Mecanique

July 21, 2014 Davida Breier Leave a comment

The priest waves his crucifix through the air, administering last rites, as the guillotine lops off the head of the condemned and the curtain falls on the “French Execution”, one of more than 200 antique coin-operated amusements that comprise Musee Mecanique, tucked away amidst the touristy bustle of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf.

The French aren’t the only ones in the Musee’s phantasmagorical collection that show Grand Theft Auto how it’s done; there’s also an “English Execution”. Indeed, violent and nefarious scenes pervade these machines, some of which date back to the 19^th century. One could easily picture a young Thomas De Quincey dropping coins in the “Opium Den”. Elsewhere, the shifty-eyed “Flasher” earns his moniker while “Laffing Sal” and “Jolly Jack” manically yuk it up against the strains of a century-old Wurlitzer Orchestrion.

Musee Mecanique’s founder, the late Edward Zelinsky, began collecting his automatons and amusements in the early 1930s. Today, Zelinsky’s family maintains his legacy in both form and function. Incredibly, all of the arcade’s machines are kept in their original working condition, so bring your pocket change; prices range from one cent to one dollar (most fall in the 25 and 50-cent brackets). Admission to Musee Mecanique is free.