moon traveller herald

I got sad news last night that a dear Boston friend died at 79. That is Walter Powers, who I came to know through my library circles [I worked at BU Library for almost 10 years- and got to know a bunch of MIT Library people, especially Gordon Thomas, who played the organ at our wedding.] He and Walter did cataloging and had little bands during academic intermissions.   Walter Powers was a real good guy. Also, a musical historian, erudite, movie star good looking, and famous in the Boston music scene. Including the so-called BossTown Sound scene. He had been in - among others - The Lost with Willie Alexander, Listening with Peter Malickand the Grass Menagerie with Doug Yule, who went on to replace John Cale in the Velvet Underground. When Lou Reed left the Velvets, Walter replaced him, and he brought in Willie Alexander when Sterling Morrison went back to college, leaving Mo Tucker the last of the originals. Tough job to replace Lou there, Walter would admit, but honestly,...

 On the passing of Luther Guitar Junior Johnson Christmas Day 2023 at 83 - I post here some excerpts from liner notes I wrote for his 1984 Rooster Record: “Doing the Sugar Too.”  He was a hard-working and riveting performer with a great sense of Time, Dynamics, Emotion, and Blues.  And a thoughtful individual I recall, as a read a bit of the liner notes.  Cringing too, as it's pretty clear I must have asked him some pretty dumb questions. But he fielded them manfully, and they tell a story. He came up from Mississippi to West Side Chicago, and played extensively with Magic Sam, but most notably with Muddy Waters, playing a role as something of a bandmaster for most of the 1980s, counting off numbers in one of Muddy Waters’ greatest ensembles. Here are some portions of the notes: Luther pursues a sound that represents his feelings. “I take my guitar and go into a sound,” he says. “I pick up an acoustic and think about different arrangements of music.” He sometimes com...

  On the town. Twas the second annual Ed Raymond OffBeat Freedom Trail trek. Fort Independence on Castle Island (where Sgt. Edgar Allan Poe heard the tale that became The Cask of Amontillado) Foley’s on Berkeley (where the Boston Police Strike of 1919 was fomented), the Malcom X mural in the Station formerly known as Dudley, Roxbury puddingstone, Mission Church. Also playing records. And wrap up picking stones on the beach (with a geologist!) and sea food at Wollaston Beach with the friends and family. Here I might list some cool spots in Boston/Cambridge IMHO. Castle Isle In Your Ear Records Stero Jack's Records Foleys in the South End Mission Hill Fitzgerald Park Mission Church Public Garden Longfellow House Harvard Yard The Glass Flowers Amelia Earhart Statue Maj. Shaw Statue John Kennedy birth place Edgar Allan Poe birth place The Emerald Necklace Olmstead's Workshop River Charles Braves Field Lexington Green

 The Filene’s Bros., R.H. Stearns or the Jordan Marsh of Boston were in their times barons of sorts – of no more interest now than Charlemagne and his barons. In their days, they were lords of the city, forming a merchandising class with distinct social oblige. Unique among all was Edward A. Filene. His family came to this country as part of the Prussian-German exodus of 1848. And, like a lot of those folk, he inherited some innovative ideas about man and society. He was eager, as the Filenes store succeeded, to improve the lot of Filene’s workers, and of the city of Boston. This reached a culmination of sorts when, at Filene’s request, muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens came to Boston in 1909. Filene and Steffens formed an inspired partnership, with civic duty as the bond. Filene influenced the Merchant’s Association to hire Steffens, at a salary of princely $10,000 per year, to uncover corruption in Boston. He hired Steffens to write the “Boston 1915 Plan.” Within six years i...

Boston Pols by Jack Vaughan, from the BU News, 1975. Politics hasn't changed that much over the years. Mayor Kevin White, and his lame and inarticulate opponent, Joseph Timilty, both descend from families who have had their hand in the city politic for years. Both men's fathers were Boston politicians. The father of city Councilor Louise day Hicks, the South Boston patron saint of anti-busing, was also an old Boston pol. The Kennedys weren't the only family of Irish politicians, they just went national. Kevin, as the mayor is called by the insiders, even went so far as to marry the daughter of another family's political leader. Visions of the Corleones dancing on our heads. So as it turns out, The Boston City Council has six out of nine members Irish, and the school committee is entirely Irish. And although there are important issues to be dealt with, 9 times out of 10 it boils down to a little power struggle between the pols , who are all Democrats. Louise Day Hicks ...

 Boston Pols by Jack Vaughan Circa 1975 Reading James Caroll’s The City Below for the Mission Hill Book Club and it brings up a lot of the mood of when I first got to Boston. Looking back in my morgue files – I thought I’d trot out a piece from my days writing for the BU News. The editors there were nice enough to send me down to the City Council to see if I could come up with a story, and it took quite a while but it happened. It was an election year, and I took a hack at understanding the city politic.  That fit nicely with the interests of my BU teachers -- reporters and editors for the Boston Globe and Boston Herald. I’d read Tom Wolfe, Lincoln Steffens’ bio (see below), the Real Paper and the Boston Phoenix, (avidly) and Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. And I was on the case as cross-city school busing brewed up a storm.  The voice I heard was Mike Barnicle, the Boston Breslin. In fact I also heard the prose of another Globalist,  my BU teacher,...

Kicking thru an old post on a Journalism site - Thoughts: Good journalists develop common sense rules of thumb to gauge a source's motivation, veracity, and so on. They establish these over time, with the help of more experienced editors (some would call them 'mentors'). I learned this most vividly thru a book, The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens. In it he described the method he took on when he went (at behest of Mr. Filenes) to muckrack Boston. He'd seek out the folks on one side (say the police and the politicians) and then the other (say the criminals and the merchants). And look for fissures in those groups, and the differing motivations that drove what they did and what they said about it and each other. Vividness resonated because, at the time I was reading this tome, I got access to Boston City Hall Records only (probably) because a councilor vouched for me. And he did it because he thought he might get something useful on the mayor. Not that he'd ev...

Jazz is New Orleans, Jazz is New York – beyond that it gets a little dicey. Is jazz Chicago? Montreux? LA? Paris? Philadelphia? Altoona? Fact is there are a number of places off the beaten track worth consideration, having raised individuals and aggregations that influenced the major American art form. My adopted home town of Boston is one of them. Storyville, Lenny’s on the Turnpike, the Hi-Hat, Wally’s Paradise (still active) .. these were Boston jazz night clubs - stops along the way for musicians, jazz fans, party people and kitchen help. From the late 30s to the early 60s, all combined to make a moment. This moment in time is worth archiving. I would like to give compliments to Richard Vacca writing The Boston Jazz Chronicles – Faces, Places, and Nightlife 1937-1962 . He has rigorously sought out the facts, found the witnesses, and conveyed the feel of a night club jazz era that took place in Boston. [Full disclosure: Way back I set out to write a similar book, or more likely...

Last week I was able to attend the annual Mission Hill Little League Trophy Award Ceremony and Dinner. Red Sox pitching great Bill Monbouquette was there as the featured guest speaker. My friend Dennis Pultinas (Marquette, Class of 1974) had asked me to come by to do a little A/V work, featuring "Monbo Time" by the Remains, a tribute to Monbouquette. Bill was a great inspiration speakers. The kids were great as always. I am posting here Dennis's heartfelt introduction to Bill, and a transcription of some notes I took. Introduction for Bill Monboquette: Mission Hill Little League October 14, 2012 As an 8 yr old boy growing up in Waterbury, Connecticut in 1961, the Boston Red Sox were very important to me.  The morning paper would have in the bottom corner of the front page what they called “the Scoreboard”.  It listed the scores of all the games played the day or night before.  Checking this out was the first thing I did when I woke up in the morning.  The...

In October, thinking I have never been to Harvard Stadium, an old concrete bowl by the Charles that Van Morrison made immortal in  Brown Eyed Gir l making love in the green grass behind the stadium...I head out via subway.  Old Harvard Square to go. The essential American Fall Saturday event to encounter. Once there I tweet.  I sat next to Cornell band, and that sort of set the tone. # hahvad  This day is my homage to damon runyon author of  hold them yale # hahvad  stadium watching football literally. See it arc in the air. #Hahvad stadium; twenty 11 yearolds ready to receive field goal kick in stands. Scurry. Scatter.Pounce on the ball. #Hahvad stadium; listen, yo, the glockenspiel # hahvad  stadium: these teams have good sense not to use heads when tackling. Priceless the education. # hahvad  stadium: i think harvard band is playing dreaming is free. Tha...

Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs—hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn't tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept, and chanted "We want Ted" for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back… Hub fans bid kid adieu - John Updike Friday Sept 21 – Boston - The Friday bleachers were fairly empty at Wrigley but pretty full at Fenway where the cult of baseball onward rolls on, and who’s keeping score? Dear friend Jeff Hull and I were in that tide of zoomanity – a walking dream trance a foot - and much glad. We had a couple of beers, kept a scorecard for four innings, and discussed family, business, and baseball – cheering here and there. No boos. No boos but some healthy sighing lamentations as the Red Sox dropped another one. Harvard Law Librarian and Organist Josh Cantor pl...

Mools* of woosta Full with gold watches Mools of woosta Full with gold watches Epigrammatists marching Through the blue land of milled cotton Cry me back mother I’ll pay the black piper Cry me back mother I’ll pay the black piper And tip the bearded lady Dreaming of my sweet cake shortening My sweet dumb crumbly cake In Woosta in the wake Of the parade. - Jack Vaughan A mool is a grave. This poem is loosely about an encounter with a gravedigger. Or graverobber, hard to say. First appeared Sunday, November 17, 2002 on Jack Vaughan's Radio Weblog.

I have had three dreams of heaven in my life. One was about 1957 inside the Johnson Wax Building in Racine, Wisconsin; it was night; there were shepherds and clouds. Two was around 1975 not so much heaven but the afterlife. I was getting a personal check okay'd at Calumet Market , a small old-style food supermarket in Brigham Circle; Max, who pased the judgment on checks, was Jehovah. IT was very crisp to me. Max was fair, but it was not easy to get him to ok a check. And third was Yankee Stadium, about 1973, when I lived in New York. As Yankee Stadium has had its last game and is scheduled to be demolished - might as well share. It was a simple dream as these always are. I was in center field in Yankee Stadium, either talking with Babe Ruth or looking at his plaque. It was otherworldly. Neverland. I have seen this place. Why did this happen? All I can think is this: When I was a boy we were driving at night - part of a long trip. There was this hospital all lit on a palisade. My ...

Boston's Red Sox are against the wall again. I tend not to devote energy to teams' down 3-1, as history has shown that is an absurd position to place oneself in in a 7 game series. Yet .. at this time, I recall last year, and three years ago. So I will post link to last year's writeup on this topic. The Sox won the fifth game, and did not lose again for the rest of the championship post season. What will be will be. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Boston beats Cleveland to stay alive; Canadian Soldiers at bay Cleveland, Oct 19, 2007 – When the Boston players began Thursday night’s game with the Clevelands, their backs were to the wall. Trailing three games to one in the American League Championship series, the Hubsters needed a win just to stay alive as the teams met at Jacobs Field. When it was over, the Crimson Hose succeeded in holding off the Clevelands, benefiting from a five-hit effort by ace Josh ‘Waiting for Godot’ Beckett, outscoring the Erie Lake fellows 7-1. .......... Read the Rest...

There was no Seventh and Deciding Game tonight. The Celtics pulverized the Lakers Tuesday, 131-92, and won the NBA championship for the first time since 1986. During that 22-year drought, the Lakers won five championships. L.A. Coach Phil Jackson now remains tied with the late Celtics Coach Red Auerbach for most championships. Both have nine. Both bad and good, Auerbach is a god around here. Like God, he had his good and bad days. The idea of tofu-munching Jackson surpassing cigar-smoking Red on the Celtics watch would have been hard for the city’s psyche. One might ask: Did the Celtics pour it on? The Boston fan’s answer: No. The Celts themselves, their fans recall, had come back from a 24-point deficit [a record] just two games ago. If they were to ease up, well that would mean easing up. And opening the door. Better to nail the door shut, especially since this door holds back not only L.A., but also some very shadowy figures, akin to curses, that followed the team. During the 22 ye...