1. Our floors needed one more coat of varnish, so, early this afternoon, the Deke and I packed up a few things and moved for the day and night to Carol and Paul's. The Deke dashed uptown to knit with her friends at Radio Brewing and I spent much of the afternoon absorbed in The Bronx is Burning. The baseball content of this book brings back memories -- I was watching the Saturday Game of the Week on NBC when Reggie Jackson and Bill Martin nearly came to blows in the Yankees' dugout --, and this thread of the book is very good.
Even more, I'm enjoying the social, cultural, and political history and the history of events. Until today, I'd never known about the deeper background of disco and how its origins are very similar to the beginnings of hip-hop. Reading about the 1977 blackout is harrowing. In 1977, a mayoral race took place and it's fascinating to read about Bella Abzug, Mario Cuomo, Ed Koch, and the incumbent, Abe Beame. I enjoy this book's braided narrative, how Mahler alternates back and forth between story lines. This style of storytelling enriches the sense of how much was going on simultaneously in NYC in 1977 and how many different histories were all occurring at the same time.
After dinner, I returned to reading this book and decided to put in the earbuds and listen to the Hits of 1977 channel on Pandora at the same time. I was a newlywed in 1977, married only three months when the year started. I was employed at Whitworth College, first as a Chaplain's Assistant and then as an instructor, teaching English Composition. As I listened to songs by Thelma Houston, Leo Sayers, Barry Manilow, The Bee Gees, The Steve Miller Band, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, The Climax Blues Band, Carly Simon, Rod Stewart, Rita Coolidge, ABBA, ELO, David Soul, Kenny Rogers, Fleetwood Mac, and others, I had memories flash back of how much I enjoyed living with my first wife on Mountain View Lane north of Spokane in the cottage next to the Hunts' house and how I loved working at Whitworth and how empowered and fulfilled teaching made me feel.
I played poker in 1977 with guys from Whitworth, many of them former and current residents of South Warren Hall, and the radio was always on while we played and some many of these songs, for better or worse, came on and remembered the cheap watery pilsners and lagers and the salty snacks and the chocolate bars and the banter of those poker games and it was fun to be back in Spokane in 1977 again.
2. I'm reading this book thanks to the recommendation of Scott Shirk. Back in the old days, when I lived on the East Coast, Scott and I did some roaming around Manhattan and enjoyed pints of delicious beers brewed out east and this evening we texted back and forth for a while and I thought it would be fun when I return to NYC one of these days, to plan a walking + MTA tour of NYC, using places mentioned in The Bronx is Burning to guide us. We could visit the locations of such cultural sites as Studio 54 and CBGB, walk on the High Line again and look down on the piers and talk about all the forbidden things that happened there in the 1970s, and decide on other landmarks to observe and watering holes to visit, knowing that many, if not all, of the landmark joints from forty years ago are most likely closed.
3. We had family dinner tonight at Carol and Paul's and I got to be the cook. I hadn't cooked since Thanksgiving Day, aside from a couple of ventures on the hot plate in the basement. I love fish soup and I found a recipe called "Fisherman's Soup" on Pinterest and gave it a shot. It's a tomato based soup, not heavily seasoned, and I loaded it up with tilapia, beyond what the recipe called for, and the suggested amount of shrimp. I successfully subbed green olives for the capers, having no capers on hand. It turned out to be a very good soup, especially on this snowy Kellogg day, and the Deke told me I should make it every day. If you'd like to check out the recipe, I can help you do that. Just click here.
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