U.S. PRESIDENT, NY GOVERNOR | One Weak, One Strong

March 30, 2020—The President denied the gravity of the crisis and stuck with his free-market message. The Governor of New York State understood the crisis and took action at once. The Governor was a stronger leader than the President, or any other Governor. The President tried to squash the New York Governor, and failed. Aghast at looking like a wimp, the President took decisive action against a vulnerable group that desperately needed help. The President's callousness backfired and from then on, the President's reelection prospects were doomed.

Hoover (L) and FDR, March 1933

The context, of course, was October 29, 1929. After dropping 5 percent the day before, the NYSE index dropped another 20 percent on what is called Black Tuesday. GOP President Herbert Hoover announced that this was a temporary blip and that the economy was “sound and prosperous.” 

However, the market persisted with its decline  and by mid-1932 it was a mere 17 percent of its September 1929 peak. By early 1933, 45 percent of all farm mortgages and 40 percent of home mortgages were in default. 

Hoover's excessive optimism and lack of action was noted in early 1930 by New York State's Labor Commissioner, Frances Perkins. When Hoover said the job market was rebounding, she observed that the Bureau of Labor Statistics data did not support this statement, and the January 1930 job numbers had deteriorated. Governor Franklin Roosevelt believed Perkins, and told her so, and in March 1930, he created the first state commission on employment in the country. He then became the first Governor to support the idea of unemployment insurance. Hoover said in May that the worst was over, but Governor Roosevelt told Democrats at their annual dinner at the Commodore Hotel (now the Grand Hyatt Hotel) that he disagreed and that Hoover's crowd just didn’t care about the impact of the crisis on vulnerable members of the public. The next speaker called for FDR's reelection as Governor.

Hoover (L) and FDR, March 1933

In 1930, the GOP put up racket-busting Charles Tuttle to oppose FDR's reelection as Governor (until the Constitution was revised in 1938, New York's Governors were elected every two years). Tuttle attacked FDR for not repudiating Tammany Hall. Hoover sent three Cabinet members—(1) the Oklahoman Secretary of State, (2) a New Yorker who was Secretary of War, and (3) the Undersecretary and later Secretary of the Treasury, New Yorker Ogden Mills—to support Tuttle and attack FDR. 

FDR ignored Tuttle's attacks and instead stuck with promoting his programs for unemployment insurance and old-age pensions. Not until three days before the election did he address Tuttle's attacks on him for being too close to Tammany Hall. He said he would address the charges in the courts, where they could be proven, and not in the newspapers. He attacked one of the visiting spokesmen for Hoover as a carpetbagging outsider and the other two as defeated candidates for Governor who had already been rejected by the State. “We of the Empire State can take care of ourselves,” said FDR. Tammany’s Jim Farley meanwhile delivered the most lopsided victory of any New York Governor.

So FDR had some momentum in 1932 when he took on Hoover, who botched his reelection effort by looking savage when he should have looked kind, and vice versa. Having shown himself as a ditherer on the economy, Hoover decided to look strong by sending in the U.S. Army to rout the unarmed veterans who were assembled to ask for early payment of World War I bonuses. At the order of Secretary of War Patrick Hurley, General Douglas MacArthur led cavalry and tanks to force with tear gas the decampment of unemployed World War I veterans. The troops burned the makeshift shelters. The Capitol's Republican newspaper said: “If the Army must be called out to make war on unarmed citizens, this is no longer America.”

Meanwhile, Hoover was gentle where he should have been tough. To calm the financial markets, he needed to reassure the financial community that his Treasury policies would continue whether or not Hoover himself was reelected. He therefore asked FDR to commit himself to certain free- market and sound-money principles, though he knew that such a commitment would be incompatible with FDR’s New Deal proposals. FDR waited more than a week to respond, and then coolly replied to Hoover that it was too late for “mere statements,” showing Hoover up as too weak to take needed action. FDR stuck to that line right up to the inauguration, despite Hoover's rising panic as banks folded, gold flowed out to Europe, and unemployment rose, making the runup to the election and inauguration as disruptive as it could be. A good administrator, but not a leader, Hoover was helpless as tragedy washed over the country.

FDR beat Hoover in a huge landslide in 1932. The day before the inauguration, Hoover  told FDR, who had suggested calling on someone, “You will learn that the President of the United States calls on nobody.” FDR and Hoover famously rode together to FDR's inauguration. Hoover asked a favor of the President, to keep on a member of his staff. FDR was mostly silent. The two of them never again met.

After his first press conference, FDR paid a call to the I Street home of retired Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose birthday it was, and asked Holmes for advice, thereby ignoring Hoover's advice. FDR took the advice of Holmes, who said, as a veteran of the Union Army: “Mr. President, you are in a war. Form your battalions and fight.”

The Great Depression, but not poverty, ended within weeks of the arrival of FDR, as the nation recognized that someone was in charge and people started going back to work. Key elements were: (1) Treasury Secretary William H. Woodin’s commandeering of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to produce greenbacks, pack them up for the banks, send off the trucks to the banks, and film the entire process for the newsreels in movie theaters during the following weeks, all across the country. (2) President Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats, which showed that someone competent was in charge and that people could be confident that the country would get through the crisis. 

FDR showed public relations genius as well as an acute understanding of the nature of the problem the country faced and how it could be. He put a Republican CEO in charge of implementing the practical steps to address the panic and then rebuild the country. He told Will Woodin to handle the task of getting money out to the banks, while he crafted his Fireside Chats. The financial system they created lasted for 70 years. FDR's social safety net is still with us.

The story resonates today, as we watch President Donald J. Trump interface with Governor Andrew Cuomo. History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. 

P.S. (May 16, 2020) ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative news source, argues that in crucial days in early March, Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio were slow to listen to their health experts. The story contrasts New York State with California, which had a friendlier relationship between Governor and Mayor (or San Francisco) and lost fewer lives to the coronavirus. The story is long and full of details. It succeeds most effectively at conveying the difficulty of trying to make the right decision about something unexpected when there are legitimate arguments on both sides about how best to proceed (the health experts did not always agree).  https://www.propublica.org/article/two-coasts-one-virus-how-new-york-suffered-nearly-10-times-the-number-of-deaths-as-california

PANDEMIC | Best Trend Tracker

I am following this Tableau wizard, Jonas Nart. Hat tip to Domenick B.

https://public.tableau.com/profile/jonas.nart#!/vizhome/COVID19_15844962693420/COVID19-TrendTracker

GYM MEMBERSHIPS | Disclosures, Cancellations

NY State Senator
Brad Hoylman
 (D-Chelsea, Manhattan)

February 29, 2020–I was pleased to see that New York State Senator Brad Hoylman (D-Chelsea, Manhattan) succeeded yesterday in getting his bill to protect users of commercial gyms through the State Senate.

Hoylman chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.

His legislation is called the "I Wanna Quit The Gym" bill. It will protect New Yorkers who sign up for gym memberships from Roach Motel-type contracts that you can get into easily but can't get out of.

The contracts automatically renew until you figure out the magic words that get you released from them. This curse is not restricted to gyms, but you have to start the remedies somewhere.

I remember how easy it was for me to sign up for a gym membership years ago in Chelsea. They had a card table outside the front door with balloons tied to the table and warm, welcoming signs. Anyone could sign me in. A signature and a check and I was a member. Smiles and welcomes all around. Same thing when I signed up for a trainer.

Years later, when my job and daily routine changed and I decided to exit, the situation was very different. I handed in my reservation the same way I signed up, at the membership desk. But the monthly bills continued to come.

I went back to the branch and I talked to several people. The membership manager looked puzzled about how on earth to make this happen, as if I was the first person ever to ask for this. She even called a meeting together with several other people from the branch, to see if together they could figure out how to address this challenging request. In retrospect, forgive me for my thinking that she was showing them all how to talk to people who want to resign. Chat them up without giving them the information they need.

It turned out that I could not resign at the branch where I was gladly signed up. I had to follow a complex sequence involving a registered letter to an address that no one could remember.  

By the time I discovered what to do, in stages, several months had passed and I never was refunded the money for the months when I was no longer using the gym and was still paying for it. I still remember vividly at being rankled at the asymmetry of joining versus resigning.

"Exercising regularly is tiring enough," Hoylman said in promoting his bill. "New Yorkers shouldn’t have to jump through hoops simply to quit their gym and join another." You can say that again.

Senator Hoylman's bill will require gyms to disclose details about pricing and provide easy ways to cancel service.

At the very least, there should be symmetry between signing up and cancelation. If you can sign up at the branch, you should be able to cancel at the branch. If you have to send a registered letter to an obscure address to resign, they should make it just as difficult to sign up so you remember the drill.

As Hoylman said: "Too many gyms, subscription boxes and other companies use misleading offers and promotions to lock unwitting customers into long-term contracts that are ridiculously difficult to get out of. I’m grateful to Leader Andrea-Stewart Cousins for passing this strong consumer protection legislation that will help save New Yorkers money."

Bravo, Senator. It's about time. Now the bill goes to Assembly Member Dinowitz to push through the Assembly.

MOUNT INEZ | 100 Years Later, Lewis Makes Name Change Stick

From the Elizabethtown Post, December 7, 1916.

October 9, 2019–Yesterday evening, the Lewis (Essex County, NY) Town Council voted to rename Mount Discovery. The new name is "Mount Inez".

The mountain is named after Inez Milholland Boissevain (1886-1916), who spent her childhood and summers here and is buried on a hill in the graveyard behind the Lewis church.

This is the fulfillment of a name change made after Inez's  death in 1916, by the then-owner of the property, John E. Milholland, her father. 

The commitment was at that time apparently formalized by the then government of the Town of Lewis. It was announced in the Elizabethtown Post on December 7, 1916, and was featured on the front page of the New York Times a few days later. 

However, the name change was not forwarded to and memorialized by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (USBGN), part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, or the New York State Board on Geographic Names.  

Through diligent work by Nancy Duff Campbell, a century later this error was yesterday rectified as a vote was taken by the Lewis Town Council in favor of the name change. Your blogger sent the following letter to the Lewis Town Council in advance of the meeting, and to the USBGN. That evening, the Lewis Town Board formally approved the name change. The last stop in the process will be at the USBGN.

October 8, 2019 

To the Lewis Town Council, Lewis, NY 

Dear Supervisor Monty and the Lewis Town Council, 

This is to support renaming Mt. Discovery as Mt. Inez. 

I am a huge fan of Inez Milholland. She was married to the brother, Dutchman Eugen Boissevain of my grandmother (Olga Boissevain). My mother met Inez when Inez was first married in 1913 and the couple went to visit Eugen's relatives in Holland. My mother described Inez to me in great detail, how sweet-smelling she was and how she brought with her a gift of a Kewpie Doll (the doll with little wings in the back), which was the rage at the time. 

Inez proposed to Eugen on the Cunard ship Mauretania and they were married in the Kensington Town Hall in London on Bastille Day 1913. The idea was they wanted to go to Holland as a married couple, not just engaged. They were going to keep it a secret from Inez's father, John Milholland. By this time Inez was already a national figure, having led the suffrage parades in New York and Washington, DC. She was also well known in London as a disciple of the Pankhursts (she was proud to call herself a Suffragette, as the Pankhurst followers did, not just a suffragist). 

So the attempt to keep the wedding a secret was futile. It was featured on the front page of all the newspapers and that's where John E. Milholland read about it in the New York Times the next day. He wanted Inez to marry Guglielmo Marconi, the radio guy, who actually proposed to Inez on another Cunard ship when Inez was not yet in college. Inez accepted, but Marconi's Irish mother (a cousin of Eugen's Irish mother) was distressed that Inez would go to the United States and talked her son out of it. Inez later said she loved the radio but didn't want to marry it. 

In an effort to keep the memory of Inez memory alive, I wrote a play about her that was produced as a staged reading in the Lewis church where she is buried (it was also staged in six other locations). I maintain a website about her, www.inezmb.blogspot.com. I was the secretary and organizer of a national committee to pay for the restoration of the iconic painting of Inez that hangs in the Belmont-Paul building next to the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington (https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2010/04/inez-milholland-portrait-restoration-planned.html. The Committee was headed by members of the Boissevain (notably Al Boissevain, Eugen's nephew) and Milholland families and included Margaret Gibbs of the Essex County Historical Society. The painting was restored to the highest standards. 

A century ago, the Lewis Town Council reportedly decided to rename the mountain. It's not too late to make good on the promise. The world owns the memory of Inez Milholland, but only Lewis owns her gravesite and the mountain that your predecessors in office promised to rename in her honor. As the logline of a recent movie, "The Silent Soldier and the Portrait," puts it, "If the Universe offers you a second chance, take it."

John

John Tepper Marlin, Ph.D.                                                                      teppermarlin@aol.com . personal cell: 646-250-4915

WEDDING | Eli Rinzler and Ana Bennett, High Falls, N.Y.

June 17, 2017—Eli Rinzler puts the ring on the hand of Ana Bennett at
Crested Hen Farms in High Falls, N.Y. Photo by JT Marlin.

We have been attending the wedding of Eli Rinzler, son of Alice's Wellesley '66 classmate Cinnamon Rinzler and Curry Rinzler, to Ana Bennett. Here are three photos from the ceremony.

1. Groom Eli on Saturday is putting the wedding ring on the finger of blushing bride Ana at the Crested Hen Farms in High Falls, New York. Eli's brother Sean was Best Man. Ana's Matron of Honor was her sister.

L to R: Charlie and Alice. Photo by JT Marlin.

2. At the reception, Alice is holding beaming Charlotte, who is called Charlie.

Charlie looks pretty pleased with the whole event and with Alice's attention.

3. Some of Eli's relatives and their friends gathered at the home of Curry and Cinnamon Rinzler in Woodstock, N.Y.

Back row, standing (L to R): Warren Boeschenstein, John Tepper Marlin, Cinnamon Rinzler (mother of the groom), Dan (husband of Dana), Karen Boeschenstein (also Wellesley '66), Terry Peard (Kit's husband). Front row, sitting: Kit (sister of Cinnamon), Chris (son of Kit), Dana, Alice Tepper Marlin, Curry Rinzler (father of the groom).

Alice (L) and Karen.

 4. Alice with Karen Boeschenstein, who, before she retired, served for many years in the Admissions Office at 
the University of Virginia.












5. John with Warren Boeschenstein, a retired professor of architecture at the University of Virginia.

MED BIZ | Gamma Knife Kills Neuroma (Updated May 1, 2017)

Note pressure of the
titanium frame on head.
You get used to it.
Selfie by JT Marlin.

I lost hearing in my left ear a decade ago. The ear doctor said there was a 5 percent chance it was an acoustic neuroma a.k.a. a vestibular Schwannoma. I had an MRI and sure enough, that is what it was. It was small, 4 mm., but in a bad place, the vestibular ear canal.

Having already lost most of my hearing in the left ear, I decided to wait before doing anything about the neuroma.

Executive Summary

Nurse feeds me water through a
titanium cage. Photos by Alice
Tepper Marlin.

The decision to go yesterday for the Gamma Knife op was based on deterioration in my sense of balance.

The neuroma had grown to 8 mm. The vestibular ear canal controls balance. As a doctor told me: "When you hear the sound of hoofs outside the window in the USA, do you assume a zebra or a horse?" The horse is this case would be the neuroma's interfering with my balance. Anything to do with my balance should be assumed to relate to the neuroma.

So yesterday morning I had the Gamma Knife procedure. I am informed it successfully killed the neuroma (although the process of its dying may take weeks or months), so unless you want to know more, that is the end of the story. My balance sense is improved.

More Detail

A neuroma or schwannoma (also known as a "Schwann cell tumor" or a "neurinoma,"or "neurolemoma") is a benign nerve sheath tumor composed of Schwann cells, which normally produce the insulating myelin sheath covering peripheral nerves. The tumor cells can be thought of as feeding on a nerve, but they stay outside the nerve. The tumor causes trouble by pushing the nerve aside and/or up against a bony structure. Schwannomas are relatively slow-growing and are almost always benign, so they don't spread.

Dr. Wang sets up the Perfexion machine. 

A neuroma can be removed via microsurgery as well as radiation. Microsurgery requires cutting a hole in the scalp and (I understand) feeding a tiny pair of scissors up through the ear canal. I didn't like the risk associated with that, especially when the seventh and eighth nerves are intertwined and a frequent enough byproduct of the surgery is some loss of control over facial nerves on that side of the face. Think Phantom of the Opera.

The "Gamma Knife" radiation procedure  avoids having to cut through the skull or physically cut out the tumor. Instead, it bombards the neuroma with gamma rays from dozens of different directions. After enough of this the neuroma cries "Uncle" and goes into a funk that ends with its death.

"The neuroma is a weakling among tumors and is ready to give up the ghost with a little bombardment," is how I remember Dr. Michael Sisti summing up the situation.  The downside is less worrisome than the hole-in-the-scalp and mini-scissors strategy for the surgery.

The Gamma Knife is an advanced radiation treatment for adults and children with small to medium-sized brain tumors and diseases such as abnormal blood vessel formations called arteriovenous malformations, epilepsy, and trigeminal neuralgia (a nerve condition that causes chronic pain) and other neurological conditions.

That takes care of what I know of the medical science. You can stop here or review what happened during the 9-10 hours that were occupied by the surgery.

The Surgery Narrative

Getting ready to open the machine.

For those contemplating or just curious about the Gamma Knife procedure, here's how my day went  yesterday:

4:30 a.m. Shower and dress in clothing with no metal anywhere (even metallic snaps are verboten). I wore a polo shirt and jogging pants.

5:30 a.m. Taxi with Alice to the basement of the New York Presbyterian Hospital Children's Hospital, where the Gamma Knife center is located. That Hospital is where my eldest sister, Olga E. Marlin, was born in 1934. Fortunately all six of us siblings are still living, aged 71-81.

Dr. Wang watches the Perfexion machine,
with data at his left. 

6:30 a.m. I am checked in. Alice gets a visitor's pass, I get two bracelets, one indicating my name and doctor and various numeric IDs, and the other listing allergies. I also get a hospital bathrobe. We are introduced to half a dozen people who have different responsibilities during the procedure.

The first task was to put the
titanium frame on me. The metal is unusual because it isn't affected by the magnets in the MRI machine. This is one of the two most unpleasant parts of the procedure because it must be absolutely, positively tight on my head.

7:30 a.m. I was given 0.5 mg. of valium to help face the placement of the helmet and the tight MRI that followed. The frame was tightened in four places on my head and they all bled. Discomfort occurred during this difficult process, involving three or four people – one of whom was injecting a numbing fluid, something like Novocaine (generic name procaine). Alice said that a woman in the next treatment room had been in tears briefly during this step (I couldn't hear it).  Alice had to stay outside while this was done and was concerned, but she said she heard me cracking jokes after a while and all the attendants were laughing, so she was relieved. After five minutes I got used to the frame and the three of us who were waiting for the procedure paraded, or were wheeled, around like aliens from Star Trek or The Empire Strikes Back.

Nurse puts on ice to reduce
swelling at pressure points.

8:00 a.m. A clear-plastic thing that looks like a transparent hair dryer and was mysteriously called a "halo" was put on me. Dr. Tony Wang used it to take measurements of my skull. This information was presumably fed into the computer to help it decide where to target the gamma rays.

10:00 a.m. I went in for the brain MRI of the brain, with the titanium frame on. This was the second step that the valium helped me deal with. The MRI ensures that the location of the neuroma would be entirely up to date. I have always used the Dove Open MRI, because it doesn't make me feel like I am being buried in the catacombs. The hospitals don't like the Open MRI so much because the more-open machines sacrifice some detail.  For Gamma Knife purposes, it has to be the closed MRI, so I felt as though I was stuffed into the capsule space like a sausage (the photo is of the Perfexion machine, which provides a lot more space than the MRI). Luckily, the small amount of valium was enough to prevent any panic. I was given ear plugs, which was a good thing, because the noise seemed to be considerably louder than in the Dove machine.

12:00 noon. After Dr. Sisti and Dr. Wang conferred on a strategy, I was brought in to the "Perfexion" Gamma Knife machine and by this time it was programmed with measurements and the irradiation plan. It was almost an anti-climax. The zapping of the brain is quiet. No noise, just an occasional hello from Dr. Wang and Alice. And then I was out of there.

Data from Perfexion machine.

1:00 p.m. Dr. Sisti says they got all of it but it might take six months before the neuroma was completely dead. Meanwhile, he said, "play tennis". Apparently it helps with the sense of balance.

1:30 p.m. Headed home with a bandage on my head.

I am grateful to Drs. Sisti and Wang, to all the attendants, to Alice for accompanying me, to all those who said they prayed for me, and to the divine being(s) who respond to prayer. And now... back to work.

Update, May 1, 2017

Today I brought in the MRI taken after six months. Dr. Sisti was happy with the outcome and said that, unusually, the Gamma Knife had cut a hole in the neuroma so that it now had a doughnut-like shape. I am to come back after another brain scan in July 2018, and then he expects to be able to say with some finality that the neuroma is dead.

SUBWAYS | Mastering the Métro

London Underground. The Underground (Tube) map is masterfully designed, showing the basic Circle Line grid in its logo. Since I first entered the Tube in 1947, the Circle Line has been my main orientation. Crossing through from west to east is the Central Line. I think of all the other lines as shortcuts or extensions.

Paris Metro.  The London Tube logo can be superimposed on the Paris Métro, with the 2 (Blue) line from Étoile to Nation for the northern half of the circle and the 6 (Green) line for the southern half. The equivalent of the Central Line would be the 1 (Yellow) line from La Défense to Château de Vincennes.

New York City Subway. For NYC, the London logo could be rotated a quarter turn to make the Greek letter phi - Φ. The vertical blue line then indicates the main Manhattan north-south subway lines, the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, A and C. The left side of the circle would be the PATH trains and the east side would be the network of trains to Queens and Brooklyn. Visitors mainly need to know the simple north-south (Bronx to Brooklyn) grid, because most cross-town trips in Manhattan are walkable:

• The 1, 2 and 3 trains go up the West Side (the 1 is a local). 
• The 4, 5 and 6 trains go up the East Side (the 6 is a local). 
• The A and C (local)  trains outflank the 1, 2 and 3 trains until Central Park; then they hug the Park.

WED | Caroline Tepper-Marlin and Francis Peabody (Comment)

(L to R) Judge Crotty, Alice Tepper Marlin, Francis D. Peabody,
Caroline Tepper-Marlin and John Tepper Marlin.

New York City, September 8, 2014 - Exclusive to the Time Travel blog - Caroline Tepper-Marlin was married to Francis Damien Peabody today on the evening of the Harvest Moon.

Federal Judge Paul Crotty officiated in his Chambers at 500 Pearl Street. Caroline's parents, John and Alice Tepper Marlin, served as witnesses.

After they exchanged vows in the Judge's Office, the bride and groom joined Caroline's parents for dinner at Bouley nearby on 163 Duane Street.

Mr. Peabody and Ms. Tepper-Marlin will leave for a honeymoon that will focus on European restaurants and vineyards, spending a month in England, France and Italy. They will then return to their home in Brooklyn and their Australian shepherd Rondo.

"We decided to get married," quipped Tepper-Marlin, "so that Rondo would no longer be a bastard."

Francis and Caroline at Bouley.

The  Bride and Groom

Mr. Peabody has recently served as executive chef and other roles in several Brooklyn and Manhattan restaurants. He grew up in Los Angeles, Calif. and Louisville, Kentucky. He is a fan of the Boston Celtics, which was the source of the name for Rondo.

Ms. Tepper-Marlin, a graduate of Trinity School in New York and of the University of Rochester, majoring in political science, is a wine professional/sommelier, consulting in hospitality management and wine selection for restaurants in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

She previously worked as a senior design development manager for Ralph Lauren, and had similar titles at Coach and Calvin Klein.

When asked by her parents why she wanted to go into the wine business, she asked them: "What business do you think Ralph Lauren is in?"

"The clothing business?",  said one of them.

"No," Caroline replied. "He is selling lifestyle. That is what high-end restaurants sell. They have the same challenges as the fashion industry, to create a mood, and provide a pleasure-giving product for a target market."

The bride and groom next Bouley,
under the Harvest Moon.

Wedded Under A Harvest Moon

The evening ended under the Harvest Moon, which is at its brightest in North America tonight. The Harvest Moon, the full moon closest to the autumn equinox (September 22), was especially important for farmers - they knew that around the date of that moon they would have enough moonlight to harvest crops after sundown.

During the evenings before and after the Harvest Moon, the moon rises earlier than usual. The Harvest Moon seems bigger and brighter because it is close to the horizon at sunset.

This year, the Harvest Moon really is bigger than usual because it's a "supermoon" - the moon turns full less than one day after reaching the moon’s closest point to Earth for the month.

Some think the supermoon is super-hype. But in the words (by Yip Harburg and Billy Rose) of Harold Arlen's song, "It wouldn't be make believe, If you believed in me."

All in all, a memorable backdrop for the marriage of Caroline and Francis. They are leaving now for London - appropriately sampling this year's harvest at vineyards and restaurants in Europe.

Comment

I was walking Caroline's dog Rondo, our grand puppy, and our neighbor Ira Hawkins asked about him. I explained he was on loan from my honeymooning daughter, the sommelier married to a chef. He said: "Good pairing."

"Time Bomber", Time-Travel Novel Featured in Baltimore Library Mag

Robert P. Wack with his new
book, Time Bomber (Boissevain
Books, 2014).

Dr. Robert Wack, author of Time Bomber (Boissevain Books, 2014), is featured in the current issue of Currents, magazine published by the Carroll County (Maryland) Public Library.

He was inspired to write Time Bomber as he was reading a book at the Westminster (the main city in Carroll County) Public Library called How to Build a Time Machine, by Paul Davies. The book describes the pioneering work of Dr. Willem J. van Stockum in translating Einstein's equations for the Special Theory of Relativity into hypothetical time-like curves that might make possible time travel.

The name "van Stockum dust" has been given to his interpretation of the equations that generate rotating cylinders of matter.

Carroll County is outside Baltimore. It was the birthplace of Francis Scott Key, who wrote The Star Spangled Banner.

The Carroll County Public Library has six branches, in Eldersburg, Finksburg, Mount Airy, North Carroll, Taneytown, and Westminster.

Dr. Wack is Director of Pediatric Services at Frederick Memorial Healthcare Systems. He is a graduate of Notre Dame and the Georgetown University Medical School. After graduation he served with the U.S. Army Medical Corps on Germany and Hawaii.

Boissevain Books LLC is based in New York City. It has published eight titles and has four more in the pipeline.

Nevius Time Travel - On Foot, in NYC

Michelle and James Nevius. Photo by JT Marlin.

Unlike Midnight in Paris, where the time travel plan is a bit mysterious, the time travel of the Neviuses is straightforward.

They do their research and take you on a walking tour of neighborhoods that they know well, covering one of the periods of the last four centuries of New York City's history.

They have a book out on it, Footprints in New York, which is why I met them at the BookExpo America. They also have "private  walking tours" they have been guiding as they have been doing their research.

Their idea is not new. Joyce Gold has been conducting walking tours for it must be 30 years, and she has produced guides along the way.

But having a couple take on the task is smart. Their enthusiasm for the city and its history has to be a big plus in attracting a following. I look forward to the possibility of getting on one of their tours.

September 8 - New Amsterdam surrenders to the British, who rena med it New York

This sign was still up on September 24, 2013 at a
restaurant on Fifth Avenue and about 19th Street
(Brooklyn). Photo by JTMarlin. 

Today in 1664, Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam, the capital of what was then called New Netherland, to an English naval squadron under Colonel Richard Nicolls. Stuyvesant didn't even get back the $24 Peter Minuit paid in 1626 to the local Manhattans (Algonquin-speaking Indians) for the island, Battery not included.

Since Stuyvesant was unpopular, his Dutch subjects failed to rally around him to resist the Brits. Following capture, New Amsterdam's name was changed to New York, in honor of the Duke of York, who organized the mission to capture the city.

The Manhattan Indians didn't realize they had sold to Peter Minuit their right to be on inhabited parts of the island. Beginning in 1641, a war was fought between the colonists and the Manhattans. When New Amsterdam passed to English control, English and Dutch settlers lived together peacefully except for 1673 when English rule was interrupted by a Dutch raid.

In 1674, New York was returned to the English, and in 1686 became the first city in the colonies to receive a royal charter. After the American Revolution, it became the first capital of the United States. Today, New Yorkers say that Albany is the capital of New York State, Washington is the capital of the nation, and New York City is the capital of the world.

MOVIES | Locations in Greater NYC, Silent-Film Classics

Sampling of silent-film locations. NYC has

hundreds of them–NYT, please find.

Two years ago I posted on this site a hunt in Paris for the location of key scenes in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. So imagine my pleasure at finding in the New York Times today a story by Eve M. Kahn about location-hunting in Greater New York  for scenes in classic silent films.

As film buffs will know, Thomas Edison started the silent film era in New York City, substituting films for vaudeville acts The silent films had a piano player on hand to accompany the moving pictures. Edison moved his film operations to New Jersey, but that move–as happened later with the garment industry–turned out to be only a temporary way-station on the way to a more distant location.

Just as later the garment companies moved on to North Carolina, then Mexico, then China and now Bangladesh and Vietnam, the movie industry took off from New York and New Jersey to Hollywood in the first and second decades of the 20th century.

But meanwhile many films were made in New York City, nearby Fort Lee, N.J., and upstate New York. Now, in the words of the New York Times,

modern technology is turning some of the strip malls and storage sheds of New Jersey and New York into silent-movie shrines. With help from the Web, fans of those films can hike along parking lots, weedy streambeds and gritty alleys where early screen actors posed as American Indians, Confederate soldiers, Soviet spies, Dickens characters and escaped convicts.

Examples:

• Irene Castle in the silent film Patria (1916), filmed in Ithaca, N.Y.
• Edwin Thanhouser, in a studio in New Rochelle, N.Y., about 1915. 
• Theda Bara beguiling suitors on rock outcroppings in Fort Lee, N.J.
• Lionel Barrymore’s being followed by star-struck extras on the Cornell campus in Ithaca.
• D. W. Griffith using hand-forged iron gadgets to produce fade-outs while filming along an eroded canal towpath in Cuddebackville, N.Y., in Orange County.

“It’s like hallowed ground,” said Ben Model, a silent-film historian and film piano accompanist.

Yes, indeed. For the whole story, go here.