"Summer Wind"

Frank and Ava Gardner in 1951
"Summer Wind" was written in 1965 by Henry Mayer and Johnny Mercer. The version Frank Sinatra recorded was a stand out track on the album that found the aging crooner returning to the top (#1) of the pop charts, Strangers in the Night (1966). An electric organ figures prominently in the overall mix, the instrument's inclusion (along with electric bass guitar) being one of the concessions Sinatra made in order to be more relevant and contemporary. Described as having a "majestic sadness," it's one of those songs that seems to be biographical when done by Sinatra:

Ball Record Shop

I don't know if this record store in Crockett, Texas, survived the onslaught of the compact disc or not, but it has clearly been closed for a while. The Texas Historical Commission Atlas entry for it is from the '80s, and the building was constructed in 1900.

"Girl from the North Country"

Echo Helstrom, Bob Dylan's high school girlfriend. (Photo by Toby Thompson, source)
From the Wikipedia entry:

"Girl from the North Country" (also known as "Girl of the North Country") is a song written by Bob Dylan. It was first released in 1963 as the second track on Dylan's second studio album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Dylan re-recorded the song as a duet with Johnny Cash in 1969. That recording became the first track on Nashville Skyline, Dylan's ninth studio album.

Dylan's 1959 Echo Harmonica, played during his high school days, this model chosen because it shared a name with his then girlfriend (source)

The song was written following his first trip to England in December, 1962, upon what he thought to be the completion of his second album. The song is a tribute to a former girlfriend, Echo Helstrom who Dylan knew before leaving for New York.

While in London, Dylan met several figures in the local folk scene, including English folksinger Martin Carthy. "I ran into some people in England who really knew those [traditional English] songs," Dylan recalled in 1984. "Martin Carthy, another guy named [Bob] Davenport. Martin Carthy's incredible. I learned a lot of stuff from Martin." Carthy exposed Dylan to a repertoire of traditional English ballads, including Carthy's own arrangement of "Scarborough Fair," which Dylan drew upon for aspects of the melody and lyrics of "Girl from the North Country," including the line from the refrain "Remember me to one who lives there, she once was a true love of mine."

A February 1964 live Canadian TV performance:


Pete Townshend did an adaption of "Girl from the North Country" on his 1982 album, All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes, an album with which I am somewhat familiar.

Garner's a goner

Oh, I'd had my fingers crossed on this one. Stuff like this just breaks my heart. Excerpts from The Daily Sentinel ("SFA's Garner Apartments' days are numbered," by Trent Jacobs), dated July 20, 2009:

It's official — the 14-story Garner Apartments at SFA will be demolished sometime in the next 12 months to make room for a new freshman residence hall and parking garage.

The Garner tower has been the tallest building in Nacogdoches since it was built in 1969. But late next month, when students enrolled in the fall semester move in, they will be the last to do so. The building will close for good in December when the semester ends.

With the demise of the Garner Apartments, which have become an iconic image of SFA's skyline, a long time tradition will also be lost: the lighting of the tower's roof to purple after an athletic victory.

That last was the idea of Dr. Ralph W. Steen, the University's third president, from 1958-1976. We're talking about some fairly large roots being pulled up here, a lot of tradition being discarded. So much has changed about the SFA campus since I was a student there, from '88 to '91. I increasingly feel less and less like it is "my" campus, and I don't like it! I suppose the freshmen who move in to the new dorms around 2010 or 2011 won't have any idea what Garner was....I guess that now, the other structures which were built around the same time as Garner (Steen Hall and East College Cafeteria) are probably also doomed. I understand the need to modernize, but it's hard to watch these landmarks come down. So it goes.


Garner, as seen behind the East College Cafeteria

Moon songs

I couldn't choose just one moon song for this special anniversary, so here's a whole bunch. No good version of "Under the Cherry Moon" or "Moondance" were to be found, and it's still too soon (in proximity to the release of the movie) to listen to R.E.M.'s "Man on the Moon." I don't like The Stones' "Moonlight Mile" or The Doors' "Moonlight Drive." Never have. I felt "Claire de Lune" and "Moonlight Sonata" were waaay too slow. Besides, this isn't meant to be a complete list.

"Moon Love"


"Blue Moon of Kentucky"


"Moonlight Becomes You"


"Old Devil Moon"


"Moonlight Serenade"


"It's Only a Paper Moon"


"How High the Moon"


"Moon River"


"The Moon Was Yellow (And the Night Was Young)"


"Walking on the Moon"


"Moonlight in Vermont"


pic source
"Blue Moon"

Hilarious

"Bike Ride to the Moon"


"Moonlight on the Ganges"


"Mr. Moonlight"


"Polka Dots and Moonbeams"


"Bad Moon Rising"


"Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)"


And last, but not least,
"Bark at the Moon"

To the Moon

It's still not too late for you to check out the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum's interactive website, Wechoosethemoon.org. It is an interactive experience recreating the historic Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in real time. I wish there were more website "experiences" like it.

You really do get a sense of what it was like for the guys on the ground at CAPCOM and for the astronauts aboard Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. Very soon, they will be Tweeting from the Eagle, but not yet. They aren't yet aboard Her! I just heard CAPCOM do their wakeup call (in "real" time). Too cool!

Kennedy addressing a joint session of the Congress on May 25, 1961
And let's not forget the reason for all of this. Here is the entire speech John F. Kennedy gave at Rice University on September 12, 1962, in which he lays out what must have seemed like an unimaginable boast. Even hearing it today, it seems impossible! Go to around 15 minutes in:



But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, reentering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out, then we must be bold.

It gives you chills.

Erupting Krakatoa

Sometimes in photography, it's not so much who is holding the camera or even the quality of the camera that counts - it's being in the right place at the right time. Such is the case with a recent picture at Astronomy Picture of the Day in which, assuming the camera operator (the "photographer") has the minimal abilities to point the camera in the right direction and use autofocus, it would be hard to get a bad picture. And my point is not to minimize the technical and aesthetic skills of the actual photographer of this shot of Krakatoa, but rather to recognize the beauty and complete awesomeness of it.

This is the APOD explanation:

A volcano on Krakatoa is still erupting. Perhaps most famous for the powerfully explosive eruption in 1883 that killed tens of thousands of people, ash from a violent eruption might also have temporarily altered Earth's climate as long as 1500 years ago. In 1927, eruptions caused smaller Anak Krakatau to rise from the sea, and the emerging volcanic island continues to grow at an average rate of 2 cm per day. The latest eruption of Anak Krakatau started in 2008 April and continues today.

In this picture, Anak Krakatau is seen erupting from Rakata, the main island of the Krakatoai group. High above, stars including the the Big Dipper are clearly apparent.

There are more such photographs at Stromboli online.