The Bruce's Scots

I'm posting a few more views of my Scots army, which depicts the Bruce's force at the time of the Battle of Bannockburn. Here's a shot of the Bruce's division, containing Western Islemen and lowlanders.














I use one unit of mounted knights.

Here's a unit of borderers...

...And here's Wayne Richards, visiting from the UK and fielding my Scots against Chris Buckley's excellent English at our annual WAB tournament to benefit the American Cancer Society. This was a historical match-up and grudge match. I believe the Scots managed a close win here - not that I had a vested interest in the outcome. ;)

Scarab WWI Italians

The project I'm currently running is a company of Scarab's excellent WWI Italian infantry figures. Sculpted by Robi Baker and offered by my friend Rob Broom's company, Scarab Miniatures, these models debuted last year. I got started on them a few months back and I'll show how I started the project and how its progressed. My gifts as a photographer are meagre, so I hope I do the models, and my paintwork, some justice.



I start, as always, with black primer over the figures, which are mounted on their bases and flocked. I prefer black over white because it gives you ready-made shadows to build up from, and although dipping is very popular right now as a means to finish a lot of models quickly, I don't like the effect, and I'm also not very good at it. It always looks like the dip color makes the whole model look brown. Frankly, I prefer to have colors that pop, or at least stand apart from each other, even if they're dull colors.

As you perhaps can see, I use epoxy putty to blend the figure's molded base into the broader plastic or card bases that hold the models, and then use white glue to apply the sand flock over the epoxy putty.



Here's a shot of how I set up my three Fiat Ravelli machine gun teams. The epoxy putty has been molded with a sculpting tool to create the rocks that Italians used to inadequately shield their guns and poor trenches on the Isonzo River front. Austrian shells just turned these rocks into deadly projectiles, but the Italians were never given enough tools or adequate equipment by their high command to dig trenches in the rock of the mountains.



This is how the guns look after priming, and after having applied the first uniform coat, which is a combination of Valejo Wolf Grey, Black and German Camo Green. The flock has been built up through successive layers of scorched brown, dark earth and bonewhite, blended with a brown wash. This base is by no means finished, but its a good spot to stop and to begin to paint the rest of the model. When I finish the models, I go back to the flock with a final drybrush application of dark earth and bonewhite to finish the base. Then, if needed, grass flock will be added as a finishing touch. Also - the barbed wire will be finished, new in some areas, rusted out in others; the weather conditions on this front were horrible, and the fighting was so static, that rust seems to be the order of the day.



The next step is to apply dark flesh to all the skin areas and build the skin up through several layers. I'll update you on my further progress in a few days.

En avant!

Once more into the blogging breach, dear friends.

I'll be using these pages from now on to post on this luddite's progress on gaming the old fashioned way. Whether you call it kriegspiel or tabletop miniature wargaming or - as my wife calls it, with a slight double-entendre "Playing with your little men" - its basically toy soldiers, and its been an obsession of mine for as long as I've been able to paint.

Here's an example of my Bannockburn-era Scots army, using mostly Perry Brothers designed Foundry Medievals with a few E-bob character models and some Essex thrown in to fill out the field. I think this is my favorite looking army and I hope to post a few more, better pictures soon.

Here's Sutherland's division, with a few highlanders thrown in:


I've also got a few shots here of my late 15th Century Italian Condotta, with figures from Games Workshop's underrated Dogs of War fantasy range, which with little modification are great historical figures, also designed by the Perrys.





Here are some trouser companies of pikemen:





Some light infantry



And finally, a company of janissaries from my medieval Ottoman army



Next up - I hope to post a few more pictures of armies that I've finished (or nearly finished - are they every really finished?) over the years, and I'll be updating you on some ongoing projects, including Scarab's excellent WWI Italians designed by Robi Baker, Gripping Beast's Woodbine Design Company WWI Ottoman infantry, and Crusader's excellent WWII French infantry.

Not posting

It's wonderful to not have posted here in awhile. I haven't missed it, and the anxiety I always feel about writing - too much like work except that I don't actually enjoy it the way that I enjoy work - is no longer weighing on me.

I've taken down what I think is every link to my blog. I hope no one can find it.

Blogging, this kind of free-form personal blogging, is dead and thank goodness. Its not interesting to me to read anyone else's; why in the world would you want to read mine?

Even typing these three short paragraphs has given me a little shpilkis; I'll be going now...

The Imaginarium of Dr. Gilliam

On Saturday, my wife and I went to the Sunshine Cinema to see "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus". We had a lot of holiday movies to choose from, but most look flat out BAD and we love Terry Gilliam's work.

He's often accused of being excessive, but that's one big reason to go see his movies. I want the excess: with excess, there's a spectacle to be seen, and "Dr. Parnassus" doesn't disappoint. There is an impossibly remote and yet, immense monastery, a tawdry yet fantastic traveling theater that looks centuries old, and extended scenes that take place in the "Imaginarium" - a dreamscape that's set off - though not well-controlled - by the imaginations of the souls who enter it. All this is a visually fascinating treat, and the movie looks and feels unique.

Where Gilliam really IS guilty of excess is in the script department. Scenes take place that set up the action admirably, but the film often returns to expository storytelling. It's totally unnecessary. One reviewer noted that Gilliam throws you into the action with the first scene; he does. Why then does he return to tell you more about the background? We get it.

Once "Imaginarium" gets going, it really goes and pulls you along. With a plot that involves wagers with a derby-wearing devil, an imperiled family, a shady and mysterious stranger, and rich ladies lusting after spiritual fulfillment, Dr. Gilliam is like Dr. Parnassus's storyteller; he has to keep spinning his tale, or the world will collapse. He's a good spinner.

There's a haunted quality to the film that's clearly intended - and one that isn't. Heath Ledger as Tony is the one of the three main characters in the story. He drives the action forward, though we don't know until the climax what his motives are. By that time, Ledger is gone from the movie.

When he lost his young star, Gilliam finished the small number of un-shot sequences - unfortunately, they are key scenes - with different actors. The explanation for why Tony has a different face is plausible - in the Imaginarium, people look the way YOU want them to. The device works, but ultimately it reminds you that Ledger is dead and every mention of mortality - an important theme in this film - has a discomfiting edge.

Christopher Plummer hands in a wonderful performance as a boozy, decrepit Parnassus that put me in the mind of King Lear. He's an actor that seems to truly inhabit his roles more and more. Tom Waits as Mr. Nick is a scrupulously fair scoundrel. Waits is not just underrated - he rarely seems rated at all; but his concert and album work is so character driven, that it never surprises me when he turns in a great performance like he does here. He's understated yet seems to be having more sly fun than anyone. The model Lily Cole as Parnassus's daughter looks like a doll's head sewn on a gawky body, but she's quite good and perfectly cast. Verne Troyer, who'll forever be known as Mini-Me, is the best he's ever been; he understands the style and he keeps the pace up.

Heath Ledger is harder to assess. His arrival on the scene as the victim of a failed murder attempt is unsettling, but his magnetism wins you over. In the scenes where he takes on the role of Parnassus's carnival barker, he's persuasive, appealing, and ultimately, wonderfully insidious. That his performance leaves you wanting more is probably the saddest thing about this meringue of a movie.

Yes, it's flawed. Yes, it's Heath Ledger's last screen work. As long as you go in knowing that, you'll find it's really a touching little story in a huge, fantastical universe spun out of one of the best imaginations to ever work in film.

Big Apple Circus

We try to hit the Big Apple Circus as often as we can, because its the big local show, its a non-profit that does good work in the community, and it employs great circus acts from around the world. Ringling has always felt too big and impersonal - and I can only take Cirque de Soleil's Espirantu-esque commentary so often.

This years show is a jam-packed two hours that nonetheless feels shorter. Consummate entertainer Eddie Cantor used to say, "Always leave 'em wanting more", and the Big Apple's directors take that advice to heart.


Highlights include a dog act we always look forward to - a little short this year - that finds its actors by rescuing strays at animal shelters (bravo, Big Apple). The act includes Russian cradle aerialist Regina Dobrovitskaya, who in her other turn has nothing but a bolt of purple cloth protecting her from a drop of more than seven stories, and she wows the audience. The Long Twins - contortionists from China - somehow wriggle in and out of tin tubes no wider than a small dinner plate; what they do looks horrendously painful, but they also make it look easy.

Other standouts include the Curatola Brothers (acrobats from Italy), the Aniskin Troupe (a Trapeze family from Russia) and Picasso, Jr. (an AMAZING ping-pong ball and plate juggler from Spain). The rest of Big Apple performers hit the same high-degree of professionalism and polish that just throws you back in your seat and amazes you. Ringmaster Kevin Venardos - whose father and sister I know very well - makes a great successor to founder/ringmaster Paul Binder, and I hope he stays with them for a long time.



Final note - Barry Lubin as Grandma the Clown is just wonderful, as always, and the star of the show is Bello Nock. Bello was called "America's favorite clown" by Ringling for the years he was with them, but he's not a clown so much as a one-man circus. He never gets too obtrusive, but he can do it all, from playing the fluegel horn, to trapeze, to bungee, to trampoline, to a ridiculously scary daredevil act involving two rotating circles - Wheel of Steel - that reach fifty feat up into the big top - he and his partner run inside the circles, outside the circles (!) and fly off them (!!!) weightless into the air up at the top of the tent. Frightening. Seventh generation member of an old Swiss-Italian circus family, Bello's 13-year-old daughter has joined the troupe this year. It almost sounds like one of those circus stories you hear when you're a kid; "But doc, I AM Grimaldi"!

I always loved circuses, there's something miraculous and mysterious about them, and I always feel like I'm being allowed to see something rare, being let in on a world that's a little bit removed from the rest of us.

So go - you'll get in the holiday spirit because you'll feel like a kid within two minutes of the band starting the opening march.

Sesame Street

I was one of those kids who was just a *little* too old for Sesame Street when it debuted in 1969. I didn't see it all that often, so when I watched it with my kids a few years ago, I saw a lot of really funny things for the first time.

I always enjoy it when I come across one of the things I missed, like this cameo by Smokey Robinson - which my friend Kateri Hunter posted earlier today.

City Buys 7 Acres of Joe Sitt's Coney Island

Well - its about time! New York City finally bought the heart of Coney Island, as the Times reported today.

But even though the city needed to buy Joe Sitt's Thor Equities out, it's only a first step and not enough to ensure that Coney Island stays "Coney Island". You see, Joe Sitt is that odd breed of developer who buys land and then - doesn't develop it. Instead, he sits on it until the value goes up. He's what we used to call a speculator.

This time around, the real estate market was been pretty terrible, and on this sale, Sitt was told if he didn't take the initially proffered $110 million, the price wouldn't go up, it would only go down. It did. First, it went to $105 million; then, a little more than $95 million. That's the offer Sitt took.

It's great news, but it isn't quite enough, as Save Coney Island's Juan Rivero points out in a statement issued today.

Stay tuned...

Music for a Frenetic Day

You're familiar with this lousy phenomenon. You have a day off scheduled, so the day before you leave, in an attempt to make sure you've completed everything you need to, you tear through today's work AND tomorrow's. You straggle off for home around 8:30.

I'm trying to avoid that these days, but, with a day off tomorrow, the familiar pattern repeats itself. At times like these, I need to bring in the black coffee, the heavy artillery of musical motivators, the Balkan brass band.

So, enjoy the act of the day, Fanfare Ciocarlia, my favorite Roma (Gypsy) band from Romania.


If you saw Borat, you may remember their ridiculously fast and rowdy version of "Born to Be Wild" from the credits. Here they are from a concert with Jony Ilev, the Bulgarian clarinetist; the legendary Esma Redzepova; and the last, in Spanish, with the French group Kaloome.



They kick ass.

This Is Burlesque; Happy Birthday Angie

If you haven't seen "This is Burlesque", you once again have the chance and you shouldn't miss it.

The show's driving force is the dynamic and lovely Angie Pontani, whose birthday it is tomorrow. I've brought several friends to see the Pontani Sisters (Angie, Helen - the Tapping Tornado, and the amazing Peekaboo Pointe); their truly hysterical MC Murray Hill (the Hardest Working Middle Aged Man in Showbiz); the delightful Little Miss Lixx; occasional guest MC Miss Astrid, the "Wiemar Fraulein"; and their guests, who have included the amazing acrobatic duo from Baltimore Trixie Little and the Evil Hate Monkey and our own Little Brooklyn (who is like the Lucille Ball of burlesque), among others. I think by now, almost everyone I know has heard about this from me, but maybe YOU haven't.

They open tomorrow night at Sweet Caroline's with a performance to benefit "Save Coney Island". What does Coney Island need saving from, you ask? A poorly thought out development scheme, is what.

It's high-powered dance, it's satirical, it's sexy, and above all, it's the kind of funny where tears roll down your face.

For your daily moment of zen, here's a little of what you might see...


You should go. Tomorrow night. And wish Angie a Happy Birthday.

It's My Birthday

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

It's that time of year again for yours truly. This time I turn 46, but I don't care how old I get, as long as the presents and German chocolate cake keep coming.

And lest you think I'm fishing for birthday wishes, here's a gift for you. This is an interesting, rare 'Happy Birthday', so I thought some of you might enjoy hearing it. It's hard to tell, but our four lads are singing "Happy Birthday dear Saturday Club", which was a BBC radio broadcast that used to showcase up-and-coming recording and performing talent, which they were, once.



Anyhow, Happy Birthday to all scorpios out there. Let me know when yours is so I can hoist one on your special day. :)

MTA Subways Play Leonard Bernstein

It's true. It took me awhile to believe it when my wife kept telling me, "New York City subways play the first three notes of 'Somewhere' from West Side Story."

Now, at first I thought she'd heard some isolated aural anomaly, but once while I was with her, I heard it, too. In fact, for the last couple of years, I've heard it every time I take a subway train. NYC trains always play the first three notes of "Somwhere" and then another note, a long discordant whine. You can hear it here; just wait for the doors to close and the train to start moving:



I take that particular train to work most days, but I've found dozens of videos on you tube (some much longer and believe me, far less interesting, if that's possible) and all trains leaving an underground station make this odd music.

What is making this noise? Are there others out there who've got any ideas?

Clean Coal is a Dirty Lie

I was at a protest yesterday morning at JPMorgan Chase headquarters for Waterkeeper, Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth. They're trying to get the investment bank to divest from mountaintop removal mining, which devastates communities and the environment throughout Appalachia. John Wathen, the Hurricane Creek Keeper, pictured here on Gothamist, eloquently expressed the reasons why mountaintop removal is so pernicious, casting it not only as an environmental disaster, but also as a social issue of rich banks vs. people too poor to defend their rights. He's very convincing because he's lived it and fought the banks in court.

Waterkeeper calls the myth of 'clean coal' a Dirty Lie.

The protest was supported by the Rude Mechanicals Orchestra who have a nice Shakespearean name and get the musical clip of the day with their version of a klezmer standard:



These musical agitators are available for raucous parties for a cause and all your protest needs. And if you play the serpent - especially the tenor, your should get in touch with them.

Music from the Little Rascals

I never know if others are already aware of things I feel I've "discovered", but this is one thing I'll take the risk on.

If you grew up on Hal Roach comedies, the Little Rascals, Laurel and Hardy, maybe even Charlie Chase, you remember the music. You may not even realize that you remember it because it was background music in certain scenes, just there, sort of sneaking into your subconscious. At other times, the music really underscores the action, whether a chase, or perhaps one of those improbable love scenes where Chubby goes all soft for Miss Crabtree.

About ten years ago, my wife brought all those Little Rascals memories up fresh in my mind when she gave me this record:



It turns out that all this was written by someone called Leroy Shields. When I listen to these little airs, I'm struck by how good they are. The credit for these tunes getting a fresh hearing goes to the Beau Hunks, a tight group of talented Dutch musicians who specialize in unearthing forgotten swing and modern jazz of the the 30's and 40's.

Listening to these is like finding a lost toy you forgot how much you missed.

Look who it is!

I'll never forget the first time I heard Helen Shapiro sing this song. I was driving my 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air (a sierra gold and adobe beige 4-door) home after a date. It was 1985 and as usual for a Saturday night, I was listening to the Wolfman Jack show on the Philco car radio. To the uninitiated, Wolfman Jack was on in the middle of the night.



Helen recorded this song in 1963 when she was 16 years old and Britain's top female singer, two months before I was born. The Londoner recorded her first hit at age 14, "You Don't Know".



Years later, I'm still struck by her deep voice - incredible for a teenager, her impressive poise, and of course her marvelous beehive. I can't help but wonder who those three guys are in that "Top of the Pops" clip, though.

Five Years Old...

If you're like me (and who isn't?), you remember being five years old and lying on your parents oatmeal colored shag carpet in the dining room (odd color choice for a dining room rug in an Italian household; its like inviting disappointment). More often than not, I'll hear an old song that will take me right back to where I heard it. That rug is where this 1968 song, by Beatles protege Mary Hopkin, always takes me.



Now, you may find yourself thinking, "Shouldn't this be sung by a much older, much more Russian woman?" Yet somehow, she seemed much older than me at the time, and now, I have all those years "gone rushing by" to give me enough perspective for this song to have quite a different effect on me now than it did then.

Help of the helpless...

...Abide with me.

As an American atheist, I can't help but wonder why I love this very English hymn. Most Brits know it from the FA cup final, and Yanks probably know it from the Full Monty

This summer, I kept humming Abide with Me to myself as I drove from London, to Salisbury, to Evesham, to Liverpool, to Keswick, to Nottingham, to York and back to London. It somehow reinforced the beauty of the English countryside. Now, at work in Manhattan, I'm humming it again. Here's a 1932 recording, and several other versions of it -


Its a great, simple melody entwined with stirring harmony. It makes Amazing Grace sound tinny and hollow. I really hate Amazing Grace.

@#$!0*& Blogs!

Am I alone in the opinion that it's over? The bloom has faded. The shine is off the blogging rose. To be frank, aside of a few well-written and entertaining blogs I follow because I like the sensibility of the author (hello Don, Wendy and Gynomite), I can't stand reading them anymore.

Go back a couple of years. Blogging was new and undiscovered country and anything you wanted to try *could* work. Or it might not, but at least it was for you to try and fail and learn.

Watching "Julie & Julia" last week reminded me of those days. The Nora Ephron film recounts one Julia Child fan's obsessive and - eventually - career-defining effort to cook all 500+ recipes of the French Chef in 365 days. Watching the story unfold was exciting - but the whole time I kept thinking, "What's wrong here?"

I felt that you'd never get an audience for that blog today - as Julie Powell did back in 2003. It wasn't that long ago, but the fact is, not THAT many people were actually blogging then. Not like now. Cutting through the clutter now, starting from scratch as a blogger, is tough. Unless you've got a daily entry, one on a topic on which you could be challenged, but can't be dismissed, you're contributing to the clutter and noise.

And there's a lot of that now, so much so that I won't even follow new bloggers. I have my couple of favorites and leave the rest in the ever-growing, massive pile of outpouring on minutiae including what you ate for lunch, where you went on the weekend, and what you're doing now.

I'm also deeply discouraged about being another contributor to the pile of brain droppings. The more you read others blogs, the more you realize that we're less alike than we'd want to believe. A wonderful realization, but god, does it have to be such repetitive and boring trip through self-obsession to get there.

Anyone else experiencing anything different these days? If you are, I want to know. I want to know about the exciting, intelligent challenging blogs that aren't about their authors.

Is this the best thing in life?

The weather this week is being called brisk and autumnal by our NYC-based weather people, which causes me to scratch my head in mild annoyance. Autumnal? Since when is 76 degrees brisk? I suppose climate change has influenced this generation of weather bunnies to believe that dry in the mid-seventies is the new 52 degrees.

Anyway, despite this bizarre interpretation, the current mild, warm weather is the perfect temperature for getting out onto a backyard patio, a roof, or sidewalk cafe in the evening and enjoying a beer or tea or dinner with friends. It's the temperature of summers when I was a youngster, and it probably won't be with us for more than a minute, or at the most a week or two.

This is it, my favorite time of year, late summer - September. You can breathe again and the smells that plague the city during high summer seem to blow away with the evening breezes.

I've realized how undemanding I am. Sitting outside and enjoying a meal or drink with friends and family in the late summer; that may be the best thing in life.

The problem with blogging is that I view it as a chore. One more thing to do that takes up what little time I have between work and home. blogging has to fit into that gray area where I take care of personal business like reading and working on various projects, time is at a premium.

So, I promise to keep these shorter from now on. They have been essays, which I'm far more comfortable writing than short bytes, but if I don't have time to write an essay, I can't believe that anyone bothering to drill down here to luddite-land (where we prefer to do things the hard way, gull dang it!) has much time to read 900-word essays. So, in the spirit of curtailment...

I've just returned from the UK with my wife and our two daughters. Forget staycations: I feel like my kids need the perspective that travel provides if their world view is to be somewhat expansive. I also need to have the excitement and refreshment that being on the road can bring. I view taking trips at least once a year as essential, not as a luxury, even if I have to incur a little debt to do it.

I wonder, does anyone else feel this way? Or, are you being fiscally wise and staying home?