How Hot Was It in New York Yesterday?

So hot that the slack-eyed visitors to Dali: Painting and Film at the MoMA were melting more than the framed timepieces, even in the Museum's maxed AC. Do not miss, however, the excerpts from the dream sequences in Spellbound and Destino, the finally finished collaboration of Dali and Disney that was meant as part of a sequel to Fantasia.

So hot that the effortlessly stylish got beat down like the rest of us. Eyeliner smudged, hair frizzed except on those smart enough to have a shorn summer cut, faces flushed, sweat lines stained all the usual unfortunate places on clothes, tank tops became stank tops. Stand clear of them on the subway.

Night returned some order to this universe, but in the day, heat, it's the great equalizer.

Mary Weiss at South Street Seaport

Almost missed this, not picking up the Times weekend listings until 6:30 in the sweltering evening on this 95 degree day. Part of the free NYC River-to-River summer concerts. South Street Seaport feels ersatz in the day, but it's a great summer night hangout, with lots of open air restaurants, plenty of beer stands (the Times had an interesting and accurate article about the openness of outdoor drinking around the city in summer, largely tolerated because almost everybody gets around in public transport, on foot, or by taxi and poses no driving threat to others), the three lighted bridges spanning the river, Brooklyn across the way, and the Watchtower providing time and temperature.

Mary's several hundred audience consisted mainly of three generations of white guys who no matter how prosaic our lives thought she was singing Leader of the Pack to us. Now as then she looked better than all of us put together. Slender and short, she wore tight jeans, white shirt with a knotted rep tie, a black vest, shades, all this set off by straight shoulder-length blunt-cut blonde hair. As effortlessly cool and concentrated on her music as her fellow New York contemporary Patti Smith is all posturing and political hectoring.

She called her old band the Shangs and played several of their hits and not-so-hits, including Out in the Streets, Train from Kansas City and -- dedicated to her late Mom -- I Can Never Go Home Again. But this was no solitary walk down memory lane. She also played almost every song off her album from last year Dangerous Game -- should be bought or downloaded -- and when she closed her encore with the back to back pairing of Leader of the Pack and the best off Dangerous Game, Don't Come Back, it was clear that the intervening years had only strengthened her voice and her person. Had the Leader not met his end in such untimely fashion, he would -- make no mistake -- have soon been handed his walking papers.

Afterwards I asked her about a new album and she said there is one in the works. Excellent news.

The last time I was at Seaport was two years ago to see Amy Rigby. Similar women, different, much different styles, equally satisfying, only that night Amy and we were dodging lightning and my sister was dying. I'll take tonight.

Two Years

Yesterday was the second anniversary of Annie's death. That morning seems a very long time ago, but Annie alive seems very near. I remember us almost daily on one golf course or another. Maybe that's a way toward recovery, recalling the life not its end.

Mr. November

The National, my current favorite rock band along with The Hold Steady, is selling Mr. November tees on its website, emblazoned with Sen. Obama's image. Mr. November is one of the highlights of the band's penultimate album, Alligator. All proceeds from tee sales go to the Obama campaign.

A couple of notes -- Mr. N in the song rhapsodizes "I used to be/carried in the arms of cheerleaders." Not a bad metaphor for the drooling treatment the Senator continues to receive from all but the rightest regions of the media. (The New Yorker cover, thank you, satirized the ridiculous exaggerations and lies to which the Obamas have been subjected. It was not to be taken seriously.) The Onion's print version this week has a take on the media slavering, anointing Time magazine for producing the ultimate puff piece on Obama.

I just wish The National had taken the Mr. November theme one step further by printing the song's repeated refrain on the tee. It's a way better slogan than Change You Can Believe In or whatever it's morphed into for the general election. And certainly describes what a lot of people feel the Bush Administraton has done to the country.