Happy New Year

Many people in the southeastern United States believe that eating black-eyed peas and greens on New Year's Day will bring good luck throughout the year. I'm from Ohio, where eating pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day is supposed to bring one luck, but I'm a vegetarian, so black-eyed peas -- in the form of Hoppin' John -- and collard greens sounded much more appealing; however, most Southerners would add some sort of pork product to both the beans and the greens. I was pleased with the way both dishes turned out, and the friend with whom I ate dinner had seconds and took some food home. As you can see, one of my cats had some greens as well -- I guess she's going to have a lucky 2011.

Wherever you are and whatever lucky food you're eating, I wish you all the best for 2011.

Thanks, Internet Archive

Apologies in advance for the bittersweet nature of this post.

An old friend of mine died in 2005. We had lost touch as our lives diverged -- different colleges, different graduate schools, different career choices -- but I always thought kindly of him and always suspected that somehow, someday, our paths would cross again. I learned that he had died some time after the fact, but I was deeply saddened by it. How could this kind, brilliant, exasperating, endearing man vanish from this earth at 35? He had already done some amazing things -- as an undergrad, he had registered thousands of voters, worked on several successful political campaigns, and been a viable city council candidate – and he was destined to do more amazing things. Why didn’t he get the chance to do them, and why didn’t he get the chance to grow old with the people who loved him?

Of course, life moves on, and after a time thoughts of my friend became more and more sporadic. However, a few nights ago, I was looking over old friends’ Facebook profiles, trying to find out whether any of them were also going back to Ohio for the holidays. All of a sudden, it struck me that the Internet Archive might have captured my deceased friend’s blog, which vanished from the live Web before I found out about his death. I did a little detective work, uncovered the blog’s URL, and, sure enough, discovered that the Internet Archive had captured it.

The Internet Archive’s copies omit some posts, many of the photographs, and all of the reader comments, but most of the blog’s contents are there. I spent several hours reading my friend’s posts and quickly discovered that he was still, in many respects, the person I knew: outrageously funny, keenly observant, kind one moment and cutting the next, and interested in and knowledgeable about technology, politics, and fashion.

However, there were also a few surprises. Given his political activism and acumen, I always half-expected that one day I would turn on the TV and see him in a sharp suit and tie, cogently speaking on behalf of one of the big Democratic Party organizations or gay rights lobbying groups. He was living in Washington, D.C., but hadn’t yet found his professional niche: he had gone to law school for a while, but as of 2005 he was bouncing between a number of short- and long-term IT jobs. He was also single -- a real surprise given his capacity for devotion, his intellect, and his looks. However, he really seemed to be enjoying life. He liked working in IT, he loved his cats (and devoted a lot of effort to concealing their presence in a no-pets-allowed apartment building), his interests were wide-ranging, and he had found good friends in D.C.

In a way, reading my friend’s blog was like getting the chance to have one last long talk with him. Even though doing so was in some respects painful -- all of the sorrow I felt when I first learned of his death came flooding back -- I’m immensely grateful that I got to spend a little more time with him, at least in spirit.

Any archivist or historian knows that humans keep historical records in part because records enable the living to connect -- intellectually and emotionally if not physically -- with the dead. A growing number of archivists are also aware of the need to preserve at least some digital personal materials and to provide advice and guidance to individuals and families seeking to preserve their own digital materials and the challenges associated with preserving personal and family digital materials posted on social media sites or stored by commercial entities. I’ve written about these issues before, but reading my friend’s blog has made these issues real and urgent in a way they weren’t before -- and has deepened my already profound appreciation for the Internet Archive. Thanks, Internet Archive, for ensuring that my friend’s words live on and for enabling me -- and others -- to spend just a little more time with him.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Proclamation of the State of New York, signed by Benjamin B. Odell, Jr., Governor, November 14, 1904. Thanksgiving Day proclamations by the Governor, 1874-1925, series A3286-88. Image courtesy of the New York State Archives.

Just about every American knows the popular story of Thanksgiving: it commemorates a 1621 Plymouth, Massachusetts harvest feast at which both English colonists and Wampanoag Indians were present. The colonists would have perished had the Wampanoag not taught them how to cultivate corn and to catch native fish, and they held the feast in order to thank God and the Wampanoag for their survival.

As turns out, the 1621 feast was not the first harvest festival held in the future United States. Moreover, the holiday's popular narrative has been criticized as a whitewashing of history: it stresses cooperation between and peaceful coexistence of Native Americans and European settlers and erases the Trail of Tears, Wounded Knee, and countless other horrors that Native Americans suffered at the hands of colonists and their descendants. In recent decades Thanksgiving has become a day of protest, not celebration, for many Native Americans.

My own thoughts about Thanksgiving are mixed. I understand perfectly why so many Native Americans find the day repellent. However, I'm also keenly aware that this holiday has acquired multiple meanings. For most Americans, it currently centers around family, food, football, and reflection upon those intangible things for which, as individuals and as a nation, we feel grateful. Although it retains something of a religious/spiritual component, it is comfortably celebrated by Americans of all faiths and none whatsoever. For those Americans who were formerly citizens of other countries, celebrating Thanksgiving is an essential part of claiming a new national identity. In terms of cultural significance and distinctiveness, it is second only to Independence Day.

I'm celebrating this Thanksgiving quietly. In a few minutes, I'm going to start making some bread stuffing -- always my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal -- and some pumpkin mousse and share it with a dear friend who's preparing some mashed potatoes and other goodies. I'll watch the New Orleans Saints-Dallas Cowboys game (Geaux Saints!), and then clean up the kitchen a bit.

I'm thankful for my family, my friends, my cats, all the wonderful archives and wonderful archivists out there, the Bill of Rights, and countless other things. I'm also thankful for this blog and for everyone who reads my ramblings. If you're in the United States -- or the city of Leiden -- I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. If you're elsewhere, I wish you a very happy Thursday.

A mis/adventure in downtown Albany

Over the weekend, I noticed that the partial demolition of Wellington Row, a group of historic buildings located at 132-140 State Street in downtown Albany, was well underway. On Monday evening, I decided to head downtown and take a few photographs documenting the status of the work done to date.

Wellington Row: the former Albany Elks Lodge (built 1911-1913) at 138 State Street and the former Berkshire Hotel (built ca. 1890) at 140 State Street, Albany, New York, 6 September 2010. "La Promenade," the sculpture in front of the Berkshire, is one of 16 works by Seward Johnson that comprise the city's 2010 Sculpture in the Streets exhibition.

Wellington Row is a stone's throw away from the New York State Capitol and one building away from one of the city's busiest intersections, and for years it has symbolized downtown Albany's late 19th- and early 20th-century elegance and its postwar hard times.

Wellington Row: the John Taylor Cooper House (built ca. 1825) at 134 State Street and the Wellington Hotel (built ca. 1910) at 136 State Street, Albany, New York, 6 September 2010. To the far left, you can see 132 State Street (built ca. 1850?), the former home of Christian Brothers Academy, which is now located in the suburb of Colonie.

Until recently, Wellington Row was owned by a foreign firm determined to allow the buildings to fall apart so that it could demolish them and build a convention center on the site. Sadly, city officials were (in my opinion) unwilling to do anything about the situation until the buildings themselves were beyond salvaging; although they repeatedly denied the owner permission to tear down the buildings, they took legal action against the owner only after a large piece of the cornice of the Wellington Hotel building fell to the sidewalk in 2004.

Detail, facade of the former Berkshire Hotel, Albany, New York, 6 September 2010.

The current owner is apparently committed -- construction seems to have stalled -- to demolishing the buildings but preserving and incorporating their facades into a new structure. At present, all that remains of the Berkshire Hotel is its facade, which has been braced to prevent its collapse. Assuming that this project continues, all five buildings that comprise Wellington Row will eventually look like the Berkshire Hotel.

Former Elks Lodge, Albany, New York, 6 September 2010. In its heyday, this building was doubtless quite elegant. Albany's current Elks Lodge is located in the city's Pine Hills neighborhood.

A few minutes after I took the above picture, the batteries in my camera died. I opened my car, fished fresh batteries out of my camera case and swapped them for the dead ones, closed the car door . . . and realized instantly that I had locked my keys inside my car.

After standing around nonplussed for a couple of minutes, I decided to walk home. Albany is a small city, I live reasonably close to its downtown, and I drove to Wellington Row only because I wanted make the most of the remaining daylight. Moreover, the weather was splendid and I knew that my friend and neighbor Ron, who has keys to my house and my car, would be at home.

Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York, 6 September 2010. The inverted pyramid at the south end of the plaza is the Cultural Education Center, which houses the State Archives, State Museum, and State Library.

I got to spend time in parts of the city that I rarely get to see on foot or in the evening. I began by walking up State Street past the State Capitol (parts of which are currently sheathed in scaffolding) and into the midst of the Empire State Plaza, which houses many New York State government agency offices.

The plaza is home to numerous works of modern art, and one of my favorites is George Rickey's kinetic sculpture, Two Lines Oblique (1968-1971). I had my camera with me, and I took advantage of the relative quiet (you will see a lone jogger pass through) to take a short video of the sculpture in motion. The footage is a little jumpy -- my tripod was locked in my car -- and half of the lights in the State Libary were on for some reason, but the wind kept the sculpture moving quite nicely.

Lincoln Park Pool and Pool House, Albany, New York, 6 September 2010.

After leaving the plaza, I walked through Lincoln Park, which is home to a mammoth swimming pool built by the Works Progress Administration in the late 1930s. I've walked by the pool countless times, but never on a late summer evening. I'm glad that I did: it was perfectly still and luminous in the fading light.

Lincoln Park Pool and Pool House, Albany, New York, 6 September 2010.

The south side of Lincoln Park offers some spectacular views of the Empire State Plaza, and I was hoping to take some pictures of the plaza upon reaching it. Unfortunately, night had fallen by the time I reached the south side of the park and I couldn't get a decent shot without my tripod, so I made my way to my friend Ron's place. He kindly handed over my spare keys and then drove me to my car, thus ending an evening's unplanned adventure.

I hope you enjoyed seeing these photographs and video as much as I enjoyed taking them. During the next few months, I'll be making an effort to photograph various sections of the city of Albany, so there may be a few more Albany-centric posts in the relatively near future.

Happy Independence Day

Fireworks display, Albany, New York, 4 July 2010, Om 9:40 PM. T0 the right of the fireworks is the Corning Tower, the tallest building in upstate New York; "Price Chopper" is the area supermarket chain that sponsors the display and thus earns the the right to have its name spelled out in the tower's lights. The Cultural Education Center, which houses the New York State Archives, the New York State Library, and the New York State Museum, is obscured by the tree to the left of the Corning Tower.

On 2 July 1776, the Second Continental Congress approved a resolution declaring that the member colonies (of which New York was one) would henceforth be independent of Great Britain. The representatives then focused upon drafting a document that explained their reasons for doing so. The authors of this document, the Declaration of Independence, later stated that they signed the final version on 4 July 1776. Some members of the Second Continental Congress initially believed that 2 July would become a day of celebration and many historians now believe that the declaration wasn't signed until early August 1776, but from 1777 onward 4 July has been the day on which Americans have commemorated their nation's founding.

Fireworks have been part of Independence Day celebrations from 1777 to the present day. I'm fortunate in that I don't have to travel far to see the City 0f Albany, New York's Independence Day fireworks display (the sidewalk in front of my house is a pretty good viewing spot) and friends tend to convene at my home in order to engage in another Independence Day tradition: hanging out, eating cold food (some people barbeque, but I don't), and drinking cold beverages.

I've got a couple of posts in the hopper -- I've been holding them back because I've been waiting for someone else to post content to the Web -- so things will be getting back to normal around here during the next few days. In the meantime, if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, I hope that you're having an enjoyable summer -- and if you're in the Southern Hemisphere, I hope winter is passing quickly.

An archivist responds to Jon Stewart

As you all know, a few weeks ago, Jon Stewart had a little fun at the archival profession's expense. Now, the Woody Guth3 (who may or may not be archivist/lyricist David Kay) explain -- for the benefit of Mr. Stewart and all the other uninformed souls out there -- what we do and why most of us have at least one graduate degree:

Happy Independence Day!

Fireworks, Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York, 4 July 2009. Friends and I watched the fireworks from the sidewalk in front of my home. Price Chopper, an area supermarket chain, is the celebration's official sponsor -- hence the lighting of the Corning Tower.

Radio silence . . . for a while

I'm heading off to the Internet-free zone of my relatives' home for a few days, so I won't have the chance to post anything else about MARAC until sometime next week. Look for a flurry of posts when I get back. . . .

Ho-Ho House

Every year, my colleague Prudence decorates her entire house for Christmas and invites everyone who works at the New York State Archives over for an evening. The Ho-Ho House, as it is known, has become a State Archives tradition. Everyone gets to talk about things other than work (although the subject of electronic records did come up at one point in the conversation tonight), enjoy the wonderful food that Prudence and her husband John prepare, meet spouses and partners, and just generally have a good time. We also get to see the guinea pigs that Prudence and John breed and show -- they're always a big hit, as are the cats and the dog.

Each room in the Ho-Ho House has a theme, and each year Prudence and John prepare a map for their guests. The map itself has become a seasonal tradition for State Archives folks. The image above, which I produced with my digital camera, really doesn't do it justice; I've put off buying a scanner because my study is too full of stuff as is, but maybe Santa will have one for me this year . . . .

The