the empire line
Nov. 19th, 2019 12:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via https://ift.tt/343XTRM
I am aware that my participation in my sister’s save-the-world locavore food movement whatever is pretty paradoxically carbon-intensive since I have to drive across NYS to participate in it, so every year I sit and reckon whether I can take the train for any of it, and every year I think I manage to do it one time. Mostly, when Dude is going to join me but at a different time, so earlier this season he took the train at least once as well. I love taking the train, because the drive is an extremely boring 300 miles, and the train traverses almost exactly the same terrain but on the other side of the Mohawk River for part of it which gives you some fantastic views you don’t get from the Thruway. (To be fair, there are a few spots on the Thruway where you do get fantastic views, but while driving, well, it’s not like you can admire them all that much. You can probably more than you should, because the driving conditions are so boring, but.) The train station this end is only a half an hour from my house (and in the right direction, too, so you feel like you’re on your way!), and the train station the other end is also only about half an hour from the farm, though it’s in a really weird spot. Still– I ought to be able to take it way more than I do, and somehow I rarely can, but I love it when I can.
So anyway, I’m getting on the 283 (”Empire Line”) tomorrow morning. The thing to keep in mind is that the short lines like that are reasonable– sometimes they get delayed, but sometimes not, and mostly you’re going to make really good time and then randomly sit on a siding in Amsterdam or something, but it’s not like sitting in traffic, you can read your book or whatever. It’s the long-haul lines with the beautiful old names and stately traditions that always get hung up somewhere and then once you’re off-schedule you lose all precedence and have to sit around. So while the Lakeshore Limited has lovely accommodations, it’s going to be delayed in increments best measured by hours. The staff calls it the “Late-For-Sure” and often miss their own train back, which is usually 8 hours later. However, if you need to get from New York City to Chicago, it’s something like 18 hours on the train if it’s running on time, so you’ve already invested effort and you might as well do it.
(It seems like such a long time until you think about how early you have to be to the airport, and how long you have to sit. At a train station, you can roll in two minutes prior to scheduled departure, and not one single person is going to even think about groping you. You can leave your shoes on, too, and bring your coffee cup straight onto the train. Mom and Dad take overnight trains a lot and pack their own apertifs, and so they can sit sipping Kahlua and watching the landscape roll by, of an evening. You just have to have flexible plans awaiting you at the other end, and of course the train station is never anywhere near where you actually need go to.)
In completely other news, I actually attended my first-ever bluegrass jam session last night, which had an audience of like, forty people, which I hadn’t expected, and I took lead on precisely 0 songs but I did get to sing “Wayfaring Stranger” and prove to my teacher that I do know at least one song he knows– it’s been a source of continual wonder for me that having grown up amassing repertoires of songs to sing at sessions, I know enough music to continually sing without pause or repeat for over four hours, and yet I know 0 of the songs he’s taught us. Turns out the bluegrass repertoire is fairly distinct from folk, Irish, and cultural osmosis, which are my usual sources.
I am resolved to bring my banjo with me on the train, with an eye toward remembering to practice it at the farm, and we’ll see whether it’s worth it. Again, I curse myself for actually buying a bluegrass banjo with a resonator, when Dude has a lovely old-time one that’s compatible in every way but quieter and weighs literally three or four pounds, while mine weighs twenty or thirty. I get that if I’m learning bluegrass the banjo should match it, but it is a pain to bring around. And Dude never brings his anywhere so he should swap with me but he won’t because he likes his better. Oh well!
I will not play my banjo on the train, though, because I don’t know any train songs and also I don’t want to be thrown off. The other downside of a bluegrass banjo is that even with a mute on it it’s not quiet. (Open-back banjos, you can literally stuff a sock into, but bluegrass ones– well, you can take the resonator off but it requires tools and I don’t know if the instrument can still be played at that point.)
I am aware that my participation in my sister’s save-the-world locavore food movement whatever is pretty paradoxically carbon-intensive since I have to drive across NYS to participate in it, so every year I sit and reckon whether I can take the train for any of it, and every year I think I manage to do it one time. Mostly, when Dude is going to join me but at a different time, so earlier this season he took the train at least once as well. I love taking the train, because the drive is an extremely boring 300 miles, and the train traverses almost exactly the same terrain but on the other side of the Mohawk River for part of it which gives you some fantastic views you don’t get from the Thruway. (To be fair, there are a few spots on the Thruway where you do get fantastic views, but while driving, well, it’s not like you can admire them all that much. You can probably more than you should, because the driving conditions are so boring, but.) The train station this end is only a half an hour from my house (and in the right direction, too, so you feel like you’re on your way!), and the train station the other end is also only about half an hour from the farm, though it’s in a really weird spot. Still– I ought to be able to take it way more than I do, and somehow I rarely can, but I love it when I can.
So anyway, I’m getting on the 283 (”Empire Line”) tomorrow morning. The thing to keep in mind is that the short lines like that are reasonable– sometimes they get delayed, but sometimes not, and mostly you’re going to make really good time and then randomly sit on a siding in Amsterdam or something, but it’s not like sitting in traffic, you can read your book or whatever. It’s the long-haul lines with the beautiful old names and stately traditions that always get hung up somewhere and then once you’re off-schedule you lose all precedence and have to sit around. So while the Lakeshore Limited has lovely accommodations, it’s going to be delayed in increments best measured by hours. The staff calls it the “Late-For-Sure” and often miss their own train back, which is usually 8 hours later. However, if you need to get from New York City to Chicago, it’s something like 18 hours on the train if it’s running on time, so you’ve already invested effort and you might as well do it.
(It seems like such a long time until you think about how early you have to be to the airport, and how long you have to sit. At a train station, you can roll in two minutes prior to scheduled departure, and not one single person is going to even think about groping you. You can leave your shoes on, too, and bring your coffee cup straight onto the train. Mom and Dad take overnight trains a lot and pack their own apertifs, and so they can sit sipping Kahlua and watching the landscape roll by, of an evening. You just have to have flexible plans awaiting you at the other end, and of course the train station is never anywhere near where you actually need go to.)
In completely other news, I actually attended my first-ever bluegrass jam session last night, which had an audience of like, forty people, which I hadn’t expected, and I took lead on precisely 0 songs but I did get to sing “Wayfaring Stranger” and prove to my teacher that I do know at least one song he knows– it’s been a source of continual wonder for me that having grown up amassing repertoires of songs to sing at sessions, I know enough music to continually sing without pause or repeat for over four hours, and yet I know 0 of the songs he’s taught us. Turns out the bluegrass repertoire is fairly distinct from folk, Irish, and cultural osmosis, which are my usual sources.
I am resolved to bring my banjo with me on the train, with an eye toward remembering to practice it at the farm, and we’ll see whether it’s worth it. Again, I curse myself for actually buying a bluegrass banjo with a resonator, when Dude has a lovely old-time one that’s compatible in every way but quieter and weighs literally three or four pounds, while mine weighs twenty or thirty. I get that if I’m learning bluegrass the banjo should match it, but it is a pain to bring around. And Dude never brings his anywhere so he should swap with me but he won’t because he likes his better. Oh well!
I will not play my banjo on the train, though, because I don’t know any train songs and also I don’t want to be thrown off. The other downside of a bluegrass banjo is that even with a mute on it it’s not quiet. (Open-back banjos, you can literally stuff a sock into, but bluegrass ones– well, you can take the resonator off but it requires tools and I don’t know if the instrument can still be played at that point.)
no subject
Date: 2019-11-19 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-11-19 03:14 pm (UTC)It's funny because apparently this is an independent sort of bluegrass session, but literally everyone at it is a student of my teacher except one other lady who plays guitar and one other bluegrass banjo player who does his own thing, and so it has wound up kind of a banjo orchestra. We literally had five banjo players, and then my teacher was playing guitar with the other lady.
We also had one participant join us briefly on a smaller version of a five-string banjo, tuned to C instead of G, because he is about eight and can't actually reach the strings on a full-sized banjo. He was charming and reasonably skilled but had no notion of rhythm yet, which was fine for our purposes. I was only sorry that I don't know how to transpose yet on a banjo, so I couldn't be much use accompanying-- in my defense, nobody else knew either.