With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
September 26, 2009 - 4:54 p.m.
I got to sleep very late last night and I'm having trouble getting started today. I could be reading my paper now but I want to update; My Gentle Readers come first.
Last night I went to see Anthony da Costa and AJ Roach at the Postcrypt Coffeehouse. The place is tiny, capacity 30, and becomes packed so it's important to get there early to get a seat. It takes me three or four trains to get there (depends on which train comes first) and is about 3 miles further than my school. I left myself an hour and 20 minutes to get there. I made it in under an hour. That's ridiculous, it takes me that long to get to school. It wasn't even officially open when I arrive. I of course did get the seat I wanted.
Anthony has been playing the Postcrypt for years but now it's almost literally his home venue. He's going to Columbia and living on campus. As he said, he doesn't have to go home after the gig; he's already there.
There are pictures and stickers on the wall from many of the great performers that have appeared there in the last 45 years. You might recognize this couple that was there about 15 years ago. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. 
The Postcrypt is in the basement of St. Paul's chapel on the campus of Columbia University. It is all stone and has a cryptlike feel, thus the name. You think of basements and crypts as being cool. They are, but not this one. It is only cool in a metaphoric sense; the actual temperature hovers around the melting point of lead. I decided to not wait for the show to start in Dante's Inferno and went outside. I also figured I'd keep a lookout for AJ. He had never been there before and it isn't the easiest place to find. I spotted him and guided him into the abyss. He was with his friend Ian. I remembered his name! Somebody give me a cookie. After settling in they also decided they didn't want all their lead to melt so we once again went outside to keep cool.
AJ is becoming like Meg, a performer I see more often socially than performing. We run in the same circles. This was my first time seeing a full set by him.
After we went back in time Anthony came in and we said hello to him. By then the place started filling up. Most of the audience is students from Columbia. I was older than the combined age of any two people there. That was untill Richard and Viki showed up. Have you noticed how often they follow me around? I think they're stalking me.
The first one up on the bill was another Columbia student. Let's just say that it takes more than being vulgar to be Eric Schwartz. His friends seemed to love him though and he had a lot of them there.
Next up was A.J.; that was quite a contrast. A.J.' songwriting is subtle and nuanced. As the only one performing that didn't go to Columbia I was a bit afraid that he wouldn't have an audience. There were probably only about 5 people in the audience that knew him beforehand but the others listened an appreciated him. That was great. He joined on many of his songs by this woman whose name refuses to leave the tip of my tongue and enter my brain. 
She added quite a bit to his sound. One of his songs, Pleistocene has a definite Piñataland feel to it. She fills the part that Robin does.
He has Ian come up and do one song by himself. 
Anthony had a band with him, his old friend from high school Oliver Hill, and Trevor (I forgot his last name) on the banjo. 
A great thing about the Postcrypt is the crowd. Too often I go to shows and I'm younger than most of the people there. It shows that there is a young audience for acoustic music, they just need to be exposed to it. 
I particularly enjoy watching Anthony there. He's like a rock star. The girls are all swooning. They shout out requests, they sing along with him. It reminds me of seeing Früvous back in the day.
After the show I was going to beat a hasty retreat but of course I didn't. I hung out till they threw us out of the building. I talked to Anthony and I talked to some of his friends and the people the volunteers at the Postcrypt. You have to love a club where the staff hugs you the first time they meet you and offer you beer at a discount next time you go there.
Here is the slide show of my photos. Did you know if you click on the show you can go the album?
I said goodbye to AJ and Anthony and headed home on the subway. That proved something of an adventure. I didn't know it till it was too late but the E train was running on the F train line in Manhattan. So here was how I went home.
- The 1 train to Columbus Circle (my school's stop).
- The downtown D train one stop to 7th Avenue.
- I walked down to get the E train found it wasn't running and had to get back on the next downtown D train to 48th Street.
- Cross over at 48th street to the uptown F train back to Van Wyck Briarwood (my home stop).
The F train runs local late nights and weekends. So the trip that took me an hour going took me almost two hours coming home. I did not appreciate that.
Tonight I'm off to see Deni Bonet. She's playing at The Living Room at 9 PM. You should go.
When I get a chance I'll post my Fort Totten and Little Bay photos. I don't know when I'll get that chance. I have a busy schedule coming up.
Bridge but not the Throg's Neck - October 01, 2009
A Lovell Playing Field - September 30, 2009
I see the Throgs Neck Bridge - September 29, 2009
Sure it's Yom Kippur But I'm Atone Deaf - September 28, 2009
So Much Music So Little Time - September 27, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile September 26, 2009
